Tank Mitigation Autonomy: Why the proposed IB change should be mirrored on Paladin

[Kenji1134]

One of the more pronounced concerns with the proposed Warrior changes is that IB will provide 20% mitigation for 6 seconds after use. Now supposedly this 20% will only be applied if IB is used at 5 stacks, so most people are claiming that the 20% mitigation boost will have a 26.7% uptime.
Other players are arguing against this maximum uptime value, instead advocating that the smarter thing to do would be to save IB for predictable damage spikes, such as Mountain Buster or Death Sentence.
This second use of IB is more concerning, and more viable, as it essentially gives the player access to a low duration, low cooldown mitigation buff, all but designed to PROACTIVELY deal with spike damage.

By adding this kind of "on demand" mitigation to a tank, any tank, you are changing the dynamic of their tanking methodology.

Right now, Paladin's tanking methodology is essentially "big hit incoming... use a cooldown. 1 minute later, another big hit incoming, use a different cooldown... etc" Until you run out of cooldowns. The one upside to this is that you can chain cooldowns together to survive continuous high damage phases. At this time only 2 exist, Caduceus with 4+ stacks, and the 4 stack Dreadnaught... Maybe the double Dreadnaught if your dps is kinda slow. This is a very limited set of uses for PLD's chained CDs.
Conversely, the current (Live) Warrior methodology is juggling between keeping up stacks of Wrath for healing, or using IB after a big hit for self healing. And as time has shown, this is not particularly effective.
Under the proposed changes, Warriors will be free of the stack juggling crisis, and will be able to focus more on fully utilizing hate combos, damage combos, debuff combos... and when a big hit is coming, pop IB to knock off 1/5 of the damage.
Now while 6 seconds of 20% mit is not much in the long run, and I am pretty sure that the total mitigation*(% uptime) of Paladin's CDs still exceeds the mitigation*(% uptime) of Warrior's CDs, the issue is that a "skilled" Warrior can pop IB before every major attack, and knock off 20% of every major attack.
Paladin simply does not have that option. For a Paladin, assuming a big hit comes every 30 seconds, we can maybe catch 1 hit on Rampart, 1 hit on Sentinel, and 1 hit on Hallowed... maybe 1 hit on Convalescence, if you care to count that one... And Bulwark is still a 90% chance at best to mitigate about 28% of a physical only hit. This is good for a while, but after the 2nd Rampart... you are essentially out of cooldowns.

So.
My proposition is thus. To make things fair, even, what have you... Give both GLA and MRD, the base classes, not jobs, an ability on a 25-30s CD, ogcd, with no cost, that provides 20% mitigation for 6 seconds. This small addition would do wonders for improving the complexity and autonomy of tanks, so that we can have greater control over our incoming damage.
Of course, this additional ability would mean undoing the change to IB, returning it to 300% healed which many Warriors seem to like. And perhaps scrapping a cooldown in GLA... like Tempered Will.

Note, that this is not a "Paladin playstyle VS Warrior playstyle" issue, this is a "dynamic control of my own survival" issue. Which honestly both tanks, and all future tanks, would benefit from.

[Gardes]

Um, where's the argument explaining why Paladin should have the same thing? Is this all?

[Einheri]

The inner beast changes are an actual "nerf" to the current mitigation provided by inner beast. The trade off for the decrease in mitigation via self heals is in a more reliable damage reduction and less over heals.

Currently inner beast heals for about 1500 on average (end game tanks) with the ability to crit and take advantage damage buffs the high end heals can be huge. Don't forget infuriate can allow for back to back IB heals. So you can easily mitigate for over 3k damge currently.

The new IB provides 20% reduction over 6 secs. So a boss doing 1k dps, say a table flip and two reg attacks for 6k you will mitigate only 1200 damage. Add in the reduced heal for about 500 and you get 1700 damage mitigated. What makes this "buff" great is that is scales with content the warriors big problem currently vs a paladin. So if the boss does 1500dps your mitigation would be around 2300.

Of course this assumes a enemy hits you more than just once over the duration. If you just get hit by the table flip for 4000 you would receive 1300 in mitigation from the new IB.

This skill is very balanced. I just wish it was more leech tank in flavor.

[Pavise]

The new IB is pretty much blocking all attacks for 6s, which paladins do at random anyway and don't have to hit a single button.

[Genesiser]

Here's an idea. Since if they gave pallys the same ability as the warrior is getting would make them stronger (because you'd be able to block the attack along with the 20% which would make it reduce the dmg even more) how about they change the one ability that gives you 60% block chance for 15 seconds or however long it is and instead drop the cd to 25 seconds but make it last 6 seconds. Kind of lime the old wow pally or the rift pally.

[Enjin]

The premise of this post seems to indicate that the OP didn't take into account several things and is a knee jerk Style of reaction. It appears what OP wants is to have active restoration instead of a "slower ticker".

Let's talk about that:

• PLDs scale with boss damage through shield oath. WARs scale with healer gear through defiance. Control of my own survival indeed.
• PLDs have a form of passive mitigation that WARs do not get; block.
• PLDs have AoE mitigation through blind.
• PLDs can reset stacks and abuse mechanics through Hallowed Ground. If that isn't "greater control of incoming damage" or "Dynamic Control of my own survival" issue. I don't know what is.

Do wonders for improving complexity and autonomy of tanks? I have no idea what you're talking about. PLD is crazy easy, WAR isn't hard, but it has a couple of choices. Your proposal is weak. Both base classes will have that ability as of 2.1 and that would give GLA/PLD two of the same button.

[OmegaSinX]

People who are saying "Warriors are better than PLD now, Buff PLD too" Need to really wait till they actually implement these changes first. PLD doesnt need any new buffs, it will still have better mitigation and utility even if they implement these changes. PLD will still be better for mitigation but WAR is now on equal footing.


Hallow Ground vs Holmgang :
Scenerio: PLD pops Hallow Ground So Healer1 can Raise Healer2 > Healer1 Raises Healer2> PLD still has Full HP and few more secs b4 Hallow Ground runs out.

Same Scenerio: WAR Pops Holmgang> Healer1 Raises Healer2> WAR HP is Critically Low, Holmgang Effect Wears off> Before WHM can Heal WAR Dies.

Winner: Hallow Ground even with the longer CD.

Inner Beast vs Rampart:
Yea you can have 20% mitigation essenstially evey 20 or so secs with Inner Beast, but people forget to account that PLD has a Shield + 20% Constant Mitigation in their stance. If anything, The New inner beast only Compensates for WARs lack of Shield. When PLD pop Rampart, they are really mitigating 40% (with the additional +20% from Shield Oath) and they are mitigating 60% with Sentinal, and lets not forget parry. Shield Block can block 100% of damage sometimes.

Winner: Rampart

New Defiance vs Shield Oath: Scenerio: PLD HP: 5000, WAR HP: 6250, Mobs Hits Tank for 4K Burst. PLD takes 3200, War Takes 4k Damage. Healer heals for 2k, PLD recovers 2k, WAR recovers 2400. PLD HP NOW: 3800(76% of Max HP), WAR HP NOW:4650 (74% of maxHP)

Winner: Tie. With regard to effective hp, Shield Oath still Wins. For Overall use, New Defiance Wins becauses of added crit chance.

Vengance vs Sentinal: See "Inner Beast Vs Rampart". Same Story here.

Winner: Sentinal

The 2 Classes are on even footing now.

IMO: New WAR+PLD Combo will be Best for Parties.