Overview - Character Creation - Sub-job Selection - Vital Spells - Combat Tactics - Closing

So you have chosen walk the path of the Paladin eh? If this is so then you have chosen a hard road to follow, sacrificing ones damage to protect the group. Often this road may lead to death in order to save one’s party. With the blessings of Altana your are granted simple curative magic to aid the smiting of your foes. You have been given abilities to have added defense and to gain the hatred of the enemy, unless you chose to use them wisely, your whole party will die…

"Similar to Warriors, Paladins excel in close combat. However, intensive spiritual training allows them to learn white magic spells as well."

The Paladin is a hybrid job, a combination of Warrior and White mage. Such a job has a requirement for strong physical requirements as well as strong mental requirements. A job such as this requires you to be a well balanced race, or make up for your races shortcomings with magical properties.

Elvaan: The Elvann is truly a capable choice, swinging the sword with decent accuracy for the highest damage of any race. With their high strength scores, they can deal the most single weapon damage of any race. Elvann have a small Magic Point pool however, and a low dexterity, which allows them to miss their target often. While this is not necessarily an issue for a Paladin as their primary roll is to take the damage, it is a necessity that you make contact with the enemy occasionally to keep the hate.

Tarutaru: Taru walk a hard path as a Paladin, they will hit very little, for very little damage. Stack on top of that their low Hit Points, it brings you to question the validity of a Taru Paladin. However, they do have the highest Magic Point pool of any race, some would argue that since it is the Paladins job to hold hate, which can be accomplished with magic, that the Taru is a viable race. I tend to feel differently, as complete battles all they would be able to do is heal themselves…

Mithra: Mithra is another capable choice, with a high dexterity, you will find all your blows connecting, while it is going to be for minimal damage, it does assist in keeping the hate on you. Also, Mithra have a decent Magic Point pool, making them a well rounded choice.

Galka: Another capable choice, excelling in Hit Points and Vitality, the bread and butter of a Paladin. The only drawback, extremely low Magic Point pool… At lower levels, this is definitely a problem, however, once you start partying with higher level red mages that have the refresh ability, or Bards that have the Mages Ballad ability, this problem become of little concern.

Hume: What can you say about the race that has a bit of everything for everyone? The Hume seems to be well suited for any job, no real hold backs, no really good points.
 

Warrior: The only selection for partying. Why the only selection you ask? Two skills a Warrior get are essential to a Paladin. Provoke, and Defender. While defender does not kick in until level 50 as a Paladin, provoke is a necessity from level 10, it allows you to secure hate over and over without loss of any Magic points. Another few great things about warrior, at higher levels you gain the weapon abilities of a warrior, offsetting some of the Paladins weaker than normal offensive ability, as well as The added Hit Point, the warrior is truly the Sub job to take while in a party.

Monk: I don’t see much use in using this as a sub for Paladin yes, you will get a boost to Hit Points, and the use of chakra and boost, but I don’t think these skills add up enough to constitute a help to a Paladins objective of keeping the hate and staying alive.

Thief: Arguably the best sub for soloing with a Paladin, most people solo when questing or farming, both what a thief excels at. You get the Treasure Hunter ability, Sneak attack, and Gil Farmer, great for both Questing and farming. At higher levels you also gain trick attack and flee, great for added damage and getting to distant locations quicker, I personally prefer this class as a sub when soloing.

In a group however, the thief does not add much to a Paladins arsenal as the mobs back is rarely turned to the Paladin, making all of the Thief’s special attacks worthless.

Dark Knight: Using Dark Knight as a sub has some advantages, you will deal more damage, allowing you to get hate, but there are no instant abilities that will allow you to gain hate like the Warriors provoke ability. I could see why some people might use this class for soloing, but for parties, this is a pretty mute class to help a Paladin.

Samurai: Not much use for a Paladin in this field. The added TP might help soloing, possibly even for helping keep hate in a party, but again, I can’t imagine it assisting in bringing as much hate as the warriors provoke can.

Ninja: Ninja is an interesting sub job, with some of the Ninja’s Ninjitsu abilities, the Paladin tank can totally avoid being hit by a mob… However, the better Ninjitsu’s come at level 40, until they raise the level cap I don’t see being able to absorb 3 hits worth the time it would take to raise this sub up.

Dragoon: Dragoon gains a passive accuracy trait, besides this, there isn’t much that will help a Paladins tanking abilities in this Sub.

Black Mage: With black mage, you gain a increased Magic Point pool and access to black magic, most of this is mundane to a Paladin, however there are certain spells which are definitely useful such as the level 17 spell warp, this might be useful to you during certain quests, or when helping other players with quests, it really saves on the CP cost of instant warp spells. However in a party, a Black Mage sub is pretty worthless.

White Mage: Yet another good sub for Paladin, with an increased Magic Point pool, and access to several helpful tanking spells, this is considered a great Sub for Solo play, I prefer to use a thief, for reasons listed in the thief section.

There is also an argument that this sub job will allow a Paladin to hold hate better than a Warrior sub, due to the increased hate generation offered by a larger Magic Point pool. As well as saving the White Mages MP by being able to cast more cures on yourself… I can see both sides of this argument, and prefer feel that the warrior sub offers more than the white mage sub.

Red Mage: Another arguable sub for Paladin, increased Magic Point pool, access to some great debuffs, however, until they raise the level cap, and you can use refresh, this class is a bit of a "gimped" as a sub.

Summoner: Yet another class that doesn’t have much ability to help a Paladin. You will have a larger Magic Point pool, have half level summons, but not really a lot of helpful abilities.

Looking at all the possible subs, for Partying situations, I would recommend Warrior as a sub, but it is also possible to use White Mage as a sub. However, I have noticed that Paladin/Warrior is much quicker to get a Party than a Paladin/White Mage. This is probably because the mass consensus is that Warrior is a much better sub.
 

Paladin has a few very vital spells, they are not granted many total spells, but used well, you become a walled fortress.

Healing spells – Always keep up to date on your heal spells, Not just do they keep your always dropping Hit Points up, but they assist in securing the mobs hate (nothing pisses a mob off more than seeing all its hard work doing nothing)

Enhancement spells – (Shell, Protect) When soloing, these are vital, if leveling, the White Mage should have the “-ra” versions of these spells, and probably a higher ability at using them, so not so important for leveling, very important for solo play.

Offensive spells – (Flash, Banish, Holy) Very important for holding the Hate, flash probably the most important of these. You will see your divine magic jump up like mad once you get the flash ability. Be absolutely sure to have Flash at level 37, this is probably the most hate gaining spell in the game.
 

You have definitely heard me talking about holding hate and taking damage. All abilities that a Paladin is granted are designed to create maximum hate towards the Paladin. Let me give a quick explanation.

Every action you do against a mob (monster) makes that monster not like you that much more, certain actions create more of this “hate” For example if you are fighting a mob and someone keeps you fully healed, every time that the person heals you, they generate so much hate for themselves, Meanwhile, every attack you do generates hate for you. The mages are going to have much less hit points and less armor than the melee fighter, so it is the melee fighters job to generate enough hate to keep the mob on them. This is the roll of the Paladin.

All Paladin abilities draw good amounts of hate, meanwhile, they have a larger than normal amount of Hit Points, and an extremely large armor bonus. This allows them to take more damage than any other class, while generating the most hate. Here is a layout of Paladins abilities.

Passive Abilities:

The primary passive ability that makes a Paladin what they are, is the Defense bonus. As they gain levels (10, 30, 50) they gain an additional defensive bonus, this defensive bonus is not a set number, but a percentage, so the better the armor you are wearing, the better the bonus will be. Another useful ability is the undead killer, it strikes fear into the heart of undead, causing a paralysis like affect.

Active Abilities:

Holy circle: Helps your party for 30 seconds against undead enemies, mostly useless unless you just barely need something to help you tip the scale at end of a long battle.

Shield Bash: An instant ability that smashes your shield into an enemy, giving a chance of stunning them. This ability generates quite a bit of hate.

Sentinel: % increase in defense, no where is it specified how much this % is, but from my own attempts to figure it out, It has been a random number between 10-15%, lasts 30 seconds and generates a small amount of hate.

Cover: Allows you to protect a party member. You use this ability on a party member then either run in front of them, or them run behind you, it allows you to take all melee damage for the person you are covering. They can actually get very far behind you, so long as they are behind you, gives you about 20 seconds to regain hate. Cover also generates a medium amount of hate.

Rampart: Raises the Defense of the entire party. I am not familiar with this ability as I am not yet level 62. There has been little to nothing written about it on any English website that I have been able to find, from what I gather, it is the same as the Sentinel ability, just for the whole party. Also, I have read that it generates a very large amount of hate. Again, I cannot confirm any of this, as I have not yet used this ability.

Invincible: Save the best for last! This is the Paladins 2 hour ability. Renders you totally immune to physical damage for 30 seconds (You will still take full damage from magic spells). Hate generated by this ability is infinite (it is not possible to pull agro off of a paladin using Invincible).

This guide is just a basic outline of what I have read from what other think, as well as my own personal experiences. As with all FFO Warcry guides constructive feedback and criticism is always. Feel free to email them here.

See you in Vana’diel....

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