Sheltron is not as strong as SE thinks it is.

[Cabalabob]

If we compare tanks kits, every tank has an extra short mitigation tool, nothing major, but something they can pair with their other mitigation, WAR has thrill, DRK has dark mind, GNB has camouflage. But PLD? All they have is sheltron.

And I don’t understand why this is the case. Sheltron is not that strong. Compared to the other tank’s equivalent skills (heart of stone, raw intuition or the blackest night) it’s not much stronger if at all, yet it still has to pull double duty as another CD.

So what are the pros of Sheltron? Essentially you can hold 2 charges of it allowing you to use it more frequently than the other tanks can use their skills while still having it ready for any mechanics. Making PLD king of passive mitigation, blocking more damage throughout the fight. But passive mitigation is rarely important due to how strong healers are and most damage being focused on mechanic damage rather than auto attacks.

What are the cons? Like I said, most damage is based around mechanics and this leaves PLD a cooldown shorter than the other tanks. On top of having the invuln with the longest cooldown making it the least usable. PLD feels like the most vulnerable tank when it comes to heavy hitting skills relying on sheltron as it’s all purpose mitigation tool.

Also, shield block strength seems to have stopped growing this expansion so blocks have capped out at 20% block strength, unlike in previous expansions where shield strength grew throughout the expansion going up to anywhere between 25-35% block strength by the end, 20% isn’t anything to write home about, raw intuition is 20% and WARs can get a parry on top of that mitigation on physical attacks (PLD can’t parry when blocking) as well as having thrill of battle as an extra cooldown.

Sheltron also has a charge-up time unlike other tanks skills, you can’t use sheltron until you build 50 gauge, usually this is fine, but certain fights like E1s that open with a massive AOE attack leave PLD vulnerable where other tanks have 2 readily available tools to deal with that damage. Furthermore while we’re talking about Eden, sheltron doesn’t even work on Eden’s gravity or dimensional shift (these attacks are unblockable and deal a lot of damage). So even if PLD had the gauge to use sheltron, it doesn’t even work on these attacks where, again, the other tanks have 2 tools to deal with it, meaning this mitigation tool that PLD is leaning on isn’t even entirely reliable.

So with all these cons and a fairly weak pro why is sheltron treated like this end all be all mitigation tool for PLD? Why are we docked a cooldown when PLD is already the lightest tank on cooldowns due to hallowed’s long recast?

Would it be so broken to get some extra mitigation? Bring back bulwark as a cooldown that doubles block strength for the duration or give PLD stoneskin as an oGCD 10% hp shield spell with a cheap mp cost to spend some of our excess mp on.

To be clear, I’m not saying sheltron is weak. I just feel like the devs vastly overestimate the value of it.

[Nedkel]

Counting parry as a disadvantage when a pld have block rate and it is higher than parry rate is nonsense.

Sheltron is 20% because it is no longer one time hit CD, it block everything within duration of 6 seconds, and giving pld a 30% dmg reduction skill for 6 second duration would not be balanced.
It is not supposed to be a better skill than any of the equivalent, it has only 5 sec cooldown and requires gauge for a reason, it is still much better than war raw intuition because sheltron does not share a CD with any other skill, raw intuition does.
And PLD invulv CD useless, is this a bait? xD

[phantomr23]

Sheltron is weak, yeah. That's a good thing, Paladin is already outputting great damage with a lot of unique and incredibly powerful tools while also bringing the best invuln skill in the entire game - having slightly less mitigation is a tradeoff for that. Besides, even if it is weak comparatively it's still incredibly useful and flexible, it absolutely doesn't need a buff. You talk about it having a chargeup time but there is literally not a single current fight where that matters; of course it doesn't work on Gravity, Gravity is a flat 75% damage that nothing can mitigate, the only skill any tank has that could even slightly counteract it is TBN and we already know TBN is insane.

I'm a 100% PLD main and even I think asking for PLD buffs is an incredibly stupid idea right now - all the tanks are in a great place.

[Reynhart]

Let's be honest, unless you're already close to your max HP, Thrill Of Battle is more of a healing skill than a "mitigation" one...thus, how come you didn't mention Clemency once ?
PLD always have an extra skill to survive, and the HP it gives back is of the same level at what TBN prevents, at 2/3rd of the cost.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Let's be honest, unless you're already close to your max HP, Thrill Of Battle is more of a healing skill than a "mitigation" one...thus, how come you didn't mention Clemency once ?
PLD always have an extra skill to survive, and the HP it gives back is of the same level at what TBN prevents, at 2/3rd of the cost.

Because any good PLD worth their salt won't use clemency unless healer(s) are ded or it's prog. And before you try to argue, using clemency as "mitigation" cost mp and damage which no other tank has to give up in the first place, so there is heavy drawbacks in using it.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Also worth mentioning all other tank short cooldown mitigation tools affect critical damage recieved whilst PLD blocking does not as a con for Sheltron.

[TheForce]

Sheltron is weak, yeah. That's a good thing, Paladin is already outputting great damage with a lot of unique and incredibly powerful tools while also bringing the best invuln skill in the entire game - having slightly less mitigation is a tradeoff for that. Besides, even if it is weak comparatively it's still incredibly useful and flexible, it absolutely doesn't need a buff. You talk about it having a chargeup time but there is literally not a single current fight where that matters; of course it doesn't work on Gravity, Gravity is a flat 75% damage that nothing can mitigate, the only skill any tank has that could even slightly counteract it is TBN and we already know TBN is insane.

I'm a 100% PLD main and even I think asking for PLD buffs is an incredibly stupid idea right now - all the tanks are in a great place.

Hmmm, I really didn't plan on posting anything in this thread, but your reply doesn't sit well with me. If I get flamed by wannabe blue dps for this, so be it, but trying to use high damage output as an excuse for poor mitigation from the Tank class that is famous for being the wall/bulwark of the family, is very odd to me. For Tanks, if the choices came down to either buffing weaker defensive abilities at the cost of a little attack power, or vice versa, I would think that it should be obvious to choose the former.
Also, don't call OP's thoughts stupid. You don't agree with them, we get it, there were some points I didn't agree with either, but you leave it at that, or don't say anything.

[Freyyy]

Sheltron is indeed weaker than it seems. It's not 20% mitigation for 6sec. You have to account for the already existing block rate. Sheltron only makes you block 100% of the time, but there's a chance you would've blocked some attacks even without using it anyway since PLD has a naturally high block+parry rate. If you had 0% parry+block rate, then Sheltron would effectively be a 20% damage reduction. But that's not the case. Sheltron doesn't add anything, it just guarantees something that can already happen in a somewhat unreliable way without it. Other tanks can still have some parries proc on top of their mitigation, but a PLD using Sheltron will... Just block 100% of the time, but can't parry or "superblock" on top of this 100% block rate, so it's essentially erasing passive block/parry for its duration. Imagine DRK/GNB/WAR having an extra negative effect on TBN/Raw/HoS that says "can no longer parry attacks for the duration", yeah, that's essentially what Sheltron is.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

If I had to guess, PLD doesn't have an equivalent "extra" defensive ability because it has two raid mitigation abilities (instead of one) and Clemency.

No other tank has an appropriate equivalent to Sheltron + Intervention either, but I don't know how relevant that is, in terms of job balance, given that the base strength of Intervention is weaker than its counterparts and that you have to spend 100 gauge in order to do it.

[FallenWings]

The CD discrepancy is covered by Passage of Arms.
TBN = Raw/Nascent = HoS = Sheltron
Swall = Veng = Nebula = Sent
DM = ToB = Camo = PoA

The fact that Passage of Arms is another option for party mitigation instead of excessive personal mitigation only further solidifies PLD as prog and meta tank.

PLD was "The wall" or "defacto MT" in one single patch: 2.0. And that was only because the single other tank(WAR) was very ineffective.

WAR became the sturdiest MT since 2.1 and now shares that role with DRK ever since HW.

PLD is the interceptor/support tank that shields the entire party and that is reflected by its wider and more effective support kit versus the other tanks. Passage+DViel+Clemency > Each tanks single AoE tool.

That shield PLD always carries around? It was never about self preservation. It was always for the party and that fantasy has been greatly reinforced in ShB.