What if Shield Bash were aoe stun ogcd? (NOT pvp)

[Asako]

Shield bash needed removing years ago. Honestly do not know how it is still in the game. It should have just been PLD OGCD stun, keep Brutal Swing for War and Low Blow for DRK. There was no reason for all the tanks to get the same move. Same goes for Rampart for PLS, Foresight [though change foresight to be all damage 20% unlike it's original] and Shadowskin for DRK. I really do not understand why we have to have the same move for all the tanks. Why not just give all 4 Tanks Holmgang then?

[Derio]

Pretty sure its going to be removed come 7.0

[Ransu]

I dunno about it being an AoE, but I do find it weird that shield bash is on the GCD.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Wouldn't be a pretty big boon at all. Tanks take little damage and healers can near hp cap a tank in 1 GCD at lower end content. Would it be useful in trash packs? Yeah. Would it really change much as to how you'd pull and currently play current and old content? No.

Would it save the healer time and allow them to dps? In theory yes. In reality probably not because no one coronadites trash pulls and a general strategy is used instead. This is the same reason why Living dead sucked in dungeons.

Shield bash and Cover both should be removed from the game as Low Blow and Interception have mostly replaced them. This would lower "button bloat".

The only thing that needs to change on PLD is the weird conditions to gain access to our party mitigation tools and allowing us to benefit from out Divine Veil shielding and not just the party. A larger goal would be to actually increase the amount of shielding from DV to be on par with base Shake if off from warrior.

Shield Bash, I'll give you certainly. As long as it remains a GCD stun, it might as well not exist.

But Cover? Certainly not my good fellow. Intervention has not replaced what Cover can do in the slightest. Arguably, Cover needs some of the nerfs it received since Shadowbringers lifted:
A) removal of gauge cost and keeping it mitigation-free
B) re-add the Lv66 mitigation trait, but keep the value like -10% or -15%, while keeping the 50 Oath gauge cost

There are many ways in which way button "bloat" can be remedied, but I will sooner wish that the hell froze shut than to lose one of the last unique things about tanks in an attempt to cure button bloat.

[Amenara]

Had a purpose back in ARR when some bosses were designed around having that spammable stun but the game isn't designed like that anymore and honestly should just be removed. Would rather have shield swipe back as an ogcd, that was fun.

[Enkidoh]

I think SE is keeping it around also due to inadvertently making it also a 'signature ability' of PLD in promotional materials (namely, Derplander's roegadyn PLD friend Shield Bashes a Garlean soldier in the End of an Era/New Beginning trailer, and Derplander himself uses Shield Bash against a blasphemy in the EW opening), so it's clear SE themselves feel this ability has some 'connection' to the Job, regardless of how players may feel.

Funnily enough I find myself using Low Blow more nowadays, it's much faster and also I kind of got into a bad habit of not using Shield Bash due to it consuming so much TP in the old days (before TP was removed), so old habits die hard. I'll still make use of it though as a 'back up' Stun if Low Blow is still cooling down and I need to Stun something again quickly, so it definetely still does have an important part to play in a PLD's arsenal.

[Marxam]

PLD used to have something like that. Shield Swipe was an ogcd that pacified a single target. It proc'd on block and was really niche since at the time you could only block physical, but at least raids accounted for this by having high/multi hitting physical tank busters. Ultimately its utility would fall straight into damage since cc has nothing no effect on raids and that is basically what everything boils down to in this game now, since its easier to balance damage than account for things like utility.

[Absurdity]

PLD used to have something like that. Shield Swipe was an ogcd that pacified a single target. It proc'd on block and was really niche since at the time you could only block physical, but at least raids accounted for this by having high/multi hitting physical tank busters. Ultimately its utility would fall straight into damage since cc has nothing no effect on raids and that is basically what everything boils down to in this game now, since its easier to balance damage than account for things like utility.

Shield Swipe had one more effect besides it's damage that was very useful in Stormblood, it generated increased enmity. This meant that once you established initial aggro with a warrior or dark knight and tank swapped to the paladin they had an easier time maintaining it by just doing dps.

[Alpheus]

I hope it's kept, its nice to tab target a pack of enemies during a pull and stunlock them if you don't have a WHM healer (i know its an edge use case but it'd be weird if we have a physical shield the way we do but no use for it in a GCD ability imo, as sheltron and it's upgrade look more like manifesting a spell shield [which isn't a bad thing]). I'd be fine with it's removal if there was a shield move (that doesn't necessarily stun) to replace it (Dragon's Dogma Mystic Knight various shield reprisal buffs come to mind) because otherwise it's just visually there proc'ing blocks every now and then when the class fantasy is sword and board. Like at least release a shield weaponskill where you just bash the enemy repeatedly (like WoL's Ultimate Shield attack from the Dissidia sub series).

[krisatriya]

yea kind of never use shield bash. hope they change it to oGCD that give def down debuff for 10s + stun lol