Guardian is a mediocre ability for paladin

[yaba_gabagool]

Yaba, considering I remember you actually playing at Platinum and higher ranks based on you posting your personal achievement (still grats btw), I think you are a bit misguided on how impactful a good Guardian let alone PLD is.

First in agreement with you - Guardian value depends on the target understanding what the Cover effect does and what they can do with it (namely elixir for free), so due to the infrequent usage of the job at low ranks most players do not know how to make use of it.

However, once you hit ranks where people DO know how it works, Paladins will get focused early and forced to use their Guard for themselves, locking them out of Guardian-Guard. In matches where you don't/can't do so the team will get on-field Elixirs online after wasting a lot of burst resources. This interaction is match-swinging.

Guardian does not need additional mitigation unless they remove the safe-elixir interaction. If they do, the most sensible would be 20-50% at most for damage transfered by Cover, not directly dealt to the PLD.

PLD along with GNB (Junction: Tank) is one of the most difficult jobs to kill without a coordinated high spiking damage burst due to the multitude of sustain tools and Holy Sheltron. Shield Bash as the sole 3s stun on a CD has huge impact to deny a DPS' burst or to confirm a kill on targets without Purify (which you can potentially bait by Sheltron-bombing with Heavy).

Lastly, Phalanx is an incredible defensive Limit Break and a great counter to DRG's Sky Shatter and WAR's Primal Scream, provided they got killed once or twice or gets their LB delayed for other reasons. It also lets you cover someone else while under Hallowed Ground.

WAR and DRK are easier to get overall value with because they easily bring their own damage for pressure. PLD however in the right ranks and played well is far more obnoxious than most other jobs.

I'm sorry for my wall of text but I felt compelled to reiterate how strong PLD actually is, even without perfect Guardian usage.

How many paladin comps were in the unofficial regional competition? 1. What happened to that team? Absolutely smoked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvovfL6dcGM

How many were in the ff fan festival in London sponsored by Yoshi himself?

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1957354550

0.

The numbers don't lie.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

How many paladin comps were in the unofficial regional competition? 1. What happened to that team? Absolutely smoked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvovfL6dcGM

How many were in the ff fan festival in London sponsored by Yoshi himself?

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1957354550

0.

The numbers don't lie.

Which way is it now? Do you use ladder solo or organized light party play as the basis of your argument?

In fact, especially in solo, the chances you actually see this ability get good use is slim to none, especially in this meta where you see massive amounts of damage up front with high levels of sustained as well (sam, drg, mnk, repear, ninja, mch, blm, smn).

On ladder PLD is a fine choice because maximizing synergy between players is a fever dream and PLD stands here as a job that can fix mistakes and generate steady advantage with clever Shieldbash and Confiteor usage.

Light party play naturally will drive players to job combinations that have inherently better synergy and can create a lot of impact in a short amount of time, hence why you see WAR, DRG, RPR and so on. What I could grab from the LunarCon video is that there were a lot of jobs played that already had stuns (SAM, NIN, WAR, WHM, GNB, MNK) making Shieldbash redundant.

In case of EU Fanfest, I know a lot of these players - we have fairly aggressive play and punish mistakes hard. We tend to use melee and healer jobs a lot with occasional ranged and tank picks that complement those. Specifically here, the presence of MNK and RPR in various matches would directly counter PLD with their limit breaks, making Guardian-Guard an undesirable tool as they could regularly break the PLD's guard, move him away and interrupt the elixir with their tools. There is also a fair presence of SCH and WHM/AST, offering alternate forms of damage mitigation and sustain. At a highly coordinated level, this can leverage a lot of value just like Guardian would without having to bring PLD.

In other regions like JP and possibly NA, they had a ranged-focused meta, which is why we see such heavy nerfs to WHM and BRD crowd control.

Lastly, if I remember right both of these are before the Holy Sheltron re-buff on mitigation.

In summary:

• Solo ladder PLD is fine, just not everyone's favourite.
• Light party/tournament PLD is rare to non-existence due to other jobs offering alternative tools (stun, mitigation) and coordinated bursts / anti-PLD techs
• You can't and shouldn't use tournament play as the end-all-be-all reason to why job XYZ is mediocre because regional metas and job perception varies massively
• You should also try to not move the goalpost by first talking about solo play and then talk about tournament play when they play in vastly different ways