Paladin needs NO changes!

[Brandr]

Problem is Paladin wasn't designed to be "holy warrior" it was designed as a totally different job the fact that it's current design so lazily put together compared to the old paladin is something you don't seem to want to talk about.

First of all, I'm very sorry the old Paladin died. I now realize you loved the way it was. It's very said when they do a dramatic change to the point it becomes a completely new job. I understand you enjoyed the old version.
Hopefully they will create a new job with the mechanics you liked.

Now, the EW onwards paladin is just the way I like: a offensive tank, a spellsword, a protector, a healer, a JACK-of-all-trades, with a wholesome homage to two of the most famous paladins of the franchise: Agrias and Orlandu!

[Rithy255]

First of all, I'm very sorry the old Paladin died. I now realize you loved the way it was. It's very said when they do a dramatic change to the point it becomes a completely new job. I understand you enjoyed the old version.
Hopefully they will create a new job with the mechanics you liked.

Now, the EW onwards paladin is just the way I like: a offensive tank, a spellsword, a protector, a healer, a JACK-of-all-trades, with a wholesome homage to two of the most famous paladins of the franchise: Agrias and Orlandu!

I agree I like those aspects about paladin hence I still play it despite my issues with it's offensive rotation, I'm glad you can find enjoyment in it too even if I don't really like how jobs in general feel compared to how they used to before they reworked a mass amount of them. Old paladin at least back in endwalker it still had those spell sword elements it was even more focused on your physical and magic sides and had two separate burst

Don't get me wrong I Like using a mix of magic and physical attacks, I love its protective aspects and I'm in favour of keeping it's healing aspects (despite the tank vs healer argument, I think we can live in a world where tanks provide some sustain/healing while not stepping over healers too much, it needs to be better balanced by a long shot) because to me that's fitting of a "Paladin"

All I'm saying is saying a job couldn't always be better is a flawed way of thinking in my opinion, we should strive for more, I think current paladin is the best tank but that's more because tank design really needs a lot of improving from my perspective I want to actively protect party members and feel like my support skills are important rather then being a super defensive dps with a slow rotation which I think most tanks feel like to me.

[Mikey_R]

Lets get some things straight. Current PLD is not just 1234567, as has been said already, your aim is to set yourself up to get as much damage into your burst as possible, the main attack being put in there is Sepulchre. However, PLD's burst phase is incredibly flexible in where you can put things, as opposed to other jobs where things happen in a set order. PLD is also the tank that can deal with disconnects the best due to Holy Spirit being good damage at range, even if you do not have Divine Might, not to mention a ton of the burst phase can be done at range as well. It is a tank that has options to deal with basically any situation, whether those situations come up is a different matter, though that isn't the fault of PLD.

Compare that to the old PLD where it was very inflexible. It did not have multiple rotations, it was always physical burst > magic burst > no burst repeat. You might have had situations where you started a fight either with the physical or magical burst so that things lined up properly with downtime and things, however, you still rotated through in the same order (the exception is SB and ShB where you could swap the physical and magical phases with no penalty). The periods between Goring Blade were also very rigid, being either Holy Spirit spam or Royal Authority combo followed by 3 Atonements. Of course, if you wanted to keep things lined up with the burst windows, it was then optimal to skip an Atonement in the unbuffed phase to keep yourself aligned. Couple this with the fact that any sort of downtime where you couldn't hit the boss meant it put your rotation back. If you wanted to realign it, you had to skip out on some more Atonements. Now, it's magical burst phase can also be done at range and it did last longer, however, this came at the cost of not being effective at range for the rest of the rotation and being much more heavily punished for it than other tanks.

Now, whilst I prefer the newer version of Paladin, let's also not just devolve each version into basic, simplistic, descriptions to try and disparage one side or the other. Speaking of which:

Honestly yes, Paladin is 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. I know it's not a perfectly aligned combo, there are micro-optimizations, but you could fold it into one button at ~no loss of gameplay depth, and that's always the smell test as to whether the extra buttons existing add anything to the gameplay. They don't.

I would fold it like this, tbh:

* Remove the entire Atonement chain.
* Add increased manaregen and damage to the main 1-2-3 chain.
* You get 1 charge each 1-2-3 combo. However, you need two charges to cast an instant spell.

Done. Functionally it behaves the exact same, even down to how you mentally use it, but we've cleaned up one button. Spell damage can be bumped slightly to compensate for the tiny burst-loss of not having 6 available to save for burst. Which also removes one quirky interaction that just shifts focus away from spell usage during burst, tbh.

No, that changes PLD more than you let on. First is your adjustment prevents the ability to keep hold of Supplication and Sepulchre to maximise the burst window but secondly, it also restricts how you can lay out the burst period, with the Royal Authority combo breaking the Blade combo, this means you have to use the Blade combo before you use any of the Royal Authority combo. This would just be a downgrade on PLD's flexibility. There are other reasons, but those would be the main ones.

See how simplifying things too much can lead someone to make false claims about how a job works?

Now I would not even consider that "Paladin gets a change". The above consolidates buttons, but it doesn't consolidate gameplay. It's 100% the exact same gameplay, but with needing one less hotbar slot. If I were allowed to go further, I'd want to "rescue" the Atonement animations because they're cool, so I'd do:

* As above, but without the damage/managain increase to 1-2-3. Yes this means we lose mana, rapidly.
* Goring Blade causes a 30s DoT.
* If using 1-2-3 on a Goring Blade target, each attack becomes one of 4-5-6, including the damage gain, the mana regen and the animation.

This of course causes actual gameplay change, hence why it's not a "might as well" as the first change above. But it also preserves the animations, while still freeing up a hotbar button.

The only gameplay change here is you want to use Goring Blade later in the burst window, again, reducing flexibility so that you get as many of the main combo GCDs into the Goring Blade window as possible. Other than that, nothing changes except an animation change. I wouldn't call this a 'change' that would be interesting in the slightest.

[Valence]

Hopefully they will create a new job with the mechanics you liked.

I love how when you lose something you enjoyed, people that benefit from the new thing will tell you how they hope they make a new job with the same mechanics for you as a consolation prize...