This is not so much a proposal but more of a "fact check" for me because I am not experienced enough to pass a final judgement but I have some perceptions that I would like to have confirmed or corrected.
I have been thinking a lot about the efficiency of the PLD lately.
I have not played WAR extensively yet but from what I understand a paladin's strength lies in the damage s/he absorbes before it hits her/him, i.e. defense strengthening buffs, shield blocking and the shield's general added defense stats. The warrior on the other hand seems to be all about regaining hp (and having a huge pool of those) by using buffs that increase the pool's size further, hp recovery/more efficient received heals and hp absorbtion from enemies.
Now what seems very off to me is that blocking only works on physical damage and furthermore the PLD seems to be very much built around physical opponents in general as they can only decrease physical damage on enemies (whereas WAR can decrease both) and only disable physical weapon skills (due to the fact that the skill that triggers this can only be activated by a physical block).
If you combine the last two points this would mean that one of the three aspects of a paladin's damage mitigation that is intended to be in balance with WAR's hp recovery mechanics just falls flat as soon as magical opponents are involved. However if I understand it correctly there is no such a thing for WAR, meaning that their defensive mechanics work against both physical and magical opponents. That obviously sounds like a disadvantage on paper regarding paladin's viabilty and versatility.
I have made a few experiences where this caused problems but I have not raided end game content yet and am unable to estimate whether this is a variable that greatly impairs a paladin's efficiency against magic based opponents in end game, so I would like to know if this has ever been detrimental to high end paladins or if it is neglectible.
If it is noticable would you want that a shield can also block magic damage?
From my amateur perspective I tend to be in big favour of this. I don't feel as if it would overpower PLD but rather even the perceived gap. But maybe my observations are wrong so I would really like to hear some other perspectives.
Cheers!
P.S.
(Please don't ask about lore here as to how a shield would block magic damage. How does a warrior regain hp from their enemies. Do they eat them in between attacks? :p This aside, in a world of magic a good shield could have been crafted with magic components to be effective against such attacks.)
Should shield blocking be effective against magic damage?
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09-29-2016, 10:32 PMLoggosShould shield blocking be effective against magic damage?
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09-30-2016, 01:20 AMkoroko220
Other People will expand on this I'm sure, but paladin is not totally defenseless on magic opponents. Rampart and sentinel are 20/40% respectively damage reduction to all damage, both magical and physical. These are pally's equivalent to inner beast and vengeance.
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09-30-2016, 02:34 AMLoggos
Ah, yeah that's true! I didn't mean to say that paladins are completely defenseless against magic. I mean, that would totally throw them off balance and that's not what I'm accusing them of.
What I aimed for with my post was that there are however some aspects in the paladin tool kit that become unusable when faced with magic opponents when I assume this doesn't happen to warrior? (Again, this is me asking, not making a statement, as I don't have WAR at a mentionably high level.)
The inability to use shield swipe aside (which I would love to use btw - with a silent buff to mirror physical pacification, but that's just me) I meant to say that blocking is one of the several aspects that account for our damage mitigation. But this one aspect becomes irrelevant against magic users so our defense against them is reduced to some extend (but of course not completely erradicated) whereas warriors' HP boosting, regeneration and absorbtion skills work on all types of enemies.
If it turns out that this doesn't matter in terms of actual numbers and the blocking is more of a nice bonus than an integral part of PLD's damage mitigation (though I always understood it that way) then I will of course accept that.
I have just noticed that it has an effect on my playing so I wanted to understand to which extend blocking actually influences the general PLD game play (and to which extend it is a possible bias in my perception/lacking skill etc.). -
09-30-2016, 08:07 PMReynhart
Judging by the animation, I'd feel like at least Sheltron should work on spells.
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09-30-2016, 09:45 PMXenosan
All tanks have a toolkit improved if they can parry/block magic (Sheltron/Bulwark/ShieldSwipe, RawIntuition, DarkDance/Reprisal),
A bias idea I've considered before was DRK having a 100% uptime 'can parry magic' buff (Blood of the Dragon-esque) but also capable of providing that perk to a party member by some method (or debuffing an enemy so the whole party can block/parry their magical attacks). The buff/debuff, for PLD, would allow spell blocking as well as parrying, giving some PLD/DRK synergy (since PLD has the most to gain). DRK has a utility gap so maybe this is a route? ...but no shame I consider it for only the notion of DRK's Parry animation changed from a sword parry to a Darth Vader bullet deflect motion... And tbh if there is only just a couple options available for DRK utility support this wouldn't be at the top of my list. -
09-30-2016, 10:03 PMShurrikhan
I could use a fact check on whether we can dodge magic, but otherwise Bulwark, Shelltron, Raw Intuition, Foresight, and Dark Dance (regular) should be useless against magic, while Dark Mind is similarly useless against physical. If one were to consider Foresight as purely a Warrior ability, that'd be 2 niche defensives per tank.
For the time being I'd imagine the only reason we don't have spell blocking/parrying is because SE wants some diversity in how magic is handled, and/or how threatening it should seem individually to the tank (e.g. making them more dependent on healing received, or their arsenal of mitigation tools more restrictive). So long as they continuing balancing for that fact, I'm fine with it, though I don't (aesthetically speaking) see how Shelltron could fail to block a fireball, when that's exactly what it was first showcased as doing, nor do I see what would be wrong with DRK having Runic when practically a Mystic Knight. -
09-30-2016, 10:23 PMReynhartExcept that DRK still has one physical-only CD and one magical-only CD, whereas PLD and WAR only have physical ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
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09-30-2016, 11:14 PMShurrikhanQuote:
Originally Posted by Reynhart
Which still makes 2 niche defensives per tank... I fail to see how we're in disagreement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
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09-30-2016, 11:22 PMReynhartIt makes DRK more versatile, since he always have at least one additionnal tool, whereas PLD and WAR can have zero or two depending on the figt.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Well, and since Foresight is used as a cross-class, DRK has access to 1 magical and 2 physicals, PLD 0 magical 3 physicals and WAR 0 magical and 2 physicals. -
10-02-2016, 01:55 PMLazkaPLD has rampart + sentinel its all reduce damageQuote:
Originally Posted by Reynhart
war have vengeance + inner beast (thrill of battle if u count that too)
so the other tank have 0 magical? huh?
yea bcause DRK have nice magic CD, its not like gonna be good at all
lets see if the battle have full physcal tank buster, is DRK have a good CD beside shadow skin and shadow wall? dark dance is 30% chance so im not gonna relly on that, and all the other tank have foresight
PLD have bullwark + sheltron (which guaranteed 100% block and 30 sec too, nice !)
war have inner beast per 5 stack wrath
and how much is battle with magic damage tank buster? i dont think that many -
10-02-2016, 02:20 PMJukebox12
ooooooh just let me fight a wizard with a sword and shield. Wizard Cast Fireball. I tried to block it The SHIELD MELTS. Wizard cast thunderbolt. I AM DEAD you cannot block magic it really impossible. unless your a troll please contact the troll police at 1-800-876-6500.
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10-05-2016, 07:16 AMFernosaurA good amount of bosses have magical tank busters, actually. Most of Alexander Gordias was magical. A good part of Midas was magical too, though they did a much better job of including both physical and magical busters in that tier. In Creator, it looks like it's well balanced between the two as well, though SophiaEX seems to be purely magical, as well as A12 having purely magic-based tank busters which repeat quite often and can become quite unrelenting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lazka
Paladin had a good run with Thordan and Sephirot, and Nidhogg was 50/50 for both physical and magical. But there are a lot of magical bosses in the game, and have been for a while too. -
10-05-2016, 07:20 AMWindi
Blocking magical attacks with a shield didn't seem to work well for Haurchefant...
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10-05-2016, 07:24 AMFernosaurStill too soon Q_QQuote:
Originally Posted by Windi
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10-05-2016, 03:21 PMStarkbeaumont
if sheltron would be able to block magic, drk would need to get a reliable low CD ability for physical attacks though (or have shadow wall's recast reduced). balance is everything after all
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10-05-2016, 05:18 PMFebrus
For the most part, I'm fine with the way blocking works right now. The only thing that makes me question it are fights that are heavy on magical dmg, because they renders Pld shields almost useless. Abilities like Bulwark, Shelltron, and Shield Swipe fall by the wayside, which is frustrating because it's a decent loss of defense, offense, and enmity all in one. Magical fights like that are pretty rare, so it's not a big deal or anything. It's just annoying, especially losing that shield swipe proc.
Losing a bit of defense is one thing, but reducing the dps of the weakest tank in the game is pretty horrible, and not just to the Pld. The whole party suffers as a result. -
10-05-2016, 05:24 PMFebrusWhat's wrong with Dark Dance? Parry might be RNG based, but that's a pretty hefty physical mitigation and it's accessible once a minute. Between that and Dark Mind, Drk's don't really have much to complain about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Starkbeaumont
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10-05-2016, 05:30 PMReynhartAt what point did you miss that we talked about niche mitigation skills ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lazka
Dark Arts + Dark Dance should increase parry rate more instead of giving an Evasion boost.Quote:
Originally Posted by Starkbeaumont
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10-05-2016, 08:29 PMMartin_ArcainessYour throwing logic into this? into a Fantasy game?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jukebox12
The fireball has be to a certain tempt to melt our shield but even then we have shields and Weapons with a living soul inside of them which we stuff with sand and crystal and then a few pings of a hammer it's a whole new weapon.
Thunder strikes, we are warrior of lights, we get hit by mountains, thunders, explosions, wind, shards of ice or metal, earthquaks, rise up to the air and swords being flung at us.
If you want to put in logic like that we should have all died ages ago. -
10-05-2016, 08:37 PMLyth
It's a bit difficult to follow the reasoning of this discussion because of phrases like "niche mitigation skills". Which specific cooldowns are you comparing, and what warrants comparing these abilities in isolation instead of looking at the kit as a whole?
To the best of my knowledge, every tankbuster set in the game can be mitigated between you and your cotank, regardless of the jobs that you pick. The difference is that in certain fights, a tank job will occasionally have access to additional cooldowns that may make healing easier, or that allow you to drop stance more comfortably to push your dps while tanking.
Your core mitigation set is still Rampart/Sentinel/Hallowed. Every job has equivalents to these (some are better than others in certain situations). I suspect that the mitigation moves introduced with HW were part of a broader move to balance out IB, which is probably the most versatile cooldown in the game. It's still quite powerful in HW, but you're now rewarded for not being overly dependent on it. This was a sensible course of action: if you have access to a short recast cooldown that can be used for both physical and magical attacks, you're just going to mitigate everything with it, which defeats the purpose of designing a cooldown rotation. -
10-05-2016, 08:57 PMReynhartSkills that only work on a specific type of damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
The "core" mitigation skillset (Rampart, Sentinel, Shadow Skin, Inner Beast, etc...) is mostly balanced between the three tanks.
But if you put a PLD in a very heavy magical fight, like A1, it suddenly loses a lot of skills, since the shield is useless.
DRK, being the magical tank, really shines with that type of fght, mainly thanks to the powerful and frequent Dark Mind. But, if you put it in a physical fight...well, it still holds fairly well if it can properly time Dark Dance and Reprisal.
WAR has around the same issue as PLD, even though it only loses one skill (Raw Intuition) during magical fights. Yet, being able to use Inner Beast very frequently and being able to heal itself pretty well makes it a strong tank in every situation.
That's why some people are suggesting PLD's shield should be used to block magic with the proper cooldown. And since Sheltron was shown to block a Fireball in the HW benchmark, it makes it a good candidate. -
10-05-2016, 10:38 PMLyth
You can mitigate A1S on PLD with Sentinel, Hallowed, Sentinel. You can throw in Rampart to mitigate a few cleaves along the way. The main issue with this in a progression situation was needing to wait for Hallowed to come off cooldown after a wipe, but that's a non-issue now. There were no limitations on your ability to tank this on PLD, and interestingly enough, the world first clear was done using PLD/WAR.
Unlike Sheltron, DADM is not free. It costs you DA, and by extension, dps. It's also the reason why Sentinel is objectively more powerful than Shadow Wall. Interestingly, if I choose not to spend the DA cost, the combination of Shadow Wall (30% DR) and DM (15% DR) gives me the same damage reduction as Sentinel on magical attacks (0.7 x 0.85 = 0.595, which is about 40% DR). Whether I pay that extra cost will depend on whether it gives me more uptime out of stance, which in turn depends on gear and the amount of damage I take. There are a few ways that I could do this. I could go SW+DM, LD, SW+DM. Alternatively, I could go SW, LD, SW and use DM and Shadowskin to eat cleaves. It's not that I'm mitigating something that a PLD cannot. The extra cooldowns just give you more freedom out of stance.
Reprisal and DD aren't used in isolation to mitigate tankbusters, and are always used as adjuncts to other abilites. On average, PLD block procs on their own account for an average damage reduction of about 6% over the other two tanks in a physical fight, before taking RoH into account (there was a reddit thread earlier this summer which collected the data on this). Reprisal is 10% damage reduction with a theoretical maximum uptime of 66% (in practice, this will be less), which on average just about offsets the passive contribution from block procs in single target.
In both physical and magical fights, WAR has access to ToB. This isn't quite as good as Rampart on a single hit tankbuster, so you would likely pair this with IB, but it's still a versatile option.
Sheltron is free, and is not stance locked. It mitigates more damage in a single hit than IB. If this extended to magical attacks as well, it would be incredibly unbalanced. You probably wouldn't require any additional cooldowns on most fights. -
10-05-2016, 11:00 PMReynhartIncredibly unbalanced as in "You would chose a PLD for every setup even though it does less damage than WAR and DRK" ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
Mitigation is not the only thing to consider in tank balance, especiallly when it didn't help PLD for the first 6 months of Heavensward.
A little not on Dark Mind, though. Yes DM+Shadow Wall will "only" give around the same mitigation as Sentinel. But, comes the next big magical attack, there's a good chance that DM will be available again to pair with Shadow Skin, where as PLD would only have Rampart ready.
And if Rampart or Sentinel is enough to mitigate a tank buster, you might also use DA+DM when PLD would have to use HG, thus saving Living Dead for real shitty situations. -
10-06-2016, 01:51 AMLyth
Unbalanced enough to make me reconsider having Shield Oath on my hotbar. When you play a tank, how well you dps is generally a function of how well you mitigate. Defensive cooldowns that let you stay out of stance function as offensive cooldowns.
You can skip using LD if you want, sure. But any CD that is held for longer than its recast is a waste. This translates into a dps loss. Hallowed is the most powerful tank cooldown in the game. Why wouldn't you want to use it in a fight? -
10-06-2016, 02:22 AMReynhartWhat ?! That's nonsense...Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
You don't pop long mitigation CD haphazardly just to skip tank stance for a few seconds when you know a tankbuster can kill you. And keeping the "oh!shit" button for "oh!shit situation" is pretty useful -
10-06-2016, 04:13 AMLyth
As a tank, your job is to anticipate damage patterns, not react to them after the fact. When you don't know a fight, then you're forced to play defensively and hold on to cooldowns because you don't know what happens next. As you learn the timings, you stop playing reactively, and you can work on being consistent. This is much more beneficial to your healers than taking unnecessary damage because you are holding cooldowns in reserve, and then blowing them all in a panic when your health is in the double digits. There are no surprises when you have everything choreographed in advance.
You can think of tank stance as an on-demand cooldown. The main cost is the damage penalty. If you're in tank stance, it's either because you need the enmity generation, or it's because you need the mitigation. Your dps is directly dependent on how low your stance uptime is.
If the boss is just using auto-attacks, there's usually no reason for you to be in stance. Moderate damage attacks and cleaves, however, are often another story. Once you've established your cooldown rotation for the tankbuster set, you can put your unused cooldowns to use in smoothing out the rest of the damage from these cleaves, or to troubleshoot areas where your healers are under more pressure. This allows you to stay out of stance for longer. Short recast cooldowns like Sheltron can be extremely powerful in this regard, once you've memorised the cleave timings. You can think of this as bridging together two low damage sections of the fight, bypassing the need to swap back into stance in-between. -
10-06-2016, 06:26 AMReynhartThe cooldown rotation is set for tankbusters. In A1S, if you had 4 Plasma, PLD had to use HG for one of them, because it can't rotate on Rampart and Sentinel alone. WAR and DRK woudn't need it since they can use their CD sooner.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
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10-10-2016, 03:58 AMKabooa
Lore reasons.
Didn't work for Haurchefant.