Dear Paladins

[KaitoAsaha]

Love how skillfully the TC made one post and got things to snowball to such an amount.

[Ramzakristos]

ok,so first of all clemency is a situational spell.it is never intended to be used as a constant tool.second of all the paladin,if he/she chooses,will use to supplement his/her health.it is not meant to offend the healer.it will be used if the healer is in trouble,if you pulled too much or healer is dead.i think in this case we all have to admit that there are pretty bad paladins out there but on the other side of the coin.there are pretty bad healers as well.

so in conclusion PLD will use clemency if he needs it (unless he's bad and spams the crap out of it) or if the healer(not all are like that we know!!) just dps and barely heals the party.so this thread was founded on a supposition and should die with some truth.

[Deceptus]

I've saved dungeon runs (bosses) where the healer screws up and dies and it's just the PLD and the dps.

Keep 1-2ing riot blade for mana and heal the dps through the aoe damage (thus healing myself in the process).

Or when I see the healer struggling on big pulls so I can help out. They might be new, or they might be undergeared but a dead tank is a dead group and you'd be stupid not to use every tool in your kit to keep yourself alive.

Clemency has a place and a use and skillful players know how to use it properly. Players who don't understand PLD's complete kit shouldn't be commenting on how Paladins should play.

[Maeka]

And here I'm a WHM who's sitting here going "I wish more PLDs would cast Clemency more often instead of spamming Holy Spirit".

I mean, the PLD can cast HS on one target IIRC unless they get some Level 70+ ability (My PLD is still 70, so bear with me here), meanwhile during the first 5-10 seconds of a pull, I could be laying down some Holy. But no, the PLD wants to cast Holy Spirit and I have to interrupt my first 3 Holy casts to deal with the PLD that's now at 50% health even after dumping Benison and Regen on them.

I'd rather they casted Clemency early in the pull so I could get out 3-5 Holy casts. By then, if the DPS are good, maybe one or two mobs are dead and the whole pack is half or two thirds dead and just a few more heals and the whole pack is down.

But no, that Holy Spirit is oh-so-important....

[Mavrias]

And here I'm a WHM who's sitting here going "I wish more PLDs would cast Clemency more often instead of spamming Holy Spirit".

I mean, the PLD can cast HS on one target IIRC unless they get some Level 70+ ability (My PLD is still 70, so bear with me here), meanwhile during the first 5-10 seconds of a pull, I could be laying down some Holy. But no, the PLD wants to cast Holy Spirit and I have to interrupt my first 3 Holy casts to deal with the PLD that's now at 50% health even after dumping Benison and Regen on them.

I'd rather they casted Clemency early in the pull so I could get out 3-5 Holy casts. By then, if the DPS are good, maybe one or two mobs are dead and the whole pack is half or two thirds dead and just a few more heals and the whole pack is down.

But no, that Holy Spirit is oh-so-important....

Are you sure theyre not casting Holy Circle, the level 72 ability? If not then you have more things to worry about if your PLD is single targetimg during trash.

Also if youre needing to majorly heal the PLD within the first few Holy's your probably missing some mobs.

[PyurBlue]

And here I'm a WHM who's sitting here going "I wish more PLDs would cast Clemency more often instead of spamming Holy Spirit".

I mean, the PLD can cast HS on one target IIRC unless they get some Level 70+ ability (My PLD is still 70, so bear with me here), meanwhile during the first 5-10 seconds of a pull, I could be laying down some Holy. But no, the PLD wants to cast Holy Spirit and I have to interrupt my first 3 Holy casts to deal with the PLD that's now at 50% health even after dumping Benison and Regen on them.

I'd rather they casted Clemency early in the pull so I could get out 3-5 Holy casts. By then, if the DPS are good, maybe one or two mobs are dead and the whole pack is half or two thirds dead and just a few more heals and the whole pack is down.

But no, that Holy Spirit is oh-so-important....

You shouldn't have to delay Holy. Unless you can't hit the majority of mobs, Holy is near 100% damage reduction. It doesn't matter what happens to the PLD during your first Holy cast unless they're undergeared and made of paper. I find that as a tank that synergy with WHM's can be surprisingly difficult. Holy is incredibly powerful, but it also makes tank CD's useless since mobs can't damage the tank while they are stunned. I put a lot of effort into trying to not have CD's up while the WHM goes into Holy mode, but for some reason this ends up being difficult a lot of the time. Some WHM are just inconsistent with their timing. My honest advice for WHM's (and what I do as a WHM) is that once the tank has grabbed everything, just immediately Holy. If you have Benediction up then all the more reason go all in on DPS. The tank will survive the first cast (unless undergeared), they will be invincible for 5 seconds which allows you to heal them, and then you can give them another few seconds of invuln that effectively extends their CD duration.

[Rasikko]

And here I'm a WHM who's sitting here going "I wish more PLDs would cast Clemency more often instead of spamming Holy Spirit".

I mean, the PLD can cast HS on one target IIRC unless they get some Level 70+ ability (My PLD is still 70, so bear with me here), meanwhile during the first 5-10 seconds of a pull, I could be laying down some Holy. But no, the PLD wants to cast Holy Spirit and I have to interrupt my first 3 Holy casts to deal with the PLD that's now at 50% health even after dumping Benison and Regen on them.

I'd rather they casted Clemency early in the pull so I could get out 3-5 Holy casts. By then, if the DPS are good, maybe one or two mobs are dead and the whole pack is half or two thirds dead and just a few more heals and the whole pack is down.

But no, that Holy Spirit is oh-so-important....

They should actually be spamming their AOE skills in big packs instead of Holy Spirit..

[E4EO]

I’m reading through this thread and I fail to see where lots of PLD’s are coming from. You say you worry about dying, and use clemency to keep yourselfs topped up, but at the same time you seem to forget about regens and instant casts.

I’ll come from a primarily WHM perspective as I play a lot of WHM, if you couldn’t guess. Now for a list of things in the WHM kit that allow them to DPS while keeping the tank sustained with as little time spent healing goes as follows:
Regen, Medica 2, Benediction, Afflatus Solace (GCD instant cure 2), Asylum, Assize, Tetragrammaton (oGCD instant cure 2), Divine Benison (oGCD shield), and Afflatus Rapture.

These are all either instant cast, passive over time heals, or instant oGCD skills, WHMs have a lot of tools that incentivize them to wait till a tank gets to 50% or even 40%, than to do a a sorta combo, of you call call it that, with their skills. A common thing I do at the start of a pull is regen -> Divine Benison ***after*** the tank gets enmity with their AOE combo, than wait till they get to around 50 or 40 percent, than do Afflatus Solace -> Tetragrammaton to bring the tank close to max health, once my Tetragrammaton is spent, I’ll than start using Afflatus Solace more as lilies build up fast, than when my regen runs out, I’ll pop another to keep the tank up, this second regen should do a lot of the work for me now as mobs will start dying around this point and thusly the tank will take less damage. Assize is used for DPS in pulls/combo’d with medica 1/2 for room wide boss attacks, and if I exhaust all my liles, than I start using cure 1 and 2, cures are a last resort option only to be used if the tank is about to die even when I’ve used all my passive skills. I use Benediction around 20% ~ 30% to make sure the tank doesn’t die before it goes off, I also use it liberally due to its relatively short CD compared to something like a tank invuln, and Asylum and Afflatus Rapture are used mostly for boss fights, but I have a bad habit of not using a Asylum enough, so you could probably use it in pulls and be find as well. I use these skills very liberally due to them having short CDs.

What does doing this combo/strat/thing do? It minimizes time spent healing and maximizes time spent DPSing due to the little amount of time I spend healing thanks to the instant casts/passive heals, while ensuring the tank is healed constantly with little overhealing. Now combo this with tank defensive buffs, and you’ll have little reason to use clemency.

Cont’d in my second post below cause I’m writing that much somehow lol

[E4EO]

And what if the healer is using GCD heals way too much, and not maximizing DPS? Well, they’re using GCDs too much, doesn’t that mean you’ll be sustained? And even terrible WHMs use Tetragrammaton and Benediction at low HP, so you could probably count on them using it, I’m speaking from experience when I say that I NEVER use clemency when im tanking and the healer is alive, and 9/10 times I’m fine, no matter how poorly the healer is playing their kit.

And this is just for WHM, AST and SCH have oGCDs too, I haven’t played much of either, but I’m sure they have a way to maximize DPS while minimizing healing and overhealing.

Sorry if this all seems like a little much, or if I explained this poorly, I I’m a bit of a rush so I may have mesded something up somewhere.

Summarized, decent healers will maximize DPS, while minimizing healing and overhealing thanks to instant heals, instant oGCD heals, or regens, and even the worst healers know to use Benediction and Tetragrammaton when the tank gets low.