The Bottom Feeders: Moves You Never Use and Why.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

if Paladins were doing 20% more DPS than they do right now you wouldnt have anyone really whining about Tempered Will and Divine Veil being niche abilities as the overall class is strong. But because the class is viewed as weak the eyes naturally fall on the weakest elements.

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There is also the fact that a lot of people want to see PLD improved in another way than just increased damage, by instead starting to look at their more support-like abilities. Look at BRD and MCH, they are the lowest DPS in the game, yet everyone wants at least one of them in their group for their incredible utility. PLDs could have comparable utility at a lesser extent (They shouldn't make PLD mandatory either, but at least as desirable as a DRK), while still dealing the same shit damage. It needs a better job design overall. They could get away by just increasing its damage, but IMO it's not the solution.

I'd certainly love to see them take a Group Utility view of the paladin to compensate. I think most paladin players aware of the dps issue would prefer keeping the lowish current DPS but being improved in other areas - the main issue is the ever present factor that if you give Paladins too much weird utility that can bypass mechanics or cheese things then they'll become too vital as the other tanks will only have damage/mitigation in their kit.

That said there's plenty of things you could do. Tempered Will becoming a group buff instead of just the paladin would be amazing for things like A3S hand knockbacks (boosting overall DPS by skipping a KB or two). Clemency would be amazing if you could cast it more frequently when tanking - I hear regular suggestions of things like royal authority giving a "next clemency is instant cast" buff or similar. Or give paladins Rogue as a crossclass option so they can be another source of Goad.

I think the main reason is that buffing paladins in this way, to improve the outlying benefits of their utility, feels a risky proposition. They'd be so far apart from the other tanks in terms of high utility but low dps contribution that it might prove impossible to balance for encounters going forward. I'd like to see them try though.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

the main issue is the ever present factor that if you give Paladins too much weird utility that can bypass mechanics or cheese things then they'll become too vital as the other tanks will only have damage/mitigation in their kit.

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I don't understand why everybody reacts like that...a thing is either "useless" or "overpowered", there's no middle ground ?

You might have listen too much to Yoshi-P and his "If we make unique bonuses, people will automatically made them mandatory and reject those who don't have them"...

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Giving PLDS more support/utility option would be inte

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Dammit. I forgot you can't edit on mobile lol.

I'll have to edit my post when I get home. Ugh. Sorry.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

This is an interesting thread. The major devil's advocate question to ask is "just because you almost never use an ability, does that mean it's a bad ability if it does one rare thing well"?

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I actually ended up putting an Edit on my original post to address this. My original intent in posting this thread was not to imply that some skills are inherently "bad," I was just identifying which are underused and how players not maximizing specific move utility that they might be overlooking. The original examples I put into the OP were just that, examples. However, there are certain moves that you could play devil's advocate for and outright say are bad. Your Awareness vs. Tempered Will example is such a case.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Being able to avoid knockbacks is incredibly useful provided an encounter actually has them. Just because a boss fight might have no reason to use Tempered Will doesnt mean it isnt a fantastic ability. The convenience of things like being able to eat Shiva's bow pushback to the face, or eat a divebomb on T13 if you got out of position, or ignore a Titan Landslide is hard to quantify - you rarely "need" to avoid a knockback but if you CAN avoid it then you can make a certain part of an encounter a lot smoother.

The skills I consider bottom feeders arent the ones which have niche use, but the ones which have tiny impact when you DO use them. Awareness as a paladin is the one that stands out for me.

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Here's the thing. Whereas Tempered Will does have a niche usage in which it can (and often is) extremely useful, it is important to note that the niche usage of Tempered Will often encourages a Pld to play badly to take advantage of it. Out of all of knockbacks in the game, there are very few that are unavoidable if you are just paying attention (Titan's LS vs A3's Wash Away for example). IF you can dodge a knockback without taking the hit, then you should never be taking that hit. It's that simple. Having a Pld pop Tempered will to avoid the knockback implies they are willfully taking additional dmg, and since Tempered Will does nothing to negate that dmg at all, it's actually a bad call to soak for the sake of positioning when you could simply dodge. So, in theory, any knockback that can be dodged is taken out of Tempered Will's utility.

That leaves us with the knockbacks that cannot be dodged. A3 and Nevverreap are the most commonly encountered ones at the moment. 2 Fights, and in Neverreap you can only use Tempered will for 1 out of 2-3 knockbacks, and even if you are using Tempered Will, you usually still have to position yourself accordingly for the sake of not dragging the boss through your knocked back teammates, which means stacking on the AoE until it is done and moving contrary to your team's knockback.... Even if we're calling it a niche, that's a pretty rare occurrence. Right now, A3 is the only fight that I can think of in the entire game where Tempered Will get's a reliable use. It's use can be improved upon, because people tend to forget that it dispels heavies, but those are rare as well, so again, not very useful.

Awareness, on the other hand, has a reliable usage. Niche uses (such as Shiva or T11) are nice, but a Pld can also save Awareness for every single use of Bulwark, thereby increasing the blockrate. That ~20-30% physical dmg mitigation per block (depending on shield type etc). Each successful proc out-mitigates Rampart, in that specific area of dmg. That's a pretty huge impact, especially for Mob tanking. I've even used it to a strong degree in boss fights. It's a bit of a gamble, but Thor Ex: Holy Blade Dance with Sword Oath (essentially a one-shot Tank killer) can be successfully mitigated without Hallowed ground by coupling Awareness/Bulwark/Foresight and a well timed stoneskin from my healer (I didn't have a choice. Shelltron/ HG were still on CD at the time). Even with that Stoneskin, I should have died. Increasing the proc rate of Bulwark saved my life by cutting the dmg of Blade Dance essentially in half. The only problem I have with Awareness on Pld is actually a problem with Bulwark. The CD timers don't line up for Bulwark and Awareness to be used in sync or even with every second usage. Terrible timing. Bulwark's CD timer should be adjusted to match.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

I think the only ability paladins have which I feel needs a big viability boost is Clemency. It -should- be class defining but its implementation makes it stupidly hard to use.

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Clemency is definitely one of the most difficult moves to use in a Pld's kit, but it is also arguably the best active mitigation in the entire game. The only one real problem with with the move itself, and that is figuring out which Tank Busters/AoE's/Cleaves can cancel the cast and which do not. Once you know that, though, your Dmg mitigation goes through the roof. It's takes some timing practice, but AoE dmg is practically a mute point on Pld now. Healers can safely ignore a Pld when they see that Clemency cast bar. Even some Tank Busters can be busted if you just manage to get that timing exact. I'm pretty sure a well timed Tempered Will can have a similar effect for knockback cancellations as well, but I haven't tried it yet (something I'll be sure to try out next time I take a stab at Thor Ex. If Tempered Will secures the cast Clemency during Sacred Cross, then that Dmg would be outright nullified on Pld... Interesting idea. I just have to try it and see if it works).

I do agree, though, that there should be a way of surecasting Clemency in the event of emergencies. It's been mentioned on the forums before that they would be increasing the value of Tempered Will substantially if it just added surecast to it's effect. I'm inclined to agree.

I would be willing to accept a buff to Unsurecast if it stopped knockback. Since it only stops interrupts from damage thanks to the in battle tooltip as opposed to the bad menu tooltip. And Tempered Will of course getting the won't be interrupted from damage.

Unsurecast in the menu says "Cast spells without interruption". Alright. In battle blurb. "Spells will not be interrupted from taking damage". Oh okay. Shouldn't ever take damage except for huge area wide damage anyway but okay.

So in favor of the Paladin skill yes it should get a Surecast effect as well. If you are stopping knockback then damage from attacks shouldn't faze you either.

Tempered Will and Cover don't do enough to justify their cooldowns and restrictions. Having like two fights in the game made more convenient doesn't justify a 3 minute cooldown. Compare Holmgang or Plunge to Tempered Will - even taking the entire class kits into account, it's imbalanced. It's easy to make them useful in *all* fights and cover some holes in the paladin job as well.

Tempered Will - 90s cooldown; Current effects + removes TP cost for the duration. TP issues solved and has synergy with Shield Bash.
Cover - All Covered attacks will be blocked. Lets paladin use Shield Swipe as OT, makes Cover into a decent mitigation tool for the MT when paladin is OT.

Clemency is an ability that has a ridiculous amount of penalties attached to it. They're not really similar abilities, but look at how Inner Beast is designed - why doesn't it have a TP cost? Well, the justification seems to be that you pay for it with Wrath stacks. In return, you gain damage (highest in warrior's kit at the time of release), mitigation, and healing while spending no TP. For Clemency, you don't spend TP, but you give up 3 seconds of auto attacks and weapon skills, break combos, pay a high MP cost, can't move, can't block, and risk interruption. To top it off, it doesn't even scale with skill speed. In order for an ability to cost that much the result has to be worth it, and I don't think Clemency really is in raid fights. The main issue is its slow cast time, but I also think it shouldn't break combos like in 1.0. Additionally, blocking should be available during casts. So, rather than improving its effect I think they should reduce the costs.

Awareness should be a stat on gear - as an active skill, it's terrible.

It's true that skills don't necessarily have to be useful in every fight to be good, however when some of your skills are not useful in almost every fight, I think that's a problem. Same thing with Haymaker, One Ilm Punch, Lethargy, and other skills. When it comes to War/Drk, all of their niche stuff has very useful secondary effects that can be put to use all over the place. If there's no knockback or heavy/bind in a fight (not an uncommon occurrence), you can take Tempered Will off your hotbar and it'll make no difference.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

Tempered Will and Cover don't do enough to justify their cooldowns and restrictions.

Clemency is an ability that has a ridiculous amount of penalties attached to it.

Tempered Will - 90s cooldown; Current effects + removes TP cost for the duration. TP issues solved and has synergy with Shield Bash.
Cover - All Covered attacks will be blocked. Lets paladin use Shield Swipe as OT, makes Cover into a decent mitigation tool for the MT when paladin is OT.
Awareness should be a stat on gear - as an active skill, it's terrible.

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Agreed on all the issues, but not necessarily the solutions. That's especially the case with Awareness on gear, unless crit calculations were somehow modified, or if bosses crit far more than Awareness could make up for (without having a more typical or raid-tier-standard Awareness value be wasted against enemies who crit less frequently). I don't want to have to hit minimum anti-crit stat values to be accepted into raids, again. I really, really don't. That and I don't mind it as an active skill; I just think it ought to be a bit more useful, even if that means increasing enemy crit rates.

Also, that inability to block during casts, ugh... I remember starting into T7 back in the day and remembering that casting Stoneskin to go off at the tail end of a TB actually caused no extra mitigation at all, given that my 10% health was only worth about 24% of the damage, and I already had a Bulwark'ed buckler up that would have probably intercepted the attack otherwise...

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Agreed on all the issues, but not necessarily the solutions. That's especially the case with Awareness on gear

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Agreed. I'm not gonna lie, at first I had the same attitude as pretty much everyone that Awareness was a crummy Cd, but now that I know how to take advantage of it I have totally reversed my opinion. I do agree that it should have something that makes it useful as a stand alone ability, but I'm happy with proc'ing extra blocks with Bulwark with it, or extra dodge/Parry's on Drk. Truly fantastic utility, especially with Mob tanking.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Also, that inability to block during casts, ugh... I remember starting into T7 back in the day and remembering that casting Stoneskin to go off at the tail end of a TB actually caused no extra mitigation at all, given that my 10% health was only worth about 24% of the damage, and I already had a Bulwark'ed buckler up that would have probably intercepted the attack otherwise...

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I feel your pain... For all of the timing that I've heard people complain about regarding Clemency, that's nothing compared to the utter hell it was to try and self-buff with Stoneskin back in the Coil days. Getting the buffer of to your Hp was great, but not being able to block during the cast was monstrous and made timing the cast much harder than it should be. Honestly, looking back at it now, I'm kind of amazed I managed to use the ability as well as I did.