What Makes a Paladin? An Essay on Paladin Identity

[Aika_Nakamura]

As someone who is levelling their Paladin from level 50 (the glory days of ilv90 gear), I do agree. Yes, I spoiled the storyline for myself. To be honest, it was obvious he wasn't dead.

I don't think a lore change is going to fix anything beyond purpose, which might be part of the point behind your essay here. I ignore a lot of my abilities (Tempered Will is useful in three situations in this entire game, but I haven't ever done end-game raids, so what do I know). They're just not useful. Something like Cover is useful in a limited mindset. I've saved a healer with it once or twice, sure. However, there's a lot of enemies that use magic damage. I've only found myself using Cover as a last move of panic to save the poor healer who was getting nuked, or to spare the idiotic DPS that stands in front of the boss (although, I like watching them die more often than not).

Anyway, I feel inadequate as a PLD for my tank. I don't like it all that much (but I had it at 50, for some reason or another.. maybe it was that stellar GLA storyline) and something like DRK/WAR seems so much more promising. Honestly, I get slander from free company members (jokingly, but they have made points) about how useless PLD is and how I should pick another tank job .. and I completely agree with them. Something about it is simply not fulfilling. I have two stances to manage, I have a DoT to keep up .. and that's about it. Anything else I do is pop damage mitigation buffs and take a nap while pressing three different buttons in a series while I nod off in my chair.

If I don't get to deal amazing amounts of damage (like WAR) or have some direct sense of mitigation purposes (like DRK), then what am I? Okay, I'm a physical mitigation tank. I'm considered the beefy tank, right? Yet, I can't use something that would *seriously* prevent that healer from dying *this very instant*. I'm not a massive wall of defence in reality, I'm just a Miqo'te strapped in plate armour.. which doesn't serve me very well.

PLD is basically a trainwreck when it comes to action and utility, but the only way to fix it is to honestly completely redo the job. Yes, you could make the next expansions make the job more interesting, but by level 60 people are going to not care anyway.

EDIT:

We already have 2 jobs that tank with reckless abandon so we don't need a third.

You speak the truth.