Sheltron is not as strong as SE thinks it is.

[Kabooa]

Clemency isn't practically equatable to any of those abilities, for better and for worse. More to the point, none of the other tanks really have a proper equivalent to Clemency, which is fine.

It honestly bothers me to no end how absurdly stupidly strong the skill is, but because you have to drop a Holy Spirit or Circle, it's 'balanced'.

[Shurrikhan]

It honestly bothers me to no end how absurdly stupidly strong the skill is, but because you have to drop a Holy Spirit or Circle, it's 'balanced'.

I guess it's just a sign of how this game weighs damage potency vs. healing potency. A 375 raw (or, 288 healer or 312 ranged/caster) potency attack is apparently worth a whopping 1800 raw (or, 1385 Healer) potency of healing.

And we wonder why healing values seem inflated in terms of their consequent gameplay...

Sheltron is weak, yeah. That's a good thing, Paladin is already outputting great damage with a lot of unique and incredibly powerful tools.

Like? The skill that has no net decrease to damage taken yet comes at the cost of your on-demand mitigation skill's worth of gauge? The %HP raid shield that puts out less mitigation over time than the one that doesn't require additional triggers? The percentile raid shield that's 50% stronger but takes 33% longer to recharge AND requires that your raid stack behind you? None of which gives you a second minor CD as afforded to the other jobs?

Let's be honest, unless you're already close to your max HP, Thrill Of Battle is more of a healing skill than a "mitigation" one...thus, how come you didn't mention Clemency once ?
PLD always have an extra skill to survive, and the HP it gives back is of the same level at what TBN prevents, at 2/3rd of the cost.

Are we really comparing Mana costs between non-healers here, of all things? PLD received no gain from extra MP; it merely overcaps per macrorotation. DRK does benefit. Moreover, DRK's TBN, if not broken, costs 550 raw potency (as would have been doable through DS-EoS). A Clemency costs, at worst, 375 (as would have been doable through R-HS).

Clemency, as absurdly strong as it might seen, is about where it needs to be to have any effect worth wasting potency for. But its strength is not in its relatively low MP cost of all things, and no DRK is going to ask for them to have the same MP cost without actively trying to either harm PLD's options or vastly overbuff DRK.

[TheForce]

It honestly bothers me to no end how absurdly stupidly strong the skill is, but because you have to drop a Holy Spirit or Circle, it's 'balanced'.

Relax, Clemency is fine. It definitely has its downsides. To name a few...
1) It scales pretty badly now as we get better gear & stats.

2) It breaks your combo.

3) It's a GCD.

But yes, it's a very useful skill, and fits the concept of the Paladin class perfectly. Nothing wrong with that. TBN is another very useful move, but it doesn't, nor should it bother me because like everything, it has its downsides and every class needs some skills that really make an impact when they're used.

[BarretOblivion]

It honestly bothers me to no end how absurdly stupidly strong the skill is, but because you have to drop a Holy Spirit or Circle, it's 'balanced'.

Because no PLD in their right mind uses it except for emergencies. Like yeah it costs that much because... you potentially screw up requiscat bonus if you use it before hand and you should never be using it during requiscat cause you are losing ALOT of damage doing that dumb thing. Healing isn't your job, its tanking and doing damage. If its was an OGCD then you would see PLDs using it regularly like WAR.

And I swear if one person says "but you use it to proc divine veil" I am going to smack you. No, you don't pop your own divne veil, healers pop it. It has a 30 sec duration when you first use it then another 30 seconds for the party shield. Use it before they group heal, 90% of the time the shield healer is going to pop it when using shield prep for hard hitting aoe.

[Reynhart]

Because any good PLD worth their salt won't use clemency unless healer(s) are ded or it's prog.

Any good PLD worth their salt knows that if you're in need of an additionnal cooldown above Sheltron, it's better to use Clemency than to die.

I didn’t mention clemency because it’s closer to equilibrium, storm’s path, abyssal drain, souleater, Aurora and brutal shell.
While clemency is certainly stronger than those due to its spamability, it also costs GCDs and mp that could be spent on dps unlike the rest of the tank’s moves so is generally not used as often compared to the other tanks.

Like as I said above, as a tank, your priority is to survive. In you're in a situation where you dont need Clemency, the little difference between Sheltron and its counterpart is negligible. If not, you would survive when other tanks might not, especially DRK and GNB.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Any good PLD worth their salt knows that if you're in need of an additionnal cooldown above Sheltron, it's better to use Clemency than to die.

If I'm in need of additional cooldowns, I'll actually pop additional cooldowns, there is 0 point in any savage fight that warrants the use of clemency, and basically you have healers to you know...heal, their fault if I don't have enough HP, you are a fool if you think otherwise. Topping up hp doesn't prevent a one-shot, most busters will take you for your full health if you don't mitigate them properly, so clemency won't do you any good mate.

[Reynhart]

Topping up hp doesn't prevent a one-shot, most busters will take you for your full health if you don't mitigate them properly, so clemency won't do you any good mate.

If a specific tankbuster can kill you even at full health with only Sheltron, then no tank will rely on pairing their short CD with a second "lesser" CD like camouflage or Dark Mind. Which means that all tanks are even on that situation.

[Kabooa]

I guess it's just a sign of how this game weighs damage potency vs. healing potency. A 375 raw (or, 288 healer or 312 ranged/caster) potency attack is apparently worth a whopping 1800 raw (or, 1385 Healer) potency of healing.

And we wonder why healing values seem inflated in terms of their consequent gameplay...

It's the same reasoning people use for caster Raise. "You don't need it so it has no value".

People would rather wipe than delay Reqiuscat or even worse, use clemency during it.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Depends on the tankbuster, you use those lesser cooldowns paired with Rampart or 30% DR cooldown, exception being magical tankbusters in regards to DRK, where DM + TBN would save a use of Rampart. For any tankbuster in PLDs case, outside of Hallowed usage, you will always use Rampart or Sentinel on a tankbuster, sometime both cause you can, then paired with Sheltron, intervention use when as OT for double busters, like in 2s, to lessen the damage and AAs after. you will never take a single tankbuster with JUST Sheltron in savage, and that goes for just about any other supplementary CD that the other tanks have.

Extra Sheltron (or Intervention if OT) use will be used on AAs damage instead of letting gauge go to waste, just like any other of the smaller tank CDs will often be spent more on autos than the bigger hits, and where bigger cooldowns can be spared. Tbh, my only issue with Sheltron is critical damage is checked before blocking, otherwise not too bothered about missing a CD, got two tanks worth of cooldowns to use, if played correctly.

But again there is no use for Clemency in savage or most content, outside of, healer(s) are dead, or you're progging, after that it's on the healers to heal.

[Sapphidia]

But again there is no use for Clemency in savage or most content, outside of, healer(s) are dead, or you're progging, after that it's on the healers to heal.

This sentence is correct, but amuses me as it points to both the biggest issue with community mindset, and the biggest differential between Paladins and other tanks.

In general, most tank skills are fairly easy to compare. They have subtle drawbacks and advantages but they're in a good place. Camouflage vs Dark Mind vs Thrill of Battle is the most difficult direct comparison. But all tanks have:
- Rampart
- a 30% reduction cooldown
- a short "roughly 15-20%" cooldown you can use more frequently than every 30 seconds
- a big long invulnerability type cooldown
- a passive effect that gives them a small amount of mitigation/healing (passive Block, brutal shell, storms path etc)
- a party-wide AOE mitigation of some kind to help with big aoe.


Everything else is the subtle differentiation but Paladins here have Clemency and Shield Bash. Both of these are supremely powerful for the thing they're intended for, are basically spammable, but come with the drawback of reducing dps.

(wait, Shield Bash, I hear you say? What? I see Shield Bash as the equivalent of something like Camouflage - more of a Trash Pack cooldown than something for tank busters. If for some reason you're having issues on a bunch of adds, you can tab-spam Shield Bash and lock them down for huge amounts of time which equates to a large amount of mitigation. Just you dont want to do this unless it's an emergency as it stops you spamming AOEs).

Clemency is similar, and it pushes the Paladin into the "Oh Crap" tank. Whereas the other tanks have very specific cooldowns with limited timings, but which can be weaved between their usual rotations, Paladins get Clemency.

Yesterday I was tanking an E4 normal but there were a couple of new healers who didn't know the fight who died early. With four people dead we managed to complete the fight as a foursome of Dancer, DRK, Machinist and Paladin. The Combination of Spammable Clemencies to keep the dps and myself alive, TBNs on me to negate the tankbuster and well timed dancer heals meant we were able to 4 man it from 60% to a kill with no "real" healer. Yes, my parse would be horrendous because my rotation was basically just getting as much mana as possible and using ALL mana on clemencies, but it got a kill. Whilst it was the combo of DRK/DNC/PLD that worked as a group to do it, i have no allusions that had i been any other tank we would not have been able to do it because I wouldn't have been able to keep the DPS up or pump enough healing into myself.

I think it's perfectly fine having a tank that has a kit of Sacrifice - when the crap hits the fan, Paladins are the best tanks and correcting mistakes and covering for lack of healing. They do it at a sacrifice of their personal DPS, and that's their niche.

Obviously in the world of super-tight enrage timers this is of less use, but if you have ANY leeway at all then it's a safety net. People are far too concerned with the concept of only counting a kill if it's done perfectly and can be used to show perfect parses. A kill is a kill.