The Problem with Paladin

[Brannigan]

I've been on Paladin as much as possible since the patch and it's pretty damn good. I don't know if it's the soul crystal but what I'm doing shouldn't be holding hate sometimes but it just is. Things like one war drum holding stuff through their whole life bar.

Where paladin really seems to excel isn't necessarily in boss fights (though I think it's great there too) but before that. Paladin's amazing for clearing trash packs and when shit hits the fan. Cover on a mage who's doing Excruciate>Flare, Holy Succor for the when someone manages to pull threat or your stuff is on cooldown, divine veil for when stuff is going really crazy, and hallowed ground for when your whm gets his icons confused and hits holy instead of regen or whatever.

Holy Succor's great, Spirits Within is pretty good considering the 250 tp cost (though I wouldn't mind a shorter cooldown), Divine Veil is good in some situations, and Cover is a whole lot better than people are giving it credit for (although be careful when using it around high damage aoe, haha).

I guess Gallant gear kind of sucks. The feet stand out as a particularly bad piece. The gauntlets are good if only for the effect. Legs aren't worth it if you have a double meld. Head I'm not so sure about, but probably not worth it. I'm wearing body regardless of stats just because it's so cool and I want to figure out what the Cover enhancement is.

Other than that only real complaint I have about it is that the paladin's subclasses are kind of ass. Marauder gives provoke and possibly bloodbath. The former is good but the latter really isn't for paladin, so you're basically just getting one skill. Conjurer gives Sacred Prism>Cure (one skill for the price of two, really, since cure is rarely worth casting outside of prism), Raise, and... stoneskin or protect I guess.

Oh and one nice change would be to make Divine Veil scale with a stat. As far as I can tell (and I may be wrong about this), it's 169/tick without AF legs and 203 with AF legs, regardless of any stat changes. I tried healing potency and enhancing magic. Veil's healing also doesn't scale with the power of the spell cast on you (cure/cura gave the same regen). One thing that just popped into my head that I didn't test was the enhancing magic stat of the mage curing you, so maybe that's it.

P.S. guy on the first page, FraenirVolsung, Foresight doesn't do shit for anyone wearing a shield in their offhand.

e: Actually a lot of the Gallant set feels like they forgot a digit or something. 1 enmity on the boots when Sentinel just got buffed to 9 is just weird. 3 enm and 3 healing potency on cuirass, etc.

[Phobos]

Where paladin really seems to excel isn't necessarily in boss fights (though I think it's great there too) but before that. Paladin's amazing for clearing trash packs and when shit hits the fan. Cover on a mage who's doing Excruciate>Flare, Holy Succor for the when someone manages to pull threat or your stuff is on cooldown, divine veil for when stuff is going really crazy, and hallowed ground for when your whm gets his icons confused and hits holy instead of regen or whatever.

I may be a tad off-topic here, but just to comment on this part - I think you're right here to a degree, and perhaps you have not experienced partying with a WAR. The problem is, GLA can do what you suggest PLD can do just as fine, and even at that, partying with a WAR in Natalan, fights almost always went something like this:

I pull all wolves, get to camp. Pop Sentinel for boosted enmity, AOE flash, provoke my current target to ensure I can get an Aegis Boon off, hit Rampart. Once I get Aegis Boon to hit I use War Drum, Phalanx, Spirits Within. Pop Outmaneuver for the possible shield blocks, and start curing myself because at this point for a little enmity and to stay alive.

It's around this time that the WAR gets off Steel Cyclone, and every single mob that was attacking me is now stunned, and will be attacking the WAR when they are un-stunned. Meanwhile the war has a full Stoneskin up, and is losing no HP.

You can try to use AOE flash again, maybe get lucky to get your main target on you so you can try another War Drum, but before you can;

Steel Cyclone. The WAR is now fully healed (thats about 4000 HP, 1000 more than you), and mobs are stunned again. There is no way you're getting hate back.

Not complaining about WAR here, just saying you seem to suggest PLD is best at tanking lots of trash mobs, and while that's true, it's only true until the WAR gets TP. It is an excellent puller and initial tank so that mages don't have to worry at the start of a fight.

EDIT: Also a bit off topic, but I think comparing MRD/WAR to GLA/PLD is valid. The concept behind GLA/PLD is that we sacrifice using a bigger weapon so that we can use a shield... the problem with that is that we barely ever actually make use of said shield, whereas the MRD/WAR is just using a heavy duty weapon, and has about the same Defense with more HP. If shield/defense should be GLA/PLD's main focus, we should actually use the shield, and actually have more defense.


EDIT 2:

I tanked the buffalo about a week ago, on gladiator of course, and while it was wailing on my face sonorous never reset hate to the point where a single provoke didn't take it back. i had thms and arcs going and had no trouble keeping hate. having a party that can keep their own hate down is common sense on stuff like buffalo. don't let your DD's be 'gifted'. i was the only person he was hitting so holy succor, divine veil = useless save for the extra hp i could cure myself for with succor. I'm far from resistant to change, i really like paladin. the JSE is my gripe. Maybe i'll use pld as a jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none for awhile til i find a working gear combo.

I'm with you here; I am not having problems with enmity on either GLA or PLD, so some of these new abilities that might be getting more enmity are rather lackluster. Sentinel + enmity ability spam is good enough right now. I too really like Paladin, and I love the look of the JSE. I simply wish PLD was actually a better tank than GLA, and more importantly WAR. The "gains" it has over GLA and WAR are not gains at all, but rather restrictions and hindrances to survivability.

I'm finding I'm doing the reverse of what was intended here: Partying on Gladiator, soloing on Paladin. I'm only soloing on Paladin so that I can actually use it somewhere, and for shorter solo fights, Spirits Within comes into play more often.