Should shield blocking be effective against magic damage?

[Loggos]

This is not so much a proposal but more of a "fact check" for me because I am not experienced enough to pass a final judgement but I have some perceptions that I would like to have confirmed or corrected.

I have been thinking a lot about the efficiency of the PLD lately.
I have not played WAR extensively yet but from what I understand a paladin's strength lies in the damage s/he absorbes before it hits her/him, i.e. defense strengthening buffs, shield blocking and the shield's general added defense stats. The warrior on the other hand seems to be all about regaining hp (and having a huge pool of those) by using buffs that increase the pool's size further, hp recovery/more efficient received heals and hp absorbtion from enemies.

Now what seems very off to me is that blocking only works on physical damage and furthermore the PLD seems to be very much built around physical opponents in general as they can only decrease physical damage on enemies (whereas WAR can decrease both) and only disable physical weapon skills (due to the fact that the skill that triggers this can only be activated by a physical block).

If you combine the last two points this would mean that one of the three aspects of a paladin's damage mitigation that is intended to be in balance with WAR's hp recovery mechanics just falls flat as soon as magical opponents are involved. However if I understand it correctly there is no such a thing for WAR, meaning that their defensive mechanics work against both physical and magical opponents. That obviously sounds like a disadvantage on paper regarding paladin's viabilty and versatility.

I have made a few experiences where this caused problems but I have not raided end game content yet and am unable to estimate whether this is a variable that greatly impairs a paladin's efficiency against magic based opponents in end game, so I would like to know if this has ever been detrimental to high end paladins or if it is neglectible.

If it is noticable would you want that a shield can also block magic damage?
From my amateur perspective I tend to be in big favour of this. I don't feel as if it would overpower PLD but rather even the perceived gap. But maybe my observations are wrong so I would really like to hear some other perspectives.

Cheers!


P.S.
(Please don't ask about lore here as to how a shield would block magic damage. How does a warrior regain hp from their enemies. Do they eat them in between attacks? This aside, in a world of magic a good shield could have been crafted with magic components to be effective against such attacks.)

[koroko220]

Other People will expand on this I'm sure, but paladin is not totally defenseless on magic opponents. Rampart and sentinel are 20/40% respectively damage reduction to all damage, both magical and physical. These are pally's equivalent to inner beast and vengeance.

[Loggos]

Ah, yeah that's true! I didn't mean to say that paladins are completely defenseless against magic. I mean, that would totally throw them off balance and that's not what I'm accusing them of.

What I aimed for with my post was that there are however some aspects in the paladin tool kit that become unusable when faced with magic opponents when I assume this doesn't happen to warrior? (Again, this is me asking, not making a statement, as I don't have WAR at a mentionably high level.)

The inability to use shield swipe aside (which I would love to use btw - with a silent buff to mirror physical pacification, but that's just me) I meant to say that blocking is one of the several aspects that account for our damage mitigation. But this one aspect becomes irrelevant against magic users so our defense against them is reduced to some extend (but of course not completely erradicated) whereas warriors' HP boosting, regeneration and absorbtion skills work on all types of enemies.

If it turns out that this doesn't matter in terms of actual numbers and the blocking is more of a nice bonus than an integral part of PLD's damage mitigation (though I always understood it that way) then I will of course accept that.
I have just noticed that it has an effect on my playing so I wanted to understand to which extend blocking actually influences the general PLD game play (and to which extend it is a possible bias in my perception/lacking skill etc.).

[Reynhart]

Judging by the animation, I'd feel like at least Sheltron should work on spells.

[Xenosan]

All tanks have a toolkit improved if they can parry/block magic (Sheltron/Bulwark/ShieldSwipe, RawIntuition, DarkDance/Reprisal),

A bias idea I've considered before was DRK having a 100% uptime 'can parry magic' buff (Blood of the Dragon-esque) but also capable of providing that perk to a party member by some method (or debuffing an enemy so the whole party can block/parry their magical attacks). The buff/debuff, for PLD, would allow spell blocking as well as parrying, giving some PLD/DRK synergy (since PLD has the most to gain). DRK has a utility gap so maybe this is a route? ...but no shame I consider it for only the notion of DRK's Parry animation changed from a sword parry to a Darth Vader bullet deflect motion... And tbh if there is only just a couple options available for DRK utility support this wouldn't be at the top of my list.

[Shurrikhan]

I could use a fact check on whether we can dodge magic, but otherwise Bulwark, Shelltron, Raw Intuition, Foresight, and Dark Dance (regular) should be useless against magic, while Dark Mind is similarly useless against physical. If one were to consider Foresight as purely a Warrior ability, that'd be 2 niche defensives per tank.

For the time being I'd imagine the only reason we don't have spell blocking/parrying is because SE wants some diversity in how magic is handled, and/or how threatening it should seem individually to the tank (e.g. making them more dependent on healing received, or their arsenal of mitigation tools more restrictive). So long as they continuing balancing for that fact, I'm fine with it, though I don't (aesthetically speaking) see how Shelltron could fail to block a fireball, when that's exactly what it was first showcased as doing, nor do I see what would be wrong with DRK having Runic when practically a Mystic Knight.

[Reynhart]

I could use a fact check on whether we can dodge magic, but otherwise Bulwark, Shelltron, Raw Intuition, Foresight, and Dark Dance (regular) should be useless against magic, while Dark Mind is similarly useless against physical. If one were to consider Foresight as purely a Warrior ability, that'd be 2 niche defensives per tank.

Except that DRK still has one physical-only CD and one magical-only CD, whereas PLD and WAR only have physical ones.

[Shurrikhan]

Except that DRK still has one physical-only CD and one magical-only CD, whereas PLD and WAR only have physical ones.

I could use a fact check on whether we can dodge magic, but otherwise Bulwark, Shelltron, Raw Intuition, Foresight, and Dark Dance (regular) should be useless against magic, while Dark Mind is similarly useless against physical. If one were to consider Foresight as purely a Warrior ability, that'd be 2 niche defensives per tank.

Which still makes 2 niche defensives per tank... I fail to see how we're in disagreement.

[Reynhart]

Which still makes 2 niche defensives per tank... I fail to see how we're in disagreement.

It makes DRK more versatile, since he always have at least one additionnal tool, whereas PLD and WAR can have zero or two depending on the figt.
Well, and since Foresight is used as a cross-class, DRK has access to 1 magical and 2 physicals, PLD 0 magical 3 physicals and WAR 0 magical and 2 physicals.

[Lazka]

It makes DRK more versatile, since he always have at least one additionnal tool, whereas PLD and WAR can have zero or two depending on the figt.
Well, and since Foresight is used as a cross-class, DRK has access to 1 magical and 2 physicals, PLD 0 magical 3 physicals and WAR 0 magical and 2 physicals.

PLD has rampart + sentinel its all reduce damage
war have vengeance + inner beast (thrill of battle if u count that too)
so the other tank have 0 magical? huh?

yea bcause DRK have nice magic CD, its not like gonna be good at all
lets see if the battle have full physcal tank buster, is DRK have a good CD beside shadow skin and shadow wall? dark dance is 30% chance so im not gonna relly on that, and all the other tank have foresight
PLD have bullwark + sheltron (which guaranteed 100% block and 30 sec too, nice !)
war have inner beast per 5 stack wrath

and how much is battle with magic damage tank buster? i dont think that many