What Makes a Paladin? An Essay on Paladin Identity

[Shurrikhan]

Actually, Awareness is amazing with Raw intuition (though there are 5 seconds during which the War will be vulnerable if not careful). The truly sad part about Awareness is that it was a filler ability... until they basically re-branded it and made it FAR more useful for War's than it ever was or likely ever will be for Pld's. Call me crazy, but I think something's wrong when the Job you specifically designed the ability for gets less utility out of it than an alternate class which is borrowing it.

At least it's only up for every other RI unless they delay RI use for 30 seconds each time... which, it being as crucial to the ability in large pulls (where some mob's bound to get out of the frontal area) as it is... many will do.

To be honest I personally feel it should be even less useful, in a way, just given that I hate that critical strikes share a probability table with hits, misses, blocks, dodges, and parries, making it impossible to block, dodge, or parry an auto-crit because they're mutually exclusive (same calculation). This slightly pushes up all mitigation chances in lieu of crits being possible while Awareness is up (very, very minutely), but I'd so much rather see this get rebranded entirely, or for crits to be more frequent but Defense reduces their value against you so that it's actually contributing some decent mitigation (worth about a 10% mitigation CD or so, whether in addition to or including being that last ditch safety where something critting would have killed you through your minimal remaining CDs' worth of mitigation).

In the meanwhile, how's Foresight these days?

[Shurrikhan]

Some mostly simply ideas that I think will have good effect in terms of:
- Low MT dps
- Mana limitations (in the rare event that Clemency would be useful)
- Clemency too slow
- Lowest enmity threat combo
- Dull rotations
- Cure pointless
- Sword Oath lackluster

8 Main Points
(Descending priority)

• 1. Savage Blade enmity modifier increased from 3.0 to 4.5 via the level 40 trait. Rage of Halone potency increased from 260 to 280. RoH now uses the 10% strength down by default. Rage of Halone enmity modifier reduced from 5.0 to 4.9x.

  Spinning/Skull and Power/Butcher use a 3.5 and 5.5 modifier, respectively, iirc. This will bring us mostly up to par with them without pulling off the MT when applying Strength Down, while also making Royal Authority a bit more usable via its additional 150 enmity, especially when taking in Sword Oath (see below). Rage of Halone's enmity has still been increased by 30, despite the modifier change (would have been +100).

• 2. The cooldown of Shield Swipe may now be refreshed by blocks. Refresh chance varies with shield type (Bucklers-28%, Kite Shields-34%, Tower Shields-40%). Pacification increased from 6s to 8s.

  This should provide a decent MT dps boost--about 20 more potency per second (up to about a 7% bonus in Shield Oath) if usage rate were tripled--and brings it a bit closer to DRK's Low Blow value for trash mitigation.

• 3. Royal Authority's combo bonus can now be triggered by either Riot Blade or Savage Blade.

  Up to triple the mana per GB, up to 60 more potency per GB, and more enmity control as OT as not to rip hate from MT with the improved Savage Blade.

• 4. Sword Oath has been revised to increase the potency of all weaponskills and abilities by 25.

  This still equates to about a 13.4% dps increase [current version ranges ~10 to 15%], or up to nearly a 15% increase when combined with the new Riot-Royal combo option [about equal to a 1.7s sword with current Sword Oath]. Better synergy and significant improvements to Sword Oath tanking compared to the current version, while contributing nearly equal damage.

Also has the side-effects of:

• increasing CoS burst by 25% and overall damage by 10%, [Note that the DoT component has no multiplier while the initial hit has a 3x multiplier, giving Sword Oath CoS 75 more enmity than its original (a 16.7% enmity bonus)]
• smoothing rotational threat while in Sword Oath
• making Royal Authority more usable and Rage of Halone more rewarding when tanking in Sword Oath
• slightly reducing the relative RoH-RA potency gap while in Sword Oath (705 vs. 765 (with SB) [8.5%] rather than 630 vs. 690 [8.7%], or 705 vs. 795 (Riot-RA) [11.3%], rather than 630 vs. 720 [12.5%])
• indirectly increasing Rage of Halone enmity by 9% (+125 enmity) and Savage Blade enmity by 12.5% (+100 enmity)
• increasing Shield Swipe spam dps by 16.7% while in Sword Oath,
• and even increasing uncomboed RoH enmity (725 from 500, or 45% increase).

• 5. Clemency cast time reduced to 2.5 seconds.
  
  
• 6. Flash enmity now scales with offensive cooldowns. Potency has been reduced by 33%, but will always count as a Critical Strike.

  This gives PLD the AOE enmity burst of the other tanks and makes the Critical Strike stat usable on Flash, just as Determination and now Skill Speed are (see Skill Speed and Spell Speed combined in the general section).

• 7. Cover has been improved for range and control.

• Cover range has been increased to 14 yalms, but now has reduced transfer strength beyond 8 yalms. Link color changes past 7 yalms, to a minimum of 70% at 14 yalms.
• The link from Cover can now be dropped off by clicking off the buff (caster or reciever) or hitting Cover again (after 1s), and may be re-linked by hitting Cover yet again at any time while duration on Cover remains (dropping link does not remove Cover from the PLD). However, each time the link is manually dropped, 2 seconds will be reduced from its duration. Link will automatically reestablish if drop was not manual (due to range).
• Cover will now mitigate incoming damage according to the higher Defense of the covering or covered player.
• Any blocks, parries, or dodges done by the covered player will trigger procs for both.

• 8. PLD automatically duplicates 30% each of his Vitality and Strength stats into Mind.

  Cure is now worth something, even if still not great. A PLD normally with 1000 Strength, 900 Vitality, and 220 Mind would now have 790 Mind. That would be about equal to a 1000 Intelligence SMN/BLM if they had access to Cleric Stance, or 60% of a real healer's Cure (given their 30% heal-increasing trait, Maim and Mend II).

General changes that would help PLD:

• Skill Speed and Spell Speed combined into a single Speed stat.
• TP refresh changed to a 50-TP tick per base GCD. Goad, Promoted Rook Auto-turret, and Army's Paeon now tick for 20% less and now increase the receiving player's TP ticks by the adjusted flat value over the duration. (Skill speed no longer causes TP starvation. Using high-cost abilities will make high-Speed players run out of TP faster, but they will also regenerate TP faster. Using standard ST rotations, they will run about the same TP as everyone else.)
• Stoneskin returned to a 2.5 second cast by default. WHM instead gets to cast it for 20% less mana.
• Revision of hit/miss systems based on accuracy to allow for variable/percentile hits/misses. Inclusion of glancing blows from players and mobs alike, dealing anywhere from 20% to 80% damage.
• Revision of Block/Parry/Dodge to include two components, on-intercept enemy accuracy reduction (Deflection), and per-hit Defense increase and flat mitigation (Guard). [Dodges carry only Deflection, while parries favors Deflection and blocks favor Guard.]

• With the above revisions, critical strikes vs. normal hits are calculated first, then deflection/guard, where deflection may include both dodge and either a block or parry, and finally the damage of the critical or normal hit is calculated based on the remaining accuracy in the strike.
  Base chance for blocks, parries, and dodges are increased but can be countered by excess enemy accuracy. Glancing blows are now fairly frequent, though true dodges may be a bit less frequent. As such, blinding ones enemies now indirectly aids not only dodge chance but also block/parry chance, as you may now proc a dodge in addition to a block or parry from the same attack (deflecting while evading). Further, no enemies are now truly immune to Blind. It just might seem less effective on them, since they have higher initial accuracy.
  On the offensive side, missing accuracy is no longer significantly more detrimental to combo-based classes than non-combo based ones, since glancing blows will still enable the next step of the combo.

• Parry has been replaced by the Deflection and Guard stats. Guard increases the flat damage reduction of guarded attacks, your defense calculation on guarding, and as a bonus increases the damage necessary to interrupt your casts. Deflection increases the modifier by which your own Attack Power, Weapon Damage/Block Value, and Accuracy reduces accuracy from enemy attacks.
• Critical strikes are now a bit more frequent. This mostly levels out the buffs to evasive mitigation, while also increasing the overall value of eHP due to more variable rates of damage. It also increases the relative value of Awareness.

Summary of changes:

• OT DPS up by about 1-2%. AoE dps up 10%. Mana generation up 100 to 200%.
• Sword Oath tanking improved.
• MT dps up around another 4-7%. RoH potency up and RA more usable.
• Cover more controllable. Range increased by 4 yalms.
• Clemency and Stoneskin cast speed quickened by .5 seconds (20%), Cure now usably powerful (about 60% of a real healer or equal to an caster DPS if one had access to Cleric Stance).
  
  
• Paladin still has virtually no real AoE (merely a 10% stronger CoS in Sword and Shield Swipe spam during trash only as MT), but Flash should now see more usability. (Given the rest, I feel I could live with that.)

[Kosmos992k]

Here's the simplest ideas I can throw into the mix that I think will have good effect in terms of:
- Low MT dps
- Mana limitations (in the rare event that Clemency would be useful)
- Clemency too slow
- Lowest enmity threat combo
- Dull rotations
- Cure pointless
- Sword Oath lackluster
**snip**
On the other hand:

• Paladin still has virtually no real AoE, but Flash should now see more usability. (Given the rest, I feel I could live with that.)

Can we fix Raise as well please? Or trade it for Esuna.

[Shurrikhan]

Can we fix Raise as well please? Or trade it for Esuna.

Whoops, I skipped that since I usually take Foresight instead. That, and I think too many SMNs might throw a fit if we got battle-rez...

Tbh, it's just not really something I felt was needed. I still find use for it in FATEs while leveling and in Diadem, but I don't think it quite needs to be instance-worthy? I mean, consider WAR complaints about Awareness until Raw Intuition, or our own about Foresight / Mercy Stroke. I'd say it being situationally useful is still at least as good as our access to MS?

[Brannigan]

Actually, Awareness is amazing with Raw intuition

Then
make
it
a
warrior
ability


Just swap it with thrill of battle and its trait and we'll have some nice synergy with divine veil totally fair trade am i right guys

[Reynhart]

Actually, Awareness is amazing with Raw intuition

No, it's not. If you need Awareness, it means you're wasting Raw Intuition.

Lots of ideas. I'll admit I haven't read them all

If you have to scroll to cover all of your changes, it's a pretty good hint that you're listing too much

[Shurrikhan]

No, it's not. If you need Awareness, it means you're wasting Raw Intuition.

Though, similarly if you're unable to use RI on 3 out of 4 enemies because the last would be critting you, isn't that also wasting it? I totally agree though in regards to people thinking they can pop Awareness and will no longer have to worry about keeping enemies in front of them... all that precious parry wasted.

If you have to scroll to cover all of your changes, it's a pretty good hint that you're listing too much

Yeah, I probably should have hid the general changes to keep from scaring anyone off. The rest I blame on the line spacing during the 8 major points. I could trim the changes to Flash and Clemency and probably even Mind without most people noticing, or hide the details to Cover, Sword Oath, etc., but just in case someone... actually... wants to get to the meat of the changes, didn't want to force them to click about.

[Reynhart]

Though, similarly if you're unable to use RI on 3 out of 4 enemies because the last would be critting you, isn't that also wasting it? I totally agree though in regards to people thinking they can pop Awareness and will no longer have to worry about keeping enemies in front of them... all that precious parry wasted.

No, you'll just use another cooldown for that situation, or just mark the one monster that you can't position in front of you so that the team either kill it first or control it (Sleep, Bind, etc...).
Awareness is still a wasted slot, compared to Seconde Win, Internal Release, Convalescence, Provoke and Flash.

Yeah, I probably should have hid the general changes to keep from scaring anyone off. The rest I blame on the line spacing during the 8 major points. I could trim the changes to Flash and Clemency and probably even Mind without most people noticing, or hide the details to Cover, Sword Oath, etc., but just in case someone... actually... wants to get to the meat of the changes, didn't want to force them to click about.

Still, on the very low chance that SE really decides to change PLD, they won't make so much adjustment, so it's better to keep our suggestions short.

[Shurrikhan]

No, you'll just use another cooldown for that situation, or just mark the one monster that you can't position in front of you so that the team either kill it first or control it (Sleep, Bind, etc...).
Awareness is still a wasted slot, compared to Second Win, Internal Release, Convalescence, Provoke and Flash.

I'll take Featherfoot over Awareness unless I know I'm going to need it with RI at a certain pull, but I'd usually take Awareness over Second Wind in a speedrun, and either over Flash if I don't have serious AoE monsters with me (and not enough safety to go Deliverance briefly for TP) or there's some particular mechanic increasing its relative value. That's just me though. And that's enough talk about something we both know is crap either way. >.>

Still, on the very low chance that SE really decides to change PLD, they won't make so much adjustment, so it's better to keep our suggestions short.

Partly because this is for players more than SE, who I don't expect to take even the simplest parts of it, I prefer completion over brevity. To me, that finally looks about complete. There are slight buffs I'd like to make to WAR and especially DRK to balance it, but that's a good looking PLD in my mind. Reordering a bit though, to put the most significant first, etc.

[Brian_]

I find it funny someone would call Awareness a wasted slot and then cross class Flash on a WAR.