Quote Originally Posted by winsock View Post
@OP
Just wanted to give a different perspective on shield oath.

Shield oath is on gcd, but it gives ehp once the skill is active. WAR can switch to defiance off gcd, but the act of switching stances does not result in an increase of ehp. To increase ehp, war needs to follow-up with a skill like innerbeast, which is on gcd.

I've always kinda seen the combo breaking mechanic as being a tradeoff for the ability to change stances whenever you want (provided adequate mp) as opposed to WAR being locked out for a cd.
That would be fine if PLD actually did competitive DPS and that was the breaker for them. If it was a game to use smart switching to keep your DPS at a close level then that would be fine, but thats not the case. It's a further punishment to a class that already has problems keeping up with the big boys.

With that in mind, I main WAR so if SE wants me to heal 4 k every time I enter Defiance that is just dandy with me, but there is no way in Halone that this wouldn't break the class further.

I envision stances for PLD to work the same way that cleric stance works for WHM. You turn it on and you get Tank mode, you turn it off and you get DPS mode. The act of turning it off doesnt cost MP and you wouldnt lose the GCD. You would however still have to pay a MP cost and lose your combo to enter Tank stance. This would eliminate some cheese with buffing combo's and only switching to tank stance for a buster as it would still require a GCD to do.