What's with Paladin?

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

It seems to have an insane amount of Button bloat (especially for AoE) compared to the other Tanks and has multiple abilities that pretty much do the same thing and has multiple things it needs to fill up for their abilities. Like their defensives being mostly the same thing. Wouldn't it make more sense to consolidate them and reduce the cooldown? It wasn't a fun experience. Went right back to Dark Knight and Warrior.

[Deo14]

has multiple abilities that pretty much do the same thing

Have you not seen healers?



I don't see how it has more AoE button bloat than any other class. PLD has just 3 AoE exclusive buttons, SAM for example has 6. But anyways, you did a right thing. If you don't like PLD because of that, go back to the jobs you like, you're not supposed to like every job and that's fine, just move on.

[Eorzean_username]

Paladin had too much button bloat, so you went back to... Dark Knight??

[SomeGuy22]

(...)insane amount of Button bloat (especially for AoE) compared to the other Tanks
(...)Went right back to Dark Knight and Warrior.

Real talk and with all due respect, I don't think the bolded part has merit, that's one of the aspects where tanks feel pretty much all homogenized between them.

PLD has a 2-step combo, an oGCD, a spell, and a one-button spell combo. Those are 5, with 3 of those being exclusively for multiple targets.
WAR has a 2-step combo, an oGCD, a resource spending nuke, and a bigger nuke during Inner Release. Also 5, but with 4 of those being exclusively for multiple targets.
DRK has a 2-step combo, a (situational) oGCD, a resource spending oGCD and GCD, a one button 2-step spell combo, and an oGCD nuke. Those are 7! And 5 of those exclusively for AoE!

[Oizen]

Isn't DRK the posterchild for button bloat though?

I mean I like it, and I like vomitting out all of my oGCDs it makes me feel cool, but I'm not going to act like our mitigation plans aren't really obtuse compared to other tanks which basically just hit their Short Mit + 20/30%.
Compared to us where we're regularly hitting TBN + Oblation + Dark Mind + 20/30%

[Jeeqbit]

It seems to have an insane amount of Button bloat (especially for AoE) compared to the other Tanks and has multiple abilities that pretty much do the same thing and has multiple things it needs to fill up for their abilities. Like their defensives being mostly the same thing. Wouldn't it make more sense to consolidate them and reduce the cooldown? It wasn't a fun experience. Went right back to Dark Knight and Warrior.

What are you talking about? It's not much different to any other tank. Paladin has a lot of defensives but so does Dark Knight.

The defensives used to do different things, but those different things were useless (increase block rate that only worked on physical attacks, increase parry which only worked on physical attacks, buff the physical defense). SE removed all that stuff and made it raw % mitigation against magical and physical attacks. They might be the same but you need them all in some content, such as large pulls in dungeons or certain raids with a lot of tankbusters that want double mit.

Its rotation is now using the Gunbreaker model (I literally setup my hotbar for it to be the same as Gunbreaker). Aoe buttons aren't really much different to Gunbreaker either. Holy Circle/Fated Circle, Confiteor/Double Down, Total Eclipse/Demon Slice, Prominence/Demon Slaughter, Circle of Scorn/Bow Shock.

Only difference is Gunbreaker's Blasting Zone isn't aoe like Expiacion (see you in 7.0), and Double Down doesn't have a whole combo associated with it, but their single target Gnashing Fang does.

[ForteNightshade]

The only real "button bloat" you could argue on Paladin is Holy Spirit/Circle but that applies to every job due to SE's obsession with a single target and aoe equivalent on separate buttons. Otherwise, Circle of Scorn is... maybe a bit "bloaty"

Now if you wanted to say Paladin has some boring buttons, I'd be more inclined to agree. Goring Blade definitely feels lazy and Cover is in desperate need of a rework. Otherwise, it's more or less in line with the other tanks.

[Bsrking5]

Is cover even worth it anymore?

[Windfire]

I've used it to save melee in Dzmael Darkhold on the last boss, so situational I guess?

[Jeeqbit]

Cover has always been niche and situational, but I have definitely seen people use it in clever ways. Ultimately, if someone is about to die and you use cover on them before an aoe hits you can save them.

It could also be used to avoid needing a tankswap in some cases, by allowing you to take all the status effects and damage that the main tank would otherwise take, depending on how the cast works. It's also useful if for some reason you lose the attention of the boss or provoke is on cooldown. You can cover whoever the boss has as a target. If you die and rez and someone else is second in the enmity list, you could cover them to still take the tank buster or other mechanic.