Paladin Redesign Theorycraft by Miyoru Utadaeshi

[TheDustyOne]

Too many of the rework suggestions here would just make PLD an oGCD spamfest, we've already got DRK and GNB to fulfil that during burst phases, I'd rather focus on smaller tweaks to the damage rotation to fit it in line with the 2 minute burst rather than completely changing it into an entirely new job. Although if I had my way I'd rather we not have the 2 minute burst and move back to the varied burst windows of previous expansions, at least then we wouldn't need any major changes to the job.

But if we're going to theorycraft changes, I may as well take a stab at what I wouldn't mind playing (or tolerating). The main things I'd personally want to see reworked on PLD is its mitigation kit rather than their damage kit, we lack a personal cooldown like Thrill of Battle, Dark Mind, and Camouflage, and blocks (and in turn Holy Sheltron) don't mitigate DoTs or are useless while stunned. As for the damage kit, as much as I'd like to keep it, FoF doesn't work with the 2 minute window. The way PLD is designed pretty much tells the player "use physical phase first" as the magic phase ends on a DoT that can't stack with Goring Blade, is as strong as a buffed Goring Blade, and since you want to start FoF just before Goring, this ends up delaying FoF in a magic first opener by a good 40 seconds unless used pre-pull. The solution I came to was to just scrap it in favour of buffing all physical attacks by about 15% and making sure Goring Blade had a DoT similar in power to Blade of Valor by default.

Fight or Flight - Removed
Fast Blade - Increased potency to 220
Riot Blade - Increased potency to 340
Royal Authority - Increased potency to 480
Atonement - Increased potency to 500
Goring Blade - Increased potency to 310, DoT potency increased to 90 (current FoF Goring DoT is around 82, this would be a slight buff)
Blade of Valor - DoT potency increased to 90 to be on par with my Goring Blade
Intervene - Increased potency to 200
Circle of Scorn - Increased potency to 120, DoT potency increased to 40
Expiacion - Increased potency to 500
Skill Speed and Spell Speed - Merged into a singular Agility attribute
Sheltron and Holy Sheltron - Now forces blocks while stunned

The biggest change I'd want is, and something that's far less likely for Square to do, would be to overhaul a lot of the defensive abilities. But since we're theorycrafting and having a bit of fun, I'll bring out my wishlist of changes.

Holy Sheltron: 90s Recast, 50 Oath Gauge
-Blocks all incoming damage and increases block damage reduction to 30%, 20s
*Becomes a new action, Aegis Boon, upon activation
This new version of Holy Sheltron is our unique cooldown in similar vein to Thrill or Camouflage, albeit more powerful as it comes with a gauge cost

Aegis Boon:
-Restores health equivalent to 70% of the damage mitigated by Holy Sheltron
*Can't be placed on the hotbar*
*Only a single use with every cast of Holy Sheltron*
*Automatically used upon Holy Sheltron expiring if not used before*
A new (read: old from 1.0) healing action that I thought would be kinda neat, it rewards good use of my version of Holy Sheltron
A quick example of the health restored would be like this; a boss uses a tankbuster that deals 100k damage, Holy Sheltron reduces that to 70k (30k is mitigated), 70% of that 30k is 21k, so Aegis Boon would be a 21k heal. Think of it like a personal Macrocosmos, but for damage reduced rather than damage taken.

Intervention: 1s Recast, 50 Oath Gauge
-Reduces incoming damage by 20%, 8s
-Further reduces incoming damage by 15%, 4s
-Applies 250 potency HoT, 12s
Intervention now serves as both our co-tank mitigation and personal mitigation rather than having it split between Sheltron and Intervention, my version won't be boosted with Rampart or Sentinel.

Divine Veil: 90s Recast
-Create a barrier on yourself and all nearby allies equal to 10% of your maximum HP
-Applies a 150 potency HoT upon barrier breaking, 12s
Divine Veil no longer requires the heal to activate, at this point it mostly feels like busywork as our basic rotation will activate it most of the time anyway. The HoT may be a bit overkill though, but I think it's better than having healing be applied before damage goes out like it currently does

Cover: 120s Recast, 50 Oath Gauge
-Redirects incoming damage intended for targeted ally to yourself, also blocks all incoming damage, 12s
-Applies a 250 potency HoT, 12s
Cover at the moment is extremely niche and not worth the cost most of the time compared to Intervention, at least here it would still provide the defensive boons that other Oath abilities have.

Hallowed Ground: 360s Recast
-Become impervious to most incoming damage, 10s
Hallowed Ground's current cooldown is just too long in comparison to other tank cooldowns, ideally I'd rather have all the invulns brought closer together in their recast timers, with only 30-40 seconds between them rather than the 60s between them now.

Thoughts? Damage section is a little conservative on buffs, but I mostly wanted to keep changes there fairly realistic, the most drastic thing there was the removal of FoF.

[Rithy255]

Too many of the rework suggestions here would just make PLD an oGCD spamfest, we've already got DRK and GNB to fulfil that during burst phases, I'd rather focus on smaller tweaks to the .

Just gonna cutdown this read above for more context

Rotation/Damage changes:
I think FOF being removed is fine in general I don't want it to be but it's not a deal breaker and wouldn't ruin pld for me personally, Aslong as the Numbers fit PLD around Gnb/drk's level it doesn't matter too much

Utility/Defensives: (The stuff that I find more interesting ^^)

Holy Shelltron/Aegis Boon: In general I like this ability it feels certainly pretty powerful my main issue is the oath gauge cost I feel like it could be on 120 or something and not cost anything, Intervention servers pratically the same purpose Mitigating slightly more damage but not having the strong heal from the boon effect, I dunno I rather this ability be separate from oath I really like the idea I just think it's too similar to what intervention servers considering interventions heal is generally around 16-20k depending on stuff, so even I'm unsure if it would that strong.
Intervention: 100% Agree, just please change the intervention animation it looks underwhelming compared to holy shelltron xD.
Divine Veil: I love this feels powerful feels right for the Paladin, a job that is viewed as the utility tank, it's only like 600 total heal so i don't think it's over the top (current is 400)
Cover: I don't mind this seems alright seems like cover would be alright anything to make this skill better
HG: I think HG should be the longest that said I agree with reducing the invul, I believe all invuls should be 30 seconds apart from each other instead of a minute, But overall I agree

Overall I really like your utility changes, really makes Paladin feel more like the team support but also a strong tank.

I'd like to add personally Id wanna see some healing removed from holy spirit/blades combo, but put into PLDs actions, so they could make use of it more as a OT and have even more control as a MT.

[TheDustyOne]

Holy Shelltron/Aegis Boon: In general I like this ability it feels certainly pretty powerful my main issue is the oath gauge cost I feel like it could be on 120 or something and not cost anything, Intervention servers pratically the same purpose Mitigating slightly more damage but not having the strong heal from the boon effect, I dunno I rather this ability be separate from oath I really like the idea I just think it's too similar to what intervention servers considering interventions heal is generally around 16-20k depending on stuff, so even I'm unsure if it would that strong.

The main reason I kept a gauge cost was because I felt like currently Oath gauge is just there to regulate Sheltron/Intervention, it could easily be replaced by making those skills a 20 second cooldown with 2 charges, with none of the drawbacks that downtime incurs. So I mostly just wanted something to make Oath feel more meaningful as a mechanic to PLD. Remember that it's effectively Sentinel with Ramparts cooldown and a heal that can be potentially stronger than Knight's Benediction, even if it was moved to 120s I think I'd still keep the gauge cost just to not make it seem so busted in comparison. But I think numbers could be tweaked there, I just liked the idea behind Aegis Boon and wanted to get it across somehow, kinda makes me happy that you like the idea too.

I'd like to add personally Id wanna see some healing removed from holy spirit/blades combo, but put into PLDs actions, so they could make use of it more as a OT and have even more control as a MT.

I agree as well, having heals tied to our rotation for sustain mostly comes across as lazy. We have about 3200 healing potency put inside our magic phase that I'd rather have more control over. One option I had also thought about was making Clemency an oGCD that we can spend Oath on. Only problem there is it has to be competitive with Sheltron/Intervention HoT + mitigation, so keeping it at 1000 potency may not be enough, or maybe it could be strong enough, so long as the burst heal saves someone it could still be useful.

[Rithy255]

Response to above (No quote due to limits)

I like the idea of PLD having more then 1 gauge cost right now, because cover is so rarely used (might be more used with your suggested changes) it does become a holy shelltron/Intervention gauge. I like the idea of strategy on when to use your gauge ability ect. You're right the new shelltron being 20 seconds and potentially a strong heal ontop of that gives is a big advantage in intervention, but it does seem generally a stronger INT on the same gauge, I think it would be fine staying on it likely even used a lot when it's up, it would be great for hard hitting autos, New Dot effect (if blocks were to be useful against Damage over times, which I'd like). Regardless it will be powerful, maybe boosting up the healing aspect might work well if it was found too weak would be better then removing it from gauge.

This becomes something I think of when thinking about PLD.
I think clemency is currently fine? (Situational but it has it's place on PLD's hot bar Imo, for solo, when your healer is floor tanking or even in certain progression situations).
I think having something similar to Gunbreakers Aurora, Drks Oblation or Warriors equilibrium (I guess cover would be our current one? which tied to gauge and being weird as it is on a 120 while other tanks have 60 second gnb 2 stacks drk 2 stacks) just a slot for self/party member utility, I think something like a 800-1200 potency heal that might get stronger the lower the target hp (Essential dignity on ast basically) having this heal on a minute with 2 stacks could work, In turn we should reduce Req/blades healing by a lot so it's down to the PLD how they use their healing instead of it being uncontrollable, I wouldn't mind it going down from a 400 > 200? req heal or something pretty major for more controllable healing for self, your MT or just helping out a party member, If the req heal is a bit harsh Im sure the boon/more healing on OCGDs you suggested would make it fine, But even buffing stuff like the Regen on intervention would be nice (considering war gets a big 1600 heal for self and target on Nflash)

Just what comes to mind personally when I think of Ideas for PLD, I love how your idea looks at PLD's utility and generally improves them, I don't mind PLD being generally pretty defensive and having strong utility in turn for being "low dps for a tank" obviously we would want PLD to still be viable in all content and not have any issues it had with clearing, but if I was to make a tank slightly behind it would be warrior right now so having PLD on this similar level of strong defensive utility in my opinion is fine, Right now PLD arguably even struggles defensive wise (funny for the shield tank lol).