Thread: 3.1 PLD Changes

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.