PLD 4.0

[Shurrikhan]

Wow, lots of stuff to reply to.

(1) As for the first point, I don't like the idea of ignoring the glowing 3rd ability and just alternate between 2 abilities for cleave. I think you should finish the combo so you are pressing more buttons and not breaking combos. Breaking combos should feel punishing imo.

I think a really good idea would be to have another 3rd combo ability called Whirling Blade or Whirlwind that just does AoE all around you and has a spin attack animation that follows Savage Blade.

(2) IMO, I feel like WAR should be the king of physical mitigation, DRK the king of magical mitigation, and PLD being a middle of the road mitigation and I think magical blocking and a focus on blocking would be the best way to do that. It also makes our playstyle focused on blocking more unique.

(3) I would hope that Yoshi sees that magic blocking is not that outlandish, and it fits the fantasy of the class. Paladins in WoW can block magic attacks through a talent called Holy Shield (sounds familiar?), and I always thought it fits the lore because Paladins are supposed to be these holy warriors that can utilize magic to defend themselves against magic. FF PLDs use MP, and have these holy abilities such as Flash and CoS, Hallowed Ground and Spirits Within so it makes sense.

(4) You can even change Shield Oath to instead increase block chance by 20% instead of flatly reducing [damage taken].

(5) As for Shield Balance, I think that we shouldn't complicate shield types because we don't want to make the class more in depth then the other tanking classes. It wouldn't be fair to them lol.

(2) It's actually the blocking, as compared to the more general nothing's-gotta-bring-me-down/pain-suppression/all-form mitigation of the Inner Beast motif that makes me think of PLD as the most physical of the tanks, and WAR as the middle of the road. I personally kind of like it that way; I just think PLDs should, holy/curative/light-magic user and all, be able to block some magic damage, reducing that gap. (That's just talking motif though; add Storm's Path vs. Rage of Halone and there's no contest, for better or worse.) Depending on how blocking is handled in regards to magic though, that would be much less the case, yeah.

(3) At any rate, you'd think it might make sense for a PLD to at least be able to block magic during Bulwark. But alas, no job traits. My favorite way to handle it is complex but, imo, realistic. Shields function against purely aetherial but projected (launched from caster to target) magic based on shield size (towers best), much like actually blocking a wave of fire against you; what's hidden won't be hit, so maximize that area. Just about anything should be able to block manifest magic (e.g. Stone). Nothing can block non-projected magic (anything that starts/appears directly in/on the target).

(4) Lately I've been looking at a lot of different ways to sort of get the same effectiveness out of Shield Oath without it being quite so basic, in combination with similar looks at Grit. Honestly, I really like the idea of stance-dancing, almost to the point where I feel like it wouldn't especially hurt if, in a fight with varying damage levels, a tank might stance-dance not just to get more dps out, but even to improve his overall defense.

[Outlandish ideas - just food for thought]

(This is kind of similar to when we thought DRK might be a life-tapping tank, spending life where healers would otherwise be overhealing in order to improve defense across times where healing needs would be uncomfortably intense / bolstering defense when it matters more so that healers can maintain DoTs, etc. Could be hell to heal, essentially, or an absolute breeze. In this case though it'd just be by generating, say, a parry- or parry-strength related resource or something similar but with less RNG-ness, while out of Grit, and then popping those into a sort of parry nuke when/by returning to Grit, almost like you were spending that mana not just on a stance, but on a variable shield of sorts.)

In PLD's case this stance-dancing bit came out as sort of an Oath resource, where Shield improved general damage mitigation, blocking, and could just outright make you a shield-based badass. (Think Shield Bash nukes.) The effects of either Oath would linger a bit after 'swapping', manually convertable through charging the spells themselves. While charging, Sword Oath channels a heavy on the target while building up attack speed and preparing bonus potency for your next oGCD. Overstacking the bonus potency unleashes it as a single strong cleave. Shield Oath channels a heavy on all nearby enemies while increasing block chance and reducing damage taken, drawing said enemies towards you at the end of the charge. Overstacking the bonus block chance automatically procs your block. Either charge can be rushed to reach the overstack bonus sooner by hitting the ability again while charging (spends extra mana, getting the short-term bonuses faster, but giving less of the long-term bonuses; these will instead generate / shift over time. Hitting any weaponskil would queue it for a typical 1-GCD or 2-GCD charge (max), hitting anything else twice ends the charge at that point and performs the attack, and moving of course ends the charge at that point). Charge speeds scale with (Skill) Speed, which should be a single stat with Spell Speed anyways...

(5) But... but, then we'd HAVE to make them all awesome!