Paladin needs some changes

[Rithy255]

I'm going to make a response to a lot of the general feedback i've got into general points.

• I do think niche abilities do sometimes have their place on a job, a great example of this is ironically already on paladin which is clemency which has pretty much the exact same use case a cover (aka to save people in situations where that player was low hp due to lack of healers up at the time). I think clemency serves that purpose way better and is in general way more flexible as a option.
  
  A lot of cases where cover could be useful in hard content like savage, theirs usually mechanics such as debuffs where cover unironically messes up and causes your death, where you rather would just use a skill like intervention or clemency.
  
  I do not think a cool mech like cover should be just restricted to niche emergency situations, I would love them to actually utilise it in fights where it would be very useful, though this is hard without making it either required or not useful outside "emergency situations" which i think PLD without cover is already useful.
  
  Niche and unique for the sake of it isn't really a good excuse, people still argue shield bash is a unique and "interesting skill" all I see it is a reason to hold back paladin as it's a "bloat" skill, I don't think cover is quite as useless as a skill like shield bash.
  
  Lastly I do not think making cover a role action that is often used for fights is automatically a bad thing because "homogenization" while yes it's plainly homogenization that doesn't mean it's automatically a bad thing, I do think ff14 has a tendency to make bad homogenization changes and needs to walk back on a lot of changes but not all homogenization is bad, What we quite honestly need with job design is less homogenization and simplification but that doesn't mean sometimes you can't turn something like cover that to me is a bland and uninteresting skill with barely any use cases into something better (though theirs cases of giving it some other utility to make it slightly better as a unique to paladin generalist skill, I think it's full potential would be as a role action.

I'll stand by my opinion personally even if it's not popular here, I'm not against the larger issue at hand with poor job design though.

[ThurinTurambar]

Here is a very controversial idea that imo would make tank/healer gameplay more interesting:
Make dungeons require only 1 of tank/healer, not tank + healer. Option for standard comp should still exist ofc.

Healers can solo many dungeon pulls and bosses, same with tanks. To the point that some skills feel like overkill.
So why gatekeep dungeons behind strict rules when dps queues are multiple times bigger than tank/heal queues?

While some things like tankbusters might have to be tweaked for this, it would allow for more niche skills like CC and self defensives to be useful. Crazy thing to say, CC skills being niche lmao

[Supersnow845]

Here is a very controversial idea that imo would make tank/healer gameplay more interesting:
Make dungeons require only 1 of tank/healer, not tank + healer. Option for standard comp should still exist ofc.

Healers can solo many dungeon pulls and bosses, same with tanks. To the point that some skills feel like overkill.
So why gatekeep dungeons behind strict rules when dps queues are multiple times bigger than tank/heal queues?

While some things like tankbusters might have to be tweaked for this, it would allow for more niche skills like CC and self defensives to be useful. Crazy thing to say, CC skills being niche lmao

Way to completely remove the last shred of reason to ever play a healer

[Rithy255]

Here is a very controversial idea that imo would make tank/healer gameplay more interesting:
Make dungeons require only 1 of tank/healer, not tank + healer. Option for standard comp should still exist ofc.

Healers can solo many dungeon pulls and bosses, same with tanks. To the point that some skills feel like overkill.
So why gatekeep dungeons behind strict rules when dps queues are multiple times bigger than tank/heal queues?

While some things like tankbusters might have to be tweaked for this, it would allow for more niche skills like CC and self defensives to be useful. Crazy thing to say, CC skills being niche lmao

How exactly does this relate to this thread?

Also no tanks should just have less survivability and healers should have less healing bloat, dungeons should let us pull more and bosses should hit harder, changing these aspects so both a tank and a healer is needed should at the very least be the goal, it shouldn't be meta for tanks (or healers if the roles were reversed) to solo content with 3 dps.

[PyurBlue]

I do not think a cool mech like cover should be just restricted to niche emergency situations, I would love them to actually utilise it in fights where it would be very useful, though this is hard without making it either required or not useful outside "emergency situations" which i think PLD without cover is already useful.

That's essentially what original cover was. You could use it as mitigation as a cotank. As OT I'd sometimes use cover immediately on the MT when the first TB came up. This still works even now, it's just more costly and less effective. It was also a way to provide knockback protection to phys range before they were given Arm's Length.

Despite Cover's current weakened state I get far more use out of it than Clemency, which has MP cost and a GCD cast time. Intervention is the most straightforward to use by far but has much less mitigation potential. It can't save someone with a bunch of vulns on 10% HP.

Cover was hit too hard when it was rebalanced and it should get one of its old perks back, either 20% damage reduction or zero Oath cost. With either of those changes it should become less niche without being turned into a boring scripted solution to one dimensional mechanics that exist only to force the player to press the designated button.

[ThurinTurambar]

How exactly does this relate to this thread?

Also no tanks should just have less survivability and healers should have less healing bloat, dungeons should let us pull more and bosses should hit harder, changing these aspects so both a tank and a healer is needed should at the very least be the goal, it shouldn't be meta for tanks (or healers if the roles were reversed) to solo content with 3 dps.

It relates that OP had issues with skills benefiting party, so what i proposed puts greater emphasis on the party aspect to make such skills more useful.
You wouldnt have to conform to the meta, but rather adjust playstyle to the party composition you got. Also if you were talking meta, 3x dps 1x tank would be meta right now, yet its not done because people queue solo and that enforces standard comp.
Give tanks less survivability and you'll have early Endwalker darknight complaints again.

Also if it was done as an opt in option, it would greatly benefit the reduction of queue times in for example expert roulette.

[Burmecia]

Shield Lob: Give some Aoe Effect to pull multiple mobs at the same time in dungeons.

Is that common currently? Like the pulling button to have AOE effect? Like, ngl I would love that .
Makes me think of old Overpower. Which was turned into cone EDIT CIRCLE, i meant circle.

I know Tomahawk is the analog, but be real, most competent warriors used old Overpower to the same effect beautifully.

Cover: Very bad and unused skill, please remove.

Just do something to the gauge requirement, like remove it. I miss doing. Some creative, useful things with this.

[Shistar]

As someone who always struggles the first time she does content, I love Cover, or as I jokingly call it "the Tether of Shame". I have said "I didn't get tethered!" as a moment of pride doing first time content. I'm so very sorry to all the healers and their Pals.

And then, sometimes, I get to pay it forward, which makes me very happy.

Hahaha, so cute! In my FC we call it "The Leash" for extra ego damage. No need to apologize! Your death makes us supports' game more fun :P

[YovelaLindswood]

Shield Lob: Give some Aoe Effect to pull multiple mobs at the same time in dungeons.

Cover: Very bad and unused skill, please remove.

Intervention: Same things as Cover.

Holy Spirit: Rework this skill to actually give some nice effects on it. The visual effect on my view is pretty bad and don't reminiscent at all the concept of the “Holy Spirit”. My suggestion is to change it to a close range sword skill with effects of white doves with white and orange glows fire, reminiscent of the Christian spiritual manifestations of the spirit around fire. Give some nice potency also, you can also keep the combo with the royal authority and have the skill be a nice finish move.

Clemency: Reduce the cost of MP and give us a regen HP over time effect.

Intervene: Add another maximum change for 3 and give and add another effect to it to compensate for the removal of the Cover and Intervention skills like: "When used on an ally, it rushes over them defending against incoming damage, giving a shield that mitigates 10% of the damage dealt as a barrier."

Requiescat: Need a visual update asap.

Holy Circle: Same thins as Holy Spirit skill. Reword to AoE effect and actually give us some fire and white doves effects on it.

Shield lob - Not terrible but it doesn't really serve a purpose like it does in wow given how dungeon pulls are done.
Cover - You've never pressed that to save someone whose low hp have you? If I go two days without doing a clutch cover to prevent a healer or dps from dying im doing my class wrong.
Intervention - Same as above. You will probably get more class satisfaction if you play the class like a group support tank.
Holy Spirit - I'd rather not waste resources on an unnecessary graphics update when healers could use the money to rework. Holy spirit not being attached to your combo lets you move it to keep uptime when you have to spend time away from the boss. Your suggestion dumbs down the class.
Clemency - Damage or heals bud. Pick your poison. Its a balance decision. One that I fully support.
Intervene - Given the existence of positionals your suggestion is take away the good mits that already accomplish this to instead grief your melees and also provide a worse version. Instead it would be more interesting if there were mechs like wow where its a cone hit where the person closest to the boss takes the lions share of the damage. IE an actual tank protects party mech. Might give wings some more thematic use.
Requiescat - Same as Holy spirit. Waste of resources
Holy Circle - Same as holy spirit. I will however state that two buttons that do the exact same thing but ones single target and the others aoe is dumb. SE could consolidate them into one cast on target aoe and nothing would be lost gameplay wise. Only one button saved.
PLD doesn't need two more damage skills.

[YovelaLindswood]

Is that common currently? Like the pulling button to have AOE effect? Like, ngl I would love that .
Makes me think of old Overpower. Which was turned into cone.

Its how shield lob works in wow. Hits first target and bounces to nearby targets. You can talent into additional bounces and aoe damage every time it hits a target for some pretty fun damage. Honestly not a bad idea for wow given how add packs and placement works but in xiv I feel like it just dumbs down tanking further. Like in xiv you start with a shield lob or a slightly longer range provoke given you're ahead of your party and then give one or two aoes to establish agro. Making shield lob an aoe would just take the last step out and dumb down the role even further.