The 20% damage reduction on paladin for FL feels harsh.

[DolphinsFan]

Hello, this is a comparatively minor issue, but I want to bring it up in the hopes that the devs make take another look, because pld really feels lacking in frontlines right now and I don't believe it would take much to make it feel good again. It wasn't until the tail end of endwalker, that paladin's damage felt proper in frontlines, so I hope this can be resolved soon. Looking at the patch notes, the damage reduction appeared reasonable. In addition to two new aoes, paladin also gains a 10% dmg buff from sheltron, and applies a 10% damage increase to targets with shield smite. That alone should make up for the damage reduction, and a bit more, right? That's what I thought, what I imagine the devs were thinking when putting the damage reduction in place. In practice however, I've found that my damage has been reduced by 30-40% of what I would get in similar games pre-patch. While anecdotal, this really is the most compelling reasoning I can provide that something is wrong. Not only is the damage worse, but it simply does not feel as fun to play as it used to, which is very disappointing, and I've heard similar from other paladin players. None of the attacks feel impactful, and it's significantly more effort for worse results.

[DolphinsFan]

I want to take a close look at why not only is paladin's new kit not making up for the damage reduct seems to be making it worse to provide the devs as clear as possible a reasoning for why the damage reduction is unnecessary. For one, on top of the damage reduction, it seems that the skills themselves have had their potencies reduced. Confiteor had 2000 potency shaved off, roughly 16% of its old damage. The potencies of holy sheltron and the blade combo actions have been increased, but the secondary effects that boosted their damage by half have been removed, resulting in a similar roughly 2000 potency decrease. It's a huge decrease, and while I understand it should be balanced out by the potency of the new skills, it makes the damage reduction feel especially crippling. Now let's look at the new buffs attached to sheltron and shield smite. Because of the way hit detection and animation lock now work, it is much more difficult to achieve combos, and align the buffs properly. If you can align them, it is for a short time, and you can only get off one gcd. Best case scenario, it's a confiteor. However, confiteor being put behind imperator adds another step to the combo. Imperator has an extended animation lock compared to other abilities, to the point that I am tempted to say that its unintentional. Testing on dummies shows significantly shorter animation lock on other abilities such as atonement. Due to this animation lock, imperator has to be used before even the 5 second long countdown of sheltron, or you will be unable to dash onto a target to get its burst off. Its a long and unreliable combo, and at the end of it, you're using a confiteor that doesn't even do as much damage as it would have in the previous patch. The unsatisfying results and difficulty of lining the buffs up make it not worth going after. One more factor that needs to be looked at is how the overall state of the mode has shifted. The hit detection changes have boosted survivability for a lot of classes. With this in mind, the dispersed potency across paladin's skills is a negative as you're looking at 1-2k hits that are quickly brushed off by anything. Paladin, and other melees unfortunately do not see the same increased survivability as part of their playstyle was built on making quick escapes or countering burst damage with burst recuperates. Part of what allowed paladin to lessen the gap between its damage and others was its bulkiness, which allowed it to get attacks off when other jobs couldn't. Unfortunately, that no longer seems viable.
I appreciate the devs efforts to balance the gamemode, but I believe they may have been too quick to change paladin's damage reduction from 0% to -20%. I would love to hear if anyone's had success with the job, or if others feel their mains have suffered from the shifts in the gamestate or balance changes that may have gone too far.

[Commander_Justitia]

Edit: Nevermind last sentence made it clear.
I think it is good for its purpose atm, you can soak a lot of damage. It does more dmg than some dps in CC too. So tbh for my taste they should probably deal even less.

I think it is a bit stupid if every class has between 30-50% dmg reduction now, then it seems that your damage is just 30% too high for frontline and well, maybe for CC too? Who knows.

[Blinding_Awesomeness]

Excellent analysis!

PLD in FL feels bad to play right now, and your analysis really illuminates the problems. I haven't been successful as I once was in FL, but worse than that, I don't feel useful. I can't crank out damage like a DPS nor do I have the bulkiness to protect a target or push a point without dying in the process. Coupled with the hit detection, animation lock, potency changes (to myself and others), and extra steps, it feels like I put in a lot of effort without payoff.

I'm not against balance, but I agree with you that PLD is being punished too harshly.

[Commander_Justitia]

When I play drg it is similar though, it will do 1,2k-3k on targets with its normal skills too. Like doing normal rotations has almost no value, unless you are with 4-6 people on a target. I think what is missing is autoattack damage, offglobals, critical damage, buffs - they removed most over time. But those would be big changes.

What you can do now as paladin in solo is, distracting. You can lure 5 people on you, make them chase you, use your holy shield wall, kite them around obstacles to make them lose line of sight. Stun them, slow them, use aoe range combo to selfheal, and if you get low you use your lb and recover your recuperate and purify for after it. And then you just wasted 50s or more of a few people, that can't contest your node.

Paladin with paladin synergy is very crazy in frontline btw. It would be similar to the bug with whitemage stacking dia (10% vulnerabiltiy debuff) in the past. If everyone would go paladin in your party, you will have 80s 33% mitigation buff in 120s. While -50% frontline mitigation. If people just say numbers 1-8 at the start in which order they use lb lol.
And in the 40 remaining seconds you are having 20% holy shield wall mitigation, you will have cover and guard. Literally all paladin party, should be 100% win. Nobody will touch tanks anyway, the enemies will run away.

[Mawlzy]

Nobody will touch tanks anyway, the enemies will run away.

My experience is tanks are getting focused in FL, in part because there are so few of them on the field. PLD is likely the exception simply because of its invuln. Although that doesn't prevent less-observant players from pounding on it while in that state.

[Balmung_Griffin]

I think it's not much that. Playing as DRG I've felt the damage reduction but everything felt normal as BH went up, so if anything BH (and staying alive) is more important than before.

Tbh, I never saw PLD as a threat by himself during FL matches, but as a class that set the table for DPS to feast and saving my behind when I over commit.

[Mercury_Grey]

I have been seeing a lot of PLDs on FL mostly because of their aoes now and their shield smite. The 20% damage reduction change was to balance it for the defense uses it has

[Cabalabob]

I do hate when they tie our damage increase components to our damage reduction components. Sure there is usually some overlap, but you don’t always want to use them in the same situations. They did the same thing with RPR pre-patch where you had to put on your shield to get a damage buff, they separated the defensive and offensive components from that and then added the same type of mechanic to PLD…

On a similar note, they put stun on our gap closer, so now we can’t close in on an opponent and then choose when to stun them it’s either gap close and stun or sprint after them. Not to mention removing a charge from intervene lowered our mobility. (Although the increased ranged options somewhat mitigate this).

Same thing for shield smite, either we use it for a damage up or we use it to debuff people guarding. And while I like the guard debuff in concept, in practice it feels kind of weak. Halving the effect of guard feels underwhelming unless the enemy is very close to death already. I feel like they should have just made it apply unguard for a second or two so you could remove/delay a guard.

[Teno]

You definitely feel the impact in dmg changes for PLD, and although it has more options to juggle with, I kinda miss the big juicy sheltron bombs. But on that aspect it's probably more related to DRKs being far less present, so less clumps.