How to become a Paladin?

Paladin is one of the classes that can be picked right from the beginning of the game. You start as a Gladiator that transforms into a Paladin as he reaches level 30. If you want to change your class to Paladin in the game, you have to go to the Gladiator Guild and complete the Gladiator job quest.

Basic Abilities

Fight or Flight
Unlocked at level 2, Fight or Flight is one of the crucial abilities of Gladiator and then Paladin. It increases the damage you deal with enemies by 25%. It lasts for 25 seconds and has a recast time of one minute.

Paladin Melee Skills

Spirits Within
Using this skill, the tank provides an attack with a potency of 100 to a chosen target. If your health bar is close to maximum, the strength of the attack can rise to 370. You can use Spirits Within every 30 seconds.

Circle of Scorn
This buff delivers a 120-potency attack with a damage over time effect to all enemies located near the tank. The recast time is 25 seconds.

Sheltron
This ability can make a difference during the fight, as it blocks all enemy attacks for 6 seconds. It’s fairly enough for your DPS warriors to cast one powerful attack or multiple spells with an instant or reduced cast time without taking any damage. Sheltron has a cooldown of 5 seconds, but activating more of them in a short period will not always be possible. This skill is connected to the Oath Gauge that has to have at least 50 units to use one Sheltron.

Sentinel
Sentinel mitigates the damage enemy causes to you by 30%. It has a duration of 30 seconds and a recast time of 120 seconds. With that said, the best time to activate this buff is during the opponent’s most intense and powerful attacks. If you use it to protect your team from low-potency attacks, it will be considered a waste.

Cover
If you activate the Cover, the Paladin will take all damage meant to harm another team member. Make sure your party member is closer than 10 yalms to your tank. Otherwise, the buff will have no effect. Given the 3-minute cooldown of the buff, you have to be very picky when choosing the cast time.

It will be a mistake if you choose to protect a DPS or healer with a high HP. You are better off focusing on party members that are critically injured. Make sure you have 50 Oath Gauge to activate the Cover.

Intervention
This is a highly useful buff that reduces the damage taken by a teammate by 10%. What’s more, if you activate it when Sentinel is in action, it will reduce the Sentinel damage by 50%. The damage reduction lasts for 6 seconds. An aspect to note, one Intervention comes at the cost of 50 Oath Gauge, so make sure you accumulate the needed amount of gauge units before launching an intervention.

Divine Veil
This buff works mostly together with a healer’s magic heal cast. When the HP restoration spell is cast by one of your teammates, the Devine Veil creates a dome above all alliance members within a radius of 15 yalms to protect them against any enemy attack. The sturdy shield persists for 30 seconds.

Clemency
A Clemency is acquired for 2000 MP. This is an incredibly helpful spell that restores the HP of one of your alliance members, dealing with a cure potency of 1200. The cast is as fast as 1.5 seconds, so the chance of saving a severely injured teammate is high.

Magic Skills

You do not want to use these if not under the effect of Requiescat. Use 5 attacks while under the effect of Requiescat and then return to 2-3 cycles of your melee rotation combo.

Requiescat

When MP nears maximum, you deal additional damage, so its ideal to be above 80% MP when using this combo.

Holy spirit

Deals damage – potency 350.

Confiteor

Potency 800 AoE, deals damage to target and enemies nearby. Can only be used while under the effect of Requiescat. You lose the Requiescat effect when using it, make sure to use it last.

You can use riot blade and atonement to gain MP.

Weapon skills

Riot Blade
Used alone, this weapon skill provides a 100-potency attack. Combined with Fast Blade, the potency grows to 300. The cooldown is 2.5 seconds.

Atonement
Atonement is a powerful weapon skill that inflicts 550-potency damage to closely positioned enemies. The restoration of MP accompanies the attack.

Total Eclipse
This one delivers damage to all nearby foes that equals a potency of 120. Considering the fast recast time, which is 2.5 seconds, you can rely on this weapon skill when assaulted by multiple enemies.

Prominence
Prominence is connected to Total Eclipse. A combo of both delivers an attack with a strength of 220. If you decide to use Prominence alone, it’s possible, but the damage potency generated will fall to 100.

Goring Blade
This weapon works best in combination with Riot Blade, dealing with 390-potency damage to all surrounding foes. Used alone, Goring Blade inflicts 100-potency damage. This mighty weapon skill is also capable of causing damage over time, with a strength of 85 dealt in a time frame of 21 seconds.

Royal Authority
Royal Authority creates a combo with Riot Blade that generates damage with a destructive power of 550. You can also use it separately and expect 100-potency damage.

Situational

AoE Damage

Defense

Closing thoughts

To sum up, Paladin is a powerful tank able to defend other party members using his highly efficient abilities and spells. Paladin is not only concerned with mitigating damage taken and preventing fierce enemy attacks. It can also serve as an offensive element, delivering attacks that can cause damage with a potency ranging from 100 to 550. This turns it into a dual-skill warrior that can have a decisive role in a fight.

Besides using its weapon skills, it drives Paladin’s efficiency up with devastating combos that increase the damage inflicted considerably. When dealing with combos, Paladin requires players good coordination, excellent reaction, and fast decision-making to master it.

Among the Tank classes, there is one character called the Paladin, or the Gladiator. Many people have found that the Paladin is their ideal character for their journey in the world of FFXIV. What makes the Paladin a little special, with many character classes to pick from in the game? Let’s find out what the top reasons are for you to play as a Paladin.

Top 5 Reasons To Play Paladin/Gladiator

Versatility

Versatility is the number one attribute that makes a Paladin a great character to play. First off, it’s already a tank to take on a protective role to allow others to get into the proper position as the team strategy dictates. When mining Rathalos, for instance, a Paladin can be used for a slight distraction as the monster cycles through its five attacks in the Grounded phase while the others get ready to pounce on Rathalos when the opportunity presents itself. The Paladin can then activate its active self-healing ability, Clemency, and join in on the attack.

With a Paladin on the team, you have three roles rolled into one. You have a healer, a tank, and a DPS in a single character. This, without doubt, opens up several opportunities for team tactics and strategies, especially in dungeon raiding.

Beginner-Friendly Class

If you’re just a beginner to Final Fantasy XIV, the FFXIV Paladin is the best class for you to begin your journey with. This class is an evolution of the Gladiator, or Swordsman class. When you reach Level 30, you can evolve the Gladiator into a Paladin and unlock the relevant abilities. 

Both classes are very straightforward. Their skill trees do not require much for you to master. Of course, a little bit of study is in order if you’re going to be a serious player of this MMORPG. With the Gladiator and, later, the Paladin, the learning curve is not so steep regarding their abilities, allowing you to apply them quickly into battle. All you need is a good team on your back, and you can maximize the capabilities of the Gladiator/Paladin class in every quest, raid, or monster encounter.

Active Self Healing

One of the Paladin’s notable skills is the Clemency, which is a healing spell. The spell can heal up to 1,200 of the target’s HP. However, the Paladin also gets 50% of the total HP restored when Clemency is used to healing a team member. This spell alone makes the Paladin a reliable team member, even though its healing ability is not as potent as other classes whose skill sets are built more towards healing and support.

When mastering the Paladin’s defensive capabilities, it’s important to note that it’s not a full-fledged healer. Its weaker healing spells are not a disadvantage but rather are a supplement that can come in handy when one or two of the healers have their hands tied down trying to heal themselves while other team members, like tanks and DPS, are losing HPs to the enemy. This is one reason to adopt a balanced mindset when playing as a Paladin with a team.

Magical Skills

The magic is the only class that has a true spellcasts, that can be cast from a distance while having a finale similar to the black mage with the confideo spell. This is one of the strongest AoE attacks in the game.

Great Tank Support

The Paladin’s skills can be used to support a tank and be a tank, as the class is built towards that combat role. There are many ways to capitalize on this skill in a dungeon setting. A Level 62 Paladin or higher, for instance, can cast Intervention to cut down the amount of damage a team member receives by 10%. 

For instance, while joining the melee team with other tanks, the Paladin can further strengthen himself and other tanks with the Intervention skill. This allows the Melee and Ranged DPS characters more time to accumulate more damage to the target by improving the tanks’.

No matter what character you pick in Final Fantasy XIV, the important thing to consider is mastery. You would have to closely study each character and its skillset to understand how they work and when they would be ideal to use in battle. You should learn the limitations of each character too! 

An In Depth look at Paladin

An advanced guide to the class

Last update: 23 Jan 2019 (Patch 4.5) – Seiryu, O12S Added – Good luck everyone!

Hi! Emiin Vanih [Lamia] here. With the help of The Balance Discord server, I’ve decided to write a compendium on the information that is regularly disseminated therein, and give a general tips and tricks to utilizing Paladin. While Paladin is one of the simpler classes to play at a decent level, there are quite a large amount of optimizations one can make to perform better.

Available Translations – French translation by Murugen Mugen [Moogle]

5.0 guide can be found here! Thanks everyone for supporting me throughout the expansion!

Disclaimer

1. This guide will talk about Paladin at raiding (Level 70, 8-man) level. Some topics will be addressed that will spread towards other avenues of play within FFXIV, but raiding will be the primary focus.
2. Tooltips and basic skill potencies will not be addressed unless mathematically necessary. I expect anyone reading this guide to be able to understand how to read tooltips.
3. Initialisms used throughout this guide:
   1. GCD – Global Cooldown: Weapon Skills, Spells
   2. OGCD – Abilities
   3. RoH, RA, HS – Rage of Halone, Royal Authority, Holy Spirit respectively
   4. CoS, SW, Req, FoF – Circle of Scorn, Spirits Within, Requiescat, Fight or Flight
   5. All further initialisms will be explained when they appear.
4. Potencies listed will include slashing where applicable. Holy Spirit, and the DoT effects for Goring Blade and Circle of Scorn are not affected and will be addressed as such.

Part 1: The Basics – How to achieve numbers in a general setting (non-optimization) – blue/purple on FFlogs

General rundown for anyone somewhat new to Paladin. If you’ve played the class to 70, you should have a general idea of what to do.

1. Avoid using Shield Oath when you are comfortable with a fight to understand the damage output, or not in imminent danger of getting face-rolled.
2. Use all offensive OGCDs on cooldown (Spirits Within, Circle of Scorn). 
3. Fight or Flight and Requiescat should be kept on rotation and on cooldown as much as possible. These will be discussed later in the guide on proper utilization.
4. Maintain Goring Blade DoT on your primary target – Goring combo should be started  every 5-6 GCDs in order to maintain this debuff.
5. Avoid using Clemency unless it is required for survival. Mana is best saved for Requiescat windows.
6. Use Sheltron or Intervention before capping gauge, in order to get the most out of Shield Swipe procs. Shield swipe is a free 100 potency/15 seconds, don’t ignore it.
7. Save Mana for Requiescat + Holy Spirit windows – you should get 5 Holy Spirit uses per window.
8. AoE – Spam Total Eclipse and Circle of Scorn. Not much too it.

Note that this list is a generic quick-list guide, and is not meant for optimization. This list will simply pump your numbers to a somewhat respectable level. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the basics, we’ll go into specifics.

Standard 1m Rotation flows as shown on the left – 

The rotation itself is cyclical – every minute you will perform the same actions, regardless of the opener you use. The only thing that changes is the exact order of what happens. Maintaining this rotation (the benefits of each will be discussed in a later section) is the key to doing consistent and strong DPS as a Paladin.

Part 2: Map Your Cooldowns – Offensive and Defensive utilization

Offense

A Paladin’s offense comes primarily from proper execution of it’s damage buffs, Fight or Flight and Requiescat. Paladin does not have any hard hitting abilities, but what it does have is consistency through buffs. A Paladin’s damage is boosted by one of these two abilities for around 60% of uptime, which is incredibly significant to their DPS, and maintaining good numbers. Ensure that you rotate through your buffs and keep them active as much as possible.

1. Maintain uptime in both Fight or Flight and Requiescat. Consistent usage of these buffs is key for your DPS, as they are the bread and butter of your contribution. Note that FoF and Req are not to be used together. They are completely separate buffs, and buff completely different outgoing damage. Read your tooltips and understand how they work.
2. Goring Blade is your most important offensive tool. The primary rule behind Goring Blade is that you should never allow it to drop. Certain mental gymnastics in fight scenarios can be used in order to get full uptime, but do your best to maintain it.
3. Shield Swipe is your largest DPS increase that is not often used as much as it should. Simply adding Swipe to your repertoire is an increase of up to 400 potency/minute, which is basically 2-3 extra GCDs on your target. If you’re tanking, this goes off effectively. If you’re off-tanking, this requires clever utilization of Sheltron in order to get the most out of your damage. 
4. Shirk is, technically, an offensive tool. While I’m sure its original intent was to make tank swapping easier, what it ended up becoming was a tool to enable optimizing tanks to avoid using tank stance and threat combos in their entirety. Throughout a fight, its usefulness increases, exponentially granting more and more threat to whoever it is cast upon.
   1. OT Vokes, MT Shirk – Standard Shirk usage, performed on every tank swap.
   2. OT Vokes, OT Shirk – Efficient for low-threat openers, so long as there won’t be 2 tank swaps within 2 minutes. 
   3. OT Voke, MT Shirk > MT voke, OT shirk – the “Circle Shirk”, generating you a total of 56% more total threat. Incredibly useful if for some reason you like to single tank raid fights.

Further detail will be discussed in the later sections of this guide.

Defense

Defensive cooldowns can be interestingly utilized, and for the most part, are completely variable based on the fight, your co-tank, and what is best for your raid group. One static progressing through a fight will have a completely different skill rotation used compared to yours, and it may be just as viable. Work with your team in order to find out what works best for you.

1. Shield Oath, and utilization of it, is best utilized as a progression tool, and not an optimization tool. Once a fight is properly learned and optimized, tank stances are typically removed from the equation. Shield Oath itself is a very powerful tool, but is not necessary when you begin optimizing a fight.
2. Sentinel is the strongest single-button non invulnerable cooldown of the game, at 40% reduced damage taken. While this does not seem terribly great on its own with a short duration and long cooldown, it has incredible burst protection in tough situations.
3. Sheltron is an incredibly effective tool at reducing tank buster damage. At current best in slot, it decreases damage by roughly 25-30% of a single hit. Stacked with other cooldowns, and you reduce the danger of many tank busters tremendously. Use this ability well, and often.
4. In an optimal raid setting, Convalescence loses its effectiveness as healers will be using less heal spells, and more abilities. By all means, use Convalescence if it is effective for your raid team, but understanding how your healers are healing you is more important. 2500 health gained on a single cast of cure 2 within 20 seconds may not be an efficient use of a cooldown.
5. Hallowed Ground is the most busted ultimate tank cooldown in the game. While it doesn’t last as long as Living Dead, or have as short of a cooldown as Holmgang, the fact that damage is completely ignored is where it wins. The other ultimate cooldowns require at least a small amount of healing. Hallowed Ground can even cheese many debuffs that are attached to some tank busters, as they require the target to take damage to activate.
6. Map. Your. Cooldowns. If you want to be the big-dick tank that never enters Shield Oath and doesn’t afraid of anything, you need to understand the damage that is incoming in a fight, when to use cooldowns, tank swap, and what cooldowns are best utilized where. A good tank uses their cooldowns effectively so that their healers never notice they were out of Tank stance.
7. Tank Swapping both utilizes Shirk to its full effectiveness, as well as enables your co-tank to use his mitigation tools effectively. Your raid group has two tanks worth of cooldowns, use them to both make the fight easier, and give your healers a helping hand. Delete the thought of always Main Tank and Off Tank. Both tanks in an optimized setting will share equal burden. Main Tank and Off Tank terms should be used as a “Who is currently tanking the boss,” similar to how other languages use “First Tank” and “Second Tank.”
8. Your DPS have mitigation abilities as well. All Melees have Feint (-10% phys), Ranged have Palisade(-20% phys), Bards have Nature’s Minne(+20% healing)/Troubadour(variable 10/15% buffs), Machinist has Dismantle (-10%), Casters have Addle(-10% magic) and Apocatastasis(-20% magic). Discuss mitigation options with your raid group for optimal play.

Cross Role Actions

With the changes to Cross-roles in 4.4, we now have the option to take all cross-roles into a fight, doing wonders for a Paladin’s versatility, while murdering our hot-bar space. Here’s some of the more confusing cross-roles, and how they can be used effectively.

1. Ultimatum – AoE Provoke, but typically taken as a secondary provoke in a few scenarios. If your group can use it, then more power to you. It can be used as a pinch in saving wipe scenarios in longer fights, such as Ultimate Coil. Use this at your discretion.
2. Awareness – One of the more curious cross-roles, as its usefulness is technically questionable. A boss’ crit rate typically hovers around 5%, so it does not have an intrinsic value. The value of Awareness lies in the “Insurance policy.” Awareness can be used effectively in certain situations in order to ensure that a tank takes a specific window of damage, and does not get surprised by critical hits. Awareness will have more value on high-critical enemies or phases such as Shiva Extreme’s bow-phase, or guaranteed critical hit strikes and Tank Busters, such as Critical Hit in O3S, or Tera Slash in Shinryu Extreme.
3. Anticipation – A slightly less useful cross-role to Paladin, as shield blocks take precedence over parries. It is however, a free source of mitigation. Make use of it as often as you can, the uptime of this ability is tremendous.
4. Convalescence – I personally do not favor this cross-role, but a smart group can use it very effectively. My personal issue with Conva is that it does not work on what a healer primarily wants to use for healing – oGCDs such as Tetragrammaton, Excogation, or Essential Dignity. It does, however, work on Regens, and Fairy Embraces. Here’s a few ideal uses of Conva for your group to potentially plan around.
   1. Getting two uses of Regens while it is active, for 30-40 seconds of 20% more regen healing.
   2. Deployed Adloquium, if your group uses you as the primary source of the heal.

Part 3: Specifics

The myriad defenses of Paladin

I decided to give this one its own section here because there is simply so much to cover (pun not intended). Both with Heavensward and Stormblood, Paladin received a hefty bonus to their mitigation toolkit. 

Passage of Arms

The level 70 figurehead of Paladin’s toolkit, and the one more often ignored when it comes to full bred optimization in current content (Ultimate is not considered, as it’s on its own level as far as difficulty and this game are concerned). The ability itself is amazing, as it reduces all damage by 15%. 

With the changes in 4.4, Passage now has had its activation time changed so that it activates its defensive bonus to the group immediately on cast, and for some strange reason lasts for around 5 seconds if you deactivate the ability. The effects of this can be shown in this video by Momo Sama. This causes the main drawback of using Passage defensively to be removed, and you can now use this ability much more effectively in progression.

Divine Veil

One of the greatest tools in the Paladin’s arsenal. Stronger than most AoE shielding, and doesn’t actually cost the Paladin anything in order to cast it on the group. In optimization settings, either an AoE casted heal, or a fairy will activate the cooldown in order to spread the shield to others, costing the healers nothing important either. Activate it often, but talk with your healers before doing so. Don’t activate it yourself with Clemency – you need that mana.

Cover

With Stormblood came a much needed boost to the Cover mechanic, an additional 20% damage reduction. Every time Cover is used you basically gain a free Rampart on the damage covered. Map out clever uses with your co-tank and healers, and you can prevent many healing requirements when optimizing fights, or extend cooldown usages to smooth out a large amount of incoming damage. Experiment, and see what works best for your group. Note that cover blocks all incoming damage, and your mitigation tools work on it. Hallowed Ground does not work on Covered damage.

Intervention

By far the most interesting, and tricky to use cooldown in your arsenal. 10-40% reduction to damage for your co-tank is incredibly significant, especially when sharing tank busters, such as Akh Morn. In single-tank oriented fights, intervention can sometimes lose its flavor, depending on when it is used, and how. Considering that it costs a Sheltron to use, you may not want to use it as it costs you either your own personal dps/cooldowns, or would not change the fight in any significant manner. Use it wisely.

Fight or Flight vs. Requiescat

There is a large amount of discussion in many discussion channels about which opener is better. 

With all DPS cooldowns and rotations, there is a benefit on which to use, and when to use them. The most important thing of all, is whether or not you are comfortable with how they are used, and how the fight affects future uses of your cooldowns. Some fights prefer Req opener. Some group compositions favor FoF. The decision is completely up to you, and how you use your cooldowns.

When compared against each other, and considering the changes in 4.2, FoF and Req output similar damage while their windows are active. While Req wins in per-GCD damage, it loses out on auto-attacks. The general consensus has always been that FoF has great consistency, but loses out on smaller group buffs, such as Trick Attack. Here’s the rundown on how group buffs work, and how you can adjust your rotation to maximize your DPS.

Understanding Group Synergy

Multiple raid buffs will affect your personal DPS, and in order to optimize effectively, you must be aware of both how much you will gain with them, as well as when your raid members are casting them – this guide will list skills that directly affect damage multipliers or rates.

All Damage – 

• Balance(AST)  – 5% damage AoE, 10% personal, 15% full buffed – 30-60s duration
• Trick Attack(NIN) – 10% Damage, 10s duration, 60s CD
• Hypercharge(MCH) – 5% damage, 27-30s duration, 2m CD
• Foe Requiem(BRD) – 3% damage, 15-20~s duration, CD dependant on mana
• Devotion(SMN) – 2% Damage, 15s duration, 2m CD

Critical/DH Rates – 

• Spear(AST) – 5% Crit rate AoE, 10% personal, 15% buffed – 20-40s duration
• Chain Strategem(SCH) – 15% Crit rate on target, 15s duration, 2m CD
• Battle Litany(DRG) – 15% Crit rate, 20s duration, 3m CD
• Battle Voice(BRD) – 15% DH rate, 20s duration, 3m CD
• Song buff(BRD) – 2% Crit rate, constant.

Physical Damage – 

• Embolden(RDM) – 10%-2% Physical damage (drops by 2% per stack), 20s duration, 2m CD
• Brotherhood(MNK) – 5% Physical Damage, 15s duration, 90s CD
• Radiant Shield(SMN) – 2% Physical damage, 20-24s duration, 60s CD

Magical Damage (Holy Spirit)- 

• Contagion(SMN) – 10% Magic damage, 15s duration, 1m CD

Deciding on which opener to use revolves around two primary decisions:

1. What party buffs will affect my opener DPS?
2. How much will fight mechanics affect my ability to perform?

Thanks to the 4.2 changes, Fight or Flight will win out in raw DPS, in most all changes. While the damage/GCD is lower in the FoF opener (specifically in Trick Attack windows), Requiescat loses out on two fronts: It is specifically magic damage, and using Holy Spirits delay your Auto attacks, losing out on 2-3 autos depending on the timeframe. GCDs aren’t the only damage you’re putting out during your windows. Auto attacks and Sword Oath added potencies are a great contributor of your damage: don’t push them aside. Default to using FoF opener, unless mechanics align with Requiescat enough that you will not have disconnects in the fight. In the current build, I don’t see Req overtaking FoF for anything significant.

DPS Optimization in a group setting

There are numerous rules that a Paladin must follow, as its DPS is not as free-form as the other tanks. The most notable of which is to never lose a buff cast. Ensuring that Requiescat plays out for its full duration, and that you are able to get the most out of Fight or Flight, are the two crucial pivots of a Paladin’s arsenal. A Paladin’s DPS is less forgiving than the others if they miss a buff window, so ensure that you are able to keep your buffs on a set rotation. 

Mana and Holy Spirit

There will come a time in most rotations where you’ll find yourself at an odd decision. While we mentioned earlier that FoF in general wins against Req in a opener v. opener situation, but what about in general?

Holy Spirit does win out in a per-GCD basis in comparison to your melee damage. Adding HS to your rotation when not in buff windows falls under these general ideas.

1. Can I cast an extra Holy Spirit?
2. Can I replace a melee combo (2-3x HS casts, replacing Royal Authority)?
3. Will I still retain a 5 Holy Spirit Requiescat window?

Holy Spirit entering into your normal rotation follows the above rules, in general. There are obviously fight specific instances when you would want to cast an extra Holy Spirit, but in a fight that leans towards striking dummies. The key to catching these extra Holy Spirits falls under either clever uses of Sheltron, or Mana buffs, such as Refresh or Mana Shift. Refresh nets you around 6000 Mana, and Mana Shift somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5k mana. 

Naturally, you will not regain enough mana to cast additional Holy Spirits. Some fights you will be able to use an additional one due to mechanics, but in general you will not, and should not cast extra Holy Spirits. This is an optimization tool that is best used cautiously, at your discretion.

• 6 Holy Spirit Requiescat – Attained through either a lucky Sheltron proc and mana tick, or Refresh/Mana Shift. The benefit of a 6th HS, while it does not fall under Requiescat, is that it will push back your Goring Blade refresh, gaining an extra tick of Goring, and possibly helping with future alignment.
• Melee Combo Replacement – If you gain enough mana through the tools mentioned above, timed correctly, you can replace a full Royal Authority combo with 2 or 3x Holy Spirits. 2x Holy Spirits can be used to cut your future FoF/Req rotation earlier by 2 seconds. 3x HS will be a raw DPS increase, but small. I personally recommend 2x HS, as it is less taxing on your mana, as well as help keep your alignment with raid buffs, such as Trick Attack.

The most important thing to remember about extra HS casts is that they do not ruin your Requiescat window. Always maintain your buff alignment.

Part 4: What everyone asks about and the real reason you’re here

Openers

Sword Oath is assumed in all openers. The only difference between openers is which buff comes first. Two primary components are static throughout both –

• Potions are placed in order to gain the most from raid buffs. I’ve played with potion placement a few times, and the earlier the better in terms of activation.
• Spirits Within is placed in order to land in Trick Attack – Circle of Scorn is not placed as it would cause a longer delay which may lose a cast. Spirits Within will, typically, always land in Trick Attack. Circle of Scorn with its 25 second recast does not have this liberty.

As stated before, use the opener that best suits you, your raid group, and the fight. Fight or Flight usually pulls out ahead, unless forced downtime will align with Requiescat.

Note – Both openers include pre-popped sprint, and Cover + Bulwark. Since you’re not MTing the start of the fight, this is ideal for two reasons – It’s damage that your healers don’t have to heal, and it allows you to proc Shield Swipe for additional damage in your opener. In addition, if you have a Dark Knight co-tank, this allows for them to use The Blackest Night on you for an easier way to proc the shield for their opener. As always, if the fight demands cover use early on, forego the cover. Do not sacrifice your raid’s survival/group DPS for your own.

Default Fight or Flight Opener

Your default opener. This opener will outdamage all others in a striking-dummy scenario. Initial potion, Circle, and Spirits Within can be adjusted to your needs of the fight. 

Default Requiescat Opener

Opener used if a fight would align better with your rotation. Not significantly weaker than FoF, so if you prefer this, go ahead and use it. Of note is the shifted placement of Fight or Flight before Riot Blade. In the FoF opener, it’s placed one GCD later in order to also affect Requiescat. In the Req opener, it is placed in order to land the Riot Blade that has some party buffs, vs. the Fast Blade at the end that will have none.

Pre-pop Opener

This opener is used in very specific situations, such as short phase durations, or specific fight duration goals in speed running. Fight or Flight is popped 18 seconds pre-pull. Proceed as you would with the FoF rotation afterwards.

Why isn’t there a Main Tank Opener?

The answer is simple friends – Paladin should never start the fight. Dark Knight and Warrior have better openers regarding pulling the fight, and they should always be the first tank in any raiding scenario. They only lose potency. You lose your rotation.

• Shifting from Shield Oath to Sword Oath in your opener costs a GCD, delaying your actual damage start.
• Opening would require starting with Shield Lob into Rage of Halone, which would delay both utilization of the opener of your choosing, as well as the first application of Goring Blade, stunting your DPS.

4.4 BiS Sets

Using both the Statistic Intervals Sheet created by Nemekh, and the Gear Stats Calculator by Mike Matrix, we’ve compiled gearsets that, will maximize DPS in the current setting. It is of note that all sets that will be listed here are within 1% DPS of each other. These numbers are close enough within standard variance that playstyle and efficiency will have a larger impact on your dps. Most notable is that the numbers provided are a DPS average – they do not represent actual performance. Pick the set and speed that you wish to play at.

The primary set is a 2.40 GCD and has the highest dummy DPS simulation. If you aren’t a fan of this specific speed, a few adjustments can be made to your GCD with minor DPS differences. What matters most when picking sets is two fold – what speed you want to play at, and what speed would fit best with the fight. Pick the set that best fits your needs, there is no correct answer.

Stats, and Reasoning

Currently (4.4), we regard stats in the following manner –

CRIT=DH > DET > TEN > SKS

Crit Caught up! Finally! – It was bound to happen. The more Crit there is on gear, the better it gets. Crit and DH are so close to one another, that they self-adjust depending on group synergy. Crit has taken the lead, but even in a fully stacked crit-comp, they’re within 0-10 DPS of each other. I personally will be melding DH. Your melds are up to you.

Why no Tenacity stacking gear? – Tenacity is an efficient stat for what it is – 217 points for 1% DMG, and mitigation. A gearset with full Tenacity, melded, at the moment is somewhere in the ballpark of only 8% added mitigation (364 is considered 0% for all intents and purposes). However, the overall cost sacrifices much of our personal DPS, and does not noticeably increase healer DPS in exchange.

Tenacity is currently regarded as a progression stat, in a similar vein to tank stance usage – helpful on occasion, but not enough to warrant future use. Most discussions revolve around a simple statement – Tenacity is fine on gear, but awful melded. Don’t go out of your way looking for it.

SKS, tiers, and Party Buff Alignment– Skill Speed has always been a tricky stat to wrap your head around. With the increased AA potency it has garnered some merit of thought, however Paladin is coupled with more problematic issues involving the stat than the other two tanks are concerned.

• Paladin’s rotation for the most part is a fixed number of GCDs per cycle. Adding speed to this will cause issues with the rotation, and cause massive misalignment while waiting for buffs to return.
• Sword Oath attacks are not affected by SKS, unlike the auto-attacks they are coupled with.
• Holy Spirit cast time and recast are not affected by SKS, meaning over 25% of your rotation is completely unchanged.

Paladin’s rotation comes in at just above 60 seconds, which is just outside of the range for being perfectly in line with most raid buffs. “Why not stack enough skill speed to maintain that alignment,” you ask? The issue with this ideal is stated above. Simply too much of your damage is not affected by skill speed for raid buff alignment to be a deciding factor. Holy Spirit and Sword Oath represent a combined total of 20-30% of your overall damage. The fact that these top contributors are completely blocked from benefits of skill speed is a notable loss whenever stacking it in any manner.

That being said, Skill Speed is not a completely wasted stat. It’s just the lowest tiered stat that we can use (One of them had to be worst, yeah?). There is a certain amount of Skill Speed that is viable, and useful – but not in any sort of stacked fashion. Most sets tend to aim for at least the 2.43 break point and figure it out from there. 

Frequently Asked Questions, and Fight Optimization

F.A.Q.

– Who should pull in my party comp?

Not you. This is discussed in more detail in the openers section above. If anyone tells you to pull, yell at them in a nonchalant manner and probably pull anyways because convincing people to do things in Party Finder is pretty much a moot point. 

– How much DPS do I lose by staying in Shield Oath?

Somewhere around 25%. The losses are pretty universal across all tanks – you aren’t losing anything more than the other tanks if you are forced to stay in Shield Oath over them. Your rotation is fixed to remain very similar to what it would be in Sword Oath, so nothing changes for you outside of just a raw DPS loss. 

– How do I tank out of Shield Oath?

Oldest question in the book, and by all means the hardest to answer. In progression, tank stance is an incredibly effective tool to understand how damage works in a fight. Afterwards, however, it is completely unnecessary. Learning how a fight works is more important than turning on Shield Oath.

Tanking without utilizing tank stance is completely dependant on your entire raid’s teamwork. You are not the only person in the fight that can help the healing burden. Tanks, Healers and DPS need to learn how to use their cooldowns effectively in order to minimize all around damage taken. Learn to use your smaller cooldowns throughout the fight on places where you are difficult to heal, or Healers may be otherwise distracted. Have DPS mitigate certain mechanics, or help you with Palisade/Apoc. Just like how threat is a team effort, incoming damage is a team effort as well.

– Whose mitigation counts when using Cover?

Yours. While the description states that you take their damage, it does not work that way. You take the damage instead as opposed to take the damage they would take.

– Should I open with a single Holy Spirit cast?

This one is discussed pretty regularly and is a statement of contention across the board. There isn’t really a solid answer. Holy Spirit gains in raw GCD damage, but natural openers gain in starting their rotation much earlier. The main gain when casting Holy Spirit is specifically the delayed GCD. In some cases it will work out in your favor. In most cases, performing the openers as prescribed will do better. Do what you feel is best and lines up your fight/phase transitions better; neither one is the correct answer.

– Why didn’t I block that attack?!

There’s a few reasons you didn’t block something, despite the Stormblood buff to shield blocks in all directions, despite how little sense it makes (you can parry in all directions as well, but let’s ignore that for now). It all depends on what was going on at the time. Outgoing damage is checked in the following order – 

Critical > Shield Block > Parry  > Normal Attack

This order means that the damage table will check if an attack can hit, and then moves onto the next check. In FFXIV’s case, first the attack checks if it can Critical. If it can, then the attack table is done checking – Shields will not block the attack, even if Sheltron is active. This is specifically an issue in O3S – Halicarnassus’ Critical Hit will ignore Sheltron unless you have Awareness active.

The second issue usually relies on when you were casting Sheltron – specifically, during a Holy Spirit cast. Because you are actively engaged in spellcasting, you cannot block an attack. It’s as simple, and annoying, as you were busy doing something else so you couldn’t defend yourself. Either time the hit accordingly by delaying your HS casts, or change your rotation so that you aren’t casting while you need to block a specific attack.

Fight Specific Optimization and Tips

Most of these tips are a work in progress, and fairly incomplete. Major cooldown usage is dependant on yourself, your co-tank, and your group. Learn the fights and do what is best for your team. Refer to full strategy videos for timelines, group mechanics, and how to do the bulk of the fights. These tips are relegated to tanking and  Paladin specifically, and are meant to be complementary to those guides.

Past Trials and Raids (non-content-relevant) will be found in the historical section at the end of this guide.

Trials

Seiryu

1. The buster after swap is Magical. All autos are Physical. Because the busters are typically by themselves and not surrounded by autoattack sandwiches, you will not need to do terribly much to mitigate them. They do however, hit hard enough that you shouldn’t ignore them, either. 
2. Hallowed Ground works for nullifying the damage that would explode from Cursekeeper, but should not be relied upon as it doesn’t really gain you much for the fight. Seiryu does not hit nearly as hard as Suzaku does, and tank swaps are not as necessary here as it’s more of a mechanics-based fight. Hallowed Ground can be used in a pinch if your cotank drops, though.
3. Tempered Will works on the Elemental’s Fist knockback, but not on the snakes. It might help if you’re tanking in order to allow for more optimal positioning after the Fist > Snake push combo, but not much more than that.

Omega – Psi/Alphascape

O9S – Chaos

1. Chaotic Dispersion is Physical. Orbshadows are Magical. Plan cooldowns accordingly. Due to the forced tank swaps in this encounter, for the most part you can use your cooldowns incredibly efficiently and often. 
2. Do not use Tempered Will to negate the Wind Knockback! Due to how the fight is programmed, you need to be knocked back in order to remove the debuff, preventing you from being hit by a damage down.

O10S – Midgardsormr

1. Tail End, as you can imagine, is incredibly scary. It’s also Physical. Coordinate with your raid group on how to best use party mitigation as opposed to simply relying on yourself. Tail End does a baseline 105k damage, and in a worst case scenario, you can get four of them in a 3 minute timespan. Plan for the worst, and make sure your group knows effective strategies.
2. Midgardsormr’s auto-attacks are Magical in the air, and Physical when on ground. Make sure you utilize your fluff cooldowns effectively. Don’t pull and Emiin and spam Anticipation in phase 1!
3. The Dragon add’s damage is magical – at least, the damage that matters. Use a FFLogs link to learn the timing of his Breaths, so you can utilize your cooldowns more effectively. 

O11S – Omega Weapon

1. Mustard bomb is Magical. Technically, this ability can be zeroed out with extreme mitigation to reduce the damage of the follow-up bleed effect, however the bleed does not do enough damage to worry about. The initial hit of Mustard Bomb however, is quite spicy.
2. As a Paladin, you have an additional option in regards to the Tether > Atomic Blast combo. One of the more popular methods is an uptime strat which involves having a ranged grab the tether, and Paladin covering for Atomic Blast. Keep in mind that you will still need to use cooldowns, as you’re now taking two hits instead of one. Note that this is not possible for the final 3 casts of Atomic, as one cast will be outside of Cover’s duration. 
3. Despite what guides and party finder tells you, having a tank bait the super-missles during Pantokrator 2 is a huge loss for the group! Here is a video of a bard executing it flawlessly, and easily. For both Paladin and Dark Knight, it is an incredible uptime and DPS loss to do this mechanic, and there is nothing lost by doing it in the intended fashion. Some bards in fact tell me it’s easier than short-missile baiting.

Omega M & F

1. Solar Ray is Magical. Optimized Blade Dance is Physical. Adjust your cooldowns appropriately in order to deal with these. Hallowed Ground is a viable option as OBD hits incredibly hard and not incredibly often. 
2. Not much specific to this fight comes into play for Paladin. Practice different openers depending on the fight in order to line up your rotation properly. 

Final Omega

1. All tank busters are Magical. Defensively, Sheltron allows for some breadth of cooldown usage across the board – if you’re off-tanking, all busters are survivable with Sheltron if you wish to use defensives elsewhere. Savage Wave Cannon will be close if not topped off, but doable.
2. Cover can be used effectively to “cheese” the Target Analysis > Savage Wave Cannon buster mechanic. Timing is tight, but if you cover the designated target after the target analysis hits, you can then take the buster damage by yourself without any need to share damage. This tactic can be used in the initial opener to avoid provoke/threat memery with DPS, or further on in order to allow for more cooldowns on later mechanics. 
3. As always with final fights, comfiness is made with your group. My best suggestion is to ask around in some places for cooldown maps, or develop your own strategy to make the best of your situations. This fight requires a lot of teamwork and strategy to do effectively. Good luck!

Credits

Emiin Vanih – Lodestone || FFLogs || Twitch || Twitter || Discord – Emiin#0178
Find me on my Discord Server!
Feel free to message me for any questions on this guide, or things you’d like added.

Tank Guide Trifecta

Emiin Vanih – Dark Knight Guide
Ny Cro – Warrior Guide

Thanks to The Balance Discord Server for all help building this guide. I am no longer associated with The Balance, and cannot be located there.

Tofurkey Meepers [Lamia] (Co-tank buddies4lyf)
Aya Liz [From FFlogs]
Voxfall Valerie [Ragnarok]
Raffter Senpai [Ragnarok]
Eureka Instrumental [Excalibur]
Damelia Lhea [Gilgamesh]
Sky Ikaza [Balmung]
Sarangerel Ura [Ragnarok]
Jam “Fuck Paladin” Valesti [Leviathan]
Ari Aquitane [Excalibur]
Nemekh / Velinas Dar’Korsalar [Exodus]

Historical Information

Trials

Susano

1. First Phase Assail timing for CD/Sheltron usage
   1. After 3rd auto
   2. 2nd auto after the first stack mechanic
   3. 3rd ish auto after the 2nd stack mechanic (skippable with high dps)
2. 2nd phase – Tank swaps happen once a minute. One cast of Ukehi per tank swap. Both tanks having Shirk is a must. Reprisal on both tanks will have the debuff for each tank buster, and each Ukehi.
3. Hallowed Ground can skip the scheduled tank swap from Stormsplitter. Plan for it, or use it in a pinch.
4. This fight is training wheels for how to properly mitigate busters, and provide utility.

Lakshmi

1. Screw this fight.
2. All busters, including the 2nd threat cleave, are magical. Sheltron will be your bread and butter for this fight, and used regularly regardless of whether you are MT or OT.
3. Voke > Shirk from the OT has the potential of driving them farther down in threat than #2. Be careful with its usage in the first phase. Circle Shirk is optimal before/during the first tank buster in order to make sure the tanks are #1 and #2, respectively.
4. Vril2win

Shinryu

1. Tempered Will will resist the pushback with Tidal Wave. 
2. Rumours floating around that threat on the Heart is duplicated to Shinryu himself. Swap targets if you have to, you won’t have issues.
3. Early use of Hallowed Ground for the Ahk Morns should be usable for Terra Slash later in the fight.
4. Intervention is amazing if your group plans to share Ahk Morns. 

Byakko

1. Byakko’s tank busters are Magical. Hakutei’s swipes are Physical. Plan cooldowns accordingly.
2. State of Shock, and the position of the follow-up stack, Highest Stakes, is determined by the wall closest to where the target is when grabbed. Byakko will pick the farthest wall, and throw you there. Know this, and position accordingly so that your dps can maintain uptime, and stack positions don’t target the far wall.
3. Keeping Byakko centered in the arena will assist both positioning for Highest Stakes, and Unrelenting Anguish. There’s no reason to tank him against the wall.
4. “Tank LB Cheese Strat” – by ignoring the second Hakutei, and simply using Tank LB3 for the ultimate, you can increase overall DPS output for the raid. Be warned, that this is slightly more dangerous while Hakutei is alive, as he swipes at the ST more often.

Tsukuyomi

1. Auto-attacks, and Busters, are Magical in Phase 1 and 3. She then switches to Physical after her final transition.
2. Torment Unto Death is a forced tank swap – you will die to the next auto-attack immediately after it, regardless of phase. Ensure you tank swap properly.
3. Casting a slightly-early Spirits Within will allow you to gain an extra cast before the end of the first phase.
4. If your group does not push the final Reprimand cast, utilizing the Prepull FoF Opener will gain you a significant DPS boost while losing no buff casts to the boss (Not added to guide yet, will add soon).
5. Using Cover during the first phase transition to intermission will prevent one member from gaining the “Down for the Count” debuff. Useful for DPS such as Dragoons, Black Mages, or Samurai who can utilize the downtime to prevent buffs from falling or gain resources.

Suzaku Extreme

1. Cremate, the initial buster is Magical. Use your tools wisely.
2. The first phase lasts for almost exactly 1m50s. There’s a few tips and tricks you can use to maximize damage until the Female phase – 
   1. Personally I found that opening with the Req opener, or the Prepop FoF opener is ideal, as it allows you to get 2 full casts of both Req and FoF (specifically more FoF uptime).
   2. When Suzaku jumps, she continues to take DoT damage. Try to ensure you get one last Goring Blade off before she jumps for DDR.
   3. If you follow the standard rotation in P3, you will find that Req lines up disastrously with one of the Suzaku Says portions of the fight. Learn how to dance and weave between two platforms so you can ensure uptime.
3. Phantom Flurry is Physical. It also locks her position for the duration of the entire cast, as well as the cleave afterwards. Move as soon as you see the cast bar and prepare to shirk as necessary.
4. Tempered Will works against the push/pull casts throughout the fight. It’s best used to your discretion – personally I only used it whenever I was also in Req phase.

Omega – Deltascape

Universal timeline guide can be found here. Originally created by m1s3ri and found here.

O1S – Alte Roite

1. Intervention is a good tool to use while learning to double up on cooldowns for Twinbolt.
2. Tempered will does not work on Clamp, or the pushback associated with Downburst. Clever uses of a healer’s Rescue and slides are your best friend here.
3. My group felt that Reprisal was best used for AoEs (Blaze specifically). It can be used to effect on the Twinbolts following Charybdis, as well.

O2S – Catastrophe

1. All Busters are magical.
2. Reprisals are best saved for Gravitational Wave, unless your strats revolve elsewhere for healer dps uptime.
3. Cover for the tank cleaves is a clever way to either prevent tank swapping, or delay it. Free mitigation is free mitigation, use it as you wish.
4. Tempered Will can be used to negate the knockback from Long Drop, if you need to due to accidental Gravity Limbal usage.

O3S – Halicarnassus

1. With regular tank swapping, every buster can have Awareness, reducing the damage to near negligible. Use the strat that works best for your group.
2. Some people prefer to open with Requiescat due to how it lines up for the initial Game cast. Do whichever opener you are comfortable with.
3. With a Ninja, Shadewalker will be up for up to 3 sets of adds. Work with your co-tank and Ninja to best figure out which would be used where.
4. Additionally, diversion is up for up to 3 adds as well. Remind your DPS they can actually use this ability to help you.

O4S – ExDeath

1. Spirits Within on pull will allow you to gain an extra cast before Decisive Battle. Timing is tight, ride that cooldown hard.
2. Tempered Will is effective on the first Vacuum Wave, and you can cover someone who does not have gap closer / knockback resistance in order to prevent them from being knocked back as well. Due to the long cooldown on Tempered, you can only do this once.

O4S – Neo ExDeath

1. Sheltron is enough of a cooldown to survive every tank buster that you will be taking in this fight, if you are topped off. Use cooldowns that you feel are necessary. 
2. Reprisal best used for every Almagest, and Aero 3s. Work with your cotank on what to use and where. One tank can handle every Almagest cast.
3. Hallowed is typically used strategically fit the first and last Double Attack. Your cotank should be issuing their invuln on Delta Attack. 
4. Tempered Will does not work on the planned knockbacks in this fight. It does work on Vacuum Wave, but you should not be hit by this.

Omega – Sigmascape

O5S – Phantom Train

1. Head-on is Physical. All other damage in this fight is magical.
2. Tempered Will can be used against all of the knockbacks in this fight. I prefer the Remorse, but use them as you wish. Cover your cotank during knockbacks to help them maintain uptime.
3. Overall, it is recommended to eat Head-on, as opposed to run away to avoid the damage, because of the tether caused from distance (if you are tanking at the time). Cooldowns as necessary.
4. Sentinel should be enough to survive the Agony Ghost.

O6S – Chadarnook

1. All damage in this fight is Magical. 
2. Ensure you save cooldowns for busters depending on your role and incoming damage – Demonic Shear is rather weak and requires little, while Last Kiss hits incredibly strong while the Goddess continues auto-attacks. Utilize cooldowns accordingly. Timing Sheltron for the Last Kiss hit is difficult, but doable.
3. Hallowed Ground can be used very effectively on the Flash Gale (Wind/Stack marker) in order to ignore it. 

O7S – Guardian

1. Tempered Will can be used on Dadaluma’s Shockwave. As this is the only knockback in the fight, you’ll have it up for both occurences.
2. Cover should be used to mitigate the Prey/Missile burn on DPS, as you take significantly less damage than a DPS would. Plan ideal uses with your healers.
3. Hallowed Ground can have two uses in this fight. The only predetermined use is during the final phase Bibliotaph. One additional use can be during the first Dadaluma spawn, allowing you to eat some damage from Dadaluma, and the Arm and Hammer, effectively negating healing during this part of the encounter.

Kefka – Clown

1. Hyperdrive is magical. Despite this, most strategies revolve around using invulnerabilities to ignore the damage. With any tank composition you can invuln 3 of the 4, and will have to “super cooldown” one of them. 
2. Tempered Will will have one effective use during this encounter – Shockwave, or Aero Assault. I prefer Aero Assault, as the knockback from Shockwave can be negated by clever movement beforehand. Aero Assault can also be “ignored” as you will have Requiescat active at the time, preferably. Do what is best for you and your group, and whether you will be tanking at the time. 
3. Make sure to Tank Swap to full effectiveness, and not simply to negate Hyperdrives. You can mitigate a great deal of damage by swapping and using both of your cooldowns to their full effectiveness.
4. Spirits Within cast early in the fight will net you an additional use during the first phase.

God Kefka

1. This fight is incredibly heavy on tank busters, and tank mitigation. Make sure you and your cotank are swapping effectively, getting the most out of your cooldowns, and have a plan. Map your cooldowns. Here is one written out map to the fight. Or if you like, you can make your own cooldown map with this tool. 
2. Ultimate Embrace is Physical, and most are mitigated with Invulnerability cooldowns. Wings of Destruction and Hyperdrive are Magical.
3. Hyperdrive has two components – a 40,000 damage hit, and a 60,000 damage bleed applied afterwards. If you are able to completely nullify the damage from the initial hit, the bleed damage does not apply. There are many options for cooldown uses to ensure this is nullified. If your group’s strategy does not benefit from this, then don’t stress too much about it. A White Mage’s Benison is a strong addition to this option if you choose to do so.
4. Cover can be used to “Cheese” the range requirement of Wings of Destruction, having a Bard or other ranged player go outside instead of yourself, for uptime. 

Change/Editlog

• 08/01/2019 – O12S Added.
• 01/10/2018 – Suzaku, O9S, O10S added. Adjustments from 4.4 added. 4.4 BiS added.
• 29/05/2018 – Tsukuyomi, God Kefka, Prepop openers added.
• 17/05/2018 – Up to Clown Kefka added; some light clarification in wording.
• 11/02/2018 – 4.2 edits to Opener preference, O5S, O6S, Byakko added.
• 21/12/2017 – Wording changes, clarification issues.
• 18/12/2017 – Initial creation of guide.

<-Paladin>
Feast PvP Guide

Written by Ash Florentine

 Your Role in Feast  ➤

Skills, Rotation, and Your Gauge ➤

Additional PvP Actions ➤

PvP Traits ➤

Helpful Tips and Macros ➤

Your Role in Feast

Paladin is probably considered the most defensive tank in The Feast. For this job even more than the other available tanks (Darkknight and Warrior), you will spending your time primarily playing a support and disabler class (a class that interrupts enemy team from killing your team). Your task is to analyze the fight and to notice how it develops and how to react to it, and for that task it is really acceptable to take some time (even if your damage will be lower as a result of that). The skills of the Paladin job profits most of your decision when the timing is right to actually use them and when not. It is possible to play Paladin on an average level as beginner, to master it though you will require additional knowledge of most or all other classes. It will get easier with more experience and as in PvE, muscle memory will lead here also to your improvement.

You are playing against other players in The Feast, thus there is a lot of situational gameplay involved, this guide can’t cover every situation you might encounter as Paladin, but help you to develop a mindset which should let you make the right decisions more often. Sometimes an unconventional playstyle is required to adjust to your teammates.

Strengths

+ Low Cooldowns of Crowd Control effects (Stun & Silence)  

+ Strongest Support abilities with a high frequency of potential uses

+ Best personal defensive skill of all tanks, Hallowed Ground

+ Usually low to normal queue times for The Feast as it is a tank class, additionally tanks are a more relaxing role to play generally

Weaknesses

– Mobility; we have 0 gapcloser, all other tanks have 1

– Micro-Managment (lots of buttons to press)during certain short time windows,

on “high” skill level necessary

– Positioning plays a big role due to the limited range of Cover and Spells

– Job Gauge and MP & TP  managment

About this guide: It is very lengthy and some information especially the one in cursive script are often just additional information. Reading and understanding the skills and what they really do, helps a lot, you will get surprised as I got surprised multiple times, even after playing for several seasons.  

Skills, Abilities, and Your Gauge

Gauge

These are your two variants of your Gauge, Sword and Shield Oath Gauge, which you may know from PvE already. Every skill that deals damage except Requiescat will fill it by 5 Gauge.

In PvP the Gauge solely enables you to use the Coverskill, which will deplete the Gauge by 25 with each servertick (approximately every 3s).

             Sword Oath Gauge                                 Shield Oath Gauge  

[Simplified versions]

Skills

Paladin has two main meleerange weaponskill combos, which you can see in the figure. Their effects are once again different from PvE and are explained in detail below.

• Both melee combos have the same potency at each skill of their rotation, both have a combined 3000 potency (750+1000+1250). This means you don’t have to worry about picking a certain rotation because of damage.
  • Only with the execution of the finisher skill Rage of Halone or Royal Authority you activate their combo bonus effect.

Rage of Halone

The combo bonus of Rage of Halone is that it reduces the target’s attack potency and healing potency by 10% for a duration of 15s. This rotation should always be used when you are near (8500+) or full MP. It is mainly used on the melee or range damage dealer, as these will deal the most damage in a match and during bursts. It is worth to take a second, to pick the right target, to apply it or to refresh this debuff e.g. on the melee again.

As of Patch 4.5 this  healing potency down debuff works on all healing spells and abilities and therefore could be viable to be placed on healers as well, to reduce their output and make them starve and consume their MP even more. Some comps especially with summoner could profit from a constant combined 20% less healing in the long run (high pressure) .

Royal Authority

The Royal Authority combo grants you 1000MP with the completion of its final comboskill. MP is needed for 1) Clemency, a healing spell and 2) Holy Spirit, an offensive spell, therefore it is relevant to keep your MP at an acceptable level so you can support your team during defensive and aggressive time windows. As a rule of thumb, I would use the time outside of culling to regain your MP to high levels and during culling I would “sacrifice” the MP for a few Rage of Halone combos for the debuff, which will hopefully prevent that member of your team get killed within a second.

(for reference, one culling stack means 10% more damage on everyone and it will increase by an additional stack up to five every 15s until a death)

If you happen to notice you are in the Royal Authority combo (MP regeneration), while you are at 10.000/10.000 MP, don’t be afraid to interrupt it outside of burst windows, so you can spread instead the 10% potency debuff faster. Only focused damage peaks will kill targets in The Feast, we do not need to care so much for total damage, that is an important concept of this current PvP playstyle in general.

Shield Bash

The most important crowd control (cc) effect, a Stun, you will use very often is Shield Bash. It is an “off-global” melee range ability and your only TP spender. Though the interesting thing about Shield Bash from a Paladin point-of-view is, that it will also increase the oath Gauge by 5. Looking at a just 5s cooldown, this offers us the possibility to get a lot of Gauge in a short time.

It is used defensively to stop enemies and offensively to stun burst targets or the enemy healer/ paladin during a countdown (and help with damage to some extent).

Your objective will be to interrupt the enemy team from getting synced burst peaks on your team, as such you might be hesitant to use this skill as you see they are not seriously attacking yet. But it is a double edged sword, if you sit on 1000 TP and don’t use the TP ressource at all or exclusively when you notice something, you are actively making the job of your healer harder. Executing perfect stuns will be difficult as a beginner in PvP and not always possible. Because of that it can be more beneficial to narrow the burst windows of the enemy team in a small time window by stunning them more often, sometimes even on cooldown. The advantage of this tactic is, that you even might get lucky and prevent a melee preparation of a burst or evenLimit Break sometimes. Two seconds after you stunned a damage dealer, they have a 10s Stunresist buff (if no Increased Resistence trait, which is likely) to execute their burst, this makes them more predictable, as they will aim to burst with this resist buff. If you are going to stun the melee, you probably do not have to Cover somebody in the next 6s (as countdowns are 5s long), be efficient with the resources you have.

Another sidenote is that it is important to check if the targets are Stunresist. Try to prevent stunning them, unless you 1) need Gauge quickly or 2) are helping actively with burst and value the mere 500 potency of Shield Bash as enough to get a kill maybe.

In order to interrupt Limit Breaks with a stun, you will have to track who gets adrenaline boxes (each box gives ~25% adrenaline Gauge) and check the Limit Break icons in the party list.

Adrenaline Gauge fills for approximately 33% every minute, it will be full after or a few seconds before 3 minutes into the match (the moment Wolfsheart spawns). One adrenaline box will make the first Limit Break like 40s earlier ready, stay on your watch.

Range damage dealer like to use their Limit Break for Wolfsheart sometimes, if they are in your range and around Wolfsheart it is worth stunning them. Otherwise stun the melee 1s before wolfheart spawn.

Requiescat

Let’s break this skill down! Requiescat is an instant ability, this means it is like
Shield Bash an offglobal skill. The most relevant thing about this skill is the 0 MP cost of all your casts for the next 6 seconds.

Because of the Global Cooldown of skills that is around 2,3s, you will be able to fit still 3 casts into that window. This gives you the option to use it either for three Holy Spirit offensively (your main burst) to deal damage or defensively for three Clemency to heal your teammates or yourself. It is of course also possible to mix it up, especially in situations where you notice it was a bad time to burst and you need to support again with Clemency. Often you won’t be able to execute three casts under the 0 MP effect.  

The wording of the skill description is a bit confusing regarding the “Potency increase up to 200% with near max MP” of this skill. It actually only deals an attack of 2000 potency, when you have full MP, not 3000 as some may think. (At 50% MP it will deal around 1500 potency.)

As mentioned, this below is your highest potency burst rotation you can execute in The Feast as a Paladin. It might be worth to use the first Holy Spirit on the healer to silence (at around 1s of countdown)  then switch to the burst target for the remaining two.

It can be improved by preparing and starting with your melee finisher skill / or to weave in a Shield Bash before this Holy Spirit burst, but often bursts are not taking over 3 GCD.

The extra effect of Requiescat is that it also boosts the potency of both your casts
(Holy Spirit AND Clemency) by 25%, therefore casting just Holy Spirits without this buff is not really recommended and should be avoided most of the time.

Do not waste this skill, 30s Cooldown will feel long in a match. Always try to use it for bursts or as an emergency tool for extra buffed clemencies. It doesn’t increase your Oath Gauge either. A decent use of this skill will separate the good from the bad paladins. If you just use it as “extra dmg” (with no casts after it) you have failed it’s purpose.

Holy Spirit  

One of your two spells in PvP. Holy spirit, as mentioned before, is part of your best burst and will put a two second Silence cc effect on the target. The skill has a hefty MP cost of 2500 MP, if you intend to use it without the Requiescat “0 MP cost” effect . If you use it unwisely it will deplete your MP pool after four Holy Spirits already, therefore use it:

A offensively, while you are under the effect of Requiescat, almost 2000 potency!!

B outside of Requiescat only, if you estimate the situation and think that it will profit really well from a Silence (like defensively e.g. on a Blackmage spammingFire IV or a Summoner casting Ruin IV spells, or as a fast surprise Silence on the healer)

C if you think the 1500 potency of it will matter to get a fast kill before the enemy healer can heal the target, which is often the case when the enemy healer died (instead of trying to get in melee range, sacrifice the MP for the follow up kill, potency of 1500 is still more damage than every melee skill of your combo)

During a match you want to avoid options B and C, but sometimes those bruteforce/ wasting MP options might be necessary. Otherwise your MP pool should be mainly for your emergency clemencies.

Either way, don’t be afraid to use an extra Holy Spirit if you sit on the MP cap with 10.000 MP.  

Clemency

Your second and last cast as Paladin, Clemency. It has the same cure potency as a small healing spell from a healer. It potency gets buffed the same way as Holy Spirit under Requiescat (+25%) up to around a value of 3000. An interesting effect is that it will also heal yourself for 50% of the heal but only if the target is a party member. This makes it really well to use on your Cover target, as the target might have already taken some damage and you will definitely eat a few hits because of Cover too.

You don’t want and can’t replace your healer with this, it is a support heal. A healer has limited resources to deal with burst peaks, he might be able to deal with one or two, but then he lacks his cooldowns to deal with it. You have to make these usually dangerous bursts somehow healable for him (either with Cover and applying Safeguard or Hallowed Ground, mitigation like Tank Limit Break, or stunning enemy damage dealer and if that is not enough, you start healing).

You also want to instinctively heal your team whenever you notice you can’t peel for them or when you are covering a member during the next burst. In most scenarios 1-2 Clemency are enough buffer for your healer to comeback.

If you need big emergency heals e.g your healer died or you are still leading in the last 20s but struggling a lot to stay alive. Do not be afraid to do this:

These 3 Clemency can increase your heal output by ~14000-15000 healing.

As mentioned before, try to adjust to the game, if you see a reason to stop healing, then do a Holy Spirit instead (under Requiescat). If you can’t target an enemy for Holy Spirits, heal the person which gets attacked most likely. A free heal is a free heal.

The effect window of Requiescat barely fits for 3 casts make sure you cast fast or the last spell will cost you MP.

Cover (& Hallowed Ground)

I’ve put these 2 respectively 3 skills together, because you will use them very often at the same time. Cover is the main element of the Paladin gameplay. This skill differentiates you a lot from the other tanks, it enables you to transfer the damage a party member would take onto yourself. A lot of damage dealer will learn to hate this skill and will get irl nightmares of it (promise). You want to master and execute this skill as efficiently as possible.  

You should know by now how you generate and spend your Gauge.

Cover is a toogle-skill, it will deplete your Gauge every tick (~3s) by 25 of your maximum of 100, this is the minimal duration in which Cover has to be active, you can’t deactivate it by any means earlier than that. The same icon you use to activate will be used to deactivate it again, it is called Uncover, you notice that the red part of the icon turns blue then and the border will change around it. The next aspect of Cover is it’s range! It can only be applied on teammates which are around you, to speak in FF14 terms, your team member has to be during the whole time you want to cover in a 10y radius around you, otherwise it will interrupt the effect even if it still is active. For that reason, prediction of bursts and positioning is a key ability you have to learn as Paladin. You have to stay somewhat close to your team in almost all situations, you are slow and you have no gapcloser. Don’t chase the impossible.

We are not immortal! Bursts are scary, we actually don’t want to cover a whole burst!! We amplify the damage the target takes by 10% just by covering it, as this is sadly an additional (negative!) effect of Cover. If we have Medal Stacks, just by picking up the first 50 medals for example, we will take the exact same damage (under Cover) as player with zero stacks, even if Shield Oath is active. The only benefit is we have around 2000 more HP, but that’s it.

Subsequently, try to imagine a burst like a damage graph, it has a peak usually when the enemy countdown hits 0. You of course don’t know when that moment actually is, but we can guess and try to estimate it. So to conclude it, we want

A the enemy to actually start their burst, before we start to cover! This is important because, if you start covering too early you will have to cover longer or what is even worse, the enemy could cancel their countdown and keep all their burst, while you just wasted your Gauge.

B to cover either the peaks of a burst or end part of it, as shown in the picture. If you take out that chunk of damage from their bursts, your team member will survive and your healer will have less stress. If you or the bursttarget drops too low in HP, use a Clemency to support. (Sometimes even just covering the peaks of a burst can be deadly, especially against classes like Dragoon and Mages as they have aoe, which could hit you double)

C Don’t forget to turn it off again! This is the mistakes most newbie Paladins do, they cover the right moment but don’t deactivate/Uncover it again. It would increase the healer stress again, if he is scared about you taking too much damage and potentially dying.

D It is usually highly likely that the target you cover will suffer from cc and usually we do not care so much about it! Though if you notice early enough very deadly damage is incoming(like immediately a Limit Break), try to break Cover by running and jumping away by yourself to prevent death, or you will get possibly stunned and e.g. get a covered melee Limit Break on you. We jump because, if we get stunned, we still complete the jump, which still increases our distance to other players (in this scenario we couldn’t uncover yet, which you would typically do after a melee Limit Break on you).

E Manage your Gauge! Cover has to be used conservatively, you can’t use it for every small burst. There are more ways to prevent a death than just to cover, usually if it is not possible to stun with Shield Bash you will Cover, and if Cover is not enough, you will Clemency.

Another excellent use of Cover is when your melee announces his melee Limit Break (Raw Destruction) to you in the chat. If you notice he is engaging in the fight and starts to countdown, it is very helpful if you cover him to transfer all the crowd control effects onto yourself. This, with a Stun on the target, will lead to a safe execution of the melee Limit Break. (Get used to the audio cues from quick chat commands!)

Luckily the developers gave us like an extra second after those first 3s to be able to remove the Cover status, without losing out directly another 25 Gauge for the next 3s tick. The sad news is, cover has an inherent delay like many skills, which will make it take effect like 0-1s after you have pressed it, this latency+skill delay balances the gained 1s out again. Having knowledge of these two details gives you the possibility to keep cover active when you noticed you just spent 25 Gauge. You just “paid” for 3s, may as well leave it on for another second then. In addition to that, the lag issue enables you to cover burst peaks easier, because of the delay. Getting used to optimal timing will play an important role for an effective Cover.

It is important to say that, as mentioned, you will take the damage your team member would take. Every damage increasing debuff on him and you will count to the damage amplification. Covering something like a burst with 25% vulnerability debuff from the Mage Limit Break, Butcher’s Block 10% vulnerability, Melee Debuff 15%, 10% Cover vulnerability, 20% Heavy Medal vulnerability for taking 200 medals, Culling stacks (Damage increases by 10% each stack up to 5)  ~ will result in instant deletion of your HP bar even if they only do a tiny burst on you.

If you cover something like that you need a strong defensive….

something like….

Hallowed Ground

This skill is our joker, our “Get out of jail – free card”,  Hallowed Ground. It will make you invincible like the PvE version, just here, only for 5s but also all type of damage (not only physical). It’s cooldown is only 90s, which could mean you might get up to 4 decent uses out of it in a 6min match.

The awesome aspect of this skill is, that it synergizes with Cover. You can Cover a team member and you and the target will be invincible for 5s (this is different again to the PvE version).

As described in the last paragraph of the Cover section, you might encounter situations where the vulnerability buffs just stack up against you. Covering those targets will be very scary and almost impossible without a death on your side, if you can sense these situations it is the best time to use this skill. Imagine both Limit breaks from the enemies land on your cover target, you don’t think about it twice, just instantly use Hallowed Ground. It is also worth a lot after your healer died, when you need to retreat to your respawn point in your base.

A different way to use it would be offensively, as weird as it sounds. If your team member is used to Cover, he will take more risks when pushing into enemy lines. Therefor you can use the Cover + Hallowed Ground combo to follow targets behind walls or other obstacles that would potentially break the line of sight to your healer. You give your team the room to follow that countdown with such a playstyle.

If you see your healer struggling with MP it is also worth using it to Cover the next burst. Remember it is only a 90s cooldown, we want to get the most out of it of course, but in some matches there will never be a situation where it would be really necessary, then just switch to use Hallowed Ground for less scary situations. It will still benefit the team.

Shield Oath

You can either turn Shield Oath on or off, there is no Sword Oath like in PvE. It works like a tankstance and on Paladin the tankstance is kept active over very long times in The Feast. Once it is dropped you will have to wait 5s to enable it again, keep that in mind, when trying risky tactics.

Using Shield Oath is incredibly useful to offset the extra 10% damage taken by Cover.

Let us recap quickly how much medal vulnerability stacks affect our taken damage:

With that it is fairly easy to say, when you are holding 126-150 medals, resulting in 2 stack and 10% damage increase on you, you will take as much damage when covering a target as if you would have no Shield Oath. Consequently, you are increasing the enemy burst if you are covering without Shield Oath by 10-45% depending on Medal stacks of you and your target (don’t be this guy). Use your tankstance therefore always when covering. There are of course exceptions of this rule e.g. you have light medal status which decreases your damage taken or using Hallowed Ground, but generally always keep it active.

You want to drop Shield Oath in the direct preparation phase for countdowns/bursts, but do not forget to switch back into it after a burst.

Dropping Shield Oath with or even stacks is very risky and should only be done in rare situations for very short moments. Usually you would prevent stacking early or at all to not make your best support skillCover a detriment for your team.

Playing Paladin resolves around making a quick decision how much mitigation you need to balance the burst out in order to be able to survive it. If you add another layer now, the Culling mechanic which also increases your damage taken by 10% each stack, things will add up real fast again. Always try to estimate how big the burst peaks will be with those damage adjustments.

Tank Limit Break (Aegis Boon)

Aegis Boon is your Tank Limit Break. You can imagine it as an AOE Safeguard for your whole team, but only if it is in your visible 50y range (it will get blocked by obstacles). Its duration has been nerfed recently to just only 10s, which makes timing it a bit more difficult. In most matches, you only have one use of this skill, it is possible to get 2 depending on Adrenaline Boxes(1 box adds 25% to Limit Break Gauge) which spawn at 4:30 and 1:30 time left in the match.

Generally, if your team gets both first boxes, I would take one box and aim for an early Tank Limit Break within the next 2 minutes. If you enter the last 2 min of the game and still haven’t used it, I would save it for the best possible moment, as you highly likely won’t get a second one. If you are around 30-50% Limit Break Gauge at the “1:30 time left”-mark AND your team is leading, communicate with your team your Limit Break status with the Quick Chat command. Best case scenario is, your team members will listen and give you both Adrenaline Boxes to get a 2nd late Tank Limit Break. Anything over 50% means you will need only 1 box.   

Please make sure that you use it before the match ends, it sounds trivial, but often players forget the duration of the buff.

Using this skill means your healer has time to refresh his mitigation cooldowns, which he will need when the Tank Limit Break is over again. Use the Limit Break between the last 20-15s of the game, even when nothing is happening. Even when it runs out and the situation is still dangerous, you can just start covering again.

Outside of that, the best way to use this skill is during Culling, bursts are just too high if they have 10-50% extra damage by the Culling debuff. Because of that, I would strongly consider using Tank Limit Break at 2-3 Culling stack or upwards. If you see the enemy team is engaging yours during culling (just see how they move towards you, in Culling they are usually very defensive, so it is easy to tell), it is a good indicator to use it.

Another good use of the Tank Limit Break is to counter a Mage Limit Break on your team if it hits multiple people. The 25% vulnerability debuff by the Mage Limit Break is very dangerous and comparable to Culling with 2-3 stacks. For all other situations use common sense, try to avoid using it while your team is in an offensive countdown window, as the enemy team usually plays defensive already and could wait out the duration of it, rendering it useless.    

Additional PvP Actions

In solo PvP queue, I would recommend a combinationpair of the three useful Additional PvP Actions, which are Safeguard, Recuperate or Bolt.

Because of how easily and fast we regenerate MP and TP, especially after somebody died, other options seem more important than Muse or Enliven.

Some Paladins tested Concentrate and Purify, they might have their place in premade Light Party teams, but generally change the way you and your team plays with Paladin a lot, so I would advise against it.  

In comparison to other jobs, who could pick additional actions that are truly useless (Warrior with Muse for a MP refresh for example….) , Paladin could at least potentially use all of them in a good way.

Safeguard

Almost every non-healer player uses this skill, it is the best way to mitigate bursts.

As mentioned before, covering a target can be dangerous, especially if you cover Limit Breaks or team member who are holding Medal Stacks or have other “damage taken” increasing debuffs on them. You need to mitigate damage increasing buffs to an acceptable, healable level or you will kill yourself very fast when using Cover.

Because we have Hallowed Ground, we can use Safeguard more freely to mitigate cover damage or burst on yourself, it only has a 60 seconds cooldown after all. Every burst reduced by Shield Oath and Safeguard is much less to heal by your healer, it will significantly help his MP pool in the long run.

Try to use Safeguard before your HP drops hard down. When you barely survived the burst, you missed your chance to use it at the right time and might be better to save for the next burst.

If you used this skill perfectly on high HP, it might be better to let the enemy burst waste their damage on you, instead of cc’ing them. A tank with safeguard and tankstance is really hard to kill. If they still burst on you, you ensure your team 15-30s offensive play without worrying.

Recuperate

Recuperate restores 25% of your maximum HP on a 45s cooldown. It is very useful for Paladin because we are getting attacked due to Cover as tanks even if nobody aims at us directly. Our potential uses are higher because of that usually compared to Warrior or Dark Knight. As you can guess by now, covering teammates is a clutch endeavour sometimes, you barely get out a life and need a fast way to gain HP again and with Recuperate you get out of these messy situations.

Other than this main use, try to make use of it even in less life threatening

scenarios (~50% HP), if you notice your healer has to heal multiple targets or you will be potentially breaking the line of sight him, use Recuperate to make his life easier.

Recuperate is to prioritize before Clemency as it is a instant skill, if you need a very fast heal.    

Bolt

Sadly Bolt has become an additional skill with the PvP revamp during Stormblood, it is fairly nice to have, especially because we do not have gapcloser and have to take care of our positioning a lot. It will only increase our movement speed by 10s compared to the PvE variant which is 20s, so be wary of that!

In TheFeast it is important to not reveal your intention too early, if you don’t have Bolt, it might be difficult to approach a target and not giving a good indicator who the next target is or when the next burst happens. Therefor

• Bolt can be used offensively, try to slowly get in the area where you can stun the enemy healer fairly quickly. It can be useful to pop the skill a few seconds earlier before the countdown and just hover around the targets, instead of going in a straight line towards it. You will be fast there, so it doesn’t matter if you are not there yet. Healer are used to read positioning patterns, you have to catch them off guard.
• Or defensively, if we end up in a bad position by e.g. a knockback or stun, we have to quickly close the distance to our team to be able to support during a burst. Another use would be kiting away if you become the target, it is way easier to run away from melees with Bolt.

PvP Traits

There are in total 9 PvP Traits to choose from.

We can ignore Increased Resistance Duration, Decreased Recast Time,
Increased Healing Potency and Increased Action Speed. The gains from these skills are very low and do not reflect our playstyle or role so much than the other remaining 5 traits.

As the main medal holder in the group, we have to make sure we don’t die, so any extra HP or mitigation is very welcome. Mitigation is beneficial because of our frequent uses of Cover.

• This can be achieved by using the Decreased Damage Taken trait, which decreases the damage we take by 3%.
• The Increased HP trait will put us closer to the Health Points of other tanks, as the Paladin HP is naturally nerfed by a small degree. It will increase your HP by 500.

Resource management is important on Paladin, you will use both MP and TP. Because of downtimes during a match, especially after deaths, my experience is that TP is less an issue as it refreshes kinda fast. MP on the other hand can take several Royal Authority combos to refresh. It is also possible to use both regeneration traits, but you would have to exchange a defensive trait for it.

• The Increased MP Regeneration trait will increase your MP regeneration rate by 25% or in other words, it will give you every tick 50 extra MP to the 200 MP you regenerate usually. That are theoretically 2-3 more free casts in a six minute match.
• The Increased TP Regeneration trait will increase your TP regeneration rate by a whole 40%. Even though this sounds very nice, I personally don’t feel it is truly necessary, we can only use our TP for our Shield Bashes after all. A few good Paladin still use it though.  

For Paladins who want to play in a very aggressive way and want to add to pressure damage over time in certain matchups, it could be worth to pick the Increased Damage Dealt. It will increase your damage only marginally by 3% though.

I personally only use Decreased Damage Taken,Increased HP and Increased MP Regeneration right now(Patch 4.45).

A more aggressive Paladin playstyle would pick Increased Damage Dealt, Increased TP Regeneration and preferably still one defensive one.

Helpful Tips and Macros

This section consists of general tips followed by macros and specific matchup information depending on which roles you play with and against.

• You could make it a habit to mark yourself in the one minute preparation phase at the start with a neutral looking sign, one of these four are possible. I usually mark my healer aswell to notice if he is in a bad position, and if he might need my help with Cover.
• The “medal gathering” order should be in most cases →/→ or again, if all your members still have 100 medals and consequently 0 Medalstacks. Our personal mitigation tools are strong but not many/frequent. We want to avoid Heavy-Medalstacks, early in the game. It might be okay to bait burst on you the last 1-2 minutes of the game, if you have all your mitigation available. Otherwise let always teammates with  or more Light-Medalstacks take them.

Medals always stay at least 10s on the ground, even longer if they are split. Give your team time to sort themselves before you rush them.    

• Try to be communicative, as a tank you should have more time noticing weaknesses in the enemy team. If you get a team that is very silent on cooldowns and target callouts, start callouts yourself and maybe even countdowns if really necessary. You should also ping Adrenaline, Wolfheart Boxes and your Limit Break Status at 2nd set of Adrenaline Boxes at 1:30. If you notice your melee overextending when your healer has 0 MP try the “Retreat/Fall Back” Quick Chat command.  

Macros

If you want to have the same macroicon as the skill you have to use the /micon command (see examples below). If you are not using the auto-translator e.g. Clemency, you have to write the skill in your client language in quotation marks e.g. “Clemency”.

For targeting commands like <1>,<2>,<3>,<4> of your partylist, the setting you made in the character configuration will be relevant. Some people have the tank first, a few others have it different. As tank it could look like below:

Your class will always be on Slot 1. You could target yourself with the <1>.

Target the party member on slot 2 with <2> in macros.

Target the party member on slot 3 with <3> in macros.

Target the party member on slot 4 with <4> in macros.

There are at least two prefered ways for Paladin, if you want to macro your skills.

Some Paladin are creating Clemency and Cover macro for every member of their teams. Others are doing it manually or just with one assist macro.

Try to fill your remaining free lines in your macro completely with the /pvpac – line, it is a server/delay issue that results in less failed macro uses.  

Examples of macros:

Variation 1

For healing party list member <x>, insert 1-4 for the position of your partylist members.

/micon “Clemency” pvpaction

/pvpac “Clemency” <x>

For covering party list member <x>, insert 2-4 for the position of your partylist members.

/micon “Cover” pvpaction

/pvpac “Cover” <x>

Variation 2

Focustarget the enemy melee during a match, 99% of the melee in PvP will aim at the target at which they are using their skills. The idea is to predict the targets with the assist macro and then using manually your support skills on your teammates, which you will already be targeting. An advantage of this method is that even if you don’t know what they are planning, you at least got a lucky shot to be on the right target.

/assist <ft>

You can create an assist macro also for your e.g melee to help with his burst or when he is casting his Limit Break.

/assist <2>         (it is usually 2 , check what number your melee has for you)

Targetingmacros (useful for gamepad)

You can create targeting macros for each enemy role e1-e4.

Pick a symbol for it you like either default one or one you can associate with the class with /micon.

/target <e1>

or

/target <e2>  etc.

Skill specific macros like a Holy Spirit macro on the enemy healer

/micon “Holy Spirit” pvpaction

/pvpac “Holy Spirit” <e2> (it is usually 2 , check what number the enemy healer has for you)

or a Shield Bash on the enemy melee are also possible.

/micon “Shield Bash” pvpaction

/pvpac “Shield Bash” <e3> (it is usually 3 , check what number the enemy melee has for you)

Though if you are comfortable and fast with the way you target or with the targeting macros, you won’t really need these. You want to avoid to macro to many weaponskills or abilities as they increase the delay.

Specific Matchup information Paladin vs. X

Paladin

• Stun or Silence them during Requiescat.
• Stun them 2-3s after they used Cover to deplete their Gauge faster.
• Bait them out of position for the next burst target.
• Pressure damage and burst baits work well against Paladin, make him waste his resources even at small bursts.
• Keep bursting him, even if he uses Cover during a good burst, he might die or waste
  Hallowed Ground or the Limit Break.

Warrior

• Can give important information on the next burst target because of their Butcher’s Block debuff preparation, that will make a member of your party 10% more vulnerable to damage. Holmgang is also a good tell and might pull teammember behind walls.
• Very vulnerable out of tank stance Defiance as they dont have the 20% mitigation and cant use Inner Beast.

• Seeing their range stun Onslaught, is a good moment to start casting Clemency.
• Watching them use Inner Release, is the moment you start peeling for your team.

Darkknight

• Try to avoid hitting or destroying The Blackest Night, as it will fill their Gauge and deal 0 damage anyway.
• Power Slash debuff will reduce healing on the target by 15%, it is an indicator for a potential burst target.
• Soul Survivor debuff on teammembers means additional damage, keep them alive, Darknights will not use this skill for no reason, because it has a high cooldown.
• Has a long cc chain that can make your healers life worse than against the other two tanks. Adjust by using support skills longer than normal.

Whitemage

• Potentially has a pushback skill Fluid Aura (Cooldown 20s) every time you are getting in his melee range. If you are going for a stun try to be faster and less obvious than usual.
• Is vulnerable after using Protect.
• Suffers from positional mistakes the most, keep that in mind if you have one in your team.

Astrologian

• Using cc effects on them during Lightspeed, will hurt their MP pool in the long run.
• Teammates who have a  Bole and Synastry will need your support less likely.

Scholar

• Chain Strategem debuff will increase the damage taken of a player by 10%. Indicator for burst!
• Has the most total damage of all the healers, if played correctly. Expect burst peaks to be very slightly higher.
• Vulnerable if forced to heal with Adloquium a lot.

Dragoon

• Fastest bursts of all melee, Dragoon finisher skills deal aoe damage and can hit you under Cover twice.
• Chaos Trust debuff and especially Dragon Sight are burst indicator.
• A stun directly after a Dragoon used his gapcloser Spineshatter Dive from the distance is often very effective.
• Can lose his Blood of the Dragon buff if a Dragoon can’t attack a target. Don’t let him extend it by staying unnecessarily in his range (important against all melee tbh).

Samurai

• Midare Setsugekka cast is a very good indicator for a burst. You can Cover or stun immediately to desync their burst. Because they have to stand still to cast, running away is a good option to desync their burst, if you are the target.
• Hissatsu: Chiten stop attacking on this Samurai buff, it fills their Gauge and reflects damage back to you. If your damage dealer still commit, try to remove this buff by hitting the Samurai three times.
• Hissatsu Soten is the gapcloser of a Samurai, it is a good way to know a burst will happen.
• Yukikaze is their damage increasing debuff, potential next target.

Ninja

• Shadowfang is their damage increasing debuff, potential next target. Has a burst on demand style of gameplay, difficult to predict. Usually opens with
  Bhavacakra, a skill with a very noticeable audio effect. You have to be fast with your support here.
• Kakuremi keep an eye (or ear) as tank on this skill, if the Ninja is not attacked during the duration of this buff, he will vanish for maximal 10s.
• Uses Shukuchi to escape burst, stay close to them because of Cover  range.
• Has a lot of cc options, which will make positioning even more difficult!

Monk

• Riddle of Fire buff and Demolish as burst indicator. Monks have a very strong and fast burst with a big animation delay, but also a huge downtime. Try to be very fast with peeling when you see the Riddle of Fire buff. They most likely will burst in the next 10s then.
• Do not attack them under this buffRiddle of Earth, or their defense and attack power will get boosted. Monks tend to burst, if it still happens, get ready to stop them.  

Bard

• Try to stun and peel when you see their Barrage buff.
• The Troubadour offensive version of this buff is a decent burst indicator.
• Can bind you if you get too close to them.

Machinist

• Can execute a strong and fast burst. This burst has a huge cooldown of 30 -40s. Try to notice Quick Reload two-three times in a row for an incoming burst. Stun immediately or stop covering if you see Wildfire on yourself!
• As a Machinist burst reaches high peak damage, it is risky to Cover. Hallowed Ground can be a lifesaver here.
• A Machinist relies heavily on a stun on the burst target for the Between the Eyes damage modificator (3x). If they used their stun (1min Cooldown), they won’t be able to stun for their next Between the Eyes (30s Cooldown). Therefor while playing with Machinist be conservative with stuns, as they don’t want to wait 10-15s extra each time you stun somebody out of burst windows.
• Flamethrower is the best DoT (Damage over Time) effect in TheFeast when suffering from multiple stacks of this cone-shaped aoe. Enable your Machinist by stunning an enemy to apply many stacks or stun the enemy Machinist as soon as possible when you are in range. This ability can hit through walls, look out!

Blackmage

• Nightwing enables them to sleep e.g. your healer. Because of that you might have to support more during the cc chains on your healer.
• Multiple casts of Fire IV mark their burst with a high hitting aoe finisher skill
  (Flare &Foul), use your stun and silence here often and in a surprising way if possible.
• Be careful against Dragoon & Blackmage comps, as they have both aoe finisher, which can hit you twice under Cover.
• Because a Blackmage has to cast a lot, it is very easy to break the line of sight with them behind an obstacle. Abuse that as much as possible!

Redmage

• Monomachy debuff is the burst indicator.
• If a Redmage executes the melee combo outside of a burst, keep looking to which target he switches. Redmages have a limited timewindow to use their finisher skill after the melee combo, which also indicates the best time to stun them.
• They can slightly heal their teammates with Vercure. Stop them from healing when their healer is dead.  

Summoner

• Summoner should be interrupted in their Bahamutphase, they will cast Ruin IV and stand still during it until they execute their finisher. Support your team in these moments.  
• They also have to come close in melee range and can inflict a vulnerability debuff on the players standing in front of them with Wither. Keep watching!

Thanks for reading!    Good Luck in the arena!

//Changelog

Patch 4.5  

• Skillchanges + Healreduction change

An In Depth look at Paladin

An advanced guide to the class

Hi! Emiin Vanih [Lamia] here. With the help of The Balance Discord server, I’ve decided to write a compendium on the information that is regularly disseminated therein, and give a general tips and tricks to utilizing Paladin. While Paladin is one of the simpler classes to play at a decent level, there are quite a large amount of optimizations one can make to perform better.

Disclaimer

1. This guide will talk about Paladin at raiding (Level 70, 8-man) level. Some topics will be addressed that will spread towards other avenues of play within FFXIV, but raiding will be the primary focus.
2. Tooltips and basic skill potencies will not be addressed unless mathematically necessary. I expect anyone reading this guide to be able to understand how to read tooltips.
3. Initialisms used throughout this guide:
   1. GCD – Global Cooldown: Weapon Skills, Spells
   2. OGCD – Abilities
   3. RoH, RA, HS – Rage of Halone, Royal Authority, Holy Spirit respectively
   4. CoS, SW, Req, FoF – Circle of Scorn, Spirits Within, Requiescat, Fight or Flight
   5. All further initialisms will be explained when they appear.
4. Potencies listed will include slashing where applicable. Holy Spirit, and the DoT effects for Goring Blade and Circle of Scorn are not affected and will be addressed as such.

Part 1: The Basics – How to achieve numbers in a general setting (non-optimization) – blue/purple on FFlogs

General rundown for anyone somewhat new to Paladin. If you’ve played the class to 70, you should have a general idea of what to do.

1. Avoid using Shield Oath when you are comfortable with a fight to understand the damage output, or not in imminent danger of getting face-rolled.
2. Use all offensive OGCDs on cooldown (Spirits Within, Circle of Scorn).
3. Fight or Flight and Requiescat should be kept on rotation and on cooldown as much as possible. These will be discussed later in the guide on proper utilization.
4. Maintain Goring Blade DoT on your primary target – Goring combo should be started  every 5-6 GCDs in order to maintain this debuff.
5. Avoid using Clemency unless it is required for survival. Mana is best saved for Requiescat windows.
6. Use Sheltron or Intervention before capping gauge, in order to get the most out of Shield Swipe procs. Shield swipe is a free 100 potency/15 seconds, don’t ignore it.
7. Save Mana for Requiescat + Holy Spirit windows – you should get 5 Holy Spirit uses per window.
8. AoE – Spam Total Eclipse and Circle of Scorn. Not much too it.

Note that this list is a generic quick-list guide, and is not meant for optimization. This list will simply pump your numbers to a somewhat respectable level. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the basics, we’ll go into specifics.

Standard 1m Rotation flows as shown on the left –

The rotation itself is cyclical – every minute you will perform the same actions, regardless of the opener you use. The only thing that changes is the exact order of what happens. Maintaining this rotation (the benefits of each will be discussed in a later section) is the key to doing consistent and strong DPS as a Paladin.

Part 2: Map Your Cooldowns – Offensive and Defensive utilization

Offense

A Paladin’s offense comes primarily from proper execution of it’s damage buffs, Fight or Flight and Requiescat. Paladin does not have any hard hitting abilities, but what it does have is consistency through buffs. A Paladin’s damage is boosted by one of these two abilities for around 60% of uptime, which is incredibly significant to their DPS, and maintaining good numbers. Ensure that you rotate through your buffs and keep them active as much as possible.

1. Maintain uptime in both Fight or Flight and Requiescat. Consistent usage of these buffs is key for your DPS, as they are the bread and butter of your contribution. Note that FoF and Req are not to be used together. They are completely separate buffs, and buff completely different outgoing damage. Read your tooltips and understand how they work.
2. Goring Blade is your most important offensive tool. The primary rule behind Goring Blade is that you should never allow it to drop. Certain mental gymnastics in fight scenarios can be used in order to get full uptime, but do your best to maintain it.
3. Shield Swipe is your largest DPS increase that is not often used as much as it should. Simply adding Swipe to your repertoire is an increase of up to 400 potency/minute, which is basically 2-3 extra GCDs on your target. If you’re tanking, this goes off effectively. If you’re off-tanking, this requires clever utilization of Sheltron in order to get the most out of your damage.
4. Shirk is, technically, an offensive tool. While I’m sure its original intent was to make tank swapping easier, what it ended up becoming was a tool to enable optimizing tanks to avoid using tank stance and threat combos in their entirety. Throughout a fight, its usefulness increases, exponentially granting more and more threat to whoever it is cast upon.
   1. OT Vokes, MT Shirk – Standard Shirk usage, performed on every tank swap.
   2. OT Vokes, OT Shirk – Efficient for low-threat openers, so long as there won’t be 2 tank swaps within 2 minutes.
   3. OT Voke, MT Shirk > MT voke, OT shirk – the “Circle Shirk”, generating you a total of 56% more total threat. Incredibly useful if for some reason you like to single tank raid fights.

Further detail will be discussed in the later sections of this guide.

Defense

Defensive cooldowns can be interestingly utilized, and for the most part, are completely variable based on the fight, your co-tank, and what is best for your raid group. One static progressing through a fight will have a completely different skill rotation used compared to yours, and it may be just as viable. Work with your team in order to find out what works best for you.

1. Shield Oath, and utilization of it, is best utilized as a progression tool, and not an optimization tool. Once a fight is properly learned and optimized, tank stances are typically removed from the equation. Shield Oath itself is a very powerful tool, but is not necessary when you begin optimizing a fight.
2. Sentinel is the strongest single-button non invulnerable cooldown of the game, at 40% reduced damage taken. While this does not seem terribly great on its own with a short duration and long cooldown, it has incredible burst protection in tough situations.
3. Sheltron is an incredibly effective tool at reducing tank buster damage. At current best in slot, it decreases damage by roughly 25-30% of a single hit. Stacked with other cooldowns, and you reduce the danger of many tank busters tremendously. Use this ability well, and often.
4. In an optimal raid setting, Convalescence loses its effectiveness as healers will be using less heal spells, and more abilities. By all means, use Convalescence if it is effective for your raid team, but understanding how your healers are healing you is more important. 2500 health gained on a single cast of cure 2 within 20 seconds may not be an efficient use of a cooldown.
5. Hallowed Ground is the most busted ultimate tank cooldown in the game. While it doesn’t last as long as Living Dead, or have as short of a cooldown as Holmgang, the fact that damage is completely ignored is where it wins. The other ultimate cooldowns require at least a small amount of healing. Hallowed Ground can even cheese many debuffs that are attached to some tank busters, as they require the target to take damage to activate.
6. Map. Your. Cooldowns. If you want to be the big-dick tank that never enters Shield Oath and doesn’t afraid of anything, you need to understand the damage that is incoming in a fight, when to use cooldowns, tank swap, and what cooldowns are best utilized where. A good tank uses their cooldowns effectively so that their healers never notice they were out of Tank stance.
7. Tank Swapping both utilizes Shirk to its full effectiveness, as well as enables your co-tank to use his mitigation tools effectively. Your raid group has two tanks worth of cooldowns, use them to both make the fight easier, and give your healers a helping hand. Delete the thought of always Main Tank and Off Tank. Both tanks in an optimized setting will share equal burden. Main Tank and Off Tank terms should be used as a “Who is currently tanking the boss,” similar to how other languages use “First Tank” and “Second Tank.”
8. Your DPS have mitigation abilities as well. All Melees have Feint (-10% phys), Ranged have Palisade(-20% phys), Bards have Nature’s Minne(+20% healing)/Troubadour(variable 10/15% buffs), Machinist has Dismantle (-10%), Casters have Addle(-10% magic) and Apocatastasis(-20% magic). Discuss mitigation options with your raid group for optimal play.

Cross Role Actions

With the changes to Cross-roles in 4.4, we now have the option to take all cross-roles into a fight, doing wonders for a Paladin’s versatility, while murdering our hot-bar space. Here’s some of the more confusing cross-roles, and how they can be used effectively.

1. Ultimatum – AoE Provoke, but typically taken as a secondary provoke in a few scenarios. If your group can use it, then more power to you. It can be used as a pinch in saving wipe scenarios in longer fights, such as Ultimate Coil. Use this at your discretion.
2. Awareness – One of the more curious cross-roles, as its usefulness is technically questionable. A boss’ crit rate typically hovers around 5%, so it does not have an intrinsic value. The value of Awareness lies in the “Insurance policy.” Awareness can be used effectively in certain situations in order to ensure that a tank takes a specific window of damage, and does not get surprised by critical hits. Awareness will have more value on high-critical enemies or phases such as Shiva Extreme’s bow-phase, or guaranteed critical hit strikes and Tank Busters, such as Critical Hit in O3S, or Tera Slash in Shinryu Extreme.
3. Anticipation – A slightly less useful cross-role to Paladin, as shield blocks take precedence over parries. It is however, a free source of mitigation. Make use of it as often as you can, the uptime of this ability is tremendous.
4. Convalescence – I personally do not favor this cross-role, but a smart group can use it very effectively. My personal issue with Conva is that it does not work on what a healer primarily wants to use for healing – oGCDs such as Tetragrammaton, Excogation, or Essential Dignity. It does, however, work on Regens, and Fairy Embraces. Here’s a few ideal uses of Conva for your group to potentially plan around.
   1. Getting two uses of Regens while it is active, for 30-40 seconds of 20% more regen healing.
   2. Deployed Adloquium, if your group uses you as the primary source of the heal.

Part 3: Specifics

The myriad defenses of Paladin

I decided to give this one its own section here because there is simply so much to cover (pun not intended). Both with Heavensward and Stormblood, Paladin received a hefty bonus to their mitigation toolkit.

Passage of Arms

The level 70 figurehead of Paladin’s toolkit, and the one more often ignored when it comes to full bred optimization in current content (Ultimate is not considered, as it’s on its own level as far as difficulty and this game are concerned). The ability itself is amazing, as it reduces all damage by 15%.

With the changes in 4.4, Passage now has had its activation time changed so that it activates its defensive bonus to the group immediately on cast, and for some strange reason lasts for around 5 seconds if you deactivate the ability. The effects of this can be shown in this video by Momo Sama. This causes the main drawback of using Passage defensively to be removed, and you can now use this ability much more effectively in progression.

Divine Veil

One of the greatest tools in the Paladin’s arsenal. Stronger than most AoE shielding, and doesn’t actually cost the Paladin anything in order to cast it on the group. In optimization settings, either an AoE casted heal, or a fairy will activate the cooldown in order to spread the shield to others, costing the healers nothing important either. Activate it often, but talk with your healers before doing so. Don’t activate it yourself with Clemency – you need that mana.

Cover

With Stormblood came a much needed boost to the Cover mechanic, an additional 20% damage reduction. Every time Cover is used you basically gain a free Rampart on the damage covered. Map out clever uses with your co-tank and healers, and you can prevent many healing requirements when optimizing fights, or extend cooldown usages to smooth out a large amount of incoming damage. Experiment, and see what works best for your group. Note that cover blocks all incoming damage, and your mitigation tools work on it. Hallowed Ground does not work on Covered damage.

Intervention

By far the most interesting, and tricky to use cooldown in your arsenal. 10-40% reduction to damage for your co-tank is incredibly significant, especially when sharing tank busters, such as Akh Morn. In single-tank oriented fights, intervention can sometimes lose its flavor, depending on when it is used, and how. Considering that it costs a Sheltron to use, you may not want to use it as it costs you either your own personal dps/cooldowns, or would not change the fight in any significant manner. Use it wisely.

Fight or Flight vs. Requiescat

There is a large amount of discussion in many discussion channels about which opener is better.

With all DPS cooldowns and rotations, there is a benefit on which to use, and when to use them. The most important thing of all, is whether or not you are comfortable with how they are used, and how the fight affects future uses of your cooldowns. Some fights prefer Req opener. Some group compositions favor FoF. The decision is completely up to you, and how you use your cooldowns.

When compared against each other, and considering the changes in 4.2, FoF and Req output similar damage while their windows are active. While Req wins in per-GCD damage, it loses out on auto-attacks. The general consensus has always been that FoF has great consistency, but loses out on smaller group buffs, such as Trick Attack. Here’s the rundown on how group buffs work, and how you can adjust your rotation to maximize your DPS.

Understanding Group Synergy

Multiple raid buffs will affect your personal DPS, and in order to optimize effectively, you must be aware of both how much you will gain with them, as well as when your raid members are casting them – this guide will list skills that directly affect damage multipliers or rates.

All Damage –

• Balance(AST)  – 5% damage AoE, 10% personal, 15% full buffed – 30-60s duration
• Trick Attack(NIN) – 10% Damage, 10s duration, 60s CD
• Hypercharge(MCH) – 5% damage, 27-30s duration, 2m CD
• Foe Requiem(BRD) – 3% damage, 15-20~s duration, CD dependant on mana
• Devotion(SMN) – 2% Damage, 15s duration, 2m CD

Critical/DH Rates –

• Spear(AST) – 5% Crit rate AoE, 10% personal, 15% buffed – 20-40s duration
• Chain Strategem(SCH) – 15% Crit rate on target, 15s duration, 2m CD
• Battle Litany(DRG) – 15% Crit rate, 20s duration, 3m CD
• Battle Voice(BRD) – 15% DH rate, 20s duration, 3m CD
• Song buff(BRD) – 2% Crit rate, constant.

Physical Damage –

• Embolden(RDM) – 10%-2% Physical damage (drops by 2% per stack), 20s duration, 2m CD
• Brotherhood(MNK) – 5% Physical Damage, 15s duration, 90s CD
• Radiant Shield(SMN) – 2% Physical damage, 20-24s duration, 60s CD

Magical Damage (Holy Spirit)-

• Contagion(SMN) – 10% Magic damage, 15s duration, 1m CD

Deciding on which opener to use revolves around two primary decisions:

1. What party buffs will affect my opener DPS?
2. How much will fight mechanics affect my ability to perform?

Thanks to the 4.2 changes, Fight or Flight will win out in raw DPS, in most all changes. While the damage/GCD is lower in the FoF opener (specifically in Trick Attack windows), Requiescat loses out on two fronts: It is specifically magic damage, and using Holy Spirits delay your Auto attacks, losing out on 2-3 autos depending on the timeframe. GCDs aren’t the only damage you’re putting out during your windows. Auto attacks and Sword Oath added potencies are a great contributor of your damage: don’t push them aside. Default to using FoF opener, unless mechanics align with Requiescat enough that you will not have disconnects in the fight. In the current build, I don’t see Req overtaking FoF for anything significant.

DPS Optimization in a group setting

There are numerous rules that a Paladin must follow, as its DPS is not as free-form as the other tanks. The most notable of which is to never lose a buff cast. Ensuring that Requiescat plays out for its full duration, and that you are able to get the most out of Fight or Flight, are the two crucial pivots of a Paladin’s arsenal. A Paladin’s DPS is less forgiving than the others if they miss a buff window, so ensure that you are able to keep your buffs on a set rotation.

Mana and Holy Spirit

There will come a time in most rotations where you’ll find yourself at an odd decision. While we mentioned earlier that FoF in general wins against Req in a opener v. opener situation, but what about in general?

Holy Spirit does win out in a per-GCD basis in comparison to your melee damage. Adding HS to your rotation when not in buff windows falls under these general ideas.

1. Can I cast an extra Holy Spirit?
2. Can I replace a melee combo (2-3x HS casts, replacing Royal Authority)?
3. Will I still retain a 5 Holy Spirit Requiescat window?

Holy Spirit entering into your normal rotation follows the above rules, in general. There are obviously fight specific instances when you would want to cast an extra Holy Spirit, but in a fight that leans towards striking dummies. The key to catching these extra Holy Spirits falls under either clever uses of Sheltron, or Mana buffs, such as Refresh or Mana Shift. Refresh nets you around 6000 Mana, and Mana Shift somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5k mana.

Naturally, you will not regain enough mana to cast additional Holy Spirits. Some fights you will be able to use an additional one due to mechanics, but in general you will not, and should not cast extra Holy Spirits. This is an optimization tool that is best used cautiously, at your discretion.

• 6 Holy Spirit Requiescat – Attained through either a lucky Sheltron proc and mana tick, or Refresh/Mana Shift. The benefit of a 6th HS, while it does not fall under Requiescat, is that it will push back your Goring Blade refresh, gaining an extra tick of Goring, and possibly helping with future alignment.
• Melee Combo Replacement – If you gain enough mana through the tools mentioned above, timed correctly, you can replace a full Royal Authority combo with 2 or 3x Holy Spirits. 2x Holy Spirits can be used to cut your future FoF/Req rotation earlier by 2 seconds. 3x HS will be a raw DPS increase, but small. I personally recommend 2x HS, as it is less taxing on your mana, as well as help keep your alignment with raid buffs, such as Trick Attack.

The most important thing to remember about extra HS casts is that they do not ruin your Requiescat window. Always maintain your buff alignment.

Part 4: What everyone asks about and the real reason you’re here

Openers

Sword Oath is assumed in all openers. The only difference between openers is which buff comes first. Two primary components are static throughout both –

• Potions are placed in order to gain the most from raid buffs. I’ve played with potion placement a few times, and the earlier the better in terms of activation.
• Spirits Within is placed in order to land in Trick Attack – Circle of Scorn is not placed as it would cause a longer delay which may lose a cast. Spirits Within will, typically, always land in Trick Attack. Circle of Scorn with its 25 second recast does not have this liberty.

As stated before, use the opener that best suits you, your raid group, and the fight. Fight or Flight usually pulls out ahead, unless forced downtime will align with Requiescat.

Note – Both openers include pre-popped sprint, and Cover + Bulwark. Since you’re not MTing the start of the fight, this is ideal for two reasons – It’s damage that your healers don’t have to heal, and it allows you to proc Shield Swipe for additional damage in your opener. In addition, if you have a Dark Knight co-tank, this allows for them to use The Blackest Night on you for an easier way to proc the shield for their opener. As always, if the fight demands cover use early on, forego the cover. Do not sacrifice your raid’s survival/group DPS for your own.

Default Fight or Flight Opener

Your default opener. This opener will outdamage all others in a striking-dummy scenario. Initial potion, Circle, and Spirits Within can be adjusted to your needs of the fight.

Default Requiescat Opener

Opener used if a fight would align better with your rotation. Not significantly weaker than FoF, so if you prefer this, go ahead and use it. Of note is the shifted placement of Fight or Flight before Riot Blade. In the FoF opener, it’s placed one GCD later in order to also affect Requiescat. In the Req opener, it is placed in order to land the Riot Blade that has some party buffs, vs. the Fast Blade at the end that will have none.

Pre-pop Opener

This opener is used in very specific situations, such as short phase durations, or specific fight duration goals in speed running. Fight or Flight is popped 18 seconds pre-pull. Proceed as you would with the FoF rotation afterwards.

Why isn’t there a Main Tank Opener?

The answer is simple friends – Paladin should never start the fight. Dark Knight and Warrior have better openers regarding pulling the fight, and they should always be the first tank in any raiding scenario. They only lose potency. You lose your rotation.

• Shifting from Shield Oath to Sword Oath in your opener costs a GCD, delaying your actual damage start.
• Opening would require starting with Shield Lob into Rage of Halone, which would delay both utilization of the opener of your choosing, as well as the first application of Goring Blade, stunting your DPS.

4.4 BiS Sets

Using both the Statistic Intervals Sheet created by Nemekh, and the Gear Stats Calculator by Mike Matrix, we’ve compiled gearsets that, will maximize DPS in the current setting. It is of note that all sets that will be listed here are within 1% DPS of each other. These numbers are close enough within standard variance that playstyle and efficiency will have a larger impact on your dps. Most notable is that the numbers provided are a DPS average – they do not represent actual performance. Pick the set and speed that you wish to play at.

The primary set is a 2.40 GCD and has the highest dummy DPS simulation. If you aren’t a fan of this specific speed, a few adjustments can be made to your GCD with minor DPS differences. What matters most when picking sets is two fold – what speed you want to play at, and what speed would fit best with the fight. Pick the set that best fits your needs, there is no correct answer.

Stats, and Reasoning

Currently (4.4), we regard stats in the following manner –

CRIT=DH > DET > TEN > SKS

Crit Caught up! Finally! – It was bound to happen. The more Crit there is on gear, the better it gets. Crit and DH are so close to one another, that they self-adjust depending on group synergy. Crit has taken the lead, but even in a fully stacked crit-comp, they’re within 0-10 DPS of each other. I personally will be melding DH. Your melds are up to you.

Why no Tenacity stacking gear? – Tenacity is an efficient stat for what it is – 217 points for 1% DMG, and mitigation. A gearset with full Tenacity, melded, at the moment is somewhere in the ballpark of only 8% added mitigation (364 is considered 0% for all intents and purposes). However, the overall cost sacrifices much of our personal DPS, and does not noticeably increase healer DPS in exchange.

Tenacity is currently regarded as a progression stat, in a similar vein to tank stance usage – helpful on occasion, but not enough to warrant future use. Most discussions revolve around a simple statement – Tenacity is fine on gear, but awful melded. Don’t go out of your way looking for it.

SKS, tiers, and Party Buff Alignment– Skill Speed has always been a tricky stat to wrap your head around. With the increased AA potency it has garnered some merit of thought, however Paladin is coupled with more problematic issues involving the stat than the other two tanks are concerned.

• Paladin’s rotation for the most part is a fixed number of GCDs per cycle. Adding speed to this will cause issues with the rotation, and cause massive misalignment while waiting for buffs to return.
• Sword Oath attacks are not affected by SKS, unlike the auto-attacks they are coupled with.
• Holy Spirit cast time and recast are not affected by SKS, meaning over 25% of your rotation is completely unchanged.

Paladin’s rotation comes in at just above 60 seconds, which is just outside of the range for being perfectly in line with most raid buffs. “Why not stack enough skill speed to maintain that alignment,” you ask? The issue with this ideal is stated above. Simply too much of your damage is not affected by skill speed for raid buff alignment to be a deciding factor. Holy Spirit and Sword Oath represent a combined total of 20-30% of your overall damage. The fact that these top contributors are completely blocked from benefits of skill speed is a notable loss whenever stacking it in any manner.

That being said, Skill Speed is not a completely wasted stat. It’s just the lowest tiered stat that we can use (One of them had to be worst, yeah?). There is a certain amount of Skill Speed that is viable, and useful – but not in any sort of stacked fashion. Most sets tend to aim for at least the 2.43 break point and figure it out from there.

Frequently Asked Questions, and Fight Optimization

F.A.Q.

– Who should pull in my party comp?

Not you. This is discussed in more detail in the openers section above. If anyone tells you to pull, yell at them in a nonchalant manner and probably pull anyways because convincing people to do things in Party Finder is pretty much a moot point.

– How much DPS do I lose by staying in Shield Oath?

Somewhere around 25%. The losses are pretty universal across all tanks – you aren’t losing anything more than the other tanks if you are forced to stay in Shield Oath over them. Your rotation is fixed to remain very similar to what it would be in Sword Oath, so nothing changes for you outside of just a raw DPS loss.

– How do I tank out of Shield Oath?

Oldest question in the book, and by all means the hardest to answer. In progression, tank stance is an incredibly effective tool to understand how damage works in a fight. Afterwards, however, it is completely unnecessary. Learning how a fight works is more important than turning on Shield Oath.

Tanking without utilizing tank stance is completely dependant on your entire raid’s teamwork. You are not the only person in the fight that can help the healing burden. Tanks, Healers and DPS need to learn how to use their cooldowns effectively in order to minimize all around damage taken. Learn to use your smaller cooldowns throughout the fight on places where you are difficult to heal, or Healers may be otherwise distracted. Have DPS mitigate certain mechanics, or help you with Palisade/Apoc. Just like how threat is a team effort, incoming damage is a team effort as well.

– Whose mitigation counts when using Cover?

Yours. While the description states that you take their damage, it does not work that way. You take the damage instead as opposed to take the damage they would take.

– Should I open with a single Holy Spirit cast?

This one is discussed pretty regularly and is a statement of contention across the board. There isn’t really a solid answer. Holy Spirit gains in raw GCD damage, but natural openers gain in starting their rotation much earlier. The main gain when casting Holy Spirit is specifically the delayed GCD. In some cases it will work out in your favor. In most cases, performing the openers as prescribed will do better. Do what you feel is best and lines up your fight/phase transitions better; neither one is the correct answer.

– Why didn’t I block that attack?!

There’s a few reasons you didn’t block something, despite the Stormblood buff to shield blocks in all directions, despite how little sense it makes (you can parry in all directions as well, but let’s ignore that for now). It all depends on what was going on at the time. Outgoing damage is checked in the following order –

Critical > Shield Block > Parry  > Normal Attack

This order means that the damage table will check if an attack can hit, and then moves onto the next check. In FFXIV’s case, first the attack checks if it can Critical. If it can, then the attack table is done checking – Shields will not block the attack, even if Sheltron is active. This is specifically an issue in O3S – Halicarnassus’ Critical Hit will ignore Sheltron unless you have Awareness active.

The second issue usually relies on when you were casting Sheltron – specifically, during a Holy Spirit cast. Because you are actively engaged in spellcasting, you cannot block an attack. It’s as simple, and annoying, as you were busy doing something else so you couldn’t defend yourself. Either time the hit accordingly by delaying your HS casts, or change your rotation so that you aren’t casting while you need to block a specific attack.

Fight Specific Optimization and Tips

Most of these tips are a work in progress, and fairly incomplete. Major cooldown usage is dependant on yourself, your co-tank, and your group. Learn the fights and do what is best for your team. Refer to full strategy videos for timelines, group mechanics, and how to do the bulk of the fights. These tips are relegated to tanking and  Paladin specifically, and are meant to be complementary to those guides.

Past Trials and Raids (non-content-relevant) will be found in the historical section at the end of this guide.

Trials

Seiryu

1. The buster after swap is Magical. All autos are Physical. Because the busters are typically by themselves and not surrounded by autoattack sandwiches, you will not need to do terribly much to mitigate them. They do however, hit hard enough that you shouldn’t ignore them, either.
2. Hallowed Ground works for nullifying the damage that would explode from Cursekeeper, but should not be relied upon as it doesn’t really gain you much for the fight. Seiryu does not hit nearly as hard as Suzaku does, and tank swaps are not as necessary here as it’s more of a mechanics-based fight. Hallowed Ground can be used in a pinch if your cotank drops, though.
3. Tempered Will works on the Elemental’s Fist knockback, but not on the snakes. It might help if you’re tanking in order to allow for more optimal positioning after the Fist > Snake push combo, but not much more than that.

Omega – Psi/Alphascape

O9S – Chaos

1. Chaotic Dispersion is Physical. Orbshadows are Magical. Plan cooldowns accordingly. Due to the forced tank swaps in this encounter, for the most part you can use your cooldowns incredibly efficiently and often.
2. Do not use Tempered Will to negate the Wind Knockback! Due to how the fight is programmed, you need to be knocked back in order to remove the debuff, preventing you from being hit by a damage down.

O10S – Midgardsormr

1. Tail End, as you can imagine, is incredibly scary. It’s also Physical. Coordinate with your raid group on how to best use party mitigation as opposed to simply relying on yourself. Tail End does a baseline 105k damage, and in a worst case scenario, you can get four of them in a 3 minute timespan. Plan for the worst, and make sure your group knows effective strategies.
2. Midgardsormr’s auto-attacks are Magical in the air, and Physical when on ground. Make sure you utilize your fluff cooldowns effectively. Don’t pull and Emiin and spam Anticipation in phase 1!
3. The Dragon add’s damage is magical – at least, the damage that matters. Use a FFLogs link to learn the timing of his Breaths, so you can utilize your cooldowns more effectively.

O11S – Omega Weapon

1. Mustard bomb is Magical. Technically, this ability can be zeroed out with extreme mitigation to reduce the damage of the follow-up bleed effect, however the bleed does not do enough damage to worry about. The initial hit of Mustard Bomb however, is quite spicy.
2. As a Paladin, you have an additional option in regards to the Tether > Atomic Blast combo. One of the more popular methods is an uptime strat which involves having a ranged grab the tether, and Paladin covering for Atomic Blast. Keep in mind that you will still need to use cooldowns, as you’re now taking two hits instead of one. Note that this is not possible for the final 3 casts of Atomic, as one cast will be outside of Cover’s duration.
3. Despite what guides and party finder tells you, having a tank bait the super-missles during Pantokrator 2 is a huge loss for the group! Here is a video of a bard executing it flawlessly, and easily. For both Paladin and Dark Knight, it is an incredible uptime and DPS loss to do this mechanic, and there is nothing lost by doing it in the intended fashion. Some bards in fact tell me it’s easier than short-missile baiting.

Omega M & F

1. Solar Ray is Magical. Optimized Blade Dance is Physical. Adjust your cooldowns appropriately in order to deal with these. Hallowed Ground is a viable option as OBD hits incredibly hard and not incredibly often.
2. Not much specific to this fight comes into play for Paladin. Practice different openers depending on the fight in order to line up your rotation properly.

Final Omega

1. All tank busters are Magical. Defensively, Sheltron allows for some breadth of cooldown usage across the board – if you’re off-tanking, all busters are survivable with Sheltron if you wish to use defensives elsewhere. Savage Wave Cannon will be close if not topped off, but doable.
2. Cover can be used effectively to “cheese” the Target Analysis > Savage Wave Cannon buster mechanic. Timing is tight, but if you cover the designated target after the target analysis hits, you can then take the buster damage by yourself without any need to share damage. This tactic can be used in the initial opener to avoid provoke/threat memery with DPS, or further on in order to allow for more cooldowns on later mechanics.
3. As always with final fights, comfiness is made with your group. My best suggestion is to ask around in some places for cooldown maps, or develop your own strategy to make the best of your situations. This fight requires a lot of teamwork and strategy to do effectively. Good luck!

Credits

Emiin Vanih – Lodestone || FFLogs || Twitch || Twitter || Discord – Emiin#0178
Find me on my Discord Server!
Feel free to message me for any questions on this guide, or things you’d like added.

Tank Guide Trifecta

Emiin Vanih – Dark Knight Guide
Ny Cro – Warrior Guide

Thanks to The Balance Discord Server for all help building this guide. I am no longer associated with The Balance, and cannot be located there.

Tofurkey Meepers [Lamia] (Co-tank buddies4lyf)
Aya Liz [From FFlogs]
Voxfall Valerie [Ragnarok]
Raffter Senpai [Ragnarok]
Eureka Instrumental [Excalibur]
Damelia Lhea [Gilgamesh]
Sky Ikaza [Balmung]
Sarangerel Ura [Ragnarok]
Jam “Fuck Paladin” Valesti [Leviathan]
Ari Aquitane [Excalibur]
Nemekh / Velinas Dar’Korsalar [Exodus]

Historical Information

Trials

Susano

1. First Phase Assail timing for CD/Sheltron usage
   1. After 3rd auto
   2. 2nd auto after the first stack mechanic
   3. 3rd ish auto after the 2nd stack mechanic (skippable with high dps)
2. 2nd phase – Tank swaps happen once a minute. One cast of Ukehi per tank swap. Both tanks having Shirk is a must. Reprisal on both tanks will have the debuff for each tank buster, and each Ukehi.
3. Hallowed Ground can skip the scheduled tank swap from Stormsplitter. Plan for it, or use it in a pinch.
4. This fight is training wheels for how to properly mitigate busters, and provide utility.

Lakshmi

1. Screw this fight.
2. All busters, including the 2nd threat cleave, are magical. Sheltron will be your bread and butter for this fight, and used regularly regardless of whether you are MT or OT.
3. Voke > Shirk from the OT has the potential of driving them farther down in threat than #2. Be careful with its usage in the first phase. Circle Shirk is optimal before/during the first tank buster in order to make sure the tanks are #1 and #2, respectively.
4. Vril2win

Shinryu

1. Tempered Will will resist the pushback with Tidal Wave.
2. Rumours floating around that threat on the Heart is duplicated to Shinryu himself. Swap targets if you have to, you won’t have issues.
3. Early use of Hallowed Ground for the Ahk Morns should be usable for Terra Slash later in the fight.
4. Intervention is amazing if your group plans to share Ahk Morns.

Byakko

1. Byakko’s tank busters are Magical. Hakutei’s swipes are Physical. Plan cooldowns accordingly.
2. State of Shock, and the position of the follow-up stack, Highest Stakes, is determined by the wall closest to where the target is when grabbed. Byakko will pick the farthest wall, and throw you there. Know this, and position accordingly so that your dps can maintain uptime, and stack positions don’t target the far wall.
3. Keeping Byakko centered in the arena will assist both positioning for Highest Stakes, and Unrelenting Anguish. There’s no reason to tank him against the wall.
4. “Tank LB Cheese Strat” – by ignoring the second Hakutei, and simply using Tank LB3 for the ultimate, you can increase overall DPS output for the raid. Be warned, that this is slightly more dangerous while Hakutei is alive, as he swipes at the ST more often.

Tsukuyomi

1. Auto-attacks, and Busters, are Magical in Phase 1 and 3. She then switches to Physical after her final transition.
2. Torment Unto Death is a forced tank swap – you will die to the next auto-attack immediately after it, regardless of phase. Ensure you tank swap properly.
3. Casting a slightly-early Spirits Within will allow you to gain an extra cast before the end of the first phase.
4. If your group does not push the final Reprimand cast, utilizing the Prepull FoF Opener will gain you a significant DPS boost while losing no buff casts to the boss (Not added to guide yet, will add soon).
5. Using Cover during the first phase transition to intermission will prevent one member from gaining the “Down for the Count” debuff. Useful for DPS such as Dragoons, Black Mages, or Samurai who can utilize the downtime to prevent buffs from falling or gain resources.

Suzaku Extreme

1. Cremate, the initial buster is Magical. Use your tools wisely.
2. The first phase lasts for almost exactly 1m50s. There’s a few tips and tricks you can use to maximize damage until the Female phase –
   1. Personally I found that opening with the Req opener, or the Prepop FoF opener is ideal, as it allows you to get 2 full casts of both Req and FoF (specifically more FoF uptime).
   2. When Suzaku jumps, she continues to take DoT damage. Try to ensure you get one last Goring Blade off before she jumps for DDR.
   3. If you follow the standard rotation in P3, you will find that Req lines up disastrously with one of the Suzaku Says portions of the fight. Learn how to dance and weave between two platforms so you can ensure uptime.
3. Phantom Flurry is Physical. It also locks her position for the duration of the entire cast, as well as the cleave afterwards. Move as soon as you see the cast bar and prepare to shirk as necessary.
4. Tempered Will works against the push/pull casts throughout the fight. It’s best used to your discretion – personally I only used it whenever I was also in Req phase.

Omega – Deltascape

Universal timeline guide can be found here. Originally created by m1s3ri and found here.

O1S – Alte Roite

1. Intervention is a good tool to use while learning to double up on cooldowns for Twinbolt.
2. Tempered will does not work on Clamp, or the pushback associated with Downburst. Clever uses of a healer’s Rescue and slides are your best friend here.
3. My group felt that Reprisal was best used for AoEs (Blaze specifically). It can be used to effect on the Twinbolts following Charybdis, as well.

O2S – Catastrophe

1. All Busters are magical.
2. Reprisals are best saved for Gravitational Wave, unless your strats revolve elsewhere for healer dps uptime.
3. Cover for the tank cleaves is a clever way to either prevent tank swapping, or delay it. Free mitigation is free mitigation, use it as you wish.
4. Tempered Will can be used to negate the knockback from Long Drop, if you need to due to accidental Gravity Limbal usage.

O3S – Halicarnassus

1. With regular tank swapping, every buster can have Awareness, reducing the damage to near negligible. Use the strat that works best for your group.
2. Some people prefer to open with Requiescat due to how it lines up for the initial Game cast. Do whichever opener you are comfortable with.
3. With a Ninja, Shadewalker will be up for up to 3 sets of adds. Work with your co-tank and Ninja to best figure out which would be used where.
4. Additionally, diversion is up for up to 3 adds as well. Remind your DPS they can actually use this ability to help you.

O4S – ExDeath

1. Spirits Within on pull will allow you to gain an extra cast before Decisive Battle. Timing is tight, ride that cooldown hard.
2. Tempered Will is effective on the first Vacuum Wave, and you can cover someone who does not have gap closer / knockback resistance in order to prevent them from being knocked back as well. Due to the long cooldown on Tempered, you can only do this once.

O4S – Neo ExDeath

1. Sheltron is enough of a cooldown to survive every tank buster that you will be taking in this fight, if you are topped off. Use cooldowns that you feel are necessary.
2. Reprisal best used for every Almagest, and Aero 3s. Work with your cotank on what to use and where. One tank can handle every Almagest cast.
3. Hallowed is typically used strategically fit the first and last Double Attack. Your cotank should be issuing their invuln on Delta Attack.
4. Tempered Will does not work on the planned knockbacks in this fight. It does work on Vacuum Wave, but you should not be hit by this.

Omega – Sigmascape

O5S – Phantom Train

1. Head-on is Physical. All other damage in this fight is magical.
2. Tempered Will can be used against all of the knockbacks in this fight. I prefer the Remorse, but use them as you wish. Cover your cotank during knockbacks to help them maintain uptime.
3. Overall, it is recommended to eat Head-on, as opposed to run away to avoid the damage, because of the tether caused from distance (if you are tanking at the time). Cooldowns as necessary.
4. Sentinel should be enough to survive the Agony Ghost.

O6S – Chadarnook

1. All damage in this fight is Magical.
2. Ensure you save cooldowns for busters depending on your role and incoming damage – Demonic Shear is rather weak and requires little, while Last Kiss hits incredibly strong while the Goddess continues auto-attacks. Utilize cooldowns accordingly. Timing Sheltron for the Last Kiss hit is difficult, but doable.
3. Hallowed Ground can be used very effectively on the Flash Gale (Wind/Stack marker) in order to ignore it.

O7S – Guardian

1. Tempered Will can be used on Dadaluma’s Shockwave. As this is the only knockback in the fight, you’ll have it up for both occurences.
2. Cover should be used to mitigate the Prey/Missile burn on DPS, as you take significantly less damage than a DPS would. Plan ideal uses with your healers.
3. Hallowed Ground can have two uses in this fight. The only predetermined use is during the final phase Bibliotaph. One additional use can be during the first Dadaluma spawn, allowing you to eat some damage from Dadaluma, and the Arm and Hammer, effectively negating healing during this part of the encounter.

Kefka – Clown

1. Hyperdrive is magical. Despite this, most strategies revolve around using invulnerabilities to ignore the damage. With any tank composition you can invuln 3 of the 4, and will have to “super cooldown” one of them.
2. Tempered Will will have one effective use during this encounter – Shockwave, or Aero Assault. I prefer Aero Assault, as the knockback from Shockwave can be negated by clever movement beforehand. Aero Assault can also be “ignored” as you will have Requiescat active at the time, preferably. Do what is best for you and your group, and whether you will be tanking at the time.
3. Make sure to Tank Swap to full effectiveness, and not simply to negate Hyperdrives. You can mitigate a great deal of damage by swapping and using both of your cooldowns to their full effectiveness.
4. Spirits Within cast early in the fight will net you an additional use during the first phase.

God Kefka

1. This fight is incredibly heavy on tank busters, and tank mitigation. Make sure you and your cotank are swapping effectively, getting the most out of your cooldowns, and have a plan. Map your cooldowns. Here is one written out map to the fight. Or if you like, you can make your own cooldown map with this tool.
2. Ultimate Embrace is Physical, and most are mitigated with Invulnerability cooldowns. Wings of Destruction and Hyperdrive are Magical.
3. Hyperdrive has two components – a 40,000 damage hit, and a 60,000 damage bleed applied afterwards. If you are able to completely nullify the damage from the initial hit, the bleed damage does not apply. There are many options for cooldown uses to ensure this is nullified. If your group’s strategy does not benefit from this, then don’t stress too much about it. A White Mage’s Benison is a strong addition to this option if you choose to do so.
4. Cover can be used to “Cheese” the range requirement of Wings of Destruction, having a Bard or other ranged player go outside instead of yourself, for uptime.

Change/Editlog

• 08/01/2019 – O12S Added.
• 01/10/2018 – Suzaku, O9S, O10S added. Adjustments from 4.4 added. 4.4 BiS added.
• 29/05/2018 – Tsukuyomi, God Kefka, Prepop openers added.
• 17/05/2018 – Up to Clown Kefka added; some light clarification in wording.
• 11/02/2018 – 4.2 edits to Opener preference, O5S, O6S, Byakko added.
• 21/12/2017 – Wording changes, clarification issues.
• 18/12/2017 – Initial creation of guide.