Kinda laughed

[Brannigan]

Nah I was just joking around. SE kinda screwed up with that awkward DoT timer. Like sure you can cast Stoneskin or whatever but it's just killing your DPS/threat further and if you're tanking you're probably just going to be interrupted.

[Judge_Xero]

Yeah it is weird to leave 10 GCD open in a 9 GCD rotation.
If shelltron lined up @ 24s intervals it might work better since I believe only physical damage will interrupt a cast and you can't be interrupted during a block.

[Brannigan]

Can't block during a cast actually. Also I'm like 99% certain magic interrupts, I just have nothing to confirm with right this second. Really they should just toss us a single GCD attack, make fracture 30s by default, or close up the hole by reducing the DoT timer. They could maybe tack a buff/debuff onto Flash or something that you want to cast every 30 seconds or so.

Maybe they'll close the hole with a 4.0 ability tee hee hee

[Reynhart]

I KNOW !
Our 10th GCD will be used for...drumroll...changing Oath !

[Sapphidia]

Even filling that 10th GCD with the old Shield Swipe was still always a dps loss though. I'm not sure why everyone is so hung up on "not clipping the Goring dot" - the 24 second duration was near perfect as a 9 GCD rotation clips it by about 1.5-2 seconds, which is still less than a full tick and ensures it always gets the 1 tick of damage every 3 seconds.

The only way to gain DPS by filling in that 10th slot is to find a non-combo'd skill that has a 240+ potency (which doesnt exist) - the average potency of the 9 gcds excluding the actual Goring DoT part is 220, so a 210 shield swipe not only reduced the dps from your GCDs btu also could cause a gap in your Goring ticks and make you potentially lose a 40 potency tick in the gap.

I guess it was a DPS gain over super long fights to use the old Shield Swipe in that position for the TP saving (at a cost of about 20-30 potency), but this was only possible on blockable enemies.

That said, it would be nice to have a move you can legitimately use as a single GCD without lowering your DPS output. It's such a shame Fracture is only 220 potency when not traited. A single gcd dot like this would be perfect if it had a total potency of about 250 and less than 21 second duration.

[Brannigan]

It was fun is why. Also the dps loss is like .1 potency/gcd. It's just stupid that we get this brand new thing and instantly we're clipping it - it feels like it was poorly thought out in the design stage.

[Freyyy]

It was fun is why. Also the dps loss is like .1 potency/gcd. It's just stupid that we get this brand new thing and instantly we're clipping it - it feels like it was poorly thought out in the design stage.

They should shorten Goring Blade and increase the potency of the initial damage to compensate the potential loss of the last tick (depending on server clock). Or do the opposite, increase the duration in order for it to be refreshed one combo later (GB -> Royal/RoH -> Royal/RoH -> Royal/RoH -> GB). MNKs had a similar problem pre-3.0 with the Demolish timer when refreshing Touch of Death. Had to either clip it at 4-5sec once every Touch of Death refresh or let it fall off for 2 GCDs before being able to reapply it. Clipping it was the best option DPS-wise. It has been fixed in 3.0 when they increased the duration of Demolish. Now you clip it at 1-2sec and reapply it instantly when it falls off when you have to refresh ToD, but your rotation is unchanged, it's always Demolish every 3rd Coeurl move.

[Alahra]

It's just stupid that we get this brand new thing and instantly we're clipping it - it feels like it was poorly thought out in the design stage.

Pretty much everyone clips their DoTs to some degree or another, though. NIN doesn't always because of how Mudra combos delay their GCDs, but they still do pretty often. Clipping your DoTs at 1-3 seconds is always safer than not doing so in terms of total DPS because of the way the server tics work. Clipping at 4+ seconds will generally result in lost DPS (which is why Skill/Spell Speed can have negative effects on DoT-heavy classes), but PLD doesn't have that problem with Goring Blade.

[Alex_Lenderson]

Why couldn't they lower the casting time of Clemency? It is one of the few abilities that is unique to PLD as a tank.

[Brannigan]

That's fair I guess. It's been a while since I've played the non-tanks (though I do notice just re-Chaos Thrusting on my level whatever Drg).