The Problem with Paladin

[Phobos]

I really could not agree more. I was actually debating the exact thing last night while doing AF battles and new dungeons. To me, there is actually very little difference between Gladiator and Paladin in terms of tanking ability and survivability. I actually think I prefer Gladiator for the exact reasons you mentioned. Gladiator has some ways of restoring MP, a free parry with Foresight, a free dodge + MP recovery with Featherfoot, and Second Wind.

From an equipment/stat standpoint. I thought SE said that Paladin was going to have a defensive boost at the cost of offense when compared with Gladiator. If so, I don't see it. Paladin has approximately 10 more VIT and 10 less STR than Gladiator. As we all know, it takes way more than 10 of any stat to make any sort of noticeable difference. Also, the AF armor is great looking, but other than the +Enmity, there really are no other stats that make any of it better than my single, double or triple melded crafted gear. Even the defense on the AF is exactly the same as that found on the Cobalt Plate set.

I think you are spot on, Phobos. I don't see anything out there right now that Gladiator wouldn't do equally well as Paladin.

Nice to know someone else was feeling the same way. Funny you should mention sacrificing offence for defense, as I have to say I think PLD is a better DD due to Spirits Within. I'm definitely going to try ethers later but regardless of if that is the solution..

It would be nice if Outmaneuver was not entirely garbage.

[Andrien]

pld should get auto refresh, or the dev team can make equipment that mitigate some damage to restore a small percentage of mp, or add equipments that adds refresh. they could just implement all these ideas.

[LicontAshontear]

I havn't read every post in this thread (9 pages Ef that) but I read the first page of posts, and while your points are valid, I do not belive they would "fix" paladin.

Lets look at what was promised to us when paladin was supposed to come out.

correct me if I'm wrong but I'm positive Yoshi said that PLD would get less HP, which we did get, and a major boost in Defense. Lets examine this so called "boost" in defense. By switching to PLD you lose 10 str and gain 10 vit. Now this part might just be broken, I'm not sure, but defense does not go up at all. 10 vit? srsly? pathetic.

Now lets examine the PLD AF.

Gallant Surcoat - decent piece really, MP +40, MND +12, Healing magic potency +3, Enmity +3, Enhances Cover.

Now lets examine these stats and what they do for a PLD. Its rather obvious that this piece is intended to help the PLD heal himself, right? Right. Now...lets put this to good use.
*starts casting* ... *is the tank so got hit and interupted* ... *starts casting* ... *is the tank so got hit and interupted*

Wow that is so helpful! >.>;

Now lets examine something else, previous gear. I use Sentinel Cuirass.

Sentinel's Cuirass - HP+50, Vit +4, Mind +4, Block Rate +5. This piece of gear has the potential for materia, I have a +20 vit materia on it. so add +20 VIT.

Now lets examine this piece of gear. It has HP to help the tank live longer, it has vit on it to help the tank take less damage and live longer, it has mind incase the tank needs to heal himself and actually can get a spell off. It has block rate + so the tank has a higher chance to block incoming attacks thus taking less damage so he can live longer.

Now I don't know about you, but to me its rather clear which of these 2 is better. Sentinel's all the way.

All the other PLD af is the same way just about. Nothing super special about it. In fact it seems rather backwards to me.


Now lets look at the other AF for other jobs.

DRG --- I love drg, it is amazing, the AF is amazingly good. Lets examine it shall we.

Drachen Gauntlets - HP -30 (not a bad thing, not good, but not bad either) Attack Power +40 (holy s**t balls wtf?!) -10 enmity (again holy s**t balls wtf?!)

Wit the exception of the hp- this is amazing! It gives -enmity to take less hate and dps longer/harder (yes yes go ahead and laugh) and +40 attack power!

Now...lets look at BLM.

Wizard's Gloves - HP --30 (again not good, but not bad either) Magic Acc +5 Magic Crit Potency +65 (+65!?! *drool*) Enmity -10 (see previous statement about crit potency lol)

I could go on and on and on about this. But I'm not going to.

Suffice to say PLD has alot of problems, MP management is just one of them.

Sad panda face for PLD

Crying tears of joy for DRG

[Kiara]

Hi All,

Another point to note about why Warrior is a more popular / better choice for tanking is with the inherent Design Choice for the Warrior's new (and potent) Weaponskill vs. Paladin's new Weaponskill:

• Warrior gets an amazing Combo from their basic Enmity-building Combo Chain! Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Steel Cyclone (amazing). This combo is the Warrior's main / regular Self Combo that's easy to use and builds Hate / Enmity inherently (with Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder).

• The Paladin's new Weaponskill (Spirits Within) can only be Combo'd from: Phalanx -> Spirits Within. And Phalanx can only be used off a successful Block. And the Block Rate is pretty low in general.

So inherently - just by a Design choice from the Combat Team - they've set up the Warrior as having a much more desirable and easy-to-use, high damage Combo, *and* it's from the Warrior/Marauder's core Enmity-building Self Combo.


The equivalent branch on Paladin should've been Fast Blade -> Flat Blade -> Spirits Within, since Fast Blade -> Flat Blade is the Paladin's core Enmity building Self Combo.

*And* this is besides the fact that Steel Cyclone is amazing, does very good Damage, and it's AOE Damage. (While Spirits Within is Single Target / Close Range.)

(On a side note, I really like the unique aspect that Paladin gets a Self Combo *from a Block* (there's something cool about that idea), but considering how bad Block Rates are in general (especially on Bosses), and the fact they give Warrior the ability to Self Combo (free / no TP cost) their best, new Weaponskill off of their basic Enmity-building Combo, and it's another reason Paladin isn't as desirable currently.

It's just baffling how Paladin got passed QA and no one felt there were any issues at all with the current Job spec.

I hope we get a hot patch fix soon.

[Arkine]

Hi All,

Another point to note about why Warrior is a more popular / better choice for tanking is with the inherent Design Choice for the Warrior's new (and potent) Weaponskill vs. Paladin's new Weaponskill:

• Warrior gets an amazing Combo from their basic Enmity-building Combo Chain! Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Steel Cyclone (amazing). This combo is the Warrior's main / regular Self Combo that's easy to use and builds Hate / Enmity inherently (with Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder).

• The Paladin's new Weaponskill (Spirits Within) can only be Combo'd from: Phalanx -> Spirits Within. And Phalanx can only be used off a successful Block. And the Block Rate is pretty low in general.

So inherently - just by a Design choice from the Combat Team - they've set up the Warrior as having a much more desirable and easy-to-use, high damage Combo, *and* it's from the Warrior/Marauder's core Enmity-building Self Combo.


The equivalent branch on Paladin should've been Fast Blade -> Flat Blade -> Spirits Within, since Fast Blade -> Flat Blade is the Paladin's core Enmity building Self Combo.

*And* this is besides the fact that Steel Cyclone is amazing, does very good Damage, and it's AOE Damage. (While Spirits Within is Single Target / Close Range.)

(On a side note, I really like the unique aspect that Paladin gets a Self Combo *from a Block* (there's something cool about that idea), but considering how bad Block Rates are in general (especially on Bosses), and the fact they give Warrior the ability to Self Combo (free / no TP cost) their best, new Weaponskill off of their basic Enmity-building Combo, and it's another reason Paladin isn't as desirable currently.

It's just baffling how Paladin got passed QA and no one felt there were any issues at all with the current Job spec.

I hope we get a hot patch fix soon.

Also Rampage

The more hits you take the harder your attack gets and your critical hits restore HP.

WAR's
Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Steel Cyclone Increases enmity by the 1st half of the combo, and then increases crit rate after cyclone and so far I think after tanking ifrit on WAR that Skull Sunder, Fracture and Steel Cyclone always or almost always do a crit hit which in returns gives you back HP.

So you deal damage, tank with your massive HP pool, restore HP and increase enmity just off spamming that one combo.

[Treach]

Block rate still sucks, 120 second cd on spirits and hp has almost no effect on damage like blm burst, barely does more than rage of halone or riot blade. I'll use it at the start of the fight if I feel like chaining it with first aegis boon and clicking to change bar 3....otherwise I just don't use it.

Also not surprised at all that pld has no better defense than glad, was hoping for some kind of -% damage or higher blocking rate. I don't like my HP pool on pld with full AF, very fucking scary.

Don't see the point of divine veil if don't even have melee on some bosses, sure it stacks with regen but who cares if you run two whm. Very situational or minor use I guess.

Holy Succor is nice, AF hands adds a noticeable amount to it. Can really only use it 6-7 times a fight cause I never get ballad or sanguine rite from bards.

Invincible is nice but doesn't save you from magic at all, good thing none of the bosses have magical attacks...oh damn.

Haven't tested or even used cover yet, has anyone tested to see what is enhanced with the AF body?

[Phobos]

Block rate still sucks, 120 second cd on spirits and hp has almost no effect on damage like blm burst, barely does more than rage of halone or riot blade. I'll use it at the start of the fight if I feel like chaining it with first aegis boon and clicking to change bar 3....otherwise I just don't use it.

Also not surprised at all that pld has no better defense than glad, was hoping for some kind of -% damage or higher blocking rate. I don't like my HP pool on pld with full AF, very fucking scary.

Don't see the point of divine veil if don't even have melee on some bosses, sure it stacks with regen but who cares if you run two whm. Very situational or minor use I guess.

Holy Succor is nice, AF hands adds a noticeable amount to it. Can really only use it 6-7 times a fight cause I never get ballad or sanguine rite from bards.

Invincible is nice but doesn't save you from magic at all, good thing none of the bosses have magical attacks...oh damn.

Haven't tested or even used cover yet, has anyone tested to see what is enhanced with the AF body?

Agree with almost all of this. I do have my Phalanx right above Aegis Boon and War Drum so its easy enough for me to get off both, even so SW recast is so long that it's virtually useless (hence my suggestion of giving it MP recovery instead of Damage based on HP) - at least that would compel people to use it.

Cover is pretty useless, I don't know what the enhance does but I only use it when my WAR friend takes hate and I'm messing with him.

I agree so much on the loss of HP but gain of nothing in return... This coupled with the other issues just accentuates the problem.

Perhaps each of the job stones should give an effect that aids each of the jobs and helps to pigeon hole them even further.

Ex. Paladin: When equipped with the Paladin Job stone, Blocking an attack restores a small amount of MP.
Dragoon: When equipped with the Dragoon Job stone, missing an attack increases the critical chance of the next WS.
Monk: "" Monk "", evading an attack increases attack power for a limited time.

etc. Just something outside of skills and AF to make the jobs more appealing and helps to negate their short comings, making them a more viable option than their class counter parts.

Even if this was done, PLD block rate is still horrid, so the effect would be useless.

PLD already has a blocking = MP ability, but it is rendered useless by the minimal MP it returns for the 1% of the time you actually block something off of an exp mob (let alone a tough fight).

Aside from Ifrit I also tried Great Buffalo... has anyone done that successfully anytime recently? Seems to hit like a truck on steroids in AOE. WHM could not keep up at all as I was losing 1/3 HP every few seconds. We were only trio but a bit more HP would not have helped, and we were just testing to see how well we could survive which seemed to be not well at all...

[Rhen]

Perhaps each of the job stones should give an effect that aids each of the jobs and helps to pigeon hole them even further.

Ex. Paladin: When equipped with the Paladin Job stone, Blocking an attack restores a small amount of MP.
Dragoon: When equipped with the Dragoon Job stone, missing an attack increases the critical chance of the next WS.
Monk: "" Monk "", evading an attack increases attack power for a limited time.

etc. Just something outside of skills and AF to make the jobs more appealing and helps to negate their short comings, making them a more viable option than their class counter parts.

[Delmontyb]

Perhaps each of the job stones should give an effect that aids each of the jobs and helps to pigeon hole them even further.

Ex. Paladin: When equipped with the Paladin Job stone, Blocking an attack restores a small amount of MP.
Dragoon: When equipped with the Dragoon Job stone, missing an attack increases the critical chance of the next WS.
Monk: "" Monk "", evading an attack increases attack power for a limited time.

etc. Just something outside of skills and AF to make the jobs more appealing and helps to negate their short comings, making them a more viable option than their class counter parts.

I think your on to something, essentially adding traits to the job that are visible. Perhaps these traits are something that can also be quested for as well, adding in more quests, story, and fun.

Just a thought along with your idea.

[Phobos]

I think your on to something, essentially adding traits to the job that are visible. Perhaps these traits are something that can also be quested for as well, adding in more quests, story, and fun.

Just a thought along with your idea.

Seeing as the Job quests are what took the longest in this update (from what I gathered from the information that was out there) I would think something like this would take a while. I do like the idea of the job stone showing what it will do to your traits (for PLD apparently it would say something like -10STR +10VIT as it currently stands). I think adding more quests to enhance the inherent boost for the job would likely take a while, but I really like the idea personally, as it expands on both the lore/questline and the specific role of said job (boosting it to -20STR +20VIT for instance). Something like this would be really cool.