Halve mana on stance swap

[P4X0R10N]

Stance more useful and funner and more engaging gameplay. You can block and parry during casts. Better now?

[P4X0R10N]

The thing most likely to be used as an OT because blocks, dodges, and parries can\\'t activate during casts, should be used only by MTs. The thing that currently provides gauge resource in Shield Oath should only be usable in Sword Oath. Hmm.

sensible-design nerfs rather than others being raised to or above a currently leading standard in the role.

OK regarding holy spirit. You say it gives shield oaf. So why only usable in Sword oaf? Cuz then you have to switch stances more and lose 50 percent guage when you switch stance. OK how bout dis? Yer combos now generate oath gauge. And you can spend 6 globally kewldowns to build guage back up after switch.

Nice no? Imagine how funner Dat wood bee.

[P4X0R10N]

Why do you guys wanna nerf PLD? Why not get buffed to PLD levels?

This is why we can't have nice things.

Watt nurf? I'm proposing all buffs to create more engaging gameplay. How about dis? Paladins been asking for gap closer. I propose holy shield charge. 15 yard range. Has enmity. And only costs 20 percent mana bar. But you use mana fir awesome holy spirit nuke you say? Dun you wurry. I propose we have potency at, say one fiddy, Dat way it is a dps gain. Kay? We can tweak numbers later.

This will allow fir decision making and engaging gameplay. Do I wanna nuke with fourth holy spirit or do silly gap closer and thwack thwack with sword? Which be max deeps? Dunno! That's why it's funner.

[Ragology]

I like everything about this topic.

[P4X0R10N]

I like everything about this topic.

Thank you. Let's help our palaladdin brothers have as much fun as we do by suggesting fixes to der clunky class.

[SyzzleSpark]

@ OP: If you want to nerf PLD and DRK that hard, their stances would without a doubt need to be moved off the GCD.

WAR needs a lot of help. It does. In no way am I saying that it does not have buffs coming to it. But in my opinion you guys grew way too accustomed to a stance-dancing system that was incredibly lenient. Now you have a stance that actually costs something as opposed to being borderline-free, and its the end of the world. DRK and PLD still sacrifice a resource, and a GCD, and someone mathed out earlier that the actual average potency loss to our PPGCD is still almost always higher than WAR.

Idk when sacrificing a GCD to change stances became so trivialized. Its punishing not only to our DPS, but also execution of mechanics, as we have to stop what we are doing for an entire global cooldown while everything happening around us continues in real time. I would take swapping off the GCD over that nonsense any day of the week.

I'm sure the flames of a thousand suns will rain down on me for thoughts like this, but I just think having one tank that can swap stances for free was bad design and I'm glad it got fixed. Maybe the nitty-gritty details of it still need tuning (like making it cost a flat 20-30 gauge instead of half, or something like that) but otherwise I totally see why the overall change was implemented.

I think Infuriate should be fixed at a flat 30 seconds, or at least 40, so it divides evenly into Berserk every time, or in the latter case, evenly into Inner Release. Berserk being 30% is also too weak. The BB combo should not offer gauge, and instead Maim should go up to 20 per use, so it builds faster, or perhaps, in Deliverance, crits grant 5 gauge, and in Defiance have parries do the same.

[Poison_Rose]

Idk when sacrificing a GCD to change stances became so trivialized. Its punishing not only to our DPS, but also execution of mechanics, as we have to stop what we are doing for an entire global cooldown while everything happening around us continues in real time. I would take swapping off the GCD over that nonsense any day of the week.

Actually the more I think about it, the more this is bothering me. Please clarify this statement? You're implying that players aren't capable of moving / pressing cooldowns while swapping stances. I'm sure there's something I'm missing here because based on what I've seen of your posts I don't think you'd say something that off base.

but I just think having one tank that can swap stances for free was bad design and I'm glad it got fixed. Maybe the nitty-gritty details of it still need tuning (like making it cost a flat 20-30 gauge instead of half, or something like that) but otherwise I totally see why the overall change was implemented.

Except there was always a cost, and even at costing 20 gauge it would still effectively cost 3 GCDs as opposed to 1 / a small chunk of mana. The MP cost is a singular riot blade or timing a sheltron to block an AOE spell - AKA barely anything. DRK is a separate issue and I'm not qualified to comment on that, since I haven't gotten my DRK to level 70 yet.

I'm sure the flames of a thousand suns will rain down on me for thoughts like this

That's because you're arguing that an ability that a lot of people despise is mathematically justified. I'm pretty sure I could mathematically justify taxing you 90% of your paycheck, but I'm also sure that you wouldn't like it.

Prefacing your argument with "Now don't get me wrong, WAR does need buffs" doesn't help because you continue to argue against the change that it seems like most people have been complaining about (aside from Shake it off, for obvious reasons).

[SyzzleSpark]

Actually the more I think about it, the more this is bothering me. Please clarify this statement? You're implying that players aren't capable of moving / pressing cooldowns while swapping stances. I'm sure there's something I'm missing here because based on what I've seen of your posts I don't think you'd say something that off base.

Yes you can move/press cooldowns, how is that relevant? The entire discussion is about a loss of potency that rides on the GCD, not whether or not you can hit off-GCD cooldowns or move your character. While the GCD from your stance activation is ticking your MT that needs you to swap with him is still tanking the boss, probably with a debuff. Of course you can plan around this, but that requires activating your stance early and losing more DPS, something WAR has never had to do. I can't listen to any argument that says tank swapping with a stance change on PLD/DRK in 3.x was not hot garbage compared to WAR, I'm sorry.

Except there was always a cost, and even at costing 20 gauge it would still effectively cost 3 GCDs as opposed to 1 / a small chunk of mana. The MP cost is a singular riot blade or timing a sheltron to block an AOE spell - AKA barely anything. DRK is a separate issue and I'm not qualified to comment on that, since I haven't gotten my DRK to level 70 yet.

There absolutely was not always a cost, other than the lack of instantaneous mitigation intrinsic to Defiance, which imo is an argument rendered completely moot when you consider that since early 2.x after fixing WAR back in BCoB, it has had the most powerful and versatile cooldown suite out of all the tanks, hands down, and it is now arguably even more powerful with the addition of Rampart. Arguing that the lack of instant mitigation from swapping to Defiance was ever a true and real hindrance to the job in content is like arguing that WAR is squishier than the other tanks; it ain't true.

You cannot equate the lost gauge to a loss of 3 GCDs because that's like saying the potency of those GCDs is just gone, which it isn't, only the gauge is. So that statement is extremely misleading and is nowhere near spending a GCD doing zero damage.

I've said for years that the easiest way to balance tank stances is to simply put them all off-GCD and have Defiance refill your HP to make it instant mitigation. Dunno why they did this instead, but I honestly expected it. Swapping stances should cost something significant, or it should cost nothing. And for years it has been a DPS loss for 2 tanks and a minor mitigation hiccup for the other. Now its a DPS loss for all 3.

Most people are simply saying that it should go back to being costless, rather than suggesting ideas for a different cost since they don't like the current one.

What's really funny about this troll thread is that for years, WARs said: "if you nerf us instead of bringing DRK and PLD up to WAR's level, then we'll just have 3 tanks that are poorly designed" and now this thread is advocating that exact same approach from the other direction: make DRK and PLD's stance swapping even more garbage than it was in 3.x to bring it down to how bad we think we have it.

PLD loses a GCD both ways. That's ridiculous. DRK loses a GCD one way and an half of one the other (yes people always forget that turning Grit off is still on the GCD, even though it doesn't trigger it.), plus a sizeable chunk of a much more valuable resource.

And then there's the fact that if you burst out all your MP and then need to activate tank stance suddenly, you're screwed. Whereas if it worked like WAR, I could just floor my mana and still turn it on. Yes of course this can be played around, but by that same logic, so can the lack of instant mitigation inherent in Defiance. Grass is always greener I suppose.

That's because you're arguing that an ability that a lot of people despise is mathematically justified. I'm pretty sure I could mathematically justify taxing you 90% of your paycheck, but I'm also sure that you wouldn't like it.

Prefacing your argument with "Now don't get me wrong, WAR does need buffs" doesn't help because you continue to argue against the change that it seems like most people have been complaining about (aside from Shake it off, for obvious reasons).

Flag on the play: straw man.

I did not say that WAR's gauge should keep the cost it currently has. My entire post was simply justifying it having a cost at all, and pointing out that the cost of DRK and PLD's stances are still harsh enough from a DPS and resource standpoint that they don't require further nerfing. WAR's design right now is pretty garbage, I'll agree, and SE doesn't realize that they've built a job which they cannot adjust or tune or balance properly because pulling at any thread would unravel the entire tapestry of it. Beautiful things are often fragile.

I also prefaced my post the way I did because - get this - it is actually what I believe. WAR having all of its utility stripped away means its DPS should be lightspeed-better than PLD. Anyway, unless they're going to make all the stances costless, WAR's stances should have *some* kind of cost, preferably of a resource they can easily recover which was why I suggested buffs to their gauge generation.

[Poison_Rose]

There absolutely was not always a cost, other than the lack of instantaneous mitigation intrinsic to Defiance, which imo is an argument rendered completely moot when you consider that since early 2.x after fixing WAR back in BCoB, it has had the most powerful and versatile cooldown suite out of all the tanks, hands down, and it is now arguably even more powerful with the addition of Rampart. Arguing that the lack of instant mitigation from swapping to Defiance was ever a true and real hindrance to the job in content is like arguing that WAR is squishier than the other tanks; it ain't true.

10 seconds is 4 GCDs. 4 GCDs at 75% damage due to defiance's -25% penalty is roughly the equivalent of 1 GCD, purely in the context of DPS.

This isn't true anymore obviously, since they changed defiance to -20% now. So you lose 80% of a GCD instead of a whole GCD.

EDIT:

And then there's the fact that if you burst out all your MP and then need to activate tank stance suddenly, you're screwed. Whereas if it worked like WAR, I could just floor my mana and still turn it on. Yes of course this can be played around, but by that same logic, so can the lack of instant mitigation inherent in Defiance. Grass is always greener I suppose.

You're right, and this is something that I didn't consider in my initial reply to you. I'll concede the point.

[Tegernako]

WAR needs a lot of help. It does. In no way am I saying that it does not have buffs coming to it.

You going into every single WAR thread and going "Well you totally have it bad but let me tell you about DRK" is kind of getting annoying. We get it, you think DRK is waaay worse off then WAR great.

I disagree. (Like we don't just lose gauge, we lose half our class on stance switch and our gauge) It happens. But I don't go into every DRK thread and say "but war" either.