Decrying Shield Swipe

I'm no fan of searching forums, so if this has cropped up somewhere already, then so be it.

I'm here to understand and hopefully improve the ability called Shield Swipe in my own opinions and experiences as a long time Paladin.
While this ability has it's uses in very specific circumstances, it's easily and unforgivingly overshadowed by Shield Bash and other types of Stun. Stun has the same principles as Pacification where it only lasts 6 - 3 - 1 seconds within a 60 second window and is consistently resisted by anything and everything after Ifrit.

It comes with a nasty prerequisite of having to block something first and has the audacity to go "lose proc" after about 8-10 seconds and only prevents the enemy from using "weapon skills" sort of like the old Amnesia from 11 and v1.

However, beyond Ifrit it has absolutely 0 use what so ever. Even in Ifrit if you have a capable off-tank stunning Eruption you don't even need it. Sure, you can blot out Plumes as well if you block and execute the ability with perfect timing in sync with Ifrit readying Plumes, but outside of that - useless. Against a random mob it's not necessary because they die quickly and it's really more of a gimmick that gives you a minor reprieve but is far less important than all of the other skills you can/should be using.

I'd like to put forward a suggestion. Get rid of Pacification entirely and provide Shield Swipe an ability similar to Rain of Death. I don't feel I have to explain why that would be so apropos for a Paladin.

Granted, that might give them an even bigger leg up over Warriors, but with the coming boost they're receiving (and what that is, I'm not even sure yet, nor am I going to stick my pin in one of the many rumors) it would keep both classes as even as possible without tipping the balance.

Please note I use the word "similar" to Rain of Death because if a Paladin has incredible luck they could keep that damage dealing debuff up nearly constantly. It can be resisted over time like everything else (because Bard's pay a heavy price in TP for RoD) but at least it's one skill that isn't going to fall by the way-side. There are very few abilities other classes have that End Game bosses resist fully and this is one skill that Paladin's just have to chuck in the garbage can and leave off their hot bar; and this leads to a problem I've had with ARR since day one and the severe lack of skills each class has at their disposal (when comparing to 11 and v1, anyway).

To take one away and make it as useless as Shield Swipe is has a tendency to cripple a class as content comes out that can easily do away with more skills just to make the content "harder" AKA Artificial Difficulty. Making the majority of content we encounter fully resistant to stun is one thing; but this makes two skills Paladins have no use for in End Game content; and what does that mean for later content when the cap goes up?

Damn you 1k character limit. -_-

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Originally Posted by Lyniaer

Damn you 1k character limit. -_-

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You can edit your post to get around the limit. >_>

On bosses, once you have a sizeable threat lead, you should mix in a shield swipe once every 6 or so halone rotations. You do this because shield swipe is actually tp-positive, so on long fights you won't run out of tp.

Worthless ability. If you're running out of TP, so are the DPS, meaning a BRD will probably be using Paeon.

A lot of paladins will say throw in a Shield Swipe here and there to save TP on long fights. That's true to an extent - you can do similar though with slipping Flash into your single target rotations more. Paladins have very low TP costs compared to pretty much every other class, so as said, you really should be running out of TP -last-, but it's still a minor reason for Shield Swipe. If the fight is long and you have a threat lead, try and use it here and there.

It does have other uses though. It's slightly more damage-per-GCD than the Halone Combo too (Halone combo averages 203 potency per GCD, Shield Swipe is 210) so if you have a decent threat lead and want to contribute to DPS more, you'll do a little more damage by using Shield Swipe as often as possible over just spamming Halone.

Also, it -can- be a good thing to use on trash mobs for damage reduction. Yes, a 6 second stun is better but both stuns and pacifications have diminishing returns. If you're pulling a big pack of mobs and you know most have nasty melee abilities, tabbing to off-targets to throw alternately stuns-then-swipes can certainly help... though in today's day of mass pulling speed runs chances are that you can't really afford to do that without threat issues. It's still a viable skill to weave.

But in general... you could likely remove shield swipe from your bars and only see a tiny loss in effectiveness. It has its uses, but they're situational.

I'd like to see them do more with Shield Swipe. It could maybe combo into Spirits Within, Circle of Scorn, or Shield Bash for some bonus effect. Riot Blade could really use something else to make it more commonly used, too. I use both WSes, but I could just as easily not do so most of the time.

I think what every paladin would love is for Shield Swipe to be exactly the same as it is now, but have a 3 or 4 x enmity modifier. 3.5x would be great - noticeably less overall than Halone, but would be slightly more threat per GCD than the average of the halone combo.

That way, pressing Shield Swipe would be threat-positive at all times over doing a Halone Combo. That's the issue with Shield Swipe now. It procs fairly often but you're loathed to use it unless you have a threat lead. If you -wanted- to press Shield Swipe in any situation it was up, it would feel a lot better. The alternative is to pull it off the GCD and give it a cooldown but that feels like it would lose some of its uniqueness.

The only problem with making Shield Swipe always worth pressing or an off-gcd ability is that it becomes a lot like Bard's Bloodletter - you can just macro it onto every step of your combo and it'll just automagically fire off. Although in that situation you'd only use it in place of Fast Blade or Savage Blade, I guess. I'd really like it if paladin got some form of actual decision making in how it uses WSes and abilities.

At this point I'd take whatever, though. The pacification is cool but so few things are actually affected by it. It also occurs to me that maybe the reason Shield Swipe isn't an amazing skill is because if gladiator was balanced around using it then they'd possibly be weak against caster mobs.

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Originally Posted by Garnatian

Worthless ability. If you're running out of TP, so are the DPS, meaning a BRD will probably be using Paeon.

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Except not, because DPS have Invigorate and you don't. DPS have ~17% higher TP regen than tanks.

my two cents.

Halone combo is the only current 3 ability combo that a PLD has. Riot Blade needs a 3rd WS to complete a 3 ability cycle, so I would say make shield swipe a finisher for Riot blade, but you would only be able to do it post proc, and that proc has to come during a riot blade cycle.

here is my proposal:

there are already 3 shield abilities. Start the fight off with shield lob... run in and stun, and shield swipe for +Damage, +threat.
If you proc a block in this 3 hit combo, shield swipe does AoE and Pacification. OP? maybe... Awesome? Definitly.

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Originally Posted by PessimiStick

Except not, because DPS have Invigorate and you don't. DPS have ~17% higher TP regen than tanks.

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And you have Flash which doesn't cost TP and generates perfectly reasonable threat. You should never be capped on MP and the GCDs used will easily make up for over 400 TP.

There's nothing wrong with shield swipe. Content that resists pacify also resists stun so I fail to see how comparing shield bash and shield swipe has any merit (but there are a few cases where things that resist stun don't resist pacify, so bonus there). It's a tp positive skill, does good damage, doesn't interrupt combo progression, with another debuff that doesn't share stun's resistance, and if you're having problems blocking (especially with a skill like Bulwark) then you have bigger issues to fix. This plus flash plus stoneskin are how good pld's mitigate their tp usage.

Take if off GCD

/fixed

Edit: @ Lord_Zlatan Why off GCD? Because it has requirements to cast. Aka blocking. We can't spam it unless we pull large groups or kill low levels. And it would be nice to weave it in during our combo. The dmg is not huge and will marginally increase our dmg and threat output.

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Originally Posted by KittenJitsu

Take if off GCD

/fixed

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how so? how long of a CD? it can't be a skill with no cast time for only 40 TP.

Its fine ON the GCD... i like to toss it in after a savage blade and before Rage of Halone if I have FoF popped... noticeable damage increase. I just also think the potential is there, if kept ON the GCD that it can be combo'd with other shield abilities.

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Originally Posted by KittenJitsu

Edit: @ Lord_Zlatan Why off GCD? Because it has requirements to cast. Aka blocking. We can't spam it unless we pull large groups or kill low levels. And it would be nice to weave it in during our combo. The dmg is not huge and will marginally increase our dmg and threat output.

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Actually, the damage it deals is quite huge. It's a 210 potency attack which is higher than the average potency/GCD of the Halone combo that you're spamming all the time. Taking it off GCD without giving it a pretty big CD and/or a drastic reduction in damage would end up being a pretty massive buff to total PLD damage, especially since, with a high block rate shield, you'll be able to use it every 4-5 GCDs or pretty much every GCD if you have Bulwark up.

Taking it off GCD would necessitate, at the very least, a reduction to 50-75 potency and a CD of at least 15 seconds. Leaving it as is and just taking it off GCD would make it *insanely* strong.

Honestly, I think most PLDs would be perfectly happy to use it if it had a high enmity modifier, as previously recommended. I don't think that it needs to have an enmity mod as high as 3-3.5x (Halone combo averages 683 enmity potency per GCD, pre Shield Oath; 3-3.5x would put Shield Swipe at 630-735), mainly because I still believe that Halone *should* be what you spam to generate enmity and that higher damage/efficiency options should come at something of a cost, even if they're proc based. If Shield Swipe had even a 2x enmity modifier it would see a lot more use because the opportunity cost to your enmity generation wouldn't be as significant, which is the main reason why people use it now. At 2x enmity, you wouldn't want to use it in the opening volley because you haven't established an enmity cushion, but you'd want to use it regularly after because, while it would be a decrease in enmity generation, it wouldn't be a major decrease like it is now (at 2x, Halone combo>Shield Swipe would manage 617.7 enmity potency/GCD and 205 damage potency/GCD at the cost of 60 TP/GCD; Halone spam manages 683.3, 203.3, and 63.3; right now, Halone>Shield Swipe manages to drop your enmity potency/GCD to 565).

Honestly, Shield Swipe exists in that same weird place as Fracture does: using it is a *little* better for your damage than not using it, but not by anything approaching a noticeable amount. It's really just an ability that exists to provide the illusion of options/complexity.

It's a big attack, is nearly free to use, doesn't interrupt the RoH combo, I do not rely on pacification to have any effect, just as I do not expect stun to ever land (if it does great, but when I really need it, it fails)... Warriors are already crying that they can't hang, so I don't see yet one more reason to give them to cry.

There are serious issues with the game that need to be addressed. IMO, SE should focus all resources to fixing those problems and not spend one moment kowtowing to anyone crying for modifying the skill sets of any class.

For a large percentage of the FFXIV community, the game is nearly unplayable. That should be the priority.

It's a nice ability in certain situations. Like.. the last boss of AK. I FoF on the pull, and once it's back up I Bulwark/FoF and spam Shield Swipe for ubar deeps.
Otherwise, I only use it on the Dullahans/Robed MRDs in AK, or in situations where I'm low on TP(T1).

I don't really think engineering hours should be burned on improving it, but I think it would be amazing if..
1. Removed from GCD.
2. Scale potency with shield block value.
3. Remove Pacify.

1 is to give it a reason to exist.
2 is to not make it OP by throwing on a low block value/high block rate shield, and it gives you slightly more of an incentive to +1 your shield or get the alla shield.
3 is because Stun > Pacify, unless a DRG in your group is DRing stun by leg sweeping in their OGCDs(like they should be).


The main thought process is for us to have something to fill OGCDs, but not make or break us in terms of threat/dps gains. It also increases the risk of being animation locked when you have to interrupt/need to react to a boss mechanic - preventing macroing it into your halone combo and increasing the skillcap on PLD.

I'd really like to see shield swipe just reworked to being something defensive rather than remove it off the GCD or give it an enmity modifier.

Maybe rework it to where it allows you to give yourself a ~10-15 second buff that increases the next shield block strength or something.

Like someone else already mentioned: the only problem shield swipe has is that is has no +emnity modifier. If it had I would use it every time it's up, at the moment I rarely use it unless I'm running out of TP and even then I usually just spam flash.