Is cure worth it for Paladin?

[Umbreon_skystorm]

With Divine Veil, I put it in a macro so the healers know that I've poped it but also knowing that a big heal or small heal is incoming use it before hand. it's on for 30 secs for it to trigger.

I've never really gotten the Divine Veil complaint. Surely you use it when you're going to be healed anyway...

the fun part was that once when I was running an A4 on DF, I Healed me twice while I was with divine veil there because healers were dpsing, and after 2 segs the divine veil ended I saw a Lustrate... I have a real bad luck using it...

[Kosmos992k]

Cure is barely worth it. For Solo content, Cure, Protect and StoneSkin are worth having. Raise is worthless. If you already have CNJ to the point where you can raise, the fact that you can't battle raise as a PLD means you have to be out of battle completely removing the point since I could almost as easily switch to CNJ, do the raise, and switch back since we are not in combat. If you give a combat class a raise skill, you have to make it useful in battle, or else there is literally no point.

Cure itself is too weak for PLD. It would have been nice if our cure strength were based on our VIT stat. The lack of magic damage on our weapon would still neuter our cures compared to real healers, but it would be more useful than it presently is. I was fighting a FATE the other day with another player on an alt, I was getting low on health, and the other player was casting cure (cross classed on rogue I believe, they were playing a class not a job). All that did was slow down the fight even more, the cures were only marginally helpful because they were so weak. Since I had a huge hate lead I popped convalescence and started casting cure myself. Even then I was taking almost as much damage as I was healing. In the end it became a battle of attrition, and ultimately I OOM'd and died. If cure was worth a damn, I might have survived.

[CGMidlander]

Cure is barely worth it. For Solo content, Cure, Protect and StoneSkin are worth having.

lol it isn't even "barely worth it"; it's not worth it at all. Random trash outside of Idyllshire have autoattacks that outstrip Cure @ 60.

[thunderbreak]

It's useful up to level 15-20 contents, and the only potential use it have is to trigger another pally's divine veil.

[Only1zbro]

Convalescence + Cure have saved a few lv. 50 dungeon boss fights and below...but not particularly worth it. Not much else to slot in the spot either.

[Fernosaur]

Looks like you discovered yourself why Cure is useless, but I'll come in and talk about how great Stoneskin is as a cross class! Sure, you do lose some damage output, but it plays into the Paladin's party support nicely. It's useful with subpar parties from Duty Finder, and even in some higher level farms. Solo tank solo healing Rav EX, you can get a BLM to eat one of the double preys with no sweat with a Stoneskin+Adlo. And it can be an additional CD to pop up if a tank buster is coming. Healers don't tend to use Stoneskin before busters because they're usually focused on topping you off, so it's good help. Not necessary, definitely, but it can help.

Talking about cross-classing, can I ask exactly what the math behind "Fracture is a DPS loss" is? I don't doubt it is because people that go in the lab tend to make good points, I just wish someone would explain it to me in numbers. I can see how Mercy Stroke would be a better option than Fracture (being oGC), but yeah.

[Sapphidia]

Talking about cross-classing, can I ask exactly what the math behind "Fracture is a DPS loss" is? I don't doubt it is because people that go in the lab tend to make good points, I just wish someone would explain it to me in numbers. I can see how Mercy Stroke would be a better option than Fracture (being oGC), but yeah.

Sapph to the rescue! (I think this is about the fifth post I've done some fracture maths for)

The way you calculate an optimal DPS rotation is to work out the optimal "Average Potency per GCD" of a rotation. Fracture is a 220 Potency attack, broken down into 100 potency for the hit, and 120 potency (6 ticks of 20 potency each) over 18 seconds.


At level 50, the standard paladin rotation was the 123 spam of Fast/Savage/Halone. These attacks were 150/200/260 potency respectively, which averages out at 203.3 Potency per GCD over 3 GCDs. Because 220 is higher than 203.3, using Fracture was a DPS increase at level 50 over pure Halone spam (provided that all six ticks of the dot happened).

At 60 though, you get the Royal Authority and Goring Blade combos. Royal Authority combo is 150/200/340 potency, which is 230 average potency over 3 GCDs. 230 is higher than 220 so you can see that just spaming Royal Authority Combo is more DPS than any rotation that included Fracture. Goring Blade combo is even higher due to how strong the DOT is. Goring Blade combo does 150/230/220 potency (average of 200 per GCD) but also comes with a 320 potency dot (8 ticks of 40 potency each) over 24 seconds.

Now, the way DoTs work is that they tick every 3 seconds, so you can't really easily factor them into DPS if you're clipping them because it depends on your skillspeed. But to try and paraphrase things:

A rotation of Goring / Royal / Royal has an average of 200 / 230 / 230 potency over their GCDs, which is an average of 220 potency per GCD. 9 GCDs take a maximum of of 22.5 seconds to do at zero skillspeed, which means you'll be refreshing the 24 second Goring Blade DoT with 1.5 seconds left on it.

Now, some people think that it's a good idea to put a Fracture in to make the rotation Goring/Royal/Royal/Fracture, which is a 10 GCD rotation, as this "doesnt clip the goring blade dot". However, we've already established Fracture is only 220 potency, which is the same as the average potency of the Goring/Royal/Royal rotation, and thus doesnt actually gain you any dps. IN fact, all it does is put a "gap" in your Goring Blade DoT and can potentially LOSE you a 40 potency tick.

TLDR: the optimal Paladin Rotation is to do Goring/Royal/Royal as this is a 9 GCD rotation that enables you to maintain 100% uptime on the Goring Blade DoT along with 220 potency average GCD. Fracture doesnt increase this, it just drains TP and risks you losing Goring Blade ticks.


There's one other thing to it: Fracture's Dot isnt counted as Slashing Damage, only the 100 initial hit. This means that in a raid with a Warrior or Ninja providing the 10% slashing debuff, the average Potency per GCD of the Goring/Royal/Royal goes up from 220 to 242. The potency of Fracture only goes up by 10% of 100, so becomes 230 potency. Thus when Slashing debuff is available, Fracture is actually a pure DPS decrease even without factoring in DoT ticks and TP drain.

Some people also suggest that using Fracture as the final hit of your Fight or Flight can be a DPS increase - I believe maths has shown this to be incorrect provided you use an optimal rotation, as all you gain is 21 extra potency over a Fast Blade (+30% of 150 vs 220) and risk losing up to 40 potency for a lost Goring Blade tick dependant on skillspeed.

[Syzygian]

How did we turn a thread titled with a yes-or-no question (to which the answer is indisputably a resounding "no") into a 4 page debate? O.o

[Kosmos992k]

lol it isn't even "barely worth it"; it's not worth it at all. Random trash outside of Idyllshire have autoattacks that outstrip Cure @ 60.

That itself is a problem of balance that SE needs to address. Cure for PLD should not be so crap that it can't out heal trash autoattacks.

[Fernosaur]

Snip snip

Cool! Thanks! Alright, that makes sense. However, if you're MTing and trying to maximize the DPS you can possibly put out without sacrificing enmity (which, let's face it, is a reality PLD has to live with), does that still apply? I mean, if you're MTing, you simply can't stick to Royal combo only, cause you're gonna get hate ripped off you by your OT and any DPS worth their salt, maybe even in Shield Oath...

I'm trying to find or at least create a rotation that works for myself and my DPSs which allows me to build good enmity while still putting as much damage as possible, but I'm having trouble thinking about Fracture or Mercy Stroke. I now know Fracture is a DPS loss in a GB>RA>RA rotation, but a MT rotation seems to me would be a bit more complex than that, specially considering RoH is needed because of the StrDown debuff and because of enmity gen, of course.