Do paladins need a buff?

As a boomer retired pally main these threads have been pretty entertaining to read, I remember when everyone on the server thought paladins sucked simply because the old warrior damage comparison spreadsheet had a mistake and listed them as dead last in DPM. I suggest current paladins to do the opposite and pretend that your HH lines still do 200k (no one can see them anyway)

anyway, here's a couple more points of input:

If you're making a Paladin, you also need to level/leech an SI mule. You're probably going to want to save NX to make it 30k HP (and a dexbucc pre-patch) to make sure that it lives and doesn't spend too much on potions. You need to lug this guy around to every single boss if you want your top tier DPM, including multi-clienting in HT. Point being, it's a huge hassle (albeit I found it somewhat fun) to have a mandatory buff mule in order to play the class optimally and I don't think this gets much attention whenever paladins are brought up. If multi-client restrictions were still in place, this would be a pretty critical drawback to the class and warriors in general.

On washing, you still need something like 1m NX to wash to 30k HP and you're still going to want a lot of INT equips/base int if you're aiming for over 3k MP to survive a mana drain + sed + 1/1 combo (though likely not as relevant anymore since people just bring sed mules?)

Overall, I think whether or not paladins were OP is an extremely arbitrary discussion. I don't think using them purely as attackers enabled any degenerate or over-centralizing strategies to warrant such a huge nerf and the changes hurt lower-end paladins at a greater rate. That said, I agree that the state of paladins is probably fine if HH is slightly buffed into skill that you actually want to press. I mean, you could bring a bucc on a 6 man back when I was playing, so it's not the end of the world.

If your warrior brings his SI mule post-dexbucc nerf then it actually just balances out, wouldn't you say? But I don't really think comparing potion costs for just HT is too relevant for balancing considerations unless you literally stay in the cave 24/7. Otherwise, you'd want to look at random things like NT/CWKPQ/area bosses where paladins burn way more potions

On the note of random comparisons I don't think 4th job grinding speed (of which I think is hugely overrated for paladins, especially lategame now with 15sec HH) or washing amount really matters at all when the true time-gated objective is to finding ways to make a bunch of mesos (probably through mage leeching, and in that case you're likely self-leeching your attacker anyway.)

The niche for endgame paladins atm is probably something like soloing or duoing NT bosses with an archer/NL/sair/pally. In a duo, Vergamot easily dies in around 20 minutes if you use the proper pally strategies paired with a ranged class, and could be around 15min in a pally duo. Nibergen/Nameless take slightly longer, but they're braindead simple. Whether or not this is lucrative enough after the drop rate buffs, I have no idea

 

For rank 1 dummy dpm pepeclown

 

what is nl dpm on the dummy

 

Not as high as #1 sair $maple akash pog

 

life as a pally is hell now, scar gives crap exp, it’s way harder to get into ht now, also where worse at cwkpq then before, hammering Jiao when he jumps is worse, I never bothered with zak prenerf not gonna bother going there now.
Every one agrees the sole purpose of nerfing hammer to the ground, to the point of giving it meme damage was because of people abusing Horntail with HH mules, if it’s wasent the case they would of made it 100k or 150k.
buffing pallies holy charge should be a nice fix, it sad we only see this skill in 2008 videos of pallies training at skeles.
Also a lv 160+ Dark knight or a hero gets better exp at Shaolin then pallies. So training pace should not justify the nerf.

 

Buff drk because no one likes playing hero my brandish go brrrr

 

Keep HH at 50k boss/200k mob, reduce CD to 10 seconds

 

In this post, am not gonna go over damage comparisons, since several pally mains have showed multiple times that the nerf was unjustified.
I want to talk about the transparency regarding the nerf, first of all, we where promised by the balance team and staff multiple times in pervious patches that any upcoming balance will be based on 1) transparency 2) reasoning 3) preserving class identity, thats we mentioned in anniversary patch in may, 23 , 2020.
1) first of all transparency, no one saw this nerf to paladins hammer coming, even if pallies hammer needed some nerf it shouldn't be to that extent, seeing that lv 197 paladin lose 30% of his overall damage in ht, this will definitely look uglier with lv 160 pally.
2) reasoning , with this huge nerf, there should be graph showing how pallies will fair against other single target attackers and cleavers, seeing that there was no data to support the nerf and being told by the staff to test it ourselves, feels insulting.
3) class identity, now with the new 50k damage, there is no point in using hammer, which is a part of pallies kit, against bosses with multiple parts once your lv 170+ , also hammer is overrated for training, once you hit 160+ all cleavers start getting more exp at Shaolin.
If these standards where taken into consideration, paladins would have been in a better spot, then they are atm, every one can see clearly that paladin mains of been screwed over people abusing HH mules, there is no point now in making a paladin if you can just make NL.
lastly i would like to thank all the staff so this amazing server, i wouldn't play any other server than this one, but this matter had to be addressed.

 

What? Everyone saw this coming. They said they'd keep an eye on the problem when they increased the cd from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. It was just a matter of time until they did something to counteract hh mules properly.

 

you didn’t read the hole point, I said even if there was to be a nerf, it shouldn’t be to that extent

 

HH mulling should never ever be an option again. Staff should find a way of buffing pallys without going back to degeneracy. There must be a way of achieving this. I just know that if HH is buffed in such a way that is "worth it" (aka afk in body to cast HH and do at least some millions dpm) no matter the cost sweaty players will make them all over again, at least I totally would if HH mule seems viable again. Warriors shouldn't cleave like a mage and I just hope staff is smart about buffing pallys.

 

HH mulling should never ever be an option again

 

Nope.

 

True, but not at the cost of screwing pally mains