Sword Oath Idea

I've always felt that Sword Oath was a little underwhelming. This is not about the current state of PLD dps at the moment, I simply feel that adding an extra 50 potency on our auto attack is boring and it never truly felt like a fun stance.

Seeing as Conj is one of our cross classes as PLD, I thought it would be fun and interesting if Sword Oath reflected that. My Idea is this:

Sword Oath
Swaps current STR and VIT attribute ratings, while increasing TP Regeneration by X% and reducing enmity generated.

This would make the spell much more intersting while also carrying a certain amount of risk. Swapping STR and VIT will provide more damage but at the cost of maximum hp and the reduction of enmity also prevents this stance from being used while tanking.

The only negative I can think of is that swapping STR and VIT stats may give PLD too much dmg as a tank class. But, please comment more about the idea rather than the numbers as numbers can always be modified.

Ehhhhhh idk it sounds a bit too whm like. I would rather go w some new way like stack of lights ( posted in another forum)

I can get behind this. Adds to off-tank DPS while not further encouraging tanking in DPS stance. Not the sole fix to all our problems, but a nice addition.

Don't like it, STR PLD's would actually end up being weaker in sword oath.

I agree it would be nice for sword oath to get a buff, just not this.

Maybe make it 3 additional 50 potency hits rather than just 1. But with a 50% accuracy cap. And give it an animation of 3 light swords surrounding the PLD that fly at the enemy when you auto attack. Both WAR and DRK get to look pretty in their stances why don't we!?

since the core of PLD tanking is simplicity, i would suggest that each time a weapon skill is used, you gain 1 stack of Sword Oath which adds a flat 5 potency to all your attacks. caps at 5 stacks, starts at 1 upon activating Sword Oath. that will make us look like we're accelerating in dps, to give incentive to those who sit in the stance.

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Originally Posted by rawker

since the core of PLD tanking is simplicity, i would suggest that each time a weapon skill is used, you gain 1 stack of Sword Oath which adds a flat 5 potency to all your attacks. caps at 5 stacks, starts at 1 upon activating Sword Oath. that will make us look like we're accelerating in dps, to give incentive to those who sit in the stance.

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Oh, you mean a ramp-up mechanic. That could also work.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

Don't like it, STR PLD's would actually end up being weaker in sword oath.

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Only if you've been going all STR all the time. My current stats include 804 STR and 889 VIT, so under the OP's idea when off-tanking my STR and VIT values would shift, leading to a DPS gain since my resulting STR would be higher than my resulting VIT in Sword Oath. I'm also okay with reduced enmity in Sword Oath in exchange for better TP regen.

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Originally Posted by AeraCross

The only negative I can think of is that swapping STR and VIT stats may give PLD too much dmg as a tank class.

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Well, considering Paladins are the furthest down on the damage scale (even if I'm not sure by how much, since I haven't kept myself too up to date on that since HW hit), I'm not sure it would make them OP. On the contrary, I think it might mean we'd see Warriors get a challenger to their OT throne. Since the decreased HP and Enmity would mean you'd avoid MTing in Sword Oath (apart from longer phases of no-damage or no-tank-busters, due to the GCDs missed by switching oaths), it'd mainly affect OT value. It'd also mean that their MT damage would be lower, since Paladins would most likely opt to go with VIT specs/bling for more of a damage increase in OT stance -- or with pentamelds, of course, for the 'best of both worlds'.

Hopefully it'd also prevent future issues like the current, where Paladins are 'unwanted' in Alex Savage due to lower damage output. It'd help equalize the three tank jobs without making them identical.

I personally like the idea =)

(Edit: My FC's Paladin pointed out to me that since you get an increase of DPS output of 20% anyway without Shield Oath and that the extra auto-attacks is an improvement since auto-attacks in general count for about 20-25% of the total damage, so it could be a bit over the top... But I still like it xD Considering Warriors not only lose the 20% damage loss but gains a 5% damage boost, plus extra stack abilities to use.)

I quite like this idea for all tanks actually. It would be quite a neat solution to making vitality accessories useful and making tanks feel "tankier" (imo).

I wish Sword Oath made us glow faintlyt. WAR and DRK get cool glowy stances. I wanna be radiant :/

Or in Sword Oath, every sword slash leaves a trail of white energy on the target, kind of like FFXI PLD's "Enlight" spell.


Sword Oath is pretty boring...now if it added +50 Potency to all GCD's too, that would be neat.

Fun story: when I first started playing, after seeing my roommate get Cleric Stance, I thought that's what Sword Oath/Shield Oath were.

I'm still sad that's not what it is.

I agree OP. 100%, 10/10 would group again.

I say get rid of that junk. Instead of sword oath i would like to see Reflect. Give the paladin a level 30 trait called reflect in which will reflect damaged blocked from range and melee attacks in which will increase the DPS output of the Paladin and also generate a higher Enmity output to all targets attacking. The more you are hit the more enmity and dps you gain. this is how the Paladin should be. We only block around 20-40% of damage and even then it is not all the time. So I think it would balance out the Paladin. To give some people what they want it will make the Paladin gain a white glow around their shield. With this it will put the Paladin back onto the MT spot instead of the OT since they will gain more dps with the more damage received.

I always liked the idea of using Sword Oath to juggle TP. Either it can give us a massive skill speed bonus at the cost of halting/decreasing our TP regen, or simply increase the dmg potency of our skills while also increasing their TP consumption. Both of these would require careful timing from PLDs to know when to push their dps and for how long. In addition it would invite more synergy with other jobs. (Picture NINs goading PLDs during trick attack.) I know PLD is lacking a skill specifically for regaining TP, but that is exactly why the decision to use Sword Oath would have weight to it. Besides if the increase in dps is great enough others won't mind supporting us.

I would greatly prefer the skill speed buff. It would be a lot more fun/unique than simply giving us a flat potency buff. Plus as the only tank using a one handed weapon, shouldn't skill speed, not dmg potency, be our niche?

Sword oath might seem "underwhelming" but its actually a really good attack stance. From what I've read, going full DPS on something, your auto-attacks account for 30-35% of your damage. PLD has the lowest attack speed, and currently my attacks hit roughly 550 base, and 700 with FoF up ever 2.24 seconds. It might not seem like much, but that's ALOT of free damage with no TP drain. Comparing it to other classes, its nearly double their auto-attack damage. If anything, I personally think they should change Skill Speed to effect auto-attacks. That or UNCHANGE determination to effect auto-attacks again. Why they removed that in 3.0 is beyond me.

So yea, I don't see any problems with Sword Oath itself. I see problems with lack of off-GCD's. (looking at your shield swipe). If anything they should bring Shield Oath down to lvl 30 and give you access to both at the same time an add an additional DPS attack in place of what was shield oath at lvl 40.

I like the Idea of PLD Oaths giving beneficts to the whole party

Shield Oath: +5 % physical defense to the party members
Sword Oath: 20 potency holy DMG for Autoatacks party members

Like PLD from WoW
This will also be good to mitigate the lower DMG from PLD

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Oh, you mean a ramp-up mechanic. That could also work.
Only if you've been going all STR all the time. My current stats include 804 STR and 889 VIT, so under the OP's idea when off-tanking my STR and VIT values would shift, leading to a DPS gain since my resulting STR would be higher than my resulting VIT in Sword Oath. I'm also okay with reduced enmity in Sword Oath in exchange for better TP regen.

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Wouldn't this even further condemn PLDs for stance-dancing, a tank aspect in which they are already weakest among the three? You'd also be by a large the squishiest OT and run the Defiance issue upon leaving Sword Oath -- you'd have to wait for your health to be restored before you've gained the tank stance's full eHP benefits.

And wouldn't the latter just exacerbate PLD's enmity issue? It can already produce less enmity than the other two, making it difficult to use RA out of tank stance. With those changes it will be the only tank that cannot remotely maintain enmity outside of tank stance.

I'm all for more creative Oaths, but PLD's issue is already that it is inferior both in general (dps, OT and especially MT) and specific (stance-dancing, enmity, OT dps loss for mitigating) points. Whatever changes are made should effectively close those gaps whilst seeking that increased identity.

Additionally, though this is arguably just personal, it feels reaaallly weird to me to turn Strength into a stance-equalizing stat (+ dps in tank stance, + tankiness in dps stance)... For one, it means it's almost always going to be unideal. You can argue that that's just how PLD should be unique, but most tanks are already long since geared basically according to the guidelines (unfortunate as they are) that most fending accs are shit.

What I'd like to see from Sword Oath:
- If using a "ramp-up" or "resource" mechanic, it shouldn't start from the minimum position, but rather about midway (slightly favoring staying in a given stance), full (favors stance-dancing), or at a position based on past action, likely using a shared resource between both Oaths generated by relevant actions (potency dealt/mitigated/covered/healed, etc.). The last option would probably be the most engaging, but arguable least PLD-like, as we have something of a characteristic of being a sort of 'standing guard', always at the ready and plentiful useful even when not at the sort of eye of the storm (the place where DRK and WAR further excel in terms of combined dps and mitigation).
- If it continues to do bonus AA damage, it should be slightly buffed and actually based on AA damage (e.g. 75% of weapon AA dmg), not weaponskill potency (a flat 50 potency tacked onto varying AA speeds). In this way a 1.7s blade still causes the same Sword Oath bonus dps over time as a 2.6s blade. (Both deal the higher, 1.7s value.)
- Improved control; "resource" use should be manipulable, preferably in a way that brings out the differences in Oaths and what Paladin uniquely brings 'to the table'.
- Improve rotational options and/or variance; right now one of our largest downsides of Shield Swipe is that even if it were buffed, it would still cost us dps to use more than once per Goring Blade, just because of how tight its tri-combo is. Essentially it leaves PLD with little to no variance -- GB, RoH, RA; GB, RoH, RA; GB, RoH, RA... Anything that can allow us variance through procs and/or modifiers I would love to see.

What if...in addition to the normal properties of the Oaths, Sword Oath flipped 15% of VIT to STR and Shield Oath flipped 15% of STR to VIT. Not a complete stat swap. This leave 3 stances, Shield Oath, Sword Oath and no Oath. PLD could still stack VIT or STR to their heart's delight and this change would increase the impact of the choice to stack STR or VIT.

That said, I still think I would prefer to have Shield Oath additionally grant some damage potency/enmity gain on Shield Bash/Shield Swipe as well as damage reflection to Sheltron and Cover.

Oh, one other thing;

Shield Oath ought to boost our Block rate, and decrease the parry rate because we are shield focused and Sword Oath should boost the parry rate and decrease the block rate because we are sword focused.

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Originally Posted by Valoiz

I like the Idea of PLD Oaths giving beneficts to the whole party

Shield Oath: +5 % physical defense to the party members
Sword Oath: 20 potency holy DMG for Autoatacks party members

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That is freaking genious. That would be one reason that makes PLD stand out of the other two tanks. sadly though, 90% of all aoe are magical so the 5%physical mitigation wouldnt be that good ya know. I do like that idea though. Idk how i feel about 20 potency though because SE would need to work and see how it affect the DPS (will they be OP). But ye these are good ideas.

Frankly speaking, this would be a massive nerf. Paladins do not have massively differentiated vitality and strength ratings, especially not with strength or melded gear (which they should be wearing), and switching the two means nothing compared to the damage boost conferred by the current Sword Oath. Furthermore, reducing enmity generation is an even bigger nerf. You can't even be in Sword Oath while tanking; this puts Paladin even more behind in DPS with Dark Knight and Warrior.

anyone who has played WKC2 knows about the skill "Twin Blades". Probably a bad example since that game was mediocre but still kinda fun. In this stance the player would drop the shield and "clone" the sword they are currently holding and all attack animations are now altered a dual blade style of fighting. It looked really cool and help give the sword and board class a bit of variety.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2090f8p.gif

Full Video of it in action here

I hope they do something like this for the PLD in the near future.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

anyone who has played WKC2 knows about the skill "Twin Blades". Probably a bad example since that game was mediocre but still kinda fun. In this stance the player would drop the shield and "clone" the sword they are currently holding and all attack animations are now altered a dual blade style of fighting. It looked really cool and help give the sword and board class a bit of variety.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2090f8p.gif

Full Video of it in action here

I hope they do something like this for the PLD in the near future.

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Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes, only, please no Flemron 108 to get the skill....

LOL! I had 1000s of hours in that game, and loved it, a pity SCEA and D3 Publisher had to bail on the game early....

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Originally Posted by Marxam

anyone who has played WKC2 knows about the skill "Twin Blades". Probably a bad example since that game was mediocre but still kinda fun. In this stance the player would drop the shield and "clone" the sword they are currently holding and all attack animations are now altered a dual blade style of fighting. It looked really cool and help give the sword and board class a bit of variety.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2090f8p.gif

Full Video of it in action here

I hope they do something like this for the PLD in the near future.

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I wouldn't mind seeing that on Gladiator, but on a PLD...? I'd honestly just like to see us make utter badasses out of ourselves with the shield itself.
That being said, my lingering lore attachments aside, that looks awesome.

Woah, what if we could fuse our sword with our shield and then split them into dual sword-shields, removing our ability to block but doubling our parry and auto attack rate?

Would make Sword Oath broken as hell, 70% damage up.

why not that would be great like this sword oath sheaf the shield and draw a holy ather sword.

Increase pld parry to be scaled like the other 2 tanks remove block.
Increase pld dps 15% and add tp regenerate + 10%-20%

yep I'm saying scrap the 50 pot auto attack presently on it for raw dps boost.

Shield oath lower damage loss to 5% so yes effectively you still lose 20% dps but
add to the skill each block return 20% of damage received but to keep balanced
Reflect should not work with tank buster and higher dps special attacks more rather
auto attacks only.

Something...anything... Still no mention from the devs on PLD useless "utility." ::sigh::

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I wouldn't mind seeing that on Gladiator, but on a PLD...? I'd honestly just like to see us make utter badasses out of ourselves with the shield itself.
That being said, my lingering lore attachments aside, that looks awesome.

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Shield Oath should make our proactive shield skills more potent and the defensive ones reflect some damage/generate enmity.

I like the idea of dual wield swords it could add uniqueness to the class depending on how its handled. I like it, but i also don't like the sight of a dual wielding paladin doesn't seem right.

>Dual wielding PLD

http://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lw...k1m8o1_400.png

This is way too OP unless you're talking about giving something like this to ALL of the tanks, which would be awesome, and solve a lot of the STR vs. VIT crap that permeates this game's tanking meta's mentality. I would absolutely love it if all the tanks got an ability that did this, and could keep their tanking and dps stances/buffs along the side. Then you could simply stack VIT like logic would suggest that you should, and toggle the "tank cleric" stance as appropriate. This would also make things like tanking outside of tank stance far more viable as you could keep the VIT stance on and switch to Sword/Defiance/Grit-off, or keep the tanking stance on but toggle to your STR stance.

TLDR awesome idea, but should be an option for all the tanks. Giving it to just one would make that one crazy-overpowered.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

TLDR awesome idea, but should be an option for all the tanks. Giving it to just one would make that one crazy-overpowered.

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You say that, but given the aesthetics of dual-wielding on a PLD already... now imagine dual-wielded Greataxes and Claymores... Additionally, it is only at an aesthetic at core. Its actual strength is a separate issue. For instance, in almost any MMO, offhand damage is inferior and accuracy requirements higher on the offhand than main-hand. When you consider normal Sword Oath on a 1.7s blade, that would be 50 extra potency on each AA, each hitting for 100 potency x speed/3.0 (= 57 potency), which is already close to double AA dps.

I've nothing really to add to fix Sword Oath, aside from the fact that yes, it is indeed really underwhelming as is. I just want to say that I am a big fan of dual-shielding, and it's stupid, but you can't take my dreams from me~~~~~

Also, nice to see WKC get mentioned!
Still angry at Rhitahtyn sas Arvina and his dual gunshields. I can dream.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

anyone who has played WKC2 knows about the skill "Twin Blades". Probably a bad example since that game was mediocre but still kinda fun. In this stance the player would drop the shield and "clone" the sword they are currently holding and all attack animations are now altered a dual blade style of fighting. It looked really cool and help give the sword and board class a bit of variety.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2090f8p.gif

Full Video of it in action here

I hope they do something like this for the PLD in the near future.

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I would lie if i said i wouldnt like to see this, always loved DW classes and this would be awesome as fuck! Maybe SE will do this in future as i really dont see they can keep adding too many new jobs due balance reasons, maybe this is could be potential off-spec for PLD's(tbh DRK should have been PLD's DPS off-spec instead being a totally new job).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

TLDR awesome idea, but should be an option for all the tanks. Giving it to just one would make that one crazy-overpowered.

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You say that, but given the aesthetics of dual-wielding on a PLD already... now imagine dual-wielded Greataxes and Claymores... Additionally, it is only at an aesthetic at core.

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Um... I don't think Syzygian was responding to the "temporary dual wield" idea, but rather to the whole "make dps stance switch vitality and strength, like cleric stance does with mind and int".

(To further draw from cleric stance, there could be a penalty to defence, similar to the penalty to healing while in cleric stance -- especially since tanks would be able to go "stance-less" to avoid defence penalty. But it might also require adjusting the whole damage penalty on tank stance, since the difference of going from tank stance to dps stance would be not only +20/25% (WAR has higher damage penalty in tank stance than PLD & DRK) but also the increased boost of switching VIT/STR. I dunno. It might include removing the damage penalty AND lower over-all damage instead. Which would kind of defeat the purpose ^^; )

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Originally Posted by TheLastRaven

I like the idea of dual wield swords it could add uniqueness to the class depending on how its handled. I like it, but i also don't the sight of a dual wielding paladin doesn't seem right.

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Paladin really does not seem like dual wielding type - gladiator maybe, but paladin nope.

Imho, putting shield on your back while in sword oath would be great even without the additional sword in hand. Of course block would have to be removed (or moved to rear - that would be interesting.) Imagine all the possibilities, like punch in the face instead of shield bash ^^. My personal vision of interesting paladin is stance dancing. Using only sword in sword oath and only shield in shield oath, while providing some kind of mid ground without oaths on.

The main problem with this idea is that in order to optimize Sword Oath, you would need to stack VIT, which would minimize your damage in Shield Oath.

Tanks don't have two distinct modes (healing and attacking) like healers do; tanks are always attacking.

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Originally Posted by Noxifer

Um... I don't think Syzygian was responding to the "temporary dual wield" idea, but rather to the whole "make dps stance switch vitality and strength, like cleric stance does with mind and int".

(To further draw from cleric stance, there could be a penalty to defence, similar to the penalty to healing while in cleric stance -- especially since tanks would be able to go "stance-less" to avoid defence penalty. But it might also require adjusting the whole damage penalty on tank stance, since the difference of going from tank stance to dps stance would be not only +20/25% (WAR has higher damage penalty in tank stance than PLD & DRK) but also the increased boost of switching VIT/STR. I dunno. It might include removing the damage penalty AND lower over-all damage instead. Which would kind of defeat the purpose ^^; )

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As a Dark Knight I am 1000% ok with dual wielding Deathbringers.

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

Tanks don't have two distinct modes (healing and attacking) like healers do; tanks are always attacking.

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Maybe that's the whole problem. Paladin is supposed to be defensive tank, yet tanks are always attacking. If the war has "dps" utility, the paladin should have been designed to get "no-dps" utility, like building up initial enmity and then using skills to modify it, instead of doing dmg. Of course that way the damage would be even worse, and so it would be required to provide party wide dps buffs to compensate for it. Something like debuff that increases damage while being the wall, yet giving paladin enmity of other party members generated by such ability.

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Originally Posted by Archaell

Maybe that's the whole problem. Paladin is supposed to be defensive tank, yet tanks are always attacking.

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Maybe, but I don't see SE changing their tune in regards to that any time soon.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

I wish Sword Oath made us glow faintlyt. WAR and DRK get cool glowy stances. I wanna be radiant :/

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Warriors don't glow in stance.... We glow when we have our combo buff on us. I'll trade you though. Glow effect for Buff that makes me Manderville in the middle of a giant trash pull.

I think many of PLD's oath woes would be solved if they allowed stance dancing w/o the MP cost. Or maybe at a bare minimum, don't put it on the GCD.