Just a thought that came about in general discussion when talking about clemency. The context was nerfing the skill but I quite like it, yet we all know that it's a damage loss so you shouldn't really be using it unless everything is going into the waste bin and you've got to dig deep to pull the crashing plane back. Also it can make healers annoyed as it sort of tells them you've a lack of faith in them.
Obviously adding an oGCD component to the spell would mean you could cast it more without telling your healers you're losing damage to cover their backs but I don't want to see the whole spell become on cooldown exclusively- so that's the thought of this suggestion way off in the future (no need to re-balance/change things now- thinking expansion content). Also I didn't want to see it become too close to simply being oGCD.
The idea here then is to play with Clemency which is forgiveness and divine judgement concept and mix it so it's not a DPS loss (sometimes) but is still a hard castable spammable ability. Here you've a new shield oriented skill come into play.
Judgement (name just a place holder): After being charged up (consumes a minimum X stacks), from another mechanic, the Paladin wraps their sword hand / sword onto their shield with magic sparks flaring off and then the shield floats up above their head with their sword held center of body and pointing upwards- energy tracing up the sword and into the shield. An aura around the shield expands like a holy crown you see in some religions, then doing a downward swing with the sword like 'fire the arrows' / siege attack command you might see in movies (sword out and extended) then the shield and the aura ignite- producing a giant beam (Kamehameha / ion cannon) firing down onto the enemy dealing significant single target damage and moderate aoe damage (with dust, rocks, and beam colliding at location creating kick back waves). Shield magically fades away and reappears at your arm. To prevent animation lock once the shield is in the air it could consider the spell already finished and the Paladin could move around (canceling out the last bit of the animation but if you fill that with another attack it'll look about the same, depending on which sword attack you use- shield can finish it's animation while you run around visually but not mechanically shieldless for a second or two). The wrapping and lifting being rather quick as well, so again you're not locked into place while the boss makes you a floor tank.
In order to load Judgement you have to gain a stacking buff from using clemency, you can only gain this stacking buff once every ~60.5 seconds. Which happens to revolve around your Requiescat recast timer, so ideally you cast one clemency in your instant cast magic rotation but you could hardcast it once at a bit of dps loss instead of a full loss like before (as if instant cast it would only be a gain and if hardcast once Judgement would recoop a little bit of it). If concerned could make the cycle longer (every other magical cycle at a 2 minute cooldown, which would mean the spell has excuse to be super epic looking), but also wanted to add is casting clemency is a DPS loss until you fire off Judgement and some of that DPS judgement does is just catching up on your loss, while other tank's ogcd heals can be weaved in at zero loss. If you wanted to make the mechanic strict support and if there were concerns about Paladin's survive-ability jumping due to self casting a huge cure on cycle the buff could be associated with casting it on other players only (unless you're not in a party, in which case self cast is allowed). Buff name being something related to holy/judgement/mercy- like penance or something. Because you can cast clemency without a boss present the Paladin also isn't ruined if a boss jumps off screen for a while (can just cast it in the down time of the boss).
Another skill could also work with clemency to accomplish this cycle (no stacking between the two skills though, hard limit on how fast judgement builds), like a new group buff Paladin can cast- so Paladin's can see "healers got everything taken care of but I need to build judgement, so lets just group buff instead" (that buff up to you, could be a small group wide shield that lasts a while so it cures less than clemency but can help more into the future, or it could be things like damage reduction/damage buffs).
Might lock Paladin's cure in as the best tank in the game on all accounts (DRK's shield is super spammable, WAR/GNB's is also spammable without loss and is quite nice potency as well, but this change would help Paladin be able to use theirs too and probably change that relationship) yet that would fit Paladin's theme of support and I like to see Paladin's 'tank' like crusader image increase who brings it hard in big build ups like our current huge sword move which I love. Also we have to assume the other tanks will gain things too, so perhaps more vampiric/break-away shields/regens/and other tools for the other tanks so it's not clear when all the dust settles as the other jobs would grow too.
Thanks for reading
Continue reading...
Obviously adding an oGCD component to the spell would mean you could cast it more without telling your healers you're losing damage to cover their backs but I don't want to see the whole spell become on cooldown exclusively- so that's the thought of this suggestion way off in the future (no need to re-balance/change things now- thinking expansion content). Also I didn't want to see it become too close to simply being oGCD.
The idea here then is to play with Clemency which is forgiveness and divine judgement concept and mix it so it's not a DPS loss (sometimes) but is still a hard castable spammable ability. Here you've a new shield oriented skill come into play.
Judgement (name just a place holder): After being charged up (consumes a minimum X stacks), from another mechanic, the Paladin wraps their sword hand / sword onto their shield with magic sparks flaring off and then the shield floats up above their head with their sword held center of body and pointing upwards- energy tracing up the sword and into the shield. An aura around the shield expands like a holy crown you see in some religions, then doing a downward swing with the sword like 'fire the arrows' / siege attack command you might see in movies (sword out and extended) then the shield and the aura ignite- producing a giant beam (Kamehameha / ion cannon) firing down onto the enemy dealing significant single target damage and moderate aoe damage (with dust, rocks, and beam colliding at location creating kick back waves). Shield magically fades away and reappears at your arm. To prevent animation lock once the shield is in the air it could consider the spell already finished and the Paladin could move around (canceling out the last bit of the animation but if you fill that with another attack it'll look about the same, depending on which sword attack you use- shield can finish it's animation while you run around visually but not mechanically shieldless for a second or two). The wrapping and lifting being rather quick as well, so again you're not locked into place while the boss makes you a floor tank.
In order to load Judgement you have to gain a stacking buff from using clemency, you can only gain this stacking buff once every ~60.5 seconds. Which happens to revolve around your Requiescat recast timer, so ideally you cast one clemency in your instant cast magic rotation but you could hardcast it once at a bit of dps loss instead of a full loss like before (as if instant cast it would only be a gain and if hardcast once Judgement would recoop a little bit of it). If concerned could make the cycle longer (every other magical cycle at a 2 minute cooldown, which would mean the spell has excuse to be super epic looking), but also wanted to add is casting clemency is a DPS loss until you fire off Judgement and some of that DPS judgement does is just catching up on your loss, while other tank's ogcd heals can be weaved in at zero loss. If you wanted to make the mechanic strict support and if there were concerns about Paladin's survive-ability jumping due to self casting a huge cure on cycle the buff could be associated with casting it on other players only (unless you're not in a party, in which case self cast is allowed). Buff name being something related to holy/judgement/mercy- like penance or something. Because you can cast clemency without a boss present the Paladin also isn't ruined if a boss jumps off screen for a while (can just cast it in the down time of the boss).
Another skill could also work with clemency to accomplish this cycle (no stacking between the two skills though, hard limit on how fast judgement builds), like a new group buff Paladin can cast- so Paladin's can see "healers got everything taken care of but I need to build judgement, so lets just group buff instead" (that buff up to you, could be a small group wide shield that lasts a while so it cures less than clemency but can help more into the future, or it could be things like damage reduction/damage buffs).
Might lock Paladin's cure in as the best tank in the game on all accounts (DRK's shield is super spammable, WAR/GNB's is also spammable without loss and is quite nice potency as well, but this change would help Paladin be able to use theirs too and probably change that relationship) yet that would fit Paladin's theme of support and I like to see Paladin's 'tank' like crusader image increase who brings it hard in big build ups like our current huge sword move which I love. Also we have to assume the other tanks will gain things too, so perhaps more vampiric/break-away shields/regens/and other tools for the other tanks so it's not clear when all the dust settles as the other jobs would grow too.
Thanks for reading
Continue reading...