Paladin Suggestions

[Faytte]

Part 1. Rage of Halone
So Rage of Halone was developed as an all purpose attack, the only three hit combo a paladin had. While it lagged behind a Warriors butchers block in terms of potency, because you 'spammed' this ability, the general threat out put a Paladin was putting out was about parity with a Warrior whom was also using other combos. The single ability has a partly 240 potency for a 3rd hit, but had bonus aggro and a debuff tied in. It worked very well in a single combo paradigm.

Turning to a muti combo paradigm, and things differ---Rage of Halone lags behind very good dps, and while Paladins have other combos, rage is not generating enough aggro to allow for Paladins to more freely use other combos and retain aggro. An easy example of this is that both Warriors and Dark Knights can hold aggro just fine with their basic aggro combo with their tank stances turned off, while using other combos as needed. A paladin cannot do this in sword oath--generally reduced to spamming rages inefficiently if wanting to 'offensively tank'. You might say 'well that isnt a role for them' and that is fine--I dont disagree with the view point, but this still wells up in defensive stances. Where a Dark knight can use an aggro combo 'as needed' and a warrior can do the same with a butchers block here or there, a paladin is basically required to fit in rage of halone into at best a 3 finisher rotation. The solutions for this are generally things like 'bring a ninja' or 'have less good dps' or 'stack strength' but these are not as necessary for other tanks (which to note, I've leveled all 3 to 60, I like all 3 of them as well).

Of course having 1 ability that does 3 things (extra emnity, a debuff and damage) isnt going to fly. The solution is not merely 'buff rage of halone.

Suggestion:
Increase Savage Blades Potency from 200 to 220 (in line with Spinning Slash).
Increase Potency of Rage of Halone from 240 to 250(inferior to other classes threat builders still, but not as stinging for the Paladin)
Remove Shield Swipe from GCD. Remove Pacification. Shield Swipe cannot proc within 5 seconds of having been used.
The Added damage from Sword Oath is effected by the triggering abilities increased emnity if present (i.e a rage of halones 'extra sword oath' damage is also treated to have increased enmity).


Part 2. AoE Tanking
A terrible aspect for Paladins is how -bad- they are at AoE Threat in general. Flash spam is generally not useful, and only makes monsters quickly immune to blind (if they are even affected by it) and does nothing for dps where War and Drk contribute. This is not to say Paladins should have excellent or even comparable AoE DPS---only that theres is -so- terrible it could use a look at.

Suggestions:
Circle of Judgement: New Trait for Circle of Wrath. If 3 or more targets are struck by Circle of Scorn, the cool down is reduced by 10 seconds. This drops it from 25 to 15, which basically allows for it to be reapplied just as the DOT ticks off.
Flash: While in Shield Oath, Flash a 1.3x threat multiplier (currently 1.1x). While in Sword Oath, Flash deals damage equal to 100 potency, but looses blind. This gives OT paladins some aoe damage, and helps MT paladins generate a little more aoe threat to not lag so far behind.

Part 3. Self Healing and Utility

Paladin has great utility. No one will dispute that--but some of that utility is very clunky, hard to use, and has multiple hurdles to achieve. This is not an attempt to make Paladin easy mode, but acknowledging where certain things could be better for gameplay.

1: The casting time on clemency.
---You cannot parry or block during this. This seems out of flavor for a paladin.
---Very very prone to interruptions in anything higher than dungeons. If you take 20% of more of your health in damage, you are interrupted, so what seemed great leveling up will become harder to use in things like alex extreme.
---Slowness of cast means most healing on self or others results in an over heal because healers will always out pace you.

Suggestion: Remove the cast time, and make it a GCD power (not oGCD like Wars). This means it will eat up 2.5 seconds (as opposed to 3 sec cast) but allows
A) Skill Speed to affect it. This seems more logical than spell speed which is on no tank gear.
B) It cannot be interrupted, and hits the target faster.

Keep in mind, Clemency is a spell that consumes about half your mp bar--and takes a while to recover (Paladin mana recovery is not, nor should it be, comparable to Darks--but just because these forums are full of Dark Knights, keep in mind it takes a paladin much longer to recover from mana usage in combat. Yes even with sheltron).
Obviously potency may be adjusted, mana cost may be adjusted, since it may not perform in the same light in which it was balanced.

2. Divine Veil is nice...kind of.
Having an ability we trigger that really requires a macro for others to then...really trigger is strange. This should be left to the paladins skill and determination. It would be nice if the trigger was removed requiring an external heal, and 'maybe' if it effects the paladin (this last bit, hardly required--but it be nice).

Part 4. Stances
Do I want buffs for stances? God no.

Warriors enjoy the ability to change stances without a cost, ogcd and without breaking their skill chains. I feel frankly, while the mana cost can remain, that Paladins and DRK should be able to change stances on and off without consuming a GCD and instead incur the 10 sec CD like warriors have.

In addition, Shield Slam breaks skill chains and is overly penalizing. No stuns elsewhere in the game do this, and while shield slam can be repeated (largely irrelevant outside of t5 and a3) and already costs a huge amount of tp.

Part 5. Smaller Suggestions

Blind (Also Effects DRK). This used to effect EX content, until Titan EX where blind was able to make table flips miss targets, which SE hated. The answer was making all raid content from that point immune---heavy handed I believe.

I would like to propose that blind affect 'all' targets in the game but that blind itself be nerfed to only affect non-ability (i.e, Auto Attack) damage. This allows blind to provide Dark and Paladins some mitigation, but not in a method that invalidates key mechanics, tank busters and more.

That is all

Feel free to tear it apart.

[SirTaint]

Divine Veil needs a second animation when it is triggered

[Faytte]

Divine Veil needs a second animation when it is triggered

Sure, or just---dont have a trigger.

Paladin hits a button. Everyone around them gets a shield. What is wrong with that?

Healers are so focused on bars in the middle of a fight, that I doubt adding an animation for the trigger is going to make a big difference, although as a point robustness--I agree.

[Omskahn]

Sure, or just---dont have a trigger.

Paladin hits a button. Everyone around them gets a shield. What is wrong with that?

Because that is literally WHM stoneskin. Actually no, better, because instant cast and usable in combat.

Secondly it's a strong ability if done right, and the trigger I feel allows for it to be as strong as it is. Idk, I feel like if it was easy to activate they would nerf the potency, since it is already instant cast.

That shit does need a second animation though, or at least a distinctive sound. Just so healers know that something happened. It could be just like how stone skin or protect PPP up for a sec when they activate. There are times in heavy fights when I as the tank don't know if it went off.

[SirTaint]

I actually find triggering it to be easy. You know when you are about to get healed especially in Ravana and Alexander.

The problem I have with DV is other people even realizing they have it.

[OTezO]

love the post and i couldnt agree more on all points.

I main pally now since beta and currently I am 186 about to hit savage and I feel if I go sword oath to contribute some extra dps as main tank on some pulls I must have a ninja.

All your suggestions are spot on and they really need to look at pally and make some minor changes over time.

[Ceodore]

Part 1. Rage of Halone
So Rage of Halone was developed as an all purpose attack, the only three hit combo a paladin had. While it lagged behind a Warriors butchers block in terms of potency, because you 'spammed' this ability, the general threat out put a Paladin was putting out was about parity with a Warrior whom was also using other combos. The single ability has a partly 240 potency for a 3rd hit, but had bonus aggro and a debuff tied in. It worked very well in a single combo paradigm.

Turning to a muti combo paradigm, and things differ---Rage of Halone lags behind very good dps, and while Paladins have other combos, rage is not generating enough aggro to allow for Paladins to more freely use other combos and retain aggro. An easy example of this is that both Warriors and Dark Knights can hold aggro just fine with their basic aggro combo with their tank stances turned off, while using other combos as needed. A paladin cannot do this in sword oath--generally reduced to spamming rages inefficiently if wanting to 'offensively tank'. You might say 'well that isnt a role for them' and that is fine--I dont disagree with the view point, but this still wells up in defensive stances. Where a Dark knight can use an aggro combo 'as needed' and a warrior can do the same with a butchers block here or there, a paladin is basically required to fit in rage of halone into at best a 3 finisher rotation. The solutions for this are generally things like 'bring a ninja' or 'have less good dps' or 'stack strength' but these are not as necessary for other tanks (which to note, I've leveled all 3 to 60, I like all 3 of them as well).

Of course having 1 ability that does 3 things (extra emnity, a debuff and damage) isnt going to fly. The solution is not merely 'buff rage of halone.

Suggestion:
Increase Savage Blades Potency from 200 to 220 (in line with Spinning Slash).
Increase Potency of Rage of Halone from 240 to 250(inferior to other classes threat builders still, but not as stinging for the Paladin)
Remove Shield Swipe from GCD. Remove Pacification. Shield Swipe cannot proc within 5 seconds of having been used.
The Added damage from Sword Oath is effected by the triggering abilities increased emnity if present (i.e a rage of halones 'extra sword oath' damage is also treated to have increased enmity).

Off to a bad start, huh? Okay, Rage of Halone is our Enmity rotation, we got that fact down. It applies a defensive debuff to our target, we got that down. The potency isn't as high as the other tank 3rd hit enmity combos. SE has specifically stated that Paladins do less damage in turn for better defensive capabilities, hence why our 3rd hit enmity combo not only does fair damage and cause enmity, but also lowers the strength of our enemy. Your bit about dropping into sword oath. Is this while you're MT? WHY? Leave the stance dancing to the classes that have the non-GCD triggering stances. Paladins generally change stances before or after a tank swap depending on if they are going from OT to MT or MT to OT. Why anyone would willingly switch to Sword Oath while MT and lose their 20% damage reduction is beyond me, but I've seen stupider things happen.

Another thing, all these people asking for Shield Swipe to be off the global cooldown, and they don't even realize that we use this skill as a means to preserve and recover TP. What are you going to do when your 40 TP skill is now off the GCD and you're beating it out on top of your 60 or 70 TP skills in half the time? Run out of TP even faster. Your suggestion for Shield Swipe just makes the skill that much less advantageous to use. Sure, remove the pacification, but leave the global cooldown trigger. If you're really having so much problem with enmity, this is the skill you should look at for increasing it. We have already been given increased Enmity on the skill, so where you should look to increase potency is here. Increasing it from 210 to something like 240 would be perfect. Increasing the potency on Rage of Halone just means that when we OT, we have a better chance of still ripping agro, which I should add, I have done on several occasions already against both Warriors and Dark Knights in equivalent gear as me WHILE IN SWORD OATH even. Applying a potency boost to Shield Swipe allows for us to increase our potency more when we are MT without affecting our OT potency. Further, putting any kind of cooldown LONGER than global on Shield Swipe just means our TP regeneration from it when we pop Bulwark is lessened. The skill needs to be either left alone, or if changed, given more potency, lose the pacification and the TP cost, but otherwise be left unchanged.

Part 2. AoE Tanking
A terrible aspect for Paladins is how -bad- they are at AoE Threat in general. Flash spam is generally not useful, and only makes monsters quickly immune to blind (if they are even affected by it) and does nothing for dps where War and Drk contribute. This is not to say Paladins should have excellent or even comparable AoE DPS---only that theres is -so- terrible it could use a look at.

Suggestions:
Circle of Judgement: New Trait for Circle of Wrath. If 3 or more targets are struck by Circle of Scorn, the cool down is reduced by 10 seconds. This drops it from 25 to 15, which basically allows for it to be reapplied just as the DOT ticks off.
Flash: While in Shield Oath, Flash a 1.3x threat multiplier (currently 1.1x). While in Sword Oath, Flash deals damage equal to 100 potency, but looses blind. This gives OT paladins some aoe damage, and helps MT paladins generate a little more aoe threat to not lag so far behind.

While I see a desire for an AOE damage spam, I don't recognize the necessity for it. This is an aspect of both Warrior and Dark Knight that I am fine living without. We already have Circle of Scorn, and while it doesn't last the full duration of its cooldown, I don't feel like we have missed out on anything. We already provide enough AOE enmity to keep hate away from DPS and healers. The necessity to keep it away from other tanks simply isn't there. If I lose enmity to a Warrior or a Dark Knight, then I let them have it and just peel the mobs that will do the most damage away from them with RoH so that instead of them dealing with 8 enemies at once with one slamming them for 3k, They just have 7 that might hit for a total of 3k, and I take the one that would shrek them otherwise. If anything, I could see lowering the cooldown on Circle of Scorn to be in line with its duration, but don't introduce some complicated numbers game that I know SE would rather keep away from having to code for. Cooldown decreases are much easier to code for, and thus would be simpler to introduce. However, that's the only change I could see implementing. Adding damage to flash while OT is just too similar to DRK's Unleash for me to actually feel any real difference between the two except for your stance.

Part 3. Self Healing and Utility

Paladin has great utility. No one will dispute that--but some of that utility is very clunky, hard to use, and has multiple hurdles to achieve. This is not an attempt to make Paladin easy mode, but acknowledging where certain things could be better for gameplay.

1: The casting time on clemency.
---You cannot parry or block during this. This seems out of flavor for a paladin.
---Very very prone to interruptions in anything higher than dungeons. If you take 20% of more of your health in damage, you are interrupted, so what seemed great leveling up will become harder to use in things like alex extreme.
---Slowness of cast means most healing on self or others results in an over heal because healers will always out pace you.

Suggestion: Remove the cast time, and make it a GCD power (not oGCD like Wars). This means it will eat up 2.5 seconds (as opposed to 3 sec cast) but allows
A) Skill Speed to affect it. This seems more logical than spell speed which is on no tank gear.
B) It cannot be interrupted, and hits the target faster.

Keep in mind, Clemency is a spell that consumes about half your mp bar--and takes a while to recover (Paladin mana recovery is not, nor should it be, comparable to Darks--but just because these forums are full of Dark Knights, keep in mind it takes a paladin much longer to recover from mana usage in combat. Yes even with sheltron).
Obviously potency may be adjusted, mana cost may be adjusted, since it may not perform in the same light in which it was balanced.

2. Divine Veil is nice...kind of.
Having an ability we trigger that really requires a macro for others to then...really trigger is strange. This should be left to the paladins skill and determination. It would be nice if the trigger was removed requiring an external heal, and 'maybe' if it effects the paladin (this last bit, hardly required--but it be nice).

PLD's MP recovery may not be as strong as DRK's, however our MP usage is also vastly lower. First, Flash consumes less MP than Unleash. Second, we have a distinct lack of MP consuming skills beyond Clemency, Flash, Stoneskin, and Cure (lol). So making an argument based on MP recovery is flawed due to the fact that we simply don't require MP for things like the DRK does. Between the steep cost of Dark Arts, the high cost on several skills, as well as the continuous drain of MP while under Darkside, DRK eats through MP even faster than BLMs while lacking the massive MP recovery that comes from Umbral dancing. So we don't have any trouble casting a Clemency and then immediately recovering the full cost within less than 15 seconds. Clemency is in fact quite easy to use regularly. Most auto attacks from bosses and mobs won't actually break the cast, and if you time the cast appropriately, even skills won't break it due to the ability to clip cast, much the same way Black Mages and Summoners can clip cast to finish spells and move out of AOEs at the same time. Yes, it's a long cast time, but that's the cost of using the spell. Further, this spell, unlike Equilibrium, can be used on other targets, and ALWAYS heals, where Equilibrium either heals or it recovers TP depending on the Warrior's stance, but never does both. Further, the full benefit from Clemency comes from being cast on another target, and results in half the healing also being applied to you. This means that this spell, which in proper gear can crit for 6-7k, will also at the same time heal you for 3-3.5k, resulting in a net healing total of 9-10.5k. No other cast time heal in the entire game can boast such numbers except for maybe a crit cure 2 on a Warrior with Defiance + Convalescence + Divine Seal. But I have crit healed for that without ANY buffs. If you're having trouble casting this spell, then that's simply a balance for the high healing, the low cooldown, and the high, but completely recoverable MP cost. The ONLY change I could see making to Clemency is having it trigger Divine Veil. As far as DV goes, nothing really needs to change. It's already an amazing skill that shines in a well coordinated group. Or, as in my case, when your healer is in the same room as you are IRL. But that's what chat services are for.

Part 4. Smaller Suggestions

Blind (Also Effects DRK). This used to effect EX content, until Titan EX where blind was able to make table flips miss targets, which SE hated. The answer was making all raid content from that point immune---heavy handed I believe.

I would like to propose that blind affect 'all' targets in the game but that blind itself be nerfed to only affect non-ability (i.e, Auto Attack) damage. This allows blind to provide Dark and Paladins some mitigation, but not in a method that invalidates key mechanics, tank busters and more.

That is all

Feel free to tear it apart.

This I can agree with, as long as this is the same case with all named skills across the entire game. This would mean that any named skill would not be effected by blind. This goes for trash mobs too. However, the diminishing returns need to stay.

EDIT: To give you an idea of what I do while tanking: I have two rotations. One while MT, one while OT. As MT, I ONLY use Rage of Halone and Goring Blade rotations. The reason for this is because while MT, I also use Shield Swipe whenever possible, which helps me recover TP, generates Enmity even during my Goring Blade combo, and allows me to utilize the full duration of both the strength decrease and the DOT. I can almost always count on blocking 3 or 4 attacks in the duration of either of these debuffs. This rotation obviously changes when I'm against magical bosses though, and includes the usage of Royal Authority then. However, since most bosses in the game are still physical damagers, I generally stick to this rotation. However, as the off tank, I make use of all three combos.

[Sentenza]

Remove Shield Swipe from GCD.

I used to hate Shield swipe but after getting back into leveling my PLD I like it as it is now since it helps space out your TP Heavy utility moves like Shield lob and Shield bash that way you can mix in shield bashes on trash mobs and stun them for 6 seconds taking less damage at the time.

Part 2. AoE Tanking

I kinda figured flash was suppose to be used in sets in correlation to the blind timer since you can fit in 3 flashes before it resets to a reduced 2nd flash timer and then 2 then and then one before immunity

[Ceodore]

I kinda figured flash was suppose to be used in sets in correlation to the blind timer since you can fit in 3 flashes before it resets to a reduced 2nd flash timer and then 2 then and then one before immunity

Somebody actually gets it, kind of. Flash can be spammed, but that's the quickest way to go OOM as a Paladin. I like to cycle it into my goring blade combo, and apply goring blade to multiple targets. Essentially, Flash, Fast Blade, Flash, Riot Blade, Flash, Goring Blade, Switch Target, Fast Blade, Flash, Riot Blade, Flash, Goring Blade, Switch Target, etc. Usually results in the first target's Goring Blade falling off just as I get back to reapplying it to them. I also don't Flash if I have Circle of Scorn up. Instead, I'll use Circle of Scorn, then immediately continue my combo rotation. So, something like this happens. Flash, Fast Blade, Circle of Scorn, Riot Blade, Flash, Goring Blade, Switch target, Fast Blade, Flash... and so on.

I think their issue and the issue you are likely to run into is that Flash can reapply the blind debuff and cause duration clipping. If you flash and apply the 10 second debuff, then flash again at about 4 seconds left on the debuff, it will be reapplied as 5 seconds, and that 4 seconds you had left will be clipped off. This is one of the reasons I stagger flashes in my rotation. The first flash applies the 10 seconds, then the second one applies nothing, because the duration on the current blind is about 7 seconds, and the duration it is trying to apply is 5 seconds, so it doesn't apply. Then, the third flash after Riot Blade usually comes along right at about the 1 second mark, where the first Flash is about to fall off. So this one applies another 5 seconds of Blind. So then, I use Goring Blade and usually Circle of Scorn here too, switch target, and then use Fast Blade. By the time my fourth flash is coming, the blind from the third is about to or has fallen off, so it gets the full 2 second duration, which is barely enough to maybe cause one or two skills to miss. After that, it's "who cares anymore, just give me more enmity" or, more likely by this point, the mobs are quickly doing down, and I'm just cycling my Goring Blade Combo to everything and watching them all die while recovering my MP for the next pull.

[SirTaint]

@Ceodore

If you play PLD at an average lvl then yes its probably fine.

PLDs flaws are apparent when you start playing with top end DPS, healers and tanks.

Of course PLDs stance dance while MTing, why wouldn't we? We have a plethora of defensive CDs we can rotate while in sword oath. WARs and DRKs can sit in their offensive stance doing maximum DPS while maintaining hate. PLDs are stuck with Halone spam to keep hate off the OT and DPS. (SwO)

Our AoE DPS is nil. Yes, flash can hold hate off DPS and Healers, but on turns like A2, why even bring a PLD?

Turns like A1 our WAR can MT and push close to 900 dps, my PLD is stuck in the 700 range. That's a problem in job design. Turns like A4 PLD has zero defensive advantage but are a huge DPS loss which makes the turn harder. PLDs are supposed to be more defensive but then they make encounters where none of our advantages work.

Sheltron - good design, but now PLD is king of physical tank busters (if they add any)
Clemency - garbage, too slow, too much MP, if you are finding a use for this move (besides solo use) then you need better healers
Divine Veil - better then most people give it credit but not needed
Goring blade - awesome, needs a hate bonus
Royal - awesome, needs a hate bonus