How to fix Paladin

[eagledorf]

Based on the buffs Paladin had received since patch 6.0 dropped, it's clear that the developers don't really know what to do with Paladin other than increase potencies. That's nice, but doesn't really address the issue (and also makes Paladin more broken in dungeons each time).

As a long-time tank player, it's really simple what the job needs so I wanted to share my thoughts.

1. When Flight of Fight is used outside of combat, add an effect that reduces cooldown duration by 10 seconds and effect duration by 6 seconds.

Reason: Parties with a Paladin shouldn't have to wait around 20s every pull so the tank can align his rotation. This is especially annoying in Duty Finder. Please implement this change if nothing else.

2. Add a shield for self to Divine Veil.

Reason: Paladin effectively has at least 2 fewer cooldowns than every other tank because Divine Veil has no self-mitigation and Passage doesn't stack with Shelton. Because Sheltron is already very strong, a modest adjustment to Veil is more appropriate than a buff to Passage.

3. Reduce the number of stacks of Sword Oath to 2 Reduce the number of stacks of Requiescat; increase potencies and reduce DoT duration accordingly.

Reason: Paladin is the only job in the game with a rotation that doesn't fit in 2-minute burst windows. Because the casting phase is in the window, most potency increase should go to these skills (Confiteor may need to have damage fall off by after the second target to avoid excessive AoE damage.) Even with the-18s opener, the whole casting phase doesn't fit in 15 buffs so it should be condensed.

4. Reduce the cooldown on Hallowed Ground

Reason: The cooldown on HG being at least 40% longer than other invuls is no longer justified as Walking Dead now provides a substantial self-heal.

These changes are very modest and would not unreasonably buff the job (arguably, only the last suggestion is a meaningful buff at all), but would address almost all the quality of life issues with the class. They also should be quite easy to implement.