Paladin. I dont feel I'm actually playing a Paladin.

[Lambdafish]

I like that Oath gauge can only be spent on defensive abilities, just feels right.

The problem with that is that defensive skills are always situational, which leaves the oath gauge untouched for most of the fight, which is the number one biggest complaint about it. Compare PLDs MP management before and after holy spirit was introduced, before we had flash and clemency - which meant that any time other than AOE our MP was untouched, and now we even have total eclipse, making MP even less relevant even in an AOE setting.

Now compare this to after holy spirit, where MP is used offensively and regularly (something which can't be done defensively without a massive overhaul of the job's core - at which point PLD becomes what DRK is supposed to be), and we see how much more fluid, useful and fun the MP mechanic is for PLD. It feeling right is poor justification for ignoring things that would massively improve glaring flaws within the oath gauge system.

[KatsuraJun]

I'm still waiting for flash to be traited into Holiest of the Holy used by the Heavensward - it even shares the same cast animation. Someday, maybe.

[SiriusSaltstice]

I'm still waiting for flash to be traited into Holiest of the Holy used by the Heavensward - it even shares the same cast animation. Someday, maybe.

I honestly think Flash should be changed when under Requiescat to Shock. Gives a reason to use Req under trash packs and add phases in raids.

[Jandor]

stuff

You're reasoning doesn't seem all that different to mine at it's core, cut out the fluff and your essential point seems to be that you don't like the feeling of sitting on spare oath gauge when you could theoretically be spending it to increase DPS.

[Shurrikhan]

I honestly think Flash should be changed when under Requiescat to Shock. Gives a reason to use Req under trash packs and add phases in raids.

It actually feels particularly "Paladin" to me that once out of TP, your only way to deal AoE DPS is to self-heal while your healer is the one to deal that damage. I like that Paladin shoves in your face every way in which your damage is your party's and vice-versa, that indirect contribution is -- in effect -- no different than direct contribution.

I like that Oath gauge can only be spent on defensive abilities, just feels right.

The problem with that is that defensive skills are always situational, which leaves the oath gauge untouched for most of the fight, which is the number one biggest complaint about it. Compare PLDs MP management before and after holy spirit was introduced, before we had flash and clemency - which meant that any time other than AOE our MP was untouched, and now we even have total eclipse, making MP even less relevant even in an AOE setting.

Now compare this to after holy spirit, where MP is used offensively and regularly (something which can't be done defensively without a massive overhaul of the job's core - at which point PLD becomes what DRK is supposed to be), and we see how much more fluid, useful and fun the MP mechanic is for PLD. It feeling right is poor justification for ignoring things that would massively improve glaring flaws within the oath gauge system.

While I agree the practicals of your conclusion, Lambda, I don't think your view is irreconcilable with Oath being a (directly speaking, or "at a glance") Defensives-only gauge "feeling right". I think the larger issue is in the imbalance in the effectiveness of status effects in this game, Flash being case in point -- it doesn't scale with buffs and its actual value is all over the place.

Let's consider, though, how unique and interesting a source of AoE damage, independant or otherwise, if we allowed for one underlying code change of, imo, universal benefit, and two small toolkit changes.

First, the code change.

At present, no status effects scale with buffs, potencies, etc. Damaging ability, weaponskill, spell, whatever it might be. This is bound to either overpower them in respect to scalar skills when outside of buffs and/or underpower them when within those buff windows. It also means that the value of said buff varies entirely with the stats of the target to be affected. A 20% slow, if actually permitted to function on more than 5% of the game's mobs again, could be worth a significant amount of damage, so long as the mob normally deals a lot, and will see use so long as a fifth of the target's damage is worth more in healer damage or the like over the additional offensive healer GCDs thereby permitable than the tank's or DPS's alternate or directly-damaging use of that GCD or shared resource ability would be. That's a mouthful, to be sure, but it's also straightforward math.

But, since virtually every enemy who would ever have enough throughput to be worth spending a GCD on mitigation for is immune to mitigation by enfeeblement... status effects become basically obsolete or bonus fluff on something you would have used anyways. Worse yet, in some ways, the few status effects (most noticeably Blind) that do tend to work on, say, trash packs, do so in way that is difficult to manage and is largely counterintuitive in how the effect works (or in this case, works against) one's other forms of mitigation, stative (CDs, stance) or RNG (dodge, block, parry).

What I suggest then is to simply make status effects (at least those which give weight to any decision to use their attached skills) scale with player stats and buffs.

Think of Flash as doing 'Blind' damage, Break as doing 'Heavy' damage, etc. You have stats; the target has stats; the percent effect then naturally tapers off as the value of that percent (due to the sheer strength of the target in question) increases, leaving the value of that GCD or ability spent mostly consistent. No enemy is ever immune to Flash, but as their stats, and presumably throughput, increase, the percent chance to hit diminished by Flash also decreases, such that a Flash ends up essentially amounting to a RNG shield averaging some given absorption potency over its full uptime. You can mitigate instantly with Shelltron, but you can also use frontloaded mitigation via Flash.

The second adjustment would be to buff-stacking and diminishing returns. If status effects of this sort are to have real, scaling powers, then the diminishing return effect cannot be nearly so strong, and additional casts have to be stackable at roughly nearly-even individual strength. If the first Flash costs a trash mob, of stat level roughly equal to the PLD's, 10% hit chance for 12 seconds, then the next ought to extend the duration and increase the percentile, say to 15% for 18 seconds. The exact maths ideal for this are beyond me for the moment.

In the case of Blind, in particular, though, this gets a little more complex.

At present, as chance to hit decreases, so too does the relative value of mitigation, both stative (CDs, stance) and RNG (Block and Parry chances). If one has already dodged ALL of the damage due to an enemy missing their attack due to Blind, then there's nothing to Block, or Parry, or statively mitigate. The solution would be the same as would make Dodge far more useful to tanks in general: allow for partial hits. Rather than a 15% reduced chance to hit, perhaps the Blind will cost the enemy (effectively) 15% damage. Maybe it reduces its Accuracy stat where Accuracy, rather than a default "+/- 5% Damage" modifier, determines between what and 100% damage the attack can deal. Whatever. The only requirement is that a Blind should retain or even enhance the value of other forms of mitigation.

Ideally, I'd see it as working like this. Overly technical stuff:

To be edited in only if there is interest...

Whatever the case, once you can make Flash no longer inherently **** for anything more than enmity (and even allowing its enmity to scale with FoF, though at cost of facing the %damage reduction on Shield Oath, to be buffed slightly back into place), it ends up a much more consistent AoE option.
Even if you don't see its benefits directly, the healer certainly will.

If you really want to give PLD its own sense of AoE, though... (The two minor changes)

• 1. Cause Intervention to always count for you as a block, proccing Shield Swipe.
• 2a. Remove the cooldown on Shield Swipe.
• 2b. (Optional) Have Shield Swipe deal bonus potency if/when it pacifies, proportionate to duration. This (relatively speaking) reduces its focus damage and boss damage, encouraging more AoE-like cycling.

snip

1. It's worked for me some 10 out of 15ish times, even without any verbalized cues. That said, I could be lucky in that I get dps-capable healers the vast majority of the time. (Though it does make those few idlers all the more painful by relative difference and rarity.) ...Sadly, getting a SAM to AoE beyond Kyuten or a Monk to hold PB for large AoE packs is far less common.

2. If you're completely bottomed out of TP, I really don't see how you, the PLD, could still deal additional DPS directly. That was the condition mentioned in the one and only line on this subject, after all. These situations present themselves almost only when the party is painfully undergeared or the DPS aren't AoEing properly (if at all), but the 1728-potency spam of Conv-Req Clemency spam is plenty powerful to allow the healer their AoE spam and yet still manages not to be superfluous in many a dungeon unless used atop major CDs. In Swallow's Compass, as most large pulls deal no more damage than Temple of the Fist, it might see excess, but Hell's Rest can make full use of it.

[KaldeaSahaline]

It actually feels particularly "Paladin" to me that once out of TP, your only way to deal AoE DPS is to self-heal while your healer is the one to deal that damage. I like that Paladin shoves in your face every way in which your damage is your party's and vice-versa, that indirect contribution is -- in effect -- no different than direct contribution.

Respectfully disagree because it hedges on the major factor that:

1) Your healer want's to actually DPS

2) Your healer is aware enough to recognize that you are out of TP and switch to a more offensive output, or notice that you're spamming Clemency and

a) Realize that this enables them to DPS more (in reality it doesn't, PLD could still DPS, because the extra healing is mostly superfluous)

b) Not feel like they're being attacked (we see this notion on the forums a lot, where Healers consider this a slight against them).

Neither of these things are a guarantee therefore they cannot possible be the same as direct contribution where a PLD has other AOE options. Practical experience supports this in that most other players (in DF, the only place that AOE matters) simply play their own way regardless of what strategy you employ.

That's why we see things like DPS who can't AOE, and Healers who won't DPS and so on.

IMO of course.