Suggestion of Paladin "utility and fun" improvement

[Kenji1134]

Since the Warrior buffs in 2.1 went live, I am sure a number of Paladins have started peeking over the fence and trying out the other tanking class... I know I have.
At this point my PLD is 50, and my WAR is 36, but even at this level I can feel the playstyle difference.

Simply put, Warrior "feels" more fun because there are more things to do. You have 2 distinct combo chains, and the Wrath mechanic to play with.
But with Paladin, you have 1 primary combo chain, and 1 rarely used chain, which feels incomplete and is in itself insufficient to regen enough mana for a single Flash per use.
With that in mind, I want to make the following suggestions to make Paladin's playstyle a little more diverse and fun, without making it overpowered.

1. Add in a 3rd part to the Riot Blade combo.
War has 2 3-step combos, so why cant Paladin? I see two options here.
First, we can make Flash combo off of Riot Blade, generating extra hate, or costing EXACTLY 133 mana when using after Riot.
Secondly, we could make a change to Shield Swipe, and make it a dual purpose ability, like so:
When used after blocking, Shield Swipe has 210 potency and applies Pacification.
When combo'd with Riot Blade (after Fast Blade), Shield Swipe has 100 potency, hits all enemies in front of you within 5y (front 180 degrees), and reduces their INT by 10% for 20 seconds.
I am personally leaning towards the second option, as this gives us 2 combo chains that serve different but useful goals.
The RoH chain generates significant threat and debuffs STR by 10% for 20 sec.
The Riot-Swipe chain generates less threat, gives mana, and debuffs INT by 10% for 20 sec.
Now we would have some things to rotate around depending on the situation. Granted, if you have a monk in the group, the Riot-Swipe chain becomes somewhat useless... but this just means that PLD wont be magically stronger in raids.

2. Add a "Wrath-Like" stacking mechanic to Shield Oath.
Yes, I am practically ripping off Defiance here... sue me. Defiance adds a nice short-term mechanic that makes tanking less monotonous on Warrior, which after playing a Warrior, Paladin REALLY needs.
My idea is as follows: When you have Shield Oath on and take damage, you gain 1 stack of "Divinity", with a 1 second internal cooldown to prevent instantly getting stacks in something like a WPSR.
When you have 10 stacks of Divinity, the next spell is instant and costs 0 mana. Once you use a spell under this effect, you lose all stacks of Divinity.

The idea is simple, things hit you, you counter with divine magic... Which in our case is limited to Flash, Cure, Stoneskin, and Raise...
So, bunch of mobs beating on you? Every 10s you can cast a Flash for free.
One big mob beating on you? Every 20-25s you can cast an instant Stoneskin for free.
Is the fight almost over but someone died? Well, keep your stacks up and after the fight, toss them a quick Raise.

A mechanic like this will in no way make Paladins amazingly powerful. It reduces our dependance on Bards for aoe aggro, and lets us be just a tiny bit more self sufficient using Cure and Stoneskin, namely Stoneskin.
Plus it adds a little more depth to the playstyle of the class, and differentiates us from Warriors. Both would have a stacking mechanics, Warriors gain stacks by attacking and use the stacks for offensive abilities, Paladins gain stacks by being attacked and use them for defensive abilities.

So what do you guys think? Would these be worthwhile changes? Would adding a little bit more depth to the Riot Blade combo and an extra buff to watch make Paladin a more fun and engaging class to play?
Or do we want to stick to Warriors being the dynamic skill-based class, while Paladins are extremely stable, but kinda boring?

[Duuude007]

Paladin is boring? News to me.

[abzoluut]

I don't find PLD boring at all. Fun to swap the oaths 'perfectly', time CD's, cover and whatnot. I also can't give you much credit since you're only a lvl 36 WAR. I do understand you can see its potential, but not having both at the same (gear) level is too much of a difference to make such a statement imho.

I guess the grass looks greener when you peek over the fence.. xD

edit: I do like the divinity stuff, not to make it more fun. To make it feel more like a PLD, I miss some holy-ish stuff.

[Kenji1134]

While I agree that I do need to get my WAR to 50 to make a stronger argument, I dont think gear has much to do with it, this is primarily a playstyle issue.
Warrior simply has more that it can do to make itself useful. This is why "good" Warriors are praised while "good" Paladins are just... expected.
A WAR has greater control over a fight than a PLD, mostly due to self buffs and enemy debuffs. PLD has no self buffs, 1 debuff on the primary chain, and 1 situational debuff that often does not affect the mob. So as a "good" WAR I can buff myself, debuff the mobs to take more damage and do less damage, and naturally heal myself. As a "good" PLD I can debuff the mobs to do less physical damage to me, and rotate through a pile of defensive cooldowns until the healer dies of boredom. =P

The main thing I want to do is to add just a little more variety to the PLD tanking rotation, that alone would make the class more enjoyable. Granted, my changes would result in spamming 1-4-5, 1-2-3 x 3, 1-4-5... but that is still better than 1-2-3 all the time.
The additional stack mechanics, its just something I thought would be fun. Just another way to break up the rotation monotony while keeping the flow smooth.

Dunno, maybe I have been playing BLM too much... all those procs and rotation instabilities, it is rather engaging, and makes Paladin feel a little too simplistic.

[Samanthya]

I think they are fine as is, I love my pld and don't see any need to change it at all.

[Kitru]

Simply put, Warrior "feels" more fun because there are more things to do.

That's kind of the point. PLD was pretty obviously designed to be the simple tank. Probably the only thing it actually needs is a tier 3 finisher to Riot Blade that doesn't generate high enmity so that they can actually play OT-DPS without having to worry about ripping hate because they're spamming their high enmity combo the entire time.

As to your assertion that Divinity isn't overpowered, you haven't really done the math on it, have you? Stoneskin on a PLD is worth the exact same on a percentage basis as it is to a WAR, so you can compare percents of max hp to each other for equivalence. A WAR is going to use Storm's Path and Inner Beast roughly once every 20 seconds, which is what you expect the rate of use on Divinity>Stoneskin to be. With 8.5k hp, I get ~400 hp back with Inner Beast and ~150 with Storm's Path. That's 7.6% of max hp every 20 seconds or so. Your Stoneskin is providing 10% every 20 seconds. The WAR heal is intended to make up for the 5% lower +healing that WAR gets from its stance and you're giving PLD enough to provide even more, not to mention that, because it's an absorb shield, it's almost impossible for it to be wasted (your healer would have to be Stoneskinning you in combat, which pretty much never happens).

[Kenji1134]

Its a situational concern at most.
If you want to compare an instant Stoneskin to IB, then lets consider this.
You have 8.5k on War, thats 6.8k base. So if you were a PLD, you'd have 6.8k hp, and Stoneskin would shield you for 680.
IB can heal you for 400, and knocks off 20% of all incoming damage for the next 6 seconds. If the IB heal is there to compensate for the % healing difference, then I'll just consider the mitigation part. 680/0.2 = 3400. You need to take 3400 unmitigated damage during the 6 seconds following IB to equal the amount of damage a PLD with an instant Stoneskin would prevent.

Offhand I am pretty sure that Mountain Buster, Rotoswipe+Autoattack (4 stacks), and Death Sentence are quite a bit more than 3.4k, and an experienced WAR would be trying to time their IB buff specifically for those hits, exactly the same way a PLD would try to time their instant Stoneskin.

Personally I dont see it as that much of an issue. IB will still be better for mitigating large timed hits, this just gives a PLD who's leveled CNJ enough a little more flexibility.

[Kitru]

If you want to compare an instant Stoneskin to IB, then lets consider this.

IB is already balanced against PLDs with just Shield Oath and shield. Comparing *additional* benefits to PLD against a mechanic that is already required in order to be balanced with PLD is double dipping on balance comparisons.

[Sylari]

I'd say if we wanted to look at anything in terms of improving paladin it should be their AoE options (mostly in regards to damage) and doing something about garbage skills like awareness, tempered will and sword oath. Could easily replace all three of those with meaningful dynamic skills to make the class more engaging. Agree with Kitru on this particular suggestion.

[abzoluut]

Gear does have something to do with it, since you can then do the exact same content on the exact same 'level'. I find it a better to compare my PLD to my WAR now that they're on par gear wise, doing the exact same content in almost the exact same gear.

This is personal. If you can make the comparison accurate enough in your situation, I praise you.

I'm all for making classes 'more fun', since I like to play with a party full of different jobs. I hope SE keeps balancing things out.