[Opener/Tips/Advices] How to play PLD

[Sapphidia]

The Paladin opener can vary a lot. It's based on whether you intend to tank the boss in Sword Oath for a lot of time, whether you have a Ninja in your party, and how well geared you are compared to the rest of the team (ie, are you struggling for threat vs super well geared dps or are you in no issue of ever losing it).

Paladins have three combos. Rage of Halone combo does the most threat of course, but the highest DPS is a rotation of Goring Blade -> Royal Authority -> Royal Authority. It's the judgement of the paladin as to how many Rage of Halones they use.

Your off-gcd moves are Fight or Flight, Spirits Within, Circle of Scorn and Shield Swipe. In general you want to use these on cooldown. You can fit TWO circles of scorn (25s cd) in the duration of one Fight or Flight (lasts 30s), but only one Spirits Within. You also want to pop your Fight or Flight just before the third move in your first or second combo rather than before a fast blade, as this ensures you get the highest number of "strong" moves buffed by it.

I wouldnt recommend learning a fixed rotation for pulls, as they vary so much depending on encounter. Even having a Shield Swipe proc happening early on in a fight can change your opener a fair bit. You just need to be flexible.

As long as you try to ensure that you a.) using Goring blade once every 3 combos to keep it up, b.) pop Fight or Flight after a savage/riot and c.) pop Circle of Scorn shortly after each FoF so you can get two of them buffed by a single Fight or Flight, you'll be golden. Open with a Shield Lob, use a Spirits Within early and then use it on cooldown, pop Shield Swipe every time it's up, use Sheltron on cooldown to force more Shield Swipe procs -unless- you need to save Sheltron for specific predictable big physical hits.

After that it's just personal decision as to how many Royal Authority combos you substitute for Rage of Halone combos for more threat or to keep the debuff up. Just monitor threat levels and if doing Goring/Royal/Royal isnt looking like it's enough to keep you ahead on threat then swap a few Royals for Halones.

Oh, and once you're 60 never -EVER- use Fracture. Ever. Don't even put it on your bars.