Thoughts on PLD changes

[Booden]

So your argument is "Use them when they are useful".

Okay. When are they useful? [snip]

Divine Veil is OGCD and doesn't kill your combo if you do it after fast blade, nor does it use up any mp, it doesn't matter that it's not useful in solo content because the game is balanced around 4/8/24 members, and not solo. I agree that it doesn't make sense for it to not affect us, but considering we're a tank and we can just shelltron aoes anyway, it doesn't really impact the paladin as much as you'd expect, even in savage content. Divine Veil (alongside reprisal, and depending how you fit it in Passage of Arms) is crucial to save your teammates from raidwide aoes that could wipe your party in extreme/savage content. Sure, it doesn't have much impact in 4 man content, since dungeons don't have any strong raidwide aoes, but you can still throw it anyway since you don't lose anything from using it.
I can't really remember a time where Shield Bash was absolutely necessary outside of Leviathan extreme in 2.x lol. I feel like they're keeping Shield Bash in the game to give paladin a gcd shield attack, and even though it's aesthetically nice, it should be replaced or changed. Intervene is already a much better shield attack than shield bash ever was. So yeah, shield bash has no real use or purpose, it's just there, a remnant of 2.x.

It's much more forgivable to use clemency than shield bash, because Clemency, even if it's a dps loss, it's still very useful if something goes wrong. It's also a very strong tool during savage prog, simply because you can give up on dps to see more mechanics and mitigate any error a teammate might make (and later you'll want to give up on clemencies so that you can meet the dps check). Optimally, you don't want to ever use it because healers should know what they're doing, but it's not wrong to use it if things go south (though they shouldn't).

Still leveling my PLD, just entered SB, but as I've leveled I've seen a few times where Shield Bash was useful. Most recent example was Baelsar's Wall, those three drill armed mechs on the moving platform midway through the dungeon. If you don't stun them, good chance all 3 of them will use their party-wide unavoidable needle rain attack. I was with a SCH, so no Holy chain to do the job. By chaining Shield Bash -> Low Blow -> Shield Bash, I was able to stun all 3 of them in 2 GCDs before they could get their cast off.

Would it have wiped us if they did? No, most likely not. But it is a fair burst of party-wide damage that typically forces the healer to drop a couple of AoE heals. By using two GCDs, I allowed the healer to continue DPSing not only because the party didn't take that AoE damage, but also because I myself was no longer taking any damage for ~5 seconds. A huge difference? No, not at all, almost meaningless, in fact, but that's just off the top of my head. Imagine if you did that to prevent something that *could* have wiped the party?

So, no, it's not very useful. It's alright in the low levels where tools are limited, particularly when you're just starting to level a tank and things are still hitting you like a truck so those 5 seconds of stun time are a godsend, but beyond that it's very limited in use. But there *is* still a use for it, albeit extremely situational.

For that particular situation, you could've used Divine Veil + Low blow instead of bothering with shield bash, and continued to use Total Eclipse > Prominance, which is more aoe damage than a sch can output especially under FoF. Even in the case that the party wasn't geared up properly, the worst that could've happened was the sch using one gcd to cast succor (which would trigger divine veil shields, if Eos hadn't already triggered it with Embrace by then) or an ogcd heal.

Yes, what you did might have been stylish, and I definitely think that triple stunning like that sounds kinda fun, but it's inefficient no matter what lol.

Even in lower level dungeons when you don't have prominence unlocked, spamming total eclipse instead of shield bash is more likely than not better to clear out monsters, simply because the mitigation you'd gain by stunning each monster one by one by rotating your stun won't make up for mitigation you'd gain by dpsing down monsters faster (the faster they die, the less damage you take).

Imagine if you did that to prevent something that *could* have wiped the party?

That's the thing though, there are no scenarios like this. Any raidwide aoe strong enough to wipe your party (ie: early savage raid progression) cannot be stunned or silenced, and need to be mitigated by Divine Veil + Reprisal (or Passage of Arms if the party is stacked) and healer shields. AoEs in 71 to 79 dungeons (or leveling dungeons for that matter) are not strong enough to wipe your party even if you're geared with i400 gear, and i430 gear more than make up for the raidwide damage you could take in 80 dungeons.