Need help with paladins as Castle Never boss

clericalist

Hello, I need some advice for dealing with the final Castle Never boss as paladin. Note that I have no paladin character, but just today I had three different failed Castle Nevers because the paladin kept getting one shotted (different paladin in each). As a cleric, even when there was astral shielding, divine armour and foresight, they got one shotted. I am hoping that if this happens again, I can at least try to convince them to do something different.

hrunting1

There was a glitch or stuff work weird with binding oath and Orcus. With in the first 10sec or so of the fight Orcus could one shot through binding oath. Not really sure if it's a glitch or just due to the lagging effect Orcus has at time but that could be your problem.


Next time have the paladin use a tank companion to get Orcus's attention first and just stay alive for about 10sec then that problem shouldn't be there anymore.

In a nut she'll have the stay back pop binding oath ( let it tick and avoid being hit by the club swings for a few sec) then have then tank away

armadeonx

My pally is nearly 3.2k and I'm very happy with where it is now. I have been 1 shot a couple of times at the start by of that fight but it doesn't happen now I've figured him out.

A lot of OP's don't realise that they need to prep before going through the door by gaining full temp health from their group and making sure their Daily is charged. Ask the group to wait for a min if necessary - most won't mind as they'd rather it was done right instead of getting an immediate fail.

They need to stand in the middle of their group, hit Divine Call then Templar's Wrath which will fill their health bar with gold temp health. As soon as they go in, skip the cut-scene and hit their Daily - I use Shield of Faith which on a reasonably specced OP will give them 80% DR which is the same as the bubble.

Currently (only on Orcus) I use Templar's for health, Bane for 30% debuff (counters the lack of ITF) and Binding Oath for damage and survivability (only let it expire if you have full temp health). Most players will un-load their biggest hits during the 1st 10 seconds so use all 3 strikes of Bane then wait for 2 charges before reusing, thus making sure you (nearly) always have at least 20% continuous debuff: Orcus deals 20% less damage and takes 20% more. When you add the +25% power share and Aura of Courage buff, this pretty much makes up for the (post nerf) 25% dps buff from ITF.

Carry on popping SoF and use BO whenever temp health it full.

If the OP has low recovery or DR they can use shielding strike as their main at-will, but preferably they should be using Oath Strike to keep Orcus's attention or change the passive power on their weapon so the Shielding Strike effect applies to all at-wills - this to me is ideal as most pallies have trouble with holding aggro due to low threat gen.

side note: I'm working on getting my DR to 80% passively (currently 73%) as I want to experiment with swapping out BO for Smite as it does double the strike damage of TW, applies Burning (15 sec DoT) and reduces enemy dps by another 15%.

I use a trans lightning weapon ench and I'm really looking forward to it getting a buff - applies 2% cooldown reduction plus 1% per chain on each strike. It is excellent for threat generation, which really helps out the pally tank.

fastrean3

@armadeonx, speak of use trans lighting. My healdin use it and was face a bug.

Last week i ran cn with a protection pally, on the Orcus fight, i chose to stay away and spam the Cure wounds on the prot pally, then bug occur, the damge from lightening damages were working on that pally and dualing lot damge to killing him.
Not sure whether its the healing from cure wounds been count as strike object or because the protect pally slotting aura of courage

armadeonx

Interesting, I must say I haven't seen that yet. I would've thought the prot pally had enough defence to take 32% of your weapon damage thought - lol!

armadeonx

Interesting, I must say I haven't seen that yet. I would've thought the prot pally had enough defence to take 32% of your weapon damage though - lol!

emilemo

fastrean3 said:

@armadeonx, speak of use trans lighting. My healdin use it and was face a bug.



Last week i ran cn with a protection pally, on the Orcus fight, i chose to stay away and spam the Cure wounds on the prot pally, then bug occur, the damge from lightening damages were working on that pally and dualing lot damge to killing him.

Not sure whether its the healing from cure wounds been count as strike object or because the protect pally slotting aura of courage

Oh how great. Adding another game breaking bug to the Paladin portfolio along with Sanctuary, x2 Mark and god knows what else.. Awesome

ikaikabangs

Delete your OP and Build a Guardian Fighter they are better at holding aggro doing damage and giving buffs for Orcus. You dont need a paly tank for Orcus with the amount of damage some accounts are doing.

armadeonx

Saying that, I did a 'fun run' cn with 3 pallies, a dc and a (2.6k) CW. We blasted through everything including Orcus in very quick time and nobody took serious damage. Of course we did have almost every type of aura active between us.

Ikaikabangs, the devs are in the middle of reworking Binding Oath. They've admitted it does zero threat gen and they've fixed it so it aggros up to 10 enemies at a distance of up to 30' (aura range).

With the GF getting nerfed to 25% dps buff you should bear in mind several points that the pally has in its favor:

25% power sharing. A pally easily reaches 50k power in combat (their power increases as they take damage), add companion stats etc it's quite easy to reach 100k. So that's providing 12.5k to 25k extra power to the dps'ers.

Aura of Courage - adds ~5 to 15% damage to the dps'ers

Bane - reduce single target defences by up to 30%

With BO now holding threat, the boss will actually attack the pally 100% of the time so dps'ers can get on with their job and of course returning damage on the target.

I've seen way more GF's die (due to KV) than I have pallies. Yes ITF is a v. nice skill but for a long time OP's were called a 'one trick pony' but that's no different to the GF & ITF. Not only does the nerf level the playing field quite a lot but the more experienced pallies have figured out how to maximise all the underused & often ignored aspects of their class.

The Pally class rework has still to come up and I'm expecting a few more tweaks that will level things out even more. To say 'delete your pally and make a GF' shows a lack of understanding of the current capabilities of the class, let alone the future potential.

The amount of times I've pug queued for CN and loaded up at the last boss - to find out a GF has either left or been kicked because they could not handle it. We then breeze through the boss and collect the reward.

jase2cool

armadeonx said:

If the OP has low recovery or DR they can use shielding strike as their main at-will, but preferably they should be using Oath Strike to keep Orcus's attention or change the passive power on their weapon so the Shielding Strike effect applies to all at-wills - this to me is ideal as most pallies have trouble with holding aggro due to low threat gen.

Was Oath Strike really working as intended?
I tried using it few times seems don't really helps much tho

jase2cool

armadeonx said:

Saying that, I did a 'fun run' cn with 3 pallies, a dc and a (2.6k) CW. We blasted through everything including Orcus in very quick time and nobody took serious damage. Of course we did have almost every type of aura active between us.

Ikaikabangs, the devs are in the middle of reworking Binding Oath. They've admitted it does zero threat gen and they've fixed it so it aggros up to 10 enemies at a distance of up to 30' (aura range).

With the GF getting nerfed to 25% dps buff you should bear in mind several points that the pally has in its favor:

25% power sharing. A pally easily reaches 50k power in combat (their power increases as they take damage), add companion stats etc it's quite easy to reach 100k. So that's providing 12.5k to 25k extra power to the dps'ers.

Aura of Courage - adds ~5 to 15% damage to the dps'ers

Bane - reduce single target defences by up to 30%

With BO now holding threat, the boss will actually attack the pally 100% of the time so dps'ers can get on with their job and of course returning damage on the target.

I've seen way more GF's die (due to KV) than I have pallies. Yes ITF is a v. nice skill but for a long time OP's were called a 'one trick pony' but that's no different to the GF & ITF. Not only does the nerf level the playing field quite a lot but the more experienced pallies have figured out how to maximise all the underused & often ignored aspects of their class.

The Pally class rework has still to come up and I'm expecting a few more tweaks that will level things out even more. To say 'delete your pally and make a GF' shows a lack of understanding of the current capabilities of the class, let alone the future potential.

The amount of times I've pug queued for CN and loaded up at the last boss - to find out a GF has either left or been kicked because they could not handle it. We then breeze through the boss and collect the reward.

+1 well said indeed

critshot1234

I'm a paladin and at 3300 ilvl so a bit over geared for this instance now but been tanking it since i was about 2600 ilvl. The trick is to not panic and spam your powers recovery is also a pretty important stat for this encounter. This is usually my rotation and it may change depending on circumstances:

1. Skip cutscene

2. Start walking to Orcus when you get half way pop binding oath (makes you take no damage for 8 seconds (gives you time to prep)

3. If your feeling weak slot bane and swipe him 3x with it (reduces his damage and defense)

4. Use your divine call to buff your damage etc (R1 on ps4) if your in the justice tree which you most certainly should be

5. Charge in with radiant strike (buffs arm pen etc and closes the gap)

6. Do 3 swipes of Oath strike for aggro

7. Pop temp wrath (for temp HP)

8. Your binding oath should now be off cooldown and ready to press again

This is my opener to the orcus fight Now to maintain this rotation i do this throughout the fight:

1. Pop binding oath

2. Spam oath strike (keep that aggro! especially if they is a gwf behind orcus!)

3. Here can change depending on situations

Situation A. Your full temp HP and health with full divine call then just simply pop one divine call and go straight back into binding oath... GOOD TIMES

Situation B. Your full temp HP and health with 1 or 2 divine calls. Here you may want to think ahead maybe they will be balls next phase can you take a few real hits of orcus? If so let your binding oath run out then when you get hit by orcus you should lose most of your yellow bar or even into your actual health pool so instantly hit temp wrath to fill that yellow bar again to full you may have to take another hit depending on how high your recovery is then go into binding oath and you have saved yourself a round of divine call and more prepped for the next rotation.

Situation C: Anything other than full temp HP and full health then I'd pop a divine call to make sure you survive in the here and now and worry about the next rotation later.

4 .Keep spamming bane and the occasional radiant strike for the arm pen and damage reduction etc.

5. If Balls do appear don't just sit in them, move out of the way pop a divine call so you can immediatly reapply binding oath and your not caught out. Me at 3300 ilvl i can sit in 2/3 balls without discomfort but even now i still avoid them if possible just to make the run easier for myself and have even popped a bubble so the entire group can survive through the balls of death without much discomfort but i can do this due to my recover, defence and deflection capabilities (ty shadowclad)

Most important thing here is to not panic and space everything out its not a race and if you screw up a rotation it will cost you in the next rotation and the next and you may find yourself with no divine call then if something bad does happen your pretty screwed in most circumstances and this i do not like i want to be in control 100% of the time. We are tanks, we dictate the play not the enemy!

armadeonx

jase2cool said:

armadeonx said:

If the OP has low recovery or DR they can use shielding strike as their main at-will, but preferably they should be using Oath Strike to keep Orcus's attention or change the passive power on their weapon so the Shielding Strike effect applies to all at-wills - this to me is ideal as most pallies have trouble with holding aggro due to low threat gen.

Was Oath Strike really working as intended?
I tried using it few times seems don't really helps much tho

Yep but it only lasts for 3 secs and triggers on the last swipe so you have to be careful - also, it only works on 1 target. Fortunately the binding oath threat fix means you'll not need to rely on it.

krillthethrill

These forums lol! Keep posting your clever findings so arc can use these narc forums to fix things, smh... Just like certain boons, my bad for combining abilities to destroy enemies, players and stronghold dragons. The best players in the game loophole day and night, not including the 3rd party bought and paid for players. They are not glitches, some devs just can't do math.

justawilly

Ok some things that need to make clear here. OP tanks are VERY GOOD in threat generation. A decent OP tank can never loose from a GF in terms of threat generation (assuming they got same ilvl/skills).
HOWEVER they lack a good AOE TAUNT that can be used as often as GF Enforced Threat. Heck even my companion (YETI) uses his taunt way more often than me.

Now back to the question. Here's how I currently tank Orcus.
Make sure you start at max TEMPORATY HIT POINT.
1.Use Binding Oath
2.Radiant Strike
3.Use Oath Strike untill Binding Oath ends.
4.Use Templars wrath
5.Use Binding Oath
6.Use Burning light (MAX CHARGE)
7.Use Oath Strike untill Binding Oath ends.
8. Repeat from step 4

When orcus raises both his arms:
Use Binding Oath
Divine Protector
Activate Sigil of the Devoted
Templars wrath
Use Binding Oath
Use divine call untill daily is ready
Divine Protector

Easy peasy.

armadeonx

Burning Light will increase your personal DPS but don't you think that a 30% debuff from Bane would be more appropriate to the run? You can really see the difference when you apply it - sure, you may not end up as high on the paingiver board but that's not supposed to be the point (is it?).

I use the same rotation as you except with Bane instead of BL. (I use BL on everything up to Orcus then switch at the door).

I go in with temp HP and put on all 3 stacks immediately so it catches the dps procs of Sudden rings, then BO then Templars. I keep a steady 2 stacks of Bane applied. If he lives long enough to fly away I'll repeat as soon as he's back.

The other good point with this is it reduces the chance of someone getting 1-shot.

justawilly

For op tanks if you don't do enough damage you don't generate enough threat. If i have to choose between making sure i am the biggest threat or buff then i choose threat... and one more thing... BANE DOESN'T TRIGGER FLASH OF LIGHT AND USE ECHO OF LIGHT TRIGGER. Which means longer encounter cooldown for party and you.

armadeonx

Ah ok I understand your reasoning. I get around the threat issue by having a trans lightning and owlbear cub. The other thing is the BO fix is supposed to correct the aggro taunt, changing it from zero enemies to 10 enemies within 30'.

justawilly

Taunt is a temporaty fix you need threat to hold aggro. I don't mind giving aggro to a tank companion. However once the taunt effect ends, I want to make sure I got aggro by being the biggest "threat" on the battlefield.

armadeonx

Oh me too, I was running the HE's in Lonelywood the other day with a few very well specced dps guildies (up to 4k).

My 3.2k OP using Templars, Smite and Relentless, I never lost aggro and would attract anything in range. I was v. happy about that as I've invested a lot into him recently.

obsidiancran3

If you are having Agro problems run RA.

allmightymunky

ikaikabangs#3843 said:

Delete your OP and Build a Guardian Fighter they are better at holding aggro doing damage and giving buffs for Orcus. You dont need a paly tank for Orcus with the amount of damage some accounts are doing.

That's about as dumb as it gets. No thanks. Delete your level 70 character and make a new one...Get the hamster out of here.

sundance777

I have had really good results with templar's, binding oath and smite in CN with another lower protection pally and three ranged dps. I was able to hold agro the entire time and only really took one hit mid fight that took any real health away. I run with lots of recovery, modest defense and plenty of life steal plus prism to send out some decent heals.

My basic rotation: to start - binding, templars, smite, judge, judge. Then just rotate templars, binding, smite, judge. Rinse and repeat and throw up shield of faith as often as you can.

I dont know if I would hold agro as well if there were big melee attacks, but the results were much more favorable than runs with my GF as I am still leaning the boss rotation on the GF a bit since the nerf.

mcgwarface

Sundance has the rotation plan. After next patch sacred weapon might be worth it as well.

Aura of Courage and Vengence for now......Truth a good option

emilemo

Smite over bane ?

triflen

I had to switch to bane and heroism to reduce the amount of damage wand bash did. Went from around 776k damage down to 445k which when mitgated was about 122k damage which i could survive. Second I do always like a yeti or tank companion to absorb those one shots.. since he does not have directional attacks so the flipping on the pet is not an issue for others in the party. I did switch to aura of truth as well. I went to heroism as well to have that damage resistance increase as well as the extra temp hp from it.

keiend

ikaikabangs#3843 said:

Delete your OP and Build a Guardian Fighter they are better at holding aggro doing damage and giving buffs for Orcus. You dont need a paly tank for Orcus with the amount of damage some accounts are doing.

sure...if it can delete my time spend on pally for the past 3 month and let me travel back in time during NWO launch on PS4, I would love to delete it.

Btw, thank you for the rest for sharing rotation for pally Tank. Yesterday i kept getting one shotted at Orcus until my friend calm me down and change to range tactics to kill Orcus (3 SW 1 Healadin & 1 Tankerdin). While the tactics works, it defeat my purpose as a tank for the group. Today I'm gonna try out tips from you guys for rotation. Thanks again.

Anyways my current build (3000 IL using captspicypants build) have 15k power, 11k def & 8k recovery and I spend my paragon on justice & bulwark..I didn't take light thus missing out Aura Gift. Should I respec to get the Gift or just stay with my build? Any advise from fellow OP is highly appreciated.

armadeonx

Yes you should respec to include aura gifts - it is your primary party buff.

keiend

armadeonx said:

Yes you should respec to include aura gifts - it is your primary party buff.

Thanks for the feedback. Respec it is

jase2cool

I agree should respec, Aura gift is a good buff .

However please note that there be more changes on OP during coming mod 10 which was not introduced on PS4 yet .
PC players did not get a free respec token after all those changes ,
you might want to consider holding on to it till then you might able to save a respec token in future.

keiend

Ah..noted. Thanks for the head up. Really appreciate it.