The Problem with Paladin

[Shiggysonson]

Didn't make myself clear I see. I was agreeing with you and on top of that adding some possible scenarios

Ah ic. Yeah sorry I wasn't sure what you were saying.

[Phobos]

What?
No, seriously....what?!
I'm not saying make it impossible for paladins to manage MP. I'm just saying don't make it so they can manage MP alone. So are you saying if paladins were able to manage their MP alone, paladins would be better in all those situations? Wouldn't that mean a paladin with a bard is better in all those situations?

I get what you're saying here, I think it should be more like:
PLD can survive and recover low/moderate MP to be able to cure itself every now and then to supplement WHM cures.
vs
PLD with a BRD can survive and recover moderate/high MP to be able to cure itself and others somewhat frequently to supplement WHM cures and help generate enmity.


Not having a BRD should not cripple you, having a BRD should enhance your effectiveness.

[Andrien]

I'm not sure if everyone got too used to WoW where it was insanely easy for tanks to build more enmity than DDs or what. There is no problem with DDs being able to build more enmity than tanks as long as they don't do it lol. The tank's job is to build as much enmity as possible and negate as much damage. The better the tank, the more damage the DDs can do. Simple as that.

I never played WoW but I played FFXI since 2004 to now. What I'm saying is. MP is one of the main tools for pld, and if by chance you lose enmity to a damage dealer, you might want to cure them to keep hate control, and on top of that curing yourself while you're at it.

edit: There should be some way to lessen the burden just a little bit.

[Shiggysonson]

Not having a BRD should not cripple you, having a BRD should enhance your effectiveness.

I 100% agree with you. A paladin with access to a lot of MP should be a lot better than gladiator, and a bard should make this possible. Something like 1+1=2 for classes, and 1+1=3 for jobs.

[Phobos]

I 100% agree with you. A paladin with access to a lot of MP should be a lot better than gladiator, and a bard should make this possible. Something like 1+1=2 for classes, and 1+1=3 for jobs.

Yeah, I'm just saying - as it stands now PLD is garbage without BRD (after like 10 mins or so of fighting something). It should be more like PLD is good without a BRD, but when you have one you can do way more, as opposed to when you run out of MP theres no way of getting it back without one (should not force reliance on meds, though perhaps the price-point on them is decent, I'll have to check).


EDIT: Working now, but will make some attempts with PLD under different circumstances (will check out food/meds options and maybe get a BRD if I'm lucky) tonight to see how it goes. I'm hoping jobs can be better than classes but we'll see.

[Reaujien]

Wtf is threat? Personally, I try to hold hate/enmity.

*crickets* Um... okay

On a serious note, I don't know if you've attempted Ifrit or something similar on PLD (One long, drawn out fight where youre MP pool actually has a chance to get exhausted) but as I mentioned, I did not think this was an issue until I had a fight my MP actually got exhausted.

I haven't tried Ifrit on PLD yet, but on "something similar" yes I do believe I have. As for GLA, I've had my MP get exhausted before - easy enough to have a THM come by and SP > SR on me just before stops dashing around so as to get hit with a high damaging breath attack to provide the most MP back during SR's duration. So far, for both, running out of MP on either PLD or GLA have been very situation - both of which can be corrected (or made worse) by altering strategies.

I do understand the whole using a BRD thing, but there are a few issues with that - the first being that a PLD now requires a BRD, and needs them to keep Ballad on them.

How is this different than having it be required that GLA have Featherfoot and/or Sanguine Rite just to keep his/her MP up? The only difference I see in that is by not having those abilities you have to rely more on another party member to provide the support for you.

Hmm, good thing "long, drawn out fights" require party members to help win. *Solution found.*

In some situations this may mean either ignoring the rest of the party or giving everyone Ballad, or the BRD needing to run around to get everyone songs. It's not horrible but its a bit clunky.

BRDs don't need to ignore anyone in the party, especially with regards to putting up songs. Just like a THM can find the right moment to put up SR on the GLA in an Ifrit fight, so too can a BRD find the right opportunity to put up a 3 min (or is it more than 3min?) song on one party member (or a select group of party members), and then go back and put up a song for the 'other' party member(s). And, if "need[ing] to run around to get everyone songs" (which, you know, is what BRDs do) is clunky, then I guess fighting Ifrit is just as clunky because it requires you to, you know, run around and avoid ground mechanics.

I hate to bring up FFXI, particularly as I don't want too many of it's concepts adopted here, but for PLD there, MP was less of an issue for a few reasons:

2 Jobs could refresh, PLD also had auto-refresh and some gear that gave it available.
Block rate didn't suck horribly, so you would actually sometimes block a decent ammount of Damage.
It's much easier when you have an 18 man group to get a BRD or a RDM or both with your PLD

I actually like it when ppl bring up FFXI. Most seem to think that there's not "Final Fantasy" in FFXIV, and that it's awakens the anti-christ for mentioning a previous installment of a FF game when, you know, talking about a current/new FF game (because FF games never have anything similar/familiar in them... never). Anyway, I digressed...

You're absolutely right about having multiple ways PLDs could replenish MP in XI (pre-abbyssea, or h/e it's spelled. I say that because I stopped during WotG). But, even with having all that MP available to use you still could hold a lot of threat by relying on other members of your party for threat: THF, or anyone that /THF. That alone I would argue could give PLDs in XI the majority of their threat; however, it just all depended on the pt setup and situation.

Just to bring more than one game for comparison, I also played DCUO for a bit, where tanks had a few options as well:
Multiple power refreshing jobs - there are as many healing classes as there are refreshers and tanks.
Everyone has an inherent power regeneration that while relatively minimal, is noticeable enough.

Yeah... Hmmm, games like DCUO, WoW, Rift, etc., where every class had their own way to be self-sufficient, I find really hard to try and compare to FF games only because historically FF games have centered around strategic, tactical battles that involved micro-managing party members to perform key roles in order to win the battle. And I'm not suggesting that the battles in those games didn't involve any sort of strategy, it's just they were completely different (again, imo) then the strategies used to win fights in, say, FFIV and FFT, etc. Anyone, the thick of it is, every MMO will have their own class-structure to it, and to say stuff like, "I played this one game, and so this other game should have it simply by virtue of the other game having it" is purely subjective.


All in all bro, FFXIV allows you to play GLA or PLD whenever you want, and it sounds like you already have your mind set on GLA. Whatever you do, hope you have fun doing it because after all it's a video game, and we all choose to play it based on what it offers us. XD

[Reaujien]

There is a lot of damage dealers out there too to consider how quickly they can generate enmity. You can cure them as well to keep enmity but how much of that can you do before you're empty?

Yeah... but.... again... you don't need to rely on your MP to keep 100% of your threat. I mean, MP for a PLD isn't like 4 legs to a table: That is, PLDs have other "legs" they can boost their threat with (if you understand the analogy).

Also, DD classes have enmity-reduction capabilities. That, and, it's not hard to just ease off the DD. And, of course, if for w/e reason the DDs just can't pump enough damage to kill the mob before say a timer runs out or a mechanic is triggered, etc. etc., then either the PLD needs to rethink his/her play strategy, or perhaps the strategy for the entire party needs to be reevaluated.

For me, MP isn't the "end all, be all" for keeping threat. So far, I feel I've been able to hold threat pretty well in most situations; unless of course some DD like a BLM who ate paint chips as a child decided to unload his/her MP pool right at the beginning of a fight.

[syntaxlies]

I think my issue is the jobs are supposed to be clearly better for party play while classes are better for solo, and it is apparent that the gains for PLD in either party or solo are not enough to warrant using it at all. Even if you have a BRD (which is now just doing ballad to make up for the PLD's MP recovery loss, and therefore making it difficult/impossible to buff others) GLA can still recover more MP and use it more than PLD can.

In the event you dont have a well rounded party maybe you should use glad. Jobs are for party play as we all know and to make full use of jobs they will have to work together. You will have to rely on a bard to help you with mp so you can have other ability's that help you tank. I know we all know this already but it seems to becoming a surprise to some people. To say you don't want to rely on a bard for mp is the same as saying you don't want to rely on whm's for cures. Bard is a party buffer and I truly believe there is a reason its the only class that can cast sanguine rite on others(and in ifrit a good timing SR will recover all your mp).

[kro]

I think OP hit the nail on the head.

I've been talking about this with my LS and they agree that GLA is better because it can sustain itself better. In terms of kiting, GLA gets access to Featherfoot, Second Wind, Decoy, and Sanguine Rite. I would take these abilities any day over Holy Succor, especially since you are now required to completely stop moving to Cure yourself.

I also feel that Spirits Within has too long of a recast. If you compare to WAR, Steel Cyclone has a 30 second recast and finishes their "tanking combo" (Heavy Swing > Skull Sunder (increases enmity) > Steel Cyclone) while GLA and PLD only get Fast > Flat.

Cover is underwhelming in general. It needs a shorter recast or the ability to block all attacks for a set duration to be useful.

While PLD with ballad is pretty good at surviving in straight-tank situations, I think the larger HP pool, better DD potential, and threat generation of WAR make it the better tank especially with how good of a healer WHM is now. It also doesn't require a BRD to put itself in danger to stick ballad on the tank.

[Saiph]

The problem isnt Paladin. Its Gladiator or rather the armory/crossability system. They need to somehow nerve crossclassabilties for classes.
Maybe something like this:
when you play solo (as a class) everything is as it is righ now in the game.
2 player party = abilties that arent from your main class lose 10% of their power.
3 player party = abilties that arent from your main class lose 15% of their power.
.......
8 player party = abilties that arent from your main class lose 40% of their power.
(just as you get the acc and hp/mp boost you get debuffs for crosclass abilities when you play as a class)
or they should rework the armory system til its balanced.

edit: not saying the whole armory system is imbalanced but there is some stuff like this thread shows.