Dear Paladins

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Maeka]

Well, see, what I find happens is this:

1). I try to Benison the tank before he grabs the first enemy (sometimes he does that thing when he rushes at the enemy causing my Benison to land a second too late which gets me immediate aggro and he has to stop and make sure he has the mobs)
2). Tank runs to get more mobs, losing Benison in the process and getting taken down to about 90%
3). Tank stops at some place and I run up to the pack to start casting Holy.

There are times the tank is 30-50% health by the time my first Holy comes out. Especially during the first pull of the Dungeon where the only instants I have are Tetra and Bene, and with the first pull of a dungeon, not knowing how good a tank is, or is not, I don't like dumping Benediction on the first pull because you just don't know what's going to happen later on.

So after 2-3 Holy Casts, I am left with a tank that has 30-50%.

If the tank casts Clemency this is awesome awesome awesome. That tank earns a hearty Thank-You from me because that relieves me of a lot of stress.

If not, Tetra isn't going to save them; if they have 30% or some such, they'll have like 50-60% after and they'll be right back down to the 30s within the few seconds it takes me to wind up some Cure2s. Then it's a losing battle to spam Cure2 faster than they're losing health which usually ends up me praying for a crit.

Assize is usually thrown in here somewhere, but even that + Tetra sometimes isn't enough.

This is why I love a tank who does Clemency during the initial Holy Spam. It really helps me. A Lot. And they're only sacrificing one DPS spell to do so.

EDIT: I have seen better geared tanks who can just pull two or three groups of mobs and NOT drop that fast, but these seem to not be the norm in my Expert roulettes lately. I usually get people who are ~440 who probably shouldn't be overpulling like that.
EDIT2: Also, contrary to what some tanks and healers believe, the DPS are important too... a pair of 90k health DPS that know how to play their job, you can easily pull huge groups even if the tank and heals aren't that great geared if the tank knows how to use their mitigation buttons because everything dies ludicrously fast. But if the DPS are 440 geared and are putting out terrible DPS then it just takes too long for stuff to die and we eventually run out of cooldowns and MP.

[Mavrias]

Well, see, what I find happens is this:

1). I try to Benison the tank before he grabs the first enemy (sometimes he does that thing when he rushes at the enemy causing my Benison to land a second too late which gets me immediate aggro and he has to stop and make sure he has the mobs)
2). Tank runs to get more mobs, losing Benison in the process and getting taken down to about 90%
3). Tank stops at some place and I run up to the pack to start casting Holy.

There are times the tank is 30-50% health by the time my first Holy comes out. Especially during the first pull of the Dungeon where the only instants I have are Tetra and Bene, and with the first pull of a dungeon, not knowing how good a tank is, or is not, I don't like dumping Benediction on the first pull because you just don't know what's going to happen later on.

So after 2-3 Holy Casts, I am left with a tank that has 30-50%.

If the tank casts Clemency this is awesome awesome awesome. That tank earns a hearty Thank-You from me because that relieves me of a lot of stress.

If not, Tetra isn't going to save them; if they have 30% or some such, they'll have like 50-60% after and they'll be right back down to the 30s within the few seconds it takes me to wind up some Cure2s. Then it's a losing battle to spam Cure2 faster than they're losing health which usually ends up me praying for a crit.

Assize is usually thrown in here somewhere, but even that + Tetra sometimes isn't enough.

This is why I love a tank who does Clemency during the initial Holy Spam. It really helps me. A Lot. And they're only sacrificing one DPS spell to do so.

EDIT: I have seen better geared tanks who can just pull two or three groups of mobs and NOT drop that fast, but these seem to not be the norm in my Expert roulettes lately. I usually get people who are ~440 who probably shouldn't be overpulling like that.
EDIT2: Also, contrary to what some tanks and healers believe, the DPS are important too... a pair of 90k health DPS that know how to play their job, you can easily pull huge groups even if the tank and heals aren't that great geared if the tank knows how to use their mitigation buttons because everything dies ludicrously fast. But if the DPS are 440 geared and are putting out terrible DPS then it just takes too long for stuff to die and we eventually run out of cooldowns and MP.

Benison + Regen during the process of the pull holy> holy > asylum > Regen + assize > holy > continued holy spam > tetra/ bene/ aflatus as necessary

so long as theyre using cooldowns they shouldnt need to supplement your healing with clemency.

expert roulette has like an i410 min ilvl, i440 is more than fine.

[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..

[TheForce]

lmao if the paladin is spamming clemency i just take the opportunity to dps more. I never complain about it, they've obviously been burned before, and if they want to use their security blanket, i dont mind. essential dignity/excog/ lustrate/ bene will still be there when tbey run out of mana.

I like this guy. I like this guy a lot.