Shield Oath makes Sheltron useless.

[Dzian]

At the low end I understand it. Is the shield gauge is ridicously slow to fill..

The high levels don't seem as bad. But the bit that concerns me most is this paladin relegated to off tank talk.

If that ends up being true then yoshi has failed at balancing all tanks for main and off tank viabilitiy.

[Kyt]

At the low end I understand it. Is the shield gauge is ridicously slow to fill..

The high levels don't seem as bad. But the bit that concerns me most is this paladin relegated to off tank talk.

If that ends up being true then yoshi has failed at balancing all tanks for main and off tank viabilitiy.

Who's saying pld will be relegated to offtanking? I definitely don't think that will be the case. With magic blocking coming into effect and just the sheer amount of damage mitigation (and now dps we have with holy spirit) I think pallys will be in the best position to solidify themselves as the go-to main tank choice.

[Furious]

Nope. Reasons:
1. "50% more" is gated behind your 2xHoly Spirit, which takes away from other meaningful actions if the only reason you are casting Holy Spirit is to activate Sheltron. Clunky AF
2. Holy Spirit is not free. Now you are eating into mana that you may have wanted for something like Clemency, right?
3. Pre L64 content does not even have this situational option

Just because you can technically do something does not negate the argument that, in 'real world' terms, is still a loss. We still call it a "derp".

Holy spirit is a 450 potency nuke that will usually be increased by 20% by requiescat when you are casting it. Let your healer spend an extra gcd on healing while you spend an extra gcd on doing high efficiency damage, generating enmity, charge gauge, and damage. If you really need to heal yourself as well, you still can, and will still come out on top in terms of number of gauge uses vs. heavensward provided you don't stop casting holy spirit.

Start by changing your assumption that holy spirit is something you want to avoid; it is the primary damage ability in your single target arsenal. It is the goal, not the fallback.

At 64+, sure. What about 52-63? I was more implying that pre-64 content you're just going to be hoarding oath for boss fight sheltron use and nothing else because its hard to build up in shield oath and that's the only use for oath in that level range.

Who cares? It's not important enough to worry about. You'll generate it quickly during sword oath, and also when you are using bulwark or aoe tanking (which covers 90% of the time while leveling - you're either in sword oath questing or aoe pulling dungeons).

[Kosmos992k]

It just seems kinda dumb to take away one of the few interesting buttons on the hotbar almost entirely because of a spell you don't get until 64 (why not make the spell available sooner if it is so crucial to the whole setup!?).

So you get Sheltron at 52 but it is useless while Main Tanking (and while Off-Tanking lol) until Level 64, and its only use is while you are Soloing. Okay. That makes sense.

Here's another idea: Holy Spirit available at Lv52-54 instead of 64.

Wouldn't break any sort of balance at Lv70 whatsoever.

EDIT: Also, anybody got numbers as to how much MP HS actually costs? Because um, you need to cast it 2-3 times to get enough Oath for 1 Sheltron, and half of Sheltron's use was to recover MP for, you know, Clemency? Do you even return enough MP to pay for the Holy Spirit casts?

Make Riot blade also feed into the oath gauge when in shield oath, that way you can build oath to use for Shelton, but drop the MP recovery on Shelton since increased use of riot blade will generate a lot of extra MP.

[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.

[Fernosaur]

At the low end I understand it. Is the shield gauge is ridicously slow to fill..

The high levels don't seem as bad. But the bit that concerns me most is this paladin relegated to off tank talk.

If that ends up being true then yoshi has failed at balancing all tanks for main and off tank viabilitiy.

PLD can comfortably do both and be equally effective now, unlike in HW.

[Steelbreeze]

Why in the world are you so obsessed with sheltron? You don't even need it in most content at all.

[Shurrikhan]

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

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. 100 energy gives you two uses of sheltron. 2 uses of sheltron per minute means one use of sheltron per 30 seconds, which is exactly the same rate as the old sheltron was available - only now it can be banked and used back to back if required, where before it couldn't.

Reading what you've quoted and its original context, the point seemed very, very clearly to be on the dependence of Shield Oath on Holy Spirit and the BASE (pre-HS) generation of gauge under Shield Oath. But that my have been a hard concept to grasp, too?

While I'll agree with your points since, that doesn't stop Shield Oath's gauge accretion from feeling undertuned and overly dependent to me, and apparently to some others as well. It's as simple as that.

[Furious]

Reading what you've quoted and its original context, the point seemed very, very clearly to be on the dependence of Shield Oath on Holy Spirit and the BASE (pre-HS) generation of gauge under Shield Oath. But that my have been a hard concept to grasp, too?

While I'll agree with your points since, that doesn't stop Shield Oath's gauge accretion from feeling undertuned and overly dependent to me, and apparently to some others as well. It's as simple as that.

Well, I'm probably not going to change your mind on it, but it's basically the entire point of the new paladin setup. Req into holy spirit to generate gauge, then gauge and physical attacks to generate mana, then mana to generate gauge, then.. so on.

Moving generation away from holy spirit and into passive generation devalues and relegates the importance of holy spirit away from a rotational necessity for defense and resource generation to a dps gain (and reduces the opportunity cost of using your mana to heal instead). The rotation of paladin switches from an A>B>A>B setup to an A... oh and B if you aren't gonna die and wanna do more damage. A is the fight or flight, goring blade, royal authority "section" that passively generates mana, while "B" is the requiestcat is up, go to town and refresh your oath gauge (which will later regenerate mana and possibly save a lot of damage). It needs the too and fro to work well in my opinion.