still firmly believe the stormblood PLD quests should have been a buddy cop story of WoL and a samurai since they're basically eastern paladins lots of potential exploration of cultural differences in 'honor' to be had

I think they had trouble writing the Paladin npcs which is why they went back to the gladiators who they clearly were better able to write.

The issue is PLD needed to break away from Sultansworn sooner, being tied to Ul'dah politics which end up being a critical element of ARR's post MSQ story means the Paladin story cannot have any significant impact. So you end up with a cast of characters that cannot achieve anything meaningful and utlimately leaves PLD in a awkward limbo. In Heavensward we are in Ishgard, a City-state with an extensive knightly orders, yet we ignore them, essentially pretending Ishgard can't have PLDs, why? it once again risks coming too close to MSQ events, so instead we run around a back water talking to a randon Elezen about Ul'dah. PLD's shortcomings are consistently caused by on going risks of hindering the MSQ and the writers clearly decided PLD should get the short end of the stick instead of the MSQ.

The point about Paladins having to fight and see who's worthy of Oathkeeper is actually a genius metaphor for aggro fights among tanks!

I love how in the stormblood quests, they say “yeah so that tome we promised you containing an ancient, powerful Paladin art? Yeah total lie. Anyway here’s your 70 skill, an ancient powerful Paladin art.”

For me, I feel part of the problem of the Paladin job quests (50 to 60) is that, for a job trying to make a new order and new path in training new people to take up the role, the focus on the Paladin Soul Crystal needing one singular person to be stronger felt... off. We had no prior "there can be only one" theming. It felt like the way of succession of Sith in Star Wars being half-done under a positive coat of paint. That they never went on to really focus on what a growing cast of free paladins meant or could do, or what the ROLE of a paladin meant to the people around them (protectors and upholders of a kind of justice), and instead focused on finding one paladin supreme while also training new paladins and then bailed from it, the direction just felt... wrong. Especially considering that they were protectors of the Sultan of Ul'dah historically, it feels like the modern Paladins are trying to turn around an old history of blind justice to any standing leader. We could have had stories of Paladins of the Sultansworn who had to handle poor or malevolent sultans, or paragons of law and order whom obeyed tyrant-like law in the past and old relics of that era at times having to be taught a better way - switch the story on the soul crystal teaching us a bit so that we're the one(s) teaching the soul crystal, but yeah, it just... went back to a tournament arc. I wouldn't mind the tournament arc if it kept trying to show Paladin things during it (exposing cheaters in the system, stopping shady assaults, and the like, maybe even ending with a conflict of interest on whether or not the paladin player allows someone else to win for their sake and a good cause or keeps going to show the old vs new), but it was just Gladiator again. Though that's all just my rambling.

FFXIV's Paladins, conceptually, feel more akin to the historic Paladins, rather than the modern cultural version. I feel they could have married the two concepts really well if they saved the job for Heavensward. Ishgard provides a perfect setting for the marriage of high ranking noble knight, and the holy-warrior given how dedicated they are to Halone, and how closely the nobility is tied with the Holy See.

I liked that part, where you go back to your class buddies. Thats something I miss with other job quests, like the archers or lancers. I liked the monk quests because our friends from the Pugilist guild show up. Its just a nice... keep-in-touch thing. But yeah, compared to Dark Knight, Paladins story was cut short. Even Warrior had more to do with the intricacies of the Inner Beast than Paladin being a stalward protector. I mean, how many people do we actually protect during that story? Warrior's philosophy is about that the Inner Beast can be tamed if you have something you wish to protect, Gunbreaker was founded by an order of royal Bodyguards... Dark Knights tapping into the abyss because love compells them... What drives a Paladin in the universe of FF14? Much as I like the job, I dont know.

To me the Warrior of Light got tired of being betrayed (by Jenkins, the first pld mentor), being manipulated (by the second mentor, that roe free paladin), so the Warrior of Light decided to abandon those jerks and being on his own.

The best part of the PLD quest are the ones that involve the GLD npcs lol

A part of wishes they made the quests into something like: 30-50: What is a Paladin and it’s place in the world, and how a lot of what a free Paladin does is not for vain glory but just doing good for the sake of all. 50-60: What it means to be a free Paladin, and its place in the world compared to other Paladins. You could have something interesting and have it revolve around Oathkeeper, and how it chose a Free Paladin over other Paladins. From there show off why it didn’t choose the Ul’dah paladins, show that there’s been to much corruption in the order to a point where Oathkeeper no longer shines for anyone but the WoL, whose spent their whole quest trying to help people in Ishgard. Go as far as to give the sword itself at the level 60 relic weapon to. 70-80: Teaching others what it means to be a free Paladin, one who fights not for glory but to do good and help stamp out the last of the corruption in the Paladin order. 80: Show how the order has been doing after the last quest and that maybe Oathkeeper will shine again on the order. That’s a rough idea on what I wish they would have done instead of the awful 50-60 quests that dropped Paladins completely from the story.

Honestly the ShB quest where we teach Granaon and learn of Brandon's past is a way better pld quest

Although the tournament arc was fun, the most problematic thing I've noticed is that we don't even really know what a paladin even is. Paladins are basically gladiators that are also white mages, we have a full magic rotation to our kit, yet the paladin story never mentions any of it. Paladins of Ul'dah are basically just knights at the service of the crown, like the Templars of Ishgard, yet even those were at least somewhat tied to the religion in place at the time of Heavensward. Other job quests SHOW how being a dark knight means wielding negative dynamis for power (mogs make it very explicit), how warriors are basically the same thing but more on the "wild" than the "dark" side of emotions, how the azure dragoons borrow from the powers of a dragon using their eye or drinking their blood, how black mages have to balance a powerful destructive magic between astral and umbral polarities to keep control over it, or how red mages balance white and black magic along with their use of swordsmanship. We know how it WORKS, what we are actually learning as we level up. For PLD, we're just gladiators that somehow became sacred somewhere along the way.

To me, the biggest problem with the 50-60 paladin storyline is it reads like a story with most of the third act missing. We go from coaching a young free paladin through starting to uncover that one of our mentors has faked their death and finish with the level 60 quest that can be best summed up as "Paladin soulstones engaging in a pissing contest", which (to me) comes completely out of left field. I can't help but feel that a better arc would have been the HW story arc focusing on Constaint's coming into his own as a young paladin, culminating in a challenge of some form that leads the WoL and Constaint to question the purpose of being a free paladin, ultimately finding their own answers and allowing Constaint to grow as a character. This could then have led into the Stormblood "arena" storyline where the Soulstones having a pissing contest would have actually made a degree of sense, with them culminating in acknowledging the Free Paladins as being more worthy. This could still have included callbacks to the Gladiator questline and Aldis without the strong presence of Aldis' character completely overriding the narrative. Perhaps even with the L80 capstone quest comparing and contrasting Aldis' personal quest across the world to improve himself with Constaint's own journey as a Free paladin...

By the way, it might help to understand that Paladin is a western localization choice, the original Japanese name for the job is Knight. It's all a bit hindsight now, but if Paladin quest lines had incorporated Ishgard we probably gotten something more appropriate to what being discussed in the video. Because they obviously have their own order of Knights/Paladins and it's never addressed.

Personally I would have compared the Paladin questline to the Dragoon questline rather than the Dark Knight questline. Both start out similarly (Dragoon's even called "Dragon Knight" in japanese), but Dragoon does show the fantasy much more than Paladin (plus is, you know, much more coherent in story?) Additionally, I think while it DID have some good ideas (a traitor to a faction of knights is found and must be stopped,) it really does drop the ball on a lot of things. The HW one was especially egregious with how it tried to pull a plot twist but didn't stick the landing. Another one was half of the ARR questline just being... training... before dropping you into its main plot. I'd rather have focused on stopping the monetarist minions through the entire ARR questline and have a clear reason for Jenlyns to fight the WoL rather than it being a random "I HAVE YOU NOW!" moment. Have the Death's Embrace thread be the entire HW plotline and have us defeat their leader. Leave Solkzagyl out or change his motive for the questline- have the WoL help train Constaint and have them recover the Oathkeeper by themselves. No dumb "PLD soul crystals fight each other for dominance", have them put their strengths together and that would probably be what makes the Oathkeeper shine. I think the 60-70 questline is fine actually, but it did go back to Gladiator rather than continue on with Paladin. I think it would be better to focus more on the "tournament rigging" plot thread, since that would clearly endanger an official tournament and any future tournaments- thus being something the Sultansworn are focusing on and something they asked the WoL to help with. Then Level 80 could then have the WoL oversee two adventurers taking on a trial to become free paladins, with one of the adventurers deciding that they want to become a Sultansworn instead. Anything to emphasize what it means to be a knight/paladin rather than what we got.

Honestly, the problem I got with it is that it feels like they dropped the ball a bit when it came to the PLD parts of the story. All I remember outta 50-60 was how ludicrous the explanations for it got, to the point that after everything was explained, even the NPCs were saying how stupid it all got.

I think what it boils down to is that the writers of ff14 don't see "knight" and "paladin" as far apart as western audiences do. The cultural concept of the class concept isn't quite the same.

Paladin was always my favorite job and yes, I always thought he wasn't done justice, especially in later levels. I think you should have added more quests that show how a paladin is. For example, you protect several villages from crime on your travels and gradually build a follower who wants to go this route yourself. I would also have found it interesting if Paladin and Darkknight had a quest where you were faced with the same problem and you saw how the Paladin and Darkknight went two completely different ways to solve this problem.

I think there's a number of smaller issues that compound into what happened with the Paladin quest line, but I think part of the problem is that the class and the job are actually in deep tension with each other, unlike most of the other starting classes. Storywise, every other job's starting class works as a foundation that leads into the job and works as an evolution from what you already were. Even Bard, which on paper is vastly different from Archer, is basically "What if archers had magic songs too?" both in gameplay and in lore. Gladiators and Paladins, however, have very different priorities - a fighter that fights for personal glory and riches vs. a knightly protector of justice. This contributes to the Stormblood and lv. 80 job quests feeling out of place; why exactly would a free paladin's focus be on a tournament in Ul'dah? A gladiator, a swordfighter, even your personal WoL might be interested in such a thing...but why a paladin? Is the Sultansworn looking for potential new candidates and using you to test them? Is the sultana looking to see Oathkeeper in its full glory again? Is this more of that 'dominance' thing that was established for the soulstones in Heavensward? ....nah, it's just a tournament arc, have fun. Oh, and Aldis is back! Yay! Paladins have always been my preferred class, and I do personally enjoy the quests in FF14 pertaining to them, but I can't deny there is a LOT of wasted potential here. What happens when two free paladins, equal in terms of skill and morality, end up opposing one another due to a difference in perspective? What would we, the WoL, do if we inspired some young soldier to take up the path of the knight-errant and had to mentor them? What if, like Synodic Scribe suggested, a new age of free paladins started to form, and what would the WoL's position in it be? Even off the top of my head there's so many cool and relevant ideas that could expand on what a paladin is. What we got is fun - everyone loves a good tourney, after all - but it could've been so much more.

I felt the closest to a true paladin class quest we got was the tank role quests in shb.

I hated the Paladin Quest chain. Even when it was about being a Paladin, it was kinda ... boring ... the NPCs we had not really standing out as they where just kinda ... there ... not like say Fray, or the Rouge's guild and crew we met during the Ninja quest line, Monk is another good one. another thing that rubbed me wrong about Paladin, and this could very well be a 'me' thing due to having already leveled most the jobs by the time i sat down and really got Paladin leveled up, is the lack of 'role shift' in the Job quests. What i mean by that is in most Job Quests your role in the story shifts from 'student' to 'Equal', with some of the Job Quests like Monk and Dragoon, even going so far as to promote you further to 'Mentor' for some one else. TECHNICALLY Paladin does this in 50-60 ...or least i think that's the intent, but it never felt like it to me, in fact, it felt like i was still in the 'student' stage of things, which is some what annoying when in the other job quests that's when the WoL starts to really prove they are equal to or better then their mentors to that point, except Dark Knight, still a 'student' in 50-60 there, which is fine given how that quests story chain is laid out. This bothers me though in regards to Paladin cause i thought the way 30-50 ended we'd already proven ourselves to be better then that. and as mentioned in the video, another major thing that took me out of it was just how 'not Paladin' the Paladin Job Quests where. The idea of them being Royal Guard is fine, but we aren't even doing that through out the two quest chains that deal with being a Paladin, and then we go into a Tournament Arc? wut? I mean that'd be fine if Gladiator was its own flushed out Job but it kind doesn't work for a Paladin. Hell the cap stone quest drops the ball even HARDER when you factor in one for the Gladiator NPCs CLASS CHANGED TO SAMURAI, and that said NPC was gonna be sticking around the Gladiator guild from now on, but nope, one cutscene later they are back to normal like it never happened. Which irks me cause if they stay Samurai that could have lead into teasing for a new Melee Job. and don't tell me I'm expecting to much, Machinists whole deal for the first couple arcs is LITERALLY ABOUT IT BEING A NEW JOB with no history to justify it's existence and needing to prove it self worthy of standing beside its peers (the knights of Ishgard in its case) which I think is the ultimate reason Paladins Job Quests suck. it never really expands on anything 'Paladin' in any meaningful way past the 30-50 arc imo as the 50-60 arc, lore wise, total waste of time.

While, as a PLD main, I agree with the main point, I'm not sure DRK was the best job to use a comparison, because it has no base class. DRK *couldn't* have job quests exploring anything other than DRK because there were no class quests leading up to it to begin with. I haven't done the WAR questline personally, only heard about it from friends, but wouldn't that one be a better example? Since it's a tank job *with* a base class, that, to my knowledge, doesn't return to being about the Lominsan Marauders once you've graduated from the pre-30 guild quests?

Hey there, Scribe. Big lurker of your videos here, as well as a year-old Sprout to Final Fantasy XIV. First off, I'd like to thank you for making the lore content that you do, because from the moment I started FFXIV, your videos have been my repository for the 8+ years' of the game's lore, but condensed into bite-sized pieces. As a roleplayer and enjoyer of lore both, I was very happy to have discovered your channel. Otherwise, I feel like learning all of that lore would've been a daunting task altogether. On to the topic at hand, as a Paladin main myself, you basically hit the nail on the head there. At first, I thought it was a matter of culture, since Japan isn't exactly known for having a religious background like the western world is often used to. But then, I think back to titles like FFIV and FFTactics-neither of which I've played, but know that the concept of the Paladin was more or less accurate. I've spoken with acquaintances often and loudly about how the quest chain pretty much falls apart, most especially in the 51-60 bracket. In fact, whenever someone says they're leveling their Paladin and want to see how the job questline develops further, I feel bad on their behalf. Unlike your excitement, the whole Highlander-esque concept of "There can be only one!" in the 51-60 chain-not even including the deception that was involved in it-left a sour taste in my mouth as an enjoyer of the Paladin concept. Again, what makes this so disappointing is that there's so much with the Paladin concept that Final Fantasy got right that they've got no excuse for it to be this bad in quality and consistency for FFXIV. One could argue that the quality is just a byproduct of their rush to fix 1.0 into 2.0, but they're also going back to old content to make changes to them now, so that's no good reason to put forward-since they're now actively trying to improve older segments of the game. Frankly, I have no idea if they plan to keep it this way or intend to go through things with a fine-tooth comb now that the rush to the end of the current saga is over, but I've always had an idea about how a brand new questline should go: First off, I've often believed that the 61-70 bracket of the PLD quest chain should've been the experience for, say... levels 1-30. You're literally fighting in the Coliseum, where you should be learning how to be a Gladiator. If they wanted to keep the intrigue that happens near the end, let the Coliseum bit be 1-20, and 20-30 be bits and pieces about the intrigue. I don't rightly know how they should reconcile the 30-50 questline, but I suppose it should just lean into the idea of you being officially inducted into the Sultansworn, rather than be a "free paladin" right off the bat. Honestly, if they decide to explain why you should be a wandering hedge knight rather than glued to the palace, the idea of a free paladin already exists-it just doesn't begin with you, as you already mentioned in the video. Let it begin with a sworn oath to be a Sultansworn, show what it means to uphold the codes of one, and then show the merits of being a free paladin by the end of it. By 50, your character-and the characters involved in the greater part of that storyline-should already know that the concept of righteous conduct espoused by the Sultansworn is not exclusive to the order and to the people of Ul'dah, but everyone who needs protection. That there is a merit to being a free paladin, rather being tied to the Sultansworn. That times are changing, and the order needs to change as well. For the 51-60 bracket, I definitely see this as the beginning of the free paladin's journey. To tie it into Heavensward's lore, you're going to Ishgard as a go-between of cultures, sharing the ways of the Sultansworn while learning the techniques of the Temple Knights, with its own plot. Probably about how the Temple Knights have somehow lost their way, and it takes an outsider seeing how far they've strayed in order to return them to the path. For the 61-70 bracket, this may be a bit of a stretch, but I feel like there's precedent to it, so bear with me. Like I said previously, there's so much that Final Fantasy got right with regard to Paladins in titles like FFIV and Final Fantasy Tactics. And-spoiler alert-Tactics already canonically exists in XIV, albeit in its own self-contained form. That being said, Tactics had Dark Knights, Divine Knights, and Holy Knights-basically three flavors of the knightly archetype. One that's disillusioned, one that's dogmatic, and one that's true to the righteous path, respectively. My own view of the 61-70 quest chain is this: Since you've learned what it means to be a Sultansworn, and then a Temple Knight, have a new character appear who's basically an Ivalician Holy Knight from Tactics, but from Dalmasca. There's already precedence for Dalmascans to have a presence in Eorzea given the events referenced in Stormblood and even prior, and given the culture of Dalmasca being built over ancient Ivalice, I see no reason why their ways couldn't be kept alive to the present day. All told, by the end of those quest chains, you'd have been a free paladin learned in the arts of the Sultansworn, Temple Knights, and Ivalician/Dalmascan Holy Knight, and the capstone quest goes to show you that despite there being a vast difference in culture, the concept of righteousness in general transcends that. And as a free paladin, you are that middle ground that upholds righteousness without being tied to a cultural background. Anyway, that was a bit of a ramble. But I wouldn't talk this much about it if I didn't care

You make a lot of good points but the salt for the Paladin quest chain has existed since before Heavensward dropped. I'd also ask if I'm misremembering as I thought the 60 to 70 quests were grounded in the history of the Paladins and how they came to be the Royal Guard and managed to maintain their position as an elite fighting force and how that ties in with Gladiator's guild.

I agree with all of this, expect I don't agree that drk is a fair comparison because DRK dosen't have any a class, it's just dark knight. You don't have anything else to really write about besides dark knight. And PLD and gld really have much different idealologies that have been shown to compete with each other.

Not gonna lie I did paladin just for the soul reason of playing paladin for endwalker. Though going through the jobs quests was kind of tedious. It's just bland for my taste. I wasn't exactly a fan of the 30 to 50 quests. It made me question the intelligence of certain job npcs

Professor Scribe, would you be willing to talk on the summoner job quests? They feel a bit more... MSQ than the rest of the jobs and I think the only reason people don't talk about it more is that not as many people have actually played it.

Also on a related note: Poor Jenlyns. For a major npc in a job quest to try so hard to be good and yet never really get anywhere was kind of sad, and it never really felt... Fair? He's been training for years, and after the lvl 50 quest does indeed try to be the best he can, and is hard at work trying to reform the sultansworn, and then this new guy who barely had any training shows up and steals the spotlight. For a job mentor, it really does feel he got handed one of the worst deals out of any of them for very little narrative payoff...

When I think of "Free Paladin" I think of an honorary paladin that can roam the world freely to bring Law and Order. Taking on jobs both large and small to make the world a little more safe for the common folk, An Officer of the Law in a fantasy setting. At lest that's would I would of liked

I really feel as though the 50-60 line would have been improved if Solkzagyl had actually been dead. In that case it would've been a questline about Constaint losing his mentor and finding a new one in the player character and going on from there it could've even been more of a personal quest for justice between the pair.

I may have commented this in a past video but I'll repeat it here just in case: I feel like the writers leaned heavily into treating the PLD's quest line more like a Knight, as the name sake is in the JPN version. I kinda saw the quests through they lens of someone being told a legend about a Knight, that is fighting off evil doers, serving a higher ideal, reclaiming glory through martial prowess, etc. But after your explanation on Oathkeeper supposedly picking a free paladin as its ideal, and the "right path to lead" as a new direction for the Paladins, I wish we got that version instead.

You make the argument that people hate the paladin quests due to it going back to gladiator quests, but actually the reason the devs brought it back to gladiator stuff was because people hated the paladin quests so much, so you have it completely wrong.

Maybe because I expected all paladins to be loyal to a king and country. Only paladin I know in game is Cecil and I always felt he was tied to his nation of Baron. I sadly glazed over the Paladin story line until Stormblood. I'm a sucker for a tournament arc. Even if Pal is my least fav of the tanks and sits with astro and monk in my least fav 3 jobs. But this really just cements how sad I am job quests are finished. So many jobs have more stories to continue. Scholar more then any other and I stopped caring about Scholar in terms of playing in during Stormblood. Still as a MCH main I feel its story needed more work.

I share the opinion that the Paladin quest chains were not as good as other classes, but I have different reasons for it. I think a major part of it is my own personal bias toward Dark Knight. I love Dark Knight's willingness to question authority and roll my eyes at the Paladin's blind faith. (In all fantasy settings that have Paladins, not just FFXIV.) And because of my bias, I doubt what I didn't like about it is why others wouldn't. Meanwhile with the Gladiator 1-30 quests, I felt more like a rent-a-cop going around Ul'dah keeping the peace and wondered why I never got to set foot in the colosseum. So I was thrilled when I found the 60-70 quests were a gladiatorial tournament! Though I do agree this is a pretty hard turn away from the tone Paladins are known for.

I was soured by Paladin not for the reason you described, but from the npc who was your mentor. All through the entire 30-50 quest chain, I was told how being given a soul crystal from a supposed traitor was blasphemy. That everything I did was because of a tainted path. I was new to the game in late 2021, and while I chose the path of the Gladiator/Paladin by pure accident, all I was told from the character side was that her existence as a Paladin was worthless and meaningless. And it saddened me, not only that it made me angry and hateful not of the class but of the story. Which is why when given the chance to take up the mantle of Dark Knight, I did so without any hesitation. And that story further compounded my hate for the Paladin. But this time for the class, because of what the Ishgard Holy Knights were doing with their power abuse. I did eventually complete the questline a month ago and I see why from the perspective you brought forth why people don't like the Paladin. But that is why I dislike the class, and why I stopped levelling it at 80 once that job quest was over with.

I think it's telling when my friend (who mains paladin( and I (who mained paladin until I left it in the dust for dark knight) couldn't remember what the paladin story line was.

I would have liked an expansion of what that Paladin order looks like. Good call. But also, I appreciate the return to gladiator in the back end of the Paladin quests. It mirrors this idea of a world warrior / Ryu from Street Fighter like quest for increasing power (to best defend people). It also links paladins back to Ul’dah nonsense (which, it just is a part of) Also, considering the full arc of a particular competition/ conflict/ obsessed with battle character, it provides a sympathetic counter part to that character. When it came to the end of Endwalker, the Ul tournament and the 80 quest felt relevant. How could I not agree with that last fight villian? Why yes, I am in it for the contest! So yeah, it uneven. But, not without some merit imo.

Im sure there could have been another interesting story for the paladin Stormblood questline but I was glad to come back to our roots. I like Ul'dah and the colosseum and the characters we met at the beggining so it was a fun time for me.

Well can you explain Temple Knights? xD Not sworn to Uldah and Paladins in their own right. That's what the NPC in HW we were helping should have become as a free paladin I enjoyed all of the ARR questline GLD/PLD not so much the HW because I forgot his name but the Roe paladin when asked how he planned everything goes to say it wasnt important. That soured my mood cause he came out shade as hell. I enjoyed the 60-70 just because of the humor when you go rescue the kid, the kidnapper says "get this clown!" xD although I enjoyed it, wish we had more paladin lore

In hindsight now that ive finished leveling my paladin. The best way they can fix it is to rearrange the events in the paladin quest line. You take the level 70-80 quests put that series into HW, take the level 50-60 quests and put them in StB as the paladin learns the forgotten arts picking up spells, and then from 70-80 you grab the level 90 cap stone skill and spread the combo out through the game as the paladin bonds with Oathkeeper explaining and giving significance to the paladins relations with magic blades. Of course you dont cut and paste all this diog and will have to keep tweeking the dialog to fit in story. It makes more sense for the WoL to lose their way as a paladin during HS and return to the days of practice swordplay in the arena. You can even give the WoL a glam that hides their identity if you have to keep the tournament in ul-dah instead of say shifting to ishgard.

Dude im so glad you made a video about this. Ive not watched it yet but i just gotta say, i put pld off for last with the tanks cause i heard nothing but how bad it is. And then when i finally do it myself im just like "this is perfectly fine and falls right in line with the other 13 job quests ive already completed, why is it getting so much hate?"

I've mained as a paladin in fantasy RPGs ever since I first got into fantasy RPGs... well aside from FFXIV because I main as a Gunbreaker, though I did start out as a Gladiator. I also studied the history of the word 'paladin', which goes back to the 'Scholae Palatinae' of the late Roman Empire, who replaced the Praetorians as the elite guard of the Emperors due to all of the scheming... a concept emulated by the Franks who are the ancestors of the modern day French, romanticized in the tales of the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne. So suffice it to say, Paladin lore no matter the universe is something I am always down for. But I always found FFXIV lore around the job to be rather weird. Like how you get to be a Paladin after becoming an accomplished Gladiator. I mean going from a fighter who fights in an arena for the amusement of the masses to being a divine champion feels strange. But it really did peak in Heavensward... that was the time it truly felt like the authentic Paladin experience. Disappointing that it devolved back into being a Gladiator story in Stormblood then. Which is ironic, considering that's when the job starts to feel most like a Paladin gameplay-wise.

Thanks for sharing; take care 🌙

The furthest I got to with Paladin was around lvl 44 on any of my characters. But I think I will catch up with it finally in the near future with my main. But by the looks of it the job story is disappointing. Whereas I rate Gladiator 1-30 quite highly among ARR side content.

I personally didn't like the PLD job quests because they seemed to have little direction. It's been a while, but I remember the whole "fight for soul stone supremacy" coming out of left field and making me roll my eyes. I loved the GLD quests, though, including the 60-70 and 80 capstone ones, because the characters were more memorable, and the plots were simply better tied together. I was happy to leave the PLD characters behind because they seemed a little underdeveloped.

While I enjoyed seeing the old Gladiator NPCs in the later quests, I think they way they wrote themselves into a corner with the weird soul crystal hierarchy thing, and had to fall back on GLA because they couldn't determine how to move on. It's the only job where the crystals have some sort of awareness of each other and this gauging of power (so far as I am aware). And also, making the WoL the head of the new Paladin order is kind of... tying them down with more responsibility (in addition to, y'know, saving Eorzea and all). I think if they had done that better, they could have kept up past 60. But, where do you go when you have hit the highest point? WoL turns the offer down, which would still be an options, but still. I enjoyed the quests all the way through, but in retrospect, there are some things I looked at more closely and was like, "Hm." The job crystal pecking order thing, for me, was kind of odd, and also from a writing standpoint, something that could have been left out, or done differently.

I actually started FF14 exactly as you said: Wanting to play a Paladin! I'm a big fan of them, and play one in a D&D campaign! Problem was, they never really fit in FF14 like how they did in other contexts, and that's likely because of how Paladin and Knight were used interchangeably during the shift from Japanese to English. Annoyingly, they seem to have mixed it up MULTIPLE times in FF14. Knight's Cover ability made sense in early FF14 iterations, what with being a sword and shield wielding class. However, they eventually moved them into a supportive tank-healing role, which was solidified in FF4 with Cecil. However, with Paladin's honorable traits + magic being interlocked with Knights' defensive utilities, the old "Knight" version of the Paladin class can no longer exist, really. In FF14, Gladiators becoming Paladins makes little sense when we define it by our preconceptions of Western media. D&D and WoW, being prevalent as they are, casts Paladins as holy champions wielding magic tempered by their will or religion. As such, they can heal, defend, and smite through anything in their way. In FF14, Going from a Gladiator to a Paladin... makes no sense. You're not honing your sense of justice or learning holy magics. You're learning to swing a sword, cut down foes in the arena, etc. You eventually do pick up the Job Stone to become a Paladin in service of Ul'dah, but there's no level of holiness attached. You don't wield any magic in ARR, and the only magic you get in HW is Clemency. Your tank utility is simply you holding up your shield or defending another person with it! It makes more sense to be a Knight, rather than a Paladin. But the setting in Heavensward leans into religion and faith, which befits Paladins more than it does the western concept of Knights! But then, you get your Holy Magic, massive defensive magic wings, etc. in Stormblood and beyond, and now we're looking at a proper western Paladin! Hell, Requiescat is literally a word that means "prayer for the deceased", or more familiarly, "Rest in Peace"! However, by that point, we're rejoining the Gladiator NPCs!!! Now we're back to a setting involving Gladiators and Knights more than it would a Paladin, so what the hell? It confused the heck out of me, and perhaps I'm reading too far into the lines and confusing myself, but it's just strange when you really take a look at the whole thing.

Amazing lesson as always! The GLA/PLD quests sure were intersting. Given, I did like them, of course, but I admit that I felt it odd how it went straight back to the Gladiator esque storyline. While I do enjoy their lore, I still found it, hmm, I guess bizarre would be the word? Either way, thanks for the lesson P.S., Gobbie boom! -Gobbie van Baelsar

One thing I think is interesting is the fact that during the Stormblood tournament, you basically are under no obligation to help with the main conflict. You got invited to this tournament, you’ve won your side fairly… Strictly speaking, you don’t have to get involved with all the back room deals, just to help your opponent face you in the ring. In fact, looking at it from that perspective, you don’t have anything to gain by helping, and quite possibly a lot to lose. But you are the a Free Paladin, dedicated to Justice. You will help people, even at your own expense. So I can see the thematic through-line of the Paladins here, and their vows being something that must be *lived* not just believed. That said, I think they’d have been better served if they had the Heavensward distributions of quests, not Stormblood’s. Break up the tournament more, lead into the idea that someone is messing with betting pools, maybe even have a gauntlet where you face all your previous opponents one by one to prove your strength to yourself… That might just be me.

I don't know, I think having an ORDER of FREE paladins kinda defeats the purpose of them. They're supposed to spread and be a singular example of a noble hero and inspire others to be the same as opposed to dark knights that are meant to strike fear into the evil of the world by assuring them that they are not safe from righteous fury. Basically paladins are Spiderman/Superman, and dark knights are Batman/Punisher. Honestly I actually love the gld/pal quest from 1-70. It's got a very wearing it's heart on it's sleeve vibe that is sorely lacking in modern media. Everything today wants things to be dark, gritty, depressing, and cynical, so I was really happy that it ends with you checking back in with your friends and just being a good and noble person.

The main tension I felt in the Paladin quests and job image is that it's really easy to think of paladin as the archetypical 'warrior of light' who goes around doing good with the power of light, and the EW trailer leans really heavily into this. The quests, however, don't feel like they let you do that at all. I remember the first few quests I was told to go light some beacons for no real reason and fight some monsters that didn't seem to have been present or threatening before the beacon, and rather than getting to play out being heroic and defending innocents or bringing justice I was just doing some generic initiation chores that didn't even seem to explain why paladins get to cast spells. The return to gladiator quests was fine, I liked them more than the paladin quests (particularly the 50-60 ones where it's about a random kid who's apparently destined to be a great paladin, ignoring the warrior of light and lacking any actual threat that needs paladins to deal with), but it meant there was never any opportunity to live out the fantasy of saving innocents with a sword, shield, and holy magic.

Honestly the 60-70 should have been either a part of 30-50 as a kind of connective lead-in then go whole hog with paladin stuff. Let that moved 60-70 be you being entered into the gladiator ring and coming across the free paladin, have you have to choose between glory and honour and then lead forward into the rest of it, that would create an interesting perspective of including what you'd taken from your class and influencing your views as your job.

I've been a fan of the job in Final Fantasy since I first saw Cecil transform from a dark knight into a paladin back in FF II (later IV) for the SNES. I've played as a paladin in D&D and WoW before I played FF XIV. So naturally I was excited to play as a paladin once again and take up the sword and shield in defense of Eorzea! Gladiator was fun, and learning about the lore behind the area was interesting. However, I wanted to be the epitome of the knight in shining armor as it were. When I finally got to Lv. 30 and began the job quests for PLD, I was so excited. It started off good, a lost order of knights, a sacred sword that belonged to their original order and had been passed down through the generations. The questline didn't make a whole lot of sense, like at all, but I didn't care. Then came HW. Now, the new paladins are back to being only one guy and we're supposed to be recruiting a teenage boy to the order because the soulstone is reacting to him. You get a training arc... and... well that was really it. Your new friend ties back into the paladin quests by fighting in the arena later and the wandering swordsman who was banished from Ul'Dah is allowed to come home and they tried to play off a romance between him and the main GLD trainer... but also not. And that's it. Compared to job quests like scholar, dragoon, or dark knight PLD just came up rather empty. It wasn't fun like warrior or ninja. It didn't add to the lore like RDM or MCH. A lot of this comes from the lack of a cohesive concept of a paladin in eastern game writing. Rather than a holy (lowercase) warrior of light, paladin is used interchangeably with knight and is just seen as a medieval european-esque warrior. If you look throughout the series, the idea of a paladin has never really been solidified at any point. Cecil in FF IV is certainly a paladin, but what about Leo in FF VI? Agrias and T.G. Cid from FF Tactics? Beatrix in IX? Anyway, I wrote a small novel to say that a lot of the problems surrounding the PLD seems to come from the fact that eastern game writers see paladin and knight as one in the same and didn't seem to have a great way to implement paladin within the world that they had when ARR first came out.

Honestly, I wish more jobs did this thing where they go back to the class quests after a certain point. I started as an Arcanist, and really latched on to K'lyhia early on, only for her to completely vanish after level 30.

It's been a while since I've done any of these, but I do recall some of the things you brought up being a problem not entirely unique to paladin, but it was worse for that job. I recall both ninja and monk having a similar thing going on with both quests having you go back to interact with the rogues and pugilists respectively, but they did tie the two factions back in with the main job story in the end, which I don't think paladin did. Had they been able to more closely tie the two stories together, things might have been better.

I really think the Heavensward PLD quests ought to have tied into the main plot more. The Sultansworn are the Sultana’s royal guard. The Sultana was just assassinated, by you! So goes the official story, at least. It could have been so juicy.

I enjoyed the PLD quest chain the same way I enjoyed part 1 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. I thought it was quaint, and it is always a good time seeing people who just want to do the right thing triumph over evil. The problem was that the story clearly wasn't invested in its own plot and just didn't commit. I think I do agree with that one meme tier list about the Class/Job quests, where PLD and WHM were tiered at "could someone please say something interesting or crack a joke?" A good class quest needs to have either an enthralling plot line to keep the player hooked (DRK), well-written characters to keep them entertained (MNK), or a good mix of both (SCH). The failure of the PLD quest line is that it doesn't really do either. There is no continuous cast that is fully involved, because your companion changes with every arc, and the thematic focus changes with each new region too. The first arc focuses on the corruption and complacency of the Sultansworn, while the second is about investigating a missing person while enlisting a new member into the order. The premise of a fringe order of paladins wandering around like a gang of good-boy DRK's would have been really cool, but the story didn't want to go there for some reason. This is extra fascinating too, because you could have easily included more "eccentric" member of the GLA quest line as members as well, since they all are quite capable of a fine moral code. By contrast, I think the MNK quest line handles this much more cleanly. The ARR plot establishes the lore of the MNK orders and chakra, Heavensward deals with the internal conflicts that caused schisms in the order, and Stormblood focused on the external politics before the order fell. At all times the Fists of Rhalgr were the focus, and you both learned with and about them through your journey. It also helped that the PUG guild's involvement, while small, still demonstrated a bond between practitioners of the martial arts, and even allowed you and your fellow street fighters to offer your own personal perspective in solving problems. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it did a good job at weaving the class and job quests together in such a way as to keep the player invested in all parties, as well as what was even going on. Also, Erik is a bastard and we all love him for it. So, if the PLD could be improved in any way, I would propose four things: - Make Jenlyns or one of the ARR story characters a more prominent figure in all of the stories so as to have someone to act as an audience anchor. - Make the Heavensward story include a Templar Knight. I have no clue how you drop the ball that hard on that one, but personal vs theologic justice is a fantastic premise for conflict and learning. - Make the Stormblood story include a Sekisegumi, as they are much like the sultansworn - blades that mostly protect the "upper interests" - but the former is more personally prideful and guards a specific group of people, while the latter is more rigid and traditional, but looks out for the interests of society as a whole (supposedly). - Make the through line about PLD's that they are complacent so long as they limit their world view, and have the Lv70 and Lv80 quests establish a national order of justice-seeking soldiers. Kind of like Eorzean Interpol. You could easily include characters from both the GLA and PLD stories, since all you need is good morals, conviction, and a sharp blade on a stick. Now this DOES run the issue of the Crystal Blades fiasco, but the idea is that the order is more a network than an organization, and member take care of themselves and travel alone or in small groups. The idea is to sew the seeds of justice and morality in the places that they go to and to inspire others to rise to the occasion, and all the story needed to do was just stay on track and ride it to the last stop.

Hearing you outline the base concepts of the PLD story made it clear that there WAS potential there - it was just done so badly. 50-60 in particular was a mess; it was essentially retreading the steps of "can an outsider be a paladin?" but with faked deaths, random tests and... fighting for dominance with your job crystals? And then in the end the magic sword declares the future of paladins and they ignore it and go back to Ul'Dah anyway...? When your story ends with one of the CHARACTERS saying "well that was a confusing mess," that feels like a red flag.

Is there any information on Ultima Weapons’s Heart of Sabik? Would be an interesting read.

I've done every job quest in the game and paid attention to every line except PLD that I actually skipped starting 55 onward i just couldnt be bothered

So, there are two reasons why I don’t completely hate this line of quests: A) because, from what I’ve heard, “Paladin” is a mistranslation, and probably would have been more at home being called “knight” instead. And B) Because people forget that it isn’t the only one that goes back to being about it’s original class: the Level 60-70 quests of White Mage focus mostly on the Pajal, and the conjurers than on the heritage of the white mage. Plus, the advantage Dark Knight and all the jobs have after HW is that they aren’t tied to a starting class, and don’t have to tie back into them. It would have been more prudent to use Monk as an example, which does bring in characters form Pugilist quests, but ultimately focuses on the history of the old order, and the establishment/rebirth of a new one.

Paladin if they bring back class quests in 7.0 really needs a genuine continuation of the free paladin concept vs sultansworn aswell as what happens going forwards beyond that. They hinted that future class quests would potentially have new mentors and new characters, so it is a good opportunity for paladin to take a fresh journey and redeem itself (pun intended) and actually go on a path of discovery of what it means to be a Knight which is basically what the job is, in Japan. Imho, recently we saw FFXIV is willing to go back to change certain things, like adding a bit of extra dialogue with Alphy and changing ARR's dungeon experience and starting experience. Imho, this is why they should go back to Shadowbringers and Endwalker and give us a 70-90 job quest for every class, instead of just a level 80 milestone. This is my opinion: The job quests for 70-90 should be every 5 levels, that way you get a quest at 70-75-80 and for those that had a job quest at 80, give them that, followed by an 80-85-90 job storyline, then, again, with the next expansion, 90-95-100. This way old classes get about 10 class quests worth of new story and content while newer classes might go from 80-90 while having a 90-95-100 storyline to follow. This imho, is how we keep the class journey alive, 3 class quests an expansion, even if square may not be happy with making class quests over role quests, at least then you have reasons to learn more lore, level your classes again.

I completely thought that "if you enjoy fantasy" line in the beginning was going to be followed up with "and finality"

Do more of these please

Honestly; my favorite PLD questline is the one from SB. . . which is basically just GLD questline 2 lol

Honestly the GLD Guildmaster would have made a better paladin than any of the PLD NPCs. The main focal point of the paladin quests in ARR and HW (you know, the only time they use the PLD cast), is the restoration of the relic Oathkeeper. Like...to me, the biggest issue with the paladin "storyline" is that it focuses too much on the trappings and pedigree of the paladins, rather than the internal qualities of what it means to be a paladin.

I did not keep the paladin class after unlocking heavensward. I think the paladin 30-50 is the perfect starting lore for a fall into the dark knight. Yes the start 30-50 ends well but it showed just how much corruption had taken hold of the paladin order. So after the ending events of ARR I feel like it was thematic to go from a shining protector of order and peace to a shadow clad defender of the people who pursued those who misuse their authority. To hunt corruption. I don't know if you made this point later in your video but I stopped early in case I want to go back and pick up the paladin story again.

Its disappointing that there is no special interaction if you take the relic sword Curtana with you to the lv 60 quest. It Durandal and Oathkeeper were forged together as a set so for there to be nothing if you reunite the blades was sad. Duranal was the sword Constaint was gifted for becoming a free paladin btw.

this should be fun

As another KZfaqr pointed out in their Zenos video…he’s the only villain who got what he wanted in the end.

I generally liked the gladiator quest more, and I did like the return to it, but it definitely hurts that we couldn't keep oathkeeper, or continue with the new paladin order. It just makes it even worse, that the job questlines are done, so we can't expect more from it.

Legit just finished the pld quests for Stormblood yesterday, honestly dumb how the wol made oathkeeper glow and still had to give it to Jenlyns. Jenlyns could never surpass the wol in 500 years and make the sword shine.

I think a majority of the problem lies in the fact that the Japanese name for Paladin is Knight Paladin has a very specific concept and expectation for western audiences, and the job quests have virtually none of that We find our armor pieces, redeem the name of the guy that gave us our crystal because woo corruption in the order!, knight a new paladin by flashing our soul crystals at each other a few times, and then we have a gladiator tournament arc-where’s the Paladin stuff as we expect it in any of that? Nothing in the quests prepares us for what we actually do with the job like the majority of the other jobs Hell warrior’s entire SB questline was about discovering and understanding the far eastern version of the inner beast and the equivalent DRK questline was possibly some of the best characterization we’ll ever get for the WoL But paladin? “Tournament arc baby, we’re back to our class characters! What do you mean you’re not excited?”

Holy moly, I forgot the HW PLD quests were actually pretty neat. The tournament arc for StB completely obliterated all memory of anything that happened before that. Actually, a lot of the ARR job quests were, in one way or another, kind of disappointing for StB. PLD ignored the job quest characters, WAR ignored the class quest characters, DRG ignored the class quest characters, WHM ignored the job quest characters, BRD ignored the class quest characters, and SMN ignored the class quest characters. The most satisfying were MNK and NIN which tied the class and job quests together in a really satisfying way. SCH gets a pass cause it literally only had job quest characters and it was overall my favourite job quest line after DRK.

I mean, there is no class related to the Dark Knight. It's only a job so, odd comparison. How the Warrior never backtracks to being about a Marauder is more apt.

At least its not the total nothingness that is the warrior job quests which is just Curious Gorge being a himbo horny roegedyn But i do agree that confining Paladin to Uldah greatly hampered its story potential especially when most of Ishgard's military is formed of paladins Heck TWO members of the heavens'ward,Adelphel and Jannlinoux,are paladins,there is no way those two practiced the art in uldah when they were serving Archbishop Thordan their entire life

Historically in FF games they've been pretty inconsistent with calling a class Paladin vs Knight. Generally what players expect is Knight to be a powerful sword and shield tank style class with no magical abilities, while Paladin is that with holy magic sprinkled in. What I've read from various places online is that calling it paladin was a misunderstanding and its essentially the knight class. I don't know how accurate that is, but it feels like it makes more sense when you start using terms like "Sultansworn Knight" and "Free Knight". Paladin was my first job when I started and I love playing it still, but it does have in my opinion the worst storyline of any job after leveling them all, but I think a big part of that is expectation vs what we actually got because as you said Paladin is a popular fantasy concept and it didn't hit what folks expect.

Paladin quests are weird, i'll grant you, but have you done the MRD/WAR quests?

I'd slightly disagree with the Stormblood series not being related to paladin. If I remember correctly they do mention that the fighting style eventually employed by Paladins was born out of competitions like the one being held. Heck, one of the techniques before current max level upgrades is name Rage of HALONE. Kinda weird for a job based out of Ul'Dah to be named after the patron saint of Ishgard unless there was some cross training involved. I agree with some other comments here that the more magical aspect of Paladin feels unexplained, especially since it's white magic focused compared to Ul'Dah having the thaumaturges/black mages. However, I suspect it wouldn't be completely out of place if they figured that SOME healing capabilities would be needed to be a better protector. Also, much like D&D, they probably figured that the swearing of an oath of service was part of the empowering process which is why Jenlys was so reluctant to train us in the first place; you'd be entrusting order secrets to someone not bound to serve, only to realize that our protection of the world helped keep Ul'Dah safe by extension. I think it's the dominance aspect of the Heavensward quests that felt the most confusing, as I think most people understood it as domination by raw strength whereas in hindsight I think it was about how resolved one was to one's ideals. This makes the capstone quest in Shadowbringers make MUCH more sense. Aldis simply thought more martial training would make him stronger only to realize it was our strength of will (especially given our experiences and the themes in Shadowbringers) that made the difference.

PLD was my first main job and as much as it holds a dear place in my heart, I partly fell out of it because of its lack of lore. I wasn't given a strong enough reason to feel attached to it. I didn't feel like WoL was much different from any other GLAD. I suddenly gained all of these magical abilities, of which are beautiful to look at and really feel like they are the visual representation of the word Valor in regards to what a PLD is supposed to be to the world...with no explanation other than "because".

I think the existence of dark knight really makes the holy spell blade paladin really hard to write for. It wasn’t until heavensward that we got any actual spells, giving us Holy Spirit, divine veil, and clemency. Going through stormblood and having a large reduction in job class unlocks down to only the level 70 completion reward we can see a problem. Maybe the journey of the free paladins aren’t ready to begin properly yet.

It feel like they have no Idea on what to to With PLD that it even showing in the game play of PLD I could be wroung

I think partly the reason why we went back to being gladiators is because Paladins are already well established. Most other jobs are being made, rebuilt, or seeking recognition in various ways. And although they wrote in the free Paladins to give the player free reign, it doesn't give much interesting writing room.

The thing is, the PLD job quests weren't as interesting to me. For those who play D&D 5th Edition, what we had here was an Oath of the Crown paladin, which is a fantastic concept but not in the context of this particular narrative. Why would the Sultansworn train some nobody who happens to be good with a sword into being a "free" paladin? The reason they gave was flimsy, and it took me out of the immersion almost immediately. It would have made more sense had Solkzagyl been the NPC you always reported to instead of Jenlyns. That way the quest line would be that of an outsider LOOKING in instead of an outsider INVITED in. 50-60 was just...dull. The twist was easy to spot immediately, and I found myself unable to really connect with the folks there. Frankly, Ishgard has its own contingent of holy knights, and it should have been better explored. I suppose this is why they fell back on to the Gladiator quests. Because the Gladiator quests are honestly some of the best written of the 1-30 quests, and Mylla and Aldis are really great characters. All this being said, none of it is as disastrously bad as the 60-70 Warrior quests, which can be summed up as "Curious Gorge gets a boner and this somehow undoes ALL of his character development". At least Dorgono was pretty interesting.

I hope they add job quest lines back in. Like, keep the role quests, but let us build on the job quests

Oh I’m so glad that I’m back in FF14. I’ve been unable to play for months now. First to not being able to afford it and then a really bad payment glitch. But now I can come back and watch these videos I’ve missed. But watching them while unable to play would have been too bad to endure. But it’s good to be home in Eorzea. But equally the forced leadership and guide roles in tanking turned me away from Paladin early on despite being one in FF9.

It's weird that they didn't really explore much the "Paladin" side of the job other than finding more Paladins like you. You could clearly get more of it with using your formation with the Sultansworn as a backdrop for knowing more of them, and having you as an official Sultansworn until level 50 rather than a free Paladin outright, kinda like in the Gunbreaker Job quests where the mentor shows you the ropes while taking various jobs as adventurer, but with more depth as you actually are in the place they were born from(Ishgard doesn't actually have Paladins in name, they only have some Temple Knights and members of the Knights Twelve who are similar in function, only in Ul'dah do they have actual Paladins in the lore anyways). the search for the Roegadyn NPC could also be done, but it should be the goal for the HW job quests with the clergy, the scholasticate and a few Temple Knights helping and additionally making you "invent" the PLD magic as a consequence of their faith in their chosen god of the twelve giving you ideas, just like in the Dragoon job questline when you learn Battle Litany. By consequence, the search for the Mcguffin shiny sword will be in SB and you finally find it at level 70, with Nanamo actually giving it to you(cuz it just makes more sense tbh), making it the Eureka Relic. In addition, the level 80 quest is the current Stormblood questline, with some minor adjustments to have it make sense in the span of one quest.

Luv me Ul Cup, luv me Coliseum, simple as. That aside, some more fleshing out of free paladins and maybe establishing a free paladin order would be cool

I've only gotten as far as Stormblood, but like... Yeah, I haven't really liked the Paladin Job Quests all that much (except that one twisty twist near the end of the ARR questline). Your disappointment at the end of the Heavensward job arc is shared by me. XD I was glad that in Stormblood, it was more of a Gladiator tournament arc with the old characters at that point. Like, after the excellence of the Dark Knight Quests, and actually exploring good, evil, failure, and what it means to do good even when it's difficult, or when the law is on the side of wrong... The whole arc about making the Paladin Sword shine again left me going "...This is a whole lot of pomp and ceremony and fuss for nothing important. Screw 'tradition' I want to do what's right!". I rolled up to the conclusion to the Paladin job questline in the armor I used for most of the Dark Knight quest, JUST to rub in how little I respected their little ritual of strength/dominance. I like to think my character tells people he's a "champion" not a "Paladin" at this point, when he's running that job. XD

The lv 60 quest made no sense with how it went forward… such a convoluted storyline from 50-60 that even the characters state so themselves. I wish they had gone more of the Record of Lodoss War style with Parn, though he wasn’t a Paladin, in the tv series he becomes a knight of the entire continent instead of to a single state. Paladin of Eorzea has a nice ring to it…

I'm not sure it made sense to compare PLD quests to DRK quests. DRK has no underlying class, of course the only thing to quest about is DRK! But I of course agree that DRK quests were way better written than PLD quests by a long shot. My main gripe with PLD is that at no point in the story are we told where the spells come from. In all honesty, nothing about the Sultansworn suggests that any of them specialize in casting offensive magic spells. To me, they might as well be GLD in fancy white armor.

I think the main thing is just that the typical fantasy flavour of Paladins is just hard to fit in FFXIV. Magic in FFXIV is just magic. There is no divine power to be granted to the righteous. You learn a spell and then you use it. On top of that, the typical narrative theming around what being a Paladins means, protecting the weak, inspiring the people, and facing the world's evils with firmness and kindness, are not really exclusive to the Paladin job. The stuff that normally makes a Paladin is already the stuff that makes a Warrior of Light anyway. You can be a Bard or a Reaper or a Dark Knight, and the fundamentals of the Paladin fantasy remain anchored firmly at the core of your character. So what do we do for the actual Paladins?

While the Paladin quests were a bit disappointing from what I had in mind, I loved them non the less. Speaking of Paladins/Knights if its alright, could you do a lore vid on FFXIV's version of FF1's Warrior of Light? I find his lore confusing as while there might be a possible explanation, (Elidbus implies he existed before the splintering and might've been Azem) all the hard facts about him are divided between the Source and the First. (Heck even FF1 locations) With his set of armor notably being found in the Crystal Tower.

As a PLD main, I think there's some spicy takes in this video. First off, comparing PLD to DRK is like comparing apples to oranges. You should've compared it to warrior (which has a love story thing happen instead for an expansions worth of quests). Secondly, the 50 to 60 part of the PLD quest is the bad part. Going back to gladiator and having a tournament arc was a much better choice as it is a lot more fun

can we please get the ending of what happens between Aldis and Mylla please SQ!

When I was first doing Paladin, I had done it right after completing the Dark Knight questline. So I went from Dark Knight to Paladin and.... I felt so disappointed. I liked PLAYING Paladin also. I enjoyed the class as a whole. But I really did not like the quests for it.

FFXIV Paladin isn't a Paladin. It's a Knight. But they have a heal, so when localized, they became Paladins. It's very mechanical. Which in Gameplay terms, being a Free Paladin, or Knight means about as much as the WoL being the Azure Dragoon. As soon as you achieve that, the title no longer matters and you're just helping out someone your trainer knows. It's because the stories fully resolve. All of the best Class/Job story lines get there through focusing more on the people involved rather than titles or orders. Dark Knight is good because it's personal, It's Sidurgu & Rielle, and Fray, and you working through things. Dragoon you're helping the former Azure look after people he considers his wards, it's personal. Ninja integrates the rogues in to it at the end, but rests mainly on the shoulders of Oboro, and Karasu. The Paladin quest just kind of resolves, and everyone goes back to work. So really the problem with the Paladin quest line is just not having strong enough personalities among it's cast.

Personally I never liked that Paladin is just an evolution of Gladiator (or also that it is tied to a specific nation) and I think this is where they went wrong. Paladin shouldn't have been a "starting" (ARR) job, but more of a "prestige class" to borrow an old DnD term, that you can unlock at higher level (as you do Drk and Gnb now). Imagine the job quest they could have written if Paladin was introduced in ShB or EW, with lore tie ins for the Crystarium and Elidibus, and/or Hydaelyn and Mare Lamentorum.

I felt the same. Most of the starting jobs' 60-70 quests were about cementing the job while also reminding you of its class roots (unless there was no prior class), while paladin just had cameos, and simply thrust you into a gladiatos' contest. Truth be told, though, I think the gladiators are more enjoyable than the paladins as characters