Just 5 simple changes for Paladin.

[ArdorGrey]

I think these threads are reasonably interesting, but what's more important in my eyes is what DOESN'T need changing on paladins.

I think pretty much everyone knows that Paladins are broken/underpowered in the -current tank meta- of Alex Savage, and need some fixes and quality of life changes. These fixes need to ensure that they make them a viable choice for raidgroups on these encounters but also don't make them stronger than WAR/DRK in areas that arent supposed to be their speciality.

There's two things that Paladins DON'T need buffing imo:

snip

This is the best pro- pld post I've seen on this. So many people post outlandish garbage that just shows they either don't comprehend what game balance is or just don't care.

[Targost]

Instead of buffing damage, buff defensive capability

1# Shield oath is be able to block magic damage
2# Allow certain abilities to block or mitigate magic damage in shield oath

[SpookyGhost]

Instead of buffing damage, buff defensive capability

1# Shield oath is be able to block magic damage
2# Allow certain abilities to block or mitigate magic damage in shield oath

PLD isn't actually struggling in this department, it can mitigate anything and everything in Savage - DRK can just mitigate magic damage better since... that's it's specialty. The problem is that PLD doesn't offer anything else in place of less magic mitigation and it falls behind DRK in DPS.

[Jonnycbad]

2.Allow Shield and Sword Oath to not interrupt combos, while taking the GCD off both Oaths.

This.

I don't know why Shield Swipe doesn't interrupt combos but Oaths do. It's annoying already that it 1) consumes MP, and 2) is on GCD, but to have it also interrupt combos?

[JackFross]

My two cents, having now extensively played PLD at 60~ I haven't gotten into Savage with it, yet, but...

Shield/Sword Oath are just fine. You need to get better at managing them if you're running into issues stance-dancing for certain skills. You can turn Shield Oath off without interrupting your combo to get unmitigated damage on your GB, for example, then turn it back on after a combo or so. I ran numbers on it - it turns out that switching on Sword Oath is ALREADY a dps GAIN by just staying in it for one combo. Just. One. Dropping Shield Oath (not even turning Sword on) is the same. The only change I would suggest is to decrease their recast timers. Make them GCD but with a shortened GCD like Chakra on MNK. Instead of base 2.5s, have it base 1.5s, scaling off Skill Speed. Would make stance dancing quicker and more fluid without removing that level of skill from a class that already has a very low skill ceiling.
// continued below because I have this annoying 1000 character limit

[JackFross]

The only things we need to see for tank stance were mentioned earlier - buff the enmity (and possibly damage) of Savage Blade. Royal Authority is fine. Rage of Halone is fine. Savage Blade is not. It's been bad since low-level. It needs a buff. Shield Swipe, too, needs a boost in potency and enmity gen to make it actually worthwhile.

And while I like the suggestions of changing Sheltron to regen TP, I don't like it at the same time. DRK and PLD both need ways of restoring TP while out of tank stance. Sheltron should just have an alternative effect while in Sword Oath, where it decreases the TP cost of sword-based weapon skills by 10-15% or so for a duration of 10-15s, same cooldown. Change the name of the skill, even. Shield Oath? Block. Sword Oath? Improve sword skills. (For DRK the same idea can be applied to Blood Price)

War's got it with Equilibrium. I just feel we should see similar things for all the tanks in off-tank mode.

[TheLastRaven]

1. Battle Raise should be left to the mages honestly it should not be the tanks job to revive others in combat

2. This could be good however I still think that Sword oath needs to be stronger 50 potency is a joke for the "dps stance"

3. I think Royal authority is fine paladins dmg issues lay in other things.

4. I would like one or the other I can use it fine in combat the mana reduction would just make it more viable in situations where you are needing a heal.

5. I think Sheltron should just block 2 attacks physical on cast instead of 1 or block 2 physical or magical attacks a the mana regen it gives is good. If changed to block two attacks maybe make it a 35 or 40 second CD.

[Brannigan]

2. This could be good however I still think that Sword oath needs to be stronger 50 potency is a joke for the "dps stance"

Sword Oath's passive effect is actually quite powerful, which is part of why paladin sucks so bad when it actually has to use a tank stance. Not counting the crit bonus from Deliverance, the 5% damage is actually giving you like maybe 13 potency per GCD. Sword Oath gives you somewhere between 53-60ish (just estimating so don't math me to death) depending on your weapon's delay. This is why warrior did so much more damage than paladin as a main tank in 2.0, but was pretty much even as OT: paladin gives up 50 potency per auto attack by going into Shield Oath and loses 20% damage. Warrior in 2.0 just took a 25% penalty, but gained access to a lot of new abilities.

I'd like to see them improve paladin stances by having them actually modify WS and ability effects, like how DRK gains health drain on Soul Eater and NIN switches its stun/silence. Warrior, also, essentially modifies its Inner Beast into Fell Cleave and Steel Cyclone becomes Steelier Cyclone. Plus it still gets to use its defensive abilities to increase its DPS because it gains stacks. So, some examples of what they could do for paladin:

Sheltron
Sword Oath: Gives the party member with the highest Max HP the use of your shield, blocking the next attack against them and restoring your MP. Activates Shield Swipe.

Shield Swipe
Delivers an attack with potency 210. Can only be used after blocking.
Sword Oath: Potency 230. Reduces the TP cost of your next weapon skill to 0.
Shield Oath: Your next weapon skill ignores the Shield Oath damage penalty and has increased enmity.

Cover
Sword Oath: Covered damage is reduced by 20%.

Clemency
Shield Oath: Cast time is reduced after blocking an attack.

That kind of stuff. The stances don't really need any buffs to their main effect (extra AA potency/damage reduction).

[SwordCoheir]

Sword Oath's passive effect is actually quite powerful

I'm inclined to agree with this actually, but it's a 50/50 deal. Sword Oath's strength actually comes from long term fights, but when typical fights run less than 2 minutes Sword Oath's damage doesn't really give it enough time to shine.

And though the bonus effects you suggested would be awesome, I'm gonna have to say no to anything related to the shield. Relying on blocking kinda renders the whole upgrade pointless when Off-tanking. I would prefer that the bonus effects in Sword Oath would rely more on our defensive abilities. Like while in Sword Oath...

Awareness- Critical Damage increases by 10%.
Convalescence- Instantly auto-attack when healed.
Cover- Reflect back 10% of any damage received while covering a party member. Damage reflected cannot exceed 10% of the covered party members maximum HP.
Tempered Will- Negates one status Ailment.
Rampart- Damage reduction is reduced to 5%, but covers all party members.

That's all I can come up with atm.

[Kosmos992k]

Talking about changes to PLD to improve it.

How about this;

When in Shield oath;

Shield Bash gain 20% potency and/or making the Stun harder to resist, uses 20TP less than normal
Shield swipe gain 20% potency (and small enmity boost), uses 10TP less than normal.
Sheltron additionally reflects 20% of the incoming damage at the attacker.
Cover reflects 20% of the damage in addition to transferring the damage to the tank protecting the player being covered.

The point being it's *shield* oath, so proactive shield skills should be stronger.

This doesn't alter anything in Sword Oath, and doesn't touch our stats. But, it makes a virtue out of sticking to Shield Oath, instead of trying to stance dance into Sword Oath to boost MT DPS.