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??

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

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

Dark Knight isn't that bad, as the system is simplier and the abilities are much more clear on what they're doing and how to set them up.

[Deo14]

Dark Knight isn't that bad, as the system is simplier and the abilities are much more clear on what they're doing and how to set them up.

PLD is just 1-2-3 and you get 1 stack Divine Might which you use for Holy Spirit and 3 stacks of Atonement. Then you have burst phase with FoF that you always use with Req, when you have Req, you just use your Faith combo. You use Goring in burst, use Intervene, Scorn and Explacion on CD, then you also want to drop 1-2 Atonement to properly realign. That's everything regarding rotation. It's like 2-3 steps away from just spamming 1-2-3, it's really simple if you spend 5-10 minutes reading tooltips/checking opener.

This simple imagine explains like 90% of PLD.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I’m almost sure OP is upset for being implied of not reading their tooltip from this sentence:

[…]it's really simple if you spend 5-10 minutes reading tooltips/checking opener[…]

This is one of those interactions of why I 99% of time stopped trying to convince Freecure mages away from their life calling, lmao.

[Rongway]

you also want to drop 1-2 Atonement to properly realign

Dropping Atonements was unnecessary even before the 6.4 changes. With the 6.4 changes Atonement no longer cancels combos, so you can safely hold one or two for FoF or to get better timing on your combo refresh.

[Jeeqbit]

Dropping Atonements was unnecessary even before the 6.4 changes. With the 6.4 changes Atonement no longer cancels combos, so you can safely hold one or two for FoF or to get better timing on your combo refresh.

The reason to drop them was so you could be ready to have Divine Might/Holy Spirit into Royal Authority into Divine Might/Holy Spirit.

This is still necessary if you want the highest potency in the burst and to start the burst immediately as Fight or Flight comes back. It's nice that they don't cancel the combo, but it doesn't change how Divine Mights don't stack up to 3 or 4, which is what would be needed to prevent someone having to be just beyond Riot Blade in their combo before a burst. 4 just so we account for skill speed builds that would allow for more in the burst window.

[Eorzean_username]

Dark Knight isn't that bad, as the system is simplier and the abilities are much more clear on what they're doing and how to set them up.

Everyone approaches things from their own perspective, so I'm not trying to tell you your viewpoint is "wrong", just that I personally find it perplexing — I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who had the opinion that DRK was simpler and more intuitive than PLD.


Dark Knight:

• Has more situational defensives that have more potential failure states
• Has 3 different gauges to manage (1 of which is nearly completely pointless, but is still one more thing to keep track of before unloading your burst)
• Requires funky line positioning to use its AOE MP dump
• Has vaguely-convoluted burst tools that can be done "wrong" (becoming trapped into overcapping / wasting resources)
• Has a cacophony of redundant damage OGCDs that don't really do anything very unique, all bloating out its jam-packed burst windows and competing for weave-space
• Requires some minor amount of planning and set-up to achieve its full burst potential
• Has a semi-convoluted fake pet that's a fat chunk of your output, needs resources, and can have its uptime wasted if timed poorly
• Has a Tank Invuln that still manages to confuse healers and potentially accomplish nothing
• Cannot dig itself out of HP deficits past a certain point
• Easily becomes a healer headache if you overzealously spend MP or become too distracted while trying to xylophone out all your burst damage
• Has to facepull bosses if it wants to fit all of its service dog inside party buff windows

In contrast, Paladin is pretty damn chill:

• Doesn't even have an offensive gauge to monitor.
• Half your "utility" is clumsy and borderline-useless, and can just be ignored in most casual situations (Passage, Cover, Intervention, Clemency).
• Your only "procs" come after a single predictable trigger in both ST and AOE (Royal Authority / Prominence).
• You have exactly 2 damaging OGCDs to use, which have no resource cost, no deeper considerations or interactions, and can just be smashed the moment they dare to light up.
• You have some dash charges to blow if you have nowhere you need to go anytime soon (which is the same as every Tank).
• You don't have to think much about when or where to use your personal defensives, because they all work the same on basically everything.
• Your offensive "burst" does not require any subtlety at all (glue Req and FOF together, don't blow Req stacks on something unfortunate, spam Confiteor button until Req runs out).
• You can't even really "mess up" Paladin's burst unless you try, because all of the potencies are so close together that it barely matters what you slap to finish out FOF, as long as you don't somehow forget to press Goring Blade.
• Likewise, you can't really "flub" Paladin's rotation or "set up"; the worst thing you can do is use another RA / Prom while you still have Atonement or Divine Might stacks, but... er... just... don't do that.

To me, DRK just seems to be objectively more work, thinking, and keypresses than current PLD, especially during set-up and execution of burst cycles.

But even during "filler" periods, they're basically the same thing:

Spam 1-2-3 (Souleater / Royal Authority combo)
Sometimes press 4 (Bloodspiller / Holy Spirit)

Paladin adds "5", Atonement, but that's basically just 1-2-3 in disguise.

I guess DRK only has to remember to press its OGCDs every 60s, rather than every 30s? But, I have to admit, I've never really thought of "don't forget to press Expi / Scorn when they light up" as a potentially-burdensome aspect of PLD.

[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!