The Problem with Paladin

[Alise]

Well, there is more problem to Paladin than what u mentioned here in the OP, you should just add it that WAR is better thank than PLD now, sadly.

[Phobos]

Well, there is more problem to Paladin than what u mentioned here in the OP, you should just add it that WAR is better thank than PLD now, sadly.

I agree - I tried to outline what I could based on what I came up with as the problem with PLD, and I think as the thread developed we got a better idea of everything that was going on here. WAR is definitely the best tank hands down right now and that is an issue for both GLA and PLD. That being said, it is also the case that GLA is better than PLD because of a few things all adding up (which while I would commend anyone who reads all 16 pages of the thread, I'll try to sum up here real quick):

1. One of my main points, PLD relies heavily on MP to stay alive, yet has no way to recover it on it's own. GLA on the other hand can recover MP, and has better and less specific abilities to keep it alive (such as evasion boosts and instant cures, rather than just cure spells). I simply made some suggestions as to how PLD could have some MP recovery without it being too ridiculous. Outmaneuver is already meant to offer this, but in practice does not.

2. One of the primary rebuttals of my argument was that PLD just needs a BRD to give them Ballad, or a THM to give them Sanguine Rite. While this definitely addresses the lack of MP recovery to PLD on it's own, it ignores the fact that both of these methods also work on GLA, allowing for GLA to do more with it's MP. Another common response to this was that this would likely prove risky for a BRD or THM to do in a fight where it would be critical, as they could run in at the wrong time and get hit with some massive AOE that a tank can survive but they cannot.

3. Another point some people started to bring up was that PLD can gain enmity better than GLA. In my opinion, this is not the case. All raw enmity abilities are accessible to both PLD and GLA, and I have yet to see issues with enmity that would require a heavy duty cure to get hate back. Others echoed this. For me personally, this argument is even less valid as I typically run with a WHM that ends up getting cures off faster than me in most cases, or at around the same time. The best use for curing spells I have is when he needs to do something other than cure me, and tells me to keep myself alive.

4. The chatter about abilities aside (about which both sides seem to disagree, and I haven't seen many people swayed in the other direction), the next thing we come to is the loss of HP with a promised defense boost. Unfortunately, and this is one primary reason why WAR beats PLD at tanking right now, PLD's loss of HP results in an unnoticeable gain in defense. This means that where PLD was intended to have this supreme defensive ability at a sacrifice of its HP, which would have worked. If this were the case, PLD's loss of self-sustainability moves would not be as severe, as the idea would be that you're taking less damage overall so putting less strain on your healer(s).

5. As I touched on in my OP, I also feel as though block rate for PLD (and GLA to a degree) is just way too poor. There was a suggestion that the dLvl penalty on block rates is likely too harsh, which is probably the culprit here. My point is this - compare a GLA/PLD to a MRD/WAR, the difference is one uses a one handed weapon and a shield, while the other uses a two handed weapon. This would suggest that GLA/PLD are spending half of their focus on their shield, while in-fact we barely block at all. This coupled with the fact that MRD/WAR can parry as a replacement for blocking, makes shield's just seem rather silly right now. As an extension to this, Outmaneuver is also useless as it does not seem to do much in terms of increasing block rate, and the MP return is rather insignificant when compared to MP costs at level 50.

[LicontAshontear]

one thing that I think should be done is reduce the casting time of holy succor. as it stands right now i just tank with my face and dont cure cause i get interupted constantly. holy succor should cast faster so less chance of interupt.

my 2 cents to help improve pld

[Madruk]

Gladiator will pretty much be put on the wayside once darklight becomes more common. The complaint of PLD vs. WAR still stands though. The PLD's new abilities pale in comparison to the damage, survivability, and enmity of the WAR's.

[Digirotta]

A block rate materia would be pretty sweet. Or WAY better magic resistance. For starters.

Surely WAR is pretty efficient tanking multiple mobs at time, due to his AoE's and enm+ skills, and i really love it, but at least PLD's should excell in boss fights, tanking single targets. They wield shields, for crying out loud, let us use them!

What has been said before, that this issue is being looked upon, please DO NOT start gimping WAR again. That's really not the way to go. Instead, make the GLA/PLD a better meat shield -.-'

[AlphaDragoon]

A block rate materia would be pretty sweet. Or WAY better magic resistance. For starters.

Surely WAR is pretty efficient tanking multiple mobs at time, due to his AoE's and enm+ skills, and i really love it, but at least PLD's should excell in boss fights, tanking single targets. They wield shields, for crying out loud, let us use them!

What has been said before, that this issue is being looked upon, please DO NOT start gimping WAR again. That's really not the way to go. Instead, make the GLA/PLD a better meat shield -.-'

I agree. Buffing Paladin is the way to go, not nerfing Warrior.

I think if they boosted defense to a significant amount for the loss in HP, made blocks happen way more often and gave Paladins a way to recover their MP, then they'd be fine.

[HoolieWho]

1. One of my main points, PLD relies heavily on MP to stay alive, yet has no way to recover it on it's own. GLA on the other hand can recover MP, and has better and less specific abilities to keep it alive (such as evasion boosts and instant cures, rather than just cure spells). I simply made some suggestions as to how PLD could have some MP recovery without it being too ridiculous. Outmaneuver is already meant to offer this, but in practice does not.

Do you really rely heavily on your MP to stay alive as PLD? I don't. I rely on a WHM's MP to stay alive. Bolded exaggerations like this don't do anything to help your case in this thread.

[LicontAshontear]

Do you really rely heavily on your MP to stay alive as PLD? I don't. I rely on a WHM's MP to stay alive. Bolded exaggerations like this don't do anything to help your case in this thread.

^ what he said. If you are RELYING on your own heals to stay alive, your healer sucks.

I just got done doing Cutters Cry as war with 4k hp, compared to pld with 3.2k, virutually same amount of damage taken, but had AoEs to help with Adds, etc etc.

What truly needs to happen to PLD is this:

1: PLD gets either major increase to block rate or they get the BLOCK ability back (remember how good that was?)
2: PLD needs to get like a +150 defense boost to make any sort of realistic difference in damage mitigation.
3: PLD needs to have more or same HP as a war (srsly wtf is SE thinking having a tank have less HP than a friggin DD, monkeys work for SE i swear)
4: PLD needs reduced cast time on Holy Succor by only 1-2 seconds to make it a viable option for tanking multiple mobs (as it stands I dont ever cure myself, there is no point, interupted interupted interupted)
5: PLD AF needs to be reworked into something useful, right now I don't use it because it is completely backwards.

^ just my opinion. feel free to leave feedback.

[Riaayo]

I'll go ahead and throw out the problems I see with Paladin as of 1.21

Firstly, 1.21 "fixed" cures overhealing (healing a target for more hp than they were lacking). This effectively nerfed Paladin's ability to hold threat with cures because more often than not the Paladin's own heal won't hit themself until their healer has already topped them off. Since many boss mechanics can take half a tank's HP off, no healer is going to let a tank ride at 80% hp for the tank to top themselves off for more enmity.

Next is Defense. I've seen evidence that Defense has scaling returns once you near the damage floor for a monster. The problem is that that damage floor is far too high for bosses such as Ifrit (from what I understand one would need 1900 defense to hit Ifrit's damage floor and see their defense actually knock significant amounts of damage off). I am under the impression that Paladin is supposed to be a tank which tanks through enmity generated by abilities and self cures and utilizes higher defense and damage mitigating abilities to take less damage despite its lower HP than a Warrior. Warrior is supposed to tank with higher damage and a larger hp pool, but takes more damage from attacks. This is not how FFXIV currently operates. Your only viable defensive stat in the game at the moment is HP: defense does not do enough, nor do Paladin's abilities. Do you think people would pick a Warrior tank over a Paladin if they both held the same amount of threat while Paladin was taking 1/2 or 1/4th the damage the Warrior did?

Following that, I'm not sure what I can say about AoE tanking other than Warrior is far superior in this too. I do, however, feel that it is actually appropriate for a warrior to be better at holding multiple monsters as it is a separating factor in the tanks abilities. However, when you introduce lots of multiple-mob fights and party grinding, Paladin really gets left in the dust for the superior AoE tank.



A fix in my eyes for the overhealing problem would be a trait reminiscent of a later White Mage trait which made their cures apply stoneskin to the target. Essentially, why not change a Paladin's self-heals into a sort of shield heal which would heal them for a certain amount of HP, but if it caused any over healing that lost healing would be converted into a stoneskin-like shield that would absorb that much extra damage, and would cause full enmity generation even if "overhealing" occurred. I would say not to let a Paladin's heals apply this shield to anyone other than themselves, however. This would not only fix Paladin's threat generation through healing, but also give it further damage mitigation.

With Defense, the damage floor needs to be adjusted where well-geared Paladins can achieve or "cap" defense for a very solid amount of damage reduction, while a well geared Warrior should be able to come close but not achieve it. You can decide for yourself if you want Monk to be able to get close to that and tank, or be an evasion tank, or not able to tank at all. Stats such as Defense and Block need to actually matter enough to where people will materia for them or use food, rather than HP being the wonder-stat for tanks. If HP decides the better tank, nobody will ever use Paladin over Warrior.

Finally, there needs to be some type of balance for Paladins being useful in multiple-mob situations. I really think the trade-off here is a Paladin should be fully capable of holding hate on multiple monsters as much as a Warrior does and take less damage, while a Warrior can hold hate on multiple mobs, take more damage, but deal lots of damage to those monsters and kill them quickly. If you balance it that way, you'll drop down to preference... though in the end even on a single target mob, if you have both tanks surviving the same and holding threat, you'll take the one that does more damage no?



Hopefully this has decently outlined some of the big problems I see with Paladin, and is mildly useful to somebody (preferably the Dev team, though I doubt with my luck they'll ever stumble across anything I post).

[Signy]

Good timed Aegis Blooms can mitigate a lot of damage. Like i was tanking the monk AF fight on paladin and i never go under 50% of my hp because i was focusing on time my Aegis with the MNK WS. PLD have better survivability overall than warrior. The problem i see is that PLD on long fight (like ifrit) is not really better that GLA since you could burst out almost all your mp in a few heals and had no way to recover it...

Ah also, yesterday i was tanking Ifrit on GLA and i notice that my Rage of Halone was missing a lot, before patch i usually hit all 5 attacks (and sometimes miss one) and now I'm hitting 2 of 5 (someones 1 or 3 if i get lucky) unless i use it with the combo. I really don't know if they raised ifrit's evade or just nerfed Rage accuracy...