PLD needs an oGCD damage ability for their Oath Gauge

[AziraSyuren]

No, there shouldn't be damaging options on your oath gauge. That is the opposite of what SE should be doing.

My opinion:

Clemency needs to be changed to Oath and no longer uses MP. This prevents Clemency cheesing, as clemency is STUPID powerful under requiescat. This would allow weaving clemency OR Sheltron during burst phase. Give me a choice. If I'm full HP then I use Sheltron...If i'm low HP then I use Clemency.

This is a good idea for one of the worst possible reasons.
The duality of man.

[Lyth]

The interesting part about Sheltron and Intervention are that they are resource-gated rather than time-gated. Sheltron's recast allows for a theoretical 100% uptime; the limits come out of your rate of resource generation. If you wanted to experiment with PLD's design, you could just reduce the recasts from their standard cooldowns (Sheltron, Intervention, Sentinel, Passage of Arms, Cover), and have them all be gated by a common pool of Shield Gauge. Over time effects like Cover and Passage could be channeled for resource over time. Do I Sheltron the next three attacks, or do I stack Sheltron and Sentinel on the first and just Sheltron the second? I think that's got plenty of potential in itself.

That being said, perhaps PLD should just swap to a single gauge which is purely offensive in nature. There are a lot of two gauge systems which just exist for the sake of existing.

[Gigawatt29]

Cover is niche enough as it is, I really just wish it was off the gauge entirely.
We have precedent for gauge abilities having their own cooldowns with current Cover AND DRK's Living Shadow so if we had a strong oGCD offensive option it wouldn't be strange to place it on a cooldown.
It makes no sense why Divine Veil has to be so awkward when no other class has to deal with such a stipulation for BETTER mitigation.
As for Clemency as an oGCD it would be nice considering it is PLD's only self-sustain but I'm not sure what would be the best way to implement it

[Lyth]

They should just merge down Cover and Intervention. You take damage for target, 100% block rate for any damage taken this way. If you're tanking, use Sheltron. If you're not, use Cover. Block procs from both Sheltron and Cover let you Shield Swipe.

Similarly, I think Passage of Arms should replace Divine Veil altogether. Just reduce the recast of Passage so that it's similar to Shake.

There are two directions that they can go with Oath Gauge. The easiest thing is to get rid of it altogether and keep MP as your only resource, with classic time-gated defensive cooldowns. The alternative is to commit hard to it and move all PLD defensive actions on to it. So now you can use any combination of defensives (Sheltron/Cover/Sentinel/Passage/Clemency) from your toolkit on demand, but you have to decide how much resources you want to commit to it.

The only fair way to make Clemency oGCD is to add a recast to it, but that effectively turns it into Equilibrium. An alternative is to have a successful block give you a chance to make Clemency oGCD, up to a maximum of once every 30-40 seconds. If you do it this way, you can chain hardcast Clemency if you want and take the dps loss if you're in trouble, but if not, you still get some value out of weaving it every 30-40 seconds off of swiftcast block procs.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Cover is niche enough as it is, I really just wish it was off the gauge entirely.

I'm pretty certain it is on the gauge to prevent attempts to stack it and Intervention.

We have precedent for gauge abilities having their own cooldowns with current Cover AND DRK's Living Shadow so if we had a strong oGCD offensive option it wouldn't be strange to place it on a cooldown.

That that point their would be no real reason to have the offensive ability on the gauge except to eat gauge resources. Both Cover and Living Shadow are technically better than the other gauge spender used for the same purpose which is why they have cooldowns.

Cover is a full redirect to the Paladin (who natively takes 80% the damage non-tanks do) for a longer duration is better at reducing total damage than Intervention's 10% reduction. Even stacking Rampart and Sentinel gives better returns with Cover than with Intervention (-36%/-44%/-55.4% vs -20%/-25%/-35% for Rampart/Sentinel/Rampart+Sentinel).

Bloodspiller is only a 300 potency increase over the average potency of the gcd combo; Living Shadow is either a 2400 or 2800 potency (not certain which) for the same gauge cost.

It makes no sense why Divine Veil has to be so awkward when no other class has to deal with such a stipulation for BETTER mitigation.

It was the original partywide tank cooldown introduced in HW. It is also best of the 4 partywides at base and WAR needs to sacrifice their own cooldowns to beat it.

[Hanayumi]

Judging by the benchmark sheltron is getting an upgrade of some sort, could have something else tacked onto it then "After a successful block, yata yata" maybe?

[Mikey_R]

The problem is, if it is something offensive, sheltron will just be used to proc that offense and not used for it's intended purpose.

If it stays purely defensive, then that is fine. Though, random off the cuff thought, a purely defensive upgrade to sheltron would just be more damage mitigation on their short cooldown, does this mean things are going to get even more hard hiting? (This is based off of nothing tangible).

[Ultimatecalibur]

Judging by the benchmark sheltron is getting an upgrade of some sort, could have something else tacked onto it then "After a successful block, yata yata" maybe?

The problem is, if it is something offensive, sheltron will just be used to proc that offense and not used for it's intended purpose.

Depends heavily on the counterattack's conditional trigger. If it is something like the Blue Mage's Cold Fog which is "Effect changes to Touch of Frost if damage is taken," then you will see it used on cooldown offensively while something like Chelonian Gate's "Grants Auspicious Trance after taking damage equal to 30% of maximum HP" would see it used only when you thing you could trigger it. The latter condition would actually work really well as a reward for proper use of Passage of Arms.

[Lyth]

The problem is, if it is something offensive, sheltron will just be used to proc that offense and not used for it's intended purpose.

What is Sheltron's 'intended purpose'?

The only justification for why defensive actions shouldn't provide dps gains is that it forces you to actively tank (but we break that rule anyways with Vengeance). If Sheltron and Intervention both provide equivalent dps gains on use, what does it matter? It becomes part of your dps rotation, and when you are actually need to mitigate something at the same time then you just sync them up. We need more things that differentiate tanking game play from melee dps (outside of flat out doing less damage with less engaging rotations).

[Mikey_R]

Sheltron's inended purpose is damage mitigation. Whethe ryou want to use it for Tank Busters or softening auto attacks, that is it's role, the same as any other damage mitigation skill, except, obviously, Vengeance (but I will get to that).

However, I fail to see how adding a damage counter to Sheltron/Intervention changes things up? You would still use them almost on cooldown to get the damage, making it effectively the same as any other damage skill, you just need a hit to activate it. It doesn't really change how you tank and it is just another thing you have to weave. However, this is all assuming the damage is somewhat potent. This is where we can start talking about Vengenace.

I had a very quick look around FFLogs for the damage Vengeance gives someone in a fight. I found one, 4 casts, got 13 counter hits off of it, which equated to 0.6% of the total DPS. With the case for Vengeance, since it has a 2 minute cooldown, you can only get a certain number in a fight dependant on it's duration, this means you have a bit more flexibility in when you can use it without losing a use. Overall, the damage from Vengeance is just not that significant and completely non-existent if there are no physical attacks at all.

This is where we can come back to Sheltron/Intervention counter, if you want it to be more flavour, like Vengeance, then it will have a weak potency to compensate. Quick maths (below), taking into account optimal Vengeance and continuous use of Sheltron/Intervention, puts the potency at ~51.3 for it to match the usefulness of Vengeance. If you compare that to Intervene, 200 potency, 30 second cooldown, it is just weak. There would be no satisfaction in using it. Make it too strong and would people care more about getting the most out of the damage you get rather than having a tool to mitigate damage which in turn reduces PLD's options.

So really, it depends on how you want to treat it, more as a mitigation tool, where you lose nothing, or more as a DPS tool, where, if it is a DPS tool, you also lose mitigation where you might need it (or, it might line up, who knows). Personally, I would keep it as a mitigation tool only as I see no value in trying to add an offensive option to it. Yes, Shield Swipe used to exist, but that proced off of any block and you could activate the block proc before the cooldown was complete, so you still had a good chance of using it whener it came off of cooldown. Plus, Sheltron used to have the benefit of giving MP, which was very tight in the SB days so using Sheltron helped DPS in several ways.


Quick and dirty maths:

Going for optimal damage from counters so assume we get 5 counters (3 second AA delay, 15 second duration, 15/3 = 5 counters)
Potency of counter is 55, 55*5 = 275 potency total per Vengeance use.
Vengeance has a 2 minute cooldown, so 275/120 = 2.29 potency per second.
Takes 22.4 seconds to charge 50 gauge (2.24 AA * 10) 2.29*22.4 = 51.3 potency per cast.
I have obviously assumed potency can be shared between jobs (though going between 2 tanks should be fine) and no buffs.

To compare the 2.29 potency per second to other attacks:
-Abyssal Drain 3.33 PPS
-Intervene 6.67 PPS
-Carve and SPit 7.5 PPS
-Requiescat 9.17 PPS
-Upheavel 15 PPS
-Blasting Zone - 26.67 PPS

I think the point can be made about how insignificant the vengeance counters are.