Thoughts on PLD changes

[Sqwall]

I have been maining PLD since 2.0 launch and here are my thoughts on all the good and bad from 2.0 to 5.0 ( I play on PS4 with controller)

2.0 Very simple design, clean, and easy to use. Halone combo was your go to enmity generator. Simple macros would help with using cover, while also using stoneskin if older PLD's can remember that. Good starting point

3.0 Added some extra defensive skills while retaining the simple design from 2.0, albeit the new defensive skills didn't offer that much in making PLD feel more tankish. Sheltron was a one time block for 50 oath. Not a great trade off unless you timed your sheltron perfectly on large hits, and a small amount of MP. Stance dancing was more apparent. Halone hit a confusing spot since you good get strength down or look for a DOT with goring, or a high damage with Royal. Naturally we did all of them to have all the effects going, which made PLD's pretty busy like ninja going through all the combos. Still PLD was in good spot.

4.0 WOW! PLD is greatest tank, but busiest tank in the game. IMO my controller was ruined after this expansion. And it made me branch out to play the other tanks. Seriously though - Flash, Total Eclipse, Cover, intervention, holy spirit, requiescat, shield swipe, halone combo, goring combo, royal combo, sheltron, Bulwark, Divine, Sentinel, Rampart, Stance dancing, etc; you get the idea and this was about every mob pull! This right here made me want to change to WAR or DRK.

5.0 Finally. PLD is perfect IMO. Best thing SE did to make PLD feel good again. An AOE combo, and simple 2 branch combo. While doing a balance with casting. Sheltron is amazing! I actually use sentinel all the time now. My only gripe is atonement and that it doesn't give us charges to use when we need them, wish I could use them after a combo instead of spamming them. PLD is perfect at this point and simple. No more stance dancing. Perfection! RIP FLASH

What are some of your thoughts?

[Inuk9]

Still dont understand How a sword and shield job do more damage than the 2 handed weapon jobs.

[shao32]

PLD is a clear example of evolution with every expansion, I wish I could say the same of DRK.

[Phileas]

Paladin feels like they took all that worked with 4.0 and gave some nifty tools to fill the gaps.

Using atonement helps as its higher potency than spamming RA combo while goring is up and well gap closer....nuff said.

AoE rotation feels good and very satisfying. Hallowed ground and shelltron helps fill the gap when rampart/sentinel/arms lenghth are on cd.

Only bad thing is the nerf to block and cover getting nerfed

Overall i switched to Paladin from WAR and its been very nice

[Kolsykol]

Did they change something about Clemency?
Because it's driving me insane when I heal in dungeons... It seems like there's more Clemency spammers around than before, lol.
And every time that I point it out and tell PLD's that they're not going to die and don't need to use Clemency they're either rude or don't respond or tell me why.

It's honestly very irritating and feels like they don't trust me <_<.
Just because you're bellow 80% hp doesn't mean that you're going to die or that I am sleeping ( btw I have insta heals )...

If they changed Clemency and made it useful for dps somehow then for some reason people refuse to tell me.

Edit: I am not trying to '' tell people how to play '' or whatever... Altho to me it's almost like a BLM spamming Freeze for the AoE rotation or something, it's just slowing things down and I am fully capable of AoE:ing whilst keeping the tank alive at the same time without stopping my AoE.
And I mean you're using a GCD that could be used for AoE instead whilst I have OGCD's to use. I don't have to stop really.
But I'd be lying if I said that it didn't almost feel like taunting at times or as if they think that I am incompetent.
And even tho I am not rude when I point it out and I do it in a friendly manner I still get rude responses back.

I've had a lot of bad experiences with PLD's since Shadowbringers for some reason o_o...
It's making me bitter towards them...
I don't understand what's happening and if something was changed because it seems to have gotten worse imo.
Perhaps just a lot of new people I guess.

Maybe I come across as rude in my comment but I don't mean to be, I just had numerous of bad experiences with this in a row.
The last one where I decided to ask ( politely ) I was cussed out...

[Thela]

Did they change something about Clemency?
Because it's driving me insane when I heal in dungeons... It seems like there's more Clemency spammers around than before, lol.
And every time that I point it out and tell PLD's that they're not going to die and don't need to use Clemency they're either rude or don't respond or tell me why.

While this is possibly not the reason, you have to keep in mind that PLD's Spirits Within ability scales with how much HP you have. It does a fair chunk of damage when you're at full health and pitiful damage when you're low health. For this reason letting the PLD sit at low health just because they won't die is a dps loss for them.

But that aside, I don't ever cast clemency unless i can see the healer is struggling (or maybe even dead with noone to res them, saving a wipe is still a thing sometimes) and I feel the majority of PLD's will never use it either unless absolutely necessary.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

I personally avoid using clemency where possible, unless healer is really struggling with a big pull and I miss time a CD, and like ~15% hp and healer is spamming heals, or it's prog and healers are down, there is genuinely no other reason to use clemency and hp penalty on spirits within (stipulation does not belong on a tank), isn't really a reason.
Personally it feels disingenuous to the healers, who are there to heal and in harder content it can screw with their planned healing. Remember if you do die it's just a game go back to the start or get a raise, just let the healers to their thing and worry about doing dmg, longer you waste using clemency the more damage you take overall because you're not doing damage.

[Khalithar]

Did they change something about Clemency?
Because it's driving me insane when I heal in dungeons... It seems like there's more Clemency spammers around than before, lol.

Like Boodeb said, it's ridiculously powerful now. I've successfully soloed a few dungeon bosses with it including the final boss of Amaurot when my party went down pretty early in the fight and I decided to see if I could do it. Thanks to the Req changes I was never in any danger of dying as the boss has no tank buster at all and I could mitigate/heal through everything else.

When I pull big, I started using clemency but not because I don't trust the healer so much as to guarantee that I stay alive long enough for the dps to kill everything. If the healer doesn't like it I don't care, if it helps me survive the big pulls in the dungeons long enough for the dps to kill the enemies then my mission is accomplished.

[AceOfCakez]

Did they change something about Clemency?
Because it's driving me insane when I heal in dungeons... It seems like there's more Clemency spammers around than before, lol.
And every time that I point it out and tell PLD's that they're not going to die and don't need to use Clemency they're either rude or don't respond or tell me why.

It's honestly very irritating and feels like they don't trust me <_<.
Just because you're bellow 80% hp doesn't mean that you're going to die or that I am sleeping ( btw I have insta heals )...

If they changed Clemency and made it useful for dps somehow then for some reason people refuse to tell me.

Edit: I am not trying to '' tell people how to play '' or whatever... Altho to me it's almost like a BLM spamming Freeze for the AoE rotation or something, it's just slowing things down and I am fully capable of AoE:ing whilst keeping the tank alive at the same time without stopping my AoE.
And I mean you're using a GCD that could be used for AoE instead whilst I have OGCD's to use. I don't have to stop really.
But I'd be lying if I said that it didn't almost feel like taunting at times or as if they think that I am incompetent.
And even tho I am not rude when I point it out and I do it in a friendly manner I still get rude responses back.

I've had a lot of bad experiences with PLD's since Shadowbringers for some reason o_o...
It's making me bitter towards them...
I don't understand what's happening and if something was changed because it seems to have gotten worse imo.
Perhaps just a lot of new people I guess.

Maybe I come across as rude in my comment but I don't mean to be, I just had numerous of bad experiences with this in a row.
The last one where I decided to ask ( politely ) I was cussed out...

People using Clemency when they're at 80%? Wow, as a PLD main, I never do that. That's just inane considering that I trust my healers to do their job. Clemency is a nice niche skill to use if: a) you have incompetent healers b) the healer(s) is dead and you can help with healing c) ability to do old content unsynced w/o the need for a healer.

[VargasVermillion]

Actually some changes I think would be cool would be to remove shield bash (since it's basically useless now save for some extremely rare or unlikely situations which technically go against SE design for job balance this expac anyway) and replace it with shield swipe with a 50 oath gauge cost and remove cover from the oath gauge.