Is it pointless to lvl Paladin?

[CookieMonsta]

It all comes down to skill. True skill comes from thoroughly enjoying a class, I would take a well played and motivated PLD player over a so-so WAR any day.
Also, don't stress too much over PLD DPS, its surprisingly competitive when played from an OT position.

[Riki_Namu]

Everyone is talking about Damage output.

The big elephant in the room is PLD hate is very low compared to the other two.

Leveling a PLD is literally a struggle of flash spam and rotating enemies as you desperately try to build enough hate to keep them on you.

I like PLD, but the fact that its lower dps as MT and OT coupled with its threat issues is a deal breaker. Mitigating damage is only a piece of the pie.

[Februs]

Everyone is talking about Damage output. The big elephant in the room is PLD hate is very low compared to the other two. Leveling a PLD is literally a struggle of flash spam and rotating enemies as you desperately try to build enough hate to keep them on you.

This is a common misconception on Pld. Firstly, their OT Dps is not actually all that much lower from Drks (it is, but only by a tiny amount that should not really effect Dps checks). Secondly, In mob pulls you do have to rotate targets, certainly, but you absolutely should not be spamming Flash.

Any Pld using more Flash spams than a Drk using Unleash or even a War's Overpower is not rotating their Hate combo efficiently enough. The reason for this is because of Shield Swipe. Unlike Drk and War (who both only have 5 moves that grant "additional enmity"), Pld has 6 moves which grant additional enmity at the expense of the oGCD's that Drk and War take advantage of. A proper Pld rotation sees 2 Flashes on average. As long as every single enmity granting move is landing on new targets (prioritizing the ones that are taking the most dmg from the Dps) you should never have a need to spam additional Flashes. After your initial combo, Shield Swipe essentially becomes a +1 button for peripheral targets that might be getting hate from AoE Dps. You definitely have to pay more attention than War's and Drks, but spams are not necessary.

Now, for single target enmity it's a whole other beast. Pld's are pretty well locked into their RoH combo to hold hate, and even that is sometimes not enough (requiring 2 RoH combos) if you have a Dps in your group that actually know what they're doing.

[whiskeybravo]

This is a common misconception on Pld. Firstly, their OT Dps is not actually all that much lower from Drks (it is, but only by a tiny amount that should not really effect Dps checks). Secondly, In mob pulls you do have to rotate targets, certainly, but you absolutely should not be spamming Flash.

Prior to shield oath you do have to spam flash quite a bit. I got Qarn NM last night in leveling roulette and I could barely keep hate even off the scholar. I think that's what he was referring to, perhaps.

[Riki_Namu]

Prior to shield oath you do have to spam flash quite a bit. I got Qarn NM last night in leveling roulette and I could barely keep hate even off the scholar. I think that's what he was referring to, perhaps.

Pretty much, everything before oath is a straight up struggle 3 flashes min against any sort of decent dps.... on my DRK one unleash and I have hate all day long even when not in tank stance. I can rip threat off a PLD without provoke also in full sized partys with a standard rotation, both in tank stance. So ya, theres that. My main reason for not leveling one.

[Februs]

Prior to shield oath you do have to spam flash quite a bit. I got Qarn NM last night in leveling roulette and I could barely keep hate even off the scholar. I think that's what he was referring to, perhaps.

Oh ... well then yes. If we're talking pre-ShO then you'd be spamming flash like it's going out of style, but Post-ShO is a different story. Once you get your Pld to 50 there is no excuse for a Flash spam... except maybe Speed runs in which AoE dmg is far exceeding your skill speed (thereby exceeding your ability to split enmity).

I can rip threat off a PLD without provoke also in full sized partys with a standard rotation, both in tank stance. So ya, theres that. My main reason for not leveling one.

I still find this a little odd though.

At lvl 50, with ShO it should be pretty damn hard to take threat from a Pld without voke. Before 3.0 came out I could actually steal threat from War MT's while in SwO, and it wasn't just me. It was a common problem caused by the fact that Pld's only rotation was an enmity rotation. Added attack potency from dropping ShO caused all kinds of problems in Raids and Full party situations. It's one of the theories for why SE has yet to adjust Pld's threat multiplier on their RoH combo. Post-50 they need the extra threat and it would level the playing field against Drks and Wars, but Pre-50, it would make their threat overpowered compared to other Tanks, because the only combo they have to rotate before lvl 50 is RoH, which generates threat. I imagine this little problem gets thrown around meeting tables at SE HQ whenever they discuss fixing the Pld job (if they ever discuss it, that is).

[Jim_Berry]

*SNIP*

Any Pld using more Flash spams than a Drk using Unleash or even a War's Overpower is not rotating their Hate combo efficiently enough.

*SNIP*

What about, if, say, all your DPS is soloing their own mob, burning every CD, while being better-geared? Flash, my man, has helped me control that situation many times.

[fm_fenrir]

What about, if, say, all your DPS is soloing their own mob, burning every CD, while being better-geared? Flash, my man, has helped me control that situation many times.

Flash does a fraction of the threat management Halone or Circle of Scorn does, though. It's fine for suppressing a mob long enough to put Halone on it, but it absolutely won't hold off a SMN who's burning every CD on his bar during a trash pull. I only use Flash to hold stuff that isn't being actively focused, which suppresses healer and Shadow Flare threat, but if someone decides to actively target one of those mobs, Flash just isn't enough.

[AI_wass]

Flash does a fraction of the threat management...Circle of Scorn does

But that's dead wrong. Circle of Scorn is 300 potency enmity with another 150 potency over the next 15 seconds. Flash is straight-up 500 potency enmity.

[Februs]

What about, if, say, all your DPS is soloing their own mob, burning every CD, while being better-geared? Flash, my man, has helped me control that situation many times.

Any other horrible circumstances you want to throw in there? lol. There's still room for the healer to be over healing everyone in the party with medica II and cure III spams lol.

Jokes aside, in the case that literally everything that could be going wrong is going wrong, then yes, burning an additional Flash or two can keep control in an otherwise unruly situation. I'm not saying Flash is not useful or shouldn't be exploited. Obviously if the situation calls for it then you should use it, but Flash spams (a tired tradition in Pld mob tanking) is not the optimal way of Pld tanking in a mob pull... and honestly, in this kind of situation even a War or Drk might want to pop off an extra AoE to be on the safe side, so really it's not all that Pld specific of a problem.

I've had pulls exactly like this, and I still don't spam Flash to keep enmity. The only thing that might actually force an extra Flash or two is if the Dps out-gear you by a substantial amount, or if the pull is very large. If the number of mobs you are tanking exceed your ability to split enmity fast enough to hold aggro, then an extra Flash is definitely necessary (especially if you have an AoE spamming caster), but that still only means one additional Flash per maybe every two additional mobs over the Mob size by which a Pld can effectively split enmity on (which is roughly 5 for a Pld using a full enmity rotation, assuming each enmity granting move hits a new target).

This is a lot harder to do now that they have eliminated the Shield Swipe exploit by taking it off the GCD (adding a tiny bit to Boss Dps at the expense of Mob enmity and Mob Dps), but it's definitely doable. It just requires a lot more attention that Drk's and War's. You have to be conscious of how many (1)targets you have, (2)how many you can actually hit with an enmity strike in a single rotation, (3)how many peripheral targets will be missed thereby requiring CoS/Flash, (4)which targets require preferential treatment due to Dps actions, and then (5)making a judgment on whether or not you have enough enmity to start rotating GB instead of RoH. Tanking like this is means increasing your output, but constantly living at the edge of your own enmity. By comparison, rotating regular Flashes is a lot easier, but you wouldn't be optimizing your role by over-relying on it.