What Makes a Paladin? An Essay on Paladin Identity

[Izsha]

Part 9f the trouble with identity is westerners have an idea of paladins, while in eastern culture there isn't really an equivalent. Paladins are a very westernized fantasy idea. This whole notion of a holy knight using white magic to defend the weak and fight the forces of darkness is unique to us. That's why in every FF anytime paladin is used as a class, in the original Japanese design it's just called 'knight'. It's just a heavily armored warrior often using a variety of weapons (not just sword n board like pld tropes).

My point is, it's less of an identity crisis and more of a mistranslation between an eastern developer and a western audience. These aren't fantasy paladins a la warcraft (blizzard, western company), Arthur (western mythology), high fantasy (rooted in stuff like D&D). The fantasy paladin we have come to know as a cultural icon from king Arthur to warcraft is not a part of eastern culture, or if it is it us certainly as flat and 1 dimensional as the avg western Joe's comical interpretation of what a 'ninja' is.

We're projecting what we think a pld is and I doesn't align. That's not an identity crisis. It's a difference of opinion based on culture.

[Jpec07]

Part 9f the trouble with identity is westerners have an idea of paladins, while in eastern culture there isn't really an equivalent. Paladins are a very westernized fantasy idea. This whole notion of a holy knight using white magic to defend the weak and fight the forces of darkness is unique to us. That's why in every FF anytime paladin is used as a class, in the original Japanese design it's just called 'knight'. It's just a heavily armored warrior often using a variety of weapons (not just sword n board like pld tropes).

My point is, it's less of an identity crisis and more of a mistranslation between an eastern developer and a western audience. These aren't fantasy paladins a la warcraft (blizzard, western company), Arthur (western mythology), high fantasy (rooted in stuff like D&D). The fantasy paladin we have come to know as a cultural icon from king Arthur to warcraft is not a part of eastern culture, or if it is it us certainly as flat and 1 dimensional as the avg western Joe's comical interpretation of what a 'ninja' is.

We're projecting what we think a pld is and I doesn't align. That's not an identity crisis. It's a difference of opinion based on culture.

Even so, then, it should require SE to make even more of an effort to identify what a Paladin is supposed to be. If it's a foreign concept to their native audience on the JP servers, then they are even more responsible to build a solid, compelling identity with a story to match. From what you're saying, the fact that the establishment of PLD identity in FFXIV is so lax is even more of an embarrassment, because they are not only failing their American and European audiences, but their east-Asian audiences as well.

We as Americans may come in with preconceived notions, but those notions would wash away if they just showed us in any solid way what a Paladin is supposed to be.

But you may be right--because the concept of a Paladin is so foreign to the Japanese culture and mindset, they don't know how to identify it. So I guess if they don't understand it, they need to step up and figure it out, because the job is suffering for it.

I'm not saying PLD is broken right now, because it's functional. But I am saying that PLD deserves a more solid identity as told by SE. We have very little to go by from them as to what a PLD is supposed to be, which I highly suspect is why the job is so bland right now.

[Zykor]

Part 9f the trouble with identity is westerners have an idea of paladins, while in eastern culture there isn't really an equivalent. Paladins are a very westernized fantasy idea. This whole notion of a holy knight using white magic to defend the weak and fight the forces of darkness is unique to us.

Cecil would like to have a word with you.

[Donjo]

Paladin Identity, huh? I'm pretty sure that exists, and we don't need the Lore to figure it out. Just look at Utility.

In a nutshell, Dark Knight and Warrior have Utility that focuses on debuffing and debilitating individual enemies in order to lessen their ability to provide a threat. Paladin, on the other hand, possesses a large variety of Utility that has a much greater focus on assisting, buffing, and protecting the party directly. This greatly supports the idea of the Paladin being the Tank who is closest to a Protector of the Party, in contrast to the other Tanks who are more self centered.

In actual gameplay, however, Paladin has unfortunately been shot in the foot. More than once. And why is that?

1. Several of a Paladin's Utility skills are what I could call reactive abilities. What I mean by this is that they gain most of their usefulness if they are used in direct reaction to something. They become useful when things are already going wrong in an encounter. In a party having trouble with an encounter, it is absurdly satisfying to use things like Clemency, Stoneskin, Protect, and Cover to literally save the party from a wipe. No other Tank can provide this feeling of directly protecting the party. However, in a skilled party that is very used to an encounter, these skills typically don't need to be used because nothing has gone wrong. In short, being a Paladin becomes more engaging and fun in an inverse proportion to how well a fight is going. Isn't that a little... odd?

2. SE appears to be so afraid that Paladin Utility could render the class necessary for content that they gave them a double whammy. First, many encounters are designed such that Paladin Utility isn't terribly useful. Second, many of a Paladin's Utility skills are either unnecessarily difficult to use or have prohibitively long cooldowns attached to them. This frequently creates situations of feeling useless because even when opportunities do pop up to use some of these skills, it's too easy to blow them early and not have them available for when they'd really be helpful.

3. Magic only fights. Oh, you know what little gameplay we have revolving around blocking? Kiss that goodbye. We lose Sheltron, Bulwark, and Shield Swipe, which sucks. While this is a hit to defensive ability, Paladins can't complain too much because all Tanks lose some defensive ability in magic only fights. Paladins, however, lose one of their methods of generating MP and a useful Enmity Generator... which is quite unfortunate.

To start whatever spiel of how Paladin might be improved, I feel that it is necessary to make absolute sure that Paladin's position as the Protector of the Party is in no way compromised. It instead must be reinforced and made truly meaningful, as this is what is currently separating the Paladin from the other Tanks. To truly begin, I ask the following question: If Bard/Machinist can be the Support DPS with a lower DPS ceiling made up for by significant Utility, why can't Paladin be the Support Tank with a lower DPS ceiling made up for by meaningfully higher defense and significant Utility?

Instead of just giving Paladin more DPS, changes can be made to increase its ability to support the party. Cut down ridiculous cooldowns. Make Clemency and Divine Veil easier to use. Allow battle raising. Make the Oaths benefit the entire party. Stuff like that can make Paladin more relevant and more fun while fully solidifying its identity as the purest Protector among the Tanks.

[Malicewolf]

Very nice topic OP. Lots of the usual babble getting to this part afterwards, but the original intent was a very good one. I HATE Jenlyns. Seriously. He tries to kill me and then when I beat him and his merry gang of "righteous" paladins, I end up having to SAVE his hide too. Then he just comes back to me all like, "whoops, my bad. I only just tried to kill you. But here's a move, hope you forgive me."
And I was always a bit confused with learning moves from Constaint.... I'm learning my new moves from someone who isn't even a paladin yet... oh boy. Granted, apparently he's some sort of genius bad arse who can defeat both heads of the order, yet can't figure out that the man who told him his master died was, infact, his master. Pure. Genius.

Story logic aside though, I've always wished that the PLD identity was better built upon. We're supposed to be armor clad magic user's standing for justice. Yet, my cure heals give 200-250 a heal. When I decided to try testing gear with mind on it, I found that the PLD heal (because we get no magic weapons, effectively giving us a 0 start point) basically stacks as a +1 per every mind point. After looking into the top gear for mind (pretty much, the field commander set, accessories are easy to get stacked in mind), you can max out mind stats to give you an extra 509 on top of whatever your base stat is. Maybe add an extra 30 if you decide to stack your attribute points.... So effectively, you'll be healing at 500-600 heals at the loss of god knows how much vitality, and instead of feeling like your hitting enemies with a wet noodle, it'll probably begin to feel more like you're attempting to hurt your enemies with a blade of grass. Or perhaps some tissues as you'll be needing them (because after effectively losing all your other stats, you'll also still not be valuable at all with your newly acquired healing). Luckily, the field commander gear at least spreads it's stats across all areas... but they are still about 10+ stat difference in any of it's counterpart ilvl comparisons.

Kind of off topic but I wish people would stop making excuses for Awareness. It's a bad ability and a waste of a trait slot. It exists to give the other tanks a reason to cross class gladiator other than provoke.

Awareness is great for Warriors if you like to use raw intuition. 75% of the moves weakness (crit hits taken from all positions other than front) is effectively negated. Of course, if you're good with placement, it doesn't matter too much, but it can be worked to your benefit regardless. But wanna know what's really not good cross class skills?
Cure that cures as much as a lvl 10 conjurer *when you're a lvl 60 PLD)
Raise that can't raise people until AFTER a battle is over (No need to get yourself up folk, I can get you up with weakness now that we're done! I'm helping!)
Protect that is very likely already applied by your healer
The only saving grace in a PLD cross class skill set from conjurer is stoneskin. But that's also something a healer usually applies at the beginning when not fighting. It's hard to get a stoneskin off in 4 man dungeons as the tank as, well... you know. You're kinda getting pummeled by mobs. And bosses... well, if they're doing an AoE, you can move and put it on. Then lose it just in time from their auto attacks for their next AoE! And then in 8 man groups, it's great as an OT. You can sit off to the side watching your MT do everything as you spam away stoneskins and feel like a useless healer on the sideline doing nothing (because we don't DPS while we cast). Don't get me wrong. I love stoneskin. But it's still not the most amazing cross skill. It just SOOO many leagues above the rest that PLD gets in terms of utility.

[Brannigan]

Awareness is great for Warriors

Yeah, so make it a warrior skill and stop having paladins waste a valuable trait slot on it.

[Izsha]

Even so, then, it should require SE to make even more of an effort to identify what a Paladin is supposed to be. If it's a foreign concept to their native audience on the JP servers, then they are even more responsible to build a solid, compelling identity with a story to match. From what you're saying, the fact that the establishment of PLD identity in FFXIV is so lax is even more of an embarrassment, because they are not only failing their American and European audiences, but their east-Asian audiences as well.

We as Americans may come in with preconceived notions, but those notions would wash away if they just showed us in any solid way what a Paladin is supposed to be.

But you may be right--because the concept of a Paladin is so foreign to the Japanese culture and mindset, they don't know how to identify it. So I guess if they don't understand it, they need to step up and figure it out, because the job is suffering for it.

I'm not saying PLD is broken right now, because it's functional. But I am saying that PLD deserves a more solid identity as told by SE. We have very little to go by from them as to what a PLD is supposed to be, which I highly suspect is why the job is so bland right now.

I guess my point is that the Japanese version is just knight. They make it in concept closer to a samurai. Armored warrior who defends a higher cast and willingly puts themselves in harms way to protect their charge. In a general sense, the pld story, the abilities etc all line up with that. That's why I say it's a disagreement not an identity crisis.

war: unleashes and struggles to control inner beast to help others with the power of their inner beast. Lots of bursty raw power used in tanking style. Neutral good.

Drk: uses power of darkness and works outside the law to defend the weak and dish out justice. Chaotic good. Gameplay based around managing the dark powrer.

Pld: elite soldier of the upper class. Part of the lawful institution. defender of the upper cast. Abilities focused on protecting their charge with cover, buffs, heals, stuns, blind, pacification etc. But not raw power. Lawful good.

Really glossing over but you get the idea. The problem is its not the holy knight idea westerners have, and 2, it's not conflicted or edgy like war/drk, ad 3 most of the kit is enfeebles that don't work on boss tier mobs in practice.

I personally don't see a conflict conceptually. The implementation is kinda haphazard but there's plenty of commentary on that front.

[Freyyy]

Yeah at this point Awareness should be a MRD skill lol, it just takes its place so much more in WAR's kit than in PLD's kit. Convalescence also feels like it synergizes better with WAR abilities than PLD too. But PLD got the very nice trait on it so it compensates I guess.

[Sapphidia]

In all honesty Awareness should probably be a trait that makes Shield Oath have a passive always-on Crit Immunity effect, and make the skill something else, maybe something dpsy or healy. Being immune to crits is nice and all, but it's such a tiny overall effectiveness boost that it's barely noticeable (other than 2-3 specific encounter moments). I'd rather just have it as a passive and have "stable damage income" be an advantage of a PLD in shield oath.

[Brannigan]

Conva is a decent fit on paladin now because Clemency exists. Warriors can boost Equilibrium with berserk and fancy monk feets internal release, paladins can boost (self) Clemency with Convalescence. Warrior does get a lot of benefit out of Thrill + Convalescence (and stuff like Defiance + Conva + Deployment Tactics combos), but at least they're actually getting something out of their cross class this way.

Awareness is a filler ability. Always has been. Devs couldn't think of anything else to give gladiator, I guess. Crit immunity should either be on gear or tank stances.