Is Paladin the least fun class to play?

[Alywell]

Before I begin, I would like to make two points clear:

1. I'm not talking about usefulness, as the Paladin seem to have no problem with that, but about the enjoyment a player gets by playing a Paladin.

2. While fun is subjective, I'm making this thread to hear different opinions from different Paladins. So it's very likely that we do not agree with each other, but please keep it civil


I'm not the first to bring it up, but to me, Paladin seems very dull to play when compared to other classes; even when compared to the other tank, the Warrior. And in my opinion, this need to be addressed just as warriors' "usefulness" is being addressed. Let me explain:

It's as if every class has a little something that makes it interesting, a little dept that keeps the gameplay dynamic. If you played any of the DPS class, you'll notice they have time where they get proc (using a skill has a chance to make another one more powerful), placement bonus (being behind or on the side of a target) or different ways of managing your resource (think of Black Mage). Those make sure that the same fight won't happen exactly the same way, thus why I used the word "dynamic". Healers have the most dynamic job at the core, but that's just how they work.

Now, let's take a look at the Warrior. Anyone who played both Paladin and Warrior will know the "complexity" difference between the two. While Warrior is nowhere near complex, when compared to the Paladin, it sadly is. I'm not talking about self heal vs mitigation cooldowns, because those are pretty much the same. I'm talking about skills like Maim, that you must almost always have on, making their rotation more dynamic. Wrath stacks are also that little thing Warriors have to keep track of on top of their main resource, and you have different ways of building/using it.

Then we have the Paladin, devoid of all kind of dept/complexity. You are AoE tanking? Spam flash. You are single target tanking? Fast Blade > Savage Blade > Rage of Halone. Oh, and use those skills on cooldown: Fight or Flight - Spirits Within - Circle of Scorn. The only arguable complexity others have talked about is the defensive cooldowns. Since the Paladin has a lot of them, they must "manage" them and use them intelligently to be as efficient as possible. I'm sorry, but it looks like an utterly lazy design of a class. Not only do they all have long cooldowns (90s+), but it's not even remotely as complex as the other mechanics listed above. You press a button and you get rewarded for 20 second. That's what a cooldown is, and that's all Paladins got. It becomes dynamic for the rare times you actually make those decisions of using said cooldowns, and then nothing else.

If you do the same fight as a Paladin again, it will be the exact same fight as the previous one, besides very slight variables on the defensive cooldowns. Still, you'll know when to use the good cooldowns as you know when the big hits are coming. Basically, it's almost as if you could macro your -entire- rotation and movements (when there's actually movement involved) and no one would be likely to notice.


So, do you agree or disagree?

If you disagree, then can you explain why is Paladin fun for you? Why do you think it doesn't need any change at all?


If you agree, then what could be changed to make the class more interesting to play? Feel free to post your ideas here.


Here is my personal idea. It will most likely never happen, but this is a revamp I would love to see.

Basically, remove Paladins Awareness and Sentinel and replace them with 2 additional oaths, while changing the 2 current ones. Also, make Riot Blade (which would still always need to be combo'd from Fast Blade) and Flash affected by the current oath you are in. Both would keep their same cost (80tp/212mp)

All oaths should be off the global cooldown, cost nothing, and have a 5 second recast.

Sword Oath - Increases potency of all weaponskills by 50% and doubles the TP cost of all weaponskills.
Riot Blade: Doubles the potency.
Flash: Adds a potency 100 damage.

Shield Oath - Decreases physical damage taken by 20%, while quickening TP regeneration rate (80 instead of 60)
Riot Blade: Removes the TP cost. Restores 40tp on hit
Flash: Restores 20tp

Divine Oath - Doubles the healing potency of healing spells and doubles the MP cost of healing spells. Every time you receive damage, grant one stack of Divine Power (stacks up to 10)
Riot Blade: Changes the cost to 212 MP (same as flash). Consumes all Divine Power and cast a healing spell on self (100 healing potency per stack consumed).
Flash: Consumes all Divine Power and cast a healing spell on self (100 healing potency per stack consumed).

Holy Oath - Decreases magical damage taken by 20%, while quickening MP regeneration rate (double the rate)
Riot Blade: Restores MP (Same effect as of now)
Flash: Reduces MP cost by half.


Now to explain what these changes actually affect. Basically, you have 2 oaths to burn down TP/MP and 2 oaths to regenerate them (a little similar to Black Mages).

Sword Oath should make you almost as good as a DPS, if not as good, but you may not stay in this oath for very long as you'll be TP starved very quickly. Uses of this oath:

-Great aggro spike, if you use the Rage of Halone combo during it
-Good if you want to add DPS on the AoE pulls
-Good DPS in general if you're on OT duty and you are not tanking anything. Doing the Fast Blade > Riot Blade combo would result in highest DPS without taking additional threat

You have no mitigation in this oath, though.


Shield Oath uses:

-You need to regenerate TP
-You need to take less physical damage from a boss or a group of adds


Divine Oath is the "self healing" oath that will help when healers aren't as available or to give healers time to breath a little more. Like Sword Oath, you cannot stay in it for very long as you'll be MP starved quickly. (And c'mon, this is also to make the Conjurer's cross class skill shine just a tad more!) Uses for this oath:

-You need to give breathing room to healers during a boss fight or an AoE pull
-Not die (or less) when you are solo
-You may even be a sort of side healer for the time of the oath, as I hope cure would heal for around ~600-700 (or as much as a Black Mage's physick at least)

Like Sword Oath, you have no mitigation, but the self healing should be more worthy than the mitigation.


Holy Oath uses:

-Regenerate MP
-When you foresee magical damage coming at you, helps you mitigate it. Would be the preferable defensive oath against a magic exclusive boss
-Great for constant AoE threat, as you can spam flash without running of MP (but MP wouldn't regenerate when spamming flash, obviously)


There it is. This way, we would bring the "stance dance" concept to Paladins. The short cooldown and the fact that they're not on global would make it easy and rewarding to often switch oaths, according to the situation you're facing.

This is just a few ideas I had when I went to bed last night. I'm aware they are nowhere near perfect, balance issues would arise and more, but it's just an example of how more interesting Paladins could be.

I'm eager to read your replies.

[Sasagawa]

In response to your original question

No,

Its quite fun timing CDs and understanding the fight mechanics to get the most out of your tank class. is it an easy class to play ? yes but its equally a very hard class to master. you need to know what to do in every fight and you also need to know every boss mechanic including the ones you don't dodge so that when they happen you always have a back up plan. example of this is popping hallowed on titan to give healer time to raise someone "comfortably"

[Valhinjin]

Overall, I enjoy paladin but do agree with some of your points. While it isn't very complex, it does have multiple rotations and situational cooldowns - just like other classes. They are just really simple. Sword Oath as is stands right now, is generally useless. Our cross-class abilities are generally useless as well.

I don't really see the need for an MP "stance" because we currently have the Riot Combo which regens enough MP to continue on with Flash. And people over-simplify the combos imo. It's not like you just run up and start Halone, you'd want Fight or Flight and Bloodbath up, probably hit Circle of Scorn for the damage tick and quick aggro, cycle in Spirits Within on cooldown, and you'd want to manage your DR on Flash to keep Blind up as much as possible. If there are two enemies or random single adds you'd want to split the combo and tab target through the aggro list as well, managing aggro when needed, on top of managing Rampart or Conv etc. depending on the situation. Three of more, you'd want to keep up your CoS, Flash, and Riot Combo for MP regen. This is on top of positional awareness and mechanic avoidance. You end up with something more like:

Single Pull: FoF > BB > Lob > CoS > SW > Flash > Halone Combo (cycling in Flash for blind, SW on cooldown, CoS on cooldown, Rampart/Conv/Bulwark etc when applicable)
Multiple: FoF > BB > Lob > CoS > Some defensive CD > Flash (till aggro is solid) > Riot Combo (same as above, SW/CoS on cooldown, def CDs where applicable)

That said, it's not all that complicated, but it's not "spam 1, 2, 3" like people seem to think. Tanking in general, regardless of the class, presents a lot of challenges that DPS simply don't have to deal with. And when we screw up it's usually a wipe, so there's more pressure. We get the brunt of enemy mechanics (in most fights), we have to deal with placement, we have to cycle mobs and pay attention to hate levels, mark for DPS (when applicable), and we set the pace for runs in dungeons. The addition of these challenges is probably why they made the actual gameplay a bit more simple for the tanks. You also have to have some boss knowledge and know when to use things like Sentinel and Hallowed Ground - particularly on big hits like from Titan's MB.

I think those are the challenges that make Paladin "fun" for me - but those come with the territory for tanks and are not exclusive to paladins. The play style is rather simple but keeping the big picture in mind I'm fine with how they are.

[Enkidoh]

I disagree Sword Oath is useless - you're not in a party 24/7, and there are plenty of times where the game forces you to solo. That's when you use Sword Oath. It gives a noticeable boost to your attacks, but naturally at the expense of the added defense you would get with Shield Oath. And when you're on your own, you only have yourself to heal and hence often it's just better to get the battle through as quickly as possible rather than trying to mitigate damage.

But yes some of the meagre cross-class abilties we get are not quite as good as they should be (like Cure, which normally would be very useful, isn't because PLD has no MND bonuses and hence the spell is very weak potency wise). PLD doesn't get the Proshell trait that CNJ gets which turns Protect into Wall, and hence subbed Protect is much weaker (only giving extra defense against physical attacks rather than physical and magic). Ditto with Raise etc etc.

Either way, I love PLD (and GLA it stems from) - GLA was my original starting class in 1.0 (and started in Gridania too no less!), and it hooked me ever since. I just find it a fun class and Job to play as.

[Exstal]

Summoner is the least fun class to play.

[Valhinjin]

I disagree Sword Oath is useless - you're not in a party 24/7, and there are plenty of times where the game forces you to solo. That's when you use Sword Oath. It gives a noticeable boost to your attacks, but naturally at the expense of the added defense you would get with Shield Oath. And when you're on your own, you only have yourself to heal and hence often it's just better to get the battle through as quickly as possible rather than trying to mitigate damage.

I can see your point for solo play, but I'm thinking of the party mechanic perspective - which in the endgame is going to be the vast majority of your playtime.

Oh and lets not forget stunning/silence. People expect stuns even when you MT, which adds yet another dimension to playing (managing the global CD, watching the castbars, etc etc). All in all, paladin is fun for me. There's more to the job than the "rotation," there's plenty to keep us busy in fights. I'd like more dynamic cross-class but that's about it.

[Alywell]

Its quite fun timing CDs

Fair enough

and understanding the fight mechanics to get the most out of your tank class.

Every role has to understand the fight mechanics. And maybe you haven't noticed, but the DPS and healers have their load of "mechanics" that YOU, as a tank, don't even need to know/worry about. That's not exclusive to tank, let alone paladin I'm afraid.

is it an easy class to play ? yes but its equally a very hard class to master.

Do people really believe this? I mean, maybe it's because I've been playing MMOs for a long time, and FFXIV happens to be one of the easiest I've played, but anyone who has a little experience at tanking in MMOs in general will "master" their Paladin a mere few weeks after they are capped. This doesn't apply if, say, this is your first MMO though. It will take more time, of course.

you need to know what to do in every fight and you also need to know every boss mechanic including the ones you don't dodge so that when they happen you always have a back up plan. example of this is popping hallowed on titan to give healer time to raise someone "comfortably"

This goes for tanking in general. And I'm afraid that "knowing every boss mechanics including the ones you don't dodge" is the least everyone in your party expect you to do, as it is the least you expect of a healer to keep everyone alive.

[NintenPyjak64]

Summoner is the least fun class to play.

I find summoner much more fun then paladin, monk and dragoon. It's all opinion

[Vortok]

Shield Swipe needs to be more useful (aka, part of the the standard threat rotation) and PLD would feel a bit more engaging since you'd have to watch for it and react, as the window to use it isn't all that long. Might change the preference between Tower/Kite/Buckler, but not like there's a ton of all three of those at every level range to pick and choose from at the moment.

Some people like a class that just works. The fight itself can provide the engagement. Rather than spending most of their time having to focus on class mechanics they can instead focus on the fight (and how it differs from other fights). Good to have options.

There are those that love Summoner for all the micro managing you have to do to play optimally. Others will hate it for the same reason.

[Valhinjin]

This goes for tanking in general. And I'm afraid that "knowing every boss mechanics including the ones you don't dodge" is the least everyone in your party except you to do, as it is the least you expect of a healer to keep everyone alive.

Yes but even the devs stated that melee and tanks deal with a larger brunt of mechanics (hence the buffs to melee), and it's pretty evident and obvious (to me) playing the game. The points above just illustrate the fact that tanking isn't a mash "1,2,3" job like people seem to think. As a matter of fact, whenever I want an "easy" run, with little thinking, I run with my DPS class for this very reason (exception being some of the endgame fights... but in dungeons playing DPS is easier bar none). It's all about the rotation and the occasional "get out of the way" most of the time.

I find that the "fun" in paladin stems from the fun in tanking though. I like tanking, so to me PLD is fun.