Simple Fix to PLD

[NoctisUmbra]

Hopefully we can get a dev/rep response on this.

Although they recently put out a buff for PLD in terms of skills, and it was so very welcome, it simply made it so PLD went from not worth ever playing to sufficient but never requested. Essentially an upgrade from being a detriment to the party to being never preferred.

I just wish for them to notice that PLD is noticeably lacking in the damage mitigation area primarily. Many of you have also voiced concerns with enmity, so I'm sure they'll look into that too.

Now, let's all hold hands and channel our energy to summon the Morbol.

[Kiara]

Hi Noctis,

Great thread.

After reading the entire thread (and thinking about all the suggestions in the Paladin Forum), one of the key things brought up by a few people that seems to be distinctly missing when viewing the job is:

• What is the Paladin's Unique Characteristic, and is it appealing and obvious to most players?
  

At the highest level, most players (average, mainstream, casual, hardcore) should be able to pick up a Paladin (or see one in action), and see a Standout Characteristic that's inherent to Paladins. And this should be appealing, desirable and effective in many situations.

We know what White Mages are (Bastion of Healing), Black Mages (Glass Cannon, Huge Burst, Ranged Damage with Low Defense), etc.

The general thought is that the Paladin should be a Defensive Job. It's a "Tank" and a Defensive Cornerstone / Foundation. But as we've seen from the majority of posts and general sentiments in the game (on both the JP and NA/EU side), it's simply not as desirable most of the time.

So while some are advocating that nothing's "wrong" with Paladin, just on a fundamental level, we should look at just how apparent and accessible a Paladin's Characteristics are, in addition to its Effectiveness.

If the majority of the players who pick Paladin (or see them in action), can survive / tank our Max Level Content, but then see another Job (Warrior) that can go through the same content, doing it just as well, if not better, and also happen to be able to be able to produce higher DPS in the process (making completing the battles, faster and easier), then Yoshida-san and company have fallen short.

Ultimately, if the Paladin is supposed to be "The Tank" / "Defense Incarnate", etc., then SE should take the time to really make it shine and standout.

A "slight" adjustment here or there probably wouldn't be enough, as again, it'd still behoove parties to go with a Warrior Tank who can tank all the content and deal much greater DPS in the process.

Ultimately, I agree with Noctis that having a noticeable Global Damage Reduction (including Magic Damage Reduction) would be one great step.

I'd like to see adjustments to Shield Block formula / Blocking in general as another improvement, and possibly adjustments to the formula for Defense vs. dLevel (or a way to make Defense builds desirable and effective instead of just stacking HP).

Hopefully adjustments come soon, or it might get to a point where Paladins develop such a bad reputation that the player base / mindset will just instinctively always want to ignore Paladins for current and future content.

Thanks.

[Judge_Xero]

Can't wait to see what happens with PLD. Thanks OP for this post.

P.S. Has anyone tried a fight with PLD Covering for a WAR and no other WHM's?
I bet a WAR + PLD Team would be epic (i.e. Collusion on Holy Succor for extra Enmity Control)
PLD could Cover WAR to keep MP + Heals/Reduce Damage.

Lots of benefits when the heals are needed a little closer than a WHM should be.

[Brannigan]

You can't collusion heals

also as someone said earlier the paladin playing nurse to the warrior is pretty stupid conceptually

[Alerith]

Can't wait to see what happens with PLD. Thanks OP for this post.

P.S. Has anyone tried a fight with PLD Covering for a WAR and no other WHM's?
I bet a WAR + PLD Team would be epic (i.e. Collusion on Holy Succor for extra Enmity Control)
PLD could Cover WAR to keep MP + Heals/Reduce Damage.

Lots of benefits when the heals are needed a little closer than a WHM should be.

IF you were going to collusion anything, it would be the PLD's Spirit's Within combo.

Cover > Aegis Boon > Phalanx > Collusion the PLD > Spirit's Within

Even if the WAR already had hate, the Cover ability allows the PLD to intercept the melee attack required to block and begin the combo.

[Klive]

but you can collusion Spirits Within though and it is awesome.

My wife has a warrior and I have paladin; we play and test what the two can do together. The two working together is unreal. Threat generation is threw the roof, damage reduction is increased, greater adaptability, greater survivability, and less need for a second WHM. Few parties really lets us try and experiment this to the fullest, but so far I like how well they combo.

I know people think I'm crazy for experimenting, but I love problem solving. I also think most content, right now, doesn't require two WHMs.

[Zumi]

There are several problems with Paladins that people don't want to take them vs Warriors.

1. Low HP. A Paladin with their AF gear has a little over 3k hp while a warrior has over 4k. As a class where the only thing they can do is really tank they probably should have the highest HP in the game.

2. Area of Effect Damage and low overall damage. Paladins have very little ability to tank groups of mobs in a party situation. They have flash and war drum, but flash doesn't do damage and war drum does like 60 damage to each mob. Damage dealers will pull off mobs that you are not directly targeting. Warrior on the other hand has Steel Cyclone which hits all mobs in an area for 1500+ damage which allows warrior to keep solid hate on like 10+ monsters, and do insane amounts of damage. When you have raids that are time runs basically that means you can't take Paladin because their damage output isn't high enough.

3. Damage Taken I been told by white mages that Paladin or Warrior about the same when it comes to healing its not really harder to heal a Warrior vs a Paladin. Here a paladin could use more damage reduction.

4. Enmity Generation, other people can pull mobs from the Paladin, To make up for their lack of damage they should have some tanking stance which increases enmity generation. Again warrior has less of a problem with this given how much more damage they are doing it.

So in the end people just want warriors because they can do more damage and they do so much more damage and take about the same amount of damage. PLD could definitely use a AoE weapnskill, maybe make Spirits Within AoE. Wardrum defiantly needs a buff, like a 30 sec cooldown does like 500+ damage also take the block requirement off of it. That way AoE taking wouldn't be as much of an issue.

Basically Paladin needs, more AoE skills and damage to enemies, better enmity generation, and more damage mitigation, for people to actually want to take Paladins.

[Rexus]

I think a lot of the "problems" with Paladin actually come from the game mechanics being faulty, not Paladin being a weak tank.

First off, time requirements on chests already encourages people to bring whatever makes the dungeon go faster, so you bring war. Second, we as players choose to ignore how monsters are "suppose" to be killed and just take the path of least resistance.

Ex: Coincounter
I'm sure most groups decided to just have WARs stack HP gear, and eat 100 tonnze. However, you're "supposed" to dodge that move, and are rewarded when doing so by having a stunned boss.

Ex: Chimera
SE most likely wanted us to fight this in the middle, incap it's body parts, and fight with at most 2 BLMs. With everything incapped, I'd bet 1 Whm and Holy Succor would be more than enough healing. We instead stand out of AoE range, use 5 BLMs and take a WAR tank for faster kills and a bigger HP pool as a safety net for when hit with TP moves.

Paladin -might- have more use if we did fights the way SE intended them to be fought, but there is literally no reason to follow their path. Sure, you can do 5 chest runs with a Paladin tank, but why would you add that additional stress to yourself/your group? As I said before, we as players look for the path of least resistance (even more so now, since messing up CC/AV runs means less chance at darklight), and that is something SE clearly did not prepare for when introducing Paladin and these new dungeons.

Paladin can either be buffed somehow, so it can act like a Warrior in these fights, or SE can make us do their content the way it was intended. I'd rather the latter honestly, class stacking and standing on a wall is pretty lame.

[Brannigan]

Who eats 100 tonze? That's dumb.

I mean warrior can still dodge everything so I'm not sure how it's the boss mechanics are broken and not the class. Paladin can tank Chimera the exact same way warrior does - ram/dragon breath are easy to dodge and warriors SHOULD be dodging them. It's just riskier on paladin's lower HP pool because sometimes you mess up and you eat a tunnel worm or something.

[SwordCoheir]

I think Rexus was just saying where the game mechanics work against tanking mechanics, the extra HP pool on WAR is a better safety net than anything PLD really has to offer, especially how marginal the difference between their defensive capabilities are.