Decrying Shield Swipe

[Kitru]

Edit: @ Lord_Zlatan Why off GCD? Because it has requirements to cast. Aka blocking. We can't spam it unless we pull large groups or kill low levels. And it would be nice to weave it in during our combo. The dmg is not huge and will marginally increase our dmg and threat output.

Actually, the damage it deals is quite huge. It's a 210 potency attack which is higher than the average potency/GCD of the Halone combo that you're spamming all the time. Taking it off GCD without giving it a pretty big CD and/or a drastic reduction in damage would end up being a pretty massive buff to total PLD damage, especially since, with a high block rate shield, you'll be able to use it every 4-5 GCDs or pretty much every GCD if you have Bulwark up.

Taking it off GCD would necessitate, at the very least, a reduction to 50-75 potency and a CD of at least 15 seconds. Leaving it as is and just taking it off GCD would make it *insanely* strong.

Honestly, I think most PLDs would be perfectly happy to use it if it had a high enmity modifier, as previously recommended. I don't think that it needs to have an enmity mod as high as 3-3.5x (Halone combo averages 683 enmity potency per GCD, pre Shield Oath; 3-3.5x would put Shield Swipe at 630-735), mainly because I still believe that Halone *should* be what you spam to generate enmity and that higher damage/efficiency options should come at something of a cost, even if they're proc based. If Shield Swipe had even a 2x enmity modifier it would see a lot more use because the opportunity cost to your enmity generation wouldn't be as significant, which is the main reason why people use it now. At 2x enmity, you wouldn't want to use it in the opening volley because you haven't established an enmity cushion, but you'd want to use it regularly after because, while it would be a decrease in enmity generation, it wouldn't be a major decrease like it is now (at 2x, Halone combo>Shield Swipe would manage 617.7 enmity potency/GCD and 205 damage potency/GCD at the cost of 60 TP/GCD; Halone spam manages 683.3, 203.3, and 63.3; right now, Halone>Shield Swipe manages to drop your enmity potency/GCD to 565).

Honestly, Shield Swipe exists in that same weird place as Fracture does: using it is a *little* better for your damage than not using it, but not by anything approaching a noticeable amount. It's really just an ability that exists to provide the illusion of options/complexity.