Paladin Heals and Stonewill

[Boli32]

 

Demonstration of Faith

Power: 188Casting : 1.38sRecast: 13.2sDuration: 24s

Wards target against 4594 points of all damage

This is with Potency 77% and Ability Mod of 1,821; not enhanced with AA.

Stonewill III

On any combat or Spell Attack this may cast Stonewill on Caster. Triggers about 1.4 times per minute

When Damaged in Combat This spell has has a 7% chance to cast Stonewill on Caster

Wards Caster against 2000 points of all damage.

Two guesses which is my primary source of healing?.. yep you guessed it: Stonewill; in my "tank gear" or at least my defensive gear I have at this point 3 SW3 items and 1 SW2 Item. Tank items are awash with the Stonewill proc... the fighter charm from Master Yael instead of having some cool and interesting proc/effect on ... gives... Stonewill III

In raids where you are hit but not regually I can expect this ward to be up on me all the time even just a single item with the two separate wasy to proc it  I can be expected to be warded for 2x2000 damage with ease in one min; generally more.

In short... one SINGLE PROC wards me for almost the same amount as one of what should be our defining defensive spell... except for this item doesn't require casting (which can be interupted) and doesn't interupt the flow of our personal DPS (hate) Yes I understand that I could cast the ward 3 times in the same duration, but with interupts/stuns and sother fun things happening in raids trying to cast this ward whilst tanking is a joke as its near imposible to do so.

I'm not saying Stonewill should be nerfed... this is just one point of many which shows how far our healing power has gone from useful to not even worth casting beyond incoming and now is outclassed by the items we choose to wear.

We can barely cast our ward whlist tanking due to stuns/interupts etc and its gone within a single hit thast was BEFORE the heal nerf (and yes it was a sigificant nerf) and now items heal for more and are MUCH easier to use.

Can we PLEASE have some redname feedback about what you are doing with the paladin class?

[Camnus]

Think thats the same for all of us Boli.

Even worse when fully defensive and pot is down the tubes.

[Landiin]

It shouldn't be more, because... Your a cleric/fight mix, not a sham/fighter mix. Just saying... But good luck getting a response Boil.

[Boli32]

If they don't want fighters being able to heal why then is it given away so freely on items?

I woudl rather *all* of our heals with the exception of lay on hands to be reworked into "heal like effects" and smaller heal amounts but with scaling built into them so they are effective in raids as well as solo

adding say stoneskins, damage reduction, mitigation increase, health increases, ability which increases the healing power of heals cast on the paladin, ability to protect the group from AoEs, short term immunity to ripostes/strikethroughs/interupts

The list goes on... if you don't want fighters to heal then why do we even HAVE heals and why are items such as Stonewill so abundant. in fact the more mobs I have on me currently the harder I am to kill thanks to SW procs.

You have trivilised the healing power of a paladin as a "but you dont have x y and z because you have heals... andf then make the heals completly redundant.

[Landiin]

I was mainly just making a play on the classes your class was derived from, wasn't really being serious. Now that you bring it up, warding is the absorption of inc damage, it really isn't healing the damage taken and it is the realm of the showman. Being you are a Paladin (cleric/warrior mix) you should have heals but no wards. Now should you get a reduced stone skin from your warrior side, yea i think you should being you get some healing from the cleric side. But then you get wards so there is your's defunct stone skin.

Honestly I think they could bump you guys healing up a tad and your classes would be perfect. But then I don't play one to the level most of you do so I just have a perceived idea of the class from watching some of you play the class. Just like you have a perceived idea how other tank classes work.

[Camnus]

Couldnt finish my earlier post, had to head to work. But anyways the other night doing kenda/pendis hard mode with all points into our wards and in a 16 or so minute fight i took the average of what our self ward actually did. Casting the ward every time it was up, whether i needed it or not, and it averaged a whopping 2322. Yeah thats a defensive feature....Stonewill is pretty much better than all our heals combined.

[rabid.pooh]

Stonewill is the bomb, in the MT group it's usually 4th to 6th place on all my incoming heals depending on the fight and how many items I have on.  So just for a point of perspective here, I have two full time healers healing the bejesus out of me, and it's beating most of their secondary heals.

It's a ward and gets resolved first on incoming damage, so it's going to be up there.  However it's random you can't bank on it, you can't say cast it before a huge nasty AOE is about to hit you like you can Demonstration of Faith.  You can however throw a bunch of Stonewill pieces on and pull a bunch of mobs and solo the library, your DPS just sucks.  Oh wait I can do with that Pally no problem without the SW pieces on, well thats more of a guardian strat I guess.

[Prestissimo]

Paladins simply want their heals to be worth casting, not replace the healer. As it currently stands, their heals at level 90 even with the epic weapon proc up barely makes a half of a mostly if not full apprentice level spells 6 level lower healer in treasured gear with less than 50 aas. Raising all your mitigations by a mere 100 will almost assuredly net in a better survivability result than raising your healing output by even 10% potency. Even cycle stunning a heroic mob that doesn't get stunned easily results in far better survivability than casting paladin heals.

I simply want my heals to do something other than 50%-75% of the time hurting my performance.

[rabid.pooh]

ReverendPaqo wrote:

Paladins simply want their heals to be worth casting, not replace the healer. As it currently stands, their heals at level 90 even with the epic weapon proc up barely makes a half of a mostly if not full apprentice level spells 6 level lower healer in treasured gear with less than 50 aas. Raising all your mitigations by a mere 100 will almost assuredly net in a better survivability result than raising your healing output by even 10% potency. Even cycle stunning a heroic mob that doesn't get stunned easily results in far better survivability than casting paladin heals.

I simply want my heals to do something other than 50%-75% of the time hurting my performance.

I'm sorry I'm confused here, why are you comparing yourself to a healer in treasured gear?  I thought we were talking tanks and stonewill items.  If you want to compare yourself to healer go for it I guess, and then compare yourself to wizard because you have crappy nukes compared to them too, and I'm pretty sure your CA's are totally lacking compared to an assassin.  Or I know how about comparing yourself to something thats comparable, like say other tanks?

I know your stuck in a my life sucks type thing here, but I think the 10% potency is going to help more than 100 mitigation, your welcome to do the math tho, please show your work.  However I'll take a cursory glance at it.

If we're looking at one hit say a 20k hit from an epic mob, with 100 extra mitigation which  I think would add about .2% mitigation would come out at 40 extra HP's mitigated.  Demonstration of faith with the stats Boli32 posted bolstered by an extra 10% potency would give an additional 459 HPs meaning that after 11 hits of 20k the damage mitigated would catch up to the heal.  So I guess it comes down to what comes first the recast on demonstration of faith or the 11 hits, of course you still have other heals you can cast here too with their increased stats.  If we're talking heroic mobs that number mitigated gets a lot smaller and the number of hits required increases.  Generally tho tanks want more mitigation, but if it was my pally I would choose the 10% potency.

Not getting hit by a mob is always going to be better than a heal, so why you wouldn't you stun a mob (more so because most stuns have a damage component as well). 

[Soul_Dreamer]

Boli32 wrote:

 stoneskins, damage reduction, mitigation increase, health increases, ability which increases the healing power of heals cast on the paladin, ability to protect the group from AoEs, short term immunity to ripostes/strikethroughs/interupts

The list goes on... if you don't want fighters to heal then why do we even HAVE heals and why are items such as Stonewill so abundant. in fact the more mobs I have on me currently the harder I am to kill thanks to SW procs.

Just LOL, want anything else, after you finished wanting the majority of the Warriors defensive skills, how about you ask for the DPS of an assassin at the same time.

[Boli32]

The problem(s) with our ward is its

• gone in 1 hit, even in herioc zones - pre nerf it lasted a touch longer but this has always been a problem. If it was a reduced ward but gave a defensive buff for its entire duration it woudl be worth casting as..
• its cast speed is appauling when taken into account the fact we are TANKING mobs. You have to not only deal with being hit (intrupts), status effects on the tank (stifles/dazes/stuns) but also every AoE it seems has an interupt or KB portion meaning attempting to cast it often takes 2 or 3 attempts

Which bring me back up to the stonewill items... the only way DoF wins out over SW items is the ability to pre-cast it... once combat has ben initiated you can expect even a single SW item to outheal what is meant to be our primary defensive buff. This is made even more apparant on raids and in heriocs zones pulling large amounts of mobs.

I have never wanted to be compared to a "healer" or anything; we are a tank which uses heals in our defensive abilities... the fact those defensive abilitys are now outstripepd by Stonewill Items which *any* tank can obtain pretty much nulifies paladins defensive abilities.

[Boli32]

Soul_Dreamer wrote:

Boli32 wrote:

 stoneskins, damage reduction, mitigation increase, health increases, ability which increases the healing power of heals cast on the paladin, ability to protect the group from AoEs, short term immunity to ripostes/strikethroughs/interupts

The list goes on... if you don't want fighters to heal then why do we even HAVE heals and why are items such as Stonewill so abundant. in fact the more mobs I have on me currently the harder I am to kill thanks to SW procs.

Just LOL, want anything else, after you finished wanting the majority of the Warriors defensive skills, how about you ask for the DPS of an assassin at the same time.

All of which were EXAMPLES of what our heals could be changed into:

for example instead of "wards for 3000"

It changes to "wards for 200" heals caster for 20-50 damage every 4 seconds" caster is immunte to interupts for the duration.

reduce the healing power, increase the recast make them cast faster but add effects which SCALE into epic content rather than useless solo/group/raid

[Wasuna]

Get Stonewill items yourself and now you have both.

You still do x2 the DPS of a Guardian and take a hit just like they do.

Just becasue you have heal spells doesn't mean they have to be effective. You take a hit like a warrior (or better). You DPS like a scout (or better) and you want to heal like a healer? Really?

[Boli32]

You seriously do not get the point do you?

I have Stonewill items, 4 of them actually and SoE keeps finding more places to put the ward proc on.

I can spam my ward as much as possible on fights but it does LESS heals/min over the course of a fight significantly less and all it does is reduce my own DPS (hate) as well as cause a lot of frustration in attempting to cast it and become interupted 9/10.

Oh and if a pally can take hits bettrr than a guard then the guard is a very bad player.

We are a class whcih is DESIGNED around, indeed... slated to be a tank with healing abiilties which "make up the difference" between ourselves and warrior based tanking.

Somethign which is mentioned time and time again whilst we search for balance you throw it back in our face that "yeah but you heal"... well this is me and the unspoken majority of pallys who are saying half our abilities are now broken/useless so no.. we do not "heal"; and stonewill items are more effective and provide more healing power than any one of our class spells.

YOU have the best of both worlds now - you have your own defensive abilities, and lots of them and stonewill items which means you also gain the "healing power" of the paladin.

When your entire class "niche" is completly replaced by a single item/proc it is entirely frustrating as devs have admited our heals are BROKEN but have done nothign towards fixing them.

In short:

Stonewill item procs  >>>>> paladin heals

[Wasuna]

I get the point all right. I actually agree that Paladins need some adjustment to your heals. The FACT still remains that Crusaders are the primary choice for MT due to the abilities available to each of those classes.

If your already the best choice for MT then the only way I personally would agree (and yes I know, me agreeing means nothing at all) to have your heals uped is to take away some DPS or survivability.

Fair is Fair. You can't look at heals as heals alone. You keep trying to do that and it's an irrelevant argument. You have to look at the total package when your considering how to balance a class. I don't agree how they balanced Paladins but they did try to look at the sum of all abilities and try to get it closer to the average for Paladins.

[Controlor]

Wasuna wrote:

Get Stonewill items yourself and now you have both.

You still do x2 the DPS of a Guardian and take a hit just like they do.

Just becasue you have heal spells doesn't mean they have to be effective. You take a hit like a warrior (or better). You DPS like a scout (or better) and you want to heal like a healer? Really?

First off (Red): That statement is utter bull. Select fights a crusader MAY do 2X the dmg of a guard. This is just because of LC and nothing more. However if you look at ZW parses for both paladins and guardians they are fairly comparable. Even more so now that they changed how double attack works with offhand. Vast majority of mobs (and even a lot of nameds), if a guardian is not tanking in full dps (duel weilding) they are hurting themselves. So again no Paladins as a whole zone wides do NOT parse 2X that of a guard. And no we dont dps like a scout. Only agian certain fights where LC gives big numbers do you see the "high" dps of a crusader.

Second (Blue): What way are you considering the "taking a hit". Are you talking about sustained damage, if so every tank class (including brawlers) "takes a hit like they do". If you are talking about spike damage (which is where paladins heals are USED for). Than no way in hell do we take a hit like a guardian. A guardian has much higher survivability in the spike damage department than a paladin, even taking in account for the myth buff. This is because all the guardians prevention of damage scales for raid content and can take big hits better than a paladin prewarding for an aoe.

Spike damage is the area we want our heals improved to scale for. For general sustained damage no tank needs to cover heals for that because the healers should easily keep you up. However for spike damage we have no way to offset it really. It was ment to be our heals, but at the moment our heals are so pitiful that it doesnt offset it at all.

[rabid.pooh]

Boli32 wrote:

You seriously do not get the point do you?

I have Stonewill items, 4 of them actually and SoE keeps finding more places to put the ward proc on.

I can spam my ward as much as possible on fights but it does LESS heals/min over the course of a fight significantly less and all it does is reduce my own DPS (hate) as well as cause a lot of frustration in attempting to cast it and become interupted 9/10.

Oh and if a pally can take hits bettrr than a guard then the guard is a very bad player.

We are a class whcih is DESIGNED around, indeed... slated to be a tank with healing abiilties which "make up the difference" between ourselves and warrior based tanking.

Somethign which is mentioned time and time again whilst we search for balance you throw it back in our face that "yeah but you heal"... well this is me and the unspoken majority of pallys who are saying half our abilities are now broken/useless so no.. we do not "heal"; and stonewill items are more effective and provide more healing power than any one of our class spells.

YOU have the best of both worlds now - you have your own defensive abilities, and lots of them and stonewill items which means you also gain the "healing power" of the paladin.

When your entire class "niche" is completly replaced by a single item/proc it is entirely frustrating as devs have admited our heals are BROKEN but have done nothign towards fixing them.

In short:

Stonewill item procs  >>>>> paladin heals

Lol, you are clearly the delusional one here, or maybe you just don't really understand the mechanics of the game here.  Lets look to see who actually will take the bigger hit here.  First off mitigation is a plenty in this expansion and the mitigation advantage of the warrior is very small, every tank is going past the cap of mitigation, but mitigation is contested so for the higher level mobs you still need more...  BUT, mitigation is on a diminishing curve, so while the warrior can get about 1000 (2500 with temp buffs) extra mitigation this is all the top end of the diminishing returns curve.  However I'm feeling generous so lets say the guard has 75% mitigation vs the epic mob and the pally has 70%.

Guardian takes a 50k hit mitigates 75% of it resulting in a 12.5k hit, with the guard mythical of 5% damage reduction which is based on a proc thats up half the time, we'll give the guard 2.5% damage reduction.  So the guard damage reduces the 12.5k by 2.5% resulting in the total damage of 12187.5 damage taken.  Thats it, he's done theres nothing else happening.

Pally takes a 50k hit mitigates 70% of it resulting in a 15k hit, pally mythical gives 10% damage reduction reducing it to 13.5k hit then a 10% heal back from the mythical resulting in 12150 damage taken.  Right there the pally took less damage on the same hit, and I was incredibly generous on the mitigation spread which is more like 1% not 5%.  Now with the pally he's still not done, he has a self regenerating ward for 300 - 350 and the aura of leadership for 875 ish, both which may be up or not be up.  Now kick in all the healing that the pally can do.

More so the guards physical mitigation advantage is completely lost when we're talking all other types of damage, that advantage then goes to the crusader as they can have an additional 2k of elemental, nox and arcane mitigation.  So lets mitigate a non physical hit shall we?  Use the same numbers but reverse them, the guard at 70% mitigation and pally at 75%, quick math same numbers and guard takes on a 50k arcane hit 14625 damage and pally takes 10,125 damage.

Raid wise all heals count, all wards count and they all work together, this is why your shammy and templar both are super high on the heal parse.  While the heal can't 100% prevent all your incoming damage (which it can on a smaller hit, as not all hits are 50k) it works with all the other incoming heals.

I have a pally who's raid geared and I have bezerker and a monk who are also raid geared.  My Zerker has crazy gear compared to the pally, however with the Pally I can duo far more heroic zones with non healer friends than I can on the zerker or the monk bar none, no comparison, not even close, the "pathetic heals" keep me and my partner alive.

The pally is a tank, not a healer and it's abilities are there to help mitigate damage not to save the group.  The job of a tank is to hold agro and mitigate incoming damage everything after that is gravy, this is the design of the class and it's very successful at being this.  I would like anyone to show me where the devs have stated the design of the Paladin class was for a pally to walk into a moderate to hard heroic zone and solo heal a group through it eliminating the need for healers, because before the heal crit nerf thats exactly what was happening.

This QQ'ing about stonewill is asinine it's just another tool that tanks use to mitigate the impact of incoming damage, because other tanks can use it does nothing to diminish your ability to use it and your ability to use your heals, if a guard has 4 pieces of stonewill and you have 4 pieces of stonewill then the guard is still taking more damage!  Once you hit the mitigation cap the only place you can go is damage reduction and healing abilities, since both classes are at the cap why can't they get some healing abilities?  You certainly got mitigation.  

In short:

if you can't see any advantage of augmenting your 4.5k heal with a 2k proc then your beyond help... 

[Kordran]

Boli32 wrote:

I'm not saying Stonewill should be nerfed... this is just one point of many which shows how far our healing power has gone from useful to not even worth casting beyond incoming and now is outclassed by the items we choose to wear.

I always get a chuckle out of posts like this.

Dont be naive, you are effectively asking for Stonewill to be nerfed. You've been playing this game long enough, you should know that when you write something like this, the first instinct for the devs is "yeah, that does seem like Stonewill is overpowered..." and not "we should completely revamp the healing functionality of the Paladin class..." Which do you think is the path of least resistance?

Edit: And if, as a result or just chance, they do end up nerfing Stonewill in the near future, well... what happened to that defiler who got Sacrifice nerfed wasn't pleasant. On the upside, you'll get your very own RaR thread and they do sell name change potions and server transfer tokens on the Marketplace.

[Boli32]

no.. I'm saying that nerfing healing on tanks and then giving stonewill 3 procs on EVERYTHING is just stupid.

And having items which outheals our healing spells is quite frankly rediculous; and the paladins HEALS should be adjusted! - SW items are a good idea... if a tad overpowered at times to assist in soloing for all tanks... where thjey fail is being so much more powerful than abilities we have which are at most a gimic in raids; stupidly power expensive solo, next to useless in groups and are regually interupted.

oh and for the above posters... if you have never EVER tried to cast a ward whlist tanking you'll understand exactly what is meant... and our heals are meant to deal with incoming damage.. but instead of say: guardian sphere (erm the 25% chance ot proc stoneskins on group) we get a group heal, which heals for 3k

so we have a choice between having the chance to stop damage completely.... or a 3k heal which quite franky is laughable when your group have 30k health a piece; and most of the time the healers get there first meaning all you just did was waste power.

[Soul_Dreamer]

An option then would be to make at least some abilities un-interuptable. 

I'm all for Balance but even in their current state Paladins aren't underpowered, Paladins take less sustained damage than other tanks, have great DPS and hate control and are one of the prime choices for the MT AND OT slots. If you really want more damage preventing abilities to handle spikes, or you want the ones you have currently to be improved then you need to loose things in some areas. Be it DPS, Agro control or some of the sustained damage absorption. 

I've got a low end Paladin which doesn't really count but I know how much of a ballache it used to be soloing on my Inquisitor before Steadfast was around, the interupts were painful to say the least.

FYI. 

Stone Sphere will often do nothing, when I use it I see no noticable difference to the group, you've also decided to omit that the recast on your group heal is under 10 seconds, but the recast of Stone Sphere is 3 minutes and lasts 30 seconds. Then what about your group regenerating ward you can spec for? You CANNOT just compare one ability to another, especially when you aren't even comparing everything about that one ability.

[Boli32]

The issue / drawback / benefit with guardian Sphere is to assist your group to survive on AoEs ifI'm right (I can't check right now) but you need to be hit first in order to have the 25% chance to proc the stoneskin. which roughly translates as "you're gonan get hit by the AoE.. but you have a 25% chance to survive the second or the DoT tick.

The reason you see no desernable difference is well... if it works you'll never even notice it.

In contrast our old group heal (when it crit) was powerful enough to "help" top up the group and I enhanced it a lot to do just that; a massive AoE hit and I hit the button... and it gave the healers in my group an extra second to deal with cures and/or use their own group heals to complete the job. Like your guardian sphere  it required the members to be hit first to work only the group was healed up slightly instead of not takign amage at all.

Obviously you are correct in the recast (7.5s vs 3min) HOWEVER this is somethign I have never really sanctioned on the paladin at all.. the recasts on the heals are stupidly low meaning whatever healign benefit we give is  only really effective if you start to spam... this is even more of an issue now that the heals no logner crit andyou need to cast 2-4 heals depending on health to have any desernable benefit from them at all (which incidentlaly costs ~ 1000+ power).

Longer recasts, durational heals which add something more than pure healing in order to scale up to raid content and be useful.

The group heal is a prime example use Guardian Sphere as an example (protect the group/yourself from AoEs) and you can quite easily change it to:

Recast 2m30sDuration 10sCasting 1s (or interuptable)

Increases the potency of heals by 40%* If not a fighter

Cures 110 levels of all hostile effects on termination

A longer recast ability which mirrors the guardian sphere in role... that or protecting the group, but by increasing the healing power of the priests in the group for a short duration and cures the group to assist in curing Dots. GS is more tank related and reduces incomign damage, Prayer of Healing (our group "heal" could be more group protection  related whilst still maintaining an air of healing about it.

The constanrt spam of heals which is required to make them useful is jut sickening and yes... none interuptable heals/wards is every paladins wet dream; because when you relaly want that ward (when you're takign amage and lots of it) it becomes less and less likely you can actually get to cast it!

[Wasuna]

You have to get hit for Guardian Sphere to proc. Then the stoneskin is up for 10 seconds. I'd have to go check but I'm 95% sure that is how it works.

How does that help anybody stop an AoE? All it does it help a bit with a figh that's getting out of hand for the healers. SK's do a lifetap and Paladins cast a ward. Same thing and you can control yours. We can't control ours.

It's not apples to apples.. it's not even the same food group.

I do agree that the change to Guardian Sphere is helpful. For 6 years we have been avoiding that ability due to the instant death that it causes but even at that I only use it when I have a ton of stuff hitting me cause it's a waste any other time. I have gone through named instance fights where it didn't proc a single time in the whole fight and it was up for it's entire duration. Nice ability to rely on!

Guardian Sphere is Stonewill on some juice.. ToS is three hits only which is nice when you can plan it's use. LMS helps a good bit also.

While a couple of those abilities have the ability to focus them at the right time.. none of them will equal the heal parse form a paladin who already takes less damage than a Guardian from Physical hits.

[Boli32]

Guardian Sphere will give a *chance* to help with secondary ticks of any Dots following an AoE.. or if 2 AoEs came close together. I'm not saying its the most fantastic spell in the world for group prevention... but it helps

by contrast pally heals (of which we only have 1 group - the lifetap portion on one of our AoEs does not count) you actually have to take the full brunt of the damage first. Previously the group heal did like guardian sphere did and allowed us to stabilitise the group for the healers.

Guardain sphere however is very effective at reducing incoming damage on the TANK... 25% may not sound like a lot .. but it can be the difference bwteen life and death especially when combined with templar/dirge stoneskins

I'm not saying all pallys or myself want a carbon copy of the ability.. just somethign which helps our group survive the odd AoE better and if SoE do not like us healing so much then changing the group heal to heal like effects or protection will be ideal; obviously significantly increasing its recast to match.

As for the "pally heals"... you have no doubt been shown and found the heal parse thread concerning the "2k/s heals" etc etc.. I can assure you in raids this simply is not possible... a single ability (crusaders faith) is responsbile for those spikes and such spikes only really occur in cella on the final named. I can show you many parses which skew taunts/heals/dps completly in most classes link them in group/guildchat and claim outrageous remarks about any class.

Pally heals as I've shown and I can find you other examples if you wish are not the "wow" you claim... when the majority of my healing is "stonewill" sometimes as much as 50%+ it kind of brings you down to earth as to how much healing a pally can actually put out.

As for the "take overall less damage"; I don;t think that's the case at all... you are comparing the 10% static DR with the 5% DR proc (if you even consider the 10% heal you have seriously got to be kidding me.)

as you said we have heals which we can direct to "fill in" when we take damage spikes.. and yes, that is what they are intended to do... unfortunally the actual reality of them is less effective. and at the end of the day we have to actually take the damage to be healed. With a shield a guard has about as much or close to as much block% as a pally

guard (12+15+10)= 37% - which includes hunker I think you can have a red slot adorn which gives +block% after an attack as well; stagger the two and you have similar block%pally (24+15) = 39%

include defensively minded and guardian's sphere into the equation and you can easily reduce your incoming damage by a further 5-10% especially if you stagger them. or time them with known damage spikes with the addition of your 5% DR proc the actual incoming damage from guards in the end will be very VERY similar to that of a pallys; the difference betwene the two is everyone one of our abilities we just have to suck up and take the damage; guardians avoid it much better which is where our heals SHOULD make up the difference.

Except they do not; and they need to change.

Honeslty 90% of a guardian's problems can be solved with the change of your flurry endline in the guardian tree to say : "35% chance to flurry - if shield equiped in secondary" or just a flat 20% flurry chance; but that's another issue...

[Wasuna]

Sorry, you math says Paladins block more than Guardiand and that is including a short term buff with a red aodrnment applied to actually make it useful. Then you say Guardians are better. I don't get that logic.

All of Guardians short terms buffs outside of defensive minded add physical mitigation and I'm a Legendary geared Guardian that is at the physical mitigation cap so what the heck good does that do? Defensive minded is good stuff but in the end, it's really our only worthwhile defensive buff.

Again, Paladins take less damage over time than Guardians. They do more DPS (anywhere from a little to OMG more with a shield equiped I might add) and they have a self ward that they can recast after a very short time to help deal with spike damage.

Giving Paladins stronger heals without some additional negative adjustments is wrong. You can get (and you said you do have them) stonewill items just like all other fighters so I'm confused how this comparision does anything other than try to get stonewill nerfed.

[Controlor]

Wasuna wrote:

1) Sorry, you math says Paladins block more than Guardiand and that is including a short term buff with a red aodrnment applied to actually make it useful. Then you say Guardians are better. I don't get that logic.

All of Guardians short terms buffs outside of defensive minded add physical mitigation and I'm a Legendary geared Guardian that is at the physical mitigation cap so what the heck good does that do? Defensive minded is good stuff but in the end, it's really our only worthwhile defensive buff.

2) Again, Paladins take less damage over time than Guardians. They do more DPS (anywhere from a little to OMG more with a shield equiped I might add) and they have a self ward that they can recast after a very short time to help deal with spike damage.

Giving Paladins stronger heals without some additional negative adjustments is wrong. You can get (and you said you do have them) stonewill items just like all other fighters so I'm confused how this comparision does anything other than try to get stonewill nerfed.

To answer points 1 and 2:

What boli was saying is this. In terms of sustained damage guardians and paladins (and ALL tanks) are pretty comparable. Paladins have slightly more avoid than a guard, and guards have slightly more mit than paladins. In terms of agro, with the amount of hate increase / transfer. Paladins and Guardians are pretty similar. Guards get more taunts (if memory serves), paladins offset this with dps. It is in the area of spike damage that paladins heals are supposed to be used. Not sustained damage, as i mentioned before, any and all sustained damage healers can EASILY take care of. Spike damage our heals are pitiful and useless in terms of helping with them.

Yes paladins do more dps than a guardian (not the 2x someone claimed), but as Boli mentioned the OMG is only select fights that happened to be designed in a way to have high parses for certain classes. The guild i am in our MT is a guard, and he LOOOVES to link his 87k raid parse being #1 on the parse (beating our top wiz by over 20k). This is only one fight, zone wide he is no where close to that wiz. However he generally 1-2k higher parsing than me (but that is because our OT group doesnt give me too many dps buffs). The point i am making is that check the forums and you will see ZW's are pretty close paladin to guardians, with paladins just taking the edge.

The self ward we can cast costs about 2-5% power to cast (not in game to confirm). And it wards for about 10% health (and this percent goes down the more HP you get). The fact that it has such a short recast means that if we want to get any benefit from it we need to constantly spam that and our single heal. Which as pointed out serveral times is EASILY if not almost ALWAYS interuptable (specially with the aoe's having stun / KB effect on them). All we are asking for is to make our heals useful to do what it is ment to do, deal with spike damage.

Paladins have 5 base heals, 2 additional aa heals, and 1 myth heal. First the myth heal is laughable in how much it heals. Let alone it staying alive in an aoe. 1 of the 2 aa heals is just as laughable. Heals for less than our primary single target heal, and costs more power, with longer recast. WEEE!! The second aa heal is semi useful in that it heals more the more dmg your group does. Though most paladins dont spec it for raids, very situational. Continuing on aa. Besides the 2 aa heals, paladins have 11 that is right 11 aa's dedicated to improving our heals. Which makes 11 aa's prety useless to even spec for because the improvement still doesnt help the fact that our 5 base heals are still not that effective. Take lay hands, 5 min recast, supposed to be a big heal for us, instead it heals for about 10-12k which in raids is about 30% of our health.

There have been a couple of threads on how to improve paladin heals without overpowering them. That is to improve them in such a way that they are useful to cast, but doesnt greatly increase a paladins abilities. Most paladins would agree to increase the recast of our heals (sept lay hands that they just need to turn into a % base heal of over 50%, see monks heal which heals for more than lay hands with faster reuse). With the increase in recast either change them to boost abilities, or increase the heal amount. If you actually look at the math you can increase the reuse high enough, while increasing the heal amount, in such a way that the HPS does not change that much. However the increase heal amount would help deal with spike damage. The "negative adjustment" would be changing the recast on heals.

And no Boli is NOT asking to nerf stonewill, he was mearly using it as an example of how broken paladins heals are. You want more examples fine. SK and Berzerker. BOTH of these classes heal for more than a paladin. SK's reaver heals for 2%+ (with adorn) health for every spell that they cast. That is not including all the lifetap affects on their spells. Zerkers have that one spell that heals them for a lot whenever they take damage. The reaver is to help SK's deal with sustained damage. The berzerkers is to help with both sustained and spike damage. Again both of these classes out heal paladins in raids zone wide. Should we nerf these classes? HELL NO!!! Just because i mention them does not mean i want them nerfed. I am using them as an example that a paladin which is supposed to use our healing to offset spike damage. DOES NOT WORK. Our heals do not offset spike damage, and as a point item procs are more useful in offseting spike and sustained damage than our heals in terms of HPS.

[Soul_Dreamer]

In most posts here Paladins are saying they have more DPS, more Hate, take less sustained damage, and yet you're still asking for better spike handling abilities? If you get it, Paladins will be hands down the most defensive tank while also having some of the best DPS/Hate control of the tanks.***

@Guardians having more Mit.... are you honestly serious, ALL raid tanks are capped and most Legendary geared tanks are capped. The 10% DR you have over a Guardian means you take less damage, this also works on AOE's, ohh then add in the 40% Reduction and 200% reflect from LC for some AOE effect reduction. 

DPS is relatively equal??? Are you forgetting Paladins are doing this with a shield while a Guardian has to give up all uncontested avoidance to get close, this alone isn't even close to balanced.

How exactly do I "Rotate" a buff which lasts 20 seconds and has a recast of 3 mins (Defensive Minded), with one that lasts 40 seconds and has a recast of 40 seconds that starts when the buff drops.. Please, let me know so I can use these buffs rotationally to equal the permanent block a Paladin has.

About increasing the recast and increasing the heal amount.. you're achieving the effect at the top (***). If this happens, being the other defensive tank class I want more DPS, more hate and more sustained damage reduction to balance it out. 

Paladins have everything a tank needs to get the job done and then some in a lot of cases, giving them more Defensive abilities will make some other tanks classes even more redundant than they are already.

[Controlor]

I will say this again. To talk about (Sustained) hate generation and (Sustained) damage is absolutely pointless between guard / pally. Hell the only class that might have issue with sustained hate generation (tank wis) is brawlers. It has been pointed out several times that amends really does not do a whole lot in terms of raid agro. Assassin + Coercer (with aa) = about 41% hate transfered to the tank. Amends would then net 9% hate transfer (at most, vs the 41% it is supposed to give) since cap is 50%. Add in guardians AA for +15% hate trhasnfer and guess what, they are capped at 50% with paladins, so to claim that they have better sustained because of amends is utter bull. In terms of sustained damage again the only class that may have an issue is bralwers but that is because avoid != mit in terms of avoiding dmg. Again sustained damage is not that important because healers can easily cover that. You also keep mentioning that 10% dmg reduction from the myth. That only reduces melee damage, not magical, but that is neither here nor there.

In raiding it is about spike damage / hate snaps. Fact is Paladins are lacking relatively in both departments. They have the fewest number of snap agro of any tanks. Yes there is holy ground but it is only 1 hate position, and that doesnt bring you back from 0 hate to top fast enough, maybe after the mob has killed 4-5 people you would get agro back if you just use that. The only other snap agro they get is Rescue, and Sneering Assault. Both of which every tank class gets. Again as mentioned a number of times in this thread, paladins have less spike damage preventions than guards. I dont know sk's and zerkers well enough to talk about their spike damage prevention.

So no in 2 HUGELY important areas paladins are lacking. To break it down.

DPS: Paladins > Guards

Sustained damage: Basically even

Sustained hate: Basically even

Spike damage: Guards > Paladins

Snap agro: Guards > Paladins

All we are asking for is to put our spike damage back on par to around what it used to be. The dev's have said that it is broken and is trying to balance this. However since that statement they have yet to give further info on how or when. All we want to know is how and when can we expect this obvious issue.

[Soul_Dreamer]

DPS = Hate, or are you confused on that matter, Paladins do more DPS = Paladins have more hate. In the same breath you've just said Paladins have more DPS but Hate is basically even, which just isn't the case.

Fixed Below, seems pretty balanced to me, if anything there are more things the Paladin is better at than the Guardian and yet you still want more.

DPS: Paladins > GuardsPaladins do more DPS, end of.

AOE DPS: Paladins > GuardiansGuardians have 2 Blue AOE's, and 1 Green which has a 2 second cast time, Paladins do a lot more AOE damage.

Sustained (inc) damage: Paladins > GuardsHigher Block, higher % Damage reduction and equal mit on the Paladin means they take less sustained damage.

Sustained (inc) AOE damage: Paladins > GuardiansDue to the above since neither have abilities that transfer well to more mobs on you = less damage inc, where Zerks and SK's this is the case, Adrenaline reduces damage no matter how many are you on, SK's have abilities that lifetap more the more mobs on you, reaver will heal 2% per target (I've been informed) as well and SK's have lots of AOE's.

Sustained hate: Paladins > GuardsDue to the extra damage, for every 1 DPS more a Paladin does they gain 1.5 hatePS over the Guardian due to both being at 50% +Hate and Transfer caps.To Clarify Transfers aside (both have the same potential here and it's not dependant on the tank)If both are doing 20k DPS then both will have 30k hatePS, due to the 50% + Hate mod.If the Guardian is doing 20k DPS and the Paladin is doing 28k DPS then the Guardian has 30khatePS and the Paladin 42khatePS. The 8k DPS gain is a 12khatePS gain over the Guardian.

Sustained AOE Hate: Paladins > Guardians.Same as above.

Spike damage: Guards > PaladinsTower of Stone/Block/Stone Sphere Vs the Paladins Heals, here the Guardian wins.

Snap agro: Guards > PaladinsReinforcement, and the Warrior AA are all the Guardian has over the Paladin, Paladins do have holy Ground but that is AOE and only 1 hate position. The Guardian "Plant" DOES NOT WORK on 90% of raid content, even lots of adds are immune to this target lock ability so it's of limited use.

[Boli32]

Soul_Dreamer wrote:

Sustained (inc) damage: Paladins > GuardsHigher Block, higher % Damage reduction and equal mit on the Paladin means they take less sustained damage.

Sustained (inc) AOE damage: Paladins > GuardiansDue to the above since neither have abilities that transfer well to more mobs on you = less damage inc, where Zerks and SK's this is the case, Adrenaline reduces damage no matter how many are you on, SK's have abilities that lifetap more the more mobs on you, reaver will heal 2% per target (I've been informed) as well and SK's have lots of AOE's.

Higher block% keeps getting thrown at pallys, but count up the numbers block% its 39% bonus vs 37% bonus including hunker and I think to my knowledge hunker down can pretty much be maintained most if not all of the time; plus you can red adorn for an additional block%... in truth gear/group will be the decider here; but you're looking at virtually identical block%

Guardian Sphere, Duration 36s Recast 3min Defensive Minded Duraiton 20s Recast 3min

GS recast reduced by 40s (2m20s); Guards have 20% recast reduction also; in short you're looking at one of these abilities being cast every other min; give or take a few seconds here and there. Especially if you have 1 or 2 items/adorns which help with reuse. So first min GS, second min DM, 3rd min GS 4th min DM.

Both of these abilities are not in a guardian's "spike damage prevention arsenal" but are rotated and staggered so they are up intermitantly. Lets say they both reduce incoming damage by ~ 15% and they are up between then ~ 40% of the time that will reduce incoming damage by ~ 6% overall

Your Damage reudtion proc, no its *not* up all the time, but 2.4x min duration 12s; factor in cast speed, haste and its as close to up most of the time as you can get, epsecially procing immunity to status effects into the equation such as stuns/stifles/dazes. Aura of the crusader may be recast 1min duration 30s immunity.. but you only get the immunity if a status effect is dispelled which renders it near useless in raids. so lets say overall your DR proc gives you 4% DR.

4+6 = 10 which is the same as a paladins static DR

Include your imunity to ripostes into the mix and count it as "equal" to our 10% heal - and that's being generous... my 10% "ubbah heal"... has a hps in most encoutners of less than 10hps - by contrast Riposites from some of the higher tier mobs are brutal.

I'm ignoring mit but in my full raid gear I am *not* at the mit cap on my pally, full T3 geared its close...but no only with sigil up do I pass the cap. In contrast Guards in the same gear generally get to the cap vs 98 mobs most of the time. I'm ignoring it but you're looking at about 0.5% differnce in incoming damage which if you're being picky I could include.

As for splitting up the incoming AoE damage I have no idea what you're trying to prove; no, guards's can't hold agro as well as a pally in AoE circumstances on a raid but I have news for you... on a raid they won't even ASK you to and SK and Zerker completly pwn both of us in AoE agro when it comes down to it.

DM and GS are also not dependant on how many mobs are on you... in fact if multiple mobs are on you for only a short duration then I dunno but I would rather have a 25% chance of Stoneskin whilst being attacked by 20+ mobs for 30s  or even adding a 20% inate dodge chance woudl be kind of handy when they get round the back of me. Add to that with that many mobs the ability to cast heals on a pally is completly redundant.

The thinking that pallys take less incoming damage than guards not including damage spikes (which guards pwn at) is a complete lie when compared to an even halfway decent guard.

The issue here... and always was the issue is that our heals are completly redundant as far as actually doing what they should which is act as our spike damage prevention or something similar and we are outhealed by SKs and Zerkers easily on heals, the monks "mend" heals for more than our LoH (b/c its % based) and has a 3min recast instead of a 5min recast; in fact the only tank we outheal ar guardians... but not by much given the main source of tank healing of late is Stonewill items.

Tanks die from damage spikes not sustained damage at the end of the day but as far as Sustained incoming damage Guard == Pally.

If you have issues with DPS/Agro - which from what you are saying you still need tweaks I suggest your own forum what Pallys have major issues with is our heals or lack of them.

Oh; and if you ever start to say that pallys have "more hate gain/transfer" than guards you seriously need to look at your group setups... *everyone* can get 50% hate gain 50% transfer in a raid MT group.

[Soul_Dreamer]

Boli32 wrote:

Soul_Dreamer wrote:

Sustained (inc) damage: Paladins > GuardsHigher Block, higher % Damage reduction and equal mit on the Paladin means they take less sustained damage.

Sustained (inc) AOE damage: Paladins > GuardiansDue to the above since neither have abilities that transfer well to more mobs on you = less damage inc, where Zerks and SK's this is the case, Adrenaline reduces damage no matter how many are you on, SK's have abilities that lifetap more the more mobs on you, reaver will heal 2% per target (I've been informed) as well and SK's have lots of AOE's.

Higher block% keeps getting thrown at pallys, but count up the numbers block% its 39% bonus vs 37% bonus including hunker and I think to my knowledge hunker down can pretty much be maintained most if not all of the time; plus you can red adorn for an additional block%... in truth gear/group will be the decider here; but you're looking at virtually identical block%

 

Hunker Downs recast starts when the ability ends, so no it cannot be up ALL THE TIME! Recast is 1 min base, usually about 50 seconds or so and the duration can be increased, which doesn't really do much since it also prolongs the time until you can use it again.

27% is the Guardians constant block, I don't even know why you're trying to add onto it all the temporary abilities which you obviously don't know about in the first place. 

Guardian Sphere, Duration 36s Recast 3min Defensive Minded Duraiton 20s Recast 3min

GS recast reduced by 40s (2m20s); Guards have 20% recast reduction also; in short you're looking at one of these abilities being cast every other min; give or take a few seconds here and there. Especially if you have 1 or 2 items/adorns which help with reuse. So first min GS, second min DM, 3rd min GS 4th min DM.

Both of these abilities are not in a guardian's "spike damage prevention arsenal" but are rotated and staggered so they are up intermitantly. Lets say they both reduce incoming damage by ~ 15% and they are up between then ~ 40% of the time that will reduce incoming damage by ~ 6% overall

These are some big assumptions of the reduction they are giving, you've also neglected to mention that DM is an avoidance buff which is next to usless on most raid mobs because of their high strikethrough values. Can I add Legionairs Conviction to these assumptions and add it to the Paladin's incomming reduction, 2 AOE's out of every 9 AOE's with a recast of 2 min 20 give or take. 

DM is also NOT A REDUCTION it's a chance to avoid melee attacks, this won't effect AOE's which are the majority of the mobs DPS. 75% of the time GS won't effect this damage also since that's the % chance of the effect NOT being up for it.

Your Damage reudtion proc, no its *not* up all the time, but 2.4x min duration 12s; factor in cast speed, haste and its as close to up most of the time as you can get, epsecially procing immunity to status effects into the equation such as stuns/stifles/dazes. Aura of the crusader may be recast 1min duration 30s immunity.. but you only get the immunity if a status effect is dispelled which renders it near useless in raids. so lets say overall your DR proc gives you 4% DR.

This isn't even close, the proc is up at best 50% of the time. You're picking numbers out of your backside, I'm a Guardian who MT's raids and has been since DOF. This effect isn't up anywhere near as much as you're assuming. Especially when you consider the mobs it's useful against it doesn't proc if we can't attack at the time, so we can't proc the immuntiy (WHICH ANY TANK CAN GET!) so the DR isn't up.

4+6 = 10 which is the same as a paladins static DR

WOW, your made up numbers equalled that of the Paladins CONSTANT reduction, who'da thunk it, we are even. /sarcasm off.

Include your imunity to ripostes into the mix and count it as "equal" to our 10% heal - and that's being generous... my 10% "ubbah heal"... has a hps in most encoutners of less than 10hps - by contrast Riposites from some of the higher tier mobs are brutal.

LOL, your actually including Riposte immunity because of what, a handful of raid encounters. This is possibly the worst effect on any Mythical buff, Guardians have been requesting for YEARS for it to be changed to something useful.

I'm ignoring mit but in my full raid gear I am *not* at the mit cap on my pally, full T3 geared its close...but no only with sigil up do I pass the cap. In contrast Guards in the same gear generally get to the cap vs 98 mobs most of the time. I'm ignoring it but you're looking at about 0.5% differnce in incoming damage which if you're being picky I could include.

Even our SK is capped against level 98 mobs when in a MT role with Templar + Defiler, I Call BS to this!.

As for splitting up the incoming AoE damage I have no idea what you're trying to prove; no, guards's can't hold agro as well as a pally in AoE circumstances on a raid but I have news for you... on a raid they won't even ASK you to and SK and Zerker completly pwn both of us in AoE agro when it comes down to it.

DM and GS are also not dependant on how many mobs are on you... in fact if multiple mobs are on you for only a short duration then I dunno but I would rather have a 25% chance of Stoneskin whilst being attacked by 20+ mobs for 30s  or even adding a 20% inate dodge chance woudl be kind of handy when they get round the back of me. Add to that with that many mobs the ability to cast heals on a pally is completly redundant.

So I can have 20% dodge every 3 mins for 20 seconds, if any of these mobs are casting anything or do any magic damage of any sort, you can have LC up for longer and it's a 40% reduction WITH outgoing DPS. Again, you can't pick and choose abilities and not others. Both are situational, which is why I said in my other post we're about even because neither class has abilities that transfer into AOE encounters well, Guardians main stoneskins are down almost instantly with more than 2 mobs on them.

The thinking that pallys take less incoming damage than guards not including damage spikes (which guards pwn at) is a complete lie when compared to an even halfway decent guard.

Look at how much Guardians pay for those Spike damage abilities in DPS/Hate/Utility. I just don't understand how you can justify having it without giving up some things for it.

Paladins DO take less incomming damage than Guardian (Besides spikes), it doesn't matter how you scew the numbers or abilities in your favour, requesting more spike prevention will just add another ability to the Paladin that helps to make Guardians redundant. A paladin takes less inc damage, has more hate/dps and better group/raid buffs. You HAVE to pay for this somewhere in an area or 2 or it's just not balanced.

The issue here... and always was the issue is that our heals are completly redundant as far as actually doing what they should which is act as our spike damage prevention or something similar and we are outhealed by SKs and Zerkers easily on heals, the monks "mend" heals for more than our LoH (b/c its % based) and has a 3min recast instead of a 5min recast; in fact the only tank we outheal ar guardians... but not by much given the main source of tank healing of late is Stonewill items.

This issue has come about primarily because SOE have given healing abilities out like candy, in the same way they've given defensive abilities out like candy to the offensive tanks. Further buffing other classes isn't the answer. 

Tanks die from damage spikes not sustained damage at the end of the day but as far as Sustained incoming damage Guard == Pally.

False, even if the gap isn't massive, what abot the other areas a Paladin excels in, I've stated them above. You simply can't have everything. ALL classes need a weakness, without what the hell is the point in even having the different classes.

If you have issues with DPS/Agro - which from what you are saying you still need tweaks I suggest your own forum what Pallys have major issues with is our heals or lack of them.

Every suggestion we've asked for has been ignored OR shouted down by other tanks in the feedback thread we had from a dev, yes Guardians need DPS help but I don't see why other tanks should stand by while Paladins are asking for Stoneskins/Group damage reduction/group AOE avoid/40 f**king % Potency buffs and whatever else you added to your list earlier that you think you need. These changes will just OP the class.

Oh; and if you ever start to say that pallys have "more hate gain/transfer" than guards you seriously need to look at your group setups... *everyone* can get 50% hate gain 50% transfer in a raid MT group.

Where the hell did I say this? Paladins do more DPS, YES. Guardian and Paladin will be at +50% Hate (cap) and +50% transfer (cap) in raids. The EXTRA DPS means you have more hate, plain and simple! Add to that the difference in AOE DPS and you have a huge advantage in AOE Hate (which you said above you've chosen to discount)

Unless Paladins are willing to give something up for Guardian like damage spike abilities then there is NO WAY they should be given them, and this is exactly what you're asking for.