The Problem with Paladin

[PiedPiper]

The problem with paladin, and gladiator to be honest, is that it artificially limits the entire party owing to its tiny threat generation capacity relative to warrior. Many times in this thread something like "its not hard to slow down on dd" or "well the dd/healer should just manage their threat" or "tanks job is to generate as much threat as possible, and it doesn't matter that the dds can generate more" has been said... and all of this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the tanks job. This sort of thing has been said by people with the mentality of "we have 30 minutes to kill ifrit, any amount of enmity will allow the DDs to get him dead by then." There are several things wrong with this.

A) The longer the fight, the more likely something will go seriously wrong. End of the day, a longer fight means more cracks, more cracks means more people will eventually blow up (even if you are 99.9% consistent at dodging, if you have to dodge enough, you will blow). Too many people blow up and you fail. If the fight was say, 10 minutes shorter (very possible), its substantially less likely that things will go wrong. More emnity = shorter fight = smaller chance for mess up.

B) Drop rates aren't 100%. This may seem obvious and off topic, but think about it. We don't (usually) just fight ifrit once in a vacuum. We form groups expecting to kill him multiple times. Faster kills = more kills = more loot. If my group can kill him in 7 minutes and 30 seconds and yours is taking 20 minutes because the DDs in your group are fettered by lower tank threat, then my group is way better off. This is just as true for Cutter's Cry as it is ifrit. More tank hate = higher dps = more loot.

C) As it happens, there isn't plenty of time to get it done. Speed chest on CC requires high out put for the entire dungeon. This means that your DDs need to be able to go full throttle almost the entire time. So when we get to ChimChim and I'm on warrior and putting up way more threat than you on gld/pld, my group is better off. The same DDs in a group with war kill it faster than a group with gld/pld.

D) And, to me, this is most important. A tanks job is not to maximize group dps potential, its to get out of the way. Idealy, the tank should be putting up more threat than the DDs can match going full-boar. A great tank is a tank that places no limits on the group. In a sense, our job is much less "stay alive" and much more "hold threat." We have whm/cnj brd (support class!) to keep us alive. Yes, we ought to have tools to help out, and you ought to use them, but they are secondary to holding threat. By that, I mean, just as a dead DD can't DD, a dead tank can't hold hate.



With these things in mind, lets compare glad and plad. As has been discussed to death already, the two are next to equal in terms of keeping themselves up, perhaps (and I believe it to be so) with gld getting the edge owing to renewable mp and a faster cast time along with feather foot and second wind. As I have said, survivability, however, is somewhat subordinate to threat generation (again, just to be clear, survivability only matters inso far as it allows you to continue building threat.)

Threat generation, some people seem to think pld actually has an advantage over gld owing to spirits within, which i must say is totally lol. Think about the start of a fight, and lets stick with ChimChim. I'm a paladin, so I look at him real hard.... and flash /voke him. And then i position him. And then I stab him until I have tp and hope a dd hasn't pulled it off in those first 30ish seconds. Then I blow boon to drum phalanx spirits. Honestly, DDs pretty much have to just twiddle their thumbs this entire time. Holy succor is unlikely to be used here, I'm moving, I probably have stone skin and regen up, so I'm not even going to take much damage to try to heal, and oh, they took away our PRIMARY initial threat generation tool: over cureing for hate.

Now I'm a gladiator. I get my war face on, I stare at ChimChim.... and I pop invigorate and keen flurry. Why? Because by the time I have him positioned, I can IMMEDIATELY use wardrum, which will also be on a much shorter cool down, and will continue to be used nearly twice as often throughout the entire fight, which is WAY better than spirits within. Not to mention all the extra combos invig will give me across a fight, or shield bashes, or, well, anything I want to use that TP for.

Setting aside the MP issues, curing for threat simply isn't viable. People have said, "well, just cure the dd when it pulls." Yeah, that gets you all kinds of really really dead on ChimChim once he starts voice of the lion'ing the entire group. Not an option. No one but you, other than maybe on chorus and ants, is going to take damage. And you have two whm's with regen and fingers on the button staring at you with faster to cast cures. Good luck with getting a full effect holy succor off, unless your intentionally getting hit by his abilities, which is super scary since your hp is only marginally bigger than that of a wet noodle. The key to fixing gld/pld is actually rather simple: bring back over cure for threat. If we are willing to spend the mp on it, we should get the effect. As it is now, we frequently spend that precious pld mp only to cure for 0. And its just silly to tell the whm's not to cure, its kind of why they are there, and you really can't risk the tank going down.

Prior to this patch, gld and med were pretty close in single target threat. For speed kills, MRD's vastly superior dps probably still made it the better tank, but hate wise I was untouchable on Ifrit as gld. Double and triple melded BLMS couldn't pull him off me if they started casting the moment they were in position, a big part of that was the fact that at any time, if my abilities were on cool down, I could just cure someone/something and get a full 400+ points of healing threat. During jumps I could AOE cure the DDs and get a few k threat, right at the start I could do it on the full party to get essentially a second rampart. If paladin could, at will, drop a 1.1k holy succor on itself for threat, this entire thread would be "hey, pld needs mp" "yeah, i agree" "maybe a bard?" "idk i want to play solo right now" /thread. Paladin's biggest problem isn't that its mp is difficult to manage, but rather that its MP, in endgame, is useless. Paladin is supposed to be a better tank than GLD because its supposed to have all the tanking tools as GLD and then some, when in reality it has less tools + some largely useless ones. Divine Veil on ChimCHim? 100% Useless. Holy succor on ChimChim? 85% useless. Cover on ChimChim -1337% useless. Even hallowed ground is a good 70-90% useless because it fades on movement, and haha, the entire ChimChim fight is moving to avoid abilities. In a short fight, paladin has less threat. In a long fight, it has less threat and less survivability (my gld will almost never run out of mp with feather foot and well used SR).

Temporary solution? Go warrior. AOE Hate grab on the same 30 second cool down as flash, hits for more threat, and it is also a rather kick ass DD (recently came in first place on an 8 minute ifrit kill, as the tank.) Oh, and you never perma-run out of TP. Oh, and the bard is still useful, cus he can Paeon you. Paladin is supposed to be a tank and only a tank, its a job, it should do one thing and do it really really well. Its shiny new thing is MP, that MP should help it tank. It's not a "utility healer" or a "shinier white mage." It is a tank. Make its MP help it tank.

Please note, I love the idea and even feel of paladin's play style. But I can't justify using it when I'm having to say "guiz don't pew pew yet cus I can't build more threat" when I should just be on warrior. Also, Buff PLD don't nerf War, war does what its supposed too, pld is like cake, it is a lie.

[Brannigan]

Well, Hallowed Ground doesn't fade on moving (that was in the old preview I think) but Chimera's breaths aren't physical so it ends up being not that amazing there anyway. I haven't really had threat problems that I know of as paladin (I think the new flat blade combo bonus contributes a lot) but warrior dishes out equal enmity while doing quadruple gla's damage and having more HP.

Succor is a good spell on paper but while actually tanking you're likely to be topped up by white mages and waste your time/mp casting it. Veil/Cover are similar in that if your party members are doing well they lose a lot of their power. I think Cover's best use is on a Flare-casting black mage in a big AOE pack or something but Collusion does that better. Spirits Within is a really weak weapon skill considering the power of the other job WSes. Disembowel is just alright but adds Paralysis and Dragon Kick, Ring of Talons, Rain of Death, and Steel Cyclone are all awesome... and they're all on shorter recasts than Spirits.

[Phobos]

Because the way to balance a game is never nerf, always buff, until you reach the point where all jobs/classes are gods and mobs have to be similarly buffed to compete?

It's called 'stat inflation' and destroys a game's ability to challenge. Yes, being nerfed is annoying, but only those too blind to see the wider picture whine about it.

While you're right here, and I don't think everyone has my exact point of view on this - I feel as we shouldn't be asking "never nerf anything" and just, "don't get rid of the 1 working tank just because you think you fixed pld." I'm of the opinion that they should buff before thinking about nerfing. After balancing jobs for the most part, simply then make other changes to finish perfecting the balance.

Nerfing has it's place - I just don't feel it's place is here quite yet. I don't want to have PLD half working, and WAR nerfed to the point where it is half working as well. I don't think anyone wants that right now.

[TessaJalloh]

Great Sage

Pretty much the entirity of this explains every issue there is with PLD right now, and why WAR is simply better than us. It aint cause WAR is overpowered at what it does, it's because we poor Paladins are kinda... well... shit at what WE do. We need a heavy boost to our enmity generation, a HUGE boost to it, enough to make it so we can secure it, keep it, and only need to maintain it rather and cry and need to steal it back.

[TirionCrey]

Hate generation is one thing and it's important, I agree on that, but this whole thing wouldn't be much of a problem, if we actually "block" shit, which is the ONLY thing that makes us unique compared to WAR(not counting MP heal crap)

All SE really needs to do is alter formulas of the game, most of all the "enemy lvl compared to your lvl" formulas, which pretty much make defense and block a useless thing. We don't block, unless with Boon, we might as well tank w/o a shield...

Second to that we got WAY less HP then WAR, which is just not justified, since we were supposed to "mitigate" dmg in return for lower HP...well I don't see anything of that due to the stupid formulas in place for fighting high lvl mobs. I basically get the same dmg as WAR, as I get on PLD when fighting high lvl mobs...stupid, just stupid.

PLD is the inferior WAR right now...

Give us regular blocks back, Enmity on Phalanx and problem solved.

[Noata]

I hate sages. I only have a preblem when you just spit out opinions. your posting a giant post and its mostly opinionated. its okay to have some, but for a majority to be nothing but baseless self drawn conclusion serves only to create a giant false idea of how everything works. this has been going on since day 1 of the forums when people just post nothing but self decided fact.
I have no personal hatred toward the posters but here is a fact i think you should consider before posting a page and a half about tanking

Emnity is the focus of the mob. by holding focus your team can attack. having a larger amount of emnity then other group members in no way increases damage. the early formula More tank hate = higher dps = more loot. is completely false and has nothing to support it. having a high DPS does make the DPS have a higher hate. but emnity is generated many different ways one of which is damage. more emnity does not mean more dps. a tank can maintain hate doing little damage. your DPS can only chain skills based off of cooldowns and TP/MP usage. meaning they have a limit due to cost. your damage level is not formulated by hate. a mage stealing aggro is more a sign of poor spell sequence then anything else.

[Kiara]

The problem with paladin, and gladiator to be honest, is that it artificially limits the entire party owing to its tiny threat generation capacity relative to warrior...

Paladin is supposed to be a tank and only a tank, its a job, it should do one thing and do it really really well.

warrior dishes out equal enmity while doing quadruple gla's damage and having more HP.

Well said, Pied & Brannigan!

I really hope Yoshdia-san and Team take a really good look at Paladin in light of all our feedback here (and on the JP side). Paladin is so lacking right now, I really hope we get some fundamental changes besides "[Dev0000] Increased damage to Spirits Within." or something minimal like that.

The Paladin's Job *is* the Tank. And it should be desirable, useful, *enticing* and have its own standout advantages of being chosen when going through our Max Level Content (and in any situation).

[Nightmare8675]

short post time! make the skill come from con/pug and give them a provoke instead of divine (useless) veil!

[elreed]

They need to check enmity skills for paladin mostly, right now warrior is better tank than pld, for example the antagonize and vengeance actions are very helpful for hate build, AS I SAID BEFORE DONT NERF OTHER JOB/CLASSES TO MAKE OTHERS SHINE, well right now i dont see any skill for pld that builds enmity easier or AoE enmity as warrior have, maybe if they gave paladin an AoE DoT that has a lot of enmity, (i dont like bringing other games for this, but i have to this time) like in WoW paladin had a ground DoT with a good AoE and lot of enmity damage dealers could have more freedom, right now i feel like berserk and rampage are like stances, like berserk for damage dealing and rampage for tank, well in WoW you had something like that a tank bonus status, healer bonus status or damage dealer bonus status, much like having antagonize ON all the time if you turned on the tank bonus.

It would help a lot having War Drum usable all the time without the block requirement, it should be able to block more or give back the guard stance, it was annoying back then when you had to click on every action in order to do damage (you had to do a lot of stuff back then, not anymore).

For me a job must have a marked difference from a class, everyone already knows that a class is easier to solo stuff and job must help more in party fights, but right now as someone hast stated in other thread about black mage you cant see a big difference between them excepts for a few jobs, maybe if they add those stances add other skills as i mentiones and tweak the skills more we could have the marked difference of jobs and classes and a balanced system.

[Phobos]

They need to check enmity skills for paladin mostly, right now warrior is better tank than pld, for example the antagonize and vengeance actions are very helpful for hate build, AS I SAID BEFORE DONT NERF OTHER JOB/CLASSES TO MAKE OTHERS SHINE, well right now i dont see any skill for pld that builds enmity easier or AoE enmity as warrior have, maybe if they gave paladin an AoE DoT that has a lot of enmity, (i dont like bringing other games for this, but i have to this time) like in WoW paladin had a ground DoT with a good AoE and lot of enmity damage dealers could have more freedom, right now i feel like berserk and rampage are like stances, like berserk for damage dealing and rampage for tank, well in WoW you had something like that a tank bonus status, healer bonus status or damage dealer bonus status, much like having antagonize ON all the time if you turned on the tank bonus.

It would help a lot having War Drum usable all the time without the block requirement, it should be able to block more or give back the guard stance, it was annoying back then when you had to click on every action in order to do damage (you had to do a lot of stuff back then, not anymore).

For me a job must have a marked difference from a class, everyone already knows that a class is easier to solo stuff and job must help more in party fights, but right now as someone hast stated in other thread about black mage you cant see a big difference between them excepts for a few jobs, maybe if they add those stances add other skills as i mentiones and tweak the skills more we could have the marked difference of jobs and classes and a balanced system.

This is definitively the problem. Paladin has no enmity advantages over GLA or WAR, yet also no defensive/stalling advantages. Plus with GLA and WAR having more hp, it's really quite useless right now. Even at that, WAR is just so much better (and easier). GLA even has to constantly spam abilities to get close the tankability WAR has (enmity and survivability), where WAR mostly just needs to do its primary combo. PLD doesn't even get the survivability GLA does.

All-in-all though, I don't really have my hopes up for this update, as the PLD abilities are quite underwhelming.

Also, if PLD is supposed to tank (which should mean it takes the least damage of all the jobs) - why does WAR AF only have 6 less defense than PLD AF? I know defense is relatively garbage, but you would think that PLD would have some inherent advantage in it's gear in terms of defense, considering that was a key component to what they were promising.

Edit: Actually, I think I just came up with a possible solution.

Change Mind from adding to PLD's attacks to adding to it's defense. Keep GLA the same, but use this as way GLA => PLD is "sacrificing attack for defense"

so, GLA would be
+STR = +damage
+MND = +damage
+VIT = +defense

PLD would be
+STR = +damage
+MND = +defense
+VIT = +defense