Is Paladin the least fun class to play?

[Vortok]

It's the fight mechanics that make the fights interesting or not.

A thousand times this. I don't need a tank (or dps) rotation that requires me to hit 25 different abilities with multi-branching split second decision making. The fight is what provides the complexity, and also the variety.

Look at something popular like Zelda or Pokemon. The actions available to the player are fairly straight forward. Enemy variety plays a huge part in making the game interesting from one encounter to the next.

Now some people really love classes that require you to manage 20+ abilities, so it's great to have them around as well as an option - but the encounters should be providing the meat of the experience.

[TouchandFeel]

To me this is a really tough question to answer.

I wouldn't say that it is the most boring class since, as many others have expressed, I love playing a tank and find the gameplay involved in tanking to be more interesting than playing DPS or Healer. Now if they had more quirky Support or Utility style classes, I might find those really fun but since support has been sort of watered down and lumped into DPS, not so much.

Now comparing the two tanking classes currently available, that is a bit of a different story. On one hand PLD has very simple and basic skillsets that are detached from each other and many of the defensive abilities are detached from the offensive ones. On the other hand with WAR you have more complex ability rotations that have many of the defensive aspects built into the combat/offensive ability rotations. I can see the two different styles of play appealing to different types of players, and in truth I am not entirely certain which one I like more.

I like the PLD more conceptually as I like the whole holy knight and sword+shield schtick so that makes me enjoy them, but as far as gameplay mechanics I think I might like the WAR a little more.

If I were to say what could be done to make PLD more enjoyable to play (not buffed, but tweaked/fixed) I would do the following.
- Fix broken/bugged skills such as Awareness.
- Tweak some of the very underwhelming abilities such as Shield Swipe ( I like idea of removing pacification and changing it with a different buff/debuff), Cover (shorter cooldown and greater range so that we can actually protect people), Tempered Will (This one needs to either be lumped into another skill like Awareness or completely redone as it has very little use).
- Take another pass at the cross class abilities as many of them are not really useful in high level group content, for example tweak Mercy Stroke so that it has a larger buffer for it to proc the heal and maybe make the PLD crossclass Cure healing based off of STR instead of MND so that it isn't so weak.
- Adding another attack ability that combos off of Riot Blade so there are two different 3 ability combos to rotate between, one being the tanking/enmity one and the other being the mp regen+dps/ot one.

Mainly it is tweak/fix broken and underwhelming skills and add in a little more complexity/flexibility and I feel the class would feel and play a lot better.
Many of these things have been stated by others already but that is my 2 cents.

[Duelle]

A thousand times this. I don't need a tank (or dps) rotation that requires me to hit 25 different abilities with multi-branching split second decision making. The fight is what provides the complexity, and also the variety.

Look at something popular like Zelda or Pokemon. The actions available to the player are fairly straight forward. Enemy variety plays a huge part in making the game interesting from one encounter to the next.

Now some people really love classes that require you to manage 20+ abilities, so it's great to have them around as well as an option - but the encounters should be providing the meat of the experience.

This. Simplicity and straight-forwardness are not cardinal sins of game design. They are also not taboo to the point they should never be present in a game. You can feel as awesome as you want pressing 20 buttons and managing 10 buffs on some other class, so long as my straightforward tank gameplay remains unscathed and can still get through content. KISS (keep it simple, stupid) exists for a reason. Sadly, some people do lose sight of this, start demanding complexity due to misguidedly confusing "complex" with the word "fun" and then we get a mess in our hands and a very pissed off Duelle.

[PiedPiper]

This. Simplicity and straight-forwardness are not cardinal sins of game design. They are also not taboo to the point they should never be present in a game. You can feel as awesome as you want pressing 20 buttons and managing 10 buffs on some other class, so long as my straightforward tank gameplay remains unscathed and can still get through content. KISS (keep it simple, stupid) exists for a reason. Sadly, some people do lose sight of this, start demanding complexity due to misguidedly confusing "complex" with the word "fun" and then we get a mess in our hands and a very pissed off Duelle.

Drg only has 9 gcd abilities that are always desirable to use. (All of them contribute to the primary purpose of the class) and yet is possessed of great complexity and depth. In some ways it is very simple (apply debufs and self buff, use big attack if they are up) but it manages great dynamic value owing to how they interact. 9 is really not that many. Plus two more aoe options, 3 jumps, an off gcd stun... the game play is not very complex but it is extremely dynamic. This keeps it engaging. Ultimately, "fun" is how "engaged" you are. Every dps class has 10-15 damage dealing abilities that directly contribute to their primary goal in all / nearly all situations.

Paladin has 7 gcd abilities. 7. Fast, savage, rage. Flash, swipe, lob, riot. 4 of them are extremely situational and contribute nothing / nearly nothing to the classes primary goal (earning agro on a single target).

Paladin isn't just a case of keep it simple, its a case of "a macro keyboard can play as well as I can." To play paladin, you hit 3 buttons and wait to be afraid, when you're afraid you hit one of 4 other buttons that largely do the exact same thing (make you slightly easier to heal for a time either by reducing damage received or increasing healing received, basically the same). Occasionally, you get to hit spirits and cos.

There is nothing dynamic about paladin. It requires no real decisions, nor even for you to pay much attention.

We aren't really asking to make the class complicated. We're asking to make it dynamic. Only when a class is dynamic is there opportunity for excellence. With drg, anyone can hap hazardly fire off combos and be passable. When someone really engages and manages their interactions masterfully, however, they stand head and shoulders above the rest. The same is true of brd and smn. Paladins, however, are only either competent or awful. There are no excellent paladins. There simply isn't enough to the class. There are no decisions to make, no room for finesse. The absolute hardest thing in the game for pld is to track the cool down on death sentence and use your cool downs early to make them rotate well. That's just counting. And it can and should be rendered unnecessary by group coordination on conflag.

More to the point, the OP's suggestion wouldn't make the class any more complex for its primary purpose. You could still sit in shield oath and spam ROH and hold hate forever. What it does add is depth, risk/reward. "I can step out of shield oath and go into holy and be able to heal myself and others, but i'll get hit harder. I can go into sword and do more damage to help pass this dps check but I will get hit harder and earn less enmity etc etc." The class would thus have a reason, or at the very least, the opportunity to do more than spam the same combo. The basic play of shield oath + combo would be as effective as it is now, only in OP's wonderful world, you could actually decide to care and have a chance to do more.

[Duelle]

Ultimately, "fun" is how "engaged" you are.

We'll start off right here. Fun is subjective. Even I recognize that. You're confusing "engaging" with "fun" the same way people confuse "straightforward" with "boring". At the end it is a matter of opinion but let's just say that the mentality you and the OP carry have repeatedly ruined classes I loved throughout the years.

It may be a personality thing. I'm not the adventurous type, and prefer to know exactly what I'm getting into over dealing with unforeseen events; I already get enough of that in real life and certainly don't want more of it when I play a game.

Paladin has 7 gcd abilities. 7. Fast, savage, rage. Flash, swipe, lob, riot. 4 of them are extremely situational and contribute nothing / nearly nothing to the classes primary goal (earning agro on a single target).

Riot Blade's combo in a vacuum may be situational, but it does contribute to the upkeep of your MP bar, which affects your ability to generate and hold aggro, specially in AoE situations. Flash is also inserted into your rotation to help upkeep of TP by allowing it to regen for the equivalent of one combat turn. Everything is relative, which is why I say PLD's design and gameplay is very solid.

Paladin isn't just a case of keep it simple, its a case of "a macro keyboard can play as well as I can."

And now your post is starting to reek of the logic that ruined ret paladins in WoW. I'm sure next you're gonna try to feed me the "you can't tell the good ones from the bad ones" line.

Only when a class is dynamic is there opportunity for excellence. With drg, anyone can hap hazardly fire off combos and be passable. When someone really engages and manages their interactions masterfully, however, they stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Damn, I hate being right.

Pardon the chip on my shoulder, but as I said, I've seen this exact same argument in the past, and the results are never good, nor fun, nor entertaining.

[PiedPiper]

K, lets play this game of individual points argued against, only I'll try to use a little more context.

We'll start off right here. Fun is subjective. Even I recognize that. You're confusing "engaging" with "fun" the same way people confuse "straightforward" with "boring". At the end it is a matter of opinion but let's just say that the mentality you and the OP carry have repeatedly ruined classes I loved throughout the years.

"Some scientists have identified areas of the brain associated with the perception of novelty, which are stimulated when faced with "unusual or surprising circumstances". Information is initially received in the hippocampus, the site of long-term memory, where the brain attempts to match the new information with recognizable patterns stored in long-term memory. When it is unable to do this, the brain releases dopamine, a chemical which stimulates the amygdala, the site of emotion, and creates a pleasurable feeling that is associated with the new memory.[15] In other words, fun is created by stimulating the brain with novelty." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fun I agree its subjective. But, if you are having fun, you are engaged in the experience. No one has fun and at the same time is disinterested / not engaged. That was all I said. When you are having fun is when you are engaged with what you are doing. My contention was simply that for most people, current paladin is so simple it is rarely engaging on its own (see my point about how the mechanics of tanking itself such as marking and positioning often add to the depth and help engagement.)

It may be a personality thing. I'm not the adventurous type, and prefer to know exactly what I'm getting into over dealing with unforeseen events; I already get enough of that in real life and certainly don't want more of it when I play a game.

Cool. I'm not asking for pld to be unpredictable in any way. No proposed change was based on a proc. We are simply requesting an expanded tool set. I enjoy tackling problems and finding the right tool at the right time. That's what keeps me engaged. Our two desires are not incompatible.

Riot Blade's combo in a vacuum may be situational, but it does contribute to the upkeep of your MP bar, which affects your ability to generate and hold aggro, specially in AoE situations.

This is a counter argument to a claim I did not make. I sated that Riot blade does not contribute to the primary mission of the class, which I defined as holding agro on a single target (similarly I said dragoon's primary mission was to dps a single target). Current paladin does not ever, in any encounter, consume mana to hold or build agro on a single target. Yes riot blade is how you hold extended aoe threat, but... that's even worse. Aoe threat for paladin consists of exactly 4 buttons. Spam flash until empty, RB combo -> flash. Keep cos on cd. It is even more simplistic than single target. Note: I will discuss why flash does not contribute to single target threat shortly.

Flash is also inserted into your rotation to help upkeep of TP by allowing it to regen for the equivalent of one combat turn. Everything is relative, which is why I say PLD's design and gameplay is very solid.

Actually, that's what shield swipe is for. Using flash in place of swipe earns less enmity per second for that time as well as lowering your contribution to damage done. Shield swipe's interaction with bulwark as our TP regeneration is, currently, the "deepest" part of rotation game play on pld. Except.. its actually pretty worthless. The only time you will ever run out of tp on any encounter in the game is if your group's dps is low. And then... well they have low dps so they wont catch up on your threat anyway rendering the fact you are out of TP kinda meaningless. All fights against high HP mobs have movments and delays built in during which you will regain TP if your dps is balanced for the fight (ifrit / garu / titan jumps, Turn 2 travel, turn 4 phase changes, turn 5 necklace placement movements & dive bombs -- even demon wall. Perhaps the only exceptions being end of AK and Turn 1, but... those should die before you run out of tp anyways).

This is exactly why so many complain about PLD as being too simplistic. It doesn't have any resource to manage. Our mana is worthless on all major content except turn 4, and even there it naturally regens to the point you don't need to micro manage it. TP depletes so slowly that once your group is decently geared, you'll push phases long before you run out and thus never run out.

And now your post is starting to reek of the logic that ruined ret paladins in WoW. I'm sure next you're gonna try to feed me the "you can't tell the good ones from the bad ones" line.
Damn, I hate being right.

Skipping the condescending flavor of your words, what I actually said directly contradicts your claim. :

Only when a class is dynamic is there opportunity for excellence. With drg, anyone can hap hazardly fire off combos and be passable. When someone really engages and manages their interactions masterfully, however, they stand head and shoulders above the rest. The same is true of brd and smn. Paladins, however, are only either competent or awful. There are no excellent paladins. There simply isn't enough to the class. There are no decisions to make, no room for finesse.

I explicitly say you can tell the good from the bad. My claim is twofold A) Paladin is so simple, its hard to be bad so very few bads exist. (Plenty of bads at tanking mechanics such as marking and positioning exist, but actually bad at the mechanics of pld itself? Pretty rare.) B) You can't tell the good from the great. There is so little room for true excellence on pld, such marginal gains, that there is no room to shine as a being recognizably better than average.

Damn, I hate that you didn't read what I wrote and were wrong.

Pardon the chip on my shoulder, but as I said, I've seen this exact same argument in the past, and the results are never good, nor fun, nor entertaining.

Well, since I demonstrably showed that you A) did not actually comprehend my arguments (can't tell good from greats) and B) aren't in a state of complete mastery over the details of the class (specifically shield swipe vs flash on single target, or the fact that tp is a non-issue), I'm not so sure about this final statement of yours.

Again, we are not asking to make the class artificially complicated. Its current threat earning tools are just fine. We just want depth, other options. Just 2-3 more buttons that let us make a decision and actually use our resources (specifically mana in single target scenarios).

You like the current class and don't want to do anything more with it? Cool. I am not asking for anything to change about how it builds and holds hate. All we want are skills that currently do little - nothing (or actively hurt you such as awareness) to be replaced with options for resource consumption and management.

If you read what PiedPiper said, the class could remain "simple" and "straight-forward" as you like, and you would be just as effective as you are now. Nobody will prevent you from sitting in Shield Oath, spam 1 2 and 3, and be happy with it, granted that you can clear all the content that way.

^ This guy knows. Current war has a dps combo and resistance debuff to play with as their option. We just want an option consisting of 2-4 buttons that uses our flavor (holy magic instead of warriors damage). Not to mention war gets rage to play with. A whole extra resource to manage and use interestingly.

Take out awareness and give us back divine veil, replace tempered will with aegis boon (make it negate knockback), and give us a trait in place of enhanced awarnees that makes cure act like holly succor with meaningful potency and BOOM. We are satisfied and your game play is unchanged if you so wish it.