Paladin Tank Rotation, Openers, and Abilities — Endwalker 6.55

Patch 6.3 saw a major rework for Paladin, with Fight or Flight applying to all damage, DoTs removed, and Royal Authority granting an empowered Holy Spirit. This page details the opener and rotation for Paladin moving forwards.

1. Optionally, pop sprint up to around 18 seconds before the pull to help run up to the boss quickly.
2. Start casting Holy Spirit around 1.75 seconds before the pull to get the global cooldown running early.
3. Run up to the boss after the Holy Spirit castbar is done (you are free to start moving after the castbar has reached 0.5 seconds remaining).
4. Start a Royal Authority combo, potting after Fast Blade. This generates three Sword Oath and grants Divine Might.
5. Weave Fight or Flight and Requiescat after Royal Authority, then use Goring Blade.
6. After Goring Blade, weave in Circle of Scorn and Expiacion.
7. Use Confiteor followed by the Blade of Valor combo, using an Intervene after both Confiteor and Blade of Faith.
8. Cast a Holy Spirit, which is empowered by the Divine Might buff from Royal Authority.
9. Use three Atonement, consuming all of your Sword Oath.

After the opener and between burst phases, the Paladin rotation follows a simple set of rules.

For GCDs:

Your main filler combo is Fast Blade → Riot Blade → Royal Authority. This generates three stacks of Sword Oath, spent on Atonement, and a Divine Might buff, which empowers your next Holy Spirit.

These actions do not break combo, so it is okay (and suggested) to begin another Royal Authority combo before spending your Sword Oath and Divine Might. Take care to spend any Divine Might procs and Sword Oath stacks before actually pressing Royal Authority, to avoid wasting existing procs.

Holding your Atonements and empowered Holy Spirits in this manner ensures that your Fight or Flight windows will never have weak GCDs like Fast Blade or Riot Blade.

For oGCDs:

• Circle of Scorn and Expiacion should be used on cooldown after the opener. Since they are 30-second cooldowns and Fight or Flight is a 60-second cooldown, you are able to get a free usage between every burst window.
• Try to hold both charges of Intervene for Fight or Flight. Use them during filler if needed to keep melee uptime.
• Fight or Flight should be used on cooldown. Upon using Fight or Flight, pause your filler combos (Holy Spirits, Atonements, Royal Authority combos) and do your burst, then continue your filler combo.

The burst phase begins when you use Fight or Flight, and should look very similar to your opener (at 2.5 weaponskill GCD, the oGCD placement and first five GCDs should look exactly like the opener).

1. Use Goring Blade, followed by Confiteor and the Blade of Valor combo.
2. Use Requiescat, Circle of Scorn, Intervene and Expiacion as soon as they are available.
3. After Goring Blade and the Requiescat GCDs, continue from where you left off on your filler combo (i.e. use a Holy Spirit if you have Divine Might, spend Sword Oath, or continue a Royal Authority combo).

At three or more targets, replace your Royal Authority combo with the Prominence combo and spend Divine Might on Holy Circle. Continue to use Goring Blade during your Fight or Flight window. Ideally, find the enemy with the highest HP to use it on.

Use defensive cooldowns to reduce incoming damage and relieve the burden on your healers. Since mitigation is calculated multiplicatively (i.e. two 50% damage reductions will result in 25% damage taken), it is more efficient to spread cooldowns out rather than stack them all on one attack. That said, for many tankbusters, it is reasonable and expected to stack two or more cooldowns together.

Paladin is also unique in the number of raid and targeted mitigation tools it has access to, so be sure to keep an eye on both raidwide damage and damage targeted on a party member.

• In a raid environment, try to use one of Rampart, Sentinel, or Bulwark on every tankbuster. If you notice that these cooldowns go unused for a long time, you can also use them to mitigate boss auto-attacks.
• Use Holy Sheltron on every tankbuster and liberally on auto-attacks. You gain 50 Oath gauge in around 23 seconds.
• Replace Holy Sheltron with an Intervention on your co-tank if they are taking tankbusters or auto-attacks. If Rampart or Sentinel are available and will not be needed soon, use them before popping Intervention to buff the mitigation effect.
• Reprisal, Divine Veil, and Passage of Arms shine on raidwide damage. Use liberally.
• Keep in mind that multiple Reprisals do not stack, so coordinate with your co-tank.
• The Passage of Arms buff lasts five seconds after you stop channeling it, so for raidwide damage, flashing it briefly on the party is sufficient. You should almost never need to channel it for the entire duration, other than rarely for safety in raid progression. The block effect on yourself goes away when you stop channeling, so it is also usually not worth wasting it on personal mitigation.
• Hallowed Ground is a powerful tool and should be used proactively on high-damage sequences like multi-hit tankbusters.
• For dungeon pulls, Arm's Length is also a strong mitigation tool, slowing attacking enemies' attack speed by 20%.
• In dungeons, use mitigation proactively on trash mobs since they hurt a lot more than bosses. Try to rotate between your mitigation without overlapping Rampart, Sentinel, Bulwark, or Arm's Length too much. Use Reprisal and Holy Sheltron early and often.
• Hallowed Ground is your most powerful cooldown in dungeons. Use it early so you can get two or three uses within a single dungeon.
• Be mindful about mitigation usage when playing with a White Mage, as the repeated stun from Holy can cause you to waste some of the duration of your mitigations. If you see them casting Holy, consider waiting on using your mitigation for when the mobs become stun-immune.
• Cover is rarely used, but it can have niche uses in optimization, as well as for saving a party member from lethal damage in a pinch.
• Clemency is a contentious subject. It is a significant loss in DPS to repeatedly cast Clemency since it is a GCD. 99% of the time, it is better to trust that your healer can keep you alive. Clemency has niche uses for soloing dungeon bosses (albeit extremely slowly) when the healer dies or in a raid progression setting, where DPS is less important.
• Use Low Blow for a small bit of mitigation. After Level 50, stuns stop working on most bosses, but it can still be useful for trash mobs in dungeons.