PLD changes; thoughts?

[TheDustyOne]

I don't like this new rotation, it feels far worse without the DoT giving that sense of flow, instead we spam Royal Authority > Atonement, back to back with only 1 Holy Spirit to break it up between them.

Goring being a 60s cooldown with nothing else going for it is pathetic. No interaction with any other ability, no extra resources generated, nothing, just press it after you use FoF. The ability now feels vestigial, like they wanted to get rid of it but realized people would complain, and couldn't think of an actual good reason to keep it around.

If they wanted to remove the DoT and have the Goring combo mean something rather than just reducing it to a mere cooldown, one option I would've done would be to make it generate the new Divine Might buff, while Royal Authority > Atonement regenerates MP for Holy Spirit. At least that would've made sense and the 2 combos would compliment each other as Spender/Generator combos.

The fact that our rotation is still 26 GCDs long, and that our spells STILL don't get reduced recast with our skill speed, means that we're stuck again with a rotation about 63 seconds long, and with that, still have to sacrifice a Sword Oath stack.

Requiescat could just as easily be removed by making Confiteor a 60s cooldown and its potency spread across other abilities, that's the only reason this button even exists in this current rotation. Holy Spirit being boosted by Req is only for lower levels or to act as a noob trap.

I don't really care if this rotation solves the problem of Paladin not being bursty enough every 2 minutes, that's a separate discussion, what I do care about though is that the job I loved is now effectively removed from the game in favour of something I find dull. As far as I'm concerned, if the feel of a job isn't something I like, I don't want to play it, regardless of its performance in DPS charts. It's why I haven't enjoyed Samurai since they removed Kaiten, or why I don't enjoy Scholar as much without the DoTs we lost since the healer reworks in Shadowbringers.

At least the defensive changes are nice, I'm happy to see Bulwark back, Divine Veil change was long overdue and Holy Sheltron is finally useful for those DoT busters. That said I still have criticisms, why bother having separate buttons for Sheltron and Intervention if they generally do the same thing? Have Intervention give me a 15% mit if I use it on myself or 10% on another player, that way we only need one of those buttons. Hell, we wouldn't have needed Bulwark if Intervention worked like that since Holy Sheltron could've been that unique 90s mitigation instead. Paladin already has fairly cramped hotbar space, so having to put Bulwark in is getting excessive.

Cover is still too niche in my opinion, giving it some mitigation like in Stormblood or removing the Oath cost would be far more helpful. Instead I find myself throwing around Interventions in its place since the mitigation and regen does a better job of looking after the party. Cover only gets use if a party member would die without it.

I'm thinking of going with Gunbreaker instead for this expansion. I don't like how Paladins rotation plays now.