There are already two dps-tank jobs, please don't make Paladin the third.

[Duelle]

Thing is, as we can see with Heavenly Heel, it's wonderful against PHYSICAL tank busters with a cast.
It'd eat Flatten for breakfast. It's more victim of circumstance than a bad ability.

At least in my own experiences, auto attacks still process while a boss is midcast and preparing high damage attacks, so the element that devalues Sheltron is there. If the intent of the ability is to guarantee a block because of a big incoming hit, turning it into guaranteed blocking for 5s basically meets that intent while giving some leeway.

For its animation and the niche it seems intended to fill, an extended block would make a lot more sense, and would certainly give it more significance in AoE pulls, but I don't think it's exactly necessary either. First block + 1.5 seconds thereafter would be more than enough time. I'd be more inclined to say that it and/or Bulwark's inability to affect magic damage taken whatsoever are larger points of evidence of a broken toolkit.

5 seconds isn't that much time, to be honest. Uptime would still be pretty low considering it'd still have a 30s cooldown.

The devs have already said something to the effect of never allowing shields to block/mitigate magic, so that particular point is not worth pursuing at the moment.

[Shurrikhan]

At least in my own experiences, auto attacks still process while a boss is midcast and preparing high damage attacks, so the element that devalues Sheltron is there. If the intent of the ability is to guarantee a block because of a big incoming hit, turning it into guaranteed blocking for 5s basically meets that intent while giving some leeway.

5 seconds isn't that much time, to be honest. Uptime would still be pretty low considering it'd still have a 30s cooldown.

Right, I just find that this fact makes zero sense. The animations literally stop, but the AAs continue, or can be unleashed immediately before the actual tank-buster. It looks and feels terrible. Rather than using this to promote a fix to Shelltron itself, I wish they'd just get that shit out of the game. The game already feels plentifully unreactive without clipping or muting mob animations. That said, I also still think that 5 seconds is far longer than is needed to fulfill that intent. With 5 seconds, I could block literally every mob in front of me while moving towards gather on a sprint pull, or have an extra Inner Beast at no cost (30% every 30 seconds vs. 20% every 19-23 seconds +/- Infuriate).

Edit: Just got through a Ex rl Moratorium where I spent what felt like one in every 9 GCDs self-healing. He cast exactly 9 single-target heals in a 3 1/2 minute fight, only two of them on me leaving me at 2k hp to continue spamming Boil. I don't think I've ever loved Shelltron's MP generation so much. Sadly, if Shelltron was made more useful or reliable in these other contexts, we might well lose that MP generation. That'd be fine for OT position, or if, as PLDs cry out in terror, Riot Blade's MP generation were increased to compensate, but I've gotten through so much on the virtue of Clemency as timing Shelltron (as finicky as it is) well that I'm really afraid of any balancing nerfs.

[Duelle]

Right, I just find that this fact makes zero sense. The animations literally stop, but the AAs continue, or can be unleashed immediately before the actual tank-buster. It looks and feels terrible. Rather than using this to promote a fix to Shelltron itself, I wish they'd just get that shit out of the game. The game already feels plentifully unreactive without clipping or muting mob animations.

I might be wrong in this, but I get the feeling it'd affect the flow of battle on some level. Granted, auto-attack damage from boss mobs is not huge damage so this might not be as big a problem as I'm thinking.

That said, I also still think that 5 seconds is far longer than is needed to fulfill that intent. With 5 seconds, I could block literally every mob in front of me while moving towards gather on a sprint pull, or have an extra Inner Beast at no cost (30% every 30 seconds vs. 20% every 19-23 seconds +/- Infuriate).

Assuming our beloved animation/activation delay remains in the game, you'd probably end up getting 3-4 seconds in total under the effect. In fairness the effect could be reduced to 3 seconds, but that'd require lowering the cooldown some as well, IMO.

Just got through a Ex rl Moratorium where I spent what felt like one in every 9 GCDs self-healing. He cast exactly 9 single-target heals in a 3 1/2 minute fight, only two of them on me leaving me at 2k hp to continue spamming Boil. I don't think I've ever loved Shelltron's MP generation so much. Sadly, if Shelltron was made more useful or reliable in these other contexts, we might well lose that MP generation.

Assuming they were to make Sheltron "reliable", what I think that'd do is require a removal/redesign of Bulwark (going back to my point on Sheltron and Bulwark conflicting). That could result in it being replaced by another MP recovery tool.

I know they will never do it, but wouldn't it be awesome if PLD had the Dragon's Dogma Mystic Knight ability Magic Cannon? We could summon it then everyone in the party could then auto-attack the orb to rain death on the battlefield.

Well, while I mentioned DD only because of how you're rewarded for perfect blocking with a shield, yeah this would be pretty neat. And yeah, SE would never do this.