PLD improvements

playing as MT PLD I noticed some skills that could be improved.

I divided my ideas into Major, those that I think should be improved and revised, Middle, preferable but not impacting, and minor, suggestions nothing more :).

Major =>
1. Goring Blade => Weaponskill/Instant/60s Delivers an attack with a potency of 300. Additional Effect: Damage over time. Potency: 90. Duration: 30s.
2. Shield Bash => replaces Goring Blade in the combo and reduces damage taken by 5/10% for 21 sec instead of applying stun
3. Atonement => each combo with Royal Authority will apply a Sword Oath stack. At the third stack they can be used to launch it. 600 damage and recover MP (1500)
4. Confiteor => consume all Oath to be cast. With 50 base damage if used with 100 it increases the damage by 50%, as if it was used under Requiescat
5. Spirits Within => Delivers an attack with a potency of 220. Additional Effect: Restores MP. Additional Effect: Increases healing magic potency on self by 25% if current HP is at 50% or lower. Duration: 12s

Middle =>
1. Divine veil => it also applies the effect on themselves and/or there is no obligation to be healed to be triggered

Minor =>
1. Sheltron => When under Sheltron's effect, damage is dealt to the attacker each time damage is blocked

Bonus/Extra =>
1. better animation for Holy Spirit and Clemency
2. Intervention renamed to Holy Shield

what do you think? yes / no / maybe?

I personally have to disagree with everything but Veil (except that it should still need to be proc'd by a heal. Though I think it should be any heal instead of a GCD heal)

The only thing that need to be fixed is cover.
It's nearly useless now, because you can't use it for a while after you died, but in that moment you need it the most.

No.

Paladin's really good and well designed currently.
Only veil could eventually be a thing to "fix".
Otherwise, no.

Personally I would just bring back Shield Oath as basically a heal shield Sheltron and Intervention(still cost Oath gauge though), and Clemency as well(still costs MP), have Cover be a 500-600 cure potency Regen and have 1200 cure potency shield, and for Atonement I would basically rework it and Sword Oath to where the ability name, potency, and animation change based on the number of Sword Oath stacks(less stacks = more potency) though it does require bringing back Savage Blade as the combo ender over Rage of Halone which then upgrades into Royal Authority(Royal Authority would be level 70 Sword Oath upgrade and Rage of Halone would be level 60 while having Atonement be level 50)

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

playing as MT PLD I noticed some skills that could be improved.

I divided my ideas into Major, those that I think should be improved and revised, Middle, preferable but not impacting, and minor, suggestions nothing more :).

Major =>
1. Goring Blade => Weaponskill/Instant/60s Delivers an attack with a potency of 300. Additional Effect: Damage over time. Potency: 90. Duration: 30s.
2. Shield Bash => replaces Goring Blade in the combo and reduces damage taken by 5/10% for 21 sec instead of applying stun
3. Atonement => each combo with Royal Authority will apply a Sword Oath stack. At the third stack they can be used to launch it. 600 damage and recover MP (1500)
4. Confiteor => consume all Oath to be cast. With 50 base damage if used with 100 it increases the damage by 50%, as if it was used under Requiescat
5. Spirits Within => Delivers an attack with a potency of 220. Additional Effect: Restores MP. Additional Effect: Increases healing magic potency on self by 25% if current HP is at 50% or lower. Duration: 12s

Middle =>
1. Divine veil => it also applies the effect on themselves and/or there is no obligation to be healed to be triggered

Minor =>
1. Sheltron => When under Sheltron's effect, damage is dealt to the attacker each time damage is blocked

Bonus/Extra =>
1. better animation for Holy Spirit and Clemency
2. Intervention renamed to Holy Shield

what do you think? yes / no / maybe?

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1. Goring blade change is going to nerf PLD potency output, thats all what i have to say

2. Shield bash would be a combo that is going to be never used, because it wont give any dps gains.

3. Attonement change would push players into using royal authority only

4. Confiteor - no just no, that would be an absolute mess

5. Spirits Within - please hell no what a mad idea, paladin is not healer

6. Divine veil - warrior has shake it off already

7. What damage is dealt? Warrior has something like this on their best deffensive cooldown, why pld deserve to have it on demand? This would make PLD way way ahead of other tanks in dungeons.

8. Nou

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

Personally I would just bring back Shield Oath as basically a heal shield Sheltron and Intervention(still cost Oath gauge though), and Clemency as well(still costs MP), have Cover be a 500-600 cure potency Regen and have 1200 cure potency shield, and for Atonement I would basically rework it and Sword Oath to where the ability name, potency, and animation change based on the number of Sword Oath stacks(less stacks = more potency) though it does require bringing back Savage Blade as the combo ender over Rage of Halone which then upgrades into Royal Authority(Royal Authority would be level 70 Sword Oath upgrade and Rage of Halone would be level 60 while having Atonement be level 50)

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Shield oath as a heal shield? Healers do not need paladins help, its pointless.

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

playing as MT PLD I noticed some skills that could be improved.

I divided my ideas into Major, those that I think should be improved and revised, Middle, preferable but not impacting, and minor, suggestions nothing more :).

Major =>
1. Goring Blade => Weaponskill/Instant/60s Delivers an attack with a potency of 300. Additional Effect: Damage over time. Potency: 90. Duration: 30s.
2. Shield Bash => replaces Goring Blade in the combo and reduces damage taken by 5/10% for 21 sec instead of applying stun
3. Atonement => each combo with Royal Authority will apply a Sword Oath stack. At the third stack they can be used to launch it. 600 damage and recover MP (1500)
4. Confiteor => consume all Oath to be cast. With 50 base damage if used with 100 it increases the damage by 50%, as if it was used under Requiescat
5. Spirits Within => Delivers an attack with a potency of 220. Additional Effect: Restores MP. Additional Effect: Increases healing magic potency on self by 25% if current HP is at 50% or lower. Duration: 12s

Middle =>
1. Divine veil => it also applies the effect on themselves and/or there is no obligation to be healed to be triggered

Minor =>
1. Sheltron => When under Sheltron's effect, damage is dealt to the attacker each time damage is blocked

Bonus/Extra =>
1. better animation for Holy Spirit and Clemency
2. Intervention renamed to Holy Shield

what do you think? yes / no / maybe?

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So pretty much veil is the only worth while change you made in all of this.

1. Goring blade change would be a massive nerf to paladin damage.

2. Shield bash effect has been removed from the game for over 2 years now, and it is clear it will not make a return, especially with Reprisal/ Feint/ addle in respective cross-roles.

3. Atonement as it is, is fine, and allows paladin to optimise rotations around fights, while this change hinders this possibility and further nerfs the damge dealt by paladins.

4. Confiteor is fine as it is, this change would mean no paladin would use it's oath guage for anything but Confiteor. Thus no longer use Sheltron or Intervention.

5. Spirits Within does not need it's potency nerfed for one, and the healing potency effect is pointless, as it probably would not save healers GCDs.

Divine Veil, I'll agree with affecting self, but move to keep the heal requirement, but add in an excog effect, where after 30seconds, it will proc itself and apply the veil, thus allow to keep niche planned usage of the skill.

I think the Sheltron changed additional effect is not needed, only block/parry effect changed to deal with critical damage incoming, as it is the one major chink in the defensive set of paladin.

Animations are fine for both skills, and renaming Intervention serves little to no purpose, except fill an ideology one may have of the paladin, but may conflict with anothers view.

I think shield bash should be removed and replaced with shield swipe with an oath gauge cost, or alternatively change shield bash to fulfill the same concept.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Shield oath as a heal shield? Healers do not need paladins help, its pointless.

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The devs could always buff how much damage enemies do if balance was a really big issue for tanks and healers...


Maybe make kiting enemies in dungeons to work as intended for once instead of "you pulled this one thing so now you pulled all the other things" just for good measure if tanks being absurdly powerful with self sustained is going to be that much of an issue for you...

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Originally Posted by VargasVermillion

I think shield bash should be removed and replaced with shield swipe with an oath gauge cost, or alternatively change shield bash to fulfill the same concept.

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I would also make Shield Bash a single target oGCD, and bring Shield Swipe(just without the block proc).

Shield Bash and Cover are going to be simply removed next expansion, feel free to quote me on this

I'll add my voice to the idea of letting veil proc on its own after 30 seconds. I'm so tired of watching the thing uselessly fade away cause I was healed "wrong" for the duration. And that panicked clemency when I realize it won't be proc'd in time for the raid wide is annoying too, especially when I don't make it in time. Wasted up-time for nothing.

For me, PLD is in a really great place right now. It'd be nice to have something offensive to use oath gauge on when doing quests. Or to have divine veil just proc the shield instead of the weird middle man of getting a heal to proc it. But those are minor things for me and all in all, the job feels complete to me.

Changes I want:

Veil: This is the big one, I'm fine with it not applying a shield to me, I'm a tank so my hp will let me survive most AoE fine anyway.

Atonement: Shouldn't break your combo. Purely personal opinion here.

Requiescat: Weird request but I kind of wish that instead of being a buff with a duration, it instead gave us 5 stacks with 20-30 second duration that we can spend how we see fit across a longer period of time.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Requiescat: Weird request but I kind of wish that instead of being a buff with a duration, it instead gave us 5 stacks with 20-30 second duration that we can spend how we see fit across a longer period of time.

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This I like.

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

1. Goring Blade => Weaponskill/Instant/60s Delivers an attack with a potency of 300. Additional Effect: Damage over time. Potency: 90. Duration: 30s.

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I could get on board with the PLD DoT becoming a one-button thing instead of tacking it on the end of a combo. That always felt a little clunky to me. This would also make multi-dotting in dungeons a thing.

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

2. Shield Bash => replaces Goring Blade in the combo and reduces damage taken by 5/10% for 21 sec instead of applying stun

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Why though? We don't need more mitigation, since our shield provides it.

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

3. Atonement => each combo with Royal Authority will apply a Sword Oath stack. At the third stack they can be used to launch it. 600 damage and recover MP (1500)

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I'd be okay with some kind of change to the Royal Authority => Sword Oath => Atonement interchange, but I don't think this is it. Of all of the changes they could have applied in Shadowbringers, adding a "spam this button three times after your big combo" mechanic felt kind of underwhelming (especially when we already had a "spam this button five times" mechanic added in Stormblood). It's not a bad mechanic, but it definitely makes PLD gameplay feel incredibly monotonous.

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

4. Confiteor => consume all Oath to be cast. With 50 base damage if used with 100 it increases the damage by 50%, as if it was used under Requiescat

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I like where the confetti cannon is currently, but I'll agree with this: 90% of the time, the resource you accumulate in your Oath Gauge just sits there. We need something we can dump Oath Gauge into that isn't situational or utility.

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

5. Spirits Within => Delivers an attack with a potency of 220. Additional Effect: Restores MP. Additional Effect: Increases healing magic potency on self by 25% if current HP is at 50% or lower. Duration: 12s

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Don't think we really need this, but it's a neat idea in keeping with an attack that deals less damage the less HP you have.

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

1. Divine veil => it also applies the effect on themselves and/or there is no obligation to be healed to be triggered

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Yes please. No other tank has that kind of clunkiness in their group utility mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

1. Sheltron => When under Sheltron's effect, damage is dealt to the attacker each time damage is blocked

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No. We don't need thorns. That's WAR's thing.

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

1. better animation for Holy Spirit and Clemency

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Eh, these are alright. PLD has always felt kind of underwhelming to me from a visual perspective, but I think that's just because the swordplay animations tend to get hidden inside spell effects from other party members because I don't want to turn those off.

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Originally Posted by Zamiel

2. Intervention renamed to Holy Shield

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I mean, sure. Why not?

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Ultimately these are some interesting ideas. It's always neat to see what other people would change in a given class. I've always felt that PLD gameplay is really monotonous, and these changes would fix some of that.

What I agree with:
- Give us an oath dump. Most of the time, our Oath Gauge is useless. It still feels like it was added to PLD so we wouldn't feel left out, but like the devs didn't really know what to do with it.
- Divine Veil must be changed how you described.
- Goring Blade would be pretty neat as a 1-button move instead of tacked onto the end of a combo.

The only things I can agree with here are Divine Veil and maybe shield bash, Divine Veil because it’s silly it doesn’t get applied to the PLD who casted it, and shield bash because it’s very situational and maybe they could do something that makes it more viable, but putting it in a combo that gives you a defensive buff? I’m not 100% sold on that, PLD has plenty of defensive tools just like all the other tanks plus it has sheltron, so it seems kinda unnecessary to give PLD another defensive tool, maybe they could make it a oGCD or make the recast timer shorter than the rest of its kit.

But for the other suggestions, why? PLD plays great when weaving between Fight or Flight and Requiescat, all the skills feel impactful, why does goring blade need to be changed into a oGCD when it fits perfectly 2 times into the 25 second window and replaced with shield bash? As I said PLD already has lots of defensive tools so that seems unnecessary. Similarly with Confiteor, it fits perfectly into the 12 seconds of Requiescat once you use 4 Spirts/Circles. And Spirits Within boosting healing potency likely wouldn’t do much, I don’t have a hard time healing PLD’s as in when they do big pulls in dungeons or are MT in a raid, especially with Seltron and other defensive oGCDs.

Idk, just my two cents, didn’t mean to burst your bubble, but maybe you just haven’t figured out PLD yet? Maybe it’s not for you at all? I would share my rotation to see if that helps, but I need to go make something to eat lol, getting hungry

- Goring Blade dot used to be 24sec, right? I kinda understand why that 3 seconds was shaved off of it, but my personal flavour of OCD would actually welcome that24sec dot back.
- Shield Bash is beautiful and valid as it is.
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- Veil idea is ok.
...
- Only thing that need new animation is Confiteor. What has been seen, and by that I mean Carebear Stare, cannot be unseen.

I think the only thing I don't like about PLD currently is how Rage of Halone turns into Royal Authority. I miss seeing that great animation in my rotation. Flying twirly sword slash just doesn't feel very Paladin-y. I wish they had re-purposed the RoH animation for Atonement instead.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Requiescat: Weird request but I kind of wish that instead of being a buff with a duration, it instead gave us 5 stacks with 20-30 second duration that we can spend how we see fit across a longer period of time.

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I like this change. Personally I was never a fan of the Requiescat phase, it just feels...clunky, even if thematically fitting - just stand there casting Holy Spirit to the boss' face, and only 10 levels later does it even become instant while Requiescat is active. That said, Holy Spirit would need to be turned into an ability to not waste gcd using it, and I'm not good at theorycrafting to guess how would that affect the job's overall performance.

Holy Oath: consumes 30? oath gauge and grants 1 vow of light, can stack max 2 vows, next gauge ability used will consume a vow and grant an additional effect.

Sheltron: while active if hp falls/is under 30% heal yourself for 1200 potency.

Intervention: after finishing its 6 sec duration fades and apply buff "holy aid" which gives the target +15% healing from all sources for the next 10 sec.

Cover: you block all incomming damage while covering.


I was thinking of this as an ability for 6.0.