Thread: 3.1 PLD Changes

Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

In raids Paladin will be just a little better; in dungeons, we'll be just a little worse now.

I actually still think it'll be a buff to 4mans. You're looking at a 5-8% dps/threat buff on single targets and you can now weave that Shield Swipe in between Flashes and other moves when AOE tanking. Shield Swipe spam from Bulwark/Sheltron use was always a DPS loss over just rotating your regular combos between mobs, the only benefit was the Pacification and there were a VERY limited number of mobs that actually cast moves that pacification is affected by and it had diminishing returns.

You'll see a decent DPS buff in instances, and whilst you wont be able to Spam Pacify you can more easily spam -STUN- with the lower cooldown shield bash. Also with Shield Swipe off the GCD you'll be able to much more easily use it reactively when you see an enemy cast bar and not worry about being locked out by the 2.5 second global cooldown.

These changes are all 100% positive in my mind.

Originally Posted by LeeraSorlan

is it really every 15 seconds, they said nothing about removing the proc to use this skill. So it could rely on a bit of rng at times to use it, ive went 40+ seconds b4 w/o a proc.

There'll be some times where it wont proc of course, but paladins do have decent block rates. Remember we also have SHELTRON which guarantees a shield swipe proc every 30 seconds, along with Bulwark when needed. Dark Knights rarely have a problem with their parry-reactive so I think we'll see the proc more frequently than you may think. Once every 30 seconds is the absolute worst it will be due to sheltron, it'll probably be closer in practise to once every 20 or less.

I agree on the TP thing though - we're gaining 10 TP every 9 GCDs roughly. That's a small buff. Of course, if anyone was using the OLD shield swipe to save TP on long fights they'll be unable to do this now so we'll actually see paladins running dry on TP -faster- than before. The Goring TP reduction really only affects offtanking and A4 where you cant block anything. Still, it's a buff.

Originally Posted by Sapphidia

That's significant.

But not significant enough to still take a PLD in raid over a DRK and a WAR.
PLD MT will still be below the other two, and the better survivability doesn't make up for it, at all.

So, yes, it's a good buff... but it doesn't change the fact that the more a tank can DPS, the better it is in the current content.

Besides, the only utility a PLD can bring to the team is the RoH debuff... and that's currently useless due to all the freaking magic damage there is.

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

Originally Posted by Fyce

But not significant enough to still take a PLD in raid over a DRK and a WAR.
PLD MT will still be below the other two, and the better survivability doesn't make up for it, at all.

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.

Then the patch notes drop and it looks like we're getting about 5% more dps when able to block. That's a nice boost. Also, having more offensive off-gcds is always fun, and I think this change will make paladin a little more fun to play too (I always liked using Reprisal on Dark Knight).

I think Paladins will have to suck it up in Alex Savage at least, as we're now starting to overgear it anyway. From what Yoshi is saying, hopefully all future content wont be so dependant on raw dps checks and will need more general survivability and group coordination.

Hoping for AOE physical damage as commonplace so rage of halone can take its rightful place as plds raid mitigation- cuz divine veil is still a bit shoddy with no buffs in sight to that/clemency. :/

Originally Posted by Kemas

Hoping for AOE physical damage as commonplace so rage of halone can take its rightful place as plds raid mitigation- cuz divine veil is still a bit shoddy with no buffs in sight to that/clemency. :/

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.

I dunno how you other Pld's do it, but for me Sword Oath on openers where everyone is doing max deeps with cd's and pots Shield Swipe for me was what allowed me to only use Halone for the debuff so I could do more dps. I guess it will be tested but I fear not having Shield Swipe available whenever it procs (and now less potency) I fear I will have to Halone more in Sword and thus really I would consider it a dps loss. Great for Shield Oath, bleh for Sword Oath which is more important to be in AMAP IMO