My Very Own "Three Ideas for Paladins" Thread

So we all know that Paladins are having some issues right now. Our DPS (and thus, our enmity) are in trouble. And there have been a half dozen threads from different people giving their ideas on what could "fix" Paladins, as it were. Not one to let other people have the fun, I thought to contribute.

1. Double the Potency of Flash: During 1-30, Flash is one of the most potent abilities that a tank can use, and will easily set that tank well above the enmity generated by others in the group. But as DPS got more powerful, Flash...didn't. It got neutered through no fault of its own, and I think that needs to be fixed. Doubling (or maybe 1.5x) would suffice.
2. Shorten Circle of Scorn's Recast Timer to 15s: Let it be something we can constantly have up. The enmity generated through this attack and subsequent DoT are life-saving in high-AoE groups (I'm looking at BLM and SMN here).
3. Double Shield Slam Potency or Remove from GCD: Maybe not double potency, but it needs to be off GCD if it's going to be worth using. The mitigation gain from Pacification is minimal and situational, and it's a net DPS loss with its current potency. But doubling the potency and/or pulling it off the GCD would make it much more useful.

In any case, I do hope we hear from SE about the PLD problems soon. I've never seen a forum in so much agreement about something, so I'd like to think that they aren't blind. But nevertheless, we shall see what 3.1 brings.

It's probably already been mentioned in one of the thousands of other PLD suggestion threads but I would be a fan of a stronger potency/lower cd circle of scorn with the enmity modifier removed as long as they increased the enmity modifiers on our actual damage combos. Flash generates more than enough aoe enmity and we severely lack in the aoe dps department so that could be a decent middle ground.

One more aoe and Agrias oaks skill plz n adjusments to some skills like clemency,shieldswipe, divine veil, tempered will,cover,spirit whitin ( that potency red as hp red is lame),sheltron (block mag), and laat but not least, turn PLD into agrias oaks aka holy knight.

Tempered will is fine. Spirits within is also fine if you use it as OT.

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Originally Posted by Tadus

One more aoe and Agrias oaks skill plz n adjusments to some skills like clemency,shieldswipe, divine veil, tempered will,cover,spirit whitin ( that potency red as hp red is lame),sheltron (block mag), and laat but not least, turn PLD into agrias oaks aka holy knight.

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Originally Posted by rawker

Tempered will is fine. Spirits within is also fine if you use it as OT.

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Spirits is fine as MT too, since it's off GCD and doesn't have a cost associated with use. It's basically free DPS with the potential to interrupt a cast on a 30(?) second CD. Or it would have potential to interrupt a cast if bosses weren't immune to silence.

I had to go to Google to find out who Agrias Oaks is, but I'm not sure if modeling PLD after another character from the FF series is a great idea, since the series has been kind of wishy-washy about what a PLD/Knight actually IS (I'm cooking another thread about Paladin identity that will expand on this).

Clemency could stand to be instant-cast, and I'd like to see it trigger Divine Veil (there's nothing in the tooltips to say that it doesn't, so it seems like it's a last-minute thing). It's not horrible as it is, but it's hard to find a time when you have three seconds uninterrupted to cast it. Maybe make it insta-cast on self, 3s on others?

Shield Swipe (not Slam, silly WoW refugee OP) could use more potency and to be off GCD. The Pacification debuff is a nice touch against most trash, but it doesn't feel very rewarding to press against bosses. If increased potency isn't enough of a draw, then a short-term damage reduction could be nice to add (bringing it in line with what WAR and DRK have).

Tempered Will is basically a get-out-of-CC-free button, and for that purpose it works fine. Would be more useful if more of the fights had slow or root effects, but I'm not sure how much we want that.

Cover needs no adjustment, save maybe increasing the range. It works absolutely fine as it is, and I've been more than able to save errant DPS and healers from it. Especially if you pair it with something like Hallowed Ground or other mitigation, you can negate a TON of damage.

I'd like to see block affect magic somehow. I don't think we should be as good against magic as DRK (they need their niche), but right now all we have is the raw damage reduction, and it would feel a lot better if our shields gave us some defense. So I agree here.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

So we all know that Paladins are having some issues right now. Our DPS (and thus, our enmity) are in trouble. And there have been a half dozen threads from different people giving their ideas on what could "fix" Paladins, as it were. Not one to let other people have the fun, I thought to contribute.

1. Double the Potency of Flash: During 1-30, Flash is one of the most potent abilities that a tank can use, and will easily set that tank well above the enmity generated by others in the group. But as DPS got more powerful, Flash...didn't. It got neutered through no fault of its own, and I think that needs to be fixed. Doubling (or maybe 1.5x) would suffice.
2. Shorten Circle of Scorn's Recast Timer to 15s: Let it be something we can constantly have up. The enmity generated through this attack and subsequent DoT are life-saving in high-AoE groups (I'm looking at BLM and SMN here).
3. Double Shield Slam Potency or Remove from GCD: Maybe not double potency, but it needs to be off GCD if it's going to be worth using. The mitigation gain from Pacification is minimal and situational, and it's a net DPS loss with its current potency. But doubling the potency and/or pulling it off the GCD would make it much more useful.

In any case, I do hope we hear from SE about the PLD problems soon. I've never seen a forum in so much agreement about something, so I'd like to think that they aren't blind. But nevertheless, we shall see what 3.1 brings.

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1. Flash is more than strong enough as it is for pure enmity. If you lose aggro in AoE while using it, you didn't use enough of it or your DPS are burning stuff down individually, hard.
2. I can get behind this or something like this, PLD AoE is pretty painful in dungeons. Most groups don't even bring PLD to A2S anymore, arguably the best turn for PLD mitigation wise, since it's so inferior to better AoE tanks.
3. Double the potency is too much but I think the community at large thinks it should at least be approximately as strong as the average damage of a PLD combo. Upper 200s would be very nice.

To be honest I don't any problem with skills of that Paladin have I main Paladin an STR to keep that in mind. Flash, Circle of Sircon, Spirit within, and some other Paladin skills are fine. I have my own Opener and my own AoE hate rotations it could be common to some people, But work fine,

Now to give my opinion on OPs main post:
1. I would have to agree to an extent on increasing Flash enmity modifier for PLDs since first of all, it does not deal damage and Blind is a situational debuff that doesn't even do much for us although the amount shouldn't surpass that of RoH combo as it will render the combo obsolete in terms of threat generation.

2. CoS lasts for 15 secs, right? If that's so, then we have a 100% uptime DoT. Hmm... WARs have Fracture and DRK has one also... I guess it will not hurt if we have one, too. I like it. It will address our AoE damage problem. Though if that's the case, then its threat generation needs to be lowered.

3. Shield Bash is fine as it is, damage-wise.. it's just the TP cost that is pretty off. Though an increase is always welcomed. :D

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

Double Shield Slam Potency or Remove from GCD: Maybe not double potency, but it needs to be off GCD if it's going to be worth using.

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I see people suggesting taking Shield Swipe off the GCD a lot, but you have to be careful with that; without adding a way for the PLD to manage TP, taking Shield Swipe off the GCD would make PLD's TP management worse.

I'd prefer Swipe remain on GCD, but see another additional effect added to it in recognition of the steep penalty of it's GCD cost. It was buffed in 3.0, but I think it could go further; ie Swipe provides a buff to the PLD that increases the potency, adds an enmity modifier, or debuff to the next WS used. This way it could improve both single target (Swipe > RA) or multi-target (Swipe > CoS) tanking.