Ruining your Job to make it more desirable: Paladin Edition

[Eorzean_username]

Do you currently enjoy the playstyle of Paladin?

You won't when I'm through with it!

"But why? "

Because we need to bring up those PLD participation numbers in the game's most popular content, such as cutting-edge Savage clears and static-disbanding Ultimates about elderly men resurrecting yaoi characters by eating reptile organs.

"...is this sarcasm?"

No? Yes? Maybe? Only vaguely? ...I'm so burnt-out on the developers's repeated inability to foresee, and especially to successfully respond to, certain fundamental design problems, that I think I've lost my ability to take things 100% seriously. Nonetheless, if you want to see Paladins displace other Tanks overnight, this might do the trick.

"This is overpowered"

You always have to ask for too much. If you ask for only exactly what you actually need, the SE developers will respond by giving you an increase of 5 potency on Fast Blade.

"Homogenization"

Yeah, that's gonna happen when we make everyone able to do everything everywhere. Try to just lay back, and think about the animations. You'll always have your animations. Well, until you don't. Farewell, Clean Shot.

"Skill Expression"

Yeah, sorry, but you're just talking to the wrong person. I've reached the point where I really don't care any more — it's Final Fantasy Fourteen, I'm just here to watch the pretty person in pretty armor run around casting pretty spells while the bad snot lady tries to cleave me.

"Braindead"

Okay, but... but! Think of all the extra mental energy that you'll have for doing all the other brilliant and productive things in your life, such as negotiating nuclear disarmament, or buying Twitter.

"But I've already seen half or more of these ideas in other threads "

Wow! Incredible! It seems that convergent evolution is taking place before our very eyes! Perhaps that is possibly a hypothetical susggestion that maybe the developers should consider actually implementing those ideas, rather than increasing the potency of Blade of Valor by 15. But, of course, that's just (pertly sips tea) my opinion.

"I hate all of your ideas. I refuse you. We are not friends."

Ha ha that's okay, keep on truckin', I'll just be vibin' here at the edge of the universe playing Gunbreaker

[Eorzean_username]

I don't feel like explaining the reasoning for things any more, because honestly who even reads it? So here's some imaginary patch notes:

Fight or Flight

• No longer an activated Action.
• Now a Trait.
• Now increases all Physical damage by 5%.
• Now increases movement speed by 5%.

Fight or Flight II

• An EXCITING UPGRADE so that leveling up feels EXCITING!
• Still a Trait.
• Increases all Physical damage by 10%.
• Increases movement speed by 10%.

Goring Blade

• This action has been removed.

Speed of Light

• New Trait.
• Increases Spell Speed by an amount equal to your current Skill Speed.

Expiacion

• Now has a maximum of 2 charges.

Circle of Scorn

• Now has a maximum of 2 charges.

Divine Impatience

• New Trait.
• Activating Expiacion, Holy Spirit, or Holy Circle upon a target currently suffering the Blade of Valor damage-over-time effect will instantly remove the Blade of Valor effect, dealing Unaspected damage equal to the damage remaining in the Blade of Valor damage-over-time effect.

Clemency

• No longer a Spell.
• Now an Ability.
• Restores HP of self or target.
• Cure Potency: 2,000
• Additional Effect: Restores to self 50% of HP restored to target.
• Cooldown: 60s
• Maximum charges: 3

Divine Veil

• Barrier effect is now applied instantly, and no longer requires a healing effect to trigger it.
• Barrier now also affects the Paladin, because honestly, who cares?
• The additional 400 potency healing effect is no longer applied immediately on activation, and is now applied when the initial Barrier effect is fully-consumed or expires.
• Cooldown increased to 120s.

Passage of Arms

• Action renamed to Circle of Arms.
• Action is no longer channeled.
• Action no longer affects the Paladin's Block rate.
• Action is now a radial effect, with a radius of 10 yalms.
• Action now creates a persistent area in which party members will only suffer 85% of all damage inflicted.
• Duration of effect is now fixed at 10 seconds.
• Cooldown increased to 180s.

Cover

• Cooldown reduced to 60 seconds.
• No longer costs Oath Gauge.
• No longer transfers detrimental effects suffered by target while Cover is active.
• Now transfers only 50% of damage taken by target while Cover is active.
• All damage transferred by Cover to the Paladin is reduced by 10%.
• Total damage transferred by Cover is now limited to a maximum of 75% of the Paladin's maximum HP.
• Upon expiration of Cover effect, Paladin is healed for 50% of the total damage that was transferred by Cover during its duration.

Sheltron / Holy Sheltron

• Primary effect no longer affects the Paladin's Block rate.
• Primary effect now reduces all damage taken by 15% for 8 seconds.
• Knight's Resolve effect: unchanged
• Knight's Benediction effect: unchanged

Bulwarkflage

• New Action.
• Increases Block rate by 50%.
• Reduces damage taken by 10%.
• Duration: 20s
• Cooldown: 120s

———————————————————————————————————————————

Plus some generic Potency increases to whatever until it's whatever.

Maths are hard and kind-of tedious, so I'm just going to let it be someone else's job — someone who likes spreadsheets wayyyyy more than I do — to apply Potency boosts as-desired to compensate for mutilating the rotation, until target aDPS is achieved, and Gunbreakers are complaining about being locked out of PFs for P12S1.

———————————————————————————————————————————

"Uhhh, my new rotation seems to be..."

Spamming Souleater Solid Barrel Storm's Path Royal Authority over and over again while sometimes using Bloodspiller Burst Strike Storm's Eye Atonement until it's time to Blood Weapon No Mercy Inner Release Requiescat and dump all your OGCDs? That's correct, welcome to Final Fantasy XIV: Burstwalker, please enjoy your stay.

[Lustre]

I hope paladin doesnt get touched aside from potency changes. If it became the same as the other tanks I'd probably quit playing.

[Jirah]

More like Slowwalker, or Walkerwalker ya know for handicap people as apparently that’s the target audience

[Rithy255]

I hope paladin doesnt get touched aside from potency changes. If it became the same as the other tanks I'd probably quit playing.

I hope paladin gets some changes, but in general it should be kept similar, theirs a difference between good changes and bad changes, I think you can argue changing certain things and keeping certain things, changing stuff on Paladin either way will get people mad because the job has less players but the people who like Paladin really enjoy the differences compared to other tanks I can either see that they will try to simplify paladin to "bring up the player base" or they could leave it unchanged.

I think trying to fix Paladins general Jank and tweaking some abilities such as removing cover cost wouldn't ruin "Paladin" but a total rework to it's kit generally to align with one burst only would ruin Paladin. I can see Paladin go in a lot of directions, I do somewhat fear for the job in the future hoping it doesn't get put into a "use all your burst at once" jobs.

Not every change is good or bad, while I remain hopeful we will get some good changes I just don't like the idea that, any change that isn't strictly a potency one will ruin the job, In general we should be looking for ways to make Paladin more align with the other tanks without ruining its uniqueness and identity which is pretty difficult.

[xAFROx]

I never understood why they added a cost to Cover at all. The cooldown is so long already.

[SilverSkyway]

(Fight or Flight

No longer an activated Action.
Now a Trait.
Now increases all Physical damage by 5%.
Now increases movement speed by 5%.


Fight or Flight II

An EXCITING UPGRADE so that leveling up feels EXCITING!
Still a Trait.
Increases all Physical damage by 10%.
Increases movement speed by 10%.)

You had me at movement speed. I then stop reading and gave you a like even if I dislike the rest of your list. FnF should give movement speed. Has flight in the name. lol

I've been leveling a paladin. I like it. I tried War and wasn't a fan and was a bit turn off from pally with the long and static rotation. I didn't like DrG. I do feel, leveling pally, everything is smooth and flows well but, yeah. A lot of weird spam. Which isn't bad per say but weird. I don't know how expand it.
My idea and only big thing is Blade of valor should apply a third dot and not over write Gore blade.?
I don't do EX, so 2cent.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

The additional 400 potency healing effect is no longer applied immediately on activation, and is now applied when the initial Barrier effect is fully-consumed or expires.

This is actually a good idea, but give it to Shake it Off because PLD is stinky and I don't wanna play it anymore.

[Dzian]

I hope paladin doesnt get touched aside from potency changes. If it became the same as the other tanks I'd probably quit playing.

i don't play all the tanks. i havent even unlocked drk or gnb on any of my characters. but When you play warrior, you do getthe feeling paladin needs some defensive tweaks in terms of cooldowns.

as a paladin for example. if you pop sentinal and then rampart and suddenly your out of cooldowns.. veil does nothing for you. hallowed has such a long cooldown you can barely use it. warrior though can pop holmgang like its candy and even make decent use out of thrill of battle and shake it off...

at this point i dont even know what id suggest other than making veil apply to the paladin and maybe reducing the cooldown on hallowed a bit. or making shelltron longer duration... but theyve butchered the jobs so much it's kinda tough to think of something that isn't just more of the same bs..

[*]No longer transfers detrimental effects suffered by target while Cover is active.

IMO cover should cover everything. damage debuffs the whole lot.. It used to. so what if people used it to avoid tank swaps occassionally. thats the kinda of thing that makes skills and jobs actually interesting and fun.

[SoulSamurai]

I think one of the largest issues with Paladin is the rigid rotation that is blatantly flat. There is not a single unload phase in it like a GNB DRK or War. Each of these have a build up of some sort to unleash damage. Paladin is just a flat damage line. I think a simple played out version would be a OGCD 3 stack confiter spell to use... say.. ever 2 minutes? Or a GNB continuation to attonement. Atonement -> Confiter x3. This boosts burst phases and allows a mixture of sword and spell combo.

However in my opinion the biggest let down is the only guy with a shield is the worst at mitigating damage. The half white mage is also not the best healer (self). The one with the most supposed utility really isnt. But yet all these weaknesses and we are not even close to anything for damage wise.

I think holy sheltron healing needs to be dropped. Clemency needs to be OGCD, MP perhaps raised, but the healing portion of this class needs to be embraced as a half WHM. Currently it is frowned upon to be using Clemency actively as it is a damage loss. Move it to OGCD or make it a 3x use charge into a big spell to make up damage loss/ neutral like a WHM. The MP cost of it will keep it in check but allow free use. The excess useless healing on sheltron and the Req line will be used to the open use of Clemency. This will not boost mitigation in itself but will make more use of the lore and ability.

Passage of arms needs to be changed to a damage reduction of type of cure 3 spell. Short range big heal. How many different types of mitigations are really needed at this point and we already have DV.

DV needs to be changed to self included. Everyone takes advantage of theirs why can a paladin not? Sure, they do not NEED it but adding that to the spell I can actually use it in a dungeon like everyone else to help me in wall to wall pulling.

Holy Sheltron needs to be changed to target and remove Intervention. Why do I need 2 spells?

Cover needs to remove the oath gauge and increase distance. Even then it wont be used but will be less niche.