So, after the patch, how goes it with Paladin?

[Dhex]

Twaddle.

I cleared FCOB & SCOB before they were nerfed to hell so sorry to disappoint you on that point - been doing Alexander Savage as well. Just because you have a different opinion on the viability of Paladin's utility is no reason to resort to direct personal attacks and making wild assumptions about my personal progression. Pretty sure we're discussing functional issues with Paladin. Not how good I am at Paladin. However you still dodge the facts presented and the issues the Paladin essentially has to work around with it's toolkit with a lot of anecdotal information. Yes, as a Paladin I too have attempted A3S; you can utilize HG to soak the first swipe ideally allowing your melee to continue their positionals and allow healers time to recap MP, and yes you can then Divine Veil between the next two swipes - but once again this is a specific situation in which to utilize the skill - and it does not make Divine Veil needed, good, or seamless. It is not practical skill or a particularly well designed skill. The Healing & MP required during the swipes phase is not drastically changed by having DV up - considering groups clear the A3S swipes without even bringing a Paladin. It works under a very specific set of circumstances - circumstances that don't even necessitate it's use. Divine Veil it is unneeded in general use and is impractical in it's design.

The comment about shields is pointless because Shields are an inherent part of Paladin's itemization. You in one breath say that they are budgeted together but then flounder around in a comparision with Dark Knight as if they're separate. Last time I checked there are only two i210 options for Sword & Board - equalizing XYZ stat on Shield, and only XY on a Sword means your potential XY cap will always be lower than a Greatsword which can only have XY. So what - Dark Knight would have to sacrifice secondaries elsewhere to equalize? Was that your point? I lost it in the pedantic explanation. It's apples to oranges. We (Paladins) avoid parry because it specifically acts as a detriment to the roll-check for damage calculation and potential of blocks. If a Dark Knight wants more Parry - they buy/craft/farm gear with it. End of story. Parry is not good for Paladin, but it is for Dark Knight. The point is moot and to continue arguing from your standpoint about "budgeting" is absolutely asinine

Stoneskin has it's use - down time. Great - what is the point of a 1500(+/-) shield when the damage to the raid is scripted? Additionally if 1500 HP making or breaking a phase/fight for any given role/class is a bad sign in any fight with the size of 3.0's HP pools - if you're failing here it's A) Healer inadequacy. B) Missing the gear metrics by a large margin. C) DPS/Tanks eating excess/avoidable damage.

The way I describe Stoneskin - and all the other problematic skills Paladin has - are to addresses the key deficiencies and draw backs in regards to utility. Divine Veil, and Stoneskin net you an almost inappreciable gain in raid-wide mitigation while crippling your damage contribution - Paladin needs to function. It needs to function well, and it needs to function in OT or MT.


I said it a few posts back - Paladin works and it can limp along for now.

[Brian_]

snip

What "facts" are you talking about? Because I don't see any regarding the points I took issue with.

It's not anecdotal evidence that Shield Swipe adds to your DPS if you use it. How is that anecdotal. You said "this is not a reliable change to Paladin damage." I pointed out that if that's your reasoning, neither is crit. Over a prolonged fight, it is a reliable and consistent increase in PLD DPS.

How is it anecdotal evidence that a shield that stacks with all other mitigation actually helps you mitigate damage. By your logic, Path is also not needed. Delirium / Reprisal are not needed. In that way, PLD's raid mitigation is no longer worse than DRK or WAR because it's all not needed anyways. Makes sense.

Here are some actual facts. Splash is ~2600 damage per splash. Cascade is ~12000 damage. Fluid stike is ~60000 damage split between targets. Divine Veil is ~1700-1900 HP worth of shield. Is that anecdotal mitigation? It mitigates a much larger amount of damage than Path, Delirium, and Reprisal for those abilities. In terms of raid mitigation, DV does a better job. But, LIKE I KEEP SAYING, the issue is the CD and the resulting up-time, not some irrelevant babbling about redundancy, clunk, or how it doesn't shield the PLD. I'm not even saying the ability is fine. I'm just saying that you're completely oblivious to the actual weakness of the ability.

What is the point of a free temporary 10% HP shield? Really? Staying alive as a raid is not only the healer's responsibility. It is everyone's responsibility. That's why you have abilities like Path, Delirium, Reprisal, Dragon Kick, etc. The only difference with PLD is their raid mitigation is activated / casted rather than applied. If you are going to argue that a free shield is not worth it, then applying Path, Delirium, DK, Reprisal, etc. are also not worth it. Your healer just needs to git gud.

How DV costs you damage is beyond my understanding. It has no cast time. And like I said regarding SS, you use it when you cannot deal damage or when the added damage is inconsequential and less important than staying alive.

And, I don't get what is so hard to understand about block.

If a DRK wants to proc Reprisal or Low Blow more, they need more Parry stat. More parry comes at the cost of other secondary stats.

If a PLD wants to proc Shield Swipe more, they will naturally do so as ilevels increase. More block-rate does not come at the cost of other secondary stats.

I didn't think I had to do this but I guess I need to spell out the result -- assuming gear progression and stat valuation is the same as it was in 2.X, 6 months from now DRKs will still have roughly the same proc-rate on Reprisal and Low Blow. Why? Because they will still be stacking Crit and Det instead of Parry. PLDs will have a higher proc-rate on Shield Wipe. Why? Because while they're still stacking Crit and Det, their block-rate naturally increases because of shield ilevel. Is that really so hard to understand?

Now, you're probably wondering why that matters? Well, like I originally pointed out -- Swipe scales better than its equivalents. So, while we might have low up-time based on natural block-rate now, it will change naturally in the future. Like I referenced earlier, it's like everyone forgot 2.X happened.

[Dhex]

What "facts" are you talking about?

Anecdotal in it's meaning - that is to say being based on personal experience. You continually point to your experience in niché settings. Nobody is making the argument that Shield Swipe is not an appreciable DPS gain - it is not however 150 potency every 15s with any sense of reliability as some people are making it out to be. Shield Swipe is a variable amount of potential potency dependant on an unreliable source proc <- this is not a debatable point and will vary on personal experience as we all know there will be "that one guy" out there that claims to always land a Shield Swipe every 15s on cooldown always which is not feasible.

Yes - the higher the shield the more Block Rate - the more you get Shield Swipe procs yadda yadda. Someday - but not right now today. i210 is the highest and that hasn't changed or changed the (im)balance between tanks yet. Hell the potential of Shield Swipe drastically changes depending on shield type; Buckler/Kite/Tower. Still take a look at the stat distributions across a single Sword/Shield combo and you'll see stats are distributed across a wider set of secondaries; to get the absolute best itemization requires an upgraded Esoterics Shield & Gordian weapon whereas Dark Knight only requires an upgraded Deathbringer or a Gordian GS. So again your argument doesn't really hold water with me. Until Shield Swipe somehow closes the gaping chasm of a gap between a Dark Knight's MT DPS and a Paladin's MT DPS then we can start discussing imbalances in itemization and stat budgeting.

Additional points; I never said anything about DV "costing" damage anywhere - only that it potentially can save a DPS that missed being topped off - DV front loads the mitigation and has a ridiculously small effect towards easing healing requirements and overall damage intake for the duration of an encounter. Until there is a mechanic that you literally cannot survive without DV; where no DG Kick/Path/Adlo will ever be enough then it's just a security blanket of "extra" to pad for healers that have trouble timing heals or DPS that make mistakes before raid-wide hits. DV provides a short lull after a raid-wide where a healer might save a single GCD or afford a slower healer with a chance to compensate - though even that is highly unlikely given that it does not so significantly decrease damage that is prevents the Healer expending the same number of GCDs and MP as they would have done if you had not used it at all.

You fail to address the key point in the argument against Stoneskin; if damage is scripted and predictable what is the function of minor reductions to damage that healers are already going to heal through? Think about it like STR vs Excess VIT. Having mitigation like Storm's Path, Delirium, Reprisal allow both WAR & DRK to continue to actively contribute damage while reducing damage intake with minor DPS loss - Stoneskin is outright sacrificing GCDs to achieve a less effective outcome in comparison.

[Brian_]

I normally don't bother with quoting because I trust people to remember what they've said, but this is getting ridiculous.

Even with Sheltron you have to wait for an AA to proc - meaning the appreciable DPS/Enmity gain varies heavily and is, at best, unreliable as a damage boost.

Your little argument ignores the key point being made; the damage will vary depending on unreliable proc timing. This is not a reliable change to Paladin damage.

I was never making the argument that it was 150 potency per 15 seconds. My point was that you can increase the proc rate of shield swipe through proper skill usage and that over the duration of a standard encounter, your DPS gain from shield swipe is going to be consistent and is going to be reliable. It is the same as crit. The damage does not vary heavily and is not unreliable as a damage boost. THOSE ARE THE WORDS YOU USED. Parse yourself using the same rotation on the same encounter 100 times. Then look at the variation in shield swipe DPS contribution. You are not going to see much of a difference.

My point with block-rate scaling is if you are a developer, how something scales greatly influences how you balance it. What do you expect them to do? Make Shield Swipe 300 potency to compensate for the lower block-rates in i210 gear? Then, when people are rocking i300 shields with 100% swipe up-time, they'll have to nerf Shield Swipe or change how block-rating works AGAIN. That's terrible planning.

I never said anything about DV "costing" damage anywhere

Divine Veil, and Stoneskin net you an almost inappreciable gain in raid-wide mitigation while crippling your damage contribution

Sure.

Inappreciable gain = a higher gain than DK, Delirium, Reprisal, Path, etc. on key mechanics. I gave you the numbers. It's not worse for mitigating huge, scripted raid-wide damage. What IS worse is the up-time. It's not the clunk, the face that it doesn't also shield the PLD, the redundancy, or some other BS.

The point I keep making but the point you keep missing, the point you dismiss because it's "anecdotal" when it's ACTUAL REALITY. How about you actually give some real support for your claim that it doesn't impact healers in any way? You dismiss real examples of where you're wrong without any actual factual reply. You just say something and assume it's true.

Look at A3S p2. You have 2 Fluid Strikes 10 seconds apart for 60k split raid damage each. Look at A3S p4+. You have Cascade > You have Sluice Protean 20 something second later > You have Splashes shortly after. You have limited mitigation and very short windows to actually dodge, re-position, and heal. Being able to throw a Divine Veil into the mix helps A LOT. Does it change how a healer deals with incoming damage. YES. Is it necessary? No. But, by that logic, neither is Path, DK, Delirium, or Mantra.

I've had to repeat this numerous times. You have failed to actually prove anything otherwise and just continue to spew unsupported garbage.

The use of SS is nothing like STR vs. VIT because YOU ARE NOT SACRIFICING DPS. For the last time, you use Stone Skin during downtime. How do you lose DPS when you cannot attack the boss? The difference is instead of maintaining it through active upkeep, you cast it during a pause in the fight and it's active until it is used up. If I cast SS on a DPS and they end up taking a 3k damage unavoidable hit, SS just mitigated ~1300 damage. In comparison, if Path was up on the boss, it would've only mitigated effectively 300 damage on said DPS.

[Freyyy]

And that's how the walltext battle started

[Jpec07]

I think the difficulty here is a disconnect in ideologies that comes back to the current tanking paradigm/meta. In the current situation, because of how predictable and low the damage going out is, and because of how tight the DPS checks are, groups in general are prioritizing DPS capability over just about anything else. Tanks are actively encouraged to gear Slaying for max-level content, and to tank in their DPS stance as often as possible because of how precious DPS is. While a pair of excellent healers will be able to capitalize on extra mitigation to greater effect, the majority of healers simply don't have that capacity for one reason or another. And so the damage meta persists and reigns.

Extra mitigation is good. As a tank, any time you can give yourself even a small chance at taking less damage, it should be The Thing To Do. But because of the persistent prevalence of the DPS meta (where WAR-DRK reigns supreme), mitigation in general holds very little value. A survival-minded tank will want to Stoneskin as many autoattacks as they can, because it puts less stress on the healers. And in my Alexander Normal runs, when I've spammed Stoneskin on myself for ~50% of the fight, I've had more success than when I try to hang out in Sword Oath and DPS the boss (mostly because it means I generally require less healing, and I'm personally a lot less trusting of DF healers--and the DPS checks aren't as stringent). But I expect that in Savage, my ~18k HP pool and 1800 HP shields won't really help out that much (because of how heavily the raid relies on good DPS output).

To paraphrase my FC healer, even when there's scripted damage going out, every little bit of mitigation and healing helps contribute to their ability to keep the raid alive. I got to 195 in full Slaying, and she asked me to go Fending, bringing me back down to 190. While I saw my DPS dip a bit, she reported that because of the extra mitigation, she had a lot more room to keep her DOTs up and spam Stone/Holy (which she could get away with, because she didn't need to use as much mana to keep me up). And the extra DPS she was able to put out more than made up the difference.

Point being a good healer will be able to capitalize on every scrap of extra mitigation you can give them, but healers that can do that are relatively rare. And when you couple this with the fact that Alexander Savage trivializes mitigation, it makes Paladins feel about as useful as mounted cavalry in modern warfare.

And that's how the walltext battle started

They're both PLDs. It's like watching them try to kill each other with pool noodles.

EDIT: What's also interesting (intentional or not) is how Clemency scales. When you're Fending-geared, Stoneskin is more mana-efficient, because it will shield for 1800-2000 (actual mileage may vary), while I've seen Clemency only hit for 3500-4500 (so a little more than double the mana for a little more than double the healing). However, in Slaying gear, because Clemency scales with Strength, I've noticed my Clemency consistently topping 7000-8000 (while Stoneskin only mitigates 1450-1500). This makes Clemency about five times as mana efficient as Stoneskin. Not sure what this says about the skills and the tanking paradigm/meta, but I wanted to float it out there.

[Ralvenom]

Extra mitigation is good. As a tank, any time you can give yourself even a small chance at taking less damage, it should be The Thing To Do. But because of the persistent prevalence of the DPS meta (where WAR-DRK reigns supreme), mitigation in general holds very little value. [snip]

I think part of it is that the "mitigation-minded guy" doesn't like the idea that doing more dps actually does equate to taking less damage overall.
In other words, if you push phases & kill the boss more quickly, you actually take less damage. That idea is VERY applicable to the current meta.


That said, I hope the next meta does require a bit more mitigation than the current meta -- on 1 or 2 fights, that is.

[Brannigan]

That's been applicable to like every boss fight that's been in the game. High DPS makes them all easier. Even in Melusine, which people like to cite as some magic fight where being good at your job makes it harder, you can just pause your DPS to wait for a shriek and still be wayyyyy better off than a low DPS team.

[Dhex]

I understand his points but I feel maybe we both put the blinders on when it comes to compositions and effective utility - the way he describes his reality as Paladin you'd think it was some mitigation juggernaut shielding the party from otherwise unstoppable damage with it's capabilities; when in my reality the shields and utilities PLD provides are a very small amount of mitigated damage over the entire encounter's duration. Appreciable yes; but not game changing to the point that you're saving any effort or resource expenditure by your healers. If Paladin was really that indispensable people would've been bringing them up through Alexander Savage with far more regularity.

I just simply disagree with his assessment of Paladin's current state; mechanically and by design Paladin is the clunkiest most contradictory Tank design of the three. Warrior functions extremely well to the point that it is guaranteed a raid slot, and Dark Knight does roughly as well in direct mitigation as Paladin while bringing significantly more damage.

Personally when I am given the option - I readily bring my Warrior or Dark Knight rather than playing Paladin in end-game fights because they work better within the meta; they contribute more damage and provide enough usable party wide benefits that you do not need a quasi-healer tank popping Stoneskins, Clemency, or needing DV triggered to pass incoming damage checks. By bringing DRK/WAR you distribute the burden of outgoing damage more evenly - and allow groups to push/skip phases.

[Ralvenom]

That's been applicable to like every boss fight that's been in the game.

Of course it is, and I suspect that SE is testing out with AS1-4 & seeing how it works in a raid meta if they fully commit to the idea of groups doing that. /shrug