Paladin Parity Suggestion Package

[Yhximott]

If only DRK were bad enough to warrant such an in-depth overhaul that could turn it into an actual DRK. Maybe this will blaze a trail to future trees or something of that nature.

That aside I would love to see every one of these changes implemented.

[Shurrikhan]

If only DRK were bad enough to warrant such an in-depth overhaul that could turn it into an actual DRK. Maybe this will blaze a trail to future trees or something of that nature.

That aside I would love to see every one of these changes implemented.

DRK was actually the job that made me start writing this; I didn't level PLD much past 50 until I had gotten my love/hate relationship with DRK to 60 already. To be honest, DRK was a lot easier to "fix" though. The main points I was thinking over while leveling, and before I started playing PLD and WAR as well equally often, are listed below:

"Simple Fixes" Package

Summary: MP costs adjusted for rounded/clean values at 60 instead of 50, mana efficiency increased (resultant small DPS buff, especially as MT), Reprisal buffed (resultant small MT buff), Reprisal OT utility improved, self-healing buffed slightly, Blood Price synergy increased, QoL changes, BP slightly stronger against bosses (faint MT buff).

Universal Changes:

• Stance-type spells can now be recast (dropped) oGCD. (No more Blood Weapon eating into next GCD when swapping out of Grit when it otherwise could have been dropped just before the GCD refreshed instead.)
• Skill Speed and Spell Speed turned into a single stat, Speed.
• TP regen (base and bonus ticks via Goad/Paeon/RookPro) now ticks for 20% less but at the player's GCD rate. (Skill) Speed is no longer any less TP efficient for average ST rotations, though it will exhaust quicker during mass DoTing/AoEing and will regenerate faster when buffed than non-Speed builds.
• Ability-based heals now scale with Convalescence (and Defiance, Mantra, etc), but continue not to scale with the healer's own buffs (e.g. Divine Seal) - This is primarily future-proofing and a Warrior MT buff, to make up somewhat for the value of DRK/PLD improvements.

Dark Knight:

• The cooldown of Dark Arts now scales with Speed.
• Blood Weapon may now be used in Grit, but while in Grit it provides healing instead of mana. This is primarily meant to aid with TP issues. The MP cost change to Grit is the primary save for stance-dancing and MP issues. The healing done is generally inferior in value to mana generated.
• Living Dead now requires the DRK to be healed for 80% of its health, down from 100%.
• Delirium will no longer be removed by Dragon Kick, though their effects will still be incapable of stacking. -- New Coding
• Reprisal no longer requires a parry to be usable, but its duration has been reduced to 12 seconds. Using Reprisal also triggers the buff Revengeance, which gives a 20% chance for Reprisal to be usable regardless of cooldown (neither affected by or affecting CD) after a dodge or parry. Reprisals used under this effect will only deal 120 potency, however, and refresh the duration of Reprisal by 10 seconds, to a maximum of 20 seconds. Proc available for 5 seconds. -- New Coding
• Blood Price has been revised. Blood Price will now give mana per attack attempted against you, rewarding dodges and enemy misses, and its mana returns are averaged with an amount based on the mitigated attack’s original potency and its actual damage.

  It now returns more mana against strong single attackers, but slightly less mana against weak attackers. It will now provide mana against missed attacks, though it will return a third less than if the attack had hit. Returns even more mana against unmitigated attacks. Overall a decent buff to MT single-target mana generation. DA-DD is now far less disadvantageous to stack with BP. -- New Coding

• Darkside’s visual effect has been revised. It should now appear smaller and more concentrated around the Dark Knight’s eyes, right arm, and blade (when drawn).
• The Soul Devourer trait now improves Souleater’s damage-to-healing drain percentile both in and out of Grit by 50%. (After 48, Grit Souleater will heal for 100% of damage, but non-Grit Souleater will also heal for 50%.)

  OR Grit now increases self-healing generated by 33% and Souleater no longer requires Grit for its damage-as-healing component. -- Currently no coding that can buff self-healing done through per-damage effects, though it would be important for making Fending equally viable to Slaying in all ways outside of actual dps done, so I think it's well warranted.

• Losing Darkside will no longer remove the Dark Arts buff.

  The difficulty of reactivating Darkside and its associated Dark Arts-paired ability within the remaining duration should be limitation enough.

• Physical attacks that trigger but are immune to dodges will automatically force a parry while Dark Dance is up. (If the attack rolled a 'dodge', but the attack cannot be dodged, wasting the roll, it will instead be parried. DA-Dark Dance is no longer wasted against undodgeable physical attacks, but simply has a doubled parry effect instead).
  
  The mana costs of several abilities have been reduced:
• Grit MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 1326 to 700. (53% of past value)
• Darkside MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 442 to 350. (79% of past value)
• Unleash MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 800 to 770. (96% of past value)
• Dark Passenger MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 884 to 800. (91% of past value)
• Abyssal Drain MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 974 to 870. (89% of past value)
• Dark Arts MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 1764 to 1500. (85% of past value)
  This is partly for a bit more DRK dps, but also largely just to achieve rounded values at level 60 (where any DRK will be for 90+% of its HW lifetime...) instead of at level 50.

"Ideal" (utter redo) Package:

Just going to summarize, but basically making even more use of DRK's massive rate of action entertainment value, and improving slightly on its tactical sense, along with making it a far more terrifying bastard tank and more of a stance-dancer.

• Grit has a lingering fade, proportionate mana cost and effect and works as sort of a shielding spell of its own. No longer just a Shield Oath equivalent.
• There are certain defensive resources that are more quickly gatherable out of Grit.
• DRK abilities have a decent native cleave component, almost exactly as they appear to have.
• DRK can in fact consume his own HP for additional damage/effects. (Would have to be limited in such a way that DRK OT dps wouldn't need Regens to keep up with other OTs nor be overpowered when Regen'ed.) - Mainly used as MT during low damage periods in order to build up resource that it can use to increase max HP later.
• DRK makes use of "variable cooldowns" (cooldowns that can 1) be used early, 2) can be accelerated early, and/or 3) are based on a resource of which 'time' is only a part.)
• Abilities "usable early" require at least 2/3s progress, for 1/2 effect at 2/3s progress, 2/3 at 3/4s, 3/4s at 4/5s, etc. Penalizes you less the closer you get. May also be able to overcharge for up to a 50% extra charge, worth 33% more effect, and so on.
• DRK is now exceedingly more... theatrical, or, terrifying af. Capable of knockbacks, eating incoming spells with void shields (Shadow resource) and then drawing them back out after or consuming their magic for mana, drawing the sword dropped through the ground via Unleash out of an enemy's back (a rather smooth, slightly slower blink-strike), leaving shadowy after-images, severely buffed parries, and more. Still by no means a Death Knight or a Black Guard or a what have you, still potentially a defender of the weak tired of the world's shit, and infused with the power thereof (the world's shit, I mean, not defending the people, obviously).
• Abilities can be roughly classified into 3 themes, Steel, Blood, and Shadow.
• Mana is still used, but only as a shared resource to support both Blood and Shadow spells/skills/effects. So you essentially have 2 real resources, and then a measure of shared access/freedom between them.
• Delirium no longer just reduces magic damage dealt by 10%. It suppresses the target's magic damage based on your damage proportionate to enemy health (67% max, 33% current) and applies a Shadow resource drain, which can be used in a variety of ways. Two thirds of this effect applies directly to the DRK, usable on any enemy, and a third on the target itself. (Think of it as granting 2 stacks as a buff, another as a debuff, roughly speaking.) You essentially slip the enemy further into nightmare, improving the effectiveness of certain moves against it, while helping you build more shadow energy around yourself to be used for other abilities and to strengthen aura effects.
• Scourge now also applies a Blood resource drain, as do all attacks under Blood Weapon.
• Soul Eater is no longer just a simple self-heal. It now 'eats' Shadow/Blood resources stored in the target, charging the DRK directly, and/or, if it would otherwise exceed maximum resource the DRK could use, using them immediately.
• Shadow Skin is now half-based on shadow resource. Variable CD. No longer Dark Rampart. (Same for Shadow Wall, etc).
• Dark Dance both uses and generates Steel and Shadow. Variable CD.
• All in all, similar to now, but with a few extra, really cool looking tools, a lot more freedom of timing, more variable attack speed

While I'm at it, here's the WAR changes I'd been thinking of to some extent for a while:

Only the bolded areas are important. Rest are just flavor, giving it a bit more of a rampage-ish feel and a tiny bit of support in a unique way.

Universal:

• Ability-based healing and self-healing now scales with heal-embonusing effects on affected targets (e.g. Defiance, Convalescence). They still ignore Infirmity and are still not affected by abilities like Divine Seal. -- MT bonus, to keep its standing vs. DRK after the above, and to make Bloodbath almost as useful in Defiance as in Deliverance, more so with Unchained.
• All suppression weaponskills and abilities with an attached potency now deal additional effect to enemies based on their damage vs. enemy max HP. Same minimum suppression %, but slightly increased effect vs. weaker enemies.

Warrior:

• Inner Beast revised for more soloing usability and uniqueness; now varies based on health between a self-heal nuke and shielding. Increases maximum health by up to <%HP> of damage dealt, heals for <3*(1-%HP)> of damage dealt (minimum of 33%). Decreases damage taken by 10% for 6 seconds. A small buff until taking more than ~22k would-be damage.
• Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone now ignore only half the damage penalty of Defiance, but their damage has been increased by 17% (to 330 and 235). -- More Unchained burst.
• Trait: Rampage - critical strikes and parries now provide a small burst of attack speed (.15% per modified (by Maim, Deliverance, crit multiplier bonus) potency of the critting ability or .2% per modified potency of the ability parried). Values not actually shown on screen. Effects may stack, but stacking does not refresh older effects. Each instance of attack speed bonus lasts 3 seconds + .5 seconds per 100 potency. [Raw Intuition only has a chance equal to your parry chance to proc this effect.] -- More chaotic WAR-styled heat-of-battle wreckage. Up to 10% attack speed bonus for 3.3 seconds after both of a double FC critting.
• Thrill of Battle now also applies Battle Fever, which allows you to use self-healing to push your max hp even higher for as long as you can deal heavy damage (racing against fading effects). You gain 5% of your damage dealt as an increase to maximum health, to a maximum of 15% bonus max HP. Each instance of increased HP fades separately over 6 seconds. [This health cap includes Defiance's multiplier. You might cap in Deliverance, then swap to Defiance to go further if you can outrun the fade.]
• Holmgang and Thrill of Battle made into two-stage cooldowns.
• Thrill of Battle is now a 2-minute CD by default, but can be retriggered during its duration to add another two minutes to its timer while sharing the additional effect with your party, capping at a 15% bonus of their respective max health pools. <-- when lacking any other form of raid mitigation, save dps CDs and nuke the shit out of the boss with this up before it AoE nukes you in order to survive.
• Holmgang will originally grab an enemy up to 12 yalms away, drag it to you, and leash it to within your melee range for up to 2 seconds for a 1-minute cooldown. Using Holmgang again within those 2 seconds will pull it close once more and apply the rest of Holmgang's effects for an additional 2 minute's cooldown.

[MagiusNecros]

I like all these hypothetical changes you would suggest for Drk. Sad thing is none of em will ever happen.

[PogueX]

Would PLD be any better if they just made the abilities effect people around you rather than just the PLD, like Flight or Fight "increases all party members with 10 yalms " rather than just the PLD. Or is it the PLD abilities are just lackluster regardless. I for one would love it if they made it a true support-tank cause i would think it would be great when both tanks need to stack to have one pop off something like rampent which will effect both tanks

[Synestra]

This might be kinda off-topic but has anyone else noticed that PLD base STR is 10 less than WAR and DRK while all three has equal amount of DEX and VIT. Also PLD has extremely high MND even tho its totally useless for said job, tbh it seems these are some kind of leftover things from 1.0 that should get fixed.

[Sevyrr]

I wanted so badly for Defiance/Deliverance to just toggle into the opposite, and for Inner Beast to immediately turn into Fell Cleave once in Deliverance, and Steel Cyclone into Decimate... alas, that too, is one of those coding issues, I guess.

Have you considered using a macro to change your hotbars for when you hit Defiance/Deliverance?
I and a member of my FC both do this, to swap Decimate and Fell Cleave with Steel Cyclone and Inner Beast. (I think his is more complex or whatever.)

[Shurrikhan]

Have you considered using a macro to change your hotbars for when you hit Defiance/Deliverance?
I and a member of my FC both do this, to swap Decimate and Fell Cleave with Steel Cyclone and Inner Beast. (I think his is more complex or whatever.)

If I used a macro (non-queuable) I'd be unable to queue them mid-animation, causing slight GCD clip with any latency during a window in which I'm using an oGCD for Deliv/Defiance, and guaranteeing some clip for FC/Deci, which annoys the hell out of me and kills my 9-hit Berserks.

If they went ahead and fixed that about macros, that would work too, but I'd rather SE just stack ability redundancies into a single bind (FC/IB, Deci/SC, F&C/WT) by default, etc.

[Shurrikhan]

Would PLD be any better if they just made the abilities effect people around you rather than just the PLD, like Flight or Fight "increases all party members with 10 yalms " rather than just the PLD. Or is it the PLD abilities are just lackluster regardless. I for one would love it if they made it a true support-tank cause i would think it would be great when both tanks need to stack to have one pop off something like rampent which will effect both tanks

A party-wide Fight or Flight would already be at least 6x as effective as Trick Attack if unchanged, and would cripple PLD's comparative values at low party sizes, but I can give examples from what I've messed with for Divine Veil if you like, namely:

Divine Veil - 10 second CD. Consumes the next CD used, applying it instead as a lesser party-wide effect. Effect is halved and averaged with 10% and duration halved and averaged with 10 seconds. Trait bonuses are not applied. Fight or Flight is uniquely reduced to 33% effect. Hallowed Ground cannot be shared.
FoF = 10% damage bonus. 10 seconds. -- If at 12.5%, it would be almost equal to Trick Attack. This already makes the shared version about even in a high-dps 8-man party.
Rampart = 8.75% mitigation, 10 seconds.
Sentinel = 12.5% mitigation, 7.5 seconds.
Tempered Will = 7.5 seconds.
Awareness = 8.75 seconds.

[Freyyy]

snip

FoF only increases physical damage. But yeah, if it was able to be party-wide it should be less than 30% for 30sec, even if it's only physical damage.

[Bashum]

I'd love to see shield swipe modified to add a debuff that increased dmg taken, or increases chance to be critically hit, etc.

Since it affects everyone, it would need to be low, like a 5% dmg increase, but would still give a compelling reason for a Paladin to MT. Or, if you had a DRK as MT, you could coordinate tank swaps just so the pally can apply the debuff before the DRK provokes it back. On fights where there isn't already a mandatory tank swap mechanic of course.

Also, an "improved provoke" trait which was paladin only that gave a small potency heal to whomever you just provoked the mob off of would be cool as well.