How is Pally in module 10.5?

oggycz

So, how works protection pally after changes? Is still able to tank?

majorcharvenak

Oggycz, I can't speak for our protection brothers and sisters, but as a healadin, Vow of Enmity is now broken thanks to 10.5. It doesn't stick when first cast and has to be reapplied. I understand that, in theory, it should be a toggle, in practice it sucks. If any of our brethren plan on resspecing to Devo vice quitting, my advice is...don't. Not until they fix this.

randomzombie357

The change to Vow of Enmity is HAMSTER.

It went from me being able to cast it on targets successively (cast on target kill it, recast on next target). Now I activate it on one mob, deactivate it manually when the mob dies (does not deactivate automatically), then I have to wait for the cooldown before I can put it on something else.

They say the change is to make it a toggle, in reality the change is just to give it a cooldown so you cant use it on every mob you fight.

You know, so they can stem the tide of that massive Paladin DPS. Lol.

trzebiat

So in short, they failed to implement the Vow change correctly (not deactivating when target is killed). I just hope when the patch hits PS4 it'll be fixed.

fastrean3

Ok greate, i have got chance been invited to run fbi tonight as a healdin to get that stupid master new dungeon entry ticket but now u just destory devote palladin's core healing machine.
How u supposed we can heal now? Spamming divide touch or cleaning touch while we need to be melee and getting huge risk to be one shot by aoe as we running slow and the shift block is crappy

armadeonx

Cryptic have deliberately and cynically made the protection paladin irrelevant. Roll a GF.

helric9

Make a GF.
OP are dead, all they do GF can do better.

benyr

Ok so ive not run a tough dungeon yet with my protection OP, and i can forsee problems with the reduction in allies protection via the bubble and the loss of our ability to totally absorb all damage for a given period of time.
The changes feel like a move away from a tank to add more dps.
I did run a domination pvp, and it was epic. The circle of power assisting allies and the the awsome reallocation of damage from binding oath caused havoc. I tallied over 20 kills, including several double kills and nearly 50 assists in just one pvp match, with no deaths myself. First time ive truly enjoyed a pvp and never got near those kind of stats as on OP before.
My guess is that in dungeons we will be inferior tanks, but this might be offset by the increased damage capability for us and the whole party, meaning bosses are killed quicker so we dont have to keep everyone alive as long?

emilemo

Sanctuary still has broken casting even after months of feedback. Considering they actually want us to use that (they upped the DR on it to 80%) they really should have done something about the glitchy casting.

As for the rest of the changes, meh i wont be testing them

swapilot

I can't speak for all protection pallies but I don't think my pally is near the tank it was pre 10.5. I ran Lostmauth for the first time today post 10.5 and was obliterated. I used to be the last one standing, now I find myself one of the first ones down. I used to shrug off damage now I just absorb it. I don't think pallies are dead, we just are seeing our rolls in dungeons changed. That is just my two cents.

tutelo

Yes, its better to stop thinking about BO as a tanking encounter and start treating it as a taunting dps encounter. Absolution is now the new tanking tool. Now how it interacts with BO I havent tested it yet completely, but the absolution shield will always absorb dmg first.

On the flipside, BO should be a better dps encounter on epic dungeons over BL

Shielding strike also should never leave your bar along templars wrath. The shielding provided by SS is simply too good and now necessary for tanking, unless you need a taunt then take Oath Strike if not using BO

swapilot

tutelo#5367 said:

Yes, its better to stop thinking about BO as a tanking encounter and start treating it as a taunting dps encounter. Absolution is now the new tanking tool. Now how it interacts with BO I havent tested it yet completely, but the absolution shield will always absorb dmg first.



On the flipside, BO should be a better dps encounter on epic dungeons over BL



Shielding strike also should never leave your bar along templars wrath. The shielding provided by SS is simply too good and now necessary for tanking, unless you need a taunt then take Oath Strike if not using BO

Very well said, excellent items to think about. I think I will give Absolution a try on my next epic and see how it works vs BO.
Thanks for the inputs!

toxic9721

PC- So I did A lot of test today with Vow of Emity on my devotion paladin. it is extremely broken more so then what was released in patch notes. from what I was able to gather. stealth automatically makes vow be removed from target. CC automatically makes Vow removed from target. this needs a Immediate fix Soon no way to ever use that encounter again until it gets addressed

rjc9000

I tried a Tankadin in a CN run. It went surprisingly well.

I dunno why everyone thinks Tankadin is dead. You can take a good bit of damage, actually have something that taunts now, and have some decent ways to protect your team.

Ran Binding Oath, Templar's Wrath, and swapped around between Burning Light/Smite/Absolution. Bubble and Heroism were my dailies of choice.

I swapped to Heroism and Absolution on Orcus, as I couldn't just shielding strike/Templars/Binding Oath through his hits.

For reference, my Tankadin is a Justice 3,300 with a good bit of Power, decent DR, and a Bonding with Loyal gear.
I was also using @jazzfong's Dragon-heart setup, which kinda helped me cheese my Recovery a bit.

(It's likely Tankadins will have issues at lower Ilvls though)

oggycz

We did smooth CN run with guild yesterday. But our tank pally is 4k+, so it is not good example. He used Shield of Faith, so did I with my healadin and we together cut incoming damage to 1/2 from a start.

But Vow of enmity has to be fixed ASAP. We did ECC run and at final boss I was not able to activate Vow during whole fight. It still flashed like it was active, but it was not. When I tried switch it off, it just did cooldown and after it still flashed. Very frustrating. We did it, but my heals were noticeably lower.

jase2cool

Did several CN runs as well yesterday with OP tank, a couple of these runs are without DC/Healer .
seems reasonably smooth, i too replaced bubble with shield of faith as well .

Agree that It's likely Tankadins will have issues at lower Ilvls ,Probably will need rely on DC to stay alive .

emilemo

swapilot said:

I can't speak for all protection pallies but I don't think my pally is near the tank it was pre 10.5. I ran Lostmauth for the first time today post 10.5 and was obliterated. I used to be the last one standing, now I find myself one of the first ones down. I used to shrug off damage now I just absorb it. I don't think pallies are dead, we just are seeing our rolls in dungeons changed. That is just my two cents.

What role do you think your pally can fill if not tanking? You think you can dps? Hardly, you wont come close to decent dps classes. Best you can hope for is control trash mobs via templar's wrath and burning light. But after that, when you come to the boss you are useless again. And while on the subject dont use the new Binding Oath, its an actual paladin killer now as regardless of how big or small the hit it took was it always returns unmitigated damage equal to 50% of your hp back to you. Better try to manage with templar, cleansing touch and bane/smite/absolution for boss fights.

obsidiancran3

I definitely felt the need for a DC more on Orcus, but the OP is hardly dead. I do need to do some more runs to test the powers slotted better, but in general:

I ran Courage/Wisdom, Shielding, Radiant, Burning Light/Binding Oath, Templar's Wrath, Circle of Power with Judgement and Protection. At Orcus I swapped Courage out for Truth. Given the lag spikes we were getting this went very smoothly. I just want to run somre more CN to be sure of the power selections for orcus.

I've also tweaked my SH boon selections so now I have a base Defence of 60%, 70% with companion procs (instead of the 40-50% I had last night).

The one thing I'm sure of is that Binding is now >>>> Vow for taunting, so makes a great power for running through instances with a group. I suspect Burning/Templars/BO will be my staple powers now.

emilemo

Im seeing alot of "I believe" and "I think" here. Seem like most of you are fans of wishful thinking

tutelo

@emilemo

It does not return 50% of your HP regardless, its 50% of the damage absorbed by the shield up to 50% of the shield's HP. Where did you get that ridiculous idea? Cause I tried BO in preview and live and it does not do what you claim. Did you even test it or read the patch notes before you started talking out of your HAMSTER? Cause its starting to feel like youre flaming with your comments

emilemo

tutelo#5367 said:

Yes, its better to stop thinking about BO as a tanking encounter and start treating it as a taunting dps encounter. Absolution is now the new tanking tool. Now how it interacts with BO I havent tested it yet completely, but the absolution shield will always absorb dmg first.



On the flipside, BO should be a better dps encounter on epic dungeons over BL



Shielding strike also should never leave your bar along templars wrath. The shielding provided by SS is simply too good and now necessary for tanking, unless you need a taunt then take Oath Strike if not using BO

Question: My BL for example can tick for 40k total on average. On 5 affected critters thats 200 000 damage. If and its a big 'if', Binding Oath was to return 100% of the absorbed damage back that would mean a single hit of 160 000(my total HP) to all around me right. So in theory with 2 critters around me I'm already beating the damage of BL.. So far so good. But does Binding Oath truly return 100% damage back? If it did, that would mean 160 000 every single time when depleted by attacks. Awesome right.. however up to my last testing on Preview, before the change went Live I never, not even once, saw BO return that much damage to anything. So finally, here is the question - does BO really return the full amount of it shield back as damage once depleted by damage received?

tutelo

Here are the patch notes for BO:

"Binding Oath now has the following effect: For 5 seconds, nearby enemies are forced to attack you and you gain 100% of your Maximum Hit Points as a Shield. When this effect expires or the shield is depleted foes in a 30' area take 100% of the damage that was taken by the shield and you take 50% of that damage. Additional ranks increase the duration of the shield by 1 second."

Per the patch notes, its supposed to do 100% of the damage taken to the enemies, while you take 50% of that damage. Whether thats actually happening it requires more testing. I cannot answer this question cause in preview my shield never went below 50% before BO time expired. Or maybe whats happening is that the damage done is based on how much your shield lost, regardless of the actual damage you took. As I said, more testing required.

With the many bugs this patch has, it would not surprise me if its not doing 100% of damage taken. After all, they never took our feedback on any of these changes

obsidiancran3

Tonight I tried Aura of Truth, and for Orcus I don't think it works in a meaningful way, so tomorrow I'll try with Protection again. Though ultimately at 60% base DR, it may not matter and Courage for the rest of the party getting behind Orcus may well just be better.

That said with Aura of Truth, Bane, Templar's Wrath, Binding Oath, Shielding Strike and use of Divine Protector and Shield I got through Orcus. (No Astral Shield.)

Strategy was pretty much pop BO and DP and cast Bane as I ran in, then Templar's and Call to trigger Judge. Get some shots in with Shielding Strike. If BO wasn't off cool down, pop Shield to stay up until BO was available, then BO to give immunity while cycling everything else. Repeat. After the initial use of DP to get into position was only used to combat Orcus' armpits.

karvare

Ran EToS last night with 2 PUGs. The first was rough as we had 4 DPS no healer. Killed a few times overall, once before final boss, a DPS dropped and a DC added. 1 more wipe and then win.

Second run killed 1 time. Boss fight long but no problems. OP healer.

Both times I was second in DPS. 2.7k Bulwark build, stone artifact MH/OH. Binding Oath helped keep me up, cleric was surprised I was still standing all alone. BO did not return large amounts of damage, not anymore than it use to. Still doesn't feel like an OP killer, just not as good for tanking as before.

Also, I could lose agro while it was active. That shouldn't happen.

My observations, be that as it may.

emilemo

Anyone tested Absolution? Does it block first with its blue HP shield or does it reduce incoming damage by 50% and then apply it to the blue hp shield ?

PS: the above would be my wishful thinking

emilemo

tutelo#5367 said:

@emilemo



It does not return 50% of your HP regardless, its 50% of the damage absorbed by the shield up to 50% of the shield's HP. Where did you get that ridiculous idea? Cause I tried BO in preview and live and it does not do what you claim. Did you even test it or read the patch notes before you started talking out of your HAMSTER? Cause its starting to feel like youre flaming with your comments

The BO shield equals your Health bar in blue temp HP. Once depleted by 1 big attack or many small attacks it hits you for 50% of that which is 50% of your health ( in my case 80k). So yeah if you cast BO in a swarm of weak monsters and all of them hit you enough times to deplete the blue BO shield you end up being damaged more than you would be without BO. Why should I get unmitigated hit for half my health by some weakling mobs? The amount of damage BO returns to the Paladin needs to go first thru our passive DR.

karvare

As a side note, I think the capstone power of bulwark needs to be modified or changed.

Binding Oath does about the same thing but provides a much larger shield.

The capstone does not return damage, tho it doesn't prevent that much either.

Maybe a taunt affect with an addition of being immobile for a short period of time. Could be lowered in PVP.

Maybe replace the shield with a Damage Reduction of say 25% or so.

trzebiat

<blockquote class="Quote" rel="emilemo">Sanctuary still has broken casting even after months of feedback. Considering they actually want us to use that (they upped the DR on it to 80%) they really should have done something about the glitchy casting.

As for the rest of the changes, meh i wont be testing them
</blockquote>

Can anyone explain to me what's the point of 80% DR from Sanctuary if it just adds to base DR and doesn't provide another layer (like GF shield or Shield of Faith daily) when the cap on DR is 80% and any tank should already be close to that with bondings and Negation? Even 60% sounds too much, on Dev OP 30% makes sense as it really helps to get closer to DR cap and use it to shield and heal allies standing in AoE but still I mostly use it for CC immunity.

swapilot

emilemo said:

swapilot said:

I can't speak for all protection pallies but I don't think my pally is near the tank it was pre 10.5. I ran Lostmauth for the first time today post 10.5 and was obliterated. I used to be the last one standing, now I find myself one of the first ones down. I used to shrug off damage now I just absorb it. I don't think pallies are dead, we just are seeing our rolls in dungeons changed. That is just my two cents.

What role do you think your pally can fill if not tanking? You think you can dps? Hardly, you wont come close to decent dps classes. Best you can hope for is control trash mobs via templar's wrath and burning light. But after that, when you come to the boss you are useless again. And while on the subject dont use the new Binding Oath, its an actual paladin killer now as regardless of how big or small the hit it took was it always returns unmitigated damage equal to 50% of your hp back to you. Better try to manage with templar, cleansing touch and bane/smite/absolution for boss fights.

I get the impression that I have made you upset with my post, I apologize as that was not my intent. All I was trying to say is no matter what 10.5 does to Pallies, we will adapt. If it "reduces" our tank ability, we will adapt and endeavor to overcome. I have known ever since OP came out that DPS is not our forte. The reason I play a Pally is while we are not a GF, we can still excell as a tank with some planning and intelligent play. Again, sorry for upsetting you, I was just giving my two cents worth.

armadeonx

Ah he was upset before you came along, the devs asking for feedback then not replying to said feedback did that.

I've adapted already. I made a GF on the weekend and I'm at L67 already. I must say I'm missing Radiant Strike and huge amounts of temp health but at least the shield works when you hit it!

justawilly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsrslTEkiPI

couldn't resist:D