New Skill / Shield Bash Effect? (Vs Low Blow Semi-Redundancy)

This isn't a dire issue (not really an issue tbh) but I was hoping Paladin could see a new skill or effect to Shield Bash seeing as Shield Bash being on gcd that affects your combos, low blow not, and the difference being 1 second stun (it can be important, but also usually not).

https://i.imgur.com/S8rjAAN.png https://i.imgur.com/L4tL2Cr.png

I just feel like they're too similar and it sort of makes the use of one make the other feel a bit eh. I'm not saying Shield Bash is always useless or something but I do feel like with the existence of Low Blow that Shield Bash is a near duplicate skill that will also mess with your rotation.

And so if we changed Shield Bash to do something else that we'd see a lot more use out of the skill then.

You can of course spam stun unlike low blow which is on 25 second cooldown but.. unless the world is crumbling and you need to stun lock everything you'd be better off actually doing your aoe mechanics than stun locking everyone with shield bash (or doesn't matter in normal play because someone probably made them immune anyways lol).

So an idea I had (one concept of many I'm sure people could think of, feel free/please to add some! :D)-

Shield Bash:
(oGCD, moderate cooldown)

Deals moderate potency oGCD and grants the effect of Fortify to you and half your shield strength (not half rate) to nearby party members for the duration of fortify.

Fortify duration: 10s

While under the effect of Fortify your shield block potency (absorption) will be increased by X%. Adds a stack of Rebuke to the Paladin for each attack blocked (including those triggered by your skill on allies).

While fortify could be applied to allies at half power I think fortify could be seen as an aura around the Paladin rather than simply a radius buff that lasts 10 seconds, making the imagery of you being the fortress even more clear.

Fortify will work in conjunction with other shield related skills.

Fortify visual (not needed) could be an effect that makes the shield appear larger (tower shield like appearance).

Rebuke:
Empowers your next shield lob. (Talent later perhaps applies some of this to Paladin skills and infuses some holy/white magic into it).

Shield Lob:
Consumes all Rebuke stacks to become oGCD (doesn't interrupt combos) and increase the potency of shield lob, such that not using it at least with max stacks would most definitely be a DPS loss.

May want to make the increased enmity effect only active while in tank stance, may or may not be an issue (Paladin chucking an increased enmity 300 potency shield lob could get some big enmity numbers with the multiplier lol).

I think later Paladin could then get a talent that makes rebuke work for other skills and make somethings holy theme'd (because Paladin).

So for example-

When you have stacks of Rebuke Cover gains a partial of it's damage reduction back (that we, it appears, to be losing in 5.0). Maybe something like (to fit the theme Rebuke/Holy Judgement), for every stack of rebuke cover will generate a single holy nova when the targeted player takes 10% of their health in damage (that of course being transferred to you). Nova will lightly heal and lightly damage in a radius around the covered target.

Shield Lob becomes Holy Spear- a big holy bolt like Zeus chucking thunderbolts or Dark Souls Sun Spears (aww yuss). Even more potency!

https://media.giphy.com/media/Zp4isw2uEhP20/giphy.gif

Some thoughts on Shield Bash becoming a shield block potency up skill is that you might see players decide to use it in a few different locations. Like do they attempt to use it before Passage of Arms, Cover, or Sheltron? Trying to figure optimal use of the skill for both offense and defense.

With cover and or a co-tank do they get a new short pseudo-third rotation of holy bolts weaved with normal attacks? While fortify and sheltron is up and if they were soaking in loads of rebuke they might mix a non-FoF rotation with their holy bolts and other enhanced skill shields, and then once Fortify is out they would go into FoF/Magic rotation as normal. Since if Rebuke triggers enough (sheltron/cover) you could get probably ~2-3 full strength holy bolts off.

In a really simplified way you might see it as a sort of Dark Arts (except on longer cooldown/not spammy).

Also I do want to say we could cut out all of the rebuke mechanics and it just being a oGCD damaging skill with some utility, but I thought it could be fun to see shield lob be used in a unique context (compared to other tank's pulls) and also extra fun to see it upgraded into a Sun Spear (I really want a sun spear / holy bolt thing lol).

In terms of a timeline, first I'm not pushing hard for it to be done but I think what might be "reasonable" if SE was interested in changing shield bash could be sometime in this expansion and then consider adding the rebuke later if Paladin needs tweaked for other balance reasons. If Paladin doesn't need tweaked then rebuke mechanic could be just something to consider for the next expansion.

Tl;dr- the similarity between Low Blow (role action) and Shield Bash is high and I think we could see a new effect for higher use and diversity. It's not the end of the world or some incredible doom if it doesn't change but I just like having unique skills at my finger tips and due to Low Blow I don't feel very compelled to love Shield Bash.

But you can spam shield bash. It's very handy stun locking certain enemies. I don't think it needs changing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

But you can spam shield bash. It's very handy stun locking certain enemies. I don't think it needs changing.

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I did mention that, but I also think it's a bit boring and not very useful compared to just "killing them". Like in an AoE context I could stun lock them.. orrrr I could just use proper damage reduction and aoe them instead making the clean up faster lol. There are some cases that everything has gone so south that stun locking a single target might be dandy but I still feel the 25 second cooldown is well enough for low blow stuns and if you needed some extra survivability we could bake that in a more interesting way, they're just too similar for shield bash to be interesting as it could be imo.

Maybe if we kept it exactly the same but removed the combo killing part of it, but I still just am not in love with the effect since Low Blow.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I did mention that, but I also think it's a bit boring and not very useful compared to just "killing them" (I could stun lock them.. orrrr I could just use proper damage reduction and aoe them instead making the clean up faster lol). There are some cases that everything has gone so south that stun locking a single target might be dandy but I still feel the 10 second cooldown is well enough for low blow, they're just to similar for shield bash to be bash interesting imo.

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There are certain mobs where it's useful tho, such as the add in Levi ex, certain enemies in potd, HoH, and such, where extra tank damage wouldn't help, but keeping it stunned let's the party burn it down before the evil can happen.

Also the dread knight in t5 was stun locked to prevent it from murdering people.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

There are certain mobs where it's useful tho, such as the add in Levi ex, certain enemies in potd, HoH, and such, where extra tank damage wouldn't help, but keeping it stunned let's the party burn it down before the evil can happen.

Also the dread knight in t5 was stun locked to prevent it from murdering people.

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That just brings up other problems were you need to bring a Paladin because of shield stun spam (or consider needing, some days you don't get a choice lol). Still am not sold on keeping it as it is, but I guess we know that :D.

That'd be the bottom line, I don't really care for shield bash- even though I know it "can" be useful in very specific scenarios. I'd rather use my oGCD interrupts as fights were designed (in the mind of other tanks at least lol) and gain some new item to the rotation than have a GCD to use that does what the oGCD do but with the power of spam (that also destroys my combos, sending damage down the hill).

The shield bash has saved me several times when dealing with crappy healers in DF. I say leave it as is.

I wouldn't know where to start with altering Shield Bash to be honest...

The skill is in that weird place where it has some uses but also feels redundant a lot (Especially with them changing how Interject works so you won't need to STUN to interrupt abilities and weapon skills)

But at the same time... What can really be done with it?

I mean, looking across the Tanks kits, the only thing I really see missing from Paladin, is a 90s CD self defense skill akin to Thrill of Battle, Camouflage and Dark Mind. But I think this might be because of OPtron being by far the best short CD defense skill due to the way that block works and scales.

That said, perhaps there's a way to turn Shield Bash into a 90s CD that wouldn't just break Paladin? Such as making it a skill that will generate 50 Oath Gauge on use? Meaning that a Paladin can instantly generate enough Oath to use OPtron/Intervention/Cover so that if you're short of Oath, you have this skill you can pop and guarantee that you're able to use your active mitigation skills, or allow you to use 2 skills back to back (Such as Cover + OPtron so you can mitigate some of the damage you're diverting to yourself in lieu of the trait that currently does that effect)

What if it was changed to have a longer recast (30s?) but make it a conal AoE stun? That would be cool. Anyways just a random thought.

That skills wasn't even on my toolbars. If you need a stun, low blows is always better as it is an oGCD giving you the stun for free. It was just a button any competent tank would never use.

I've always loved Paladin for being able to Stun spam, Silence, and Pacify.
We just lost our Pacify. I am not ready to lose our Stun lock as well.
Stunning dangerous mobs for 10 seconds (6, 3, 1) has saved me in all content minus Savage.

Palace of the Dead, Heaven on High, Eureka Hydatos specifically. Where failing to stun mobs can cost you three to seven hours worth of progress. Personal DPS doesn't matter when a mob on Floor 90 is hitting you for almost half your health and his best friend decides to aggro as well.