The Definitive State of Paladins Thread

[Drtoxicmedica]

See the only problems I have with buffing pld. Is that it is the easiest to play. You can't make it on par dps wise without every drk switches over to pld because it's easier and offers extremely good defensive skills. It needs more complexity if it going to be buffed like that

[NFaelivrin]

It's dubious they can adjust PLD's complexity without adding more skills or completely redesigning the class, which might be beyond the scope of a balance patch. Also, generally, classes aren't balanced around how hard they are to play, or you'd end up with a situation where PLD is only ever useful to learn to tank but not worth bringing to a real raid because its usefulness would be balanced around its complexity, which is, well, not very much.

[Jpec07]

See, I came in here thinking "oh boy, this guy thinks he knows everything, doesn't he?"

I left thinking, "man, that guy sure knows what he's talking about."

This thread pretty much sums up exactly where things went wrong for Paladins, and how we got to the state that we're in. Paladin certainly isn't broken, but it's not as useful for raids as it was, and and so it's not as fun.

[Jonnycbad]

Just make PLD the Ryu (Street Fighter) of tanks. Easy to play, balanced, nothing fancy just straight forward tank with good mix of offense and defense depending on stance. There shouldn't be more than a 10% variance in damage taken/received by any of the 3 tanks. WARs doing 2-3x more DPS than PLD is like what?

[Kiara]

Great post OP.

I definitely agree as well that PLD needs some changes.

To: Community Reps,

Can you please get us *some* response on the Paladin issue?

We're providing you feedback (lots of it) about Paladin and we're met with silence. Even acknowledgement that it's passed on would be appreciated.

We just want to see the Paladin Job be something meaningful and desirable in end game content (and not just in regular dungeons).

Thanks!

[Ercapote]

Great post OP.

I definitely agree as well that about it PLD needs some changes.

To: Community Reps,

Can you please get us *some* response on the Paladin issue?

We're providing you feedback (lots of it) about Paladin and we're met with silence. Even acknowledgement that it's passed on would be appreciated.

We just want to see the Paladin Job be something meaningful and desirable in end game content (and not just in regular dungeons).

Thanks!

YOSHI-P answered about it, saying that adjustment will come on 3.1 there's a threat

[CGMidlander]

WARs doing 2-3x more DPS than PLD is like what?

Except, that's not the case.

[Dhex]

I want the contradictory issues with PLD's toolkit solved;


Divine Veil - requires Healing magic to activate, 10% of Maximum HP, 15yalm radius, 150s recast, doesn't effect the Paladin

If Paladin is the mitigation tank, the "guardian" tank, then why is Warrior the Job with the flat 10% easily maintained raid-wide damage reduction?
Divine Veil requires the party stack within 15yalms, a healer to pre-heal to pop the shield, and it's only useful every 150s - additionally the 10% of Maximum HP is rather backwards on a class that does not have a exorbitantly large health pool and suffers heavily when you stack more Vitality. For instance - at i196 if you were to utilize full Vitality Paladin would have just over 19000HP - this would be a 1900 shield; this is less than a single auto-attack from Oppressor in A1S. So if it is meant as a raid wide survival tool for massive damage it is borderline pitiful. Additionally Divine Veil does nothing to benefit the Paladin utilizing the tool.

Cover - Take all physical damage intended for another party member. Can only be used when member is closer than 10 yalms.

10-yalms distance... physical damage only... Cooldowns & debuffs don't effect the incoming damage. If they totter out of range or have to dodge out of range the skill becomes effectively useless. Pretty useless skill post-Coil or in fights with raid-wide magic damage.

Shield Oath & Sword Oath; GCD, MP cost, Sword Oath -> AA damage

I'd like to see the GCDs removed from Oaths, and another damage bonus added to Sword. The MP cost is odd and out of place - does it even serve a function?? It would if there were no GCDs... it'd limit the amount of swapping you could do and make you use your alt combos to maintain your stance dance - oh hi slight but not overwhelming complexity~

Clemency - interrupts, long cast time, short recast

Fixing Clemency -> make it instant, make the recast longer

Fight or Flight; Offensive buffs - Paladin only gets Fight or Flight every 90s & it's our only damage buff. Long CD, short buff. No wonder our damage is consistently the floor when it comes to Tank DPS potential.

Spirits Within - Potency decreases as HP decreases.

We're... a tank.... I... don't even...



Parry as a stat - can we replace Parry with PDT -% and MDT -% so we can control our mitigation via gear a little bit? Rather than a random POS RNG stat that most sensible tanks avoid like a festering plague.

[Drtoxicmedica]

It's dubious they can adjust PLD's complexity without adding more skills or completely redesigning the class, which might be beyond the scope of a balance patch. Also, generally, classes aren't balanced around how hard they are to play, or you'd end up with a situation where PLD is only ever useful to learn to tank but not worth bringing to a real raid because its usefulness would be balanced around its complexity, which is, well, not very much.

Except if it's just as good as the other 2 and easier to play nobody would wanna play em. It need more complexity if it's gonna be on par

[TouchandFeel]

I would like to see more complexity added to PLD on the defensive side, such as more emphasis on reactive defending that then could combo or chain into another ability for cumulative or additional effects. For example the block from Sheltron procs a combo bonus to Shield Swipe that applies a debuff similar to Reprisal (-10% damage done) or something like that.

If Cover was then improved/fixed so that it worked with both physical and magical damage, had greater range, etc., so that a PLD could utilize their defensive capabilities even when OTing, that would add complexity to the class but have it play very differently than WAR or DRK.

Simple offense, more complex and fun/engaging defense is the direction I feel PLD should go.