Paladin needs to be overhauled

[RyanCousland]

First of all, it doesn't matter if you've been a pld pvp main since ShB, this is 6.1+ PvP. Your main skillset that transferred from it is tracking and paying attention to enemy cooldowns and the basics of syncing up a burst. Now to address your post though....

my point was in reference to fact that i do play pld in which the person assumed i dont, and it does matter if someone is making a compare and contrast opinion

[RyanCousland]

While I can undestand your pain about the animation lock, it comes from the movement component, which is a remedy to allies running out of the effective range by putting you close first (since the dash reaches further than the tether).

However, given how unique and dare I say BROKEN covering someone is, having a wind-up window before it goes into full effect is fair. No other job has the ability in PvP to essentially completely undo the work that came from expending multiple ressources (including crowd control abilities), especially when paired with Guard or Phalanx (Hallowed Ground).

Personal opinion - I think Cover is an effect that should not exist in PvP without serious downsides. They made the same mistake since Stormblood all over again by bringing it back.

what good does it do for the team to run around chasing someone who is running away because that is the fight or flight instinct, that would obviously decrease the number of people fighting thereby creating a 3v5 scenario or FL how does the fact that its a gap closer remedy that?

i would say guardian is the exact opposite of broken considering its a damage multiplier for the enemy team, your not only taking damage as the pld but your taking damage for your team mate and in no way does the fallacy of its healing potency make up for the amount of damage output unless its used with LB however even if this comes into play it doesnt negate the fact people still run thereby rendering guardian useless, this is a strawman argument

cover was great in shb bc you could use it with HG, now that is what i would call broken

Personal opinion for this fix is if the tether is broken then the person should get a residual effect

[RyanCousland]

Your view on this surprises me since you are a pre-6.1 Paladin player. Phalanx is essentially Tank LB on steroids. Self-Hallowed, -50% on everyone around you and giving you access to the Blade of Valor combo is a fairly loaded effect. 120s is a very fair duration for a Limit Break this powerful on top of a kit that is already defensively loaded. The extension of the Confiteor-style effect and comboing off that is also a lot of value for your teammates who already take half damage in that window.

your blades as well as its healing ability is useless when chain stunned or under the affect of another LB this in turn is a cancelation of PLD LB aside from the team mitigation and again its still the weakest in dmg if that werent the case id agree the 120s would be fair but to say its powerful i think falls into the mass delusion of its LB

[RyanCousland]

While it is true that Paladin does not exactly do Dark Knight or Gunbreaker levels of damage, Paladin qualifies in other areas that the other tanks may lack.
1.) It has access to an OGCD stun on a short CD. Unlike WAR and GNB, your main damage is not tied to using it and unlike WAR, it has no animation lock and doesn't resposition you
2.) It has the most readily available and arguably strongest self defense in Holy Sheltron (%-mitigation is very strong) without restriction to a conditional buff (GNB Nebula)
3.) Cover alone makes this fair.
Additionally, none of those numbers actually highlight whether a tank focuses on sustained damage (Paladin, Dark Knight, GNB-Tank/Heal) or burst damage (Warrior, Dark Knight-ish, GNB-DPS) nor do they take into account if their effects help the whole team (Onslaught, Plunge). For reference, here is a burst of each tank (2 GCDs max):

PLD - Confiteor (8000) -> Intervene (2000) + Shield Bash (4000) -> Atonement (8000) -> Intervene (2000)
WAR - Primal Rend (8000-8800) -> Orogeny (10000-11000) -> Chaotic Cyclone (8000-8800) [add +5000 dmg depending on if and where Onslaught is placed]
DRK - Plunge (2000) + Shadowbringer (6000) -> Bloodspiller (6000-7600) -> Shadowbringer (6000) -> Bloodspiller (7600-9400)
GNB - Rough Divide (2000) -> Double Down (14400) -> Burststrike + Hypervelocity (12000) [add +12000 Blasting Zone and +2400 on Hypervelocity if DPS Junction]
Burst results:
PLD - 24000
WAR - 26000 without Onslaught, 31000-33600 with and depending on placement.
DRK - 27600 with Dark Arts: Shadowbringer (0HP spent), 31000-ish without
GNB - 28400 without DPS Junction, 42800 with DPS junction

These are the bursts, however the damage potential varies a lot on conditionals. Paladin can extend the multitude of 8000 dmg Atonements over a fair bit of time and has relatively high access to it while Warrior does minimal damage via combo outside of the burst. Dark Knight actually has more potential in sustained damage through multiple instances of Shadowbringer and cycling HP, while GNB damage potential can extend at the risk of overusing Rough Divide (which also serves as HEAL +20% for defensive purposes).

Conclusion - Paladin has very little room for a damage buff given their damage consistency over burst, mitigation and stun access.

I do appreciate the time and effort put forth in this expansion on damage however it does further illustrates my point in PLD being weaker granted i dont care if it is as i said before even in shb it was still pretty weak if remember correctly it was 3rd out of the tanks, being above WAR but despite this it had better utility and sustainability and bottom line it was fun
it has room for damage give intervene the stun effect and replace shield bash with 2 holy spirit and that would be 10x better than what it is now

[RyanCousland]

Are you kidding? The LB of PLD in pvp is one of the strongest, game changing, table turning LBs of all. It takes time to charge because it's that monstrous. Not only it makes you invulnerable for 10s, but also allows you to make somebody else invulnerable as well, and gives an absolutely massive damage mitigation of 50%, which essentially will negate any kind of AoE LB the enemy team will pull. On top of it it still grants you a decent series of self healing AoEs, which can apply some decent pressure and heal you back from the grave if you used the LB at low health as well...

I recommend reading my response to the other person who posted the same reaction, because its one i hear constantly and yet when i respond with the issue of chain and othe LB cancellation ive yet to hear a rebuttal, its always the same but if in the event you decide not view it ill repeat what good does covering someone who runs? what good is the healing if your chain stunned or under the affect of another LB?

[RyanCousland]

This is not a damage LB, and the job is the least impressive damage dealer in the game (although you can pull very respectable numbers on the damage tally tbh), because everything is literally focused on defense and party support. If you're looking for more damage and offense, other tanks are more tuned toward this than PLD...

there seems to be a common misapprehension that i want PLD to do more damage despite saying i played it in shb where it was considered pretty weak in dps, what im saying is theres too many cons vs the pros of PLD and yes that goes for its LB too

[RyanCousland]

I don't get the LB complain? So what if you are stunned? You are giving your party a Tank LB worth of defense buff, add covering a partner so both PLD and the other are not taking damage, also able to make them pop a potion without being interrupted too.

Oh yeah it also has a 3 GCD combo with the same effect of Confiteor which means you can tag the enemy party and your team will be able to heal off.
It is damn powerful and even if you can't play PLD, the invulnerability itself is already strong enough for stalling

did you not read any of the issues regarding cover? because i went into detail but ill put it plainly, what good is cover if someone runs away?

Also im a bit confused by this statement "Oh yeah it also has a 3 GCD combo with the same effect of Confiteor which means you can tag the enemy party and your team will be able to heal off. " could you elaborate? i understand the 3 gcd part its the end bit that has me confused are you saying or implying confeiteor allows the PLD to heal from ally attacks because im pretty sure thats not how it works.

and lastly your saying that it doent matter if your stunned so long as you stall, for 10s it seems like people are making separate cases in PLD for FL or CC im making the case for it in general, but lets dissect this

FL: Youre a PLD in FL your LB is ready you use it along with cover, (again tho what good is cover when everyone is running around much less able to see anything) youre chain stunned 10s are over, how do you think this ends? what gains have realistically been made?
CC:Youre a PLD in CC your LB is ready you use it along with cover (same issue as before) same questions, before you answer with the obvious and predictable response i ask that you actually use your experience and answer honestly tho doubt itll be the case

[Kathleen_]

lol.......

[Gserpent]

Hallowed Ground self-buff should probably have higher priority, because it's not that uncommon to die with the buff active, but I don't know how much of this is just related to netcode and can't be fixed, considering tanks dying with invuln status active is also a thing in raids...

PLD is otherwise very well designed and tuned. Their damage is pretty mediocre but they have excellent staying power and a *3 sec* stun on a 15 sec cooldown. 20% DR plus 12k bubble is enormous survivability and Guardian is about as flexible as abilities get.

I wouldn't mind if they made it impossible to lose your Blades spells, though. If you have to do pretty much anything except I think Guardian or Sprint after triggering LB, you lose your Blades spells and that's an *enormous* amount of DPS and Sacred Claim uptime lost for no damn reason. It being a 120 sec charge time is cost enough to justify not losing your LB spells because you had to throw out a stun or something.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

my point was in reference to fact that i do play pld in which the person assumed i dont, and it does matter if someone is making a compare and contrast opinion

Fair enough.

[1] What good does it do for the team to run around chasing someone who is running away because that is the fight or flight instinct, that would obviously decrease the number of people fighting thereby creating a 3v5 scenario or FL how does the fact that its a gap closer remedy that?

[2] I would say guardian is the exact opposite of broken considering its a damage multiplier for the enemy team, your not only taking damage as the pld but your taking damage for your team mate and in no way does the fallacy of its healing potency make up for the amount of damage output unless its used with LB however even if this comes into play it doesnt negate the fact people still run thereby rendering guardian useless, this is a strawman argument

Cover was great in shb bc you could use it with HG, now that is what i would call broken

Personal opinion for this fix is if the tether is broken then the person should get a residual effect

1.) If your teammate is running away or not utilising the Cover effect properly, that is a skill issue of your teammate and not an issue of Cover. Regarding "how does the fact that its a gap closer remedy that", again - the tether distance is 10y to maintain it, the dash itself is 20y. This means you can reach a teammate out of distance and stick around him to keep the effect running rather than having to walk or Sprint in his direction for it, which costs more time than the dash having animation lock. Arguably at short distance it is annoying, but this is a trade-off to have the longer activation distance.

2.) You are absolutely correct that it is a damage multiplier on you for AOE effects that land on both you and your teammate, which is why it is best practice to use Cover with Phalanx (Hallowed Ground), Guard (-90% dmg taken + CC immunity) or at very least Holy Sheltron (12000 HP barrier and -15% dmg taken). You never Cover without an additional defensive unless you know you can get away with it (like against a single attacker).

So I don't get why you compare it to 5.05 PLD who had Hallowed + Cover, the former being at 60 or 90s recast vs Guard having 30s recast. Cover itself needed charge-up by being active in combat (which happened naturally due to how Feast worked) while Guardian has a 25s recast, regardless of combat time. Guardian -> Guard is a solid combo for the recast it is currently at.

Personally I'd prefer it being replaced with Intervention from 5.1+ as this would free up PLD from having to spend Guard or Phalanx for safe use of Guardian and also would be way less obnoxious on either side to deal with. But that is just my opinion I guess.

Your blades as well as its healing ability is useless when chain stunned or under the affect of another LB this in turn is a cancelation of PLD LB aside from the team mitigation and again its still the weakest in dmg if that weren't the case id agree the 120s would be fair but to say its powerful i think falls into the mass delusion of its LB

You are looking at Phalanx the wrong way. Blade of Valor combo isn't what is strong about it and the Sacred Claim effect more or less benefits your teammates more during this Limit Break than you.

It is the self-invuln and -50% damage reduction on nearby teammates that kicks this Limit Break into S-tier. Putting aside the obvious pairing of Guardian to make one of your players invulnerable at zero risk, it counters various high-value Limit Breaks such as Primal Scream (WAR), Sky Shatter (DRG) and Contradance (DNC) as well as high-end non-LB damage bursts. It is quite literally Tank LB from Feast on steroids, which is why I cannot understand your negative view on this ability.

And to your stun-lock argument, which you seem to bring up more than once - if you get stun-locked during Phalanx, that is up to 10 seconds of people wasting stuns on you, which are stuns most likely not going on your teammates (discounting AOE stuns). That is actually a good thing.

I do appreciate the time and effort put forth in this expansion on damage however it does further illustrates my point in PLD being weaker granted i dont care if it is as i said before even in shb it was still pretty weak if remember correctly it was 3rd out of the tanks, being above WAR but despite this it had better utility and sustainability and bottom line it was fun
it has room for damage give intervene the stun effect and replace shield bash with 2 holy spirit and that would be 10x better than what it is now

Sorry to take your rose-tinted glasses off, but Paladin always had generally the weakest damage / burst contribution value in the Feast days. Warrior brought a lot more damage and a vuln-up combo (Butcher's Block) and after 5.1 it gave enemies +10% damage taken effects via Infuriate skills (more accessible), which was a god-send for your DPS to burst on.

You were always a tank that excelled at defensives, but unlike the other three tanks your defense changed. Pre-5.1 you had Cover, which got nerfed on multiple instances, was the reason why Paladins even took increased damage when attacked directly for using it and also why it had less max HP than other tanks. Post-5.1 you had Intervention, which was high value with less self-risk but you had to pre-emptively mitigate, which was what set apart a good Paladin from a decent one.

To your suggestion - putting Stun on Intervene as they originally intended would make Paladin a lot more powerful than it already is in higher ranks and definitely good in lower ranks, even when Shield Bash is gone. That is a 10s CD on a stun of which you can hold 2. That's kinda broken.

I can see why you want Holy Spirit back, but I genuinely don't see it doing more than 8000 dmg unless there are some conditionals such as Sacred Claim damage bonus.