The Paladin job is the paladin only in name now. Pure salt and sadness.

[Rakshazi]

I honestly don't know what you want PLD to be tbh, nor do I understand what has changed in ShB that makes it suddenly ruined after SB, its pretty much the same theme-wise with some extra DPS and QoL abilities.

Seriously dude, you are going around in circles.

- You have said you both want it to be unique and you also don't want it to have spells (something that makes it unique)
- You have said it should be healing and support based, despite all of its utility being healing and support based
- And you have straight-up misunderstood how crap PLDs utility used to be and how powerful it is now.

Oh and what hasn't been mentioned to debunk a claim that PLD has been neutered: PLD was straight up broken in SB, you complain about cover being worthless now, but cover was busted, and that needed to change. I'm speaking as someone who loved cover for being busted.

TLDR: PLD is literally the same but with a more fun rotation and some much-needed skill pruning/balancing, and literally everyone disagrees with you.

Ugh... You all win, I give up. You either can't or don't want to understand what I want PLD to be... I will write it last time and get out:
- I want it to be unique and properly themed. Like the warrior who uses blessings, protective magick and debuffing enemies. I want it top use his shield PROPERLY and more often, not like the dumb wall! The shield is a weapon!!! He SHOULD have spells, but not the damaging ones. They are not fit to the theme of PLD.
- Yes, healing and support based is what I wanted. But also - I wanted PLD to use counterattacking actions. It's DUMB, that WAR have his vengeance (when he's the damaging tank) and PLD has nothing to counter! BULLS**T. The utility of PLD should be in healing, protection and debuffing/buffing abilities for party. For example: 1 - PLD could have the trait that after every block of attack he deals 100 potency counter to attacker. 2 - PLD, instead of having Confiteor, could have the counterattack action on low CD: PLD block incoming atacks for 3 seconds and strikes in return with X potency, applying debuff, that reduces enemy's defense to x%. This would be much better thematicaly and will not low PLD's DPS output. In contrary it would be more usefull for the whole party to apply such defense debuff for DPS windows.
- I didn't misunderstood how crap his utility was and how good Clemency and Divine Veil are now. SE did good to replacing cross-class actions with those. But despite them being more potent PLD in ARR had more utility and debuffs and feeled more paladin-like.
- PLD's rotation now is not fun. We could be so much better than spamming Holy Spirit/Circle till the mana drops to 0, refill it with Riot Blade/Prominence - repeat.

[RiotSiren]

Ugh... You all win, I give up. You either can't or don't want to understand what I want PLD to be

We get what you want, we just don't want it and like how paladin is.

- I want it to be unique and properly themed. Like the warrior who uses blessings, protective magick and debuffing enemies.

It has all of this but enemy debuffs, which don't sound all that paladiny to me honestly.

I want it top use his shield PROPERLY and more often, not like the dumb wall! The shield is a weapon!!!

I can get behind this one actually, I would like mroe animations where paladin uses their shield more offensively

He SHOULD have spells, but not the damaging ones. They are not fit to the theme of PLD.

Why not damaging ones? You said yourself Paladins should be able to smite and that's what these are.

- Yes, healing and support based is what I wanted. But also - I wanted PLD to use counterattacking actions. It's DUMB, that WAR have his vengeance (when he's the damaging tank) and PLD has nothing to counter! BULLS**T.

while I did like the mechanic, paladin having counters would either FORCE them to main tank, or if they are off tank to take hits they shouldn't in order to maintain DPS, yes WAR has vengeance but it is extremely minor and basically never used for damage. I don't know where you get this idea that PLD should eb the counter tank as historically in FF games they were not.

The utility of PLD should be in healing, protection and debuffing/buffing abilities for party. For example: 1 - PLD could have the trait that after every block of attack he deals 100 potency counter to attacker. 2 - PLD, instead of having Confiteor, could have the counterattack action on low CD: PLD block incoming atacks for 3 seconds and strikes in return with X potency, applying debuff, that reduces enemy's defense to x%. This would be much better thematicaly and will not low PLD's DPS output. In contrary it would be more usefull for the whole party to apply such defense debuff for DPS windows.

This would force paladin to be main tank in order to maintain good DPS and we have 3 other tanks atm so no. What would you do if your group has 2 paladins they both can't have the boss attacking them?

- I didn't misunderstood how crap his utility was and how good Clemency and Divine Veil are now. SE did good to replacing cross-class actions with those. But despite them being more potent PLD in ARR had more utility and debuffs and feeled more paladin-like.

I also don't know where you are getting this "Paladin should apply defensive debuffs" from. Always seemed like holy spell casting and healing was more their gimmick which they have here.

- PLD's rotation now is not fun. We could be so much better than spamming Holy Spirit/Circle till the mana drops to 0, refill it with Riot Blade/Prominence - repeat.

This is 100% a opinion, that, if the reactions to this thread are anything to go by, a vast majority of the players disagree with. I appreciate the passion behind your idea, but it simply will not work and is largely unwanted here.

[Rakshazi]

zip

About smite
This is what the Smite is (text below). I love DnD and we all must agree that all RPG games are descendants of good old DnD tabletop. This is what PLD atack magick is: empovering next atack that will deal damage and can debuff the enemy with it's variations. Empovered atack. Not nuke spell.
Divine Smite
Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon Attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition to the weapon's damage. The extra damage is 2d8 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus 1d8 for each Spell Level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 5d8. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is an Undead or a fiend.

About debuffs
Paladin in DnD have an access to divine magick that can not only bless and heal, but to curse aswell. So debuffs and buffs are quite native to paladins in general.

About forcing to be Main Tank
I told before - If some jobs are better and some specific actions than the other of it's category IT'S OKAY!!! If it's good in one thing it will be bad in the other! Can counter and use it as the damage source vs can't counter and doing damage via brute force. That's the way things were in the RR. The Realm Reborn gave us options of purely defensive style tank and a bruser and everyone was fine with it! PLDs were often MT and that was OKAY. Because WAR could focus on damage and be a backup for some situations! They done their jobs well (tanking) in the standart dutyes and all were happy. But someone in SE decided to make all of the tanks the same. WHY!?!? Why did SE allow him to do that?!? And YES, ALL TANKS ARE THE SAME. They have a different rotations and could feel a bit defferent but in the end THEY HAVE ALL THE SAME BASIC KIT - Gauge to fill for specific actions, 1 single target rotation, 1 AoE rotation, SAME job actions, some form of pseudo-unique mitigation and invulnerability. You see what I'm talking about? I don't like that all tanks become the basicaly reskin of WAR. Ther should be diversity and uniquness in the different jobs. The ultimate goal is to TANK, but if someone tanking via counters and someone via sheer damage LET IT BE.

AND GIVE US SOME SHIELD ACTIONS SE!!! Like seriously, why the F you give character the shield in hand and don't make him use it! The way skills and animations work now you could just strip it away and no one will see the difference.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Mate, just give up, nobody wants your variation of paladin, the devs have THEIR creative license to make paladin how they feel they want it to be and the majority of the player base paladin playing enjoy the current iteration. It's the best iteration so far and the job's growth has only made it better and better over the last two expansions. Basically if you do not like current paladin, do not play it, simple as that, otherwise go play another game.

[Dynia]

Ugh... You all win, I give up. You either can't or don't want to understand what I want PLD to be... I will write it last time and get out:
- I want it to be unique and properly themed. Like the warrior who uses blessings, protective magick and debuffing enemies. I want it top use his shield PROPERLY and more often, not like the dumb wall! The shield is a weapon!!! He SHOULD have spells, but not the damaging ones. They are not fit to the theme of PLD.
- Yes, healing and support based is what I wanted. But also - I wanted PLD to use counterattacking actions. It's DUMB, that WAR have his vengeance (when he's the damaging tank) and PLD has nothing to counter! BULLS**T. The utility of PLD should be in healing, protection and debuffing/buffing abilities for party. For example: 1 - PLD could have the trait that after every block of attack he deals 100 potency counter to attacker. 2 - PLD, instead of having Confiteor, could have the counterattack action on low CD: PLD block incoming atacks for 3 seconds and strikes in return with X potency, applying debuff, that reduces enemy's defense to x%. This would be much better thematicaly and will not low PLD's DPS output. In contrary it would be more usefull for the whole party to apply such defense debuff for DPS windows.
- I didn't misunderstood how crap his utility was and how good Clemency and Divine Veil are now. SE did good to replacing cross-class actions with those. But despite them being more potent PLD in ARR had more utility and debuffs and feeled more paladin-like.
- PLD's rotation now is not fun. We could be so much better than spamming Holy Spirit/Circle till the mana drops to 0, refill it with Riot Blade/Prominence - repeat.

ok you have your point of view and opinion on that how paladin should look and that ok, but who said paladin should be like you described ?
paladin theme character is just warrior who use white magic as his 2nd aresenal, no1 said white magic should be always defensive, there are alot themes that paladin use offense spells vs undead as best example, so spell like holy circle fit class more then you think

also paladin have clemacy as your best defence spell that fit EVEN more than you think + still have spell like cover and shield for oath points ...

paladin always was hybrid warrior + half white magic and NOT ALWAYS use 1h weapon + shield some paladins used 2h swords for example

[Rakshazi]

NOT ALWAYS use 1h weapon + shield some paladins used 2h swords for example

Sigh... If we could use 2h weapon NOW in the game as PLD, then I wouldn't ask to give us more shield actions... But the way it IS now - we have shield and barely use it. We don't counter. We don't buff as earlier. We have instead SECOND AoE spell Confiteor for some reason that is out of place and absolutely not necessery. SE should've give PLD job more shield actions as long as we have shield and strip them away like they did.

[Dynia]

Sigh... If we could use 2h weapon NOW in the game as PLD, then I wouldn't ask to give us more shield actions... But the way it IS now - we have shield and barely use it. We don't counter. We don't buff as earlier. We have instead SECOND AoE spell Confiteor for some reason that is out of place and absolutely not necessery. SE should've give PLD job more shield actions as long as we have shield and strip them away like they did.

you know is just finisher for spells like Atonement for melee combo, they gave us this mechanic with 2 separete spells

[Rakshazi]

Mate, just give up, nobody wants your variation of paladin, the devs have THEIR creative license to make paladin how they feel they want it to be and the majority of the player base paladin playing enjoy the current iteration. It's the best iteration so far and the job's growth has only made it better and better over the last two expansions. Basically if you do not like current paladin, do not play it, simple as that, otherwise go play another game.

They are, yes. And I'm playing the game and have a forum to ask and discuss the things I like and dislike. So:
- I like theme of the paladins in whole.
- I like the way he was in this game.
- I will play the job in this game forever and ever even with this bad development because I like the idea of this job and that little utility we still have.
- I don't like the way SE develop job in this expansion and I think they could've done much better to keep the theme and spirit of paladin job in this game.
You see? Discussion. You want to change my mind you better write something better, than "Devs have the license". Take the RiotSiren for example and come back again. CYA.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Oh I'm not trying to change your mind, you have your opinion and you're closemindedly sticking to it so there is no arguing so won't try and attempt to change your mind on this as it's a waste of time much like this forum post in it's entirety is a waste of a forum post and the poor dev that may read through it. But for the point how exactly has this expac change pld actually change in such a detrimental way, oh we git finishers for phases "oh wow, well s*** guys, we upset some random, let's scrap it", is that the approach you want? Game would be dead in a week.

[Rakshazi]

Oh I'm not trying to change your mind, you have your opinion and you're closemindedly sticking to it so there is no arguing so won't try and attempt to change your mind on this as it's a waste of time much like this forum post in it's entirety is a waste of a forum post and the poor dev that may read through it. But for the point how exactly has this expac change pld actually change in such a detrimental way, oh we git finishers for phases "oh wow, well s*** guys, we upset some random, let's scrap it", is that the approach you want? Game would be dead in a week.

No, It's NOT what I want and NO, it's not me who's closeminded. If you guys would just think about how to make job better and more thematic than yelling on me "The job is fine as it is now, get lost" this tread could be so much better. But, alas, you not. While I giving my proposals and options to discussion you only telling me the exact same words.