Are my mitigation numbers off ?

[Reynhart]

Though I think the idea of the Paladin inspiring party members and giving them a damage buff

Some kind of Divine Veil counterpart...OR, maybe Divine Veil effect could change wether you use Shield Oath or Sword Oath...

[Februs]

If something like that would be implemented You are definitly right that it should not have 100% uptime, maybe a 5s vulnerability after shild swipe (so at most 33% uptime but i'm not sure if that is still to strong), the other Problem would be not having it while OT.

Exactly why Shied swipe is the absolute worst move to modify out of all of Pld's skill set. It has to be proc'd to be used. This means that changing the effect of Shield Swipe would be severely limiting the utility of Pld's. For one, to even use it you basically must be MT. It's for this reason that Shield Swipe was never considered a good way of maintaining TP. OT Pld's are constantly screwed, and that's crap. Any changes made should consider the possibility of Pld OT'ing as well as the possibility that the boss simply doesn't attack physically (A4, anyone?). Not to mention the fact that you would be basing a large part of Pld utility on random chance. I disagree with that on principle. Whatever changes they make should be based on player skill, not luck.

[Giantbane]

He's talking about mitigation. I mentioned eHP in my one of my previous post and I did include Raw Inuitition in the Warrior mitigation percentage in this post.

You've already acknowledged just talking about actual mitigation abilities is dumb, so why continue? This should be about abilities that either effect eHP (if you're talking about taking a big hit or lots of damage in a short time) or healing efficiency (when you're talking about healer's ability to sustain you).

It's fine if you want to use mitigation as a term that encompasses eHP and healing efficiency (although it can be confusing for anyone being too literal about it). But you need to convert other abilities that effect hit points and healing directly into their mitigation equivalents to do so. Can't just leave those out and have any kind of meaningful discussion on the matter.

[Giantbane]

Exactly why Shied swipe is the absolute worst move to modify out of all of Pld's skill set. It has to be proc'd to be used. This means that changing the effect of Shield Swipe would be severely limiting the utility of Pld's. For one, to even use it you basically must be MT. It's for this reason that Shield Swipe was never considered a good way of maintaining TP. OT Pld's are constantly screwed, and that's crap. Any changes made should consider the possibility of Pld OT'ing as well as the possibility that the boss simply doesn't attack physically (A4, anyone?). Not to mention the fact that you would be basing a large part of Pld utility on random chance. I disagree with that on principle. Whatever changes they make should be based on player skill, not luck.

It was a good idea to adjust that move as they did. DRK & WAR have specific DPS boosts for when they are getting hit or when they're in tank stance to improve MT DPS. This finally brings something like that to the PLD to close the DPS gap a little while tanking.

If there was a problem, it's that there weren't more adjustments.

[Februs]

Some kind of Divine Veil counterpart...OR, maybe Divine Veil effect could change wether you use Shield Oath or Sword Oath...

That would be nice... but Divine Veil has an awfully long CD and very specific utility. That, in itself, is not a killer (Battle Litany also has a long CD, but it's still effective), but Pld's already use it at pre-scripted parts of fights (such as high AoE dmg boss mechs). So, in fights with fluctuating boss defense (like Ravana) Pld's would not be nearly as efficient and be torn between using Divine Veil to boost offense during vulnerability phases or defense during LB's and raid wide dmg. Most Plds would have to opt for offensive uses of Divine Veil because during a lot (as in most) of Raid wide damaging attacks, the boss becomes un-target-able. Meaning the Pld would be saving the party from dmg, but wasting most of the dmg buff. Basically, no matter how a Pld used it, half of it's utility would be wasted. The only way to completely get full efficiency out of Divine Veil like this would be to bring Two Pld's and have them decided in advance who is using Divine Veil for Offense and who is using it for Defense. It's nice to have options and all... but I see this causing more problems than solving them.

I do like the idea of changing effects based on Oath though. It would dramatically improve the enjoyment of the players and the utility of our Oaths if we had actual reasons to stance dance (besides taking full advantage of Fight or Flight). I think SE could potentially fix all of Pld's problems if they just utilized the system they already have in place.

[Giantbane]

Some kind of Divine Veil counterpart...OR, maybe Divine Veil effect could change wether you use Shield Oath or Sword Oath...

I wish flash had blind on it baseline so it was a more meaningful cross class ability.

And I wish the PLD flash talent applied a debuff that increased damage (or at least magic damage) to the target for the next 5-10seconds. Would help lagging PLD aoe DPS without just giving them a straight AoE DPS move.

[eagledorf]

No, it would not be a solution to give one of the tanks a unique vulnerability up debuff. That would be terrible because if it's balanced at an equal amount of gear, that tank would be overpowered during the middle part of progression when the DPS get weapons first (especially once all 4 have it) even assuming that the 3.2 changes linearize how fast tank DPS scales as we outgear content. If the 3.2 changes don't do that it would be even more messed up when one tank is in VIT and another is in DPS gear.

Just give up on this stupid insistance that PLD is the pure tank when we all know it would be game-breaking to actually make them a measurably better tank than the other two and increase Paladin's DPS; it's not even contrary to the lore or anything since PLD are basically the elite royal guard and not some sort of juggernaut that made a pacifistic oath. There's literally no reason whatsoever PLD should have low DPS or a lack of magic mitigating skills (or DRK should lack physical mitigating skills, TP management in Grit, or any utility whatsoever as OT).

[Februs]

It was a good idea to adjust that move as they did. DRK & WAR have specific DPS boosts for when they are getting hit or when they're in tank stance to improve MT DPS. This finally brings something like that to the PLD to close the DPS gap a little while tanking.

This is actually false.

It is a fact that taking Shield Swipe off of the GCD improves Pld Dps on Bosses; however, the amount of Dps gained is marginal (as in nearly pointless, especially with the potency nerf inflicted on SW) and there are HUGE trade offs for this tiny concession. Without going into specific numbers, Mob tanking/enmity/mitigation/and dmg as well as general Tp consumption have gotten immensely worse on Pld because of this change.

Shield Swipe no longer acts as a stopgap for Plds, because it no longer delays their primary combos. There are now ZERO interruption to Pld Tp consumption (unless you include Flash, which does ZERO dmg and hurts party dps output), so they can burn their Tp bar like it's going out of fashion. This used to be a problem mostly for boss fights, but now it can be seen even in Mob tanking. Pld's no longer have the option of threading their Primary combos with Shield Swipe, so their RoH combo can only be interrupted by Flash. To hold aggro efficiently, they have now been restricted to using Flash more often which, again, hurts dmg values.

Mob tanking itself has taken a hit because of this. Pld's no longer have the ability to exploit Shield Swipe as a means of holding mob aggro. After 3.0 you could run into a mob, Shield Lob > Flash > and then cycle your RoH combo with Shield Swipes threaded in between each move (FB > SW > SB > SW > RoH etc). If you made sure you had RoH land on a different target every time, you reduced your overall incoming dmg using the debuff while maxing your enmity on that target. If you did the same thing with Shield Swipe (alternated a new target each time) you were maxing enmity while debuffing with Pacify. If you were doing a bigger pull you could pop Bulwark to make this rotation even more efficient. If you spread your enmity well enough using Shield Swipe, you could even forego the use of RoH after one or two applications in favour of Goring Blade to increase your Dps even further. It got to the point where, if you knew how to do this really well, a Pld needed no more than 1 or 2 Flashes to hold aggro and it was all about dealing pure dmg while increasing mitigation. For a blissfully short time, we weren't miles behind War's and Drks on holding mob aggro while outputting Dps and were even a little ahead in terms of mob mitigation because of Pacify/RoH applications. Now we can't do this nearly as efficiently.

TL;DR:
Pros of taking SW off the GCD: Minuscule increase to Pld Dps on Bosses

Cons: Reduced Enmity on Mobs. Reduced Dmg on Mobs. Reduced dmg mitigation on mobs. Increased Tp consumption without respite. Reduced efficiency and utility of Bulwark/Shelltron.

Verdict: Was taking Shield Swipe off of the GCD a "good" change? In short, no.

[Februs]

I wish flash had blind on it baseline so it was a more meaningful cross class ability.

And I wish the PLD flash talent applied a debuff that increased damage (or at least magic damage) to the target for the next 5-10seconds. Would help lagging PLD aoe DPS without just giving them a straight AoE DPS move.

Neither of these would be effective for actual Tanking...

If Flash bound its targets, positioning them accordingly would be extremely difficult. Tank's have to think about that kind of thing. If i'm doing a stretch or drag pull, Flash would stop me dead in my tracks. If I wanted to keep Mob Aoe's away from the party, Flash would stop me from doing that. Given that Flash is the only AoE way a Pld can fast grab group enmity, this would be terrible for them.

The debuff wold be bad too, especially for casters. It sounds like a really good idea at first, but, again, it wouldn't work for a tank. The whole point of Flash is to hold aggro. If it applied a Debuff that allowed AoE casters to do more dmg, Pld's would be risking increasing the enmity of their party more than their own. It would be like applying the effect of overhealing to your casters. Pld's already have a hard enough time holding mob enmity (weakest enmity multiplier and zero aoe dmg), doing this would only make it worse.

[Giantbane]

Verdict: Was taking Shield Swipe off of the GCD a "good" change? In short, no.

If there was a problem, it's that there weren't more adjustments. Specifically to other abilities to deal with PLD shortcomings in terms of TP and threat.

Neither of these would be effective for actual Tanking...

If Flash bound its targets..

The whole point of Flash is to hold aggro....

BLIND

All the casters have access to moves to control enmity. If they use them appropriately, there shouldn't be an issue regardless of who is tanking.