The Problem(s) with Paladin

[Eagleheart]

It's good that you support PVP. o_o 'cause I'm about to take you out back with a wiffle bat, tar, and feathers.

See you out back in five, dude! D:<<<<<

[Starkbeaumont]

question is: what do ppl really want pld to be? shall it put out more dmg to be able to be on par with war when it comes to speed runs and "effeciency"? or shall it generate more enmity and mitigate more dmg so other jobs can do more dmg without needing to worry about drawing hate?
i prefer the later, but i guess it's hard to accomplish with limited abilities and most of current endgame content.

[Cichy]

question is: what do ppl really want pld to be? shall it put out more dmg to be able to be on par with war when it comes to speed runs and "effeciency"? or shall it generate more enmity and mitigate more dmg so other jobs can do more dmg without needing to worry about drawing hate?
i prefer the later, but i guess it's hard to accomplish with limited abilities and most of current endgame content.

In my opinion WAR should stay as it is where it's a viable job for tanking but requires much more healing and coordination.
Where, PLD should be like a brick wall when it comes to tanking. It should hold hate way better than WAR and be able to generate hate on multiple targets quickly with abilities instead of damage.
I guess I'd like PLD to be a safe option for parties that are learning the game also since it would be hard to kill.
Personally, I'm not concerned with the damage PLD does or will ever do at all. I'm concerned with the damage it takes.

[Vaer]

question is: what do ppl really want pld to be?

A job that isn't shunned and can be taken seriously.

Great summary. +1

Their response: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A passive last stand sort of mechanic that protects from one shots would make up for the lower amount of HP. Something that brings your HP to 1 if something would otherwise kill you. Would have to be on a long cooldown of course.

Or a reverse Vengeance sort of mechanic that applies a stacking buff every time you block that mitigates all incoming damage including magic by 1% stacking up to 10 times maybe.

Don't know. Reading tons of these PLD threads is kind of depressing.

[Cenewulf]

question is: what do ppl really want pld to be? shall it put out more dmg to be able to be on par with war when it comes to speed runs and "effeciency"? or shall it generate more enmity and mitigate more dmg so other jobs can do more dmg without needing to worry about drawing hate?
i prefer the later, but i guess it's hard to accomplish with limited abilities and most of current endgame content.

I like the later as well. Paladins in almost every MMO have had the role of being on the front lines taking the all the damage while everyone else with their axes and pew pews take down the bad guys. Basically its supposed to be like a small war: You dont go up against an army (in a medieval or medieval fantasy) setting with no shield wall thats just dumb. Paladin is meant to be that shield wall that keeps them busy while the spears and archers (dps classes) are busy firing and stabbing away.

just my 2 gil on the matter

Btw OP you made some very good points

[Duelle]

I like the later as well. Paladins in almost every MMO have had the role of being on the front lines taking the all the damage while everyone else with their axes and pew pews take down the bad guys. Basically its supposed to be like a small war: You dont go up against an army (in a medieval or medieval fantasy) setting with no shield wall thats just dumb. Paladin is meant to be that shield wall that keeps them busy while the spears and archers (dps classes) are busy firing and stabbing away.

Likewise, the paladin can use their combination of holy magic and melee prowess to kick ass and take names. Granted, I don't expect a Final Fantasy paladin (not named Agrias) to be anything like that, but it is potential that should be kept in mind.

Aye, like I said in my post on the previous page that gap in base damage is growing. Part of PLD's hate gaining abilities are attributed to the damage it can deal on Spirits/Flat Blade combos, weak damage = weak returns no matter the modifier. Hate gaining JA's are static so they're gonna grow weaker against DPS's Damage as levels rise, and if FFXI has taught us anything about game mechanics is static values can't compete after a point in the game. So the only thing you can do without overhauling the system itself is boost the overall base damage of a weapon to a comparable level with other weapons so at least a job with no DD abilities can at least function at an appropriate level and allow GLA who has access to DD capabilities to become a somewhat competent DD.

Pulling something from my years spent tanking in WoW, I remember that pally tanks had more attacks with additional effects and a lot of the stuff they did to hold aggro involved holy magic. A warrior had to spam Sunder Armor to get 5 stacks, Heroic Strike as a TP/Rage dump, Revenge/Phalanx after any dodge/block/parry (Hint hint...), and Thunderclap/Circle Blade (hint hint hint...). Pally's had to use Consecrate, Holy Shield (kind of like a version of Punishing Barbs, but procced only on shield blocks), and Hammer of the Righteous (think Fast Blade cooldown, but could hit up to three targets in front of you).

What I'm getting at is that if WARs DPS while tanking comes from physical sources, then maybe PLDs DPS while tanking can come from more magic-related things. I'm beginning to formulate a redesign of GLA, and as soon as I'll finishg it I will troll the GLA forums with that. =P

[ArkNova]

Post was well put together, My linkshell members and me were discussing how this hotfix wont help paladin at all cause the biggest problem with paladin is its a tank that was ment to tank monsters 1 on 1 and in a game where the content sends wave after wave of monsters at your group makes paladin feel like it has no place in the game. There is content where paladin can tank 1 on 1 (Ifrit) but theres not enough there.

[viion]

Very epic post! nicely put. Lets see some PLD love. Sure its possible to be OK in some situations, but it is not preferred.

[ThePatriarch]

OP is truth.

[Estellios]

My thoughts on PLD: it will be more useful now that melee DD is getting pretty good. A good deal of PLD abilities are useless without anybody close by. It will most likely require a change in playstyle with the PLD taking care of healing the DDs and a WHM taking care of healing the PLD. Divine Veil and Regen together can make the frontliners really freakin durable and the extra DD will cover any damage lost by having a PLD. This is probably why Garuda is the best thing for PLD to tank right now as it's best with 1 WHM, doesn't have extremely high defense, and is a relatively small target so melee are near you.

I won't be able to try anything substantial with PLD tank until the weekend but if it has the same HP as GLA it might be fine. You are not supposed to be getting hit by 100-ton swing no matter who you are. Learn the timing and tells on Coincounter WS's and it becomes really easy to avoid swing. 100-ton swing is pretty much Eruption but now the tank has to avoid it too, so probably people that only tank are not used to WS timing and such. Almost all of the ridiculously powerful enemy skills you are meant to avoid.

As far as changes go:

• PLD/GLA attack modifiers should be changed to VIT and MND. WAR gets to stack STR and VIT which it would most likely be doing already so it has no downsides.
• Cover should recover MP naturally with the AF increasing the amount, as was suggested. The MP recovery is really important and PLD will end up having to use the AF until the end of time if this isn't done.
• This might be skirting into balance issues but Cover could instead be a self-buff that temporarily make you the target of any attacking enemies within a certain distance. This will allow you to hold hate long enough in dungeons for AOE spam to kill enemies which is where holding hate on multiple enemies is most important.
• Sentinel needs to do what it says on the tin and boost all enmity generation if it's true it only works on WS's and attacks. Sentinel boosting Flash's enmity would really help with keeping hate on multiple targets.
• Increase the range of Rampart and Divine Veil so that melee on larger targets like Ifrit and Chimera can benefit from them and PLD can get more hate with Rampart.