Thread: 3.1 PLD Changes

Originally Posted by Alphras

How is that a nerf? Taking it of the gcd with only a 15s cooldown is a huge buff for a skill that most people only used once every three rotations at the most.

It will greatly improve Paladin's parses by a good bit. Since their combos are no longer getting haggled by the spell that reduces their TP. People don't realize that now they can always use their chain moves without thinking about it like before because they have the TP for it now.

Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

Sorry about lying guys, this update is just too much bullshit for me to NOT say something.

Shield Swipe since expansion has been a DPS loss the more consecutively you use it. It's only remaining purpose was for pacifying enemies in dungeons to mitigate some damage. THAT'S gone now because it's an ability with a 15 second recast time. The damage has been reduced so that means FUCK ALL for threat unless the threat multiplier is bumped up HEAVILY (even at 210 potency the threat it granted you was sketchy at best.) Goring Blade and Royal Authority more than made up for what Shield Swipe lacked, even more so now....

People who say this is a buff are outside their own mind right now if they think it is.....

It has no GCD. It is "free" damage with an amazing effect. It is also free hate and enmity too.

Even taking your lowest damage attack "Fast Blade", which is 150 potency.

That is 300 potency and double threat enmity (just because your using two attacks) in that GCD.

It is a huge buff, and you would have to be pretty stupid if you think its not.

It also no longer interrupts your combo chains, which means even more damage + threat.

So, even your weakest attack makes this a 90 potency increase from where it used to be.

Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

As compared to using Bulwark to be able to spam it...........we can't do that anymore, and even when we could have it was a DPS loss......

Now you can spam Shield Bash more, it has the same TP cost as Overpower from Warrior. If they made Shield Bash an AOE attack I would switch classes immediately. Lol.

Spamming one RNG attack over and over does not sound like a good thing to me...

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

It will greatly improve Paladin's parses by a good bit. Since their combos are no longer getting haggled by the spell that reduces their TP. People don't realize that now they can always use their chain moves without thinking about it like before because they have the TP for it now.

Sorry about lying guys, this update is just too much bullshit for me to NOT say something.

Shield Swipe since expansion has been a DPS loss the more consecutively you use it. It's only remaining purpose was for pacifying enemies in dungeons to mitigate some damage. THAT'S gone now because it's an ability with a 15 second recast time. The damage has been reduced so that means FUCK ALL for threat unless the threat multiplier is bumped up HEAVILY (even at 210 potency the threat it granted you was sketchy at best.) Goring Blade and Royal Authority more than made up for what Shield Swipe lacked, even more so now....

People who say this is a buff are outside their own mind right now if they think it is.....

Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

As compared to using Bulwark to be able to spam it...........we can't do that anymore, and even when we could have it was a DPS loss......

and now we are looking at a possible 300-600 extra potency per minute, when pld is mting. It's a good thing. Before Shield Swipe was a dead skill, now it is not.

Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

People who say this is a buff are outside their own mind right now if they think it is.....

IT IS A HUGE BUFF.

Shield Swipe is now OFF THE GCD. Before it was ON the GCD. The 210 potency was a DPS loss to use - you were replacing a move that could have had much higher potency. Now you use it between your other moves and it's FREE DAMAGE. Free damage with extra enmity.

Your standard Goring/Royal/Royal 9 GCD rotation has an average potency of 251-256 per GCD depending on skillspeed (due to goring clipping). Let's say it's 250 rounded down. So 250 potency every 2.5 seconds from abilities. 100 Potency per second roughly. Circle of Scorn and Spirits Within both do roughly 10 potency per second averaged over their cooldowns. So currently a Paladin is doing around 110-120 potency per second, plus auto attacks, plus sword oath AA procs (20 potency per second roughly).

Shield Swipe can now be weaved in between these every 15 seconds for 150 potency, so an average of 10 potency per second extra.

That's what, 8% increased potency from skills? That's huge. This change is a BIG DPS BUFF and BIG THREAT BUFF to Paladins who are able to block (so no change when offtanking or tanking non-blockables like A4).

To say anything else is to show massive misunderstanding of paladin mechanics. This looks on paper to upwards of a 5% increase to paladin dps when MTing, and a larger overall threat increase. That's significant.

Originally Posted by Fyce

In short: these buffs won't change the meta.

No one is suggesting that they will. But they will help PLD in a lot of ways, and they will make the job more interesting (oGCD Procs make me happy).

We need to look to encounter design in 3.2 to see where they're going with the meta. The language in some of the interviews suggests that we will probably see more in the way of high-tank-damage fights, which will make PLD relevant again.

Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Oh for sure, I do agree here. But mostly I'm just over the moon as we heard Yoshi's interview BEFORE these patch notes and said we werent getting any dps increase at all.

To be honest, I stopped believing that Yoshi-P had any kind of influence in class/job balance from the time he said that WAR was fine, while the job was completly revamped just after that.

But yeah, to get back on the point, the core of the problem lies in the way they made survivability irrelevant... well, at least, very far behind DPS's impact.
They cannot fix the "tank meta" unless they change their view on the importance of DPS checks.

So, while the PLD buffs here are really good for the job... I have no idea why they did that in the first place, since it won't really change anything in the end.

Originally Posted by Freyyy

If they ever did that, they'd have to increase the physical defense on caster and healer gear because right now, casters and healers have the same problems with physical than DRGs had with magical, and we know that even with their superior HP pool, it was a disaster in the early days of FCoB.

Not really, this was a problem because of the amount of magical damage DRG took due to their combat gameplay.
While shifting the tank meta to make survivability relevant, they can also change the healer's one so healer's DPS isn't relevant to meet DPS checks.
In short terms: make tanks tank and healers heal.