The loss of Shield Swipe

[Kalise]

I was really hoping they would double down on 'rewarding you' for tanking/mitigating damage with actions like shield swipe, blood price, TBN, etc that have additional benefits and/or refunds. Things that reinforce "reducing damage is good" with tangible feedback. So much for that. Also so much for doubling down on the HP theme of war as a major part of their kit.

I too will miss shield swipe and other similar actions.

We can only hope that eventually, they'll add in DPS increases for using the new active mitigation skills to mitigate damage.

Bringing back Shield Swipe, but only for blocks during Sheltron (Also, maybe change Intervention so you can block for your ally and thus proc this too?) - Likely also, make it require blocking a certain amount of damage to prevent being able to pop Shelly on an AA to get Shield Swipe value.

Increasing the DPS value vs cost ratio for TBN (Either by increasing the EDPS it provides, or reducing its MP cost)

Allowing Heart of Stone to proc some damage increase (Cartridges?) upon mitigating a certain amount of damage.

Allowing Raw Intuition/Nascent Flash to proc some damage increase (Infuriate CDR? IR CDR? Retaliation attack?) upon mitigating a certain amount of damage.

If they follow the similar rules of TBN, where both self and other active mitigation skills can proc the benefit, then that would alleviate the concern of disrupting role neutrality. Since, if it doesn't matter if you Shelly yourself or Intervention the MT to proc your Shield Swipe, then you're not promoting any specific subrole for a DPS increase (Also, making the party CD's be more appealing)

Really anything that binds defense and offense together to be mutually beneficial is being slowly removed from the game.

I don't know if it's specifically that, or they just don't like how often defensive options are being used primarily for offensive boosts. Such as using Shelltron to block an AoE that won't do significant damage, just so you can Shield Swipe for more damage. Or popping Thrill of Battle purely to enhance Upheaval.

Which is likely why TBN has been unaffected, since it has always been used for DPS neutrality due to the lack of Grit in the meta. In addition, due to it having a requirement for its boost in the first place, by having to have the shield break, it meant that it could ONLY be used for this boost up to DPS neutrality when it was being used to mitigate significant damage. As opposed to stuff like Shelly/ToB which could let you block a pathetic 1 point of damage or didn't have a requirement at all for them to be DPS increases.


Though, as I say... Hopefully they're just using the current state of their newly designed Tanks as a starting point. Trying to get them within a reasonable level of balance before they start to add in their differences in identity. Such as altering the bog standard Tank Trait to fill in some niches (WAR with fat stacks of HP for example) as well as then further going in and altering some other fairly homogenized skills, like giving unique ways to get DPS boosts from mitigating with their active mitigation skills, more unique features on gap closers, more differentiated burst CD's (No more IR Lite for DRK kthxbai) etc.

[Freyyy]

[...] Howling Fist and Dark Passenger get axed.

I'm really sad for these two. I loved their animations.

[Inuk9]

I'm really sad for these two. I loved their animations.

Indeed, I was really hopping for they to unnerf Dark passenger so I could use more in single target rotations, It makes senses the skill disappear with flood of shadow being a much better version of it, but still...

Also, Dark Arts animation will be missed too...

[NyneSwordz]

I'm not exactly fond of this skill being lost. I don't see a specific reason for it not carrying over into Shadowbringers. It's a cool oGCD that's pretty much free damage.

-Damage? Just increase the potency by 100 and remove the "increased enmity" portion.
-Button bloat? More than enough has been trimmed on Paladin to still have a spot for it.

It's even mentioned in the journal entry for "The Rematch" as being an "advanced technique" that Aldis used against opponents in the Colosseum, specifically Leavold in their final match, which set off the chain of events that caused the rift between them. Is that text just going to be altered/stricken? There's no skill learned at 30 as a Gladiator in ShB.

Luckily, there ain't much else to complain about as a Paladin and it looks like it'll stay that way. (At least until our potencies suddenly get buried 6 ft under.)

I kinda miss the proc for shieldswipe mechanic back then. It was kinda unique.

[Bright-Flower]

I'll miss shield swipe, but I can see why they wouldn't want offense tied to being main tank (blocking naturally) or spending our defensive oath gauge resource just to proc it. I'll miss it as a shield based attack, but at least it seems like our new gap closer is charging people with our shields like a battering ram. So at least we're getting something new shield related. Though I do wish we could keep it as a ocd spell just on a 30second cooldown or something if they want to decouple dps from our defensive options. I'm guessing that's part of the reason here just as I'm guessing the tank stance overhaul was because of people trying to use defensive stances as little as possible to pump out dps.

[Ventura_Highway]

I get that they wanted to make Paladin DPS not dependent on being attacked by the boss but I am annoyed that useless Shield Bash is still in. With all of the new sources of MP we have maybe it would be good to have something to vent off excess MP instead of Shield Bash.

[ADVSS]

I get that they wanted to make Paladin DPS not dependent on being attacked by the boss but I am annoyed that useless Shield Bash is still in. With all of the new sources of MP we have maybe it would be good to have something to vent off excess MP instead of Shield Bash.

I dont think that is why, they removed DRK reprisal, earlier. I think they are moving away from reactive procs because reasons. I think they want more set CD and standalones, that wont increase/enhance a tanks overall dps. Despite many of these reactive skills, adding more interesting elements over the monotony of using cd 1 for semi big hits, and cd2 for tank busters. or cd 3 the ultimate for lethally lethal tank busters

[Ventura_Highway]

I dont think that is why, they removed DRK reprisal, earlier. I think they are moving away from reactive procs because reasons. I think they want more set CD and standalones, that wont increase/enhance a tanks overall dps. Despite many of these reactive skills, adding more interesting elements over the monotony of using cd 1 for semi big hits, and cd2 for tank busters. or cd 3 the ultimate for lethally lethal tank busters

Makes sense I guess. Dark Knight still has a bonus for fully draining TBN after all.

[Shurrikhan]

Makes sense I guess. Dark Knight still has a bonus for fully draining TBN after all.

Which is itself kind of weird, since it makes it effectively a non-cost, contrary to the rest of DRK's systems. It makes sense against Shelltron, sure, but it still just feels awkward, especially in that its mitigation then becomes almost crippling expensive if/when you need it least. A point of damage short, and its a potent loss. Make full use of the mitigation, and it costs nothing.

Wouldn't it, perhaps, make more sense to have it generate Blood proportionate to shield consumed, rather than all or nothing?

[Kalise]

Wouldn't it, perhaps, make more sense to have it generate Blood proportionate to shield consumed, rather than all or nothing?

Designing something SENSIBLE!? For DORK KNIGHT!?!?

What are you? Mad?

Inb4 TBN kills you if it doesn't break...