Possible Paladin Rework...

[TouchandFeel]

PLD are more defensive tanks while warriors are more aggressive and high dmg tanks. It's obvious to know why they have lower damage... If PLD gets a dmg buff then warriors need a mitigation buff or self healing buff

I would just like to point out that PLD is not better overall at mitigation than a WAR and that in a lot of instances, such as boss fights, a WAR can have better mitigation.

This is because of a few things.

First off the eHP provided by the two tank stances is the same.

Rampart and Inner Beast. While IB has a shorter uptime, it can be used more frequently as long as you are doing your rotations which results in approximately the same overall uptime for the two. The differences: IB does damage and has a self heal, but the big one is that they actually don't mitigate the same % amount because of ShO being a base % damage reduction which means Rampart actually ends up being a 16% damage reduction while IB is still 20%. When coupled with the tank stance buffs, their defensive gain is the same. Also, as far as the difficulty of timing IB to big attacks, Infuriate + IB is available more often than Rampart so while you have to push one more button you can time it to more potential big attacks.

Sentinel and Vengeance. Sentinel with the trait says it does 40% damage reduction which actually results in a 32% damage reduction and lasts for 10 seconds and is on a CD timer of 180s. Vengeance does 30% damage reduction, does damage on being hit by physical attacks, lasts for 15s and has a 120s CD timer. When coupled with the tank stance benefits, they result in approximately the same defensive gains. Sentinel will provide a bit more mitigation per hit over a shorter period of time, while Vengeance lasts longer but has less mitigation per hit. However there still is the discrepancy of the cooldown times between the two (180s vs. 120s) and that Vengeance also does damage.

Bulwark and Foresight. This one is a bit harder to measure because of block. Bulwark can give greater burst damage reduction, but it has a shorter duration and longer cool down. Foresight may do less reduction but it lasts longer and can be used more often. The difficult to compare elements are that block could potentially block a really nasty attack or hit, but then again it probably won't. The chance of that happening is quite low so you should never plan around it.

Holmgang and Hallowed Ground. HG is better IMO and Holmgang could use some rework/a buff.

Thrill of Battle and Stoneskin. They function pretty much the same, the main differences being SS has a cast time but no cooldown and ToB does not have a cast time but has a cool down, ToB can stack with a SS cast by a healer. Also, with the trait ToB does 20% instead of 10%.

Convalescence. Same ability for both, but the PLD version is better due to trait.

Bloodbath. Same ability for both, but WAR version is slightly better due to trait.

Awareness. Pretty meh for either class.

Rage of Halone debuff and Storm's Path debuff. SP's damage reduced debuff is better than RoH's strength debuff since it affects all damage.

Block and Self-heals. Different flavor elements for both classes. While people like to say that the shield is a huge deal, it only works on physical attacks so is mainly effective for negating an auto attack here and there unless you use Bulwark but that ability should be looked at separately. So in most instances, they result in approximately the same amount of mitigation.

While it may seem like I am showing that WAR mitigation is better, it really depends on the situation. In boss fights and magic heavy fights, WAR can have better mitigation. In large trash pulls or physical damage heavy fights, PLD may have better mitigation.

Point being this whole PLD is defensive and WAR is offensive so should do much higher damage is only true conceptually and not functionally, so justifying the much greater amount of damage that a WAR can do solo or MTing is moot since their mitigation does not have this sort of discrepancy.

Also as I was suggesting, any buffs to PLD damage would be limited to only while using shield oath since that is where the big damage difference is, when both tanks are in their tank stance.

[TheodoreMcIntyre]

I would just like to point out that PLD is not better overall at mitigation than a WAR and that in a lot of instances, such as boss fights, a WAR can have better mitigation.

This is because of a few things.

First off the eHP provided by the two tank stances is the same.

But...Shield Oath doesn't give any HP while Defiance does? I assume we're talking about Shield Oath and Defiance because Sword Oath isn't really a tank stance

The differences: IB does damage and has a self heal, but the big one is that they actually don't mitigate the same amount because of ShO being a base % damage reduction which means Rampart actually ends up being a 16% damage reduction while IB is still 20%.

The way you're wording this is misleading. You're saying it like Rampart results in less mitigation than IB, when actually the PLD, with Shield Oath and Rampart, mitigates 36% of damage. The PLD ends up taking less damage which is what you should be looking at here, not just comparing the individual skills percent reduction.

Sentinel and Vengeance. Sentinel with the trait says it does 40% damage reduction which actually results in a 32% damage reduction and lasts for 10 seconds and is on a CD timer of 180s. Vengeance does 30% damage reduction, does damage on being hit by physical attacks, lasts for 15s and has a 120s CD timer. So they have almost the same % damage reduction, but Vengeance does damage, lasts longer and can be used more often.

Again, the way you're wording this casts PLD in a pretty negative light.
It's not fair that you're not counting Shield Oath's mitigation in that percentage, because Shield Oath + Sentinel reduces 52% of damage, which is much higher than Vengeance's 30%. Because, again, you can't just compare the two skills and say "Shield Oath makes this mitigate less" and then not actually tell them how much Shield Oath and Sentinel mitigates.

Bulwark and Foresight. This one is a bit harder to measure because of block. Bulwark can give greater burst damage reduction, but block only effects physical damage and it has a shorter duration and longer cool down. Foresight may do less reduction but it lasts longer and can be used more often. The difficult to compare elements are that block could potentially block a really nasty attack or hit, but then on the other hand since block only effects physical damage its effectiveness in magic heavy fights is greatly reduced.

If you're going to point out that you can only block physical damage, you need to point out that Foresight, which only increases physical defense, would be equally useless.

The point is, you can't really say "Because of Shield Oath's mitigation, X skill reduces less damage resulting in Y reduction from X skill" and then not include Shield Oath's mitigation in that. It's not really fair to the class, because Shield Oath is kinda PLD's thing, and with it, it always results in a higher mitigation percentage than any of WAR's stuff.

[Shurrikhan]

> Shield Moves on Separate GCD. Shield Oath shares a GCD with sword moves and Sword Oath with shield moves (it takes longer to swap to Sword Oath and stun and longer to swap to Shield Oath and dps).
Activation time will be limited only by animation locks. (RoH can still be a stun-killer, but a little less so than before). Shield Swipe can be a larger source of MT dps, as, assuming constant blocks, you'd have a roughly 50% increased rate of fire (the total animation time of most melee moves + Shield Swipe would probably bring you to just short of or a bit more than (RoH) half way through the next GCD.

- Bulwark will now provide a guaranteed block against cleaves around you, though a percentage of your bonus block rating will be consumed in proportion to how low your health drops from these cleaves and the amount of bonus block percentage had to be granted to guarantee the block. This mitigation is applied to the cleaves directly, and will effectively mitigate for all allies cleaved with it. Still applies only to physical attacks. (Effect is similar to Holy Passive, the Shield Oath alteration of Shield Bash, below, except that Holy Passive affects all damage types.)

>>> Oaths Revamped.

>> Both Oaths will generate stacks, to a maximum of 10. These stacks become harder to generate and have greater effect with each stack. There is only one type of stacks, shared by both oaths. Effects and generation method vary with oath. Both provide slight passive bonuses and can be consumed for burst effect.
- Shield Oath generates stacks through stunning, pacifying, and especially blocking (both from the block itself and the amount of damage blocked).
- Sword Oath generates stacks through dealing damage.

>> Each Oath will alter certain abilities.

> While in Shield Oath, pressing Shield Oath again grant additional effects to your next shield ability. You may channel additional stacks to be consumed either while holding down Shield Oath or by holding after using either shield move. The max channeling time is 3 seconds, stack-consuming/loading speed increased by the Skill/Spell Speed stat.
Stacks to be consumed that are channeled before using the abilities will add block chance, block strength, and flat damage reduction (the last in proportion to your attack power) immediately, lasting up to 3 seconds from the time the channel stops and doubled (quadrupled for Shield Bash) from when the skill animation begins to 1 second after it ends. In this form it is essentially an active mitigation tool that takes a while to regenerate but is not quite a CD.
- If the channel is instead done during the animation of the shield abilities:
-- Shield Bash will create a Holy Passive on the ground, protecting a conal area behind it, which will absorb damage that passes through its zone. Health is dependent on the number of stacks given to it, your health, defense, and attack power. Max of 8 stacks consumed over up to 1 GCD.
-- Shield Swipe will have a knock-back effect and will provide the Chastise effect on the enemy, which will slow and heavy the enemy while dealing holy damage for the duration of the channel. Max of 6 stacks consumed over up to 2 GCDs. The slow and heavy durations, though channeled, will not be reduced by speed.

> Sword Oath alters the effects of Spirits Within, Riot Blade, and Circle of Scorn.
> Simply Channeling Sword Oath allows you to consume mana in order to increase your Strength for a short duration, and adds half of the combo bonus of each ability done in combo since starting this buff as magic damage. Every odd stack channeled will generate 5/6/7/8/9% strength [max: 35%], effect increasing per stack. Every even stack will increase the duration of the effect by 1/1/1.33/1.66/2 GCDs [7 total]. Each stack consumed will spend 7% of base mana. Channeling is broken by and begins its duration when using another ability.

[Usage note: Going for larger consumptions tends to allow you to use the Strength to benefit a block if you were to swap Oaths, or it can allow for a full combo, where a Rage of Halone can potentially hit for as much as a Maim-Berserk Butcher's Block when including both the strength buff and the added combo bonus damage (as magic damage). Keep in mind that only half of the bonus effects here will affect oGCD moves, and that a RoH and Fast Blade on their own will not benefit from the combo bonus either. {RoH, FB, SB, RoH, FB, SB, RoH} is probably your best bet for using all 7 GCDs; {FB, RB, FB RB} or {RoH, FB, SB, RoH} after that, etc.. There is enough mana to swap Oaths after a 10-stack consume if you are at nearly full mana beforehand.]

- Circle of Scorn: Consuming stacks in combination in channel during/following Circle of Scorn will deal a second set of damage in small AoEs around you (each a separate, larger sword) from 10 o'clock, clockwise around you, firing 1 each third of a second at 2 stacks per second each to a max of 8 stacks. Each deals 10 potency and applies a DoT lasting 9 seconds, dealing 40 potency per tick. You can attack while the effect is still going, and simply click off the channel whenever, or continue holding it. (Yes you can cause enemies to be re-hit to get a little more duration out of this, or ensure that they all fall on the same enemy...)

- Spirits Within... [haven't thought this up yet. meh]


...I should really get back to work. Will finish this later if this isn't already a complete bust. I plan to work in an immense damage bonus or damage reflect to the shield stuff as well, since MT dps is where PLD is really lacking.

[TouchandFeel]

@ SpookyGhost and SwordCoheir

Exactly what you two have said, taking the PLD stun off GCD would make it way too good compared to the WAR stun. If anything the WAR stun needs fixing by having its animation windup time reduced.

[SwordCoheir]

@ SpookyGhost and SwordCoheir

Exactly what you two have said, taking the PLD stun off GCD would make it way too good compared to the WAR stun. If anything the WAR stun needs fixing by having its animation windup time reduced.

Not exactly, it's just every other job that has Stun's are all on a 20-30 second or so cooldown or there has to be some requirement to it (Shoulder Tackle's distance requirement, MNK/NIN forms). If you don't have a PLD and require stunlocks you have to co-ordinate your parties CD moves and that often hurts the parties DPS. Basically put, Shield Bash's strength is the fact it IS on the GCD, taking it off would hurt more than help in the long run because of it's spamability advantage.

[ZerogaKamico]

How about Square Enix adding a skill that is able to make use of a Paladin`s enormous damage income?
Something that would be very usefull in a pinch and that could help the entire party?

For example:
A skill with a 15sec duration, and that would take 10% of the total damage taken by the Paladin and equally distribute it as HP to the other party members.
Putting a long recast (3 minutes maybe?) would be enough to prevent over-usage.

It is a nice idea, no? I think it also fits with the "Paladin" theme, where he would get hurt to protect those around him.
Maybe add this as a Level 50 skill, with the need to complete a certain quest to get it would be interesting, no?

[TouchandFeel]

@SwordCoheir

Being on GCD just means that an ability is tied to a cooldown timer shared across a number of abilities, activating and having to wait for it. This game just happens to lump most abilities into three categories: those on gcd with no additional cooldown, those off gcd with their own specific cooldowns, and those with specific requirements such as procs in order to activate.

It is entirely possible for an ability to be coupled to the gcd and then have its own longer cool down, it is just not very common.

So when I see someone say to take an ability off gcd and they provide no explicit cooldown time for it, I interpret that as having a 2.5 second cooldown (baseline gcd time in this game) or no cooldown and it being unhooked from the gcd, neither activating it nor having to wait for it.

That is why I said it would be quite OP.

[Alphras]

eHP (effective HP) is the amount of damage you can take before you die. For PLD eHP = HP / 0.8 (since he reduces incoming damage by 20%), for WAR it is eHP = HP * 1.25 (since he has an 25% increase to his HP pool). So if you are talking about how much damage a tank can take before he dies, you can ignore ShO and Defiance completely.

As a result the 20% reduction of Inner Beast and the 20% reduction of Rampart have the exact same effect on the survivability of the tank for example.

[TouchandFeel]

@Theodore

As Alphras pointed out and I stated already and has been shown many times on the forums, the eHP (effective HP) provided by Shield Oath and Defiance is the same, which means the boost in survivability provided by both is the same and therefore can be ignored for the most part when looking at the defense provided by other abilities. The only consideration that affects the other abilities is mainly, as I clearly stated, the fact that the way the game calculates stacking percent based effects is multiplicitive, not additive, so the fact that ShO is a percent based damage reduction buff, it reduces the mitigation percent of PLD's other main defensive cooldowns.

In the examples that you gave you stated that I should really be comparing the cumulative effects of PLD CDs+ShO to just WAR CDs/abilities, which would mean that those comparisons then completely ignore the benefits provided by Defiance, so it is obviously a skewed comparison and therefore should not be considered when looking at balance.

Yes, the point you made about foresight affecting only physical damage is correct. The reason I keep emphasizing the limitations of block is because I feel that some people on the forums keep trying to equate it or treat it like it is pretty much the same or as good as a straight % damage reduction which it is not.
However that does not nullify my first point when comparing Rampart and Foresight, Rampart can potentially provide a better damage reduction spike but it can be used less frequently and lasts for a shorter duration while Foresight provides a longer lasting, more consistent reduction in damage but potentially less damage reduced per hit.

You are calculating survivability and mitigation solely on % damage reduced effects, which is not how it should be looked at since there are many other things that result in added survivability and eHP.

Lastly, as I originally stated, while it may seem like I am "casting PLD in a bad light" or showing WAR to have better mitigation, I am not. One may be better in some situations while the other is better in other situations, but overall their defensive capabilities are approximately the same, which was the point of the changes made in 2.1, to put them on equal footing in that respect.

@Alphras

Don't forget the 20% to heals from Defiance when calculating survivability since that is where their sustainability mainly comes from
IMO, the %hp boost is more there to accommodate for the larger numbers (HP out through damage, HP in through heals).

But yeah, as has been said the two tank stances result in an equivalent eHP boost.

[Giantbane]

Don't forget the 20% to heals from Defiance when calculating eHP since that is where their eHP boost mainly comes from.

No, Alphras is exactly correct. eHP is just the number of hits you can take before you die without heals. What you're talking about is sustainability, or the amount of healing required to restore the tank to full. SHO is actually more effective in that regard, since the PLD is taking 20% less damage, he requires 20% less healing. Defiance provides 20% MORE healing, which at first glance seems the same as what SHO is doing, but it's not. In order to compare the two, we need to know how much LESS healing is required due to defiance. First you invert it to determine how much healing is required to heal to full with defiance on:

1 / 1.2 ~= 0.833333

so a WAR requires about 83% as much healing to be healed from 0 to full, which means they require 17% less healing due to Defiance, which is slightly worse than the 20% less healing needed when under shield oath. However, a WARs self heals will cover that discrepancy in most cases.

Rampart and Inner Beast. While IB has a shorter uptime, it can be used more frequently as long as you are doing your rotations which results in approximately the same overall uptime for the two. The differences: IB does damage and has a self heal, but the big one is that they actually don't mitigate the same amount because of ShO being a base % damage reduction which means Rampart actually ends up being a 16% damage reduction while IB is still 20%. Also, as far as the difficulty of timing IB to big attacks, Infuriate + IB is available more often than Rampart so while you have to push one more button you can time it to more potential big attacks.

Sentinel and Vengeance. Sentinel with the trait says it does 40% damage reduction which actually results in a 32% damage reduction and lasts for 10 seconds and is on a CD timer of 180s. Vengeance does 30% damage reduction, does damage on being hit by physical attacks, lasts for 15s and has a 120s CD timer. So they have almost the same % damage reduction, but Vengeance does damage, lasts longer and can be used more often.

You're looking at these two wrong. You have to remember that while the eHP of a WAR and PLD are the same from Defiance and Shield Oath, the WAR has more actual HP and the WAR is taking more damage, exactly 25% more damage to be exact. This has been left out of your comparisons. In truth, the 20% reduction on Rampart is exactly as effective as the 20% reduction of IB. There's no difference in how it works in practice.

For example.

You have a PLD with 8000 HP. War in the same gear would have 10000 HP with Defiance. In this instance the WAR can take 10,000 damage before dying. The PLD in shield oath can take the same 10,000 damage before he dies (10,000 damage x 80% damage from shield oath = 8000 actual damage done to the PLD in this case, just enough to kill him). With Inner Beast active, the WAR can take 12,500 damage before he dies (12,500 damage x 80% damage from inner beast = 10,000 actual damage done to the WAR). With Rampart active, the PLD can take the same exact 12,500 damage before he dies (12,500 damage x 64% damage from both shield oath and rampart = 8000 actual damage to the PLD).

As you can see, both abilities are working the same way and allow the tank to take the exact same amount of extra damage before dying.