Welcome to the Paladin Patch 6.3 1 to 90 leveling
skills guide. In this guide we'll cover all of your skills as you train to become another Warrior
like everyone complained to happen better than the rest of them, but also hopefully kill your enemies
along the way. Watch as you go from this... to this! This series is framed in the mindset of
players completely new to Final Fantasy XIV or the MMO genre in general, or generally
still inexperienced. In that same vain, this will merely be an overview of the actions
and how to use them. Optimal rotations are better left to their own in-depth videos just
due to how much complexity is involved in perfect openers and overall rotations. This
is not meant to be a purely optimal guide. If you wish to be optimal at level cap, there are
further places you can research your job on. We will however be crafting rotations as we go to
help new players understand what goes through creating openers and give them a foothold to push
themselves into being able to do it on their own. The goal is to drop players in on the ground
level, so they can make strides to improve themselves. All tooltips will be shown at the
level cap for each section. Level 50 for A Realm Reborn, Level 60 for Heavensward skills, Level 70
for Stormblood stuff, level 80 for Shadowbringers levels, and level 90 for Endwalker. I also
recommend all players add Sprint and Limit Break to their hotbars, both found in the general tab
of your actions menu. And as for how my hotbars build, it'll make sense at 90. Just put skills
on your hotbars in a way you feel comfortable using as you're leveling. Everyone has their
own way of doing things. If you want more info on how I setup my UI, check the description
or the card in the corner for a video on it. And keep the following in mind: Patches
can change jobs still. And has with this being an updated Job Guide. Be sure to
check the description for any Patch notes for minor potency changes, or skill
changes, or any other special notes. With that all out of the way let's begin. Paladin is a tank job all about big defensives
and support. Good at protecting itself and others. You have some of the strongest single
button defensives and a higher base defense thanks to a shield reducing incoming damage.
You also have some flexibility in what you can do but generally less than other tanks,
due to fewer but stronger mitigations. Your offensive kit has changed from before to
be a bit more simple but also contains more flexibility. You will be the only tank with a
real ranged attack and I don't mean the early level Shield Lob. You otherwise don't need
to deal with much rotationally, with one exception at the end of the leveling experience.
We also got a bit more defensive in the update. To play a Gladiator you either start as
one, or pick the Class up in the Ul'dah Gladiator's Guild after completion of your
level 10 class quest as your first class. Let's get into the finer details of each skill. Level 1: Tank Mastery Before we even get into the skills, we have
to mention that Tanks are sturdier than any other role. You have a built in 20% damage
reduction, higher returns to HP from Vitality, and it says bonus to damage based on
Strength, but you're still weaker than an average DPS. Just keep in mind, being
more defensive doesn't mean you can just, casually stand in all the AoEs that
come your way. You still need to dodge. Level 1: Fast Blade This is a very basic attack. It deals a 150 potency hit to the target. Nothing
impressive, but it gets us started. Level 2: Fight or Flight This is a buff that has a 60 second cooldown,
increasing all of our damage by 25% for 20 seconds. The goal of Fight or Flight is to
use this on cooldown as much as possible, and fit in all your best attacks within the timer.
We'll be getting a bunch of those skills later, just make sure you keep attacking and
use Fight or Flight as much as possible. Level 4: Riot Blade This is our first combo attack. It does
100 potency, unless you use it after Fast Blade. Then it will do 260 potency
of damaage. Combos will flash their borders when available. The glow is shown
here. You should always do your combos, and going forward I will only
mention potencies in combos. Level 6: Total Eclipse This is an AoE or Area of Effect attack.
It does 100 potency to all enemies within 5 yalms of your character. When
there are three or more enemies, you should swap to using Total Eclipse
over your 2 hit combo. This doubles both for doing damage and ensuring you keep
all enemies attacking you as the tank. The more enmeies there are, the better
AoE gets. So the more enemies there are, the more enemies you pull to fight, the stronger
this attack gets. It's 100 potency to EVERY enemy, not 100 potency spread across all enemies.
And so the better the tank you become, the more enemies you want to be gathering together.
Both for you, and especially for your DPS allies. And as a side note, this will break your
single target combo if used between strikes. Level 8 is our first Role Action, Rampart.
Tank's Role Actions are some of the most important role actions in the game. Please
learn what all of these do. The description has a video about these skills, as does
the card in the corner. Please learn, but I will not be going deep into details here. Level 10: Iron Will and Release Iron Will This ability comes with a new UI element, a
gem that glows when the skill is activated. If you do not see this gem glowing, hit
Iron Will to turn it on. This is known as your "Tank Stance" or "Enmity Stance." It
will become Release Iron Will when activated, signaling that pressing the button
again will turn the Stance off. With the exception of 8 or more player
content, you ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS want this on. You are a tank, and you are the
one all enemies should be attacking. Iron Will gives you a massive enmity multipler to all
actions you do, ensuring you keep enemies eating your face. Enmity being a measure
of how much enemies want to murder you. In your party list, when targeting an enemy,
the enmity levels of your party is shown. You want the lead as a tank, with an A. The enemy
list also has colored indicators for current enmity levels. Red square means you're in the
lead. Anything else, you're not in the lead. The exception I list is 8 or more player content,
which means there are multiple tanks. 2-3 of them usually, depending which content. You
absolutely do not want to be fighting your co-tanks for aggro. One of you is in charge of
the boss, the other is in charge of picking up adds additional enemies or the boss when the other
tank dies or is otherwise not available to tank. General idea: Whoever puts their enmity stance
on first when entering a duty is in charge of the boss. Every tank has an Iron Will, but the
name will differ. You'll get used to the icons and animations as you go, but it's a rule
to follow. Or maybe go based on which tank has more gear and HP. Ultimately though
the best way to choose is to communicate with text. If you play on Console, buy a
cheap 5 dollar USB keyboard. It's worth it. Beyond who is tanking the boss, you want to be
ready to take the boss if the other tank dies, so after a minute or so into the fight,
turn on Iron Will even if you're the designated "off-tank." This will ensure
that you are second in enmity above the DPS and healers. So if the tank dies,
the boss doesn't start hitting the rest of your allies. It will immediately start
hitting you, saving someone else from die. The other thing to worry about is when entering
duties with level sync. If you are say, level 50 and go into a duty lower than 50 with Iron Will
on, it turns off. Always always always make sure Iron Will is on when you need it. This must be
stressed, be ready to hit the button every time you enter a new duty. This is especially important
with dungeons, since you're the only tank. Otherwise it boils down to, turn it on,
then hit enemies as hard as you can. Also in higher end content this relationship
changes and tank swaps become a thing. Level 10: Shield Bash This is a little bit of Crowd Control, or the
idea that you can prevent enemies from doing stuff for a bit. It does a puny 100 potency
to a target, and stuns them for 6 seconds with diminishing returns. A second hit will cut the
time in half, stunning the target for 3 seconds, with a third use cutting it in half again to 1.5
seconds. Afterwards, the enemy will become immune to stuns entirely. At least until an invisible
decay makes them susceptible to stuns once more. The problem with this is, you almost never want
to be using Shield Bash. In two levels we get a better Stun called Low Blow, but it has a short
cooldown. Shield Bash being single target means you're massively hampering your damage with groups
of enemies. And a dead enemy deals less damage than a stunned enemy. Tanks aren't the level of
power of a DPS, but they're not lightweights. And when it comes to reducing damage, you
have outright better options than Stun. For bosses, they quickly become entirely immune to
Stuns. There will be the exception here or there, but come level 50, most all bosses become
entirely immune to all normal status effects but one. The exceptions, you have a better
skill that doesn't waste attacking time. Now I won't say there are zero uses of Shield
Bash, but my singular go-to example no longer exists. So... I don't know any off the top of
my head. But I won't say they definitely don't exist. They're not very common at the best
of times. And if spamming Shield Bash on a group of 6 enemies is better than just using
Total Eclipse, then you have bigger issues to be sorting out like proper cooldown usage or
other players not using their own toolkits. We have another role action at level
12, Low Blow. This is the Shield Bash replacement. If you need more than
just one stun for stopping AoEs, Shield Bash is there but is not your main
Stun. There is also Provoke at level 15 Level 15: Shield Lob You do not automatically obtain this
skill. This is a Class quest skill. Please, especially as a tank, do your Class and Job
quests. I will not verbally mention every skill that is a quest skill, but in the top left
is a denotion of this. Please just do your quests. As for Shield Lob itself, this is an engagement
and positioning tool. From within 20 yalms away, you can throw your shield at your enemies
for a weak 100 potency of damage. It has a further enmity multiplier. I like
to use this to initiate combat. It drags enemies towards me as I run
towards them, allowing me to grab enmity on them all sooner. Or in bosses,
position them in the middle of the arena. There is also the chance you lose enmity
on a target for whatever reason. Let's say the Black Mage in the back there
has taken the enmity lead on an enemy, you can Shield Lob to quick grab
the enemy and get the lead back. Otherwise you really don't want use this
much. Much like Shield Bash, it's single target and weak. Other than initiating
fights and catching a straying target, the range of the skill is not that helpful.
You don't want to be out of attacking range, and anytime you are, you won't
be out of range for long. Later on we get better options for ranged
attacking and overall, it's just a bad use of time. It won't break your combos or anything,
but you're not having any real effect either. Role actions come in, giving us Interject
at level 18 and Reprisal at level 22. Level 26: Rage of Halone This is the third hit to our combo,
comboing off of Riot Blade. It does 330 potency of damage to a target.
There isn't much more to say on this. Make sure you are always ending
your single target combos with this. To obtain the Paladin job, you must first
reach level 30 and complete the level 30 Gladiator quest. Additionally, complete
the Main Scenario Quest Sylph-Management, which is at level 20 in the story. Return to
the guild and the quest should be there for you. Level 30: Spirits Within This is a simple bit of extra damage
for us. Spirits Within has a 30 second cooldown to do 270 potency of damage to
a target. Just use this anytime you can, no matter what the situation is.
It's free damage. Ideally use this under Fight or Flight too, but
because it is a 30 second cooldown, you will get two Spirits Within for every Fight
or Flight. So every other use will not be buffed. Arm's Length is level 32 and lemme just stress
this one... THIS IS A DEFENSIVE COOLDOWN. Yes, actually. Go watch the Role Actions video. Level 35: Oath Mastery and Sheltron Oath Mastery gives our little gem a big
upgrade into a full on bar. Iron Will is now a big shield embellishment when
activated. A lot more obvious than a small gem. But the real part of this skill
is the bar itself. Filling the bar is done by hitting anything with auto attacks.
You get 5 gauge for every auto attack. But you will notice that entering any
duty, your bar begins full. This is to make the associated gauge skills easier to
start using. Paladin will begin every duty with a full 100 gauge. So let's talk about the
first skill that uses gauge, which is Sheltron. Sheltron will reduce damage by15% for 4 seconds,
at the cost of 50 gauge. This sounds terrible, but it's better than it sounds. The short
length makes it hard to use in trash mobs, but not impossible. It's better
than not using it at all, and auto attacks will fill it back up fast.
In boss fights at least later on it will be perfect fodder for blocking tank busters big
hits that do a lot of damage even to tanks. It might take some memorization but long casting
attacks that look like the boss is winding up for a big punch tend to be tank busters, or
will have special tank buster indicators. Due to your auto attacks occuring often,
you'll get a lot of uses of Sheltron, as if this is a 30 second or shorter
cooldown. Don't be afraid to use this often for reducing damage from trash mobs,
or big hitting tank busters in bosses. You'll almost always have this available
for any situation you could ask for. Level 38: Sentinel Sentinel is a much more typical piece of
mitigaation. It has a long 2 minute cooldown, lasts for 15 seconds, and reduces
all damage by a massive 30%. This is a must-use for the highest points of damage
in a duty. Pulled 10 enemies? Pop Sentinel, and maybe even Sheltron once. In the 15 second
timer, you'll get much of that gauge back. It's directly opposed to Sheltron in that way.
Sheltron is encouraged to be used extremely often. While you wouldn't purposefully
hold Sentinel for a long time or anything, you want to be smarter with your uses. Once
you pull all the enemies you intend to pull, pop it off while enemies
are at their most dangerous. Keep in mind, you don't want to use cooldowns
BEFORE an encounter. You waste time on them that way, and with a cooldown this strong,
every second of damage reduction counts. Level 40: Prominence This is a combo off of our AoE.
Total Eclipse into Prominence, which does a much stronger 170 potency per
enemy hit. This makes AoE spam stronger than single target attacks on 2 enemies. But that's
not super required overall and can just do it when there are three or more enemies.
Just make sure you're keeping enmity, and using your AoE combo. Prominence is a
huge boost in power next to Total Eclipse. Level 45: Cover Cover costs 50 gauge losing yourself a
potential Sheltron has a 2 minute cooldown, and has a very limited range of 10
yalms. You must select an ally and hit the skill to Cover them. This causes
all damage that player takes to transfer to you so long as they stay within range
as displayed by the very feint tether. The benefits are obvious in that you're making
another player take no damage for 12 seconds, or until out of range. Some players will
take a lot of avoidable damage. Usually AoE indicators. Sometimes this
leads them to take vulnerability stacks and take even more damage. Cover
ensures the one team member with high HP and defense is the one taking the brunt of
what might otherwise kill the weakened player. With some good positioning and very quick
reflexes, this can save lives at the risk of your own. That's where the problems begin.
Depending on just how much a player is messing up, they could mess up so bad they take enough
damage to kill you. Overlapping AoEs or some other potential issue. Debuffs they
receive under Cover also transfer to you. If you played Dragoon before the
removal of the Dragon Sight Tether, this is SHORTER than Dragon Sight's tether.
Any Dragoon knows that keeping a partner in range can be exhausting. Cover is even
harder to achieve. In your average party, ranged, mage, and healer party members will
stand well a ways away from you, even when that's a bad idea. Cover will not reach them if
they're far away, so you'll have to run over, hit cover, and potentially move the boss
into a bad position, or some other issue. Larger bosses, even melee players can be too far
away. Standing deep inside the boss's hitbox, melee DPS behind the boss can
still be too far away to Cover. Then anytime you actually can tether them
with Cover, their mistakes become your own. Cover shines better in 8 player trials and raids,
especially the high end ones. When co-tanking on Paladin, you can cover the main tank, taking
damage in their place for a couple seconds, all without requiring a tank swap,
which often would be better anyway. Again, there are actual uses. It's
just overly niche and difficult to use for an average player. High
end tank buster cheese is great, and it's okay if some skills are only useful
in high end I'd argue. It just means I need to warn of the dangers of improper usage.
Make sure you can actually save the player you intend to Cover... if you can even
Cover. Good luck reacting fast enough. Our final Role Action is Shirk at level 48. Level 50: Circle of Scorn On a short 30 second cooldown, this does a 100
potency AoE around yourself with a 5 yalm range. In addition to the base hit, all enemies affected
will receive a DoT - Damage over Time - for 15 seconds. This does 30 potency on a server tick,
which are every 3 seconds. As a result we have 5 ticks of 30 potency, or a 150 potency DoT,
totaling the power to 250 potency per enemy. This is an ability, so you can weave it
between Weaponskills with no loss. And since it's free damage, you want to use it for
single target. Being an AoE, its true strength is definitely in AoE situations though. Even at
level 50, most enemies will live for 15 seconds, or close to it, so you're getting a stronger
hit than even Prominence on all enemies. It's otherwise no different to
any normal other oGCD attack like Spirits Within. Throw it out
under Fight or Flight when you can, and the ones where Fight or Flight isn't
available, just use as soon as possible. Level 50: Hallowed Ground With the longest cooldown in the game, at 420
seconds 7 whole minutes Hallowed Ground grants you 10 seconds of complete invincibility. The only
exceptions are typically high end raid mechanics, so you can't cheese some sort of normally
instant wipe mechanics. But even some of those, this works for. Oh, and Cover. Cover goes
through Hallowed Ground. So you will take FULL DAMAGE if for whatever reason
you need to Cover during Hallowed. The initial reaction most people have is
"this is an emergency button." This thought, is wrong. What's the point in such a strong
button you'll almost never use if all it's for is emergencies? This button can prevent the
emergency to begin with. Stood in a bunch of AoEs and now you're about to die and so it's now an
emergency? If you used Hallowed Ground BEFORE you stood in those AoEs, and stood in them on
purpose this time, you would have taken 0 damage. If you wanna go and pull 20 enemies, you can
because you're immune to damage for 10 seconds. Then as Hallowed runs out, you can pop Sentinel,
or Rampart, or anything now that damage is coming in. By the time the enemies die, you'll still
have some left or just about be running out. Tell your healer before you start pulling "Hey, I'm gonna use my invuln" and they know they
don't even need to heal you. Get partnered with a White Mage and they can stand there
for 10 seconds, then as Hallowed falls off, start using Holy which effectively will give
you another 5-6 seconds of invulnerability. And given most dungeon runs will
go over 15 minutes or even more, you can get up to three uses of this. The pace
of the dungeon and ability level of your group are factors, but that's far more than the 0
if your feared "emergencies" never happen. Plus, Hallowed Ground is easy to waste
in "emergencies". Press it as you die, and you LOSE the use entirely. The
cooldown will still count as used, despite you dying. If you don't release
your body to the start of the dungeon, you're not getting it back for seven
minutes. So say the emergency wasn't as bad as you thought or such... you'll just
be raised and carry on without Hallowed. Emergencies are easier to mark out in 8 player
content like trials and raids. Specific mechanics that might kill the party, or you need just 10
seconds more alive before the boss kills you to finish it off without wiping. But there's no real
way to know if or when that will happen. Meanwhile you can otherwise use Hallowed at some point to
negate tank busters or otherwise heavy damage. Be more proactive with using Hallowed.
You may not get to spam it, but you can use it to huge effect. At the very least, it's
going to take 10 more seconds for you to die, but the effects tend to ripple across an entire
encounter and be even more beneficial than that. But let's finally talk about openers,
which keep in mind are a single target kind of thing. We have 50 levels of skills,
but overall not much to do when it comes to an opener. A buff, a couple off global attacks,
and that's really it. This makes it easier for us to weave in defensive buffs as needed
for bosses. Tank buster happening during your opener? You have room to use Sentinel
or such. The only goal we have to worry about is making sure we use everything
under Fight or Flight. So let's do that. Make sure Iron Will is on as the tank, and Shield
Lob to pull the boss to the middle of the arena. As said, the important part of this is
getting our off-global attacks used in the middle of Fight or Flight. Their specific
timings don't need to be in these places, but we're timing them here for reasons we'll
see later. Otherwise you're just spamming 1-2-3 over and over. When Spirits Within and Circle of
Scorn come off of cooldown, immediately use them. The only other thing I want to note is
the Shield Lob. This too is a placeholder for something later, but also allows us to
position the boss better. Moving the boss into the center of the arena for mechanics, or just
to make your melee party members not hate you, is of utmost importance. Your allies being
able to do damage is more important than how big your numbers can be... unless your
team is just THAT bad, which isn't common. Later, this will do double duty and be both
good damage and be a way to drag enemies to the middle of arenas. But for now, practice boss
positioning with it. Again, middle of the arena is ideal in the majority of cases. It's
rarer for a boss to be placed elsewhere. The rotation is going to
develop a bit as we go on, but Heavenward has a bit more than just
rotation stuff... for better and worse. Level 52: Bulwark The return of a previously removed skill! On a
90 second cooldown, you will block all attacks for 10 seconds. If you haven't already
noticed, randomly you will block attacks with your shield. You can block both physical
and magical attacks, giving Paladin passive defense no other tank has. Bulwark guarantees
these blocks trigger when you need them most. Blocks tend to mitigate 20% of damage. So assuming
you would have gotten 0 blocks for the duration, that's a 20% mitigation for 10 seconds. But
because some blocks are likely to happen, often your effective reduction is lower. But
that doesn't make this bad or anything. This can be used to great effect in trash
pulls. For bosses and tank busters, you might block anyway, but guaranteeing
the block is pretty important if you're in a bad situation. Or it's super high end
content and you wanna guarantee you live. Put a little more simply, pretend this is a
half as effective Rampart, lasting half as long. Level 54: Goring Blade Goring Blade has entirely changed its function.
It is a Global Cooldown Weaponskill that does not break combos not that you would every
use it in the middle of your combo. It will activate the 2.5 second Global Cooldown
but has a separate 60 second cooldown. The cooldown is also affected by Skill Speed.
It's a fairly unique button in those aspects. Simply though, all this does is
do a big 700 potency hit to a single enemy. Since it has the same
cooldown length as Fight or Flight, make sure this gets used while Fight or
Flight is up. It's such a big hit even, it is stronger than AoE on up to 5 targets.
So even small groups of enemies, it's worth hitting on whatever enemy seems stronger or has
more HP so everything dies around the same time. Not much more to it. It's just a really
big hit with some unique interactions. Put it under Fight or Flight every
time and make it even stronger. Level 56: Divine Veil On a 90 second cooldown, you and everyone within
15 yalms of yourself will be given a shield worth 10% of your maximum HP. That's YOUR HP, not each
individual party member. This has been buffed, because before you did not get the
shield. This shield lasts for 30 seconds. This can be used selfishly to minor effect
in trash mobs. A little bit of HP on top to keep you going. If you're nowhere near
a boss, you might as well make use of it. But the best use of this will be during
bosses. The further we get into the game, the more bosses will actually become a
threat, especially dedicated trials and raids. Most all bosses by this point have
raid-wide damage, that being damage that hits all players in the fight. You will
pop Divine Veil to protect the rest of your party more than yourself for these. Your DPS
and Healer allies will be the ones to die to these more than you ever will. Especially
if they took an avoidable hit beforehand. When you know the boss is soon going
to raidwide, or see the cast begin, throw out Divine Veil to reduce the damage
they take. You might save someone's life if you use it. There's also mechanical damage. Most
fight mechanics will also do damage to the party, while not having a cast you can reduce the
damage of with something like Reprisal. This makes Divine Veil more flexible. You
can reduce damage from any and all damage types without needing a cast bar. If someone is
going to take damage, the shield will be spent first. Make sure to start using this often in boss
fights to experiment where it will best be spent. Level 58: Chivalry Riot Blade and Spirits Within have been given
an upgrade. Both of these will now restore MP, Riot Blade restoring 1000 MP and Spirits Within, 500 MP. Note that Riot Blade requies you to use
it in a combo. You can't spam Riot Blade alone to generate MP. This upgrade is because
of the other skill we get at this level. Level 58: Clemency Costing a massive 4000 MP, this is a single target
heal on a 1.5 second cast time. This restores 1000 potency of healing to the target. And if you heal
a party member, you will also be healed for 50% of the power of the heal given to your team member.
But this won't be something you want to use. When solo, sure, Clemency to stay alive.
When in a party... you don't need this. A lot of Paladins for some reason think any
missing HP is cause to use Clemency. No, that's the healer's job. And no, you're not
"helping them." Cooldowns are more important, and the less damage you do, the longer a
fight goes on, and the more damage you take. If nobody is dying due to lack of heals, if
you are living just fine, you don't need to start spamming Clemency. Your healer has a lot
of tools for healing, let them use them. You're not helping by using Clemency on the guy that
the healer just used their big ability on. You just made the healer regret healing at all. You
also likely aren't giving them a chance to learn. That isn't to say that there's NO uses for
Clemency. Let's take the example of yes, someone did die; the healer. You can't completely
replace them, but adjusting your rotation to spam Riot Blade combos, you can become a worse
healer. Lightning isn't going to strike twice, but go watch the Shadowbringers video and
the section on Clemency. While recording, I managed to get a run where the healer
died and we still finished the boss fight. We saved time over wiping, all thanks to
Clemency spam. Which lemme just also warn here, don't use Clemency as an excuse to refuse to wipe
a run. Know when an act like that is warranted or when you should just die on purpose to
start the next run sooner. But point is, Clemency DOES have uses. The issue is a LOT
of Paladins use it when it isn't needed. If I messed up my cooldown rotation, I'll
tell my healer straight up, "I messed up my cooldowns, so I will use Clemency as
a Cooldown." This way I admit fault, show I'm not distrusting of them all of a
sudden, and I don't need to slow down a run when my group is obviously handling
wall to wall pulling with no issue. It will never be a default reaction. If my
HP is dropping low, I will assume that was intentional. If people aren't healed, I assume
this is intentional. Until the moment we die, I trust the healer has a plan. Because much like
you have a plan with Divine Veil, they have their own cooldowns. Trust your healer, until you are
a corpse. The penalty for death is so low anyway. Level 60: Rage of Halone
Mastery and Royal Authority Rage of Halone Mastery upgrades it
into Royal Authority. It's up to a 360 potency attack when used in a combo.
It's nice, arguably worse animation, but other than that, it doesn't
change how we play the job. But it does mean we see a different button in our level 60 technically level 54 - opener.
Just remember it's just Rage of Halone. Let's add Goring Blade into the opener. Use it
under Fight or Flight every chance you get which will be every time you use Fight or Flight.
We did move Fight or Flight, Circle of Scorn, and Spirits Within back a GCD each. This is
because of how things are later. Practicing muscle memory for higher levels. Fight or
Flight would likely be better before Royal Authority for the moment. Otherwise
this is your opener every 60 seconds. With nothing else to go over let's move into the Stormblood skills and see a much
more pace changing set of skills. Level 62: Intervention Let's just change the name of Cover to
Intervention (Derrogatory), because while it loses out on the pure strength of Cover,
all the downsides are also gone. Costing 50 gauge and having a 30 yalm range three times
of that of Cover the target of this ability will take 10% less damage for 6 seconds.
Further, if Rampart or Sentinel are active, this becomes a 20% damage reduction.
This cannot be used on yourself. The niche uses of Cover remain, but Intervention is just a million times more useful for
general usage. There's no tiny range, it doesn't potentially put you at risk... but
it's not nearly as effective at saving the target. A damage reduction can save them, but
it's not a guarantee anymore. But of course, that range. Maybe it's just my experience,
but you really notice how often players stand miles away even when it's a bad idea once you
start trying to use Cover and Intervention. Similarly though there are niche uses for
Intervention. Pop this on your co-tank for tank busters you can't afford to Cover. Or maybe
you CAN afford to Cover but you're both taking damage. Some bosses attack both tanks, or there's
two bosses, or an Add. In these situations, you Cover, you die. But Intervention protects
your friend without your safety being lost. If you have gauge to spare, and you think you
need to reduce an ally's damage, throw them an Intervention. Especially if Rampart or Sentinel
is already running. Don't waste them JUST to make Intervention stronger though. It's a bonus effect,
not the main intent. And technically there is a 10 second cooldown so you can't use it back to back.
But usually it won't be used that close together. Level 64: Divine Magic Mastery This is a bit of Quality of Life and real
usage. All MP costs have been cut in half and you can't have your cast interrupted by
taking daamage. If you did use Clemency at all, you may have noticed some casts
got cancelled due to taking damage. The real usage is from the buff to Royal
Authority. Completing your combo will give you Divine Might, which allows you to cast Holy
Spirit the other skill at level 64 instantly. Also Holy Circle which is later. You have 30
seconds to use this buff, meaning you don't need to immediately use it. Just do it before you
finish your next combo. So let's talk about that. Level 64: Holy Spirit Costing 1000 mana and having a 1.5 second cast
time, Holy Spirit does 300 Potency of Damage to a target, or 400 Potency when under Divine
Might. This is our replacement for ranged attacks as anything more than a trash pulling
tool. In Trash mobs you'll still continue to Shield Lob, tag everything with an AoE,
and keep running if you're pulling more. If you need to disengage from a boss and
attack from a ranged position extremely rare as that is outside of high end content
you will Holy Spirit instead of Shield Lob. As for fitting it into a rotation, Divine Might
is here. 400 potency isn't something to skip over, that's higher than any hit of your normal combo,
and has no cast time either. Technically just spamming Holy Spirit is even stronger than your
main combo, but you will lose auto-attacks during the cast times and makes it actually weaker.
Since you're a tank, you won't be at range for more than 1 GCD anyway, so just use the main
combo and abuse Divine Might every chance you get. And by that I mean consider that it is a
30 second buff. If in the next 5 seconds you have to dodge out of the way of an
attack, hold that Divine Might until that dodge. You can continue to keep uptime and use
Divine Might before the next Royal Authority. Summarized, make sure you spend
every single Divine Might you get and this will replace Shield Lob as
a mid-fight ranged option but again, being out of melee range is typically
the sign of you doing things wrong. Level 68: Requiescat This is an oGCD with a 60 second cooldown
the same as Fight or Flight. It deals 300 potency to a single target and buffs your
Holy Spirit casts to hit harder and have no cast time. You have 4 stacks, and 30 seconds
to use them which is basically infinite time. The Holy Spirit potency under Requiescat is 600
potency, a full 200 over even the Divine Might Potency. Divine Might will however be spent first.
This is due to important rotation interactions later in levels. But otherwise you can do a combo,
pop Fight or Flight and Requiescat during it, Goring Blade for your biggest hit, then Holy
Spirit five times for some really good damage. For now in AoE, Requiescat isn't that great,
making Holy Spirit do more damage than AoE on up to four enemies which is a very small
group. But do get used to using Requiescat itself. In a few more levels, this will be
very important to have practiced, even if you don't use the Holy Spirits. Extra damage
on one enemy at least, practicing for later. Don't be fooled by the long length of the buff.
This is a big chunk of your damage and saving the casts for when you will be out of melee
range... again, you shouldn't be out of melee range. Redundant reminder at this point, but its
something to emphasize across all play you do. Level 70: Passage of Arms On a 2 minute cooldown, Passage of Arms causes
you to hunker down and block all attacks. You also channel magic wings of protection with the floor
shining behind you at an 8 yalm radius. Anyone standing within this shining space has all damage
reduced by 15%. This can last for 18 seconds, but will cancel if you are moving upon hitting the
button or at any point after hitting the button. The issue is, we often don't want to be
holding onto this for the duration. Sure, for boss ultimates in 8 man duties, you
can sit there and just hold the shield. By now you've seen many times, bosses can't be
attacked during their ultimate attacks. Reducing that damage is a good use... but not the best
use. Outside of like, the Ultimate difficulty, you're gonna survive those Ultimate
attacks with little or no mitigation. No, the best use is to put your back
to the party, hit Passage of Arms, then immediately cancel it.
Notice the buff on your allies. Despite the animation being immediately
cancelled or potentially not even appearing, the buff does get applied for a few seconds.
It's a very short duration, but once you've learned the timing, you can use this to reduce
the danger of multiple raidwides in all duties. If nothing else, in trash, if you are THAT
desperate, yes you can channel it for a bit. Though you have to be pretty desperate at that
point. Even Clemency will be a better choice. So let's get into the opener technically the
level 68 opener. There isn't much to it that has changed, mostly just an extension
on top of what we already had. But quickly I'll remind you that all rotation
images are down below in the description. We'll begin to double weave Fight of Flight
with Requiescat in order to get both buffs running. Requiescat does have 30 seconds,
so there is no real issue with using it a little early. This leads into Goring Blade and
our oGCDs as normal. Then we just go into our Holy Spirit spam to use our Requiescat buff.
One of them will also be the Divine Might one. Beyond that, every time you do a full combo, make sure you're using Holy Spirit. And
remember to also be using Circle of Scorn and Spirits Within every 30 seconds, not just
doing it within the opener every 60 seconds. Now let's go into our first Karaoke Opener to
introduce it. That means I'm going to speak the name of the skills as they get used
in time with the opener. Because of this, and the length of some of these skill names,
I may cut myself off a bit when an opener gets busy. Otherwise just know that the skills ARE
being used in time with the words being spoken. Prepull Iron Will if tanking>
Holy Spirit to pull > Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Royal Authority > Fight or Flight >
Requiescat > Goring Blade > Circle of Scorn > Spirits Within > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit >
Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Fast Blade > Riot Blade >
Royal Authority > Holy Spirit Let's get into Shadowbringers for some of of
the most loved skills in the Paladin Toolkit. Level 72: Enhanced Prominence Prominence when used in a combo will now give
us a few extra benefits. Firstly, it will give us 1000 MP back. That's one time, not per enemy.
Additionally, it will also grant us Divine Might, which is exactly the same. It will remove
the cast time of Holy Spirit and Holy Circle while also boosting the potency. But maybe
now we should talk about Holy Circle, hm? Level 72: Holy Circle Finally we have an AoE use for magic. Holy
Circle has the same cast and cost as Holy Spirit, but is a 5 yalm AoE around yourself, similar to
your AoE combo. It's power is 100 potency at base, which is terrible. Under Divine Might
it does 200 potency to every enemy, or a greater 300 when under Requiescat. Every
enemy you hit, full 300 potency. As a result, once you have established enmity on
all enemies, go right into Requiescat for Holy Circle spam. Put up Fight or
Flight too for even further damage. This is why I said to practice Requiescat in
trash pulls earlier. You'll need to be able to hit it for Holy Circle to get its main use.
Otherwise, Divine Might essentially turns your AoE into a 3-hit combo. Total Eclipse
into Prominence, then use Holy Circle. Let me emphasize again quick that you really
should pop Fight or Flight into Requiescat the moment you have gathered up every enemy you
intend to fight. The cooldown is so short, by the time you hit the next encounter it will
be back up. It's a big chunk of damage for free. Level 74: Enhanced Sheltron Shelton now lasts for 6 seconds. It's really
simple, a really small boost, but is a 150% length boost on paper. That's a good bit of extra
damage negated for your most spammed cooldown. Level 74: Intervene This is our first and only skill with charges, meaning it can store multiple uses, at
a max of 2 for Intervene. Each charge has a 30 second cooldown for a total 60
seconds. The moment you use a charge, the next one begins to charge up. As for Intervene
itself, it does a rushing attack of 150 potency. It's not very strong on it's own, but the big
breakthrough use is as a gap closer. It has a 20 yalm range, and it says you rush at the target.
That means gap close, and means you don't need to stay away from the boss for any significant
amount of time. Run out of range of whatever AoE is making you walk out of range, hit Intervene,
and immediately start melee attacking again. If you know that there's a need to
disengage or some kind of knockback effect, use one of your charges and hold onto
the other for when it happens. This way you don't waste charges by not using them,
but still keep one on hand for gap closing. Also... DO NOT USE THIS TO PULL! Please just stop.
Bring the boss into the middle of the arena. We aren't using Holy Spirit just because it's a
strong start or anything. Placements of bosses matter, and getting it in range for your party
matters. Please stop using this as a pulling move. Level 76: Sword Oath and Atonement Sword Oath gives a buff to Royal Authority,
essentially extending the combo again. For 30 seconds you are granted 3 stacks of Sword
Oath. These stacks are only used for Atonement, a 360 potency hit that restores 400 MP
each. After hitting Royal Authority, you will want to spend your stacks before
the next Royal Authority. If you start a combo before doing so, you don't lose Sword Oath,
but using Atonement WILL break a combo you start. The change this has on our opener
and filler phases is significant, so we'll wanna talk about that. I'll save it
for during the opener talk at only 90 though. Use your Sword Oath stacks before starting
your next combo, and that's it for now. Level 80: Enhanced Requiescat and Confiteor Enhanced Requiescat adds an extra
buff of Confiteor Ready for 30 seconds. But you'll be immediately using it. Confiteor is a massive hit you want to be using
under Requiescat. It deals 400 potency only in a 5 yalm AoE on a target, 200 potency to
every additional enemy. Under Requiescat that power is boosted to 900, and 450 on every
additional enemy. One of your five Holy Spirits or Holy Circles in the case of doing AoE
will be replaced with Confiteor instead.
That is pretty much all there is
to it. Every time you Requiescat, you will Confiteor. And that's going
to be under Fight or Flight too. So let's quick talk about the effects
these skills had on our opener As mentioned, Intervene, you can keep one of these
around if you're gonna need it for gap closing. If you don't though, just pop it off. Atonement
merely replaces our 2nd Royal Authrority Combo. And Confiteor starts off the magic phase with one
use. It really hasn't done anything otherwise. The big changes are what Atonement does to our
filler phase, which again, I'll go over at 90. Let's quick talk AoE and quote un-quote openers
with those. Openers in AoE tend to be way more free form and subject to far more considerations
with how you use it. For example, enemy count, size, etc. For Paladin, this is the small blurb
for AoE I will give you. Like in Single Target we could use our Divine Might first before
the Confiteor to delay for any party buffs. Again, its just one possible way of doing things.
If it's a very small group of enemies you may even use Goring Blade just due to it being a high
potency hit. Otherwise the important part of your AoE is making sure enemies are tightly packed
together not be surrounded by them. You can dive in after they're packed together, but ensure they
are grouped up for your party's benefit first. That's really all there is to it. Time to see
what Endwalker does for our skillset. Not much. Level 82: Sheltron Mastery and Holy Sheltron Sheltron is being massively buffed. First,
the duration is increased to 8 seconds for the 15% mitigation. Secondly, for 4
seconds the original base length of Sheltron damage is reduced by a further 15%
thanks to Knights Resolve! That's roughly 28% damage reduction for 4 seconds, since
mitigation is multiplicative, not addative. On top of that, we have Knight's Benediction a
12 second Heal over Time effect for 250 potency, totaling to 1000 potency of healing. That's
an entire Clemency every use of Holy Sheltron. Supplement other cooldowns with your constant
Holy Sheltron usage, and you're getting a Sentinel level reduction for a few seconds, slightly weaker
Rampart for a few more, and a heal on top of it. Just make sure you're using Holy Sheltrons 12
seconds apart if you can. Make use of that heal, but it is understandable if you need to
use back to back once the main Sheltron effect runs out. Things get rough
in the first few Endwalker dungeons. Level 82: Enhanced Intervention Intervention has also been buffed up a
ton! Added 2 seconds as well for an 8 second duration. Knight's Resolve from Holy
Sheltron is also here, giving the target 10% reduction for 4 seconds. It's a little weaker
than the Sheltron version, but expected. But Knight's Benediction is also here, but is the
same power. 250 potency HoT for 12 seconds. Now any using of Intervention is far stronger, closing the gap between it and Cover a bit
more. Though again, some different use cases between the two. There's still people standing
far away and Cover is still usually a liability. Level 84: Divine Magic Mastery II This adds a 400 potency heal to Holy Spirit, Holy
Circle, and Confiteor. Two and a half of these is the same power as a Clemency. Which means, you
should be avoiding Clemency even more now. Again, did you die? No? Then why are you using
Clemency? The healer literally is doing their job. And they can do it easier with you now
able to heal and attack at the exact same time. Level 84: Melee Mastery This is a basic power boost to a bunch of our
attacks, but poorly worded. It says the base potenies of Riot Blade, Royal Authority, and Holy
Spirit, but increases the combo, Divine Might, and Requiescat potencies too. Overall just
basically upping our power levels a little. Level 86: Spirits Within Mastery and Expiacion Spirits Within is now Expiacion, which
is more than just a power boost. Spirits Within was a basic single target attack
with MP regen. Expiacion is an AoE for 450 potency of damage on the first target,
and 180 potency to all additional targets. Try and aim to target the enemy in
the middle of the pack to hit as many as possible. Assuming it's not a big
enemy at least. The AoE is only 5 yalms in radius like your AoE combo. Definitely
something to throw out in trash packs now. Level 88: Enhanced Divine Veil Divine Veil now takes care of a bit of healing
when being applied to allies. Any ally affected by the shield of Divine Veil will receive 400
potency of healing. Before the raidwide hit that you're putting this up for, you'll heal
your team a little. If anyone was missing HP be it from taking an avoidable hit or otherwise
you'll top them up and protect them even further. Level 90: Blade of Faith, Truth, and Valor This is an extention to your Confiteor button.
Confiteor as we know is a massive AoE strike for 900 potency under Requiescat. These are also
impressively strong. After hitting Confiteor, the button will change into Blade of
Faith. Hitting Faith changes it to Truth, and hitting Truth changes it to Valor. So all wrapped into one button. All three of
these will restore HP at 400 potency. What I must emphasize is that all of these
have a very weak base potency like Confiteor, but a very strong Requiescat potency. All three
will spend a stack of Requiescat. Along with Confiteor, all four of our Requiescat
stacks are spoken for. Confiteor and all three Blade strikes. They are all
also AoE strikes with a 5 yalm radius. Blade of Faith is a 700 potency hit with 50%
falloff, doing 350 potency of damage to all enemies after the first. Blade of Truth is 800
potency with falloff, doing 400 potency to all extra enemies. And finally Blade of Valor does 900
potency to the target, 450 on all enemies beyond.
Be careful you don't hit other attacks after
Confiteor. If you start your main combo before using your Blade attacks, the combo will
be lost, and the powerful hits with it. If it wasn't obvious, just like
Confiteor these should never be skipped, even rushed to for AoE. They are so much
stronger than your Prominence combo, and especially strong since you will put
up Fight or Flight. Blade attacks - despite being giant swords - are still spells and
can be used at range like Holy Spirit. And because of how this final skill set works,
Endwalker basically hasn't changed our opener. I'll do a Karaoke opener for you just so that
you have the new names being said if you need to look back on this video, but otherwise
we're just replacing that post Requiescat Holy Spirit spam with our Blade combo. And
of course Spirits Within is now Expiacion. Iron Will if tanking>
Holy Spirit to pull > Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Royal Authority > Fight or Flight >
Requiescat > Goring Blade > Circle of Scorn > Expiacion > Confiteor >
Intervene > Blade of Faith > Intervene > Blade of Truth > Blade of Valor > Holy Spirit
Atonement > Atonement > Atonement The note I mentioned at the very beginning is
going to come into play here. In the current iteration of Paladin, you have a 63 second
rotation. Because of how this works out, there are two suggested ways of
dealing with this to move into a perfect 60 second loop you can repeat
when there is no forced downtime. The one I suggest is the "drop Atonements"
strategy. When you have a 2.5 second GCD, all your weaponskills are a 2.5
second recast, you will need to intentionally drop two Atonements every 60
seconds. And by that I mean NOT use them. To be able to re-do your opener exactly as you did
it the first time without things being misaligned, you will do a Royal Authority combo, Holy Spirit,
and two Atonements with Expiacion and Circle of Scorn mixed in due to 30 second cooldowns. Then do
it again. Royal Authority Combo, Holy Spirit, and two Atonements. You will then be set up to do your
opener again exactly as you did it the first time. At faster Skill Speed tiers,
you will only need to drop one Atonement. You'll do a full three
Atonements, and then only a set of two. The difference of four or five in
your filler phase. Beyond that though, the rotation of Paladin is pretty simple
with very little thought you need to put in. Just stop touching Clemency. Thank you for watching this updated Paladin
1-90 leveling skills guide. Feel free to give feedback or ask questions on what might still be
confusing to you. I am always seeking to improve, as should you! Don't stop with this guide, even
if I succeeded in helping you improve. Please leave a rating, comment, sub, those really do
help creators. Or even go follow my patreon. Have fun in your adventures across Eorzea, and may the Power of an A Nidhoggs
lay Waste to your enemies.
