Paladin Movement Ability (Leap/Rush)

[Shougun]

Thought in 5.0 it would be nice to see Paladin get a movement related ability, but to keep it unique from Dark Knight / Warrior Paladin's is related to the enemy rather than their own.

Two ideas, first one being a closer parity of the others:

[1]
Grabs an enemy at range and yanks them into nearby range. I'd still like to see Paladins toss some holy bolts like Dark Souls, so perhaps here they get a javelin of light in their hands and toss it at an enemy dealing moderate damage and then the ability will highlight (for a short time, ~3 seconds) allowing players press it again to magically yank the monster to them (slight damage) and forcing them to attack the player for a few seconds.

[2]
Second idea is that they pound the ground with their shield causing a bubble of energy to explode from the ground up in a large radius around them and then collapse inwards, grabbing nearby monsters and moving them towards yourself. (Large radial draw in). AoE Damage, less damage than the other tanks but also applies magical dampening field (light slower attack/cast rate debuff/moderate strength movement speed debuff).

To reduce ability bloat these abilities could be combine with some other skill, a bit like Dark Arts (except way less spammy please lol, these are utility skills for control). So something + shield lob = light javelin, and so on.

Thanks for reading

[Canadane]

I like the AOE draw-in suggestion.
The first one just sounds like Holmgang.

[Shougun]

I like the AOE draw-in suggestion.
The first one just sounds like Holmgang.

O_o.. woops! lol, I don't play Warrior that much so I didn't think about that.. It does sound a bit like Holmgang (minus a few things but still similar).

I'd still like to see a "lightning" spear even if not like above, I'm open to whatever mechanics it gets lol.

[Rongway]

I'd personally like to see something like

Intercession/Intercede: Rush to a target party member's side.

Maybe even

Intercession/Intercede: Immediately cure Bind and Heavy on self, and rush to a target party member's side.


I do like your AoE draw-in too, but of course there'll be things that are annoyingly immune to it.

[Shougun]

I'd personally like to see something like

Intercession/Intercede: Rush to a target party member's side.

Maybe even

Intercession/Intercede: Immediately cure Bind and Heavy on self, and rush to a target party member's side.


I do like your AoE draw-in too, but of course there'll be things that are annoyingly immune to it.

I like the idea of teleporting to an ally in terms of Paladin is team spirit. That and I definitely want to A. see a Paladin movement skill but also B. not be exactly like the other tanks (for tank gameplay diversity). But if it doesn't do more than teleporting to an ally it would probably see limited use, especially compared to managing enemies.. maybe? It'd have to do something else too, I think.

Like lets say you teleport to an ally appearing in a nova of holy energy (dealing damage), causing all allies within range to be bathed in protective energy. For the next X seconds each ally has your shield's block effect. Added effect: In Sword Oath each blocked attack adds Z potency to your next Spirit Within (no buff timer, but each cast of the ability resets stacks - so no super massive stack building). In Shield Oath for every block all affected members heal y hp (minimal as each sole unit but as a whole in a big picture it could lead to something non-trivial). Bulwark applies to allies, partially, if active. Enmity generated from the healing is considered the Paladin's doing, and not the blockee's. Finally because it's allied base I think the range on the skill should be one of the longer ranges in the game - like if you can click it you can teleport it.

Alternatively- I've never needed to cancel Cover and if I'm not alone then you could add that if you use the cover skill while active you teleport to that ally, regardless if the chain is connected or not. On a like 1 to second cooldown. Of cover is a 120 second cooldown, so not really a movement skill lol just a QoL.

One issue though with ally teleporting that doesn't jive as well with tanks, especially if you were in a mostly mage group, is that tanks keep stuff away from their mates so ideally the Paladin doesn't go near their friends lol. Like if you couldn't use your nova flash skill cause you didn't want to bring all the monsters dropping aoes on top of your black mage who will refuse to move off their ley line.

At that point I'm just thinking if you made another hollowed ground game breaker then teleporting to allies is fine lol.. let's say the Paladin could teleport to an ally and leave holy ground, which warps aoe markers in that the hollowed sanctuary. As in actually cuts out of the aoe marker (if a circle was dropped on the area it'd turn into a donut for example). So Paladin teleports to an ally drops a sphere of anti aoe, and applies block to those within the sphere - at the end of the spell enemies within take damage based on the damage prevented/mitigated (can be collapsed early, if desired by the Paladin).

Began thinking of an enmity drain teleport but thought that might be better for Dark Knight. For example he teleports to an ally and yanks out all the hate within the ally and turns it into either a blast of energy (attack) or a self buff, that makes me think though that perhaps he should just raise both hands in the air and gathers enmity from his allies, and then drops a hateful spirit bomb (Goku/Dragon Ball Z) on the enemy (lower allies enmity and deals damage).

[Shurrikhan]

I'd prefer a Tackle/Intervene, honestly. Though ideally I'd like the tackle (pushing enemies back) to just be a side-effect of W + Sprint when using Bulwark (which would then briefly make your collision box ovalic and increasingly larger than your hitbox to prevent mobs from moving past you) or the like... Intervene would ofc just be a to-ally dash that automatically intercepts and blocks the next skill. Actually, I'd much prefer that over the weirdly abstract Intervention we have now, if conflict should arise...

[Derio]

Idk, the one that sucks enemies in sounds a bit extremely unique, but if you cant suck the enemy in it should pull you to the enemy.

I just want a gap closer like a shield tackle, or a forward thrust.

[Deceptus]

Idk, the one that sucks enemies in sounds a bit extremely unique, but if you cant suck the enemy in it should pull you to the enemy.

I just want a gap closer like a shield tackle, or a forward thrust.

IMHO that's what Holmgang should have been.

Paladin's should have gotten a shield rush/charge (ala Onslaught)

[Lyth]

I'd like to see a gap closer similar to Noctis' (FFXV) ability to throw a sword and teleport to where it strikes. Granted, if Gunblade users end up being a thing, this might be more thematically appropriate for them.

Gap closers need not be targeted damage dealing attacks, either. A simple "dash" style move that propels you quickly forward in the direction that you face could be incredibly versatile, especially if it negates knockbacks when activated. Having damage attached to these moves forces you to choose between gaining the damage vs. reserving it for a knockback.

Another variant could be to just give PLD something that significantly boosts movement speed while also negating knockbacks. Give them a pair of angel wings and let them zip around the battlefield casting Holy Spirits without interruption (and make Requiescat ranged, while you're at it).

This is a guess, but I suspect that the reason why you don't see "draw in" effects as gap closers is because unintentional movement seems to sometimes mess up the activation of mob abilities. A classic example in ARR was the use of Holmgang to interrupt otherwise uninterruptible abilities. If you jumped away from the Leviathan Ex mob and used Holmgang while they were casting Dreadwash, the mob would be moved towards you and the spell would interrupt. There was also that silly bug back in Heavensward where people were spinning bosses in a circle quickly, which somehow prevented them from casting abilities. I've always wondered why bosses always "animation lock" when they're trying to cast something, whereas in other games bosses would continue to cleave and throw out attacks while big AoEs were going out.

Gap closing to a player sounds fun in principle, but it only really would work if you also had the option to gap close to an enemy. Part of what makes knockback negation important on tanks is because you want to keep the boss in the same orientation and position. If you could only gap close to an ally, the boss is going to turn. There's also the issue of targeting. Although it might be fun to have a "rescue" themed gap closer where you dash to a location, picking up teammates and carrying them off to your destination as you go. Kind of like the PLD Heavensward Countdown artpiece.

[Shougun]

Another variant could be to just give PLD something that significantly boosts movement speed while also negating knockbacks. Give them a pair of angel wings and let them zip around the battlefield casting Holy Spirits without interruption (and make Requiescat ranged, while you're at it).

.... I like the imagery. How about when they get this movement ability, which negates movement impairing*/adds a movement speed boost (as you said), that all their attacks become ranged in an essence. If you use a melee attack/spell at range it'll instead cause you to rush in the remaining distance to perform it (think Zealot rush from Starcraft). The range should probably be 3/4 - 1/2 that range of the other tanks, but Paladin's would last over a period of time. The other skills have a damage component, like Dark Knight weaves theirs in - so perhaps for Paladin's they get a baby sword oath holy aura (small potency to nearby enemies over time). The visual would be a sort of a pissed off Tyrael/battle angel coming down and smashing the enemy.

For the duration of the ability I imagine you could have it based off a flat time and then how much oath power you have (doesn't consume oath, just references it). So like 5 seconds + 1 second for every 10-20 oath (10 to 5 more seconds). Or perhaps more interactively, 5 seconds + 1 second for every X oath generated or consumed (meaning you could extend it a bit).

*Could say it gives Paladin's float, but it would be interesting to see if that would greatly damage the ice skating mechanic SE uses sometimes (because Paladin would be able to float above the Ice for a short time).

unintentional movement seems to sometimes mess up the activation of mob abilities.

Haha I remember you could go behind monsters to mess up their spells, never get hit by stuff.. lol. Certainly if they add another draw-in (the second one I suggest being aoe even) they'd have to make sure it doesn't introduce more problems than worth (although being able to neatly clump up monsters is still something I think could be nice, especially when you have some monsters who like to stand just outside the crowd - just makes balling faster, easier, and neater, adding to the AoE damage potential).

Gap closing to a player sounds fun in principle, but it only really would work if you also had the option to gap close to an enemy. Part of what makes knockback negation important on tanks is because you want to keep the boss in the same orientation and position. If you could only gap close to an ally, the boss is going to turn. There's also the issue of targeting. Although it might be fun to have a "rescue" themed gap closer where you dash to a location, picking up teammates and carrying them off to your destination as you go. Kind of like the PLD Heavensward Countdown artpiece.

Yeah through my other fairly long meander over ally movement abilities I was like "I'm sure the Black Mage is going to love you visiting their ley line with all the monsters....." hehe. It fits thematically very well though, which is why I get that people would like to see it. I think Paladins could have a teleport to ally ability, I'm just thinking it wont see very much use unless it does something very useful in conjunction (it can't be just a gap closer if its for allies, unless you want the skill to be used like once every 5 dungeons).