Shield Swipe, is it even on your bar anymore?

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Originally Posted by TirionCrey

snip...but still it's a stupid design choice.

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I think you are misunderstanding my point - yes, having it on the GCD is detrimental to the usefulness of the skill. It is that way because it is a powerful skill. Theorycrafters have all but proven PLD is (right now, with current knowledge) superior in single target damage and overall tanking ability. I just feel like you are asking for too much. You are already the best tank, but you want to be able to stun/interrupt without any sort of reduction in any of your other abilities? We are tanks by occupation, we are going to need to sacrifice some of our abilities to fill an alternate role.

I think it is very balanced and they made this well. They made it difficult (not impossible) to tank Ifrit and stun at the same time, so that there is actually a use for your second tank - why do you think they have 2 tank slots in these things? As far as it being frustrating...it supposed to be frustrating to fill two roles at once. They want you to work together, not be so powerful that you can fill two roles with ease.

PS - we're talking about Shield Swipe, but RE: your "skillful play" comment. It IS skillful play because you need to know when not to spam your GCD stuff because you need to be reactive to being able to stun. It takes the skill OUT of it if you can do it whenever you want.

I use this skill whenever I can. It doesn't interrupt my combo and it actually does produce enmity just like any other damaging skill would. The only difference is that unlike the RoH combo which has an additional bonus of enmity added this is just straight damage.

With Shield Oath activated the damage you do from Shield Swipe is multiplied so it actually does create a decent amount of enmity.

I wouldn't say open with a shield swipe, but after a few RoH combos it's a good skill to weave in. Especially if you just popped bulwark, the damage mitigation from blocking and the damage you do from shield swipe makes it a good skill to have. Personally I like it, but I think it could be better with it off GCD, but that might be too OP. High blocking rate shield and shield swipe off gcd would allow you do some decent damage, which for the developers is not allowed.

Pretty much just use it when you're running low on TP and need to conserve. You'll do more damage per GCD with the RoH combo and the pacify is often unreliable, particularly if you have other people in the group throwing out debuffs too. Not only are bosses often immune, but there's diminishing returns to consider. I kinda just expect to see it fully resisted these days. So the real draw to the ability is for TP efficiency, and that only becomes a concern late in a long fight where you have no real threat concerns to deal with. I think it's on my 5 key, which is somewhere easy to reach but not part of the main rotation.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

You should only use it when tanking for either a.) the pacification effect or b.) conserving TP on long boss fights.

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This. Particularly the bolded. Pacification won't work on anything that truly matters, but for long fights like Titan HM, you can actually run out of TP rather quickly just from spamming the Halone Combo. Bulwark -> Swield Swipe is a great way to keep the enmity building up while letting your TP recover. I also prefer using it for DPS phases.

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Originally Posted by Tanaya

This. Particularly the bolded. Pacification won't work on anything that truly matters, but for long fights like Titan HM, you can actually run out of TP rather quickly just from spamming the Halone Combo. Bulwark -> Swield Swipe is a great way to keep the enmity building up while letting your TP recover. I also prefer using it for DPS phases.

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I'd rather spend the GDC on flash to be honest if I need to let TP regenerate some as it generates more enmity and costs 0 TP if you are trying to regenerate TP.

To answer the original question, it's pretty much off my bar as well. I simply don't have room for it in my normal rotations and I don't feel like I'm missing something by not using it which is a shame since Paladins have such a limited set of situational skills as it is.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

I'd rather spend the GDC on flash to be honest if I need to let TP regenerate some as it generates more enmity and costs 0 TP if you are trying to regenerate TP.

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It's a good point and I agree with it. Though I try to keep Flash's blind effect up, so I try to use it in moderation.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

I'd rather spend the GDC on flash to be honest if I need to let TP regenerate some as it generates more enmity and costs 0 TP if you are trying to regenerate TP.

To answer the original question, it's pretty much off my bar as well. I simply don't have room for it in my normal rotations and I don't feel like I'm missing something by not using it which is a shame since Paladins have such a limited set of situational skills as it is.

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When we were doing titan progression and farming out lb's, I was on the tp floor alot. But I would just flash until out of mp and rejoin. Usually by then you've made it into jump phases and its a non issue.

On Turn 1, I've tried both methods. Really, there doesn't seem to be any difference in terms of threat (honestly flash probably earns more as most times I've tinkered around and read about it, there seems to be about 500-600 points of enmity from it, and my swipe in full hdl with curtana +1 doesn't hit cad for 600.) I would still use swipe just to up dps a little, but... that's when you've reached the point in your play that your'e also keeping fracture up to up your dps--cus, you know, tank dps has been relevent ever to anything.

The real problem is that its SUCH a hate loss compared to ROH. In any encountere where threat matters (such as cad, cus if your off tank is dpsing you have to build enough threat to let them pewpew, and they won't be getting swipe procs so they'll never stop using their main threat combo), its impossible to use, and honestly, if its an encounter where tank dps matters, its probably one where threat matters. Even on last boss in AK I don't use it (at least not for the first good chunk of the fight) cus which ever dps is full time should be close on threat. I desperately wish this skill was off gcd with a 15 second cool down. I get that it is 1.0's phalanx, but... its just not. Phalanx was a threat tool, it was cool, you actually focused on it as it was a primary threat tool. Phalanx was worth its usage time in both hate and damage. See elsewehre: the shield mattered in 1.0 and in 2.0 is just decoration.

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Originally Posted by PessimiStick

I have literally never seen the pacification cancel a cast that was already in progress. It prevents *new* casts, but if it can act like an interrupt, it seems to be incredibly rare.

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By cast, do you mean spell or ability? I've seen it interrupt plenty of abilities, but typically only on trash. Almost every boss is rightfully immune to it.

There's no reason you can't use Flash as well when TP gets low. Just the blind effect will hit diminishing returns and once that happens all you're getting out of it is threat without the added damage or debuff. Not really the best use of your time when threat isn't much issue. Which... if you've spent all your TP and don't have threat then you're in deep trouble and something went wrong a ways back.

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Originally Posted by Steeled

By cast, do you mean spell or ability? I've seen it interrupt plenty of abilities, but typically only on trash. Almost every boss is rightfully immune to it.

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I've never seen it cancel an ability or spell that was already being cast. I only really paid attention to it when soloing stuff, but the cast bars always complete if I pacify during the cast.