The opportunity cost of shield bash is too darned high

[PiedPiper]

Honestly, I prefer Shield Bash the way it is because it's our only "interesting" tool in Paladin's skill list with some sort of drawback.

There is a sense in which this is so true. I miss 1.0 pld so much (as I've posted before about feeling like the class plays like 1.0 warrior with no control over the battle).

That said, I think its rather odd that shield skills interrupt main hand combos. We are the only class that uses an off hand as a part of our offense, I've always thought it would be more interesting if both hands had a separate gcd / combo, preferably with some combined combo that required setting up both hands for a big finisher.

PLEASE NOTE: Above is not a call for a buff. Obviously things would need to be adjusted to make this fair. At least warriors have something to keep them paying attention right now, and good warriors get to feel like they are contributing to their ability to tank (by going through their cycles correctly). Yes, it is a shame that warrior by and large is not viable right now, but at least when it is fixed your class will be fun to play. I have loved gld/pld since 1.0 pre-order launch, and at no time since then before nwo has the class been so unrewarding to play. I remember grinding out shield levels to get access to shield skills, the interaction of intellegently using the guard command. I just want paladin to be fun again. Stunning is the closest thing we have to fun (note: its only in trivial content such as ak and ifrit that its even possible to stun, garu and titan and beyond are all immune anyway), but if I go into ak with my fc, its with full dl/relic dds. If i stop building threat so i can have fun stunning the first boss.. I'll lose threat.

Now... if shield was on its own gcd, and there was a reason to consitently use shield skills... there might be some itneresting play where you give up off hand threat gen while continuing main hand threat gen to be ready to interrupt. Also, they could actually make the class interesting by say, giving a threat combo and a interrupt/mitigation combo to shield, so you have to choose (jsut as wariror does now between dps and healing). I would gladly give up awarness + bulwark and/or rampart as cool downs to get access to somethign like this.

We are a sword and board class, even our icon is the shield. Our relic comes with one and its the biggest and shiniest part of the +1. Yet, really, I feel like I just carry a sword and nothing else most of the time. "But you block attacks" randomly, with no interaction, and in a way not meaningfully different than parry. Hell, sometiems, it'll even say parry and give you the block animation (which sucks cus I put in the time for my +1 shield and would mitigate more if it was a block). At least in 1.0 we had skills like aegis boon and divine viel that made it feel like our shield was improtant. Now, 2/3 of our shield attacks are fancy animation rare-use offensive moves and the third one is the stun which is so useless I don't even keep it on my main bar. Seriously, other than tanking ifrit, you will never use this skill. Even for mitigation from trash pulls you're better off using swipe and spamming flash.

You're righ to say paladin is fine in terms of its ability to do content. It is incredibly unrewarding though. Hate swaping in Turn 2 and leading the chain pulls in speed runs is the only fun I have as pld--and both of those have nothing to do with playing the class.

All of that said: I do love me some captian america action, but... its acutally pretty much trash. On most real bosses, I'm giving up threat because it takes less than a gcd to move into range so I'm cliping the first roh combo. Only time I have ever felt "yep shield lob is really the best tool in my kit for this" is picking up the gnats in demon wall. Lob them both, cos, flash, back to dpsing wall. Hell, I usually pull with voke just cus its longer range and doesn't eat up my gcd (I'm aware it only earns 1 threat this way, not worried about htat). And, technically, I guess I use it to pull the third orb in turn 2 cus for what ever reason, he always seems to agro bounce during the pull if i don't (the other orbs don't do this, so idk, maybe i'm just terrible). But I think tha'ts more glitch than actual utility.