The opportunity cost of shield bash is too darned high

[Ehayte]

Not too rewarding to be the person insulted to death when your Shield Bash is resisted because someone else is stunning, though...

A. Stawman | B. You should tell the other party members that NO stuns should be preformed throughout the fight at all, and explain why. Every person you educate will potentially educate 7 more people next time, who will in turn educate 7 more people. Its an epidemic!

Just because Warrior has problems doesn't mean that Paladin is perfect.

Yeah WARs are pretty bad right now, I just don't think we should be requesting to soak up developer resources when there are a huge amount of more blatant and serious issues with other classes.

I dislike fights where my role (in any game) is primarily or exclusively stunning. It's not rewarding beyond the first time.

Which you choose to opine I guess, but I do get a sense of satisfaction every time I see Eruption cut short and a satisfying crunch when my shield hits Ifrit! You could also make the healer's lives easier by doing something like Cover + Hallowed Ground on the MT to lighten healer loads if things get rough. That wouldn't mess with your stunning, wouldn't kill you, and would help out the team.

[Onisake]

Just because Warrior has problems doesn't mean that Paladin is perfect. Although Paladin is a fine spot, and I'm generally happy with where it is.

I think have Shield bash on no CD (save for the length of the global cooldown) is pretty stupid. I dislike fights where my role (in any game) is primarily or exclusively stunning. It's not rewarding beyond the first time.

When did war come up?

WAR is completely irrelevant to this discussion. There are still, literally, 0 things wrong with PLD right now. PLD is still well balanced. It still scales will all content. and it can still be used in almost any situation.

just because you get bored when you're on stun duty doesn't meant PLD needs a buff...

[Steeled]

Sigh. I know I'm going to get flamed for this.

There are things to dislike about paladin. It's not the perfect class. It is enjoyable, but it, too, has flaws. Bard is the best DPS due to no mobility or positioning problems, but there are things to dislike about it. Scholar is a great healer, but there are things to dislike about it. I would list some things less than ideal about paladin, but it would sound like I'm complaining and the class is overall enjoyable and in a fine spot. I simply made some suggestions for something I dislike about the class.

[Alpheus]

Sigh. I know I'm going to get flamed for this.

There are things to dislike about paladin. It's not the perfect class. It is enjoyable, but it, too, has flaws. Bard is the best DPS due to no mobility or positioning problems, but there are things to dislike about it. Scholar is a great healer, but there are things to dislike about it. I would list some things less than ideal about paladin, but it would sound like I'm complaining and the class is overall enjoyable and in a fine spot. I simply made some suggestions for something I dislike about the class.

How Dare You!

In all seriousness though I hope they don't go too crazy with the stun requirements in the Big Battles in this game since it got pretty ridiculous in FFXI especially in it's latest expansion.

[Kenka]

A. Stawman | B. You should tell the other party members that NO stuns should be preformed throughout the fight at all, and explain why. Every person you educate will potentially educate 7 more people next time, who will in turn educate 7 more people. Its an epidemic!

A) Agreed. Sorry about that.
B) Tried that. Usually people are quite understanding, yet you still can find some DRGs Leg Sweeping.. But, just like you suggested, after a wipe due to a resist I try to explain what happened and why. I get some flak from certain people, though, just like I mentioned (in a bit of an exaggerated fashion)

Also, I'm glad you find the stun duty fulfilling and satisfactory. For me it's quite the opposite. Boring and downright frustrating more often than not. To each their own

[Stryker]

snip

Why are you bringing war into this. That has nothing to do with it.

I agree with the OP. I can tank Ifrit HM while stunning and MT, doesn't make it fun. Doesn't make it balanced either. Being a stun bot is an awfully boring thing, and it doesn't help that probably 90% (arbitrary % based upon personal experience) of bosses are immune to stun in most instances. Only in the end game content is it utilized heavily. So PLD goes from tanking to having to stun bot. Also weaving in combos with a stun on GCD means that you can't go as hard as you'd like because you have to leave a buffer in case your last combo triggers GCD when you need the stun.

That's stupid, when people start to have relic or weapons of higher Ilvl than you they pull hate like crazy. I have an ifrits sword, my FC has relics and are moving to relic +1. I try to tank for them but jesus christ their dmg output is insane. So having to stun bot and try to get as much hate from the RoH combo is impossible. The counter argument to that is they should slow down their dps, yes that's true but at the same time, speed runs, or just farming in general you try to complete it as fast as possible.

That is the opportunity cost. But I feel like we should get away from using any terms based out of Economics since many in this community struggle to grasp those concepts.

So yes, I do believe there is a price for using or trying to weave shield bash into the PLD rotation and that cost is too high, pigeon holing us into an undesirable role.

[Ehayte]

I can tank Ifrit HM while stunning and MT, doesn't make it fun.

But I feel like we should get away from using any terms based out of Economics since many in this community struggle to grasp those concepts.

So yes, I do believe there is a price for using or trying to weave shield bash into the PLD rotation and that cost is too high, pigeon holing us into an undesirable role.

1 - Its not supposed to be, its supposed to be extremely challenging because you are doing two people's job at the same time.
2 - LOL, but give these people some respect - a lot of intelligent discussion happens on these boards that helps me become a better player
3 - I disagree. Shield Bash is an extremely powerful tool, and it should come at an extremely high cost. I think they did a great job balancing the cost - only a very skilled player can successful hold aggro and interrupt important enemy abilities, and even then not 100% of the time.

Also - your complaints regarding not being able to hold aggro over people with gear that is much stronger than yours is...well...it makes no sense. You derisively speak down to other forum members regarding their intelligence, but then you subvert your own point by providing a reasonable explanation for your troubles within the same sentence! Of course you are going to struggle to do your job in a group of players that are vastly better equipped than you. That's not even economics, that is literally X < Y .

[Stryker]

Also - your complaints regarding not being able to hold aggro over people with gear that is much stronger than yours is...well...it makes no sense. You derisively speak down to other forum members regarding their intelligence, but then you subvert your own point by providing a reasonable explanation for your troubles within the same sentence! Of course you are going to struggle to do your job in a group of players that are vastly better equipped than you. That's not even economics, that is literally X < Y .

Well the point about gear was to illustrate the opportunity cost of having to shield bash as your #1 priority over trying to generate enmity. Wasn't a perfect example as you pointed out, but I didn't think it would be looked at under such scrutiny. I guess next time I'll try to make a simple example that's also iron clad....

And we won't bother getting into the literal of X<Y because there are a lot of other variables besides X and Y, but that's just nit picking.

No need to turn this into a pissing contest.

[Tanaya]

Honestly, I prefer Shield Bash the way it is because it's our only "interesting" tool in Paladin's skill list with some sort of drawback.

[PiedPiper]

Honestly, I prefer Shield Bash the way it is because it's our only "interesting" tool in Paladin's skill list with some sort of drawback.

There is a sense in which this is so true. I miss 1.0 pld so much (as I've posted before about feeling like the class plays like 1.0 warrior with no control over the battle).

That said, I think its rather odd that shield skills interrupt main hand combos. We are the only class that uses an off hand as a part of our offense, I've always thought it would be more interesting if both hands had a separate gcd / combo, preferably with some combined combo that required setting up both hands for a big finisher.

PLEASE NOTE: Above is not a call for a buff. Obviously things would need to be adjusted to make this fair. At least warriors have something to keep them paying attention right now, and good warriors get to feel like they are contributing to their ability to tank (by going through their cycles correctly). Yes, it is a shame that warrior by and large is not viable right now, but at least when it is fixed your class will be fun to play. I have loved gld/pld since 1.0 pre-order launch, and at no time since then before nwo has the class been so unrewarding to play. I remember grinding out shield levels to get access to shield skills, the interaction of intellegently using the guard command. I just want paladin to be fun again. Stunning is the closest thing we have to fun (note: its only in trivial content such as ak and ifrit that its even possible to stun, garu and titan and beyond are all immune anyway), but if I go into ak with my fc, its with full dl/relic dds. If i stop building threat so i can have fun stunning the first boss.. I'll lose threat.

Now... if shield was on its own gcd, and there was a reason to consitently use shield skills... there might be some itneresting play where you give up off hand threat gen while continuing main hand threat gen to be ready to interrupt. Also, they could actually make the class interesting by say, giving a threat combo and a interrupt/mitigation combo to shield, so you have to choose (jsut as wariror does now between dps and healing). I would gladly give up awarness + bulwark and/or rampart as cool downs to get access to somethign like this.

We are a sword and board class, even our icon is the shield. Our relic comes with one and its the biggest and shiniest part of the +1. Yet, really, I feel like I just carry a sword and nothing else most of the time. "But you block attacks" randomly, with no interaction, and in a way not meaningfully different than parry. Hell, sometiems, it'll even say parry and give you the block animation (which sucks cus I put in the time for my +1 shield and would mitigate more if it was a block). At least in 1.0 we had skills like aegis boon and divine viel that made it feel like our shield was improtant. Now, 2/3 of our shield attacks are fancy animation rare-use offensive moves and the third one is the stun which is so useless I don't even keep it on my main bar. Seriously, other than tanking ifrit, you will never use this skill. Even for mitigation from trash pulls you're better off using swipe and spamming flash.

You're righ to say paladin is fine in terms of its ability to do content. It is incredibly unrewarding though. Hate swaping in Turn 2 and leading the chain pulls in speed runs is the only fun I have as pld--and both of those have nothing to do with playing the class.

All of that said: I do love me some captian america action, but... its acutally pretty much trash. On most real bosses, I'm giving up threat because it takes less than a gcd to move into range so I'm cliping the first roh combo. Only time I have ever felt "yep shield lob is really the best tool in my kit for this" is picking up the gnats in demon wall. Lob them both, cos, flash, back to dpsing wall. Hell, I usually pull with voke just cus its longer range and doesn't eat up my gcd (I'm aware it only earns 1 threat this way, not worried about htat). And, technically, I guess I use it to pull the third orb in turn 2 cus for what ever reason, he always seems to agro bounce during the pull if i don't (the other orbs don't do this, so idk, maybe i'm just terrible). But I think tha'ts more glitch than actual utility.