??? Is there supposed to be content, or,just an outlawed ne at this point? Looks promising.
@shazza53 Its all there, click on the dots in each section, its really long though so I put it all in spoiler tags, to make it easier to scroll through.
Thanks! (Doh...). I can now read your excellent guide and very much appreciate the effort you put into this. (ps - my original post was supposed to say "just an outline," not "outlawed ne..." Not drunk, just a case of iPad autocorrect ignorance).
First and foremost, this is overall a fandamntastic guide and clearly took sizable effort to assemble. Well done.
While there are small parts here and there that I do not entirely agree with they are, on the whole, nitpicky.
The one aspect that is not however is Prism.
I absolutely agree that the damage boost and general functionality of prism is amazing. However so too potentially is the lag, even in 5 man content and potentially catastrophic in raids. Given that this is a PvE guide SH dragons, demogorgon, and tiamat are all worth considering. You're play is absolutely crippled if you can not use dailies for fear of lagging out the raid and constantly respeccing to remove prism when it's lagging people out is impractical.
As much as I love prism I leave it off my feat selection on both my tank and healer. My personal massive dps boost from it is not worth ruining the enjoyment of the game for others. I feel it's a bit of mistake to recommend others to use it in their builds.
Regardless, great guide. I might make some comments on the nitpicky details later.
I agree the lag sucks and everyone I run with find it hilarious but also at times bad, like when everyone in my guild decided to run the same build as me and the same skills at the same time... I think neverwinter needs better servers to accommodate it.
That lag though has at times made content a breeze to get through in 5 man dungeons.
Your comments on Impassioned Pleas are interesting, did you just use at-wills? Encounter powers grant Divine Call, some more than others, so it is possible that Impassioned works with that feature.
Anyway here is the feat structure I am thinking of/experimenting with at the moment if Impassioned Pleas fails:
You can put the 3 points in Wrathful Strikes into Impassioned Pleas or Light's Shield.
Also in your current builds in the light tree you have Light Touched instead of Warrior's Bastion. Light Touched should only work with Cleansing Touch, which you basically never slot as a Protection build. Warrior's Bastion on the other hand boosts the defence value of your gear by 10% which is pretty much always useful. Its hard to leave that 10% behind.
In contrast the extra control strength (Templar's, Burning and RA all benefit), Flash of Light and Radiant Champion are more beneficial to the party as a whole, and arguably more beneficial for you in solo play as well (similarly with Wrathful Strikes and Exemplar's Haste back in the Heroic feats).
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
Your comments on Impassioned Pleas are interesting, did you just use at-wills? Encounter powers grant Divine Call, some more than others, so it is possible that Impassioned works with that feature.
Anyway here is the feat structure I am thinking of/experimenting with at the moment if Impassioned Pleas fails:
You can put the 3 points in Wrathful Strikes into Impassioned Pleas or Light's Shield.
Also in your current builds in the light tree you have Light Touched instead of Warrior's Bastion. Light Touched should only work with Cleansing Touch, which you basically never slot as a Protection build. Warrior's Bastion on the other hand boosts the defence value of your gear by 10% which is pretty much always useful. Its hard to leave that 10% behind.
In contrast the extra control strength (Templar's, Burning and RA all benefit), Flash of Light and Radiant Champion are more beneficial to the party as a whole, and arguably more beneficial for you in solo play as well (similarly with Wrathful Strikes and Exemplar's Haste back in the Heroic feats).
@obsidiancran3 I have tested on encounter powers and at wills and it always takes the exact same number of at wills/encounter powers to go from no pips to all pips. If you like, I can expand on my testing method and you can repeat my testing for yourself, impassioned pleas does nothing though. To be honest though, I think most people were running it because they assumed it worked, rather then because they had tested it.
Also, I have updated my Bulwark section because you are correct about cleanse and the ap gain from heals, however, prot has so much power that aura gifts is hard to not take and so I moved 1 feat down.
Cool, it just wasn't clear about Impassioned in your initial comments. Definitely need to respec out of that then *sigh*
My biggest problem right now is that to test I really need to run T2s, because hitting Target Dummies doesn't give enough info (AP gain being partially tied to damage taken and ease of dungeons with Aura Gifts vs Without being the 2 main issues outside of survivability).
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
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kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
@thefabricant Best OP in the game. This guide is awesome! Thank you for all the time you have put into this.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
I was going to try and upload this to MMO minds but you know what, they use different formatting to arc and I really do not want to spend another 6 hours getting the formatting the way I want it. If anyone here knows someone I can get in touch with to help me with that, please let me know
thanks again for taking the time to make such a comprehensive guide. Definatly well worth a read for anyone who plays, or is thinking about playing an OP
You're wrong about Shielding Strike. That shield is VERY significant in T2 dungeons, once you have three stacks.
You're also wrong about Bane. It gives a 30% damage debuff that your WHOLE PARTY can take advantage of. Absolutely essential on bosses and dragonflight.
And you're wrong about Relentless Avenger. That knockback makes it absolutely infuriating for any party that relies on any sort of AOE, which is every party that knows what it's doing.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
You're wrong about Shielding Strike. That shield is VERY significant in T2 dungeons, once you have three stacks.
You're also wrong about Bane. It gives a 30% damage debuff that your WHOLE PARTY can take advantage of. Absolutely essential on bosses and dragonflight.
And you're wrong about Relentless Avenger. That knockback makes it absolutely infuriating for any party that relies on any sort of AOE, which is every party that knows what it's doing.
@holeypaladin With regards to shielding strike: Do you really need the shield? You can easily stack 80% dr in mod 8 and with current levels of survivability, would you not rather gain the benefits of say valorous strike>
With regards to Bane: Lets take a 2k prot paladin as an example here, he probably cannot keep up a bubble if he does not have another ability for AP gain. Bane is not that other ability for AP gain, but other abilities are. It is not as essential for devotion, true, but for protection, up till like 3k ilvl +snail +other AP gain stuff, you probably can't keep bubble up personally without a snail dc, whilst using bane and would you rather have a bubbled group, or would you rather have the extra damage.
With regards to RA: There is no way your 1.6k ilvl prot paladin can keep up a bubble without it. You might dislike it at end game and true, once you got enough AP gain to sustain your dailies without it, you should definitely drop it, but guess what, I would rather have random paladins with poor gear reading this guide and seeing that relentless avenger is good for them if they can't sustain their bubble, then using it, then having them not sustaining their bubble at all. Your dps = 0 while you dead and yes, whilst a proper group can get away without perma bubble (I tanked 3 man eGWD on my dev pally) not everyone can rely on running with good players, some people pug (as sad as it is) and those people need every darn tool they can get.
Considering Bane: There are times when that is a great option to slot instead of something else. When you find yourself in a Raid - Tiamat or Demogorgon - the stages where you fight Demogorgon or his annoying, charging friend, slotting Bane vastly outweighs the loss of AP Gain, especially so for the Devotion-minded amongst us.
Also, I wanted to make a note about Burning Light. Burning Light stuns a mob every 0.5 seconds. This is an excellent CC-tool during a dungeon run or in most skirmishes. However, in the newer skirmishes, you sometimes require mobs to continue their actions - think the Thoon Hulk in the Throne of the Dwarven Gods - and slotting Burning Light can be a liability, as it will stop the hulk from completing his charge. I don't often run Relentless Avenger anymore, because I'm perfectly capable of firing dailies back to back, but I think the same would go for Relentless Avenger.
On the subject of Relentless Avenger: Knockbacks have always been a source of great frustration for people. A Control Wizard would jump in, fire Oppressive Force, only to have a Cleric use Sunburst or a Paladin use Relentless Avenger. I get it, that's annoying. However, like @thefabricant, I'm persuaded that - in the case of Relentless Avenger - the positives outweigh the negatives. One way to combat the negative effects of Relentless Avenger is to communicate. Explain why you're using it, and press the point that you're the first to engage. Relentless will build AP, scatter the mobs, and they will bee-line back to the Paladin, who is probably under the effects of Binding Oath, Divine Protector and any other defensive buff anyway, at which point people can go to town. It's a case of keeping that daily or your encounters in your pants for 1 more second.
Sure, the communication can be tricky in PUGs, and I've heard of people getting kicked from them for using Relentless. So pick your battles. If the group you're with are people you know, or if the PUG is of a slightly higher quality than your standard PUG, you'll be able to try it.
Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Protection Paladin
We have looked into reports of players experiencing connection problems and have been unable to identify any server, data center, or client-side issues. We believe this may be ISP related.
The people that get frustrated with Relentless Avenger are typically the ones not letting the tank go in first (that is the tank's job) From my experience running in guild and in PUG's is the GWF's are almost always the first ones charging in ahead of the tank and then complain when you use RA for AP gain (because we all know it is all about them) They are ignoring the party dynamic and the proper way to run dungeons because they are always in a rush. Just my $.02. One way to keep them from whining is that I tend to not use it unless we are fighting a boss or tougher mob. Think Driders on eToS , and the 3 demi-bosses there. Regular mobs I dont use it unless I start seeing squishy GWF's start dropping.
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lanalanlan1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12Arc User
If you use RA and time it, you will gain AP and won't HAMSTER everyone off. OP heal has luxury of using it on party member while walking from mobs to mobs. If you are OP tank, you can run and rush in first with one burst, it won't matter much. While fighting, aim your RA to a stronger mob and time it when little ones are about to die. Once you burst, little one dies and big one will not get push away. Try not to waste daily if you see only one or two mobs left. I see a lot of OP tank waste DP when there are only 1-2 mobs left. Then they run out of DP for the next group of mobs. Then they have to do bursting twice to gain AP back. By that time, other party member already get in and fight mobs and will be annoyed by the bursting.
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maximusretlavMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10Arc User
Many thanks for this guid you maid me to take my dev from the parking , i was able to play again with the op because your guide and level up from 20 to 70 in a few days , and now with IL 2.7 and done all t2 without any problem , thanks again for the update i will test an leave a comment.
One more question wat you said about the patch-notes above :
Many thanks for this guid you maid me to take my dev from the parking , i was able to play again with the op because your guide and level up from 20 to 70 in a few days , and now with IL 2.7 and done all t2 without any problem , thanks again for the update i will test an leave a comment.
One more question wat you said about the patch-notes above :
You're wrong about Shielding Strike. That shield is VERY significant in T2 dungeons, once you have three stacks.
You're also wrong about Bane. It gives a 30% damage debuff that your WHOLE PARTY can take advantage of. Absolutely essential on bosses and dragonflight.
And you're wrong about Relentless Avenger. That knockback makes it absolutely infuriating for any party that relies on any sort of AOE, which is every party that knows what it's doing.
@holeypaladin With regards to shielding strike: Do you really need the shield? You can easily stack 80% dr in mod 8 and with current levels of survivability, would you not rather gain the benefits of say valorous strike>
With regards to Bane: Lets take a 2k prot paladin as an example here, he probably cannot keep up a bubble if he does not have another ability for AP gain. Bane is not that other ability for AP gain, but other abilities are. It is not as essential for devotion, true, but for protection, up till like 3k ilvl +snail +other AP gain stuff, you probably can't keep bubble up personally without a snail dc, whilst using bane and would you rather have a bubbled group, or would you rather have the extra damage.
With regards to RA: There is no way your 1.6k ilvl prot paladin can keep up a bubble without it. You might dislike it at end game and true, once you got enough AP gain to sustain your dailies without it, you should definitely drop it, but guess what, I would rather have random paladins with poor gear reading this guide and seeing that relentless avenger is good for them if they can't sustain their bubble, then using it, then having them not sustaining their bubble at all. Your dps = 0 while you dead and yes, whilst a proper group can get away without perma bubble (I tanked 3 man eGWD on my dev pally) not everyone can rely on running with good players, some people pug (as sad as it is) and those people need every darn tool they can get.
Your focus seems to be primarily on helping low geared players survive and tank.... alright then. Regarding shielding strike... it is absolutely necessary for a low geared tank, and very useful for any tank. Because it doesn't add DR, it adds a shield, which absorbs damage. All those 0s you see popping up from incoming damage are a result of shielding strike... it softens the heavy blows and completely negates the light ones. The extra 5% DR from valorous strike doesn't even compare.
You're right that Bane doesn't help with AP gain, but it does help with survivability in general. Softening up those boss hits by 30% is incredibly useful. Combined with shielding strike and 80% DR, and the boss is simply love tapping you... you don't even need DP up in that situation. It's more useful for higher geared paladins of course, since it speeds up boss fights by a great deal. And for Demogorgon, I would say Bane is essential in phase 2 and 3, because of timed DPS races. Same in Tiamat.
RA is just... one of those things that I'll never ever agree with. I like my CC and AOE too much, and there's nothing more frustrating for a HR or CW than to use their control spells to group the trash together only to have the paladin scatter them to the winds.
Then again, I also speak from the perspective of an experienced paladin who is used to running with a fairly skilled guild who knows what they're doing in dungeons.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
You're wrong about Shielding Strike. That shield is VERY significant in T2 dungeons, once you have three stacks.
You're also wrong about Bane. It gives a 30% damage debuff that your WHOLE PARTY can take advantage of. Absolutely essential on bosses and dragonflight.
And you're wrong about Relentless Avenger. That knockback makes it absolutely infuriating for any party that relies on any sort of AOE, which is every party that knows what it's doing.
@holeypaladin With regards to shielding strike: Do you really need the shield? You can easily stack 80% dr in mod 8 and with current levels of survivability, would you not rather gain the benefits of say valorous strike>
With regards to Bane: Lets take a 2k prot paladin as an example here, he probably cannot keep up a bubble if he does not have another ability for AP gain. Bane is not that other ability for AP gain, but other abilities are. It is not as essential for devotion, true, but for protection, up till like 3k ilvl +snail +other AP gain stuff, you probably can't keep bubble up personally without a snail dc, whilst using bane and would you rather have a bubbled group, or would you rather have the extra damage.
With regards to RA: There is no way your 1.6k ilvl prot paladin can keep up a bubble without it. You might dislike it at end game and true, once you got enough AP gain to sustain your dailies without it, you should definitely drop it, but guess what, I would rather have random paladins with poor gear reading this guide and seeing that relentless avenger is good for them if they can't sustain their bubble, then using it, then having them not sustaining their bubble at all. Your dps = 0 while you dead and yes, whilst a proper group can get away without perma bubble (I tanked 3 man eGWD on my dev pally) not everyone can rely on running with good players, some people pug (as sad as it is) and those people need every darn tool they can get.
Your focus seems to be primarily on helping low geared players survive and tank.... alright then. Regarding shielding strike... it is absolutely necessary for a low geared tank, and very useful for any tank. Because it doesn't add DR, it adds a shield, which absorbs damage. All those 0s you see popping up from incoming damage are a result of shielding strike... it softens the heavy blows and completely negates the light ones. The extra 5% DR from valorous strike doesn't even compare.
You're right that Bane doesn't help with AP gain, but it does help with survivability in general. Softening up those boss hits by 30% is incredibly useful. Combined with shielding strike and 80% DR, and the boss is simply love tapping you... you don't even need DP up in that situation. It's more useful for higher geared paladins of course, since it speeds up boss fights by a great deal. And for Demogorgon, I would say Bane is essential in phase 2 and 3, because of timed DPS races. Same in Tiamat.
RA is just... one of those things that I'll never ever agree with. I like my CC and AOE too much, and there's nothing more frustrating for a HR or CW than to use their control spells to group the trash together only to have the paladin scatter them to the winds.
Then again, I also speak from the perspective of an experienced paladin who is used to running with a fairly skilled guild who knows what they're doing in dungeons.
Fair enough about shielding strike, it still does not mitigate the high spikes from binding oath when someone stuffs up, but you know what, in the case when someone stuffs up that badly (or normally a few people, you probably tanking dragonflight if you die anyhow) then nothing will save you from that spike.
Yes, obviously when you, or I, or anyone else is running with their guild, their friends list or their closely knit premade groups with players who aren't going to stand in the red because its a nice colour, Keeping up DP is not necessary. However,outside of those groups, people tend to think ooooh, red looks shiney, I should stand there and in those cases, its absolutely essential to keep up your daily. Yes, you could solo the fight, however, it takes a darn long time. I spent 12 minutes soloing the last phase in elol on healadin the last time I pugged, it wasn't pleasant and whilst they might not contribute much dps, the dps of your paladin, plus the guy standing in the red, is still more then the dps of your paladin, even if its from binding oath reflecting the damage they take and the easy way to keep them alive is to keep up dp. At that stage, if you can't keep up your daily power without RA, then to be perfectly honest, I don't particularly care if they are slightly off with their AoE, at least they are still alive to spam AoE in the first place.
And yes, I acknowledge this is not an issue in premade group, 2 days ago I did do a 3 man egwd with no tank with me tanking aggro on my devotion OP, but it only worked because I was with 2 other intelligent players. If I took 2 randoms, it would not have been a 3 man, it would have been a solo attempt.
*edit* are there any other issues you have with the guide @holeypaladin or is that it? I like constructive discussion and the sharing of ideas, it generally leads to all around improvement for all players involved.
For the most part, it's actually a pretty good guide, those were the three main issues I had with it. The other one was Prism, and I was waiting until today's change to prism to comment on it.
Prism is not a problem in five man dungeon content, but it was, for a long time, completely unusable for dragonflight, Demogorgon, and Tiamat. Did a little testing on it today and it seems that for dragonflight at least, having one paladin with prism active does not necessarily cause extensive lag, although it potentially could, especially if two or more paladins are using prism. I would recommend never having more than one prism paladin in a raid setting, despite the synergy between prism paladins, simply because the lag issues make the battle unplayable.
Aside from that... one prism paladin can potentially be useful in a raid, though it requires further testing to be certain, but if there is more than one, it's likely that one paladin will have to refrain from using dailies to avoid lag.
Also, I find that you can use the same gear setup for both tank and devotion paladins. My current build uses the dragonflight restoration set with radiants in all defensive slots, for Courage and aura gifts. It works very well both as protection and as devotion.
What I'd really like to see if a removal of the cooldown on the holy avenger enchantment when used by a paladin... it would be amazing it it weren't for that blasted cooldown.
Your focus seems to be primarily on helping low geared players survive and tank.... alright then. Regarding shielding strike... it is absolutely necessary for a low geared tank, and very useful for any tank. Because it doesn't add DR, it adds a shield, which absorbs damage. All those 0s you see popping up from incoming damage are a result of shielding strike... it softens the heavy blows and completely negates the light ones. The extra 5% DR from valorous strike doesn't even compare.
Totally why I run Shielding and Radiant as my at-wills, Oath strike is not really helping much and Valiant is less effective than Shielding.
You're right that Bane doesn't help with AP gain, but it does help with survivability in general. Softening up those boss hits by 30% is incredibly useful. Combined with shielding strike and 80% DR, and the boss is simply love tapping you... you don't even need DP up in that situation. It's more useful for higher geared paladins of course, since it speeds up boss fights by a great deal. And for Demogorgon, I would say Bane is essential in phase 2 and 3, because of timed DPS races. Same in Tiamat.
Bane has uses, but by and large in boss fights I find RA far more useful; RA scatters the weak mobs (ie the ones that can be CC'd) and generates huge agro from everything to you. The weak mobs run back to you and die in the general AoE craziness of a boss fight and don't annoy the other party members and the tough ones turn their big targeted attacks on you letting the party get into positions on their flanks to maximise damage. Its also a gap closer with a longer reach than Radiant, so when the boss or lair effect shoves you halfway across the room one click will get you back in place.
If that 30% damage boost/damage reduction is what you need to win boss fights in general then you have a larger problem.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
For the most part, it's actually a pretty good guide, those were the three main issues I had with it. The other one was Prism, and I was waiting until today's change to prism to comment on it.
Prism is not a problem in five man dungeon content, but it was, for a long time, completely unusable for dragonflight, Demogorgon, and Tiamat. Did a little testing on it today and it seems that for dragonflight at least, having one paladin with prism active does not necessarily cause extensive lag, although it potentially could, especially if two or more paladins are using prism. I would recommend never having more than one prism paladin in a raid setting, despite the synergy between prism paladins, simply because the lag issues make the battle unplayable.
Aside from that... one prism paladin can potentially be useful in a raid, though it requires further testing to be certain, but if there is more than one, it's likely that one paladin will have to refrain from using dailies to avoid lag.
Also, I find that you can use the same gear setup for both tank and devotion paladins. My current build uses the dragonflight restoration set with radiants in all defensive slots, for Courage and aura gifts. It works very well both as protection and as devotion.
What I'd really like to see if a removal of the cooldown on the holy avenger enchantment when used by a paladin... it would be amazing it it weren't for that blasted cooldown.
@holeypaladin Yes, the change to prism did reduce the lag significantly and yet somehow, did little to reduce dev OP's dps (from my testing). I would still not recommend spamming dailies in large groups, just to prevent the worst case scenarios which can still happen, but its a lot less likely to happen now so hey
I will be updating my guide a little to incorporate a bit of what you said, whilst I did in my analysis of RA state that the knockback in pve is annoying, ill elaborate a little more on it to make it more clear because yes, in a premade setup I do 100% agree, its just that for those people not running premades, it is probably an ideal choice.
With regards to RA: There is no way your 1.6k ilvl prot paladin can keep up a bubble without it. You might dislike it at end game and true, once you got enough AP gain to sustain your dailies without it, you should definitely drop it, but guess what, I would rather have random paladins with poor gear reading this guide and seeing that relentless avenger is good for them if they can't sustain their bubble, then using it, then having them not sustaining their bubble at all. Your dps = 0 while you dead and yes, whilst a proper group can get away without perma bubble (I tanked 3 man eGWD on my dev pally) not everyone can rely on running with good players, some people pug (as sad as it is) and those people need every darn tool they can get.
a quick tap of burning light returns nearly the same ap as RA and does not scatter the mobs. RA is better during a boss fight where the knockback doesnt work. but for moving through the dungeon burning light is still my choice for a faster/safer run.
"Furthermore, the dot never crits, so the dot will not interact with the lostmauth horn and only the initial wave of damage." im still confused about this line. if the initial hit crits all the subsequent hits will also crit. it is my view that they disabled the interaction with lostmauth and procs much like dreadtheft was disabled or half of the HR skills that wont proc losty. but to say it doesnt crit is not correct in my opinion. if i remember right act parses show the hits as crits. i'll parse it again.
edit: in fact here is a quick test
Time
Attacker
AttackType
DamageType
Victim
Damage
Critical
Special
Flank
BaseDamage
Effectiveness
8:20:34 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Aura of Courage
Physical
Target Dummy
3165.0
False
None
False
8:20:34 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Burning Light
Physical
Target Dummy
1126.2
True
None
False
8:20:34 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Burning Light
Physical
Target Dummy
1351.5
True
None
False
8:20:34 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Aura of Courage
Physical
Target Dummy
3798.0
False
None
False
8:20:33 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Burning Light
Physical
Target Dummy
1351.5
True
None
False
8:20:33 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Aura of Courage
Physical
Target Dummy
3798.0
False
None
False
8:20:33 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Aura of Courage
Physical
Target Dummy
3165.0
False
None
False
8:20:33 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Burning Light
Physical
Target Dummy
1126.2
True
None
False
8:20:32 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Aura of Courage
Physical
Target Dummy
3165.0
False
None
False
8:20:32 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Burning Light
Physical
Target Dummy
1126.2
True
None
False
8:20:32 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Aura of Courage
Physical
Target Dummy
3165.0
False
None
False
8:20:32 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Burning Light
Physical
Target Dummy
1126.2
True
None
False
8:20:31 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Aura of Courage
Physical
Target Dummy
3165.0
False
None
False
8:20:31 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Burning Light
Physical
Target Dummy
1126.2
True
None
False
8:20:31 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Aura of Courage
Physical
Target Dummy
3165.0
False
None
False
8:20:31 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Burning Light
Physical
Target Dummy
1126.2
True
None
False
8:20:30 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Aura of Courage
Physical
Target Dummy
3165.0
False
None
False
8:20:30 AM
Ignint Bashtage
Burning Light
Physical
Target Dummy
1126.2
True
None
False
the log also shows lostmauth lines for each of the crits. losty did 0 dmg so doesnt show in the act parse but aura of courage did full hits.
edit 2: cant seem to post the unformatted raw log snippet. edit 3: heres from the in game log [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3798 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1351 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3798 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1351 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
Post edited by dufisto on
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
With regards to RA: There is no way your 1.6k ilvl prot paladin can keep up a bubble without it. You might dislike it at end game and true, once you got enough AP gain to sustain your dailies without it, you should definitely drop it, but guess what, I would rather have random paladins with poor gear reading this guide and seeing that relentless avenger is good for them if they can't sustain their bubble, then using it, then having them not sustaining their bubble at all. Your dps = 0 while you dead and yes, whilst a proper group can get away without perma bubble (I tanked 3 man eGWD on my dev pally) not everyone can rely on running with good players, some people pug (as sad as it is) and those people need every darn tool they can get.
a quick tap of burning light returns nearly the same ap as RA and does not scatter the mobs. RA is better during a boss fight where the knockback doesnt work. but for moving through the dungeon burning light is still my choice for a faster/safer run.
"Furthermore, the dot never crits, so the dot will not interact with the lostmauth horn and only the initial wave of damage." im still confused about this line. if the initial hit crits all the subsequent hits will also crit. it is my view that they disabled the interaction with lostmauth and procs much like dreadtheft was disabled or half of the HR skills that wont proc losty. but to say it doesnt crit is not correct in my opinion. if i remember right act parses show the hits as crits. i'll parse it again.
It shows as critting, but it does not interact with the horn, so for all intents and purposes, it isn't really critting.
Hi, and thanks for the guide, but i have a question, i wanna do a OP with full heal, because i saw one in a dungeon and we didnt even lost any life, because he healed us back up in like 0.01 seconds. the question i have is:
Is it the Bulwark one?
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
Hi, and thanks for the guide, but i have a question, i wanna do a OP with full heal, because i saw one in a dungeon and we didnt even lost any life, because he healed us back up in like 0.01 seconds. the question i have is:
Hi, and thanks for the guide, but i have a question, i wanna do a OP with full heal, because i saw one in a dungeon and we didnt even lost any life, because he healed us back up in like 0.01 seconds. the question i have is:
Hi, and thanks for the guide, but i have a question, i wanna do a OP with full heal, because i saw one in a dungeon and we didnt even lost any life, because he healed us back up in like 0.01 seconds. the question i have is:
Comments
While there are small parts here and there that I do not entirely agree with they are, on the whole, nitpicky.
The one aspect that is not however is Prism.
I absolutely agree that the damage boost and general functionality of prism is amazing. However so too potentially is the lag, even in 5 man content and potentially catastrophic in raids. Given that this is a PvE guide SH dragons, demogorgon, and tiamat are all worth considering. You're play is absolutely crippled if you can not use dailies for fear of lagging out the raid and constantly respeccing to remove prism when it's lagging people out is impractical.
As much as I love prism I leave it off my feat selection on both my tank and healer. My personal massive dps boost from it is not worth ruining the enjoyment of the game for others. I feel it's a bit of mistake to recommend others to use it in their builds.
Regardless, great guide. I might make some comments on the nitpicky details later.
Cheers
That lag though has at times made content a breeze to get through in 5 man dungeons.
Your comments on Impassioned Pleas are interesting, did you just use at-wills? Encounter powers grant Divine Call, some more than others, so it is possible that Impassioned works with that feature.
Anyway here is the feat structure I am thinking of/experimenting with at the moment if Impassioned Pleas fails:
You can put the 3 points in Wrathful Strikes into Impassioned Pleas or Light's Shield.
Also in your current builds in the light tree you have Light Touched instead of Warrior's Bastion. Light Touched should only work with Cleansing Touch, which you basically never slot as a Protection build. Warrior's Bastion on the other hand boosts the defence value of your gear by 10% which is pretty much always useful. Its hard to leave that 10% behind.
In contrast the extra control strength (Templar's, Burning and RA all benefit), Flash of Light and Radiant Champion are more beneficial to the party as a whole, and arguably more beneficial for you in solo play as well (similarly with Wrathful Strikes and Exemplar's Haste back in the Heroic feats).
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I have tested on encounter powers and at wills and it always takes the exact same number of at wills/encounter powers to go from no pips to all pips. If you like, I can expand on my testing method and you can repeat my testing for yourself, impassioned pleas does nothing though. To be honest though, I think most people were running it because they assumed it worked, rather then because they had tested it.
Also, I have updated my Bulwark section because you are correct about cleanse and the ap gain from heals, however, prot has so much power that aura gifts is hard to not take and so I moved 1 feat down.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1208325/underdark-preview-patch-notes-nw-55-20151105a-5
I will be testing it on preview now and will see how it effects the build and what changes I will be making, keep your eyes and ears peeled, changes to this build may be on their way!
@jaegernl I expect you to join me on preview soon
*edit the prism change has made only a minor difference to dps, don't panic, the build stays as is
My biggest problem right now is that to test I really need to run T2s, because hitting Target Dummies doesn't give enough info (AP gain being partially tied to damage taken and ease of dungeons with Aura Gifts vs Without being the 2 main issues outside of survivability).
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
You're also wrong about Bane. It gives a 30% damage debuff that your WHOLE PARTY can take advantage of. Absolutely essential on bosses and dragonflight.
And you're wrong about Relentless Avenger. That knockback makes it absolutely infuriating for any party that relies on any sort of AOE, which is every party that knows what it's doing.
With regards to shielding strike:
Do you really need the shield? You can easily stack 80% dr in mod 8 and with current levels of survivability, would you not rather gain the benefits of say valorous strike>
With regards to Bane:
Lets take a 2k prot paladin as an example here, he probably cannot keep up a bubble if he does not have another ability for AP gain. Bane is not that other ability for AP gain, but other abilities are. It is not as essential for devotion, true, but for protection, up till like 3k ilvl +snail +other AP gain stuff, you probably can't keep bubble up personally without a snail dc, whilst using bane and would you rather have a bubbled group, or would you rather have the extra damage.
With regards to RA:
There is no way your 1.6k ilvl prot paladin can keep up a bubble without it. You might dislike it at end game and true, once you got enough AP gain to sustain your dailies without it, you should definitely drop it, but guess what, I would rather have random paladins with poor gear reading this guide and seeing that relentless avenger is good for them if they can't sustain their bubble, then using it, then having them not sustaining their bubble at all. Your dps = 0 while you dead and yes, whilst a proper group can get away without perma bubble (I tanked 3 man eGWD on my dev pally) not everyone can rely on running with good players, some people pug (as sad as it is) and those people need every darn tool they can get.
Also, I wanted to make a note about Burning Light. Burning Light stuns a mob every 0.5 seconds. This is an excellent CC-tool during a dungeon run or in most skirmishes. However, in the newer skirmishes, you sometimes require mobs to continue their actions - think the Thoon Hulk in the Throne of the Dwarven Gods - and slotting Burning Light can be a liability, as it will stop the hulk from completing his charge. I don't often run Relentless Avenger anymore, because I'm perfectly capable of firing dailies back to back, but I think the same would go for Relentless Avenger.
On the subject of Relentless Avenger: Knockbacks have always been a source of great frustration for people. A Control Wizard would jump in, fire Oppressive Force, only to have a Cleric use Sunburst or a Paladin use Relentless Avenger. I get it, that's annoying. However, like @thefabricant, I'm persuaded that - in the case of Relentless Avenger - the positives outweigh the negatives. One way to combat the negative effects of Relentless Avenger is to communicate. Explain why you're using it, and press the point that you're the first to engage. Relentless will build AP, scatter the mobs, and they will bee-line back to the Paladin, who is probably under the effects of Binding Oath, Divine Protector and any other defensive buff anyway, at which point people can go to town. It's a case of keeping that daily or your encounters in your pants for 1 more second.
Sure, the communication can be tricky in PUGs, and I've heard of people getting kicked from them for using Relentless. So pick your battles. If the group you're with are people you know, or if the PUG is of a slightly higher quality than your standard PUG, you'll be able to try it.
One more question wat you said about the patch-notes above :
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/9668083-patch-notes:-nw.55.20151105a.5
Oathbound Paladin: Prism: This feat will no longer trigger from healing caused by Bond of Virtue or Heal over Time effects.
This will nerf Prism ?
You're right that Bane doesn't help with AP gain, but it does help with survivability in general. Softening up those boss hits by 30% is incredibly useful. Combined with shielding strike and 80% DR, and the boss is simply love tapping you... you don't even need DP up in that situation. It's more useful for higher geared paladins of course, since it speeds up boss fights by a great deal. And for Demogorgon, I would say Bane is essential in phase 2 and 3, because of timed DPS races. Same in Tiamat.
RA is just... one of those things that I'll never ever agree with. I like my CC and AOE too much, and there's nothing more frustrating for a HR or CW than to use their control spells to group the trash together only to have the paladin scatter them to the winds.
Then again, I also speak from the perspective of an experienced paladin who is used to running with a fairly skilled guild who knows what they're doing in dungeons.
Yes, obviously when you, or I, or anyone else is running with their guild, their friends list or their closely knit premade groups with players who aren't going to stand in the red because its a nice colour, Keeping up DP is not necessary. However,outside of those groups, people tend to think ooooh, red looks shiney, I should stand there and in those cases, its absolutely essential to keep up your daily. Yes, you could solo the fight, however, it takes a darn long time. I spent 12 minutes soloing the last phase in elol on healadin the last time I pugged, it wasn't pleasant and whilst they might not contribute much dps, the dps of your paladin, plus the guy standing in the red, is still more then the dps of your paladin, even if its from binding oath reflecting the damage they take and the easy way to keep them alive is to keep up dp. At that stage, if you can't keep up your daily power without RA, then to be perfectly honest, I don't particularly care if they are slightly off with their AoE, at least they are still alive to spam AoE in the first place.
And yes, I acknowledge this is not an issue in premade group, 2 days ago I did do a 3 man egwd with no tank with me tanking aggro on my devotion OP, but it only worked because I was with 2 other intelligent players. If I took 2 randoms, it would not have been a 3 man, it would have been a solo attempt.
*edit* are there any other issues you have with the guide @holeypaladin or is that it? I like constructive discussion and the sharing of ideas, it generally leads to all around improvement for all players involved.
Prism is not a problem in five man dungeon content, but it was, for a long time, completely unusable for dragonflight, Demogorgon, and Tiamat. Did a little testing on it today and it seems that for dragonflight at least, having one paladin with prism active does not necessarily cause extensive lag, although it potentially could, especially if two or more paladins are using prism. I would recommend never having more than one prism paladin in a raid setting, despite the synergy between prism paladins, simply because the lag issues make the battle unplayable.
Aside from that... one prism paladin can potentially be useful in a raid, though it requires further testing to be certain, but if there is more than one, it's likely that one paladin will have to refrain from using dailies to avoid lag.
Also, I find that you can use the same gear setup for both tank and devotion paladins. My current build uses the dragonflight restoration set with radiants in all defensive slots, for Courage and aura gifts. It works very well both as protection and as devotion.
What I'd really like to see if a removal of the cooldown on the holy avenger enchantment when used by a paladin... it would be amazing it it weren't for that blasted cooldown.
If that 30% damage boost/damage reduction is what you need to win boss fights in general then you have a larger problem.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I will be updating my guide a little to incorporate a bit of what you said, whilst I did in my analysis of RA state that the knockback in pve is annoying, ill elaborate a little more on it to make it more clear because yes, in a premade setup I do 100% agree, its just that for those people not running premades, it is probably an ideal choice.
"Furthermore, the dot never crits, so the dot will not interact with the lostmauth horn and only the initial wave of damage."
im still confused about this line. if the initial hit crits all the subsequent hits will also crit. it is my view that they disabled the interaction with lostmauth and procs much like dreadtheft was disabled or half of the HR skills that wont proc losty. but to say it doesnt crit is not correct in my opinion. if i remember right act parses show the hits as crits. i'll parse it again.
edit:
in fact here is a quick test
edit 2: cant seem to post the unformatted raw log snippet.
edit 3:
heres from the in game log
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3798 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1351 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3798 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1351 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Burning Light deals 1126 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Your Aura of Courage deals 3165 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[8:20] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lostmauth's Vengeance gives 0 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
Is it the Bulwark one?