EXP Party Guide - Paladin

CAUTION!

This article is only a guide. Information expressed in a guide is usually more opinion than fact and should be taken as such. Guides are written by players, based upon their experiences, successes and mistakes, and are meant to aid other players. However, there may be differing opinions than those expressed in a guide. Strategies and information in guides may not work for everyone.

Welcome to "HOW TO PLD IN AN EXP PT".

Know your Role

In a nutshell, the Paladin is a supportive healer tank- They wear heavy armor/use a shield, hold the enemy, take the hits, protect/heal themselves and their party members, and open skillchains. Do not expect to be topping the damage charts as a paladin...that's for the party's damage dealers.

Your main job is to hold the enemy as best you can, mitigate your incoming damage, and cure/cover the DDs when they do take aggro. The DDs shouldn't have to sub NIN for higher DPS when partying with a Paladin. Except for RNG...RNG kinda needs shadows at higher levels, once they get slugshot/sidewinder.

Having a PLD in your party along with a main healer also lessens the need of a support-role job in your group (compared to parties were there is no main tank with all frontline subbing /nin, having a support + healer would be a good idea). Consider nixing the support for another DPS: i.e. PLD, 3 DPS, puller, healer party line up.

Party Preparation

As a Paladin you want to gear for defense and vitality. Some basic sets of armor to look out for in your leveling process are:

• Scale set (lvl 10)
• Lizard set (lvl 17)
• Chain set (lvl 24)
• Eisenplatte set (lvl 29)
• Centurion/Royal Squire set (lvl 30)
• Silver set (lvl 36)
• Plate armor set (lvl 40)
• Royal Squire/Iron Musketeer set (lvl40)
• Alumine set (lvl 45)
• Mythril set (lvl 49)
• Royal Knight/Iron Musketeer set (lvl 50)
• Gallant (artifact armor) set (lvl 52-60)
• Darksteel set (lvl 65)
• Adaman Set (lvl 73)

Shields are VERY important too. More defense! Aim for the "Kite" type shields.

Consider equipping accuracy/dex accessories (neck/belt/rings/earrings) outside of your defense building gear. Being able to hit the enemy generates hate plus gives you more TP gain for opening skillchains (more on that later).

From the early levels, the best subjob to use for PLD is WAR. It gives you provoke along with some extra VIT/defense/HP. At the later levels you could consider subbing NIN.

Consider carrying both a sword and club as well.

Consider leveling cooking to level 30+ before embarking on your Paladin journey. Bring a pineapple/melon juice or yagudo drink making kit with you to your lower level parties. Refresh is great. In some later level parties you may not have a reliable refresh. So be your own refresher.

Bring seafood. You want to eat food that increases your defense. At the later levels you can eat Ikra Gunkan for both defense and accuracy so you can do more damage, and open chains more often.

Load up an addon that will allow you to see your party member's TP (HXUI/tparty).

The Hateful Healer

Mage/backline healers try to keep from getting too much hate from their heals. The paladin wants to do the opposite. Curing is one of your main tools in grabbing and holding the enemy's attention.

Between provokes, topping yourself off with cure gives yourself extra enmity and keeps you ahead on the hate list compared to the other DDs in your party.

When a DD/melee grabs the enemy's attention, starts taking hits, and your abilities are on cooldown, cure them to get some hate back. This also helps the healer out, saving them some MP.

Consider topping off melee with a cure or 2 after a battle if you have MP to spare.

At 45 you get Chivalry. A 15 minute cooldown ability that converts your TP to MP. You can save up to 3000 TP for more return. Great for when you don't have a refresh in your party. And great for when you do!

Also White Mages get Devotion at 45, which is another MP dump ability (10 minute cooldown). Tell your WHM to please save it for you and rotate devotion and chivalry. Rotating chivalry and devotion nearly makes up for not having a refresher in your party, if you don't have one. (Don't forget your juice making kit either!)

The Protector

The Paladin protects their party: They do their best to hold the enemy, take the hits, mitigate their incoming damage, and cure the DDs/themselves to keep the enemy's attention and limit the party's downtime. Melee DD should not have to sub NIN for shadows when partying with a Paladin. Melee subbing /WAR, /THF, /SAM, /DRG, etc. instead of /NIN will substantially increase the party's overall DPS.

Paladins have many tools to keep the enemy's attention, to get it back if they lose it, and to cover anybody that does take aggro:

• Cures (lvl 5/17/30/55) - Your bread and butter. Cure yourself. Cure your DD during the fight and top them off a bit after the fight. Curing yourself and your party mates does 3 thing 1)Keeps you/them alive, 2) Gives you hate 3) Helps your party's healer save mp.
• Provoke (lvl 10 subbing WAR) - 30 second cooldown. First thing you should do when the enemy is lured to the camp. Use on cooldown but be mindful of saving it for the next pulled mob.
• Shield Bash (lvl 15) - Does some decent damage. Stuns the enemy. Gives the paladin a moderate amount of hate. Good to use when a party member gets hate. 5 minute cooldown.
• Sentinel (lvl 30) - Gives the paladin A LOT of hate. Also mitigates A LOT of physical damage. 5 minute cooldown...Same as DRK souleater and RNG barrage/other hate spiking DD cooldowns. Save for the hate/damage spikes to get hate back. Also good to use when the healer is resting/low on mp. You'll take a lot less damage for some time, giving time for the healer to recover some extra mp.
• Berserk (lvl 30 subbing WAR) - Increases your attack and decreases your defense. You can use this right before using a weaponskill for increased damage/aggro. Not recommended to keep up afterwards. 5 minute cooldown.
• Cover (lvl 35) - Get in front of the melee DD and use it if they have the enemy's attention. You'll take their hits for 15 seconds. You need to be in between your party/alliance member and the enemy for this to work. 3 minute cooldown...good to use on a melee after they close a skillchain you opened for them. Also good for backup if you are out of other abilities.
• Flash (lvl 37) - Now we're talking. VERY HATEFUL TOWARDS THE ENEMY. Flash + Provoke at the beginning of fights and you should be holding the enemy pretty well...unless your melee DD are crazy...(which isn't uncommon). Consider maybe "rotating" or "Spreading out" Flash and Provoke to maintain your hate at the top of the list in your parties depending on how crazy the DDs are. 45 second cooldown.
• Enlight (lvl 40) - This spell not only gives you an increase in damage and accuracy but also gives you an enmity +10 buff. Super good but very rare/expensive.
• Defender (lvl 50 subbing WAR) - Increases your defense and reduces enmity loss when you are hit. You lose out on some attack, but the less damage you take and enmity loss may make up for it. Defender has the added effect of reducing the amount of enmity you lose when taking damage from the enemy. (The general formula for losing hate towards an enemy is being damaged by them.) Defender also adds extra enmity to provoke. May not be necessary depending on your party/gear. If you're taking a lot of damage, or losing hate pretty easily, use it.
• Rampart (lvl 62) - Another hate generating and damage mitigation tool (aoe mitigation for party members) . 5 min cooldown. Combo with Sentinel/shield bash/flash if your DDs are crazy.
• Warcry (lvl 70 WAR sub) Gives a moderate amount of hate towards you while giving yourself and your nearby party members an attack bonus. 5 minute cool down. Great for a fail safe and/or using with berserk before a weaponskill.
• Holy Circle (lvl 5) - This actually does generate a bit of enmity. 10 minute cooldown...use as a fail safe?

It's a bit of an art in using all your available tools. Consider combining abilities and/or spreading them out depending on how hateful your DDs are. It really depends on your party setup/how geared they are. Use an addon like recast or timers to keep track of when your abilities/spells are available again. Don't panic if you lose hate and don't have other abilities available yet/on cooldown...it will happen. Just go back to the basics and cure the DD to keep them alive/get hate back. Your role in your party again is A) hold the enemy, then B) support/cure the DD that pulls hate, then C) open those skillchains.

Consider macroing in gear that gives +Enmity when using the above abilities/spells. It will boost the amount of hate you get from curing/shield bashing/etc.

The Opener

Paladin's don't do great damage on their own... But what they can do is set up a melee/SMN with opening skillchains for them to close. This also makes mages happy for more chains to magic burst on.

Paladins can consider the skillchain damage that the melee/SMN closes as their own (maybe even consider any magic burst damage from that chain, their own as well. Can't burst without a chain, right?).

You may need to save cover for the melee that closes the skillchain if it isn't a THF, /30THF+, or DRG. Looking at you MNKs and DRKs.

Red Lotus Blade opens Fusion. Team up with a MNK WAR or SMN (Ifrit) for them to close it. RLB also opens Gravitation. Great for DRG (penta thrust) WAR, and SMN (Ifrit).

Shining Blade opens Reverberation, Liquefaction, and Detonation. MNKs WARs and DRKs will like it. RNGs can close with slug/sidewinder but good luck getting hate after that... let's just say the enemy better be defeated soon after that happens.

Seraph Blade opens Distortion! Very good for THF, SAM, DRK, WAR(Rampage), BST, and SMN (Shiva). Also opens detonation and reverberation. Shining Strike with club also opens Distortion.

Vorpal Blade is similar to shining blade but does a bit more damage.

Swift Blade opens Fragmentation and Darkness. THF DRK(Great sword) and MNK will love being able to close Frag. SAM WAR and DRK can also close Darkness from Swift Blade.

Savage Blade opens Light and Distortion! Good for pretty much any other melee to close (except THF/dagger and MNK/H2H...sorry THF and MNK...)

You can pretty much pick any melee and let them know you will open skillchains for them when you have TP. The other 2 melee my pair up and chain with each other or solo DPS. Sword is quite versatile in chains. Do NOT however ask them to wait for your TP. That will delay DPS/exp. Save your TP and open for them when you have it. More than likely you won't have TP to open for them everytime they have TP. That's fine.

MNK BST WAR(axe) and SMN are the jobs to look out for though for making Fusion (Holy MB!). At the later levels THF WAR BST and DRK are good to work with too, opening Distortion and Fragmentation (using skull breaker with club).

• If partying with a BLM then there might be a need for your melee partner to save TP for a chain. Especially if it's like a PLD, melee x3, BLM, Healer party setup (2 chains going on for the BLM to burst on).
• Some party line ups will have the more old-school/traditional setup with 2 melee and a BLM as the DDs, 1 healer (WHM RDM), 1 support (RDM BRD SMN), and a tank (you). In that case the 2 melee are always going to chain with each other while the black mage bursts off of it. See if you can 3 step with them when you have the TP. Ideally you'll start the 3 step. Or if the support is SMN, open fusion or distortion for them to close. It's not the end of the world if you can't chain in that scenario though. You can use WSs for hate.
  • Ideally though, you might want to suggest your group sway away from RDM+WHM backline unless your group can make fusion or light chains (WHM burst holy/banish, RDM bursting as well) or your group may suffer a bit in DPS/exp rate.

Dealing with the DPS's Enmity Management

Some DPS have ways of managing their enmity. If they pull hate, they can shed it without you having to do anything. Other DPS have ways of managing other party members' enmity levels.

Dragoons gain high jump and super jump at levels 35 and 55 respectively. Both jumps shed hate. Don't worry about them and waste a provoke or flash or something worse.

Thieves are excellent party mates. They gain sneak attack, trick attack, and assassin at levels 15, 30, and 50 respectively. Starting at 50 thieves will get behind you facing the mob and use trick attack. The damage is guaranteed critical and the mob think you did it, tricking them into hating you more. From levels 30 to 49 your group may set up a first voke so the thf can sata you. At 45 thieves gain accomplice and collaborator. These moves steal hate from their party mates and redirect it back to you. They can help deal with 1 DPS while you focus on the others. Having a thf makes it much easier on you to hold hate against the other DPS.

Starting at level 60 some jobs may sub /THF. They will go behind you and TA WS so they give you their hate.

Some jobs at 70+ may sub /DRG. They can use high jump to shed hate.

Although they don't really have to when partying with you, some jobs may sub /NIN at 24+ which gives them shadows. If they pull threat let their shadows absorb some hits before trying to get hate back. The absorbed damage saves the healer some mp and each shadow absorbed does reduce their enmity by a bit so it will be easier to try and grab hate from them after a few shadows are absorbed.

Be on the lookout for WAR/SAMs, SAMs, RNGs, DRKs, and MNK/WARs. These DPS can do tons of damage in quick succession and rarely have a way of shedding their hate for doing it. Save your abilities to deal with them.

DRKs have drain, stun, and weapon bash. Drain will fill up their hp so you may not need to cure them as much. They typically stun after taking threat which may be good enough to delay the mob long enough before it's defeated. DRKs may need your cures after using soul eater.

Club Vs Sword

Clubs have been buffed on horizon. And paladins have access to more clubs. Also Starlight is now obtained at level 13 which is a WS that restores some mp. Starlight is great for restoring mp in combat and not having to rest as much.

Clubs aren't a bad choice to roll with instead of swords. You get better mp management. But they aren't as DPS as swords. Clubs can also open a few skillchains though. Notably Distortion with Shining Strike, and Fragmentation with Skull Breaker.

Clubs can't open Fusion though so there's that. And using TP to restore mp instead of opening SCs may hinder your party's DPS. Really it comes down to your preference and what race you are playing as for better mp management. If you keep losing hate with club, try using a sword.

If your healer is RDM with refresh and/or you have a BRD, then MP management shouldn't be too bad with using a sword. It might be better to use club with starlight if your main healer is WHM and there is no BRD or SMN in your party. WHM can throw you devotion every 10 minutes. It all really depends on the skill/gear/line up of the party. And each party is different. Experiment to see what works better.

Other Tips and Considerations

• THFs can be great friends in exp parties. They will pull, and they have the ability to give you extra hate towards mobs. Especially from level 50+ when they get assassin. PLD+THF can certainly allow the melee DPS in an exp party to sub something else other than /NIN to do even more DPS and be able to go all out without catching too much aggro.
  • Tip: If you already have a THF in your exp party, you don't really need a BRD. Both are pullers. PLD + THF or BRD + 3 DPS + Healer is a solid lineup. You can even consider BLM as one of the 3 DPS that can also backup heal and crowd control (sleep/ga) in a pinch.
• In some parties you may not have a reliable refresh (BLM + WHM backline, no BRD, THF pulling). Especially in the lower levels when jobs don't have mp restore abilities/spells yet. Really consider leveling cooking to at least 30 to make drinks on the fly so you can keep up with mp. Think of it as having tools as a Ninja. Refresh will give you less downtime, which means faster exp. Pineapple, melon, and yagudo are all good drinks you can make with cooking 30/40/60. Orange apple and grape juice aren't bad either (cooking 10/20/50 respectively).
• Consider building a DPS gear set (extra accuracy/strength/attack) and swapping it in via macros when using a weaponskill for increased damage and aggro towards you. (Ex: Haubergeon)
• Time your aggro making. If someone grabs aggro and the mob is almost dead it may not be worth it to spend a voke/flash/whatever on the mob. Save it for the next mob. Just cure instead as needed.
• In the higher levels/merit parties you may want to consider subbing /NIN. At higher levels/merit parties most all melee subs /nin because of Utsu: Ni and Ichi shadows for damage mitigation. However, pld/nin really only shines if all the other melee are subbing nin, except drgs. Look at the party list and/or talk to the party leader if you aren't sure what to sub. Your main job will be to Flash the enemy for first aggro and then support/cure/cover the other DD when they do take aggro and start taking hits. Don't expect to hold hate for too long. But enemies should be going down fast enough before it's a problem. Gear more towards accuracy/strength. Eat sushi or ikra. You lean more towards a support/healer/(light)DD and less as a tank. Swift Blade (lvl 65) has been boosted on Horizon to do critical damage for more DPS. Consider building a Swift Blade WS gear set to macro in for even more DPS. It can be strong.
  • You can off hand shield or another sword for dual wield. Either works. You can't use shield bash without a shield though...so maybe macro one in at the cost of losing some TP. But shields help with spell interruption as PLD (shield mastery). Very helpful for recasting shadows.
  • Definitely consider having enlight at these higher levels to up your accuracy and DPS! Don't forget to pick a melee and open chains for them, and make use of cover/sentinel/shield bash/rampart to grab aggro from time to time and support the other DD!
  • In higher level/merit parties while subbing /nin, consider having at least 3 DPS (/nin if melees) + puller + healer + PLD/NIN. Basically the healer and PLD are sharing their MP pools for keeping the party healthy. The main healer should have an MP recovery ability/spell to give to the PLD/NIN. Having too many supportive jobs in a party can reduce the speed at which your party is defeating enemies and cause more downtime.

-This guide was created by Grayson while leveling PLD and leveling with PLDs on Horizon. It is considered a work-in-progress.