The Paladin Class

Dev-Cole

Dev-Cole

Administrator
Staff member
We are brainstorming all things Paladin.


Post class theme/lore ideas here. What do you see a Paladin as?

Post current abilities/tomes/aas/spells that you feel are garbage and should be deleted forever.

What do you like about a paladin and never want to have that changed?

Link past discussions you thought were good.

How do you feel about stuns?

What are your thoughts on blinds?

Do you have any good ability ideas you want to share?

Let's talk rotation, what is good, what is bad.


Thanks
 
As a guy who used to main a Paladin and still plays one frequently I definitely have some strong opinions about this class.

Post current abilities/tomes/aas/spells that you feel are garbage and should be deleted forever.
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Spells:
The single target undead nukes you get are previous versions of a cleric or a necromancer's, but Paladins are supposed to be the anti-undead class, not them. Why bother having these spells then? The same problem is present with Shadowknight pets, they're just weaker versions of Necromancer pets that are usually green/grey con when you learn the spell and not worth summoning.

Stances:
/s 6 "Stoical Will". Paladins are already immune to fear with an AA, and most mob mez/charm/fear mechanics (think Yclist, Plane of Air, Ulazzaria, Gan Tribe) are unresistable and go right through this "immunity" anyway. At best it's semi-useful in like.. Lair of Paw. At level 45, when you unlock it. When the zone is already turning green con. And on Traekoth... have you seen people doing Traekoth anymore? I haven't.
/s 7 "Lady's Strike". See potential changes near bottom of thread.

AAs:
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I hate this tome. Divine Radiance is absolute garbage. I recommend completely replacing it. Reasons:
- Paladin melee DPS (except pre-nerf boka) is pretty bad, so getting flurries doesn't really matter to them.
- Oh, boy! "Once every 12 hours!" It honestly feels like they had to add the exclamation point in to make it seem exciting, like an ad campaign, otherwise nobody would buy it. This cooldown may get better with rank. I never tested it because it's so bad, because:
- The ability doesn't heal you to full when you die to the undead, only 10% HP!
- If you thought this would still be useful (it might be, if there were more undead raid mobs), it INTERRUPTS YOUR CASTING when it procs. If you have to restart casting your heal when you're at 10% HP, you are dead!
- Best case scenario, this ability buys a healer another half a second, if that.. but you already have GDB, potentially bard Hymn, and at higher tiers Jyre for death saves. Why would you want one that leaves you at 10% HP and only works versus undead? Seems moot. Rant over.

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Holy Constitution pretty underwhelming too - particularly because it doesn't work on HoTs, and because a Cleric's big heal is already so big that increasing it by 8% at max rank would frequently just result in overhealing. 2% per rank also isn't enough to make your 2k single target heal matter when you have 13k HP. This passive ability sounds a lot better in theory than it actually is. See potential changes near bottom of thread.

What do you like about a paladin and never want to have that changed?
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The Group HoT. It's in a pretty good spot and provides solid utility (minor spell mitigation on R2) and saves healer mana. As newer content comes out and tiers increase, could revisit the spell-line and maybe add a newer version so that it keeps up with higher max HP.
Also obviously Lay on Hands is a core feature, can't take that away.

How do you feel about stuns?
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(read the whole thing) Underwhelming because of the very lengthy global cooldown all mobs have versus stuns of any kind, and because a lot of mobs (not just raid mobs!) are immune to stuns. Depending on what I am killing, I sometimes have just the AoE stun up. Divine Stun is good, but some mobs are even immune to that. I don't really feel stuns are a core part of Paladin gameplay anyway, and I've never used them much. However, if you go buffing too many things about Paladins, then Warriors and Shadowknights will be in a bad spot, so I would leave stuns as-is.

What are your thoughts on blinds?
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As a Paladin, with R2 if I want to hold aggro I can definitely do it. That being said, I am otherwise useless when doing so. This playstyle leaves no room for casting any heals or HoTs or stuns (except divine stun between global cooldown), it is just pure aggro. You simply hit R2, load both single target blinds, and rotate between them, also bashing when it's off cooldown and recasting R2 when it fades. This aggro is honestly nearly unmatched, unless you have a Wizard spamming ultimate blast moon comets with all of his burn clickies running, or your Shadowknight decides to cast veil on the melee group with three monks. I am not complaining about how much threat a paladin can potentially generate, but more complaining about how much effort it takes to generate it.

Link past discussions you thought were good.
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(disclaimer: not being serious)
The point is don't overbuff knights because then they will overshadow Warriors. Paladins in particular definitely need buffs and are in a bad spot, but it won't take too much to make them broken, so take all the buffs I suggest with a grain of salt.

Do you have any good ability ideas you want to share?
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- Rework the terrible & hated parry stance (/s 4 "Guarding Blade") into an 18 second cooldown combat ability that automatically parries the next two melee hits when activated (not including Devastating Blows and other special melee hits for obvious reasons, that would be bad!), and rework the Divine Radiance AA line to decrease this cooldown to 16.5/15/13.5/12 seconds.
Reasoning: If you give a class an active ability with immediate and noticeable results, it feels a lot better to play than "oh i randomly parried a hit, maybe that was because of that stance, or maybe i would have parried anyway and this stance did nothing".
- Rework Holy Constitution to increase the Paladin's direct heals by 6/12/18/24%.
Reasoning: Have you ever casted Touch of Vitality on a Paladin because both of your self heals are on cooldown? It's great for the first ~5,000 hit points of raid progression, then after that, a 2,000 HP heal that casts really slow (SK lifetaps are really fast, but Touch of Vitality is extremely slow for the same heal amount) doesn't seem to matter so much anymore.

Things to be done to make Paladin aggro require less effort (thus allowing more time to actually play your class):
- Remove the healing reduction penalty from R2, but make R2 cost significantly more mana (350? 400?). This is a more healthy tradeoff that doesn't gut your class functions just for aggro.
- Make blinds more like SK Terrors - not only do they give hate up front, but also hate per tick. This would allow you to just throw one blind out every 18 seconds, instead of having to load two blinds and chaincast them back to back.
- Rework Lady's Strike stance so you can generate more threat with your melee swings:
-- Make the proc rate significantly higher (maybe scale the proc rate up based on your max HP via script so that it improves with your character's gear. Example: 5% base proc rate +1% per 1,000 max HP)
-- Lower the stamina drain
 
If you have R2 and descending judgment (which somehow was not mentioned anywhere in your post).. and you are still casting blinds on refresh.. I think we've discovered your issue with the Paladin class.

Now onto my opinions..

My biggest issue with paladins is the longer gcd after casting ghots. I also don't understand why there is a longer grey out for self heals (there are some circumstances where you would want to load two self heals on your bar, if it weren't for the long grey-out on the whole line of spells).

I agree that Paladins have some AA's and stances that just simply haven't aged well ( /s 8 anyone?).. and it feels weird that your best tanking stance uses no stamina at all.. but other than these minor issues I feel like Paladins are in a pretty good place so it would be hard to buff them in any way other than situational things (like abilities vs. undead).
 
I have played a paladin very little (mostly because of reasons listed here) but the spells on that class feel like they cast insanely slow after playing a shadowknight (or even using tag clickies on a warrior). Aggro spells should feel snappy and responsive but when i have to spend 1.5s casting a spell to try and pickup threat it feels like im playing the game in slow motion. Self heals are also really slow, playing around r2's mortal strike effect and the 24s CD on blessing of the rose is really awkward.
 
Paladin stances are mostly bad. Any chance of Paladins getting a useful toolkit of Warrior like short CD abilities like the parry thing Ceto suggested? ~4-5 actives that actually do what the current stances claim to do and 2 stances that are useful and on point for the class would be a nice way to polish up both knights.

Long AA timers in general are too long. 72 minute CDs in a video game? Why was that ever a thing?
 
Since I took the time to type up SK stances like no one was asking me to do, I'll expand on the Paladin stances to Warrior-lite suggestion above:

(4) Guarding Blade 20 Puts you into a focused stance, increasing both hate and parry. Very useful when tanking extremely hard foes or swarms of them.
I like Ceto's idea of making this a defensive ability to parry the next two attacks. Short ~20 CD and low-moderate stamina cost.

(5) Cleansing Blades 35 Puts you into a focused state, increasing critical hits veruses all neutral or evil targets.
(9) Althuna's Fury 20 Empowers you with the will of Althuna granting increased damage at the cost of decreased mitigation. Requires a two-handed weapon to be equipped.
Combine these two into the dps stance. Paladins are the bane of evil and undead so let do their thing. I am not learned enough to know how Cleansing Blows functions exactly, but if this could have some synergy with what Paladins are bringing to the group there that'd be cool.

(6) Stoical Will 45 Grants the paladin immunity to fear, charm, and mesmerizing effects. Does not affect unresistable charm/mez.
Is it possible to break a charm/mez? That would probably end up being abusable... how about scrap this idea altogether? Thematically, Paladins could use some kind of ability that enhances their casting/healing. How about being immune to interrupts/stuns for a period of time? Change gears and give some kind of "next heal crits" ability?

(7) Lady's Strike 55 Grants the Paladin an area of effect hate proc. Procs very rarely, does not generate much aggro, drains stamina fast.*
Make this into an ability with a ~30 sec CD and low-moderate stamina cost that is just the aoe hate proc on demand. EZPZ.

(8) Banishing Strike 65 Allows the paladin to land one extremely(capped at 7500) powerful strike against an undead foe, best used with /s 5 for maximum damage. Exhausted for 10 min after use.
This is going to be tough to rework into anything usable that scales well. Either an ability that (a) copy the Warrior ability "Driving Strike" into "Divine Strike" but with twice the damage at three times the cost/cd OR (b) add a -s and make this a short term buff that makes the next X strikes Cleansing Blows- CD and cost tbd OR (c) Undead Nukes hit for X times more damage for the next XX seconds.

Firing off the cuff: new tank stance called "Holy Shield" that increases block chance by X% (better than Defensive Stance, not as good as Vindicator's Stance) and adds either (a) a reactive proc when you block for damage/hate or (2) enhances bash with damage/hate. Low to no drain.

To recap: tank stance, damage stance, avoidance ability, hate ability, damage ability, casting/healing ability, ... oh no, that's one less than I had for SKs. I got it- just copy the Interrupt ability from SKs. That's Knight thing now- on demand interrupts for a very high stamina cost. Hot diggity!

This stuff and mitigating the grating horrors of spell/AA CDs and recasts would be heavenly.

*Whoever thought up "procs very rarely, does not generate much aggro, drains stamina fast" really needs a hug.
 
Obscenitor said:
If you have R2 and descending judgment (which somehow was not mentioned anywhere in your post).. and you are still casting blinds on refresh.. I think we've discovered your issue with the Paladin class.

Now onto my opinions..

My biggest issue with paladins is the longer gcd after casting ghots. I also don't understand why there is a longer grey out for self heals (there are some circumstances where you would want to load two self heals on your bar, if it weren't for the long grey-out on the whole line of spells).

I agree that Paladins have some AA's and stances that just simply haven't aged well ( /s 8 anyone?).. and it feels weird that your best tanking stance uses no stamina at all.. but other than these minor issues I feel like Paladins are in a pretty good place so it would be hard to buff them in any way other than situational things (like abilities vs. undead).
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I haven't played my Paladin in a LONG time, but just to add some perspective: Prior to having R2 and descending judgement, it is a brutal cycle to keep agro. Even after getting descending judgement, which is a game changer but a high mana cost, it can be a brutal cycle to keep agro (especially since when XPing you cannot chain descending judgement on trash clearing due to mana cost.) In my view, the big leaps of agro maturity for the paladin were getting DJ, and then the R2. Before that, you are chaining blinds and stuns.

-Paladin shine once they have all their spells and are AA/Geared out, but the developing players have a miserable time. The large agro fight and dog shit DPS make it a rough life until the character grows balls. I recall levels 60-65 being very difficult, but maybe things have changed. It certainly makes sense to visit the low end paladin (level 60-mid tier).

-I love conduit. It is super cool and allows for some fun play styles. I'm not sure how the new buff changes impacted the spell, but the recharge time, cast time, and duration were kind of sucky. Given the huge mana cost per cast, maybe it makes sense to improve recharge time, cast time, and duration.

-I almost want to see murk spell and R2 switched. This gives lower end Paladin the ability to actually perform their roll in a group with a higher end DPS. That said, taking away conduit from a lower end paladin is a bummer.

-The paladin styles are really really really bad. I like some of the ideas above.
 
OK lets get into some specifics.

Blinds. I have a few dev comments that Re-Blinding feels bad.
1) This is not intuitive and offers confusion to players. (We could fix this by updating spell description)
2) The overwrite is not intuitive, so it is not clearly stated that you cannot begin re-blinding with a second -different- blind at....uh, level 35?
3) Blind basically does not blind or do anything remotely thematic to what people would consider blind.

R2
1) This spell does nothing paladin and is an obvious past "bandaid" to threat

So what do we have.
1) Paladin threat is marginal, not communicated well, and unwieldy. Then you get descending judgement and R2.

Possible design directions
1) shift unbalanced threat off of judgement and R2 into blind/stun/bash/SomeNewDiscipline.
2) What are thoughts on a stronger hate blind that does blind mechanics, but not stackable? (possible free up spell slot)
 
Since blinds do not blind and re-blinding is counterintuitive at best, would it be possible to just rename that entire line to the "Awe" line? The archaic usage, which as an old man I'm accustomed to, is a nice play on the Terrors line. Overwriting, or inspiring different types of awe, would be a lot more intuitive and the spell effects look about right already.
 
Dev-Cole said:
OK lets get into some specifics.

Blinds. I have a few dev comments that Re-Blinding feels bad.
1) This is not intuitive and offers confusion to players. (We could fix this by updating spell description)
2) The overwrite is not intuitive, so it is not clearly stated that you cannot begin re-blinding with a second -different- blind at....uh, level 35?
3) Blind basically does not blind or do anything remotely thematic to what people would consider blind.

R2
1) This spell does nothing paladin and is an obvious past "bandaid" to threat

So what do we have.
1) Paladin threat is marginal, not communicated well, and unwieldy. Then you get descending judgement and R2.

Possible design directions
1) shift unbalanced threat off of judgement and R2 into blind/stun/bash/SomeNewDiscipline.
2) What are thoughts on a stronger hate blind that does blind mechanics, but not stackable? (possible free up spell slot)
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If we are set on tuning runic 2, I think what might make the most sense is scaling back the aggro mod but keeping the dmg mod % (if aggro is getting re-balanced elsewhere as you suggest). It truly is a Paladins only augment to DPS (esp. with a 2 hander). Warriors get juggo/reckless, and SKs just naturally add more DPS through their lifetaps and spears. Also not sure I agree about it not doing anything "Paladin-like" since it is the culmination of the yaulp line of spells in a way.
 
Hi everyone, Romulox the Paladin here.

docs.google.com

Paladin Class Updates

PLAYER ASSISTED DEVELOPMENT - May 27th, 2021 Paladin Class Submitted by: Romulox Class Discussion Thank you SoD staff for allowing players to voice opinions on the Paladin class. I am absolutely addicted to playing the Paladin, I feel it is a real struggle, yet holds amazing rewards at the s...
docs.google.com docs.google.com

Thank you for the opportunity for player input.

Romulox - High Knight of <Resurgum>

----------- Link contents.

Class Discussion​

Thank you SoD staff for allowing players to voice opinions on the Paladin class. I am absolutely addicted to playing the Paladin, I feel it is a real struggle, yet holds amazing rewards at the same time.



---Post current abilities/tomes/aas/spells that you feel are garbage and should be deleted forever… (Or perhaps just a rework would do.)

The Paladin class is really well made on Shards of Dalaya, when compared to Paladin’s I have played on Live EQ. I really enjoy being a holy knight, but perhaps a few tweaks to current abilities would help more than just trash canning the ability as a whole.


I feel that Divine Radiance needs some work. The flurry effect seems rather unsatisfying when I hear the rush of air sound trigger. Paladins should be able to crit undead harder, especially since we are the masters of Undead slaying. Here is my proposal.

Divine Radiance (AA) - 4/4 Each rank doubles the cleansing blow damage of the paladin against undead foes. The flurry component is removed, but the rate of flurry at rank 4 is now a 5x crit vs the undead target. Only the Paladin will benefit from this tome, while still granting his group members to critically strike the undead. Death Save chance has been removed.

Why do we need this?

Well, if a Paladin can grant others the ability to critically strike an undead target, should we not be more adept at it? I remember on live, the advantages of using a 2 handed weapon to slay undead via discipline, and a slower weapon (with a decent ratio) was preferable due to the weapon’s damage bonus.






---How do you feel about stuns?

Remove the cap of 6 targets on Aoe Stuns. Word of the Crusader should actually stun targets for 8 seconds (Group content)

Also, why are stuns so diminished here? I understand that Stunlocking something could be too powerful on a 6 man mini or raid boss, but why can we not reliably stun group content to mitigate damage? Between Descending Judgment and Divine stun, using The Paladin Words of Thunder and Words of Tranquility seem rather pointless.

---What are your thoughts on blinds?

Remove the cap of 6 targets on AoE blinds.

Turn Blinds into a Hate DoT that ticks +Hate and a debuff like -Accuracy etc.

---Do you have any good ability ideas you want to share?

Paladins need the ability to pick up an enemy reliably should another tank happen to fall during battle. Recently when fighting Taeshlin in prison (t13 version), we had our dragon tank die and I had to go from placing the Goops around the room to trying to pick up the dragon itself. Even with Runic: Zealous Might, the Nalansar Clicky and a 2 handed sword and taunt abilities I could not establish hate on the Dragon. Paladins need a reliable taunt with a cooldown that actually works in a pinch.

This is my proposal.

Lady’s Strike - (/s 7) - Stance converted to an aa Ability that deals a stout blow to your target forcing them to turn their attentions onto you. Brings the paladin to the Top of the hate list +1 upon initial strike and adds +1000 aggro per tick (before modifiers) for 4 ticks. 15 minute cooldown, cannot be resisted / avoided or affected by counterspell.

Why do we need this?

Paladins need a reliable Snap aggro taunt. At the current time, it feels like one needs to remain on a boss and balance aggro carefully without trying to tip the scales and that our DPS is limited because constantly using Zealous Might can bring unexpected target changes to the healers.

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Paladins need a good DPS stance.

I propose this ability to replace Althuna’s Fury, (aka /s 9)

Knight’s Advantage - Actual DPS 2-Handed stance, allows triple attack at Knights Offense rating (skill 245), lowers aggression by 40%, lowers Armor class by 750 (Basically a trade off for defensives, to do improved dmg) Item procs are increased by 15% (Tears of the crusader proc rate is not modified by this stance) (Not usable with Shield flagged 2 handers such as Jyre) Uses current stamina cost and upkeep of Althuna’s Fury

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Paladins could use a real “defensive stance”

My suggestion...

Knight’s Shelter - (/s 4) - The Paladin takes a defensive stance increasing physical and spell mitigation by 10%. This ability uses the same current stamina cost as Guarding Blade.

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Here are a few more ideas to Modify the current spell set.

Spell: Althuna’s Conduit - (No longer overwritten by or affected by Relic: Blades of War --stacking issues--) Duration (Permanent) 10 mins to align with buff changes. Lowers the cost of all heals by 25% before modifiers, Increases casting speed (Beneficial) by 50%, and increases effectiveness of Heals (Beneficial) by 50%. Casting cost of 2000 and 30 seconds are unchanged. No longer overwritten by Runic: Zealous Might, but will not stack.

Descending Judgment (Mana cost reduced by 50%) - 3 tick +500 hate DoT added. Damage Reduced by 25%. Does not trigger GCD. Rain now hits 4 targets per wave.

Runic: Protective Lustration, recast cooldown removed (One paladin can serve multiple groups), overwrites cleric/druid ghot. Duration increased to 36 seconds (up from 24 to negate server tick and early wearing off)


---Let's talk rotation, what is good, what is bad.

Spell rotation seems to depend on a mob’s resist set. Rather than having to swap spells to counter fire resist with the 65 blind, versus using the earlier Flame of light, how about making Blinds irresistible and making the taunt button actually work on this server VS a target that is above the Tank’s level. This can be tied into the Weapon Shield class AA.

The Taunt ability when used by a tank should be powerful and allow for proper tank swaps. The Sharn’Ree encounter is a great example of tank swapping with the Disarm ability.

I feel that maintaining hate is a constant battle and it cuts into my other abilities.
 
I’d love to see a change with Spell: Taraztu's Healing Flames. Perhaps I’m alone in this but considering how awful it can be to get, a 1005 base self heal with a 5 minute cooldown is underwhelming. Often times the long cooldown keeps it from getting a spot on my spellbar.

perhaps a self only HoT with a more standard cooldown…
 
Taunt definitely needs to do more than top agro+1 if you are trying to pull a mob off someone that is DPSing some classes could easily take the agro lead back before you could do anything. taunt should give you a big enough lead to give you a at least a few seconds of agro over someone that DPSs harder so you have time to use an ability to secure it and to see that the taunt actually worked.
 
Could taunt be changed from "top aggro+1" to "top aggro*1.1"? Even *1.05 would give a buffer so aggro isn't so millisecond-y in a game that is more 6 second-y.

That and/or, since I know everyone is just gushing - telling their hair dresser, postman, and everyone- about changing stances to mirror Warrior(lite) with actives, what Romulox suggested (minus the AA part and annoyingly long CD) for "Lady's Strike" would fit right into that design.
 
donfolstar3 said:
Could taunt be changed from "top aggro+1" to "top aggro*1.1"? Even *1.05 would give a buffer so aggro isn't so millisecond-y in a game that is more 6 second-y.

That and/or, since I know everyone is just gushing - telling their hair dresser, postman, and everyone- about changing stances to mirror Warrior(lite) with actives, what Romulox suggested (minus the AA part and annoyingly long CD) for "Lady's Strike" would fit right into that design.
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Maybe taunt skill / taunt mod would just add extra hate whenever a "taunt ability" happens, so instead of top aggro + 1 its top aggro + taunt skill * level based modifier + taunt equipment modifier % * calculated value?

This keeps extra value on warrior taunt and also lets taunt skill items increase buffer aggro, regardless of the taunt method / class.
 
The Taunt skill, in theory, is fine as implemented, but it just needs to actually be able to land. Every tank should have the ability to maintain aggro after a successful taunt, but I haven't actually seen a mob turn to me after a taunt in longer than I can actually remember. I suspect the great differences between Taunt skill level and mob level (speaking of raid mobs here), cause taunt (much like bash) to go from 'useful skill' to 'thing I take off my hotbar because it never actually lands'. The same way weapon accuracy tanks on red mobs, I suspect bash also does (correct me if I'm wrong about this). Do any tanks actually use it over just spamming actual aggro abilities that actually add hate 100% of the time, instead of taunt which might or might not pop you to the top of the list (but mostly not).

This actually touches on another note. Knight combat skills (both pally and Sk, also technically ranger), offensive and defensive skills both: all weapon skills, parry, dodge, riposte, offense, TAUNT, and disarm (which makes one fight mechanic in Bloodstorm undoable by knights), all cap lower than 250 (which a warriors cap at), causing a pretty big rift in damage output and defensive skill chances vs higher level mobs.

If the wiki is correct, knights taunt skill caps at 200 and warrior taunt at 250. (I am at work so cannot check), which is a huge rift if the check is checked versus mob level at all.

FAKE EDIT: Reading about how taunt works in 1999, MAY shed some light on how it MIGHT work here (or not, it is obviously a different server), but regardless, I would love some concrete info on how it works here, or how it is supposed to work.

For those interested, how it, in theory works on 1999 and live to an extent. https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96
In the thread linked above, it also notes, that at one point (this is a thread from twelve years ago) taunt appears to have different effects on yellow/red con mobs. I wonder if that code has been looked at in forever. It all could just come down to knights taunt capping so low.

I can say my antecdotal experience is that taunt almost never goes off, and failing it never seems to add any passive aggro either.
 
Wasn't sure what thread to put this in because it applies to all tanks really.

Spamming pure threat spells generally doesnt feel good as you don't really get any feedback from them. Doing it at the start of a pull is fine / expected, but blasting terrors / blinds when you're 5 minutes into a fight just doesnt feel good and a lot of the time you don't even know if you're doing something useful due to the binary nature of threat. To elaborate further, as long as you maintain enough of a threat lead that someones next action won't put them in range to rip aggro or the mob won't flip on them when you leave melee, it doesn't matter if you maintain that lead by 10 hate or 10 million hate because the gameplay result is effectively the same.

Part of what makes blasting pure threat feel so bad is that its often competing with other choices that just feel better to press / are more versatile. If blasting threat spells didnt have the opportunity cost of casting your defensive / healing spells, it would feel much better. Warriors and Shadowknights both have ways to do damage, generate threat, and heal themselves at the same time by virtue of bloodlust / lifetaps, paladins don't really have an analogous ability. The thing that comes closest in my mind is the Divine Stun AA, which frankly is one of my favorite paladin buttons to press. Its low cooldown, not on the GCD, generates threat, and stuns the mob which reduces incoming damage.

tldr; being forced into casting too many spells that generate hate feels bad because it takes away from your ability to press self healing / damage / utility buttons, also clutters your spell bar.
 
In regards to Tevinter's excellent point above, was the [expletives deleted] nerf to paladin heal aggro ever undone? Having loads of aggro from a paladin doing what a paladin is supposed to do seems like a no-brainer. Heal aggro + R2 = situations where a player actually has to think about how they want to do things (CBA) instead of spamming the same few keys all day every day. That's a good thing.

I was talking about paladins with some nerds and it got me thinking about the stance/discipline changes I proposed above. Here's a better version:

NameLevelCostDescription
Holy Strike518-25%[Remix the Warrior ability "Driving Strike". More damage on a longer CD? SK's can get "Unholy Strike".]
Stance: Rom's Fury15trickleActual DPS 2-Handed stance: increased damage of s/9; increase triple attack chance by [Offense/10]; lowers aggression and AC by 40%; procs increased 15% (Tears of the crusader proc rate is not modified); Not usable with Shield flagged 2 handers such as Jyre +increased crit to neutral/evil targets... okay, maybe not all of that, but most of it!
Ceto's Blade2510-20%Parry the next two attacks (not including special hits). 18 second CD.
Banish Evil3525%?The next undead spell deals X times more damage and generates Y times more aggro.
Thunderous Strikes4515-35%Grants an large pbaoe hate proc on all attacks for the next 10-20 seconds.
Lady's/Althuna's Grace5550%?Increases critical heal chance by 100% for X seconds.
Stance: Divine Shelter/Bulwark65trickleThe Paladin takes a defensive stance increasing physical and spell mitigation by 10%.

Notes:
  • The goal here is to remix the broken/forgotten stances into more flexible and on demand abilities while highlighting what makes a paladin a paladin.
  • Every 5 levels because it looks orderly and gives steady progression.
  • The first two are to help accelerate leveling a low damage class.
  • By Undead spells I mean these bad boys. Consecrate as it is so wildly out of line with the rest of the crappy undead spells that the X and Y are going to be tricky. Maybe Paladins could get a good single target undead spell? A low level AoE (maybe at level 35?) would also be nice. Think how much fun King's Pass would be!
  • Moved Lady's Strike to 45 (and copied 5e name because Lady's Strike is a... awkward name) to spread the aggro love, since at 55 paladins get Righteous Might. Speaking of this spell, is there any reason this was not named "Righteous Yaulp" as it is an extension of that line as Bango pointed out?
  • I redid the heal idea several times because scaling is a bit tricky. Ended on a prohibitively high stamina cost and leaving the duration up to someone else to figure out.
  • I think the tanking capstone is reasonably equitable to Vindicate Stance. I also think it would be GREAT if all capstone tank stances could have an aggro damage shield added to aid with the general problem Tevinter described with aggro management.
  • Names and exact numbers are... placeholders. Credit to Ceto, Rom, others for your great ideas!


Edit: I left cooldowns (CDs) off most abilities because my take on CDs is not in line with what seems to be the dev mindset on SoD. For example, Lay on Hands being one in game day (72 minutes) harkened to D&D which is nice I guess, but on the other hand SoD uses a wildly different action economy to D&D so it is (in my opinion) reaaaaaaaly poor design (if the goal is enjoyable gameplay, not subscription $) to have a one hour+ CD. You can engage in more combat in 72 minutes of SoD than in months of D&D. If every long CD in the game was reduced by 50-75% the only impact would be less waiting, more fun. There is no monthly subscription so do away with the psychological must-play-longer hooks skillfully inserted by Sony (or Verant or whoever).
/rant over.
If I had to throw out some numbers I'd say Holy Strike = ~60 sec; Banish Evil = 120 or 240 seconds (align with Consecrate CD); Thunderous & The Lady's Grace = CD matches duration, let stamina cost (which probably needs adjusting) be the limiting factor for each of these.
 
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