The Problem with Paladin

[Kiara]

Hi Phobos and All,

Great thread with many great ideas. I definitely agree with most of the ideas here.

While I was really looking forward to Paladin, compared to Warrior and what you lose from switching from Gladiator (Class) to --> Paladin (Job), there needs to be some key adjustments.

(These were all mentioned in some form on this thread, but I wanted to show my support and let the Development Team know that we have another "vote" to fix Paladin)...

• Paladin needs a Significant Defense Boost. It was stated in his current Job Description from Square that Paladin should be the highest Defense role, but compared to Warrior or just going on Gladiator, it's not noticeable enough.
  
  I was helping on multiple AF Fights (going on Paladin with multiple instances of friends going on Warrior) and the damage they took while still being able to tank really marginalized Paladin (especially with the much higher Damage Dealing ability of Warrior).

• Paladin needs a greater Enmity Boost (inherent to the Job). If Yoshida-san wants to keep Paladin as the "main tank," there needs to be greater threat generation. Whether that's a global boost to all Enmity Values on all actions used on a Paladin, or some other method, something should be done here.

• Paladin needs increased Block Rate (globally). When Warrior can deal out massive Damage with attacks and Weaponskills, and still Parry, *and* use Featherfoot for Evade, the Paladin's Block (w/ Shield) needs to be a more effective ability than it is right now.

• Also agree that Paladin should have at least one ability that helps them gain *some* MP back (nothing that would invalidate Bard, but something like Featherfoot was useful helping Gladiator get some MP back every so often).

• Increase Duration and Add Enmity to "Hallowed Ground." I know it's not a "2 Hour" (like Invincible in FF11), but a slightly increased duration for Hallowed Ground and a big Enmity Bonus would be a nice way to make this a more standout move for Paladin.

• Consider adding in 1 AOE (Area-of-effect) Weaponskill (like Gladiator's old Circle Slash II) that could help *just a little bit* when tanking Multiple Mobs better. Yes, we have Flash and War Drum, but it still feels that Paladin has very little else to do to help tank multiple mobs (it doesn't have to be anywhere close to Warrior (that's fine), but Paladin is weak in this facet of the game)).

And like Phobos and others have said, I *don't* want them to nerf Warrior (I have fun playing my Warrior as well); I'm hoping they just balance it so that Paladin is a standout Job that's marked by very noticeable High Defense that can shrug off damage better than Warrior.

Here's to hoping Yoshida-san looks at everyone's feedback on Paladin and we get some improvements soon.

Thanks~

[Phobos]

Hi Phobos and All,

Great thread with many great ideas. I definitely agree with most of the ideas here.

While I was really looking forward to Paladin, compared to Warrior and what you lose from switching from Gladiator (Class) to --> Paladin (Job), there needs to be some key adjustments.

(These were all mentioned in some form on this thread, but I wanted to show my support and let the Development Team know that we have another "vote" to fix Paladin)...

All of these are great ideas. As you mentioned, some were touched on in this thread but I think your post fleshes out what a lot of us are trying to get at here, and offers some distinct improvements that should be made. I feel like a combination of at least 2-3 of these concepts would be a great start, so that there is not too much of a change at once (we don't want to go to the other end of the spectrum, where PLD is very overpowered and nothing can stop a party with one). I think even some of these could apply to GLA as well, but with PLD doing them better (block rate and an AoE Weaponskill)

[Teknoman]

Hi Phobos and All,

Great thread with many great ideas. I definitely agree with most of the ideas here.

While I was really looking forward to Paladin, compared to Warrior and what you lose from switching from Gladiator (Class) to --> Paladin (Job), there needs to be some key adjustments.

(These were all mentioned in some form on this thread, but I wanted to show my support and let the Development Team know that we have another "vote" to fix Paladin)...

• Paladin needs a Significant Defense Boost. It was stated in his current Job Description from Square that Paladin should be the highest Defense role, but compared to Warrior or just going on Gladiator, it's not noticeable enough.
  
  I was helping on multiple AF Fights (going on Paladin with multiple instances of friends going on Warrior) and the damage they took while still being able to tank really marginalized Paladin (especially with the much higher Damage Dealing ability of Warrior).

• Paladin needs a greater Enmity Boost (inherent to the Job). If Yoshida-san wants to keep Paladin as the "main tank," there needs to be greater threat generation. Whether that's a global boost to all Enmity Values on all actions used on a Paladin, or some other method, something should be done here.

• Paladin needs increased Block Rate (globally). When Warrior can deal out massive Damage with attacks and Weaponskills, and still Parry, *and* use Featherfoot for Evade, the Paladin's Block (w/ Shield) needs to be a more effective ability than it is right now.

• Also agree that Paladin should have at least one ability that helps them gain *some* MP back (nothing that would invalidate Bard, but something like Featherfoot was useful helping Gladiator get some MP back every so often).

• Increase Duration and Add Enmity to "Hallowed Ground." I know it's not a "2 Hour" (like Invincible in FF11), but a slightly increased duration for Hallowed Ground and a big Enmity Bonus would be a nice way to make this a more standout move for Paladin.

• Consider adding in 1 AOE (Area-of-effect) Weaponskill (like Gladiator's old Circle Slash II) that could help *just a little bit* when tanking Multiple Mobs better. Yes, we have Flash and War Drum, but it still feels that Paladin has very little else to do to help tank multiple mobs (it doesn't have to be anywhere close to Warrior (that's fine), but Paladin is weak in this facet of the game)).

And like Phobos and others have said, I *don't* want them to nerf Warrior (I have fun playing my Warrior as well); I'm hoping they just balance it so that Paladin is a standout Job that's marked by very noticeable High Defense that can shrug off damage better than Warrior.

Here's to hoping Yoshida-san looks at everyone's feedback on Paladin and we get some improvements soon.

Thanks~

100% agree on all points. I'm leveling warrior as well, and while Warrior should have the ability to take some hits, Paladin should always be the go to tank imo. At least we've got Hallowed Ground, but i'm not sure how long that lasts.

[Stufoo]

Paladin doesn't need an AoE damage weapon skill, though an increase to war drum hate would be nice. If you were to fix block rates and the outmaneuver trait return for MP to be useful, paladin could "tank" multiple monsters through others by using heals more often and cover, since the presence of multiple monsters usually means they won't be hitting for numbers that are spectacularly lethal to others, and those two abilities (Succor and Cover), in addition to rampart, and I guess flash blind and shield bash stun, are fine for a paladin's supporting CC in crowd fights because they generally have their numbers reduced fairly quickly.

While paladin does need a lot more defense and block rate and block power, just because, you shouldn't also give him the defacto-perma hate on everything through an easily spammed weapon skill and hate stealing tools like Warrior has gotten. Paladin doesn't need to always have hate on trash or crowds because he has the tools to help others in harm's way, and the tools will become better once you fix the paladin's primary problem, mitigation through blocking and MP recovery from outmaneuver, though if they want to make cover a faster cooldown that's fine too. Warrior doesn't have these tools, and he can't help others outside of Collusion.

In general though, it should just have higher defense and take less damage than others, period. 10 VIT from the jobstone isn't anything at all, and the AF is actually worse than crafted items in DEF values. The boots are also terribly statted and don't enhance anything, could probably raise that block rate up to +10 or 12. Maybe bring back damage cuts on Gallant Surcoat, either a flat -5%, or something like how the Creed Cuirass +1 and 2 did in XI, where the damage taken reduction scales up as you generate more and more enmity on a target, to a cap of around 10%. This would help with bosses more heavily than most trash monsters (due to their speedy deaths and lower enmity figures, or in the case of a flat percentage, lower damage values) which is where I think paladin needs the most help.

A 60 second recast on Spirits Within would be cool too.

Any testing or answers on what "Enhances Cover" does on Gallant?

[Kiara]

Hi Phobos, Teknoman and Stu,

Definitely agree.

I was thinking about this a bit more: So far every Job (in 1.21) has some standout characteristic - the Black Mage drops some impressive and gigantic Ancient Magic (BOOM!) , the Dragoon has Jump and Elusive Jump and stylish Polearm-based Attacks, the White Mage is a paragon of Healing / Curing, etc. (and you see them casting Cures and Regen and restoring, etc.) - but the Paladin?

The Paladin is supposed to be "the Tank," the one that can stand in the face of devastating attacks, and just Defend / Block and withstand all the onslaught thrown at them, and stand up to it (and look stylish doing it).

But currently, the Paladin doesn't fit that image very well at all (and you see them taking heavy damage from various Bosses), and as Stu said, the Paladin AF Armor is pretty weak in some pieces. Seeing them get hit and take nearly as much damage as a Warrior, and get dropped in some battles pretty easily, but without the ability to drop massive Weaponskill Combos like a Warrior (nor Parry or Featherfoot, etc.)., just really stood out in my mind as clear picture of what's wrong with Paladin.

I really hope we get some fixes soon.

[LicontAshontear]

I doubt that any "fixes" (good or bad) will come until atleast 1.21a.

What bothers me about all of this is that SE has to test this stuff right? They have to KNOW that its horribly broken right? If they do test it then it means they either don't care or don't know what they are doing. If they don't test it then...they didnt test it!?

I remember hearing about opening up test servers or some such other along time ago. What happend to that? Lets get some REAL people in there to test this stuff before it happens!

[Masamune_G]

I didn't read through every single post in here, but I agree that PLD should indeed be the paragon of tanking. I was wondering something though, not having PLD yet myself: What about Blissful Mind for recovering MP? I'm kind of confused as to why SE chose to keep that particularly useful CNJ action as CNJ exclusive, considering PLD will be using as much MP as they are now.

I think this+the above suggestions would make PLD the ultimate go to tank! Please SE {Can I Have It?}.

[Estellios]

Blissful Mind would be ludicrously overpowered on other classes that could use it.

Any testing or answers on what "Enhances Cover" does on Gallant?

We originally thought that Enhances Cover made Cover last the entire duration, but I guess it does that normally?

My guess would be maybe it increases the range of Cover or increases your Defense while you're Covering, or maybe it does some thing with transferring enmity from the Covered target to you like recent changes to Cover in FF11. Maybe this mysterious AF bonus is part of what we need to take advantage of on PLD =P

[Takinagi]

Paladin needs more defense and HP. You have ways of getting mp back through assist of other jobs like ballads, sanguine right and also outmanuever. But when I have to stack HP gear to hit 4k hp and a war already has it and can focus on DD/enmity gear it makes it much easier for the war to tank anything right now in the game. Also I think blocks need a revamp right now, block rate is fine but the dmg you take from it is pretty poor.

[Pallaton]

Hi Phobos and All,

blah blah

• Paladin needs a greater Enmity Boost (inherent to the Job). If Yoshida-san wants to keep Paladin as the "main tank," there needs to be greater threat generation. Whether that's a global boost to all Enmity Values on all actions used on a Paladin, or some other method, something should be done here.

blah blah

Thanks~

How about a job trait which gives a boost to the enmity of flash, so that it makes it much greater than provoke.