What Makes a Paladin? An Essay on Paladin Identity

[Marxam]

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.

I can agree to this. As someone who has switched PLD for DRK in 3.0, I sometimes crave for that "Party Shield" tank that can protect the party from anything. We already have 2 jobs that tank with reckless abandon so we don't need a third. Some changes I was hoping PLD might get are:

Cover: reduced to 10 second duration but now takes all damage (phys/mag) from another party member. Cooldown is still 120.
Tempered Will: cooldown reduced to 150 seconds.
Clemency: cast time reduced to 2.5. Sks affects this.
Divine Veil: exact same but Clemency can now trigger its effect.
Sheltron: blocks the next physical attack and any party members behind will also receive the block reduction. 3-5 yalms behind the Paladin. Mp partial restored.

I want to play PLD not for its dps, that's why I play war and drk, but for it superior defense and ability to protect the party. However, as of 3.1 it's still a bit of a mess especially with how it's supposed 3 party support skills are very niche and thus rarely see any use. The oaths are fine and require more thought into stance dancing than the WAR or DRK. I would love a battle raise but maybe one step at a time. If you thought getting interrupted on a 3 second cast was bad try doing it with an 8 second cast time. Hopefully the battle raise will happen in 4.0 but until then I don't think its that important.

[Reynhart]

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).

Except, that, in most FF games, Knights can use White Magic and/or Cover the weak.

And, just last Zykor said, Cecil is the perfect archetype of Paladin.

I would love a battle raise but maybe one step at a time.

They only have to remove the stupid trait from CNJ (And AST). After all, why Arcanist, a native DPS, can Raise in combat while the native healers can't until they gain a trait ?

[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.

[Launched]

They only have to remove the stupid trait from CNJ (And AST). After all, why Arcanist, a native DPS, can Raise in combat while the native healers can't until they gain a trait ?

SMN, SCH and WHM are all limited by MP. Using Raise takes a big chunk of their MP, and the only way to restore that MP is abilities with 60s+ cooldowns, or by using up stacks that could be used to increase healing/DPS. A PLD with Raise would be broken because it has unlimited MP thanks to Riot Blade and Sheltron, and pretty much nothing else to use that MP on. At that point you might as well give BLM Raise too.

[Reynhart]

SMN, SCH and WHM are all limited by MP. Using Raise takes a big chunk of their MP, and the only way to restore that MP is abilities with 60s+ cooldowns, or by using up stacks that could be used to increase healing/DPS. A PLD with Raise would be broken because it has unlimited MP thanks to Riot Blade and Sheltron, and pretty much nothing else to use that MP on. At that point you might as well give BLM Raise too.

Do you realize how much DPS would a PLD lose to cast Raise (Without Swiftcast, as oppposed to every other job who can cast it) and by spamming Riot Blade to gain MP back for the next Raise ?

I don't really think you understand what "broken" means, in terms of gameplay.

[Jpec07]

Cover: reduced to 10 second duration but now takes all damage (phys/mag) from another party member. Cooldown is still 120.
Tempered Will: cooldown reduced to 150 seconds.
Clemency: cast time reduced to 2.5. Sks affects this.
Divine Veil: exact same but Clemency can now trigger its effect.
Sheltron: blocks the next physical attack and any party members behind will also receive the block reduction. 3-5 yalms behind the Paladin. Mp partial restored.

Only change I might suggest would be reducing Tempered Will to 45s--that, or expand its usefulness to break almost any CC status out there. It doesn't really have a mitigation function, and only serves to help PLD maintain better boss control in fights with knockbacks (since they won't have to reposition themselves).

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 think having a solid story would more serve as a good indication that we have a solid identity as a job. Just like getting Oathkeeper back makes the Sultansworn feel better about themselves, so too would a good story with a solid identity help us go about our jobs with renewed pride.

SMN, SCH and WHM are all limited by MP. Using Raise takes a big chunk of their MP, and the only way to restore that MP is abilities with 60s+ cooldowns, or by using up stacks that could be used to increase healing/DPS. A PLD with Raise would be broken because it has unlimited MP thanks to Riot Blade and Sheltron, and pretty much nothing else to use that MP on. At that point you might as well give BLM Raise too.

It would have the same effect for PLD if they made it share a cooldown with Hallowed Ground. A sort of "you can use this, but it'll cost you."

Do you realize how much DPS would a PLD lose to cast Raise (Without Swiftcast, as oppposed to every other job who can cast it) and by spamming Riot Blade to gain MP back for the next Raise?

About as much as being able to spam Clemency in an off-tanking/off-healing role. But PLD isn't (and shouldn't be) about big numbers. If we can take the MP hit for the healers by battle-rezzing someone in their stead, that's just that much more healing that they can pump out to the party.

[Reynhart]

It would have the same effect for PLD if they made it share a cooldown with Hallowed Ground. A sort of "you can use this, but it'll cost you."

Or, you know, PLD could deserve something useful (other than basic tankiness) without everybody taking their pitchforks against it.

- Hey, guys, WAR can have unlimited TP and compete with DPS numbers
- No big deal !
- Hey, guys, DRK can have unlimited MP for 20s every 40s and spam AoE leech for virtual immortality
- No big deal !
- Hey, guys, PLD can raise someone else by standing still for 8 seconds and spending 1/3rd of their MP pool
- BROKEN ! NERF ! NERF !

Please...

[Jpec07]

I think it would be less of a problem if PLD actually used MP for something other than Flash and the occasional support move. Right now, PLD MP just kind of...exists. Its only gameplay function is to prevent us from spamming Flash more than 30(ish) times and to make it so we can only use Clemency twice in a row.

[Malicewolf]

SMN, SCH and WHM are all limited by MP. Using Raise takes a big chunk of their MP, and the only way to restore that MP is abilities with 60s+ cooldowns, or by using up stacks that could be used to increase healing/DPS. A PLD with Raise would be broken because it has unlimited MP thanks to Riot Blade and Sheltron, and pretty much nothing else to use that MP on. At that point you might as well give BLM Raise too.

Um. Do you know how much MP we actually get back from those moves? I can tell you. It's not a thousand MP per riot blade, or per sheltron. It's like, 100 on anything lvl 50 sync'd. If it's unsync'd, then yea, i can pull out about a 300 MP return. You can clemency twice in a row. 2 riot blades will likely push you just into range of being able to pull a 3rd off, but then you are completely drained of MP. The next clemency isn't coming for a good minute if you're spamming away with riot blade and in battle, when heals are desperately needed, a minute is too long, especially to be pulling out crappy dps to regain MP instead of damaging the enemy more. Clemency is used when healer's are down or too preoccupied to do everything needed. Like if the entire party is pretty hurt cause the healer's couldn't keep up and a large AoE attack from a boss is coming. It's those times that spamming clemency is needed. And Raise (for me at lvl 58 in unsync'd dungeons) takes up over 2400 MP to use. I have 4500 MP. It would not be the spam crazy thing you'd think. Raise would be a 1 time use to get a healer up last second to save a wipe. And a smart tank imo would then immediately cover, hallow ground and clemency the healer you just saved so he could then focus on popping a pot and swiftcast raising the next healer. Meaning, you don't have the time to nor the extra MP to spend on doing other things.
But there's been those dungeons where only the healers have died. And the rest of us are sitting there like, gdi. It's a wipe already. Unless you're lucky and have a competent summoner with you, which isn't always the case. I was in keeper of the lake a little while ago with a healer who loved to sit in AoE's and die first. Everytime he died, we had no choice but to admit it was a wipe as we didn't even kill the 1st dragon. No way we're gonna survive the rest of the fight. But a raise could turn that situation around (admittedly, in this particular scenario, i'm sure the healer would of just taken another AoE to the face, but there are other circumstances where it was simply an "oops" moment by a healer, but it forces a wipe due no incoming heals being available).

[Reynhart]

About as much as being able to spam Clemency in an off-tanking/off-healing role. But PLD isn't (and shouldn't be) about big numbers. If we can take the MP hit for the healers by battle-rezzing someone in their stead, that's just that much more healing that they can pump out to the party.

So, let me get this straight.
PLD isn't about big damage numbers...On that, I totally agree
But from other comments on this very thread:

• PLD should not be about healing
• PLD should not be about raising
• PLD should not be about being always useful.

So, PLD should be about...just tanking ? Something every tank MUST be able to do, or else people will bitch about PLD being "too tanky" ?

How much must we face before people realize it makes no sense to even play the job as the game is now...?