Paladin idea for expansion

[Rufalus]

Sword Oath is changed so that it is a new stance where the sword is used with two hands, and the shield stays on your back.

It now increases the damage you receive (compared to the baseline with no oath active) but also greatly increases the damage you output.

In this stance certain actions are unavailable (shield lob, shield bash, shield swipe) but some new sword arts/techniques become available that can only be used during sword oath.

New move examples could be a ranged attack like Cloud's blame beam where you bash your sword on the ground and a shockwave travels in a straight line; a new circle slash type move to hit enemies around you like a whirlwind; a new combo starting with fast blade but ending with two new attacks; a new evasive maneuver perhaps. Anyone got ideas?

[Surian]

I'd be happy with getting our 1.0 abilities back at the very least.

Paladin deserves an update at the very least though, especially after Warriors got such a MASSIVE buff before. Paladin is currently one of the weakest jobs out there. It has some uses in endgame raids, but for simple dungeons or anything else it's actually rubbish.

[Brine_Gildchaff]

Wouldn't this just basically mean that a paladin's stances can be used to either DPS or tank? It'd make things just a -little- OP for tank swap fights, you'd essentially have an extra DPS half the time...

[Parz3val]

Wouldn't this just basically mean that a paladin's stances can be used to either DPS or tank? It'd make things just a -little- OP for tank swap fights, you'd essentially have an extra DPS half the time...

How is that different than a WAR disabling Defiance when not tanking. This would just bring PLD on par when not tanking.

+1.

[Dude]

Cool Idea and a lot more "Gladiator".

[Brine_Gildchaff]

How is that different than a WAR disabling Defiance when not tanking. This would just bring PLD on par when not tanking.

+1.

Disabling Defiance takes away the Wrath mechanic and a lot of the associated moves, and it doesn't do anything to your damage. The OP is talking about making Sword Oath buff your baseline damage output. Disabling Defiance is more equivalent to just turning off Shield Oath.

[Marxam]

Just add a healer stance. Something like this;

Reduce attack damage and damage taken by 10%, Increase healing potency of spells cast on you and by you by 25%, Raise can be cast in battle when under stance.

Also, a war off-defiance is going much better regardless of the benefits of wrath stacks. A 10% crit increase is useless when you deal 25% less dmg

[Brine_Gildchaff]

JAlso, a war off-defiance is going much better regardless of the benefits of wrath stacks. A 10% crit increase is useless when you deal 25% less dmg

I won't dispute this, but if you're not in Defiance you lose access to a LOT of your warrior attacks, like Inner Beast. I admit I don't play WAR, but is that really an insignificant loss?

[Marxam]

I won't dispute this, but if you're not in Defiance you lose access to a LOT of your warrior attacks, like Inner Beast. I admit I don't play WAR, but is that really an insignificant loss?

I played war since 2.0 launch and its generally seen that if you see a war in full parties (2 tanks) with only str accessories on and off-defiance then he is most likely to dps. Moves like Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone don't matter since you're not tanking, hence, you don't need the damage mitigation of Inner Beast and don't need to be taking hate from your mt. I'm the off tank, full str, in t9 and I'm constantly avg 255-270 (depends on how luck I get with crits). The only times I go into defiance is for ghosts n golems.

[Enkidoh]

The trouble with this is SE would have to go back and create whole new sword animations for GLA/PLD to do this, as well as having to recode the shield to remain on the player's back while the sword is drawn (as at the moment it's coded to be used mutually with the shield), a lot of time and effort that quite frankly could be better spent designing new classes.

Besides, this would conflict with the very description of GLA, where the class is specifically mentioned as being one-handed, and that some GLAs' 'like to keep their off hand free to focus on their sword arm', thus making two-handing swords contradictory.

Instead I think SE would be more likely to create a whole new 2-handed weapon type, either for GLA/PLD itself (as in, great swords), or else have it as a whole new class, which seems to be the popular choice.