What Makes a Paladin? An Essay on Paladin Identity

[Miles_Maelstrom]

I think two things are happening here: First, a lot of the discussion is actually covering two different aspects of PLD design, which are I conflict: what PLD currently is ("the generic tank") . . .

Wait, PLD is to tanking what WHM is to healing? I've made a terrible mistake.

[Jpec07]

Well, technically, they have clarified what PLD is. It's the "mitigation" tank. The fact that this vision is absolutely flawed is the root of the problem.

{ ... }

The problem is not that there is no consensus about what PLD should be, but there is a clear consensus about what PLD shouldn't be.
You can go to every thread about PLD, and you'll always see people claiming that any change on PLD would make it broken, OP, or will probably destroy the fabric of reality...

Fair enough. I think it's just semantic at this point, but we both agree: SE has done a horrible job defining what PLD is supposed to be. I'd argue that if they gave us an actual definition, one with good lore and a clear direction, we'd see a great deal less discussion of what PLD shouldn't be, and a lot more discussion about what it should.

Wait, PLD is to tanking what WHM is to healing? I've made a terrible mistake.

The difference here is that the WHM trope has a very clear definition and identity. All of their spells revolve around an advanced, restricted, specialized form of CNJ (which is less about submitting to the elements' will and more about imposing your will upon the elements). And the story follows along with this, and the spells all reflect this. Paladins, on the other hand, are not well defined (go read the first post to see why I say that). We have a stated identity of "the defensive defender," but this does not reflect in the job (all of our "defensive" actions are either shared with other tanks or outperformed by other tanks), nor the traits (we have swordplay traits and some pseudo-CNJ stuff), nor the story (I won't get into that here). So yes, PLD is stated as the "generic" tank, but we don't get any direction as to what even that means, which also means PLD is incredibly unspectacular.

[Ercapote]

it's a shame that I can't hit the like button "more."


this... this is what I've always though about my cripple pally since the day I picked up in 2.0 and main it like a true knight till I gave up in 3.0 and let the wrath of my inner beast take over me because I could not enjoy the class no longer...I really hope Square Enix and Yoshi-P read this... if this was my game and I see something like this I'd in shame for such a bad work. agree with every single point

.no clear identity
.not the best mitigation
.lowest dps
.most irrelevant utility (situational)
.worst lore
.worst animations.
.worst gameplay mechanincs (boring/simple)
.worst cross class abilities ("gather" not "given")
.worst TP management
.Worst aggro multiplier
.worst abilities tool kit (mostly situational BS)

almost everything about paladin is just completely bad, yeah. you can go around and play the class and be somewhat decent, A3S savage here, nothing you can tell me I don't know, got all 3 tanks max out, PLD is just bad on every aspect. whether your opinion agree or not, the fact is that compared to the other 2 tanks all those points on top are true.

Not other class on this game has this so bad, not even dragoon pre 2.4 was this bad, the class lacks on every aspect and when it came to down end game content all of us PLD needed to wait extra weeks of your static gearing to compensate for the lack of this class.

the fact that I needed a fully pentameld set, pots, extra gear and a ninja to hold aggro properly and do decent damage like a DRK or WAR did with much...muuuuch less effort and less gear was a joke by itself.

but yet you will always find and always will come this ignorant people "defending what they don't know" most of them haven't touch savage, most of then haven't fully leveled and expirienced all 3 tanks at max performance to notice the different between the 3, most of them are even clueless of what's wrong with paladin cuz they just roll with the class, and haven't done anything that requires them to fully dedicate themselves and invest time learning what this class is about, or tanking in general.

- as OP said, it's not about numbers or dps, is not about being the MT, is not about to see who has it bigger, is about BALANCE, is about FIXING a CHAOTIC class, is about having a IDENTITY, having a well crafted class that's fun, engaging, and can perform just as good as the other 2 tanks on end game.

and honestly before even thinking of adding a new tank, they should focus more on fixing the current one.

[Ercapote]

and forgot to add, I almost forgot about this, because PLD didn't have bad points already

.doesn't have AOE dmg

that I still fail to see a single class in this game that doesn't have spamable AOE attacks... and if we compare it to the other 2 tanks... it's sad.

and if you dare to tell me we have scorn/flash....I will kindly tell you to get out.