Shield Oath makes Sheltron useless.

[Duelle]

People don't learn to play their class until they have the abilities in totality;

You're undervaluing pacing in class growth. When you add new abilities, it's either because you're introducing the player to the basics of a new system (Blood of the Dragon), building on something that is already there (combos are a good example of this), or fill niche uses for specific situations (CC, debuffs, AoE abilities).

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.

Which underlines the problem of the system not being fully functional for 12 levels.

Let's take Blood of the Dragon as an example. Upon getting it, the DRG starts off with a buff that increases jump damage. You start using it around the time you use your jumps on the rotation, and that's it. At 56 you receive the ability to extend the duration of BotD with Fang & Claw. At 60 you get the Geirskogul, which consumes some of the BotD duration. So you go from starting out with a buff, then getting an ability that deals good damage that also extends the buff duration, and lastly a skill that reduces duration/consumes the buff. That's how a well-paced system is introduced to the player, as you're building up the system from a very basic level (buff that improves jumps) and then adding the ability to manipulate the system to your advantage in combat.

If they were to increase the rate you generate shield charge in any other way, it would necessitate 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.

I don't think reducing Oath generated by Holy Spirit would undermine the system. It would simply make the system not hinge so much on Holy Spirit. You yourself have said that Holy Spirit's damage alone is enough to get the player to use it, so by that logic the nerf to Oath generation wouldn't be much of a loss.

The whole argument that people learn to play their classes as they level is and always has been a ridiculous one.

So you're saying I'm the exception and not the rule, as this is pretty much how I approach learning classes in every game I've played (also why I have initial trouble with level-jumped classes). It's also why I've paid close attention to pacing when I put my suggestions together, because having a disjointed system hanging over you with the promises of "it'll work properly later" is not a good feeling to have.

[Furious]

You're undervaluing pacing in class growth. When you add new abilities, it's either because you're introducing the player to the basics of a new system (Blood of the Dragon), building on something that is already there (combos are a good example of this), or fill niche uses for specific situations (CC, debuffs, AoE abilities).

You're overvaluing it. Learning in steps like this causes early abilities to be overvalued in the late-game development of playing habits, often being used in critical keybinds because that's what they're used to.

Which underlines the problem of the system not being fully functional for 12 levels.

No, it doesn't? It specifically doesn't in the manner I said. The system is as functional as it needs to be for the content in question. You generate charge quickly when you are aoe tanking (eclipse came in at 46) and when you are in dps stance (which you use most of the time while questing). For the needs of the leveling paladin, you generate charge fine. It's not as fast as endgame, and it doesn't need to be. Boss abilities at level 50 aren't dangerous to tanks like they are in max level raids.

Let's take Blood of the Dragon as an example. Upon getting it, the DRG starts off with a buff that increases jump damage. You start using it around the time you use your jumps on the rotation, and that's it. At 56 you receive the ability to extend the duration of BotD with Fang & Claw. At 60 you get the Geirskogul, which consumes some of the BotD duration. So you go from starting out with a buff, then getting an ability that deals good damage that also extends the buff duration, and lastly a skill that reduces duration/consumes the buff. That's how a well-paced system is introduced to the player, as you're building up the system from a very basic level (buff that improves jumps) and then adding the ability to manipulate the system to your advantage in combat.

You're explaining what the system is and attributing that as the WHY that it is a good thing. I know what stepped learning is, but I am saying that it is the wrong way to learn when the goal is performing well in content that will actually challenge you to perform well using the entire package.

I don't think reducing Oath generated by Holy Spirit would undermine the system. It would simply make the system not hinge so much on Holy Spirit. You yourself have said that Holy Spirit's damage alone is enough to get the player to use it, so by that logic the nerf to Oath generation wouldn't be much of a loss.

Reducing the system's reliance on holy spirit definitionally undermines the system of using holy spirit to generate charge, and using physical attacks to generate mana for holy spirit. Reducing holy spirit to only be a high powered nuke makes it incidental rather than integral. You do more damage, but mechically function the same by reducing or ignoring the new holy spirit spender/generator system. If you ignore holy spirit when it generates the majority of your oath gauge, you lose out on primary defense mechanics and you devalue the role of mana regeneration (it becomes essentially a dps resource rather than a defensive one).

So you're saying I'm the exception and not the rule, as this is pretty much how I approach learning classes in every game I've played (also why I have initial trouble with level-jumped classes). It's also why I've paid close attention to pacing when I put my suggestions together, because having a disjointed system hanging over you with the promises of "it'll work properly later" is not a good feeling to have.

You're not the exception to the rule, but the rule is, and always has been, wrong. MMO games revolve around character progression and that is why you will very rarely see one that gives you all your abilities on day one, but that's not because it's the best way to learn how to play your class as a whole, even if that's the stated goal.

In practice this is a difference of opinion and we aren't going to agree, but when it comes down to it oath gauge works just fine when you get it and improves as you go. The degrees to which both occur are incidental.