What happens when.....

[Shurrikhan]

Response

I agree for the most part on your views on what PLDs should be, role-/niche-wise, though I must say I'm not to fond of your stacking system. Part of the appeal of the Knight motif for me has always been that it should have a strong stand-by. Back in ARR, whereas WARs had to spend a combo on buffing their damage, PLDs did not. WAR had one oGCD that they could use during the gather. Our ST oGCD hit like a truck and then we had an AoE oGCD to top it off. Everything about it shouted "ready at arms". The ramp up of stacks, while it works for sort of the Heroic motif of "Paladins" or "Sword Saints" moves away from the more established "Knight" in my mind. In ARR, we were practically Riot Guards. We were durable, responsive, and had ways of strengthening each other's defenses. We were damn durable, but we were never built to be "in the thick of it" for the purposes of our own output, unlike WAR (or now, just as much if not more so, DRK). We were there only because others needed us to be.

Now, in Heavensward, Clemency has since moved us more a bit more towards the Holy Defender motif, while Goring Blade and Royal Authority have moved us more towards that sort of Sword Saint idea as well. Both in a sense have moved us away from the Knight, or, especially, the Riot Guard (which hinged on staying nearly topped off and where Stoneskin was more useful than Cure, and where there was nothing else to spend our combos on but straightforward enmity). It's different, and in some ways I certainly like it more, but it doesn't feel... finished... either. (Though, arguably, of all the tanks, only Warrior really does. DRK remains "close", much like PLD, in my mind.)
- Our reduced SB and RoH enmity values hinged on their belonging to our only combo before, yet now, when given the ubiquitous three combo choices, remain unchanged, such that RA is more sparsely usable than Delirium or Storm's Eye, for instance.
- Shelltron, while appreciated, especially with a tower shield, feels like a wasted opportunity to accomplish something more.
- Divine Veil feels like a toss, and a bit unresponsive at that, especially in comparison to our memories of being able to actually use Cover inventively and importantly.
- In a continually DPS-focused meta, PLD, mostly as MT, falls well behind.
- In dungeon runs, PLD really feels the weight of only having a substantial damaging AoE once every 25 seconds.
- Paladin still feels little identity within its Sword and Shield Oaths. It's nothing huge, but again feels like something is somehow missing, especially now that the job has moved out of its previous supportive and minimalistic motifs.

That said, again, I don't think stacks are the solution. I imagine the solution would come from a combination of general changes to the game and to Paladin's specific abilities. At most, Shield Oath and Sword Oath might be revised to provide something similar, but likely without stacks for fear of feeling too similar to WAR, and quite possibly without using mana as its ramp-up spectrum, for fear of seeming to similar to DRK. I'll throw out my own suggestion once I'm finished with them. I'd hate to critique and provide nothing of my own, after all; I just need a bit of time. (I'll post them in Edit as I think them up. Just keep in mind they might not have other, balancing components yet.)

I'd list PLD-specific solutions I'd think appropriate, but ultimately I think these issues go a lot deeper and broader. Though I've nothing against the traditional, bare-bones way the on the way the game handles enmity, I can't help but wonder if other ways would allow a tank to feel and act more tankily, or, better yet, allow more group tactics to be played with and executed creatively. I wonder at the lack of cleaving damage when every tank animation cuts through every nearby enemy to hit its target. Blocks, dodges, and parries, and their resident RNG-dependence, seem archaic and underutilized. The enmity focus/variance of tank combos is as limiting as it is diversifying. Any excess Vitality has no place in the current meta. Dually skill & spell classes face unique and shortsighted issues due to split Skill and Spell Speed. Magic remains a single type, whether a lightning bolt, an energy fog, a curse, or a literal boulder launched at high speed. Blocking a twig with a tower shield will still allow through 70% of said twig's damage; yet the same block will mitigate a third of a Bahamut abruptly sitting on you. You can dodge a physical attack that slashes literally every area of a room simultaneously, or parry a shockwave from a landing mech, but you cannot dodge a magical wrench.

I feel like it would be so much easier to get a clear picture of what each tank needs if the general mechanics of the game were addressed first...

Goals:

• A bit more Oath variation and identity.
• A low more shield usage, preferably including Shield Bash use in combat, situationally, as a nuke that doesn't necessarily blow up you TP...
• More support strength, control, options, versatility, and/or responsiveness.
• More MT dps.
• Some unique means of dealing AoE dps, even if not substantial.
• More use for Sword Oath as MT (not purely just for dps, and likely having lost some other MT dps opportunities upon dropping Shield Oath).
• Some use for Shield Oath as OT.
• Slightly smoother rotational flow.
• Slight improvement to combat aesthetics.
• Improved use of blocks and parries for utility (non-pure mitigation).

General Changes:

• Skill Speed and Spell Speed made one stat.
• Skill Speed now affects oGCD and AA damage and reduces animation time/locks.
• Cleave components added to many single-target abilities.
• Variable cooldowns (an ability may be used for 60% damage when, say, 80% cooled off).
• Dynamic proc chances (an ability may lose proc chance over successive procs, regenerative chance over time).
• "Missed" attacks now merely suffer percentile damage reduction based on the accuracy lacking.
• Dodges, their inverse, may now similarly cause any among a large range of percentile damage. Full dodges are still possible, but a bit more rare, while percentile dodges are a few times more frequent.
• Boss attacks and abilities that could not previously be (fully) dodged can now be partially dodged.
• Dodges, Blocks, and Parries may now stack, and do not categorically prevent critical strikes.
• Critical strikes may now be affected by auto-Dodges/Blocks/Parries.
• Dodge, Block, and Parry revised. Block and Parry may now each provide Guard (flat damage reduction) and Deflection (enemy accuracy reduction). Dodge normally provides only Deflection (exceptions being abilities like Shade Shift). Blocks tend to have more Guard, while Parries tend to have more Deflection.
• The 'Parry' stat has been revised to 'Deflection', and now applies to both Parry and Block. 'Guard' stat has been added, and now provides increased Guard on Parries and Blocks, increases the damage necessary to interrupt your casts, and reduces knock-backs against you. [This effectively makes Deflection the go-to anti-TB defensive stat, while Guard is the 'smoothing' or 'utility' defensive stat.]
• Dodges, Blocks, and Parries now work on a hidden resource or eHP system, and have a proportionately increased chance to trigger if you would otherwise die, but at cost to that mitigation type's resource (eHP) pool, which must regenerate with time, suffering proportionately reduced activation chance in the meantime. Dodges, Blocks, and Parries that have consumed resource to activate are noted by a change in font, as are Dodges, Blocks, and Parries that occur while their resources are nearing depletion.
• Magical attacks can now be considered among a spectrum of 'manifestation'. (Near)-fully 'manifested' magical attacks, such as the Stone series, can be 'Guard'ed against with (near) full mitigation or dodged, but cannot be Deflected. As 'manifestation' decreases, physical mitigation opportunities decrease. Proc chances and effects are similarly affected (e.g. parrying 10% of a magic attack will only have a 10% chance to proc Reprise). Magical attacks with less than full manifestation cannot be affected by auto-Dodges/Blocks/Parries.
• Much of tanks output stats now scale with Vitality where they would previously scale only with Strength. Strength accessories retain the best returns for pure dps, but now stand equal with Fending accessories in terms of enmity generation, and damage- and AP-based healing.

Job Changes:

• Savage Blade enmity modifier increased from 3.0x to 3.75x.
• Rage of Halone potency increased from 260 to 280, but its enmity modifier has been reduced from 5.0x to 4.75x.
  :: This is primarily meant to alleviate some of the dps loss from using RoH compared to RA. The total effect on RoH's enmity is still a slight increase (1330 from a previous 1300). However, the bulk of the increase to PLD's enmity generation comes from Savage Blade, which now produces an additional 150 potency of enmity.
• Shelltron changed to Aegis Boon. Aegis Boon will auto-block for yourself or ally if targeted. 14 yalms maximum range. Effect decreases over range past 7 yalms, to a minimum of 67% at 14 yalms. Cooldown dependent on shield type [17, 23, 30]. Returns mana on block.

  :: [Mana returned is equal to the average of 10% of maximum mana and % equal to one third of Aegis Boon's cooldown plus one sixth of the damage mitigated.]
  :: While Bulwark is active, you may channel Aegis Boon to continually block attacks for your target.

• Clemency now provides temporary shielding as the cast progresses which turns into a permanent heal as the cast finishes. This temporary shielding has only half the value of the cure component (is doubled when converted when healing). Its cast time has been reduced to 2.5 seconds.[INDENT]:: This somewhat decreases the likelihood that your target will die as you are casting the ability. The speed can only make it so much more reactionary, since I've thus far avoided instant casting or outside means of accelerating casts, but this should make it more reliable generally. Ideally, if I wanted to play more with the idea of Shield Oath having uses even as OT, this would be an example of that, by strengthening functions such as this but limiting them to Shield Oath.
• Cover may now be deactivated by your clicking on the buff, the target clicking on the buff, or by reusing Cover at least a second after establishing the link. Cover's duration will continue ticking down while de-linked. You may reestablish the link, but it will cost you two seconds of duration. Any blocks or parries made by your Cover target will also cause procs for you. While using Cover, Tempered Will will also affect your target.
• Sword Oath now increases the potency of all attacks by 20.

  :: This includes auto-attacks and oGCD abilities but does not include DoT effects. It has the general effect of smoothing out some of the rotational dynamics of the job and increasing CoS's burst damage by 20%.
  :: This is roughly a 9% bonus to rotational damage (~2740/2950 vs. ~2990/3220 per GB), and 20 to 30% bonus to AA damage.
  :: The damage bonus per ability is still low enough to make dropping Shield Oath before finishing a combo an effective strategy, though the PLD may now wish to wait to use oGCDs until after Sword Oath is applied instead of waiting only for Shield's Oath's removal.

• Shield Oath now reduces the damage of Shield abilities by only half (10%), and doubles the damage required to interrupt your casting.

  :: I feel like this is important for PLD. If anyone should have a tank stance that does not create as much disadvantage as disadvantage (note that this was not even the case for Warrior until the addition of Deliverance, and Grit's Souleater heal may often be as useful as access to Blood Weapon), I feel that should be PLD. The side effects are primarily that Clemency becomes more castable on oneself and that Shield Swipe is a more viable choice.
  :: This gives Shield Swipe a relative 236.25 potency (prior to the below-listed changes), giving it potency slightly superior to Royal Authority combo (230) instead of slightly superior/equal to Rage of Halone combo (previously 203.3~, now 210).

• Shield Swipe now has a 15-second cooldown, but may still be refreshed by blocking. Dynamic proc chance.

  :: Refresh chance decreases with successive refreshes while increasing again with time and blocks. Refresh chance decreases as % time remaining until cooled increases.
  :: (Dynamic proc chance meant to level proc rate and resultant damage more closely to Low Blow, due to block's generally higher proc rates. However, proc rates outside of Dark Dance vs. Bulwark over time, should still slightly favor Shield Swipe over Low Blow.)
  :: (If the dynamic proc chance is impossible in the current system or is not worth its development cost as a proof of concept, it can likely be ignored or exchanged for an internal cooldown. Without the change to GCD system used by Shield weaponskills (see below), the GCD itself may be plenty to ensure balance in high-proc situations.)
  :: Blocks that would refresh Shield Swipe while it is already available do not decrease refresh chance.
  :: [The following will only take place if the point below (separate Shield skills GCD) is also used.]
  Actual tooltip varies with shield type; its cooldown, TP cost, potency, pacify durations, and necessary regeneration time for refresh chance depend on shield type, increased by 25% with Tower Shields, and decreased by 25% with bucklers, rounded to the nearest 10 potency/TP or second of duration.
  :: >> Tower Shields: 20s CD, 50 TP, 260 potency, 8s pacify, 25% slower regen.
  :: >> Kite Shields: 15s CD, 40 TP, 210 potency, 6s pacify, normal regen.
  :: >> Bucklers: 10s CD, 30 TP, 160 potency, 4s pacify. 25% faster regen.
  :: <> See the below change to shield move GCD systems.

• All GLD and PLD weaponskills are on either of two GCD systems - Sword or Shield. These do not trigger the GCD of the other. Spells will always use the opposite system of the last one used (allowing immediate usage).

  :: The delay on using being able to use the opposite GCD system is slightly longer than using an oGCD. Do not expect a doubled rate of attack when alternating weaponskills and Shield Swipe, for instance, but closer to clipping one-third of a GCD (with a kite shield; see below).
  :: Given this change, Shield Swipe's animation time will vary with shield type, such that tower shields cut most into the next GCD, and bucklers just barely do not cut into it at all.
  :: Spells will tend to clip further into the next GCD a little less than tower shields.
  :: This does consequently quicken Oath-swapping and severely increases simultaneous ST and AoE output, or adds a half or more to ST output when getting constant Shield Swipe procs, which will probably be too strong, even when considering that flash has no damage component and typically cannot blind anyone really worth blinding. I will probably remove this set as a result.

In Progress / Thought list:
- I feel like I can achieve most of the needed changes through these adjustments to the abilities themselves, though there is much more I'd like to do (the same can of course be said of DRK). The only truly necessary changes, imo, are the ones listed to SB, RoH, and possibly to Shield Oath. The change to Shelltron (into the ally-targetable Aegis Boon) I feel to be very PLD-like, but is not purely necessary. Keeping Shield Swipe as a (significantly stronger) GCD ability is a personal preference, though also meant to deal with TP issues. Differences between shield types are unnecessary, as they may still be balanced by a simple lack of alternatives (only kite shields offered, for instance), or the combination of an always 30s CD Shelltron/Aegis Boon (favoring tower shields) and a set potency on Shield Swipe (favoring bucklers) while highest average mitigation remains with kite shields. Without a full range of changes to balance shield types I'd simply remove the varying cooldowns from Shelltron/Aegis Boon and leave the rest as it was.