Shield Oath makes Sheltron useless.

[eagledorf]

So I played around with it a bit more.

I do understand why SE designed it like this. If the oath gauge was a mechanic like "on damage taken" it would reduce the gauge into nothing more than a fancy cooldown on boss fights and they might as well revert to 3.0. Since Sheltron gives you MP, this new mechanic also introduces some really fun decision-making like self-heal vs. mitigation vs. DPS/MP management. If you're willing to give up some DPS/healing you also can make your Sheltron timing very flexible now by choosing when to charge your gauge.

All in all it feels very polished and I like it a lot for levels 64-70. It really does work extraordinarily poorly from levels 52-63 now though. It's too bad SqEx couldn't have added onto the Holy Magic Mastery trait so that Sheltron simply changes from a cooldown to consuming gauge at level 64 like how some other jobs got traits that introduce their gauge. It doesn't matter for players who have remained subbed through Heavensward, but new players or returning players who do old content (or anybody who does Susano-o at min level) will find Sheltron very annoying to useless in Shield Oath and may not stick it out for the fun mechanic SE has made for max level.

[Bughuntlv426]

However, on Susano-o, you are basically better off tanking him in Sword Oath.

You are better off tanking everything in sword oath, PLD is built to be an off tank (I know its gonna take some time for people to accept this). the amount of oath gauge that it generates in sword oath is extremely high and it can constantly pass a 10% mitigation to MT. It also generates next to no hate with it's DPS rotations AND while in sword oath PLD out PPGCDs the other two by almost 25% (we still need to wait on stat weights but that is a MASSIVE difference and it's highly like that PLD will be the leader in tank DPS this patch).

there is really no reason not to have PLD OT now, the only thing PLD struggles with is agro generation, which fits perfectly with WAR since it's main DPS rotation makes a ton of hate. but PLD can mitigate the others tanks incoming damage SO well with cover + a CD, and it's new skill that it can constantly pass onto MT every 25 secondsish.

[eagledorf]

it's main DPS rotation makes a ton of hate

That's not correct. The 10 extra gauge from not doing Butcher's Block is worth at least 70 potency (if you're in Defiance, 105 in Deliverance) so your main DPS rotation has no hate modifier on WAR.

All three tanks lose DPS using their threat combo now. Do NOT Butcher's Block for DPS.

I've always thought of PLD as OT because of T5, but it really will depend on the needs of the fight.

[Duelle]

The resource does not generate slowly while under shield oath. I can't believe this is such a hard concept to grasp.

You're gating Oath generation in Shield Oath behind one skill and one RNG proc. The former you get at lv64, the latter you can't manipulate without involving a 3-minute cooldown (Bulwark) or a 2-minute cooldown (Passage of Arms).

You will be casting 5 holy spirit per minute at a MINIMUM as part of your normal rotation on paladin. 5 holy spirit generates 100 energy.

Which is nice after you hit lv64, but when you add any new system, you introduce the player to the basics of it and then add more skills/mechanics tied to it. The way Oath was implemented does not do that, since there's only two skills in the entire PLD kit that interact with it prior to getting Holy Spirit: Sheltron and Intervention. And as per the design you can't count on using them much since Oath gauge generates very slowly under Shield Oath (unless lv61-63 shields have insanely high block rates) until lv64. Hence my comment on it.

What I'm getting at is that growth does not flow very well, because a new player that never had pre-SB Sheltron is getting an ability at lv52 that they'll almost never be able to use, and will likely wonder why they even have it for the next 12 levels until they get Holy Spirit and Oath generation in Shield Oath goes from UI garnish to a functional system. So instead of being able to learn how to make use of Sheltron upon acquisition (like you do with new skills in any well-designed system), you're waiting until lv64. The same also applies to intervention, but that's a really situational ability since you'd get the most bang for your buck using it on your co-tank in EX/Savage.

Sure, everything works at lv70, but feels counter to the idea of the player learning how to use skills as they acquire them, and that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Reynhart]

So instead of being able to learn how to make use of Sheltron upon acquisition (like you do with new skills in any well-designed system), you're waiting until lv64.

Possible "fix". Make casting any Divine Spell increase the Oath Gauge by 20. So, Holy Spirit and Clemency.

[Furious]

You're gating Oath generation in Shield Oath behind one skill and one RNG proc. The former you get at lv64, the latter you can't manipulate without involving a 3-minute cooldown (Bulwark) or a 2-minute cooldown (Passage of Arms).
Which is nice after you hit lv64, but when you add any new system, you introduce the player to the basics of it and then add more skills/mechanics tied to it. The way Oath was implemented does not do that, since there's only two skills in the entire PLD kit that interact with it prior to getting Holy Spirit: Sheltron and Intervention. And as per the design you can't count on using them much since Oath gauge generates very slowly under Shield Oath (unless lv61-63 shields have insanely high block rates) until lv64. Hence my comment on it.

What I'm getting at is that growth does not flow very well, because a new player that never had pre-SB Sheltron is getting an ability at lv52 that they'll almost never be able to use, and will likely wonder why they even have it for the next 12 levels until they get Holy Spirit and Oath generation in Shield Oath goes from UI garnish to a functional system. So instead of being able to learn how to make use of Sheltron upon acquisition (like you do with new skills in any well-designed system), you're waiting until lv64. The same also applies to intervention, but that's a really situational ability since you'd get the most bang for your buck using it on your co-tank in EX/Savage.

Sure, everything works at lv70, but feels counter to the idea of the player learning how to use skills as they acquire them, and that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The problems you are outlining are literally non-starters; they are imagined problems. People don't learn to play their class until they have the abilities in totality; the same is true of a great many classes and abilities in the game. When you get sheltron at 52, you will likely spend a lot of your time questing in sword oath, where you generate charge at a rate of 5 per gcd nearly continuously, and will have regular uses of the block available. In dungeons, when you use shield oath, you will have less, but you also don't need any.

If they were to increase the rate you generate shield charge in any other way, it would neccesitate reducing the oath generated by holy spirit, which is the entire point of the new system; a cyclical rotation between physical attacking for ~75% of the time, generating some minor charge, then supercharging with holy spirit, then back to generating mana with physical attacks.

The whole argument that people learn to play their classes as they level is and always has been a ridiculous one. Classes and jobs (in FFXIV and in any other mmo) simply don't play the same at low and high level. Learning to play as you level means learning habits that don't fit with the ability package as you get higher - you develope muscle memory for abilities that later become moot or situational, for example. PotD reinforces this; someone who takes a step into a solo 50+ potd with a new class and spends 10 minutes reading and sorting their abilities will be much more likely to have a congruent, logical button layout for their abilities than someone who put them into place as they leveled. People fail at their jobs in potd, but certainly not at a rate higher than they fail at leveling roulette dungeons or anything else that requires levels be "earned".

[Hammerhorn]

PLD gauge is a joke i dont even need it the fact that we get zero offensive abilities from it makes it pretty useless oh we get a block WOW block only mitigates a small damage amount it doesnt save . Hell intervention is better and its wasted on someone else PLD is the new OT wake up and smell the holy spirit brothers!

[pandabearcat]

Sheltron generally blocks ~20% of damage taken, an additional on demand 20% damage reduction from all tank busters/aoes/whathaveyou is about the furthest from useless I've ever seen.

Picture this: would you rather you need to choose between mitigation and damage from your gauge, or would you rather be able to switch (relatively) freely betwen stances, and have your damage balanced around constant, high dps?

It doesn't make sense for those that call for offensive use of gauge when we already have a much better offensive toolkit than we did, as well as unbelievable party utility with intervention, all our CDs, path of shininess, clemency burst healing better than healers, etc etc.

[bswpayton]

PLD gauge is a joke i dont even need it the fact that we get zero offensive abilities from it makes it pretty useless oh we get a block WOW block only mitigates a small damage amount it doesnt save . Hell intervention is better and its wasted on someone else PLD is the new OT wake up and smell the holy spirit brothers!

Im glad we dont have holy tied to our gauge that would suck and make it to much like the other two jobs

[Agrieus]

PLD gauge is a joke i dont even need it the fact that we get zero offensive abilities from it makes it pretty useless oh we get a block WOW block only mitigates a small damage amount it doesnt save . Hell intervention is better and its wasted on someone else PLD is the new OT wake up and smell the holy spirit brothers!

Shield Oath gives access to shelltron...which gives access to Shield Swipe + MP recovery for additional Holy Spirit Spam. That's where the damage is centered around - which is holy spirit + requiescat The problem with 90% of you guys is that you're looking at this too closely like a 1-2 set up. It's not. Paladin doesn't have a big offensive ability with it's Oath set up because that's not what Pld is meant to be. And I honestly don't think it needs one. Some of you (though I hope most of you) will figure out what I'm talking about once you hit lvl 70 and get some solid practice in with the job.