How to make a Paladin happyFollow

Ever wondered why your Paladin keeps loosing the hate? There are things you can actually do to help the Paladin be a better one and keep your party safer

1. Do not go all out damage, before 2nd voke (that is providing your paladin knows to voke every 30 secs).

2. If you're a whm, keep Paladin's health a little bit below max. Give him some space to cure himself.

3. If you are a ranger, please stand behind the paladin when doing WS. So, if needed he can use cover on you.

4. Don't make the Paladin pull. He needs rest for MP.

5. If your Paladin paralyzed, please, please, give him paralyna. Nothing is worse than missing a provoke or sentinel because of this. I heard ppl say "but you don't do damage, paralyze is no biggie to you." Well... it is a biggie, when paladin looses aggro due to it.

6. If Paladin is silenced = he's worthless. See #5.

7. Redmages, please understand that chain 4 and 5s are very dependedent on Paladin's MP. He doesn't need MP for nukes, he needs it for cures and aggro. Refresh your tank, it is important.

8. If you see a Paladin in red and he's gonna die, provoking will be worthless most of the time (a good paladin will have close to 0 MP by the time he's close to being dead, which means he generated a lot of aggro). Best thing you can do is to increase your damage as much as you can to kill the mob before it wastes your tank. Remember, you will be next on the mob's breakfast menu.

9. Do not pull when paladin is out of MP. Even if whm is ready for pull (if whm is ready before paladin, there is something wrong usually - ask your paladin to be more conservative on MP).

10. Do not scream for cover and expect your paladin to try to squezee in between you and the mob. Move yourself behind the paladin and move away once cover is over and/or he got the hate back.

11. If you renkei with paladin, put him last in the chain, chances are his TP will be the lowest (meaning sometimes he will have to skip the chain).

12. Remember aggro management is a group effort.

I hope this helps to see a perspective of a Paladin and explain why sometimes even the best paladin will have problems holding aggro.

Edited, Wed Feb 18 12:09:54 2004 by Russian

/clap

Couldn't have said it better.

Umm, same kinda applies to ninja blink tanks...nothing annoying more than people not cooperating and going all out right off the bat. Voke when u see him casting Utsusemis...haste him if you can. Ninjas can hold off monsters pretty long w/o being healed. Not saying much, but at lvl 42 with just Utsusemi ONE , I can hold out an IT monster for some time. Don't voke, nuke, or WS right off the bat. And I think it's fair to do what the main tank asks since his *** is on the line first if something wrong happens. If you die before the main tank, it's probably not his fault =P.

I found it works best if regen is thrown on me before a fight and let that heal while agro pts are building. Hopefully I can buy UtsusemiII soon and the battleplan will change, but this is a recount from blinking once per 30 seconds.

I assume you're fighting the Torama now?

Haha, don't forget that one bane of the tank (and everyone else): when the secondary melees run out to meet the puller, engaging the enemy about 20 feet away from camp. I've been a part of this before, but only because half of the party was there engaging, so I had to do something. This probably annoys the mages (who usually have to move) more than the tank, but any time that the party is slipping up on monster control (positioning & hate), that effects the tank. And as a thief, what effects the tank eventually effects me (that is, an ineffective tank makes for an ineffective thief). I've noticed a lot of these "tips to stop annoying me" threads; I started one myself a while ago. And it's good to get this sort of info out there to people. The thing is, I think most of the people on this board are familiar with what we're all talking about; it's like preaching to the choir. Sadly, the people who don't know their jobs often don't come to sites like this for information, so we'll have to take our sermons back to Vana'diel for them to do any good.

Very good Post. From a mages stand point you would be my choice in PLD's.

Let me add one I have seen unfortunately too many times. A PLD is not a damage dealer. Having two PLD's in a group is 99% of the time robbing another PT of a PLD. Don't do it. Just get a DRG, there are plenty of those out there as well.

This is really a great post. All of the points are valid. I get into groups that don't quite undrstand what my role is as a Pally. I tell them I will tank and a Warrior will tell me he is the MT. Then sometimes they ask me to pull and I explain I have to rest between battles for MP so I can keep and manage hate.
The other night a Theif got upset stating that I wasn't doing much damage. I had to explain that as a Pally I really don't do much damage...I take damage. I hope those people read this post so they will completely understand the role of a Palidan. I'm there to keep hate and take damage. I should not be out running around pulling nor will I devistate mobs with damage. But I have high Def and I can take a lot of hits.
Thank you for this post. I learned from it myself.


20 Pal/ 30 War/ 12 Mnk -Diabolos-

Nice one! I hope the future (and current) pallies read this ;)

Amazing tips. Im a Paladin and they are all great tips.

Wow, thanks for good feedback guys :). Didn't quite expect it.

Covering blm never been effective for me. Usually it's much easier to stand far from the mage, so the mob has to walk IF you loose aggro. In cause the mob does start walking towards the mage, I use flash (or blm uses stun). Problem with paladin moving, is the fact that the direction of the mob will move too. So, thief has to move, and you possibly open the party for AE attacks.

I really never experimented with covering blm (except for BCNM fights), because they almost never get the aggro.

As for relation between provoke and HP of the provoker. Could you post some facts about it? I would be very interested in seeing proof of the theory (I am not saying it's wrong or right, I honestly don't know).

Russian amazing post, im Paladin and its all so true. My 2 biggest problems in Parties are Warrior that try to provoke off me every time my HP goes yellow and White Mages that heal to much(never thought i would be saying that lol).

Seems every PT im in i have to talk to Whm about how to work with my and i pretty much say what you said and after that its all smooth. I run into a lot of people that think that Paladin is nothing more than a glorified Warrior.

While these are all good tips if you have a good paladin, you have to realize that sometimes you have to compromise to do something less than maximum efficiency before you've determined the worth of a player.

For example, while against a high damage, dangerous mob I probably wouldn't pull while the paladin was out of mana and the whm was at full, against most mobs I would. The purpose of having a paladin as tank is mana conservation for extra chains, if he's out of mana and the whm is full you're probably being most efficient just letting the backup tank take a few hits. Just let your party know beforehand if you're changing the system that you've settled into.

Or in some followup, I see no problem with a Warrior provoking it off the Paladin if the Paladin falls into yellow...if the Paladin is consistently dropping that low in the first place the warrior needs to be keeping within 1 provoke of the paladin. It's not like warriors make horrible tanks and can't take a hit before the paladin grabs it back.

But in any case, I've rated the original post 5.00, it really is Excellent. Interestingly I seldom see very bad paladins. Guess being a damage sponge doesn't appeal to certain members of the population:)