Pld Oath's on GCD

[Viperbite]

I was wondering if Oaths will ever come off GCD cool down.
i find this very frustrating as monk can change stance. War can change stance. yet pld and drk stance dancing is hindered by GCD cool down.

[Paikis]

No. They should remain on the cooldown, because going from Sword to Shield Oath gives you 20% damage reduction instantly. When you turn on Shield Oath you instantly gain the benefit of being tankier. Grit, which also does this, also costs a GCD to use, not to mention almost 4 times the mana. Defiance, the only tank stance that is off global and doesn't cost mana has the downside of NOT making you tankier as soon as it is applied, you need to be healed for it to have any effect. It increases your max HP, not your current and also increases healing received, which again requires healing to have any effect. Meanwhile, you lose the 5% extra damage (and up to 10% crit chance) from Deliverance, and immediately lose a further 25% damage from being in Defiance.

War stances also have the downside of having a long recast. If you change stance you're stuck with it for a while. PLD/DRK can swap as often as they like, mana permitting.

[Lambdafish]

snip

Honestly, I would trade downsides for ShO for the ability to stance dance easier. I feel like PLDs stances need a rework anyway, they are clunky and very boring.

[Paikis]

Honestly, I would trade downsides for ShO for the ability to stance dance easier. I feel like PLDs stances need a rework anyway, they are clunky and very boring.

But you have downsides. ShO/Grit costs mana and a GCD already. What would you suggest as an alternative, keeping in mind that Deliverance actually offers nothing but penalties for a stance change until you get healed.

[Lambdafish]

But you have downsides. ShO/Grit costs mana and a GCD already. What would you suggest as an alternative, keeping in mind that Deliverance actually offers nothing but penalties for a stance change until you get healed.

Anything more interesting really (hence why I said rework, and not tweak), we have downsides right now, but the downsides make for a slow and clunky stance system, no matter how good the effect of ShO is

[Donaria]

Yes it is frustrating however it does not take a gcd to turn off shield oath which you can weave between your skills, for example. During the pld opener or anywhere during the fight you can do your hate combo then do your Fast Blade-Savage Blade-(turn off shield oath)Royal Authority combo. If you have desant ping you could also double weave shield oath+fight or flight for max dmg. Remember turning on sword oath only increases auto attack dmg.

[Kitfox]

Remember turning on sword oath only increases auto attack dmg.

That increase, however, is more than 10% of all the damage you do. You could argue that it's a boring effect, since it doesn't give PLD different skills to you use, like Fell Cleave for WAR or Blood Weapon for DRK, but it's a very potent effect. So potent, that I don't think there's many instances where it'd be more beneficial to turn ShO off, rather than fully switch to SwO. The only instance is probably when you're in ShO and your target will die within 5-6 GCDs.

[Paikis]

Yes it is frustrating however it does not take a gcd to turn off shield oath. Remember turning on sword oath only increases auto attack dmg.

This is a good point. Sword Oath takes at least 3 GCD to pull even with simply staying in ShO and starting your combo one GCD earlier, 6 GCDs if you plan on using another GCD to get back into ShO. If you can't get at least 7-8 GCDs in before you need to swap back, it isn't worth swapping. But as Donaria said, you can simply turn ShO off, saving a GCD by skipping SwO altogether.

Anything more interesting really (hence why I said rework, and not tweak), we have downsides right now, but the downsides make for a slow and clunky stance system, no matter how good the effect of ShO is

Without simply copying the WAR stances, I think the best way to justify OGCD stances for PLD/DRK is by removing the disadvantages of Defiance. If Defiance increased your max HP by 25% but also increased your current HP to remain at a constant percentage, i.e when you're at 15k/20k and turn Defiance on, you then are at 18.75k/25k, 75% health.

Either that or you're suggesting a complete rework of the stances of two tank classes.

[Shurrikhan]

No. They should remain on the cooldown, because going from Sword to Shield Oath gives you 20% damage reduction instantly. When you turn on Shield Oath you instantly gain the benefit of being tankier. Grit, which also does this, also costs a GCD to use, not to mention almost 4 times the mana. Defiance, the only tank stance that is off global and doesn't cost mana has the downside of NOT making you tankier as soon as it is applied, you need to be healed for it to have any effect. It increases your max HP, not your current and also increases healing received, which again requires healing to have any effect. Meanwhile, you lose the 5% extra damage (and up to 10% crit chance) from Deliverance, and immediately lose a further 25% damage from being in Defiance.

War stances also have the downside of having a long recast. If you change stance you're stuck with it for a while. PLD/DRK can swap as often as they like, mana permitting.

Why, in listing the delay to gain the eHP bonus from Defiance, does no one ever mention Defiance's delay also in losing the healing bonus from HoTs? So you need a Lustrate to be topped off instantly after, sure. But you can also drop Defiance after Regen and ride on a Convalescence effect for all HoTs applied before for the next 18/21 seconds, every time. The delay works both ways. Until the Vit change, the latter would usually amount to more total healing than the initial issue ever left out.

Without simply copying the WAR stances, I think the best way to justify OGCD stances for PLD/DRK is by removing the disadvantages of Defiance. If Defiance increased your max HP by 25% but also increased your current HP to remain at a constant percentage, i.e when you're at 15k/20k and turn Defiance on, you then are at 18.75k/25k, 75% health.

Again, there's as at least much advantage as there is disadvantage, especially as health margin and gear increases. If you want to "fix" that too, then go ahead, I guess, but I honestly think you'd be losing flavor on both the nerf and the buff. Or you could fix the missing 20% hp issue, and leave the HoT buff, but at that point WAR would have no reason to complain if DRK and PLD stances were both oGCD and mana-free, or kept some portion of either the GCD or mana cost but had no CD.

Either that or you're suggesting a complete rework of the stances of two tank classes.

I'd be cool with that. I'd prefer it not be done just for the sake of the stances themselves, since I feel like it'd be a great centerpoint for other little points of revamp, but even just changing either to a half-GCD, reducing Grit MP cost, etc., would be pretty great.

Yes it is frustrating however it does not take a gcd to turn off shield oath which you can weave between your skills, for example. During the pld opener or anywhere during the fight you can do your hate combo then do your Fast Blade-Savage Blade-(turn off shield oath)Royal Authority combo. If you have desant ping you could also double weave shield oath+fight or flight for max dmg. Remember turning on sword oath only increases auto attack dmg.

Every AA without Sword Oath is 50 bonus potency wasted, or a third of a Fast Blade. With the standard 2.24 weaponspeed, that's less than 3 GCDs to pay off against a Fast Blade, and under 5 to pay off against the average potency of your RA combo. Sword Oath adds 50/weaponspeed pps (22.3 pps with a 2.24s sword, or 26.2 pps in ShO terms). Your average potency per GCD spamming GB-RA-RA, 2420 weaponskill potency per tri-combo is 268.88, or roughly some 110 pps. Were you to simply drop Shield Oath to increase damage by 17.64% (1/.85), you'd make roughly 20 more pps over time (or, now make 130 pps in ShO terms). You also made 33.3 AA pps, which would now be almost 40 in ShO terms.

So, a 26.6 bonus pps total (in ShO terms) from dropping Shield Oath, against almost 270 potency lost for having wasted a GCD. To put that in the short-term perspective, that means it would take a minimum of 4 GCDs to pay off dropping Shield Oath with the intent to put it back up eventually, after factoring in weaponskills, auto-attacks, and potential oGCDs. Even if you drop Shield Oath just before a Goring Blade (+112 on GB, +26 on FB, +35 on SB, +61 on RA) with 3 auto-attacks in that time for a bonus 24 potency, you'd still be 10 potency short unless adding an oGCD, (52 on Spirits Within, 44 on Circle of Scorn, or 26 on Shield Slam.

The payoff for Sword Oath is almost identical with a 2.24s sword, at 26.2 pps rather than 26.6, or a 15.9% dps increase down from a 17.6%. Unless you're cutting the Shield Oath right at its pay-off point, it's better to stack them by swapping in Sword Oath as soon as possible. Because the weapon delay is almost certainly shorter than your GCD, dropping Shield Oath even for a Goring Blade rather than swapping directly across is usually wasteful, as you'll miss 50 potency (or 59 in ShO terms) from the AA without Sword Oath within that GCD.

[Paikis]

Why, in listing the delay to gain the eHP bonus from Defiance, does not one ever mention the delay in losing the healing bonus from HoTs? So you need a Lustrate to be topped off instantly after, sure. But you can also drop Defiance after Regen and ride on a Convalescence effect for all HoTs applied before for the next 18/21 seconds, every time. The delay works both ways.

I think its a question of utility. Sure, If I happen to have HoTs ticking on me as I change to Deliverance, yes they'll benefit from Defiance for their remaining duration. But literally no one ever has waited for a Regen refresh to change stance. No one is telling their healers that they're about to swap to Deliverance and could they please cast their HoTs again? Anyone waiting on HoTs to change stances is unequivocally bad.

Typically when changing to your offensive stance, it's because the big hit is behind you and you're entering a period of less damage. As such, who cares about a 20% increase in whatever happens to be left of a HoT's timer?

Meanwhile, the ability to swap to your tank stance while the tank buster is being cast, have it take full effect instantly, mitigate the buster and then immediately swap back is something just about every (good) tank would absolutely wet their pants in excitement over.