Fix paladin. Only Class in the entire game that cannot...

[Daniolaut]

My original suggestion was just one simple adjustment that i would be fine with... but..

The rest of the community seems to be able to agree that something is wrong with paladin, but cannot agree on how to approach it. This is where the development team would come into play..

We are still awaiting an official response from Square-Enix.

The general consensus of the players base is, to my understanding, thus:



Paladin needs to be reworked almost entirely.

Paladin is too strong defensively. ...\
.....................................................> Needs to be rebalanced with the other jobs.
Paladin is too weak offensively. ..../

Paladin is too situational.

Paladin is too easy/boring.



The original post

Paladin is the only job in the entire game that cannot use Area of Effect attacks or heals, as a weapon skill (global cooldown.)




Black mage received a change because of turn 9, due to its supposed high demand of movement, and the jobs ability to do damage based upon that demand..

Paladin should get a change because flash does absolutely 0 damage and its paladins sole, singular, area of effect enmity generation. There is a broad demand to do damage in this game, and Paladins should get a change based on that demand as well. There is circle of scorn, but thats like saying black mage has scathe, and scathe should be its main source of damage in turn 9. Which is absurd. Dont go there.

Sorry, I like to forget most of the players and developers are from World of Warcraft, not Final Fantasy. Yoshida even told the development team to play World of Warcraft for inspiration. Calling it the Active Time Battle is not accepted. Same for Medica being called Medica instead of Curaga. I'm just a traditional Final Fantasy fan, and "waiting to do an action" in Final Fantasy is called "Active Time Battle" which in this game its called weaponskills. (Read "delay" on the menu.)

In 1.0 Paladin had War Drum. It was an area of effect attack.

In 2.0 and even 3.0 paladin still lacks an area of effect attack as a weaponskill. (Global cooldown.)



Simple fix.

Remove Circle of Scorn and give War Drum.

Change flash into a real spell.

PLD level 8
***War Drum***
Spell:
Delivers an attack with your shield at a potency of 90 (or 100) to all nearby enemies.
Additional Effect: Increased Enmity
Cast: instant
Recast: (weaponskill time)
MP: (707 at level 60)
Range 0y
Radius 5y

PLD level 50
***Flash***
Spell:
Delivers blinding light damage with a potency of 100 to all nearby enemies
Additional effect: Increased enmity
Additional effect: Damage over time Potency 30 Duration: 15s
Additional effect: Blind Duration 12s
Cast: Instant
Recast 25.00s
Range 0y
Radius 5y


Effectively switching the effects of Circle of Scorn and Flash, but changing Circle of Scorn to War Drum.



Flash would deal the damage that circle of scorn used to do, and put it on the same timer as circle of scorn. (Anyone worried that paladin would then deal too much damage for area of effect in relation to warrior or dark knight, the simple solution would be that war drum does only 90 potency or something along those lines.)

This not only fixes the uselessness of flash (besides only just generating threat and *sometimes* blinding enemies) but also gives paladin its much needed area of effect attack.


Thank you.

I can agree that Paladin is in a strange spot right now.

I think a simple fix of putting Flash out of GCD with a 2.5s cooldown might be enough.
Honestly, Gladiator is a failure right now, tanking with it before Lv.40 is the most frustrating challenge in the entire game.

Yeah I wouldn't mind PLD having 1 AOE.

To be honest though, PLD was lackluster in its creation in the first place.

And yeah, Flash needs to do damage, or be a different ability that does. This isn't the first thread about it.

Paladins need some minor adjustments (Shield Oath at 30 being the primary one) .

After all, they got catch up abilities this expansion, I think its safe to say that while pld is good phys mitigation tank, its also the one that seems to have failed a grade and is catching up with the rest of its classmates a year behind, literally. Unless they rework the job skills, I believe itll just keep being slightly behind the other two.

I've said this before, but:

I wanna see Clemency doing more for Paladins.
I do agree that flash could use some love similar to Miasma II, but with much higher initial potency.

I am not happy with the state of Pld and I don't think I ever will.

I've posted this before on threads about pld aoe and I'll bring it up again here. I'd rather see Pld given a new damage dealing attack with a decent potency that's on the GCD and utilizes one of the resources that Pld never really touches, that resource being it's MP.

As far as WHAT to give Pld to improve it's damage, I say look no further than the Holy Sword magic from Final Fantasy Tactics, http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/H...cs)#Holy_Sword

PLD would benefit from a GCD AoE move in its kit.

PLD does need adjustments to its TP management, and I would love to see the job get a TP management skill, especially for longer fights.

An alternative approach could be to give PLD a TP restoration ability which costs MP. Then you could try to create a balancing act between offensive physical attacks which cost TP, against support-based and defensive abilities which cost MP. (i.e. Decision-making along similar lines to "Do I Energy Drain with this Aetherflow stack, or do I use it on a Lustrate or Sacred Soil?")

If you want an AoE move which does dps and costs MP, you have to first solve the underlying problem of making MP meaningful on PLD. That way, you make the job into a fun and engaging gameplay experience.

[/QUOTE]

I would like to use Raise (conjurer cross skill) during battle, too.

Paladins have been lacking in the identity department since the beginning. Right now, it is the most mechanically simple job in the game, and while that does make it "approachable," it also makes it kinda boring. The worst part about this, too, is that because there is no defined identity, everyone has a different idea of what a paladin should be, which means the user base has no concensus as to how to fix it.

I really can't understand why Flash haven't been given a potency on its trait to today. Like 30~50 wouldn't be bad and would help PLDs to actually do some AoE damage instead of rely on multiple Goring Blade and Scorn.

paladins should be able to battle raise like whm, but I would also be okay with flash getting something like 180 potency.

also make clemency instant cast

PLD level 8
***War Drum*** (or Circle of Scorn)
Spell:
Delivers an attack with your shield at a potency of 90 (or 100) to all nearby enemies.
Additional Effect: Increased Enmity
Cast: instant
Recast: (weaponskill time)
MP: (707 at level 60)
Range 0y
Radius 5y

PLD level 50
***Flash***
Spell:
Delivers blinding light damage with a potency of 100 to all nearby enemies
Additional effect: Increased enmity
Additional effect: Damage over time Potency 30 Duration: 15s
Additional effect: Blind Duration 12s
Cast: Instant
Recast 25.00s
Range 0y
Radius 5y


Effectively switching the effects of Circle of Scorn and Flash, but changing Circle of Scorn to War Drum.

I'd be happy with just swapping Circle of Scorn and Flash. PLD doesn't need much, it just needs something to do during giant pulls other than tab GB around and cry.

Flash
OGCD, 15s CD, Ability (no cost). Use to generate snap Enmity (like COS currently) and apply Blind (which then doesn't have to DR'd to oblivion just to lock down Enmity when geared DPS are unloading their AOE cycles).

Circle of Scorn
GCD, no CD, costs MP. Becomes PLD's equivalent of DRK Unleash.

As for paladins problems. I think a lot of them stem from the fact that it is a highly defensive focussed class is a very offensive orientated game..
and in 99% of content the defensive toolkit a paladin has is worthless. divine viel wont save you from a failed dps check for example. and if you pass the dps check you take take no damage at all so divine viel doesn't make a difference.

Or just make circle of scorn an enmity generator and put it on the gcd. I agree make flash something cool and pld exclusive. Only thing is warrior might miss flash

They could simply bring back Shield Swipe on GCD and make it a conal AoE like War Drum was in 1.x. (With the proper potency)

I'm not saying this is a good change but for example, if they added a 10% resistance down (probably way too high) that didn't stack with other effects like Storm's Eye, Disembowel, Dragon Kick, Trick Attack, or Foes then they'd buff the overall AoE DPS of a PLD party considerably.

Turn Flash into a staple skill that is usable in every situation.

Though I would admit that PLD getting an AOE at level 62 or whenever comes about 52 levels too late,