So what is PLD good at?

[Cabalabob]

Paladin is one of the better designed jobs in the game in my opinion.

Yes it's rotation is boring which will hopefully be fixed with the expansion. Beyond what others have said about flexibility, powerful cooldowns and stun lock, one thing I like about PLD is, it is designed in a way that every stat (except INT) does something for it. Very few jobs in the game right now can claim that. Yes in the end it comes down to the same choices as everyone else if you want to be effective, but the fact everything does something is just a nice touch in my opinion.

PLD can deal damage so STR, det, skill speed and crit serve a purpose
PLD has a shield so DEX serves a purpose
PLD is a tank so VIT and parry serves a purpose
PLD has cure spells so MND, PIE and spell speed serve a purpose

It's just nice to have a job that can use everything for something in a game where it's usually 1 stat only > acc to cap > as much crit/det as you can get

[lvlagmarink]

If i have to choose, i love to use warrior more than paladin.. However in certain fights, paladin is easier and more flexible to use rather than warrior.. As titan extreme in example, cooldown management on paladin is easier to handle compared to warrior due to mountain buster attack.. Also tempered will can save myself if i know i will get hit by landslide..

[karateorangutang]

In the end PLD is a toolbox of defensive and self support skills. A PLD can make a large error and recover from it.

I love playing both jobs but I find myself leaning on PLD for stuff that im newer too and I take WAR in when I understand the mechanics. My healers tend to prefer me on PLD for whatever reason but asside from that I usually make use of both of the classes.

[SirTaint]

PLD is all about planning. Your CD are strong but have long timers. You can't just go mashing CDs in a Coil lvl fight. Mapping out and mastering my CD rotation is one of my favorite things in this game.

PLD also has down time, use this time to lead the raid. Be the DB marker, call out thunder etc.

Lastly DPSing on PLD during progression or savage tier raids is extremely hard to master. Stance dancing takes up a GCD (and MP) and if the fight requires Shield oath then you need to know how and when to jump in and out of your stance.

I'm OTing Savage T8 right now (24% is our best after 3hrs) on PLD and there is nothing easy or boring about that fight as a PLD. DPS is critical but the Dreads hit like Bahamut. So its a constant stance dance that must be planned since there is also snap agro to worry about.

Most people bitching about PLD are probably overgeared/using echo. PLDs time to shine is when content is hard, new and challenging.

[Omskahn]

Paladin is one of the better designed jobs in the game in my opinion.

I can't really agree with at statement because I feel that ways in which Paladins are great tanks seem like band-aid solutions to make the class survivable.

the class is an effective tank no doubt. The abilities themselves are just so uninspiring creatively. The vast majority of them just boost passive defensive stats, so that all you do is pop them when you'd like your hp bar to go wn slower.

I mean rampart and sentinel are basically the same skill. Convalescence and rampart together make defiance that warriors have as one ability. CoS is really just flash as a DoT.

On top of all this, warriors have access to some of the better gladiators skills ( flash, convalescence, provoke) to boost them even higher. While Paladins have only maybe useful 2 useful ones from BOTH their cross classes. Why does warrior have flash and OP while glad has just flash?

[Syfer22]

I can agree that PLD is boring. It was the reason I quit the game a while back, was because I made my first class PLD and pretty much snoozed until I couldn't take it anymore and quit.

However, now that I came back and leveled my DRG to 50, I realized I needed to get my tanking senses right if I wanted to go DRK later -- And PLD gets some of the best looking stuff in the game, so there was that.

I feel like PLD comes together a lot more at 50. It's boring on the climb up, but once I hit 50 it wasn't so bad and I've been moderately enjoying playing it.

Of course, I leveled him up on FATE grinding so I needed a class to carry me in tanking when I had no idea what to do. I probably wouldn't have fared so well if I was playing WAR.

As far as what they're good at? It's been said several times, but they're good at being the rock. Typically MMOs tend to have at least 2 tank types -- An HP/DPS based tank and a much more defense-based tank. PLD is the latter, and typically those types of tanks are called on to be main tank more often than not.

[Lyzern]

Never played PLD 50 but according to some end-game tank friends of mine, it's also the better off-tank, since Sword of Oats gives a higher DPS edge than Warrior.

Warrior on the other hand seems like the better choice for Main Tanking

I know it's slightly controversial, but as a healer, it's how it feels, it's a nice sort of balance.

[Zaft]

Never played PLD 50 but according to some end-game tank friends of mine, it's also the better off-tank, since Sword of Oats gives a higher DPS edge than Warrior.

Warrior on the other hand seems like the better choice for Main Tanking

I know it's slightly controversial, but as a healer, it's how it feels, it's a nice sort of balance.

Honestly the best choice is to simply not use Shield Oath or Defiance. They aren't really needed at this item level anyway, with few exceptions.

[SirTaint]

Honestly the best choice is to simply not use Shield Oath or Defiance. They aren't really needed at this item level anyway, with few exceptions.

Careful what you say in this forum! The parry and VIT police will come find you.

[Edellis]

I am asking seriously.

We have threads here saying they are (1) boring (2) can't even hold aggro (3) I made a thread where like most of the skills are insanely-long-cooldown buffs that last only a few seconds.

So why should a person play PLD? It sounds more and more like the summoner of tanks if anything else.


Note: I am trying to play tanking classes so I (1) get experience tanking for DRK (2) cross class skills for DRK.

As the OP of the "PLD is super boring" thread, I made sure to stress that I have no problems with the performance of the class. They're a mitigation tank class, so they stay alive by reducing incoming damage instead of just surviving with large HP pools. Abilities like Sentinel and Hallowed are extremely powerful. Learning when you need your cooldowns and when you can get away with something less expensive is just part of becoming a good paladin, similar to DPS and their cooldowns.

Honestly, I feel like PLD is the better tank. My issue with them is that they're very straightforward mechanic wise, but that straightforwardness is actually one of their greatest assets, as it makes dealing with mechanics extremely easy. It's hard to really screw something up so bad that you can't recover from it on Paladin.

Also, they make excellent offtanks. With Cover you can actually eat attacks from the MT if they're in trouble, and they can also cast Stoneskin, which can take a ton of pressure off your WHM since it has a decent cast time, and PLD can easily recover MP with Riot Blade. Their stun move has a long duration and is actually on the GCD, which can be an asset in mechanics and abusable in dungeon runs. In solos and farming, you can also cast Cure/protect on yourself. And if you really want to, you can be an upstanding role model good guy PLD, and Raise newbies on the field.


And this is a personal observation...but as a healer, i tend to have alot more issues keeping Warriors alive than Paladins. Warriors tend to waver between "IMMORTAL" and "tissue paper" during aoe pulls it seems, but it's a bit more rare to wipe off a paladin pull in my experience on DPS and Heals.