Blind, Pacification & Raids

I kind of hate that some of DRK and Paladins tools for mitigation are largely irrelevant in raiding, and do not know why the mechanics could not persist but be balanced around (i.e with partial effects).

Blind: So this was an issue in Titan Ex: You could blind him and he might miss a table flip on a tank, and ever since then its felt every boss/ex is immune to blind. I'm unsure why this ability could not remain but simply be made to only effect auto attack mechanics, and not abilities. That would preserve it from not working on busters and tank swap mechanics, but allow it to provide some mitigation.

Pacification: Similarly, not great--almost EVERYTHING is immune to this effect. I would love to see it actually replaced off shield swipe with another effect, such as a temporary debuff the a targets damage (-5% for 5 seconds, or increased block chance).

Very true. I'm not 100% sure but I think its impossible to "dodge" boss attacks too (from raids) which makes Feather Foot useless too (and a dark knight skill cant remember the name).

CHANGES MUST BE MADE!

Not all skills are, or need to be, relevant for all content. In the case of blind, both Flash and Dark Passenger are clearly most relevant in AOE situations where blind is a much more beneficial status because against several enemies where the statistics become more relevant.
Even if you fashion it to work against bosses as you've said, it's just unreliable mitigation for only the least-threatening attacks. You'd still better served spending the GCD (flash) or huge mana draw (DA+DP) on something else.

Then for shield swipe: It's a good skill even if pacification didn't exist at all. It adds DPS most of the time and saves TP.

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Originally Posted by Rbstr

Not all skills are, or need to be, relevant for all content.

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I suppose not but it would be nice if they were.

The only reason i have shield swipe on now is TP.The dmg it does isirrelevant compared to the new combos.


I never use it unless i will have tp issues later, adding in pacification would be great, perhaps at least, as you said for blind, on auto attacks.


Too many skills in this game have so little uses.
Excuses like What the person said above arent valid imo when the stuff it DOES work on are things that are trivial and barely done.
Pacification. Sleep. Blind. Fient(slow). Featherfoot. One ilm punch. Stun(more useful then anything listed but still underused). Keen flurry. The list goes on.


All of these things are useful in Solo Content and PVP.
These skills were USEFUL while leveling from 50 to 60, but became useless once you could just burn.
People use it in pvp, its useful, but most people dont pvp.

I have had pacification save my butt a few times but can't say it successfully worked in a raid scenario. I noticed it only works on an ability that is in progress. It doesn't stop the ability like an interrupt but the end of the timer results in no ability.

While I would love to test it I don't want to guinea pig a pug group.

Shield swipe does not add dps anymore. Despite its buff, the damage of shield swipe is less than the average dps of the goring blade (without dot) or royal authority combo. Given it costs a gcd, if you want damage you are better off just doing your royal authority combo and ignoring the proc. The threat gain seems to (according to blue garter testing) not be very much--an extra savage blade or so. The gain in dps was good compared to the rage of halone combo, but only barely. The saving in tp is also very slight (about 10 tp recovered per shield swipe).

In general, shield swipe is a trap for paladins that don't understand the mechanics of the class or, rarely, need more aggro (but realistically, this is almost never a concern outside the first few moments of a fight or right after a tank swap).

Personally, I feel that if the main mechanic of it (pacify) isn't useful in all of these situations combined with the fact that it has diminishing returns on the duration, it might be time to take the attack off the gcd or buff it's damage significantly.

If Shield swipe was off gcd--that would be good enough. A 210 off gcd reset attack (remove its emnity, remove its pacification) would make many paladins quite happy. Right now, any paladin that does the math does not use this ability. In your normal combo of goring--> rage--->royal, you have no where to fit it in. It's *not* a damage upgrade (average damage on 2/3 of your combos is higher, and its only SLIGHTLY better than one) and if you use it, either goring or rage will fall off your target. Add into the fact everything worth anything is immune of pacification (or seems to ignore it, even in dungeons). Lastly, in dungeons it can actually make you take more damage. Pacification largely stops creatures from using telegraphed attacks--things you dodge as a tank. Pacify something, and it keeps auto attacking instead (something they DONT do while casting their telegraph).

Blind has a use in dungeons that falls off in raiding, but why should it have to? In original 2.0 content, blind effected raid type creatures. Titan EX could be blinded, but the problem was it caused his mountain buster /tank swap mechanic to miss and there fore invalidating a mechanic. Before this--all content could be blinded. After this, no raid content could be blinded. It was a step SE took that was a big heavy handed, rather than changing the mechanic. Take it this way; you can storms path/eye ALL content--it has an effect on mitigation and gameplay, but certain mechanics do not work on ALL content. Understandably, some things (stun, sleep, etc) that interrupt the flow of a fight are off limits, but if blind only effected auto attacks, it would hardly be ground breaking (given you can still dodge auto attacks in the same content--just not 'abilities' used by raid bosses).

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Originally Posted by Faytte

Right now, any paladin that does the math does not use this ability.

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In long fights do you still believe this to be true? Shield Swipe tends to help with tp management.

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Originally Posted by Wintersandman

In long fights do you still believe this to be true? Shield Swipe tends to help with tp management.

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Only fight that I can think of that needs tp management at the moment is the one level 60 dungeon with the boss that uses educator. But only when it's with a random group that isn't up to par with current gear. Other wise I don't find myself running out of tp in most fights due to the long periods we can't attack the boss and having to deal with mechanics.

With that said, I do like popping bulwark early on in the fight and just spamming a few shield swipes to get hate as it's faster than having to go through the RoH combo, for single bosses.

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Originally Posted by Seku

With that said, I do like popping bulwark early on in the fight and just spamming a few shield swipes to get hate as it's faster than having to go through the RoH combo.

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Well and weaving in between a GB or RA combo is always nice.

Shield swipe has minimal impact on tp management. It costs 10 less tp than you regen in the same period of time, and given the damage you lose from letting goring drop or delaying your next royal authority by that much I'm not certain its 'worth' it. Its not 'trash' but its neither a dps game or a hate game (compared to halone). The times where its useful is maintaing hate while doing your GB/RA combo, but if you do that, your Rage debuff will fall off. In 'hard' content (raid" you dont want the rage combo falling off, and goring/ra is too good of a combo to keep going---> unless the rage debuff was extended, there is no gap to put in a shield strike until you have an absolutely insane amount of skill speed.

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Originally Posted by Faytte

and given the damage you lose from letting goring drop or delaying your next royal authority by that much I'm not certain its 'worth' it.

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Goring already has enough time on the timer to squeeze in a shield swipe or two. Also on less 'hard' content you can steadily do an RA combo. Shield Swipe is also more potency than Fast Blade and Savage Blade so to fit it in isn't a total waste. Now I know the potency changed in 3.0 but I am not in front of the game so can't look at what it says and can only rely on what the internet tells me.

Shield Swipe is not a complete DPS loss if used exactly once per Goring Blade rotation, as it prevents the last dot tick from clipping in a Goring Blade -> RH/RA -> RH/RA rotation alongside its TP restore. The skill still has a place in a Paladin's skillset and might even be good to maintain aggro if you're skipping over Rage of Halone entirely.

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Originally Posted by Faytte

your Rage debuff will fall off. In 'hard' content (raid" you dont want the rage combo falling off, and goring/ra is too good of a combo to keep going---> unless the rage debuff was extended, there is no gap to put in a shield strike until you have an absolutely insane amount of skill speed.

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I don't know. I personally don't find that much of a difference currently with the Rage Debuff up or down atm. In all the alexander floors, I can Sword oath and still give my healers room to breath and DPS. Dungeon's aren't that hard really without it and yet again I can Swoath. So I normally just go for RA spam. The only thing I haven't done yet is current Primal ex's (damn school), so maybe there.

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Originally Posted by Wintersandman

Well and weaving in between a GB or RA combo is always nice.

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Yep, I do that too when I'm starting to lose hate, which is almost never, unless it's to another tank or a hard bursting DPS or heals at the start of fight.