Give us back the old Paladin

[esra01]

Meanwhile, in most other fights this supposed "advantage" often leads to old Veil simply sitting around doing precisely nothing because healers won't proc it at the cost of their damage unless it's absolutely necessary. So if old Veil doesn't conveniently line up with a Paladin's magic phase and a raidwide, it's essentially useless. Considering how often such a scenario occurs, the new application is simply better.

This is not true at all with 6.3 and even 6.2 PLD. For 6.3 PLD rotation, it's impossible for a PLD to fail at proccing Divine Veil. And so old veil and new veil are functionally the same just that new veil removes the added complexity that old veil have. Even at 6.2 you just have to be mindful of your Requiescat window and plan your divine veil accordingly. For 6.2 PLD their physical filler rotation is either 37.5s or 45s long, since Divine Veil shield duration is 30 seconds there are only 7.5s or 15s dead period where you can't cover raidwides with divine veil. I can assure you that situation is actually extremely rare, and if that ever happens there are always another mechanic that damages the entire party before or right after that dead period. And the good thing about 6.3 PLD rotation is that it completely removed that dead period.

[ForteNightshade]

This is not true at all with 6.3 and even 6.2 PLD. For 6.3 PLD rotation, it's impossible for a PLD to fail at proccing Divine Veil. And so old veil and new veil are functionally the same just that new veil removes the added complexity that old veil have. Even at 6.2 you just have to be mindful of your Requiescat window and plan your divine veil accordingly. For 6.2 PLD their physical filler rotation is either 37.5s or 45s long, since Divine Veil shield duration is 30 seconds there are only 7.5s or 15s dead period where you can't cover raidwides with divine veil. I can assure you that situation is actually extremely rare, and if that ever happens there are always another mechanic that damages the entire party before or right after that dead period. And the good thing about 6.3 PLD rotation is that it completely removed that dead period.

... it should be quite obvious I wasn't talking about 6.3 Veil when I specifically said "old Veil". Naturally, it won't effect your rotation now because they literally removed any interaction with it.

As for 6.2, you're still missing the point. Veil going off on incidental raidwides doesn't matter. Either they weren't damaging enough to be relevant or more reliable mitigation covered them. You're essentially arguing old Veil was good because it covered something. Which isn't how good mitigation should work. You want reliability; to always know x tool will be on y mechanic. Which is precisely what the other tanks have. The extremely rare cases where Veil's delayed activation being an advantage over Shake never overcame Shake's consistency.

[esra01]

... it should be quite obvious I wasn't talking about 6.3 Veil when I specifically said "old Veil"......

What I meant is that if they didn't update Divine Veil and left it as it is, the new 6.3 PLD rotation fixes any inconsistencies that are left from the old 6.2 Veil. Making it having the same consistency as an instant cast. It's like giving DRK a tool to heals himself back up to full health while on the very same patch also removing the downside of Living Dead.

On this current tier of savage, there is not a single raidwide or mechanic that deals less than 40k damage unmitigated and so any amount of damage that gets mitigated is still better than nothing. The only mechanic that doesn't actually deals that much damage is only Cachexia 1. And then regarding consistency, I don't know what kind of free style Paladin you are playing right now, since your rotation should be almost the same from this pull to the next pull and so if you press your Veil at the same exact time as your previous pull it will then be covering the same exact raidwide as the previous pull. It has the reliability, my healer knows that my Divine Veil will always be on that same exact raidwide. The only downside is that there are some raidwides that I can't proc divine veil by myself, but at the same time there are some raidwides where a well planned Veil can cover 2 mechanics back to back in which it would be impossible for Shake, oh and it's also consistent.

For example

An example where old DV truly shines is during P8S P2 last 3 Aionagonia, in which it can be used on first and third Aion which is impossible for all other 90s tank cooldown.

2nd example, P8S P1 Dog First - Rearing Rampage ( 1:30 ) > Nest/Tetra ( 2:30 ) > Ekthothermos ( 3:30 )
3rd example, P7S - Light pt Stack ( 5:00 ) > Raidwide ( 6:00 ) > Purgatory 1st Light of Life ( 7:00 )

In those 3 examples both the heal effect and shield effect for Veil is fully used. Its impossible for Shake it Off to cover 3 consecutive raidwides/mechanics, current Shake it Off can do that but by doing so it will be wasting its heal potency while old Veil won't be wasting a single potency. And those 3 examples have enough damage to cause a wipe due to not enough mitigation while also at the points where shield healer mitigation is being stretched thin.

[Payadopa]

You can say what you want. Come back to me once more tools have been taken away and everyone is even more playing on their own and tell me how much fun that is. It's no wonder SE relies on DDR so much because everything remotely interested gets sacrificed on the altar of DPS. DV was perfectly fine. Use a macro to let the healer know or use a heal yourself. Aren't we all complaining healers have nothing to do? Now we can cross another thing from the list. Put it where aggro management, Goad and all the other abilities are till all you press is one button for that perfect parse.
Careful what you wish for and all that. A shame.

[DoubleOneOne]

I know you intended this as a cheeky little "gotcha" but you're unironically suggesting Paladin's sacrifice damage to proc mitigation that is never going to be required. And you mean for this to be a defense in favor of old Veil? If healers won't proc Veil what makes you think Paladins would? Especially when it would impact their rotation far worse. At least their old one. No self respecting Paladin is ever touching Clemency outside of absolute desperation scenarios. They certainly aren't using it on Veil.

Meanwhile, the other tanks just press their mitigation without throwing away damage for no discernable reason.

Please link the rotation you are using... cause everyone I've seen used HS, Confiteor, or the blade combo at least once every 15s. These are GCD heals that proc old veil. Also hard casting HS is damage neutral and does not break combo. And Veil lasts for 30s.. for full availability uptime.

IMO no self respecting healer is ever touching GCD healing outside of absolute desperation scenarios. Its the un-geared party members fault for not using healing pots or getting more gear before doing the fights. I'm also really glad that if anyone drops a single GCD or oGCD in any fight we don't clear the DPS check. It makes it easy for me to know it was my fault for wiping at 0.1% when I don't hold my gap closer for uptime. Oh wait I know what it is, trying to clear all of the content the first day it dropped with the bare minimum stats to clear. If only they release gear at the same time as new fights come out so that DPS check gets easier over time.

I really DO NOT UNDERSTAND why people keep bring up other tanks mit. I DO NOT PLAY THE OTHER TANKS BECAUASE THEY ARE EASIER TO MIT WITH. If players want an easier time with mitigation don't play PLD. I will take your advice thou, if a buster comes during my burst I'll be sure to us mit it AFTER my burst, can't be loosing any of that damage for no discernable reason. I mean healers have shields they can use on me. PLD is a DPS class after all.

[Zumi]

Please bring back the old Paladin rotation. I liked it a lot more than the new one. You had your holy spirits you could cast when you needed to be out of melee range with Requiescat. The old rotation had 3 parts and it was smooth.

[AlexaAura]

I was a SMN main before the rework, then they took away the Dots and the complexity of the rotation. Now I never touch it. Had Paladin as main tank because of the balancing of the Dots, now they are gone. Why do you hate Dots so much Square Enix? It's starting to become ridiculous, there are players who like managing dots you know.... Also why is Cover still in the game? And why is Clemency still a spell and not an ability? You made the damage rotation more boring to play, you could atleast fix it's utility so that it has skills that you actually use in fights.

[Wingale]

Well, it would be a curse but I do like new PLD rotation more than the old one.
I speak my opinion out, don't kill me

[Nicola_Kunu]

I signed up to the forums just to voice my opinion. I've been playing PLD since Heavensward as my main + favourite class.
I wanted to wait a week before posting so I could properly feel out the class in different content and to try and unlearn the muscle memory of the previous rotation.

I am extremely upset that the old rotation is gone. I really enjoyed optimizing it for each Savage fight and Ultimate fight I was learning and keeping DoT uptime.
I liked the separated melee and magic phases. It felt like I was involved 100% of the time playing the job - that each button press mattered.

I no longer feel this, because I have to shove all of my resources into a 20 second window and am then bored for 40 seconds.
This new system feels like a watered down Gunbreaker. If I wanted that, I would just play Gunbreaker.
Gunbreaker feels complete. Paladin now feels unfinished, but it is agonising because I played a version of Paladin I loved.

Some players have speculated that this is an interim before their new vision in 7.0. But then why do I have to play an unfinished version of my favourite class until 7.0?

I dislike the lowering of the skill ceiling of Divine Veil by removing the proc. I liked planning it into my rotation and never had an issue triggering it myself using my magic combo or piggybacking off of other healers I knew would be coming. It allowed me to express proactivity in my gameplay. I didn't really mind the fact that it didn't shield me as well, but I'm a tank. I'm able to survive easier than the other party members naturally anyway.

There are still some expressions that remain that I still like, such as:

I still like the fact that I can use Holy Sheltron on myself and Intervention on my Co-Tank during dual-tank busters. I still like that it is benefitted from having mitigation on myself such as Rampart as this rewards proactive gameplay and thinking ahead. I do not want to see these simply combined like Heart of Corundum as it removes another expression of proactive gameplay.
I also set up an entire set of macros just to use Intervention on party members more easily even whilst I'm tanking and may need to use Holy Sheltron.

I still like the conal Passage of Arms in front of my team as that fills the fantasy of protecting your team by being in front and taking the brunt of an attack.

Both the 1-2-3 combo and AoE combo giving a stack of Divine Might. This means I can choose to use one or the other depending on the situation is an excellent idea and I like this implementation. It also rounds out the original AoE Combo to have a 3rd part of the combo that flows well thematically.


I was still able to clear all content in the game and never felt like I was holding the group back with my class choice. My static enjoys the extra utility PLD brings to the table, it is very interactive in a group setting. And more importantly, I was having fun with old PLD.

[Plain_Est]

Preface:
I've been a PLD main for 4 years. I've cleared UCoB, TEA, and DSR on old PLD. For new PLD I recently nabbed some nice parses to see how comfortable I was with the rework.


Old vs new:
I think that this rework will anger the old PLD players, and fail to attract new players to the job. Old PLD players in my experience were characterized as meticulous and detail-oriented, since every fight was a little bit different when you had to adhere to optimal rotations on a spreadsheet. What also comes with this personality trait is that the same players *loathe* being bad. It's taken me roughly 12 days of constantly only playing PLD for 8+ hours a day to undo the old rotation in my mind, and at least get the new rotation to a point where I feel comfortable with it. The hardest part of this rework as an old PLD player has been UNLEARNING the old rotation.


Is it a "good" rework?
To answer this question, we first have to define the goal of the rework. I think if the goal of the rework was to get PLDs to stop dropping Atonements in order to have a fluid rotation, then it has failed. If the goal was to simply line up PLD for burst then it has succeeded.

I think the new rotation is more focus-oriented during burst at the cost of the filler being very dull. Anyone that's an old PLD player has to get used to this new type of thinking flow. For the most part, filler is brainless (The exception being that situationally you can run out for 1 gcd during filler now for an out mechanic if you swap Holy Spirit and Atonement during filler) and burst is when you turn your brain on and collect happiness for doing things correctly.

The AoE is better being a 3-step instead of a 2-step combo, but PLD has lost its damage advantage over other tanks in 2-target scenarios with the loss of its DoTs.

The DV changes are just simply a QoL upgrade that was long overdue, as old DV would inconvenience healers to use a GCD heal if the shielding was out of magic phase. (I'm a firm believer that no job should take the fun out of playing any other job - BLM being the worst offender of this, by far, but that's another rant for another day)

Visually, goring blade does not look like a 700 potency ability. And this is just awful visual clarity for buffs that should've been on a job gauge like visual:


So, overall, the rework is neutral in my opinion. Each new thing they introduced has associated jank with it or a clear downside/shortcoming over old PLD that cancels out the good.


How will this be viewed by the community?
Like I mentioned before, this rework probably miffed older PLD players (no one likes being bad at a job they were once good at, and PLDs are an extreme case of this), and my assumption is that the job will still fail to attract players. So now we're in a situation where things are essentially the same, but the old playerbase is angry, and there is no new playerbase for PLD.


I fully expect a 2nd rework in the future or significant changes come 7.0 to round out the job in its current state.