Possible Paladin Rework...

[Sokerimuro]

Lotsastuff.

I read through all that, just a heads up.

At least for me this thread is not so much about the balance between the two tanking classes, which I deem is very good at the moment, but rather the layout of the Paladin class as opposed to the Warrior class. In terms of options, interactions etc.. I think Paladins have it better in terms of mitigation than Warriors when it comes to physical damage (which is in the end actually true from calculation viewpoint) and Warriors conversely deal better with magic damage and do more damage as a tank. And to get it out of the way, yes tank DPS matters a whole lot! Many of the groups progressing in Final Coil make fine adjustments to the tank gear of OT and even MT, simply to squeeze a bit more damage out over the course of the fight to meet the DPS checks. Anyways without trailing away too much, I personally like the design that Paladin deals little damage and takes a lot of beating, Vanilla shield tank style.

I don't really want the class to deal more damage, what I personally wish to see is the possibility to "Oath dance" better than what it currently is, and some more use for the Shield Swipe skill. Oaths already have a cost in terms of mana as opposed to most of the similar abilities of other classes. To add on top of that the fact that Oaths are on GCD AND break our combo if used. Even the small QoL change of allowing us to switch between Oaths without it breaking our combo would go a long way. Giving the possibility to actually use them off-GCD would be truly neat, with the manacost taking care of any "spammability" issues that could arise.

And Shield Swipe, oh the Shield Swipe. We are a tank with a shield, traditionally this style would find offensive uses for that blocking block, and we DO have skills for that in their very own unique respects. Shame is Swipe is pretty moot as it stands, and I dare say quite useless in proper content. Shield Bash on the other hand is awesome and I state here once and for all, nothing on that skill should change. It is Paladin's unique niché, tactical stunning on demand. Being on GCD and breaking our combo are the big balancing factors here.

And to finally ask it out, why so many people disregard Awareness? That skill is good. Sure you do not see it as straight mitigation like other of our tools, but already there is a specific encounter in the game that benefits a great deal from Awareness. To add on top of that, it is a very good AoE tanking cooldown! By itself not so fancy, but combined with something like Foresight we have a very durable AoE tanking 20 seconds going on. And why is this? Spikes kill tanks. Simple as that. Damage by itself does not, uncontrollable spiky damage does. When making large pulls (speedruns etc.) or simply having to tank 3 mobs that hit hard, the ability to negate critical hits is huge. Singular criticals we eat all the time, it is part of the design, but criticals in multiples are what Awareness is truly for, and shines in. When pulling larger packs there is always the chance that for example 8 out of the 12 mobs decide to crit at the same time. This will often kill the tank.

And to state it yet, yes all our damage mitigation cooldowns come to work with large pulls, that much is granted, but for example Awareness + Convalescence form a very solid CD pair, whereas Convalescence alone does not necessarily mean easier time for the healer.

Peace out.