Do paladins need a buff?

For that reason. I'm out. ^_^

 

Oh the irony

 

Make Paladin great again pog

 

The Balance Team needs to balance the class before nerfing. Paladins are basically an extinct class outside of NT (maybe even NT they are trash)

 

Ok lets not go into hyperbole here. Paladins are flat out best class in NT with all the ele advantages and little need to wash for it.

 

pog actual numbers, based akash #makepaladinsgreatagain

 

As Akash said best in our guild discord yesterday, "paladins made paladin expecting NL tier damage with warrior tier investment." Pallies are far easier to wash, grind, and play in bossing compared to any of the solo target attackers they keep on stacking their HT DPM45s against. I think looking at pallies as a non-paladin player, a strong case can be made that they were a bit too OP prior to this buff, and now they've been brought down to earth. The situation they're in now post-HH nerf is fine - though a faster HH animation might be an awesome middle ground balancing touch.

I can understand why a lot of the community's balancing conversations center around HT, because it's currently the most lucrative endgame bossing. But while everyone is so focused on the pally's impact on the body stage of HT, it should also be noted that pally damage for preheads, which account for ~1/3 of HT runs, was minutely affected by this HH nerf. Generally speaking, their solo target damage is still upper tier. And despite all the noise, pallies can still well pull their weight in 5-man CWK and HT runs.

Someone also told me pallies will be one of the best classes for Pink Bean - and it's clear that's actually on the way. I'm sure this will shift the meta all over again.

 

I think Paladin damage being at archer tier is actually quite a problem, because not having SE not only means that Paladin's party support is nowhere near as good (Threaten's use is very limited at best), but also Paladin is dependent on having SE to output their damage while archers are not. Also I whited Akash yesterday on all four preheads with somewhat similar gear level, so I don't think their prehead damage is top tier or anything either. In addition, because we had a dedicated sed mule on the runs yesterday, Akash could be in anywhere he wants without troubling the rest of the party, but in runs without a dedicated sed mule generally you want everyone to be on the same side, and Pally damage is pretty god damn terrible on the right side if there are enough cleave around (and I'm not even sure if 1-handed weapon can hit all three parts with ACB - someone will have to test that), so their realistic damage in HT may be even lower depending on the circumstances.

Also, while I agree that Paladins are easier to actually play than ranged classes due to stance + brain dead blast, I don't think their easier washing and levelling are as much of an advantage as people may think. It actually doesn't take a lot of washing for ranged classes to survive most contents in ML; 10k HP will let you do every boss with HB and every boss but Vergamot and Toad without HB, and 10k is fairly easy to wash for. As a melee class Paladins will be needing more HP to survive some bosses (like bigfoot and nameless), and they need some washing to survive a lot of them as well. Ultimately they can get away with needing a bit less INT than ranged classes, but the difference isn't actually that big. As for their grinding, Hammer spam + a mage can get them pretty good levels during early 4th job, but it eventually falls off and at high levels they still have it a bit tougher than the cleaves and not much better than archers really, and they might have problem actually finding a mage to grind with because they're really not the best partner for mages to grind with either.

Finally, even if PB comes out and even if PB is implemented in a way that Paladin is great at it (the latter of which is really not something anyone should be counting on right now), PB by itself is not going to change things that much. Right now we don't even know if this server has the power to defeat PB in the first place (and there's a very good chance that we don't), but even if we can defeat PB, it's still going to involve waaaaaaaay more organization effort than what HT is like right now, so people won't actually be able to run it that much.

 

I guess we can just agree to disagree with pally being same tier as archer damage wise, I see nothing wrong with that. But pally solo damage is definitely in the top tier. Even if they can be whited at HT preheads, I've also seen them white OP NLs, their damage is well inside that upper echelon for sure.

I don't think the argument that pallies are less effective on the right side of HT body is very relevant, other classes also suffer DPM-wise if they're limited to the right half of the body (granted it's all of the cleavers but still). That's just highlighting a single situation in which they're not performing optimally, it's not a good reason to buff their solo damage imo.

I hear what you're saying about washing and leveling and maybe this is another agree to disagree point but I think you're underestimating the difference. You talk about the range attackers washing to minimum survivability standards without HB, so you should also hold pallies to that same standard, and in that case they are ridiculously easier to wash in terms of the amount of int and NX needed. I don't believe the difference in grinding capabilities can be questioned, I wouldn't say it's remotely close in early-middle 4th job. And in late game, grinding with a pally at 7F beats grinding with an archer by a considerable margin (speaking from personal experience in this case, I don't have numbers, but pallies seem to be able to clear their half much, much faster than an archer can).

Less relevant, but I don't think PB would be released if it's undefeatable... That'd be so whack LOL but you're right it can't really be used as a point with so many unknowns. But considering HT is not the only endgame boss in sight, I think there's something to be said about not buffing pally solo damage just because they suffer in parts of HT. They can still pull their weight in low-member CWK and HT runs just fine as is. So many pallies' perspectives are skewed because they've had it so good for so long but I think from the outside it's not difficult to see that they were just a bit too OP.

Edit: apparently pallies, all things considered, are technically middle tier in their solo damage. But frankly that's how it should be imo when you look at how much easier they are then the rest of solo target attackers to wash, grind, and control in bossing.

 

When discussing survivability between classes and the pre-requirements of minimal washing, pot burn should be also taken into consideration. It's a huge advantage for the warrior class to have a 20k+ tank use only 2-300 pots while their ranged members might be going through 5-600. Small things like that tend to add up, and it further cements the idea that warriors really are the budget bossing option.

 

You are part of the reason they got nerfed to begin with.

 

Skar just followed the scripture of the great MOOB

https://forum.maplelegends.com/inde...de-to-achieving-significantly-more-dpm.22552/

 

I'll just say that I care a lot less about the actual DPM numbers than this right here in the quote.

As a result this is the change I wanna see the most, and I think it's the only suggestion so far that I can imagine being in the game.

 

feels low lvl corsair man it’s unfortunate that pali HT damage doesn’t scale with levels as well as it does with corsairs.

also interesting how akash now mains the two worst HTing classes

 

Akash is a ~~bucc~~ beginner main now?

 

I assure you that neither pally nor corsair are anywhere as bad at HT as buccs.

 

That may be in the case of runs with a dedicated SI mule. However in the context of a mule-less run where you must choose between a pali, corsair, and a real bucc, would you still say that the bucc is the worst?

If we’re counting the individual DPM by itself, then yes buccs would be the bottom of the barrel. If the DPM increase from SI of other attackers counted towards a bucc’s DPM, they wouldn’t necessarily be at the bottom anymore (depending on the party composition e.g. 6 man vs 10 man, BM instead of MM, stacked with NLs etc). Individuals may also switch to a slower but higher attack weapon instead of using a faster, lower attack weapon to further the benefits of SI.

There’s also timeleap QoL that isn’t captured by DPM.

Both these points lead me to think that buccs aren’t the worst class at HT for mule-less runs, and buccs will typically have a spot on the signup sheet.