Paladin. I dont feel I'm actually playing a Paladin.

[VCassara]

I could start this discussion by mentioning the job quests, and stating how far away from a Paladin it is, but for the sake of spoilers and my hate towards it, let's ignore the lore part of the paladin job and discuss the gameplay instead.

I'm playing my PLD less and less lately, specially after they fixed DRK, for the reason that it is not fun to play.

When raiding with my PLD, I have a lot of concerns because the job can do too much. I can mitigate every tank buster by 25% on the main tank. I can do 2/3 of the DPS of a DPS job, I can compensate the healers job when they aren't that good (I'm not talking exclusively about clemency by the way). For all that, we only have to pay the price of having too much buttons to push... So, the job is amazing, isn't it? I can't deny that. In my opinion, PLD is actually overpowered.

As you can see, my complaints aren't going to be about qualifying how bad/good PLD is, my complaints are exclusively about the SE vision towards PLD and how I do not agree with it.

So let's enumerate some problems.

1) Action set.
Too many GLD actions while having only 4 actions that fits the PLD job, being Requiescat, Holy Spirit, Circle of Scorn and Spirits Within. This needs to be changed, we need more damage dealing PLD actions. You could, for example, give a trait to PLD that changes a few GLD actions to a magic based action, fitting the PLD job.

2) Gauges
Can you explain the reason behind Shield Oath? You made content based on how much DPS each job in the party can do, making players completly ignore damage vs survivability tradeoffs. Hardcore players don't even use it to build enmty.
In Sword Oath, why is there no use of the gauge to actually do damage? Intervention and Sheltron does not fit the Sword Oath description. I don't want to go in depth here but Intervention is a whole mess by the way.
Basically, you made two stances that changes little or nothing on how you play with the job. This needs to be fixed.

We could also include a GRIT discussion here, but please avoid that, we are talking about the PALADIN job.

3) Flash
It looks bad, sounds bad, makes no sense since it attracts enemies by blinding them? Uhm... if you blind your foes they will actually ignore you, run away... This action is bad, makes no sense and even as a GLD it should be different. Why not a "Shield Roar" or something like that?

4) Holy Spirit
You know, it is actually nice to have Holy Spirit because it is the only skill that comes with the HOLY thing. But when you think about it, you were a gladiator, you aren't used to cast ranged actions, then suddenly your best damage dealing action becames a ranged magic damage crystal? In my opinion, PLD players enjoy holy spirit not because it is fun or fit the job, but because it is the only action that represents the holy part of the PLD job.
We need more SWORD actions based on magic damage. Holy Blade, Holy cross... I don't understand why we see no holy actions on PLD.

I wrote so many job action changes but I don't think I should post it here. The focus of this post is about how PLD is not fun to play and it isn't really a PLD. I never spoke about this with anyone so I don't know what the community thinks, but I can say for sure that I can't endure anymore the lack of PLD actions on the PLD job.

*Sorry for my bad english.

[Cabalabob]

Gotta ask what series definition of a PLD you’re basing this on?

PLD in ff has always been a heavy armour job with a sword and a shield with limited access to white magic. The closest things to holy attacks it’s ever had are the banish/holy lines of spells in most games which is represented here by Holy Spirit. It’s rarely had any synergy between weapon and holy magic other than things like saints cross in ff tactics or enlight in ffxi.

[VCassara]

I'm honestly not aware of any "Paladin design" in the FF series. It would be easier if we had such thing, not only for PLD, but many other jobs as well.

The problem here is exactly the representation of what the paladin should do as a holy knight. You are playing a Paladin with only one holy action, and it is a ranged magic spell at that. What's the point here? You are a Sword and Shield job and when you are not applying a single DoT over and over again, you are shooting white crystals... It is so simple and makes no sense.

All jobs have generic actions. They also have several mechanics that creates a sinergy between the generic action and the job. The PLD doesn't.

[Tanathya]

As if they were true to the jobs' roots.

[Lyth]

Themes
I think there are a couple of ways of looking at it. Cecil from FF4, as the archtypical PLD, is predominantly a physical attacker with some minor white magic for utility. This might be partially a localisation issue (the JP version is Knight). That being said, most of his basic attacks do carry a magical 'feel' to them, as the weapons that he wields apply 'holy' styled animation effects.

There definitely are more holy-based sword attacks out there, however. Shock, used by General Leo (FF6)/Beatrix (FF9) is a bit of an obscure example, but it's a good one. FFT's Agrias likewise plays a bit closer to what NA/EU players might expect from a holy knight, by channelling holy spells through her sword. I feel that Stormblood's introduction of Requiescat and Holy Spirit represents a move to better represent the latter style in PLD's gameplay.

Gauges
While I can understand the desire for a more utilised gauge, adding dps options to the Oath gauge will devalue Sheltron. This is already a bit of a problem with Intervention, in that it's dps neutral, while Sheltron is a dps gain. Any additions to the gauge system will need to provide a certain amount of equivalency with Sheltron.

I do think that they should make the resource gain consistent across both stances, though.

Abilities
I think Flash is a carry-over from FFXI. I think most people dislike the no dps element of it. One possibility could be to implement Shock as an upgrade to Flash in an expansion, and turn it into an AoE threat move which also deals holy damage.

As far as Holy Spirit is concerned, I think it creates a nice bit of aesthetic variation by being a spell. On a related note, one thing that I'd like to see on either PLD or WHM is the white magic spell Float. I'd like to see it implemented as a spell that removes movement restrictions while casting. It might be nice to activate Float, create a pair of wings, and then zip around the battlefield while throwing out Holy Spirits without cast interruption.

Either way, I do think that PLD needs some sort of movement skill or gap closer. If they do this, they could probably move Tempered Will into the role action category, as most roles have at least one action that fits this category on a significantly lower recast.

[SiriusSaltstice]

They can also change Shield Bash( the GCD stun) into a gap closer since it's useless in recent content.

[Lambdafish]

They can also change Shield Bash( the GCD stun) into a gap closer since it's useless in recent content.

Especially considering we have a role action as a stun. Shield bash will forever be the best stun in the game, but content is built around using the role actions for stun and silence

[IronP]

I do think that they should make the resource gain consistent across both stances, though.

This is pretty important, I think. It charges up insanely fast for Sword Oath, but it's slow on Shield Oath. I know it's that way to encourage spamming Holy Spirit to charge up your gauge but it can be annoying and leave you vulnerable while recharging your MP with Riot Blade. Most of the time it's not a problem since you can cover the gap with other cooldowns, but it would be nice to have a way to charge your shield gauge that's not directly tied to spamming one single move.

[Cabalabob]

This is pretty important, I think. It charges up insanely fast for Sword Oath, but it's slow on Shield Oath. I know it's that way to encourage spamming Holy Spirit to charge up your gauge but it can be annoying and leave you vulnerable while recharging your MP with Riot Blade. Most of the time it's not a problem since you can cover the gap with other cooldowns, but it would be nice to have a way to charge your shield gauge that's not directly tied to spamming one single move.

I do agree that it’s kind of a pain to build gauge in shield oath with Holy Spirit, most of the time if you’re in shield oath it’s because something has gone horribly wrong and you’re gonna want to be using clemency. It’s noticeably bad at lower levels before you actually get Holy Spirit and your only tool to gain gauge is bulwark. It really should be more consistent, even if they just added the same effect to clemency as Holy Spirit or even added minor gauge generation to flash, it would go a long way to helping.

That said, I do like the dynamic of sword oath rewarding you with more gauge, promoting PLD to play aggressively while covering themselves defensively with the extra gauge generation. WAR and DRK get more offensive power outside of tank stance but they lose a portion of their defensive/self-healing kit, PLD on the other hand gains very little extra offense but they lose practically no defensive capability from being in that stance.

[Duskane]

i do hope with next expansion flash gets a trait to become a aoe spell similar to Holy spirit and work with requiscat of course so paladin isnt boring with packs of adds

and i agree that shield bash should become a gap closer but the stun effect should be there just put it on 30 cd (just remove low blow as role skill and give it back to Drk and brutal swing back to war)

Intervention should last a little longer on the target and it procs shield swipe if hit