The Problem with Paladin

[kro]

You can raise with hallowed ground against many mobs, its wonderful as a last resort and you don't have to stop tanking if you're casting while waiting on timers anyway. that said, i'm not a fan of pld as a main tank right now, hopefully down the road it'll meet the role that SE had in mind for it according to the post that has been quoted over and over.

GLA can do that too by casting Sanguine Rite - which prevents cast interruption.

[Peptaru]

What i said was posted right after someone saying that raise was useless for a tanking pld.... so ya, it works for gladiator, too.... duh.... but that was just a response to a pld usefulness of the spell.

[Conradus]

(Posting as Kaetara Sagitta)
A better, mathematically equivalent equation would be: If GLA>PLD and BRD=BRD, then GLA+BRD > PLD+BRD.

Except that's not necessarily true, character classes/jobs not being real numbers. It ignores the way the abilities of the two character classes might interact. For example, Ballad is enormously helpful to PLD, but just doesn't mean that much to GLA. I'm not saying that it's not true, mind you, just that it's not something that can be assumed to be true without evidence.

[tachi]

Changes needed after much more inspection and testing in AV/CC show that PLD needs more enmity skills, PLD needs a much higher block rate on shield, and PLD needs significantly higher defense. If PLD sits with almost 1k less HP then WAR this is ok with me but then PLD needs way more dmg mitigation then it gets now.

[Kyri]

(Posting as Kaetara Sagitta)

Everyone who thinks that we need to rethink Paladin needs to rethink their argument.

Every single class/job in this game is meant to have a purpose. Having a class or job that cannot perform any task to the level that any other class or job can will make the aforementioned class or job utterly worthless in solo or party play and anyone that aspires to play that class or job will be involved in exactly nothing in endgame or party content. What's the point of bringing a Paladin when a Warrior tanks better, a White Mage heals better, a Bard or White Mage buffs better, and Monk, Dragoon, and Warrior all deal heavier damage? Paladin is sub-par in almost every single aspect of party construction to be had, so why take one?

The concept of "support tank" itself doesn't make much sense. If you are supporting someone else that is holding hate on the enemy, then you are not tanking.. they are. If you are only meant to tank if the other person dies.. then that leaves you in a bit of a precarious position since you would most likely have exhausted all of your resources capable to support on them, and now the enemy is after you and you have nothing left to keep yourself alive. It doesn't suffice to bring someone into the party under the context of, "You are going to be a mediocre support healer, and you can tank for us if this other person dies."

This notion is further compounded by the complete lack of MP recovery resources that a Paladin has access to. So, they can support heal until they run out of MP and then they can't do anything else without their own support element.. but they can off-tank if the main tank dies? Does this make sense to anyone.. that a "support tank" should need their own support in order to be able to support someone else? Why not just bring in another pure support element like White Mage or Bard that can function independently to support the tank?

I don't see why people believe that the current Paladin job doesn't need support. To me it seems blatantly obvious that Paladin needs to be revised.

Granted, Square-Enix has already stated that they are going to be adjusting Paladin so the argument is pretty much moot anyway.. I just want to understand people's reasoning that Paladin is fine the way it is, because I just don't see it.

[YukiKoneko]

I like the idea of "support tank" as an explanation of what SE might have been going for; however, the devs refuse to elaborate on their intentions, leaving us with "yea, we intend to adjust it".

The problem with "support tank" is exactly as Kaetara suggests, why even bother? With the exception of very few, party formations in most fights that benefit from a tank stack as much DD as possible. While I personally don't agree with doing this, I've seen its results and ya, they get the job done. So where exactly does a PLD play in to this? They become the weak link, they can't deal any significant damage, and most would just swap for an extra DD-type job.

SE's supposed original intent appeared to paint PLD as a tank, but WAR is obviously the real tank based on the current system. Jobs were supposed to clearly define the role of each job, so PLD and WAR can't both be tanks, just like WHM and BLM can't both be main healer or nuker.

Are Japanese players were supposedly upset by all this too, so in all likelihood, us non-Japanese players will just have to wait until their suggestions are heard and responded to before we get the shortened explanation from our community reps.

[Treach]

Ifrit is one tank fight, moogle is one tank fight, ant is one tank fight (even killing princess first), chimera is one tank fight, cyclops guy is one tank fight, moroblo thingy is one tank fight, all (h)nms things are one tank fights...etc etc.

[Sregor]

I am looking at going PLD with my Gladiator.
I am guessing come end game, if the Ethers restore 250 MP, I would use it around -250 to - 275 MP use first one, and whatever the cool down is on it, use another on CD.

Is that something that is doable? or are these Ethers too expensive to use early and then on cool down for every fight?

[Estellios]

^^^
Mega-ethers recover 20% of your MP (Max of 600), Hi-ethers recover 30% with a max of 300, not sure how much MP PLD has so Hi might be better than Mega if their MP is lower than 900ish. Mega restricts medicines for 5 minutes, Hi-ethers for 4:30. Not bad in a pinch, especially if you can use Megas.

If you have alchemist or know someone that can make the ethers for you, the materials for Mega-ethers are relatively easy to get, the hardest ingredient being Black Truffles which are uncommon from Harvesting and rare from killing Boars.

[Brannigan]

Yeeeah paladin in general is pretty crappy. Divine Veil is real bad, Spirits Within is a 2 minute(!) cooldown compared to Steel Cyclone's amazing 30 seconds, Cover is a situational ability that ends up being worse than Collusion and has a longer cooldown, and its good abilities don't get to see that much use if your party members are actually doing their jobs. Add in the fact that the AF gear is unusably bad and that paladin sits under the minimum HP threshhold to be safe from some of the bigger attacks (meaning that they can't make any mistakes where a warrior can and will still live) and I'm kind of left wondering what they were thinking.

I defended paladin a little bit earlier in the thread but that was when I didn't have warrior unlocked Even if paladin was on the same level as warrior HP-wise, warriors do quadruple paladin damage and paladin's utility/defense in no way makes up for that.

Basically to fix paladin they need to get rid of the HP penalty (and maybe even increase it from gla) or add some kind of passive mitigation.

Cover, Spirits Within, and Divine Veil need their recast times cut in half and Divine Veil needs to have its range increased massively, not overwrite the Regen WHM spell, and do something extra for the paladin (MP regeneration when receiving healing, maybe).

Spirits Within needs a damage boost or to ignore defense or something since even at a 60 second cooldown it wouldn't be that great. Cover should generate enmity for every attack covered or something, though maybe a simple range increase would suffice.

Finally, DLVL needs to play less of a role in block calculations and Outmaneuver should greatly increase your block chance for the duration. Oh and give us god damn parries back because the Marauder subclass is useless outside of Provoke (healing 300 hp on a spirits within is pretty crappy).

Oh and Riot Blade's combo condition could stand to be changed to Side or Any. Side is a lot easier to access than Rear at times and also a lot safer if the mob actually does turn. The defense down effect might actually add some worthwhile utility.

Basically they just need to do a lot because paladin is realllly that bad when you compare it to warrior.