[Toridorable]

You know, I'm a fan of spooky things. The edgy, the dark, the evil and the depraved. But at the same time, SL2 has a lot of spooky classes. Ghost is literally Masochism, the class. Hexer is the closest thing to necromancy we will get, and is full of curses. Void Assassin's name is the edgiest thing I have ever heard; and Black Knight while not inherently 'Bad Guys Use This' type of class, it invokes the Black Wind. Wind that comes literally form the Void.

We also seem to be lacking Tank-based classes. I am a fan of tanking. Tanking is fun in almost any game or MMO. Standing there and taking laughable damage while your allies nearly get one-shot is always fun. We do have Arbalest for a ranged tank, and we do have Black Knight for a straight-tank. However say you don't want to be a tank that uses bows or mystical powers that come from the Void, what options do you really have?

This is where Paladin comes in. It is more than a tank class, it is also somewhat a Support Class. We have Black Knights, why can't we have literal White Knights. So many people have wanted to play Paladins, but Curate-based classes up until this point, and other tanking classes just haven't really synergized properly.

Pros and Cons of this class right away is that it is EXTREMELY bulky, probably more bulky that Black knight, the flaw of it however, is it is very Faith Dependant to do serious damage, and most of it's skills are completely useless if your Faith is trash. It is the kind of class you pick if you want to be the kind of person who helps your friends endure punishment while they do damage. I also didn't include maximum ranks and FP costs, because I'm honestly bad with balancing multi-stage skills.

Anyway, onto the ideas for Unlock Method, Growths and Skills. This is SOMEWHAT a work in progress, but I think there's enough here to make it be able to to be considered.

Unlocking

Curate must be your main class. Cast Graft while having a Melee Weapon (Dagger and staves excluded) equipped into your main hand, while also wearing Heavy Armor. Curate must be at level 20+, and Soldier must be at level 10+.

Growths

20 STR
0 WIL
0 SKI
0 CEL
30 DEF
30 RES
40 VIT
20 FAI
0 LUK

Skills

Offense
Smite and Cleave: A Light attack that factors in Faith+STR + WPN Power, with a bonus based on Rank.
Wall of Justice: Knocks back all enemies adjacent to you, doing Damage equal to STR/2+FAITH/2 Upgrading increases the range by 1, upgrading again makes these tiles leave a small AoE that deals Light magic damage that scales off Faith.
Guardbreak: Requires a shield equipped. A Paladin is a master of defenses, so much so they know how to undo them. A Light-damage attack treating the opponents Defense and Resistance as if they are 0.
Mercala's Wrath:You unleash the fury of Mercala upon the target, dealing unresistable Light damage equal to the total HP you lost since your last turn, up to (10*Rank)% of your Maximum HP. If the damage dealt would be 100 or higher, the target is also Knocked Down.

Defense/Support(I really didn't know how to seperate these)
Slay the Night: Weapons are treated as if they have the Holy enchantment for 3 rounds.
Divine Guidance: Weapons are treated as if they have the Blessed enchantment for 3 rounds.
Repel the Shadows: Requires a shield to be equipped. For 3 turns, Dark damage is reduced by rank*10%, as well as the target being granted immunity to Darkwater tiles.
Aegis of Light: For a number of rounds equal to rank; while guarding, You and adjacent allies are immune to knockback and knockdown effects.
Basking in Glory: If Paladin is your main class, this skill is always active so long as it is equipped. Otherwise you must trigger it, lasting for 4 rounds. Enemies who hit you will realize you are protected by your faith, taking Unresistable Faith/4 Light damage when hitting you with a physical attack. This effect is doubled against Vampires and Undead.
Bond between Comrades: Can only be used on allies. Faith/2% magical damage done to your allies is instead reflected onto you for 5 rounds.
Stalwart Aura:Sound Mind and Body's effect is active at half the value for allied units within 2 range.

Passive
Sound Body and Mind: Reduces the chances you will be hit with a status effect by 5%*Rank.
Faithful Resolve: Faith/2% chance to negate all damages from a hit that would be a finishing blow, as well as removing status effects that increase damage against you or deal damage-over-time(Poison, Burn, Claret Call, Hunted, etc). Once triggered, this skill cannot be used for another 6 turns.

Innate
Mercala's Love: Every time a Mercelan Domain spell is used, 1/5th the FP cost is returned to you as HP, with a Minimum of 2.
Crusader: Dealing Damage to Undead, Vampire, Possessed, ETC Foes will result in your HP being restored by Rank*5% the damage you deal.

**Made some Alterations based on Recommendations form Chaos

[Rendar]

As much as I like the class, it comes off of Curate, which admittedly has Priest and Lantern Bearer, however it's a class based around WIL+FAI. Not simply STR+FAI. If anything, I could see this class coming to be used for.. Soldier. Or some other physical class that actually uses swords. No offense to you, Tori. Just seems like it's better for Soldier.

Anyways uh. Back to the class at hand.

Smite and Cleave should probably take 5, if not 6 momentum. Since you're attacking twice, which is kind of ridiculous if it also deals FAI extra damage and applies on-hits and that all. If nothing else, it should be 5 Momentum. Meaning that a crit will let you attack again.

Wall of Justice is. Strange? Yeah. Thats a word. It essentially crates a 2 tile Diamond around your character that deals STR/2+FAI/2 Damage as an auto hit... and uh. Makes tiles unable to be 'touched by enemy units'. Whatever that means. Does it mean they can't walk there? Does it mean they can't attack anything in those tiles? We just don't know. Either way, kind of broken and OP.

GuardBreak. Okay. So, not even going into the territory of "Why does this exist" but. You perform a basic attack, with no penalty to your hit. That completely ignores Def and/or Res. Which means you deal a flat out STR+WPN POW+OTHER damage. Alongside FAI/2 Magical Damage right after that also ignores RES. So, essentially. True Damage. It only requires you to have a shield, and if you were to go... say. Kensei or Ghost with a Crit-kana. You'll absolutely trash tanks. So. This is kind of OP and probably would require you to use 6+ Momentum, otherwise it's just TOO good.

Wrath of the Gods is. Okay, lemme get this straight. You get FAI, FAI*2, FAI*3 hit/crit... until you miss? With 30 FAI, which is generously low for a class with 20% Fai. You acquire, at max, 210 HIT/CRIT. Then you take a very minor debuff for 2 rounds of 0 faith. Before you can activate Wrath of the Gods again to get 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 CRIT/FAI. Which is already kind of ridiculous. But lets assume you're a Paladin with good DEF, FAI, and STR. Okayish SKI. Using that one Crystalizing Sword and Smite+Cleave, you'd be doing a ton of damage. Hell, simply using a class/ANYTHING with a dagger here would be aids. Using that dagger set into Wrath of Gods, Attack, get behind on a crit of smite and Cleave, Cutthroat, smite and cleave again. You get ridiculous damage. Or if you want HORRENDOUSLY high damage. Get behind someone with a DAG, "Okayish" FAI. And a shield. Then proceed to True-Damage a 2x damage Crit on someone and watch as they cry. Noooottt feeling it.

Slay The Night. Uh. Sure? That's very useless, honestly, and only good for the metagame. So. Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Maybe allow it to be applied to allies for maximum cheesiness.

Divine Guidance. Uhhhhhhhhh. FAI extra hit.... You seem to alread-- Ah whatever. Sure. Just take it. Maybe if you apply it to an allies weapon it uses your FAI instead of theirs.

Repel The Shadows is. Uh. I mean, I'd never use it because Darkness damage is kind of really uncommon. At least uncommon enough in high damaging quantities to ever be painful. Hexer's use split damage, and its usually the status effects you're most likely worried about, not the darkness damage.

Aegis of Light... Uh. Kind of useless. But. Sounds sort of like a free Cobra against physical damage so. Probably. Not as useful as it sounds? Oh right. FAI%. So yeah, I'd probably never waste the time of day on it. (ba dum tsh)

Basking of Glory is actually useless and I don't see why anyone would use it. Someone takes FAI/5 ((Lets say 50 FAI, because you're a powergaming sleaze)) Light damage whenever they hit you with a Physical Attack. Thats uh... Only really effective against those gun nerds. Since it's "HIT" and all.

Bond b. Comrades is actually kind of nice? I mean. It's only useful in a team fight, and will more than likely get you utterly murdered. But good on you for taking a hit for a friend! Sucks if you and your friend get AoEd though.

Passive time now. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--

Sound Body uh. So it gives you like. 25% chance to just not get those statuses? Or does it give you 25% extra resist against them? If it's just 25% extra resist, it's useless against things that auto do those status effects against you. So. Just having a 25% chance to not get hit by that stuff is kinda neato. Kinda lame, but neato to say the least.

Same thing applies for Sound Mind.

Hey cool. Now I can give that neat stuff to my allies. 12.5% here I come!

Faithful Resolve is a kinda neat "LAST STAND" thing. Ghost did it better, though.

INNATES.

... But Mercala Spells like. Aren't that expensive. And if you're the one casting it. You're casting it REALLY TRASHILY BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO WILL.

Crusader. Eh. Whatever. Sure. Go ahead and fuck a vamp's day up.

[Toridorable]

Slay the Night and Divine Guidance will scale off Caster Faith if it is higher than target's Faith, yes.

Also as far as Sound Body+Mind, I would like it to effect Auto-Statuses at Max Rank, if not in general, meaning there would be a chance for say, being Cut-throated wouldn't silence you.

I did some edits based on recommendations from Chaos, also; I wanted to make it come off Curate because Soldier already has 3 promotions, not to mention I wanted to give something other than soldier some tank-effect viability. Also to clarify, none of the offensive attacks have a critical chance, and Guardbreak/Smite&Cleave have a chance to miss based off the basic attack's Hit-rate calculations. It's similar to how Archer goes from 'goesfast' to Arbalest... which is not so much speedy as it is 'Ranged Tanking with some niche offensive abilities'.
Which reminds me.
Sniper Class when?

also off topic, your forum signature makes me smile, Rendar.

[Rendar]

Slay the Night, Divine Guidance, and Sound Body/Mind are looking pretty good. Albeit RNG based, but you know. Still good. I'd say FAI/2 (or 4)+5%*RANK to give it a nice chance. 50/50 is pretty decent, or at least a chance to make it less effective.

Anyways. I wasn't aware that they had chance to miss, etc. You made it sound like they were exactly like a Basic attack, in every way. If they're going to have a chance to 'miss' ((which they shouldn't)), then you need to give them extra stuff. Etc. I don't wanna get into a long arguement because worried atm but.

Archers > Arbalest works. Because they have stats that correspond. Their main damage attribute is the same (STR), and they get SKI/LUC. Things Arbalests do. Going from Curate (WIL) to Paladin (STR/FAI) is kind of a weird 180.

Also thanks for the compliment.

[Ranylyn]

"Tanky classes don't synergize well with curates."
- Gives 20% Str (Same as ghosts, which no one levels as because 20% str sucks) AND 0% Will, which is the exact reason BK/Curate isn't very good.

I don't understand this reasoning. And looking at the skillset, I'm seeing far, FAR more "holy smite" than "support." Str + Fai may seem fair for low growths, but I've managed to get 85-is Faith and 50-ish Strength on a bonder/priest before (Level 60 Izabe install, Max affinity, Str/Wil boosting equipment, and some decent RNG luck,), and you know people would certainly abuse this kind of setup for raw "Smite and Cleave" abuse. (Or in my case, Blessed River Sword + God Rod Kel spam. I am such a jerk sometimes.)

My opinion: Due to the curate support, lower Vit to 30% and Def/Res to 25%, and use these stats to raise Str and Faith's growth by 10 each. To compensate for this loss of defensive stats, implement a passive that allows Faith to be used in place of Will for Curate spells, to give them some sustain instead of just raw defenses. And, instead of making attacks Str + Fai, primarily make them one or the other (for Physical or magical attacks respectively) This will allow some interesting mixed builds, such as subbing hexer for more defenses, Priest for more faith boosting, Bonder for more offense overall, etc.