[Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 684 (721) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 639 (674) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 723 (763) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 706 (744) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
vs
[Combat (Self)] Your Conartist's Discipline deals 788 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
Conartist's does 20% of weapon damage, so at Oath Strike isn't even doing that on a regular hit!
[Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 2861 (3017) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 3163 (3335) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 2846 (3002) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 3038 (3204) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
So on a typical hit Valorous is doing 4.5X the damage of Oath Strike, and Shielding Strike does the same as Valorous, and this is as expected with their magnitude 4.5x that of Oath Strike.
Valorous Strike has the same attack window as Oath Strike (200 degrees) but is slightly slower (which means it actually does less than 4.5x the damage, but it takes a lot of at-wills to make that difference matter).
Valorous has no "Added Effect", while Oath Strike has "Increased Threat".
Now as I understand it the basic mechanism for threat is damage. It would seem that Oath Strike would need to have more than 4x the threat of Valorous Strike to even be offering more threat than Valorous Strike. That seems like a problem for Oath Strike.
Again ti seems that Oath Strike could be upped to Magnitude 20. For solo play this would still leave it out of rotations, but it would significantly improve its effectiveness and value in party play.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Stat allocation needs guidance - is Justicar damage Physical, Magical or Both? I guessed Both. How would I know!?
Regardless, my Dwarf Justicar, who went heavy into CON is now HAMSTERed.
New Boon system totally lacks flavour/guidance. What should I do to unlock next boon level? (I think the answer is any Campaign I want). Concept of progression is lost.
On Live I load a single target, an AoE and a Utility (debuff/heal) At Will. So I tried the same. The At Wills are so weak, I was literally waiting for an Encounter to kill a mob. I could easily not have used At Wills at all. I'd like to see a YouTuber do a run without using them to demonstrate their uselessness.
I am very sad that Paladin as the only one class did not receive DPS paragon path. Even in previous part famous "Neverwinter Nights", the Paladin / Champion of Torm was healer & dps. I hope that it will be even accordingly optimized before the official premiere mod 16
Stat allocation needs guidance - is Justicar damage Physical, Magical or Both? I guessed Both. How would I know!?
Regardless, my Dwarf Justicar, who went heavy into CON is now HAMSTERed.
New Boon system totally lacks flavour/guidance. What should I do to unlock next boon level? (I think the answer is any Campaign I want). Concept of progression is lost.
On Live I load a single target, an AoE and a Utility (debuff/heal) At Will. So I tried the same. The At Wills are so weak, I was literally waiting for an Encounter to kill a mob. I could easily not have used At Wills at all. I'd like to see a YouTuber do a run without using them to demonstrate their uselessness.
Did you collect the gear from Neverember?
I ignored Con in stats and just took equal amounts of Str and Int and all the Cha I could manage.
The new Boon system is pick whatever from your available options. Go the first 3 from the left and then the defence one for that row, the (faint) number on the left tells you the total amount of points you need to unlock the next level.
Why would you just run at-wills to kill things? They are clearly not the major source of damage for an OP. Run Burning Light (tap), Smite and whatever that doesn’t use Divinity.
Use a DPS companion.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Stat allocation needs guidance - is Justicar damage Physical, Magical or Both? I guessed Both. How would I know!?
Regardless, my Dwarf Justicar, who went heavy into CON is now HAMSTERed.
New Boon system totally lacks flavour/guidance. What should I do to unlock next boon level? (I think the answer is any Campaign I want). Concept of progression is lost.
On Live I load a single target, an AoE and a Utility (debuff/heal) At Will. So I tried the same. The At Wills are so weak, I was literally waiting for an Encounter to kill a mob. I could easily not have used At Wills at all. I'd like to see a YouTuber do a run without using them to demonstrate their uselessness.
Did you collect the gear from Neverember?
I ignored Con in stats and just took equal amounts of Str and Int and all the Cha I could manage.
The new Boon system is pick whatever from your available options. Go the first 3 from the left and then the defence one for that row, the (faint) number on the left tells you the total amount of points you need to unlock the next level.
Why would you just run at-wills to kill things? They are clearly not the major source of damage for an OP. Run Burning Light (tap), Smite and whatever that doesn’t use Divinity.
Use a DPS companion.
Basic mooks should be easily killed with at-wills(talking the chaff enemies- orc drudges, redcap powries, goblin... little stabby dudes, that lean, dual-wielding skeleton that's used with a dozen cultist and thayan mook models, etc). Damage model on Live is pretty good, where typical encounter deals about as much damage as 3-6 seconds of an at-will, depending on range, aoe, and cooldown.
For paladins, the real operative question is "is it actually more efficient to use my at-will, or to keep blocking to charge up Smite?" That question should have an answer that changes situationally, not "smite, duh." Always the option of switching more of the at-wills to physical damage and making them grant a little bit of divinity on every hit; would be kinda like a tabletop paladin making as many attacks as possible, fishing for a crit to turn a spell slot into a massive burst of Radiant damage.
*points up 5 posts (first post page 15 for me)* Clearly I’m ok with at-wills getting a buff.
I’m also ok with Smite doing less damage, it shouldn’t be hitting as hard as Divine Judgement.
But frankly, right now I’m less worried about the power damage dial than I am about the overall effectiveness of powers and mechanics, especially passives, feats and divinity management in relation to aggro and defensive ability. Once those things “feel good”, then damage dials can be tweaked more easily because we will not be trying to change everything at once.
I’ll take a look at CT with my low iL Paly, but given I soloed most of eSoT with it I expect a very different experience to alaric.
I ran through CT with my level 22 OP, and it took about 15 minutes to solo it, and I died once on the final boss because I didn't quite get Smite placed properly. Powers were Sacred Weapon, Burning Light, Smite, and Wayward Wizard (no bondings or gear on it), no boons, basic green gear with no enchants.
I also ran it with my 20k OP, and her Con Artist companion just makes the whole thing a joke.
(I need to re-port my low iL OP across again.)
Post edited by obsidiancran3 on
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
So, this issue Im about to address is old, very old but still present. It's more cosmetic than anything but believe me, fixing it would add a lot to the overall feel-good of the Paladin class/
What is the issue? Its simple, the way the Paladin holds Hammers! So, currently on live and preview the Paladin grabs the hammer pretty much on the middle of its handle which makes no sense. This problem Paladins inherit from Clerics since I suspect we share alot with them and I mean alot, including how we hold our weapons. In m16 you are actually adding only the second good looking hammer to the game /shame on you, go check WoW, they really provide the players with cool looking weapons/. Im talking about the Golden Sword of the Watcher of course. Great looking hammer, we really need more of those in the game because the maces you gave Paladins are puny. I know you're super busy with trying to balance the next mod but please, if you have some time left do make the Paladin hold Mace/Hammer type weapons lower on the handle!
Thank you!
Wont let me post image for some reason so I post a link to my screenshot instead https://ibb.co/ZB5WJYX
I have one question: Is Paladin gonna be needed class for dungeon content in mod 16(Is new meta party consist of op in it)?
paladin will be the last resort tank for dungeons. With the removal of darks from movement and the scaling of dungeons meaning just getting the Ad limit for the day will take @ 1/3 longer anyway, why take a tank that increases the time needed just by having to wait for them to catch up and also spends half their time doing nothing while trying to get divinity back, pali's will be unwanted. We add nothing to the party now and loose aggro every time we put up the shield. Hiding behind the shield and backing away from the fight ( so you don't get flanked and killed by the trash spawns) gets old pretty quick. . When the dps run ahead and kill all the trash between bosses before you can get there, even Relentless avenger doesn't help much. going by the vid's on youtube , the fighter is going to be the go to tank in mod 16
That being said, there are going to be some changes. Here's a sample of what's in store:
Out of combat divinity regeneration is being increased slightly.
Divine Call will now return more divinity when used out of combat.
Burning Light's recast decreased to 15s from ~20s, magnitude increased from 200 to 300, it will deal 200 magnitude if you tap it, 300 if you hold it down for its ~1.5s cast.
Sacred Weapon's added damage magnitude increased from 40 to 80 per hit.
Radiant Charge now stuns (knocks down) targets briefly.
The Oathkeeper daily Sanctuary will now provide the caster with immunity to control effects.
The Justicar class mechanic "Divine Palisade" has been adjusted to an alternate version of block that consumes 60 divinity every second but reduces the damage you and anyone behind you takes by 10%. Similar to the fighter's "Dig In" mechanic you cannot move while using Divine Palisade, however, unlike "dig in" the power is snappy, and not meant to be held down continually. (Dig In is getting some changes too, but I'll address that in the fighter thread.)
And finally, one nerf: smite's damage will be reduced from 1600 to 1200 magnitude.
Divinity Regeneration does seem a little better, but frankly its still too slow. Burning Light recharge is faster, still think it might as well be tap and cast and forget this charge for more damage. Sacred Weapon change is in effect and seems to be a nice buff, but its cooldown is far too long. Not seeing any sign of the stun on Radiant Charge. Divine Palisade is unchanged. Smite change in effect and is fine.
Some of these may technically be bugs, but we need @asterdahl to confirm if they made it into the build.
Post edited by obsidiancran3 on
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Due to the bugs I was having with using powers and just seeing around, I deleted and restarted my OP.
So far playing with the current set up is much smoother at level 70ish in terms of Divinity recovery, which is different to my experience just post patch with the level 80 version decked out in Spy gear.
Sacred Weapon definitely helps more, but as mentioned in the last post the recharge time is too slow. I have a 13.8s cooldown on Burning Light and a 27.7s cooldown on Sacred Weapon, that means at best I'm getting Sacred Weapon every second combat. Its just not doing enough to justify that 30s base cooldown.
Now back at 80 and running around in Vanrakdoom. Its the first area where I felt on the weak side.Its also the first area where any mobs did noticeable damage, and I got the Guise set of gear from the merchant in YP (the best set he sells,I certainly wouldn't buy it on live).
At this point it seems that the cooldown on Vow of Enmity is also too long (for the purpose of holding aggro) it also hits like a wet tissue (likely contributing to aggro retention problems). It still may not be making you the priority on the target (or as soon as something else hits them, that becomes the priority) because my pet (Legendary Conartist) easily steals aggro from me.
Final update on this post, as I have stopped for the day (in frustration at the final quest bugging again and not being able to make the artifact), but now that I'm back over 20k iL with a bit of a random collection of new gear I'm again feeling Divinity recovery is too slow. I think its basically the damage output of the character hits a certain point and then you start having trouble with divinity (I only use Smite as a Divinity power in solos fyi).
Radiant Charge now stuns (knocks down) targets briefly. - is not happening at all.
Post edited by obsidiancran3 on
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
> @kharkov58 said: > I saw exactly one feat for the Justicar Paragon path that I would want to choose. The cooldowns on encounter powers are all 20 or 29 seconds. Looks like all we get to do is at will powers.
Plus the damage on at wills is abyssmal atm.
1
gormenghast1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 88Arc User
Burning Light's cooldown has been reduced to 15s, from 20s. Burning Light now deals 300 magnitude damage when fully charged, up from 200. (The power previously did not improve when charged.) Divine Call now regenerates significantly more divinity out of combat. Divinity regeneration rate outside of combat has been slightly increased. Sacred Weapon's effect has been increased to 80 magnitude, from 40. Smite's magnitude has been decreased to 1200, from 1600. Divinity cost of Divine Touch has been increased to 220, up from 80. Oath of Protection increases the threat bonus slightly. Justicar’s Charge will no longer regain Divinity by falling.
Hello again, I took some time to test most recent changes to the class and I'd like to share my thoughts about it too. All the following considerations are made testing the Justicar path, so all the magnitudes listed are already corrected by the 30% damage decrease applied to tank classes.
Burning Light: 210 effective magnitude (140 not fully charged), 14s CD. Till mod 15 charging BL was a risky business for the chances of being stunned and losing important seconds, but it was rewarded with a series of stuns and the application of Aura of Courage procs that granted a substained DPS if used skillfully. Now the Paladin has dramatically reduced options to control adds and that brings the need to use its shield much more. The need to charge a weak encounter to make it a little less miserable makes it not worth slotting it in any combat situation, even with its negligible stun effect.
Divinity regeneration increase: hardly noticeable. Absolution while blocking is the only way to go to keep divinity at adequate levels. Having mandatory powers to use is still not optimal, as it limits the choice and doesn't help to make the game fun to play.
Sacred Weapon: ludicrous CD of almost half a minute for an Aura of Courage-like damage increase of 56 magnitude on any hit, lasting 1/3 of the CD time. With the current state of the renewed combat system, tanks don't have the luxury of all that time to use Radiant Strike in combo with SW for a total of 66 magnitude hits that, ideally, should be repeated for 10 seconds to avoid wasting a long CD encounter. Other than the exceedlingly boring gameplay this would represent, there is no way this could help holding aggro on mobs in party content, neither contribute to the DPS in significant way. Still no reason to take it in place of more useful encounters.
Smite: magnitude lowered to an effective 840, no other changes to the power. If this change came with a similar 25% reduction in divinity cost I could have understood it. Less damage but more uses would have granted a bit more plasticity to combat, but this is just a plain nerf to the Paladin's only single target DD power that wasn't actually needed. On a side note, also the main single target DD encounter of the Vanguard has seen a damage reduction of a 37,5%, with a same percentage reduction of its CD time. DPS is unchanged and Vanguard has more plasticity using it, while Paladin's smite just does less than before.
Divine Touch: 275% increase in divinity cost. At least the cost didn't change for the healing paragon. With the need to focus on aggro handling for a Justicar it was already a questionable choice to slot DT, now it makes even less sense.
Oath of protection bonus threat slight increase: imho it has to be definitely higher than a "slight" increase to let Justicars manage aggro through their abysmal DPS, when competing with the DPS output of any DD class. Other than using hard taunts, there is no way a Justicar can get hold of threat after a DPS started to focus on a target. Simple math indicates that a Paladin doing 20% DPS of a DD class should have a threat generation bonus of at least 500% to compete on the aggro chart. With threat generated through healing powers things are even worse.
Justicar's Charge no longer grants divinity recharge through falling: makes sense.
In addiction to the feedback over the recent changes, I would like to reiterate that Justicars need a signature class mechanic that doesn't feel like an overpriced encounter with little to no use in party content due to its tactical futility (the rest of the party won't stand anywhere near the tank if it can be avoided) and a negligible buff. Barbarians have rage, Rogues have Stealth, Rangers have Stance, Arbiters have Scales of Judgement...all these class mechanics offer a signature style for these classes and are actually fun and vital to master in order to successfully playing those classes. Adding a toggle to Pallisade doesn't change the fact that it can't be in any way considered a class mechanic and it can hardly be integrated in a Justicar's gameplay in the same way the old Divine Call was.
P.S.: I have played the Sentinel to test the different feels of the new tank classes and I'm sorry to say that playing with a Barbarian tank that has 10k less IL feels more rewarding, dynamic and ultimately fun than playing with my Paladin main character. Sentinel's Slash that works as a shield while charging the attack, huge self heals through a low CD Bloodletter, low CD/high damage IBS, low CD Not So Fast, all coupled with frequent uses of CC immunity frames and even faster Attacks through Rage grant the Sentinel a wonderful flow of combat that is seriously lacking in Justicar's gameplay. That's the kind of love every class should deserve.
So I grabbed one of my paladins that was under geared and had no boons, mount insignias, runestones, no pet gear, etc... to try out the undermountain to see what this would be like for a fresh new player. I will be doing multiple posts as I progress to give general feedback of the experience. To start off we get the new gear from Lord Neverember with really helps a lot. Without it I would not have been able to do anything with this character in the undermountain. Things start off well on the beach. No real problems (smite was lowered to 1200 magnitude so now its not a one shot kill which is more in-line with a non-dps class). The next part was the spiders with the quest "inside every spider". This went well, and the re-spawn time is much better here. The next quest "Dispatch and Release" is where we get our first problem (not really a problem but close enough for a new player). Everything is good but the enemies are very close together and have very quick re-spawn times so before I can even kill one group another group shows up and then another and another... They just keep showing up and I cannot kill them fast enough to progress in that area (got passed it, man that was a pain). Now I understand that the re-spawn timer needs to be low with so many people running around that area but I think the enemies might need to be spread out a little more. Just a thought.
Bug: The feat "Keepers Wrath" says that it should reduce the divinity cost of smite by 10%, however it is only reducing it 1%. Smite costs 200 normally and with the feat chosen it drops to 198.
Relentless Avenger is now locked until level 74? The one power that added a ton of fun now that the knockback was removed is now locked. Why? This power allowed us to ensure we got to the enemies before the melee dps did and allowed some small boost in efficiency while soloing and is now not available for those of us that are already level 70 as well as all Paladins leveling until we reach 74. Out of all the changes (still going through them) this one jumped out at me as unnecessary.
@asterdahl Are you interested in a suggestion of a different design for the OP? If not I wont try to write it down.
Edit: Already posted it a few posts after this one.
In the following a design for only the tank path of the OP is suggested. The most important thing is that the OP should be fun to play and have some uniqueness. First off lets focus on what I consider important and fun to do on an OP:
Important for the tank role and fun:
An OP needs to be able to fulfill his role as a tank. To get aggro/attention of targets the OP has to generate threat of them. The OP needs to manage the threat of the targets. For this aggro tools for a single enemy and a tool for at least 5-8 enemies are needed. To be able to get aggro of an enemy that the OP may have missed and is wandering to a party member the OP needs to be able to generate threat on that enemy asap. To be able to do this, a single target tool that has no or very few cooldown or resource dependencies is needed.
Since holding aggro is partly dependent on damage the OP should have tools specialized for damage on single and multiple targets. It is still important that this tools should be less effective for threat than the aggro tools but effective enough to hold aggro of an already aggroed target.
A shield that gives the OP the ease to fulfill his role. The shield should be available when it is important. This is already there.
Every action the OP is doing should be significant. For example having at wills doing just 1% of a Smite is not something that feels important, as it needs ~50s to do the damage of one encounter.
Avoiding damage at all should always be better than getting hit. Damage and aggro tools should not be dependent on incoming damage.
Positioning should be important, but having a tank that is easier to play as the GF or GWF is no problem.
Solo play should be fast enough, Some special abilities out of party are welcome.
Tools specialized for increasing the survivability of the tank is needed. This can include tools just for the OP or additionally for party members.
Marking targets that increase or reduce their damage taking next to being one of the main aggro tools lets the tool be useful even if the aggro is already managed. This makes the tool still have a use which feels good.
Having tools that increase the damage or abilities of other party members is the last link when OP does not want to focus on damage and aggro is managed well. There should be tools that are concurrent with the damage tools to increase the party damage.
For uniqueness the OP should have SIGNIFICANT auras.
One or two control abilities would be nice but should not be too significant unless control gets far more significant in fights.
Less important for the tank role, old features or just fun:
Be able to reduce the damage the whole party gets to counter a boss mechanic feels good. This ability should be on a different layer than the normal – incoming damage layer and should be prepared like sparing a daily for it. The old Divine Protector fulfilled that ability very well.
Using sanctuary increased the survivability of near party member. This was a “cool” ability which set some importance on positioning.
Giving party members a shield of 50% of their HP felt good.
Having temporary HP gave the OP a unique feeling. There should be something like this that is more as a good preparation for the next fight or taking off some heat off the fight with it.
Reducing the own cooldowns was very good too. It did not made the OP especially powerful nor excel over others, but just added a unique feature.
The auras were diverse and gave the OP uniqueness.
Gapfillers for getting to the targets are very useful.
Lets take a look at the suggested design:
Note: To be significant I expect the abilities to be at at least around ~20% of whatever it increases.
The shield should be unique to the other tanks. Let the shield reduce the damage like it does on mod 16 but additionally give it a small area that increases the survivability of near party members like sanctuary did. It increased the usefulness in some situations. It should not be too significant. 5%-10% to the – incoming damage is enough. When shielding the OP can not be controlled.
Tank mechanic: Marks near enemies to increase the threat that is generated. Let the tank get the initial aggro by giving the OP an initial threat threshold. Reduces the damage the targets inflict by ~5%. The marks can not be added twice and disappear after 10s or 20s. This makes the marks important for aggro management. The tank mechanic should have no cooldown nor cost any other resource, since using it twice is useless.
Passives should give the player a significant change in their abilities. This can include damage, threat, survivability, movement or other useful stuff. Passives, 4 shared and 4 path only: Shared:
Aura of Speed: Increases the movement by 20%. This gives the OP the ability to get faster to the targets or party members.
Divine Justice: Increases the damage the Paladin inflicts if no other party members are around by 20%. This is for solo play.
Aura of Truth: Increases the damage near targets take by additive 10% for the OP only. This would be great for solo play but unimportant for party play, because debuffs are higher.
Divine Shieldbearer: Increases the Divinity regeneration by 20%. This passive gives the OP more ease for managing divinity.
Path only:
Aura of Protection: Decreases the incoming damage by near party members by - 10% incoming damage.
Aura of Threat: Increases threat generation by 50%. For tanks, that want more ease for aggro holding.
Aura of Vengeance: If the OP is attacked, deal minor damage to the attacking target. If near party members take damage by having aggro, the OP deals a minor amount of damage and is set on the top of the threat list. This passive gives the OP more ease for aggro holding.
Aura of Courage: Deals minor damage to the attacker by every hit of the OP. For group play this should be significant better than Aura of Truth.
At wills should be significant and fulfill parts of the core mechanics to a lesser degree. At wills, 2 shared and 2 path only: Shared:
Valorous Strike: Significant highest single target damage at will with no additional effect. ~100 magnitude for each hit
Oath Strike: Significant highest multi target damage at will with no additional effect. Significant less damage than Valorous Strike to one target. ~50/target magnitude per hit
Path only:
Radiant Strike: Lunging at the enemies and dealing damage in a cone. Radiant Strike has increased threat on all targets. Used for aggroing and getting to enemies. ~35 magnitude for each hit, threat worth of 70 magnitude
Shielding Strike: Damaging one target, recover stamina and getting more threat than Valorous Strike. ~80 magnitude, 160 magnitude threat
Divinity now adds effects to the encounters instead of letting half of the encounters consume it. All encounter powers have a cooldown in the range of 10s-20s. This makes fights less stale. Divinity is gained in time. In fight +20 Divinity per second. Out of fight: +100/s. Encounters should fulfill parts of the the core mechanics of the tank role. Encounters, 5 shared and 5 path only: Shared:
Burning Light: Deals medium amount of damage to near targets. ~400/target magnitude Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +100 magnitude.
Smite: Heavy single target attack. ~800 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +200 magnitude.
Banishment: Stuns near targets for and deals medium amount of damage. ~200/target magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +100 magnitude and stuns 1 second longer.
Relentless Avenger: Lunge at the targets and deal medium amount of damage. Better version of Radiant Strike: ~400 magnitude for target and 200 magnitude for near targets. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +100/+50 magnitude.
Divine Touch: Heals the OP for 400 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +150 magnitude.
Path only:
Templars Wrath: Deals medium damage and the OP gains 30% temporary HP for 10s. ~300/target magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +20% temporary HP.
Circle of Power: Increases OPs divinity regeneration by 20% and decreases incoming damage by 10% for allies standing inside it. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: Increases OPs damage by 10%.
Bane: Deals medium damage and increases damage taken by 10%. Single target only. ~400 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: Holds ~5s longer.
Binding Oath: Gives the OP a shield of 50% and a targeted ally a shield of 20%. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: No longer depletes after 10s.
Vow of enmity: Deals low damage and increases threat while it is active by 50%. Single target only. ~300 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +200 magnitude.
Dailies should either have unique abilities that adds usefulness to the fight or should be significant. Dailies should not be used as often as in mod 15. Dailies, 3 shared and 2 path only: Shared:
Radiant Charge: Deal Heavy damage to near targets and prone them. 1000/target magnitude.
Divine Judgement: Deal Heavy single target damage and medium damage to near targets. 2000 magnitude to main target, 500 magnitude to near targets.
Shield of Faith: Reduces damage taken by 20% on a different layer for 10s.
Path only:
Divine Protector: Redirects 40% of damage taken by allies to the OP and reduces it by 50% for 7s.
Heroism: The OP gains a shield up to 50% HP and increases his damage by 10% for 15s.
Feats should give the OP a significant change in their playstyle that lets the OP excel at some point, like tanking, damage or party usability. Feats should be less situation dependent than passives, because the player can not change them without re rolling. Feats should always affect more than one ability. Feats, one of each: T1:
Divine Threat: Increases the generated threat by 50%.
Divine Action: Increases Action Point gain by 20%.
T2:
Divinity at will: At wills and dailies now do 20% more damage.
Divine Encounters: Encounters now do 20% more damage.
T3:
Divine Recharge: Decreases cooldowns for the OP by 20%.
Divine Effects: All shields, temp hp and effects last 5s longer.
T4:
Overflowing Divinity: At wills now regenerate 5 divinity per hit.
Spreading Divinity: The temporary Hitpoints and Shields are now spread to all party members with the effect of 20% from what the OP gains.
T5:
Divine Pallisade: Adds the effect of Divine Pallisade to the Tank mechanic, which reduces incoming damage by -10% for all near allies and adds a nice visual effect.
Divine Champion: Increases OPs outgoing damage by 15%.
There needs to be some tuning and scaling in comparision to the other classes for sure, but I think that design would be more enjoyable. Take from it whatever you think fits well.
Sorry for my english, this is not my mother tongue.
Hi @asterdahl thank you for the way your are handling this thread and the tanking design of MOD16. I was aware since few mods that the tanking OP was overpowered trusting every tanking slot in the game, leaving no place for GF in this role. I'm pretty happy to have changes on my favorite class and offering a different gameplay.
There are many flaws on this new Justicar : - Movement : to be competitive we need to be mobile. So I was used to play with 5 Dark enchant R14 to be fast enough because we haven't go any speed increase hability as the other class have. The enchant revamp deprive the OP of this possibility. The only that remains to us is the Gladiator's Guile mount bonus which can be a waste compare to other mount bonus. The other classes have the dodge hability (except GF) to fasten their movement and the GF an encounter to do so (don't know if the power is still the same). Being the first to engage the fight is very important for a tanking class, and as a turtle class with no fastening hability and speed runner team a tanking class moving faster than the justicar will be prefered. Working on a speeding movement hability for the Justicar should be great. - Keeping aggro and shift hability, it may present some difficulty to keep aggro by doing nothing except hiding behind our huge shield especially with numerous ennemies. We are not aggressive with our shied up, and no power is usable during this time to maintain aggro or aggro new monsters. This can be even harder if we don't get aggro first with our legendary turtle movement. - Overwhelming monsters : the AI of monster tend to overwhelm us and moving in my back to hit me. So I need to move backward with shied up. My DPS mate won't be happy with this new tanking mode.
My test are only made on a 19k lvl 80 Justicar in solo mode. I've not tested in group content, neither on a fresh OP. I'm nearly capped with every stat recommended by @noworries#8859
The DPS hability is really good by now : encounters, at-wills. The difference of damage made by an encounter and a daily is too close. Maybe a small up is required on dailies, and down on the encounters (only up is good too).
Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for checking out the changes on preview! Also, no worries about your English, I understood all of your points, it was quite fine. In terms of threat, please try out a lot of group content before you decide if it's too difficult or not, it's something that takes a lot of getting used to when compared with the past. I think Justicar and Sentinel are both pretty much fine on threat (Sentinel with changes this Friday) and perhaps fighter is the only one lagging a bit behind.
In terms of your group rushing ahead of you though, there's a paradigm shift that is going to have to happen, and it will once balance gets in the right place—we're already seeing it in some internal playtests, if you face pull as a DPS, you get a dirt nap. But I do understand your point. Have you tried using relentless avenger to move more quickly? It has quite a high range.
Thanks for your quick answer. To be more accurate, I've tested retentless avenger. It's a perfect encounter to rush into a fight (with damage as a bonus) coupled to radiant strike as At-will it's OK. But used to run through the stairs in Tomb of the Nine Gods for instance, it's absolutely useless. And fast runners won't appreciate to wait a turtle to engage a fight. If they can find a quick runner tank, Justicar won't be welcome in the dungeons runs. In my opinion, it's the point. So let's make all the tanks running as turtles, with no differences except a different tanking style of their class and their personnal tanking skill.
A friend of mine has made a test last night with a fighter (with unlimited tab aggro hability and full immunity even in backstab) i won't agree that the fighter is behind in tanking. Their DPS maybe a bit to slow.
For group content, unfortunately my guildmates are not interested in testing preview. I will try it in pick up but not easy to succeed in.
Glad to reply! I appreciate the continued feedback! I can say at least, that none of the tanks are particularly "fast runners," when compared with one another. All tanks have block as their shift power.
[Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 684 (721) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 639 (674) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 723 (763) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 706 (744) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
vs
[Combat (Self)] Your Conartist's Discipline deals 788 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
Conartist's does 20% of weapon damage, so at Oath Strike isn't even doing that on a regular hit!
[Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 2861 (3017) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 3163 (3335) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 2846 (3002) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 3038 (3204) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
So on a typical hit Valorous is doing 4.5X the damage of Oath Strike, and Shielding Strike does the same as Valorous, and this is as expected with their magnitude 4.5x that of Oath Strike.
Valorous Strike has the same attack window as Oath Strike (200 degrees) but is slightly slower (which means it actually does less than 4.5x the damage, but it takes a lot of at-wills to make that difference matter).
Valorous has no "Added Effect", while Oath Strike has "Increased Threat".
Now as I understand it the basic mechanism for threat is damage. It would seem that Oath Strike would need to have more than 4x the threat of Valorous Strike to even be offering more threat than Valorous Strike. That seems like a problem for Oath Strike.
Again ti seems that Oath Strike could be upped to Magnitude 20. For solo play this would still leave it out of rotations, but it would significantly improve its effectiveness and value in party play.
Hello! Thanks for the feedback!
The core issue is that you are comparing an AoE attack to a single target attack. Also, oath strike does do a bit less damage than it would if it did not generate additional threat, but at 4 targets you're talking breakeven damage on oath strike compared with valorous strike.
In other words: you should never really be using oath strike against a boss, or a single enemy. On the other hand, against groups, oath strike is the clear winner, because at 4 targets you're talking breakeven damage, and currently the threat bonus is 700%, so it's a threat increase even against a single enemy. That said, you shouldn't need the additional threat against a single enemy and should be able to keep its attention fine with valorous strike most likely.
Hopefully all of that made sense. I hope you continue your testing, and play around with the two powers in group content!
That being said, there are going to be some changes. Here's a sample of what's in store:
Out of combat divinity regeneration is being increased slightly.
Divine Call will now return more divinity when used out of combat.
Burning Light's recast decreased to 15s from ~20s, magnitude increased from 200 to 300, it will deal 200 magnitude if you tap it, 300 if you hold it down for its ~1.5s cast.
Sacred Weapon's added damage magnitude increased from 40 to 80 per hit.
Radiant Charge now stuns (knocks down) targets briefly.
The Oathkeeper daily Sanctuary will now provide the caster with immunity to control effects.
The Justicar class mechanic "Divine Palisade" has been adjusted to an alternate version of block that consumes 60 divinity every second but reduces the damage you and anyone behind you takes by 10%. Similar to the fighter's "Dig In" mechanic you cannot move while using Divine Palisade, however, unlike "dig in" the power is snappy, and not meant to be held down continually. (Dig In is getting some changes too, but I'll address that in the fighter thread.)
And finally, one nerf: smite's damage will be reduced from 1600 to 1200 magnitude.
Divinity Regeneration does seem a little better, but frankly its still too slow. Burning Light recharge is faster, still think it might as well be tap and cast and forget this charge for more damage. Sacred Weapon change is in effect and seems to be a nice buff, but its cooldown is far too long. Not seeing any sign of the stun on Radiant Charge. Divine Palisade is unchanged. Smite change in effect and is fine.
Some of these may technically be bugs, but we need @asterdahl to confirm if they made it into the build.
It sounds like some of the changes I had hoped would make it into this build did not make it, which is unfortunate. I will take a look tomorrow to be sure. They will absolutely be in this week's build. I apologize for that.
The core issue is that you are comparing an AoE attack to a single target attack. Also, oath strike does do a bit less damage than it would if it did not generate additional threat, but at 4 targets you're talking breakeven damage on oath strike compared with valorous strike.
In other words: you should never really be using oath strike against a boss, or a single enemy. On the other hand, against groups, oath strike is the clear winner, because at 4 targets you're talking breakeven damage, and currently the threat bonus is 700%, so it's a threat increase even against a single enemy. That said, you shouldn't need the additional threat against a single enemy and should be able to keep its attention fine with valorous strike most likely.
Hopefully all of that made sense. I hope you continue your testing, and play around with the two powers in group content!
Ahm Valorous Strike and Oath Strike are both 200 degree arc attacks. So I'm comparing apples to apples.
Only Radiant Strike of our At-wills is a true AoE (10' Radius, not enough to hit 3 dummies in SH by 5' on a side), and while I'd like to see it get a buff (because I suspect all at-wills are too low atm) I think it is in a good spot compared to Valorous and Shielding Strike proportionately.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
At wills should be significant and fulfill parts of the core mechanics to a lesser degree. At wills, 2 shared and 2 path only: Shared:
Valorous Strike: Significant highest single target damage at will with no additional effect. ~100 magnitude for each hit
Oath Strike: Significant highest multi target damage at will with no additional effect. Significant less damage than Valorous Strike to one target. ~50/target magnitude per hit
Path only:
Radiant Strike: Lunging at the enemies and dealing damage in a cone. Radiant Strike has increased threat on all targets. Used for aggroing and getting to enemies. ~35 magnitude for each hit, threat worth of 70 magnitude
Shielding Strike: Damaging one target, recover stamina and getting more threat than Valorous Strike. ~80 magnitude, 160 magnitude threat
Divinity now adds effects to the encounters instead of letting half of the encounters consume it. All encounter powers have a cooldown in the range of 10s-20s. This makes fights less stale. Divinity is gained in time. In fight +20 Divinity per second. Out of fight: +100/s. Encounters should fulfill parts of the the core mechanics of the tank role. Encounters, 5 shared and 5 path only: Shared:
Burning Light: Deals medium amount of damage to near targets. ~400/target magnitude Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +100 magnitude.
Smite: Heavy single target attack. ~800 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +200 magnitude.
Banishment: Stuns near targets for and deals medium amount of damage. ~200/target magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +100 magnitude and stuns 1 second longer.
Relentless Avenger: Lunge at the targets and deal medium amount of damage. Better version of Radiant Strike: ~400 magnitude for target and 200 magnitude for near targets. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +100/+50 magnitude.
Divine Touch: Heals the OP for 400 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +150 magnitude.
Path only:
Templars Wrath: Deals medium damage and the OP gains 30% temporary HP for 10s. ~300/target magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +20% temporary HP.
Circle of Power: Increases OPs divinity regeneration by 20% and decreases incoming damage by 10% for allies standing inside it. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: Increases OPs damage by 10%.
Bane: Deals medium damage and increases damage taken by 10%. Single target only. ~400 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: Holds ~5s longer.
Binding Oath: Gives the OP a shield of 50% and a targeted ally a shield of 20%. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: No longer depletes after 10s.
Vow of enmity: Deals low damage and increases threat while it is active by 50%. Single target only. ~300 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +200 magnitude.
Dailies should either have unique abilities that adds usefulness to the fight or should be significant. Dailies should not be used as often as in mod 15. Dailies, 3 shared and 2 path only: Shared:
Radiant Charge: Deal Heavy damage to near targets and prone them. 1000/target magnitude.
Divine Judgement: Deal Heavy single target damage and medium damage to near targets. 2000 magnitude to main target, 500 magnitude to near targets.
Shield of Faith: Reduces damage taken by 20% on a different layer for 10s.
Path only:
Divine Protector: Redirects 40% of damage taken by allies to the OP and reduces it by 50% for 7s.
Heroism: The OP gains a shield up to 50% HP and increases his damage by 10% for 15s.
Feats should give the OP a significant change in their playstyle that lets the OP excel at some point, like tanking, damage or party usability. Feats should be less situation dependent than passives, because the player can not change them without re rolling. Feats should always affect more than one ability. Feats, one of each: T1:
Divine Threat: Increases the generated threat by 50%.
Divine Action: Increases Action Point gain by 20%.
T2:
Divinity at will: At wills and dailies now do 20% more damage.
Divine Encounters: Encounters now do 20% more damage.
T3:
Divine Recharge: Decreases cooldowns for the OP by 20%.
Divine Effects: All shields, temp hp and effects last 5s longer.
T4:
Overflowing Divinity: At wills now regenerate 5 divinity per hit.
Spreading Divinity: The temporary Hitpoints and Shields are now spread to all party members with the effect of 20% from what the OP gains.
T5:
Divine Pallisade: Adds the effect of Divine Pallisade to the Tank mechanic, which reduces incoming damage by -10% for all near allies and adds a nice visual effect.
Divine Champion: Increases OPs outgoing damage by 15%.
There needs to be some tuning and scaling in comparision to the other classes for sure, but I think that design would be more enjoyable. Take from it whatever you think fits well.
While I really like your suggestions / they would basically turn the Justicar into a less powerful version of the current Live Protector which is still an overall buff /, Im afraid the devs are taking Pallies into a different direction. The only thing Im hoping for is they dont screw up with this new direction. Aggro taking and holding need to be top notch, being able to survive as a Justicar should also be a top priority. Re-bulding a class as only a tank or healer means said class needs to excel in those roles. A Justicar for example should have it easy as a tank /if built and played well/, taking away the dps ability must be offset by providing exceptional tanking ability. As a Justicar I shouldnt struggle at all keeping aggro on me while surrounded by strong dps party mates. The paladin in m16 is different /thats the polite way of saying NERFED/, however different is OK as long as both roles can be the best at what they do. For example a Tank in the more traditional sense /means pure tank not some dps hybrid/ can still feel powerful and important to the party even while doing less dmg than even the healer. How? Simply by keeping enemy attention on himself and surviving it while the dps do their job.
As a 18.5k IL Protector Paladin on Live I felt encouraged by the developers to build for dps. My tanking on Live is directly tied to my dps /aggro managing, temp health etc/ and the game itself pretty much only calls for strong dps and buffs. Long gone are the days when a CW would push mobs off edges or simply hold them while dps classes mow them down. Days when different roles meant something. Over the years the game became one huge dps race and the class roles all diluted into one or two at best - dps and buff. M16 sounds like the holy trinity is gonna be back into play in full effect. Im gonna miss my dps sure, since it made me feel powerful and important to the party but if you @asterdahl and the rest of the dev team manage to make my class into a great tank, I would welcome this change.
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
2
gormenghast1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 88Arc User
There should be at least a single source of active divinity gain in combat, other than blocking. Once divinity is depleted and the Paladin loses aggro, there are chances that only an hard taunt will help him regain it in order to block and get some divinity back. This forces every Paladin to always use Vow of Enmity in group content, considering that the only other hard taunt is Smite coupled with Divine Challenger (not usable when divinity is too low). Even then, it's a matter of time for losing aggro again, at least for the Whole CD of Vow if the divinity regained is not enough to cast another Smite. Continuous testing makes me feel that the Paladin's choices for a viable gameplay are getting more and more limited, forcing upon the players a very specific build in order to play effectively. This is in stark contrast with the publicity made in favor of mod 16 changes, which were supposed to bring more openness and choice to the players. I start to believe the very opposite, seeing a reduction of the number of powers coupled with a reduction of worthwile ones.
As far as I've seen, tanking for a tank class has become very unreliable and it's like the whole combat system has been conceived to prevent tanks to fill in their role in a reliable way. Difficulty in a game should punish errors and award skill, but broken game mechanics just drive away players. This kind of juggling between holding aggro, handling divinity and the need to perfectly alternating parry time with attack frames is dramatically more complex than a DD class gameplay and it gives no room for a single error. Even with a perfect play, losing aggro happens definitely too much and lots of wipes will follow.
Think about granting tank classes the same possibilities they currently have, because all this fear of allowing a tank to tank seems just a random punishment for a class role more than an attempt to make the game more intesting and fun.
Hey Skrimshaw72, thanks for checking out the changes and providing your unique perspective on the class. I really appreciate that you are keeping an open mind about the changes. There are more changes coming, especially to feats and some of the harder to use single target powers.
I'm also looking into making some changes to auras, for next week I am going to be testing a design where auras go back to being up all the time (with somewhat adjusted effects from what they are now) but you may only slot one aura at a time, and must use one of the other 4 class features for your second slot. We'll see how this plays out, we'd like to not have 2 permanent aura buffs on the group for each Paladin.
In regards to the single target powers: please note that enemies cannot intercept your heals, in fact, they shouldn't even prevent you from targeting your ally. What I mean by that is, if you are trying to heal the tank with cleansing touch and a bunch of enemies run in front of them, the game should properly allow you to heal the tank right through them. The only issue actually comes when your own teammates intercept the heal, but I do understand that it can be difficult.
Finally, on the topic of circle of power, it has a new effect, and only increases your outgoing healing, it's a zone you can drop to improve your healing and restore some divinity over time. The FX are going to change a bit, to make it seem less like it is providing a defensive buff that the group should stand in. Instead, you can think of it as dropping a little fort where you want to hang out to get a benefit from, once you've settled into an area for a fight. Of course, you may have to move out of it to dodge an AoE occasionally, but the more you can stay within its boundaries, the more of a benefit you can reap.
I hope you'll keep trying out Oathkeeper as the changes continue. We are aiming for Oathkeeper to be 100% as desirable as any other healer for group play, which should at least put them in a better spot vis-a-vis Clerics when compared to live, where although the Cleric wasn't needed as a healer, they were much more desirable than Devotion Paladins in most cases.
Thanks for your reply, and all the hard work you are doing here on the forums. I'll keep tinkering on the TS, and look forward to checking the changes you spoke of.
<font color=cyan>So I got to do some 1 Rune Master Expeditions tonight and I partied with a Warlock running heals.
The 2 of us had no trouble with the content.
The first run I ran: Relentless, Templar’s, Binding (with feat)
I had some trouble with aggro management here. Basically we killed stuff too fast and I would run out of Divinity as were were not standing around waiting for it.
Second run I ran: Vow, Templar’s, Binding (with feat).
This time aggro management was easier and I only noticed one significant lapse on the Beholder boss at the end, but recovered swiftly enough. Stopping to change to single target probably would have fixed it.
This time Divinity was less of a problem, instead the problem was Vow coming off cooldown, where it spends far too long.
In both runs I spent a bunch of time shield up using the reflected damage while I gained Divinity. Which is frustrating because frankly the fact it doesn’t just auto-fill after a fight means the smoothness of play in effective groups is hindered.
More practice and some tweaking and this looks very sound.</font>
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Comments
[Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 684 (721) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 639 (674) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 723 (763) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Oath Strike deals 706 (744) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
vs
[Combat (Self)] Your Conartist's Discipline deals 788 Physical Damage to Target Dummy.
Conartist's does 20% of weapon damage, so at Oath Strike isn't even doing that on a regular hit!
[Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 2861 (3017) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 3163 (3335) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 2846 (3002) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Valorous Strike deals 3038 (3204) Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
So on a typical hit Valorous is doing 4.5X the damage of Oath Strike, and Shielding Strike does the same as Valorous, and this is as expected with their magnitude 4.5x that of Oath Strike.
Valorous Strike has the same attack window as Oath Strike (200 degrees) but is slightly slower (which means it actually does less than 4.5x the damage, but it takes a lot of at-wills to make that difference matter).
Valorous has no "Added Effect", while Oath Strike has "Increased Threat".
Now as I understand it the basic mechanism for threat is damage. It would seem that Oath Strike would need to have more than 4x the threat of Valorous Strike to even be offering more threat than Valorous Strike. That seems like a problem for Oath Strike.
Again ti seems that Oath Strike could be upped to Magnitude 20. For solo play this would still leave it out of rotations, but it would significantly improve its effectiveness and value in party play.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Stat allocation needs guidance - is Justicar damage Physical, Magical or Both? I guessed Both. How would I know!?
Regardless, my Dwarf Justicar, who went heavy into CON is now HAMSTERed.
New Boon system totally lacks flavour/guidance. What should I do to unlock next boon level? (I think the answer is any Campaign I want). Concept of progression is lost.
On Live I load a single target, an AoE and a Utility (debuff/heal) At Will. So I tried the same. The At Wills are so weak, I was literally waiting for an Encounter to kill a mob. I could easily not have used At Wills at all. I'd like to see a YouTuber do a run without using them to demonstrate their uselessness.
I ignored Con in stats and just took equal amounts of Str and Int and all the Cha I could manage.
The new Boon system is pick whatever from your available options. Go the first 3 from the left and then the defence one for that row, the (faint) number on the left tells you the total amount of points you need to unlock the next level.
Why would you just run at-wills to kill things?
They are clearly not the major source of damage for an OP.
Run Burning Light (tap), Smite and whatever that doesn’t use Divinity.
Use a DPS companion.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Basic mooks should be easily killed with at-wills(talking the chaff enemies- orc drudges, redcap powries, goblin... little stabby dudes, that lean, dual-wielding skeleton that's used with a dozen cultist and thayan mook models, etc). Damage model on Live is pretty good, where typical encounter deals about as much damage as 3-6 seconds of an at-will, depending on range, aoe, and cooldown.
For paladins, the real operative question is "is it actually more efficient to use my at-will, or to keep blocking to charge up Smite?"
That question should have an answer that changes situationally, not "smite, duh."
Always the option of switching more of the at-wills to physical damage and making them grant a little bit of divinity on every hit; would be kinda like a tabletop paladin making as many attacks as possible, fishing for a crit to turn a spell slot into a massive burst of Radiant damage.
Clearly I’m ok with at-wills getting a buff.
I’m also ok with Smite doing less damage, it shouldn’t be hitting as hard as Divine Judgement.
But frankly, right now I’m less worried about the power damage dial than I am about the overall effectiveness of powers and mechanics, especially passives, feats and divinity management in relation to aggro and defensive ability. Once those things “feel good”, then damage dials can be tweaked more easily because we will not be trying to change everything at once.
I’ll take a look at CT with my low iL Paly, but given I soloed most of eSoT with it I expect a very different experience to alaric.
I ran through CT with my level 22 OP, and it took about 15 minutes to solo it, and I died once on the final boss because I didn't quite get Smite placed properly. Powers were Sacred Weapon, Burning Light, Smite, and Wayward Wizard (no bondings or gear on it), no boons, basic green gear with no enchants.
I also ran it with my 20k OP, and her Con Artist companion just makes the whole thing a joke.
(I need to re-port my low iL OP across again.)
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
and I join the request to fix the grip on the main weapon:
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Burning Light recharge is faster, still think it might as well be tap and cast and forget this charge for more damage.
Sacred Weapon change is in effect and seems to be a nice buff, but its cooldown is far too long.
Not seeing any sign of the stun on Radiant Charge.
Divine Palisade is unchanged.
Smite change in effect and is fine.
Some of these may technically be bugs, but we need @asterdahl to confirm if they made it into the build.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
So far playing with the current set up is much smoother at level 70ish in terms of Divinity recovery, which is different to my experience just post patch with the level 80 version decked out in Spy gear.
Sacred Weapon definitely helps more, but as mentioned in the last post the recharge time is too slow. I have a 13.8s cooldown on Burning Light and a 27.7s cooldown on Sacred Weapon, that means at best I'm getting Sacred Weapon every second combat. Its just not doing enough to justify that 30s base cooldown.
Now back at 80 and running around in Vanrakdoom. Its the first area where I felt on the weak side.Its also the first area where any mobs did noticeable damage, and I got the Guise set of gear from the merchant in YP (the best set he sells,I certainly wouldn't buy it on live).
At this point it seems that the cooldown on Vow of Enmity is also too long (for the purpose of holding aggro) it also hits like a wet tissue (likely contributing to aggro retention problems). It still may not be making you the priority on the target (or as soon as something else hits them, that becomes the priority) because my pet (Legendary Conartist) easily steals aggro from me.
Final update on this post, as I have stopped for the day (in frustration at the final quest bugging again and not being able to make the artifact), but now that I'm back over 20k iL with a bit of a random collection of new gear I'm again feeling Divinity recovery is too slow. I think its basically the damage output of the character hits a certain point and then you start having trouble with divinity (I only use Smite as a Divinity power in solos fyi).
Radiant Charge now stuns (knocks down) targets briefly. - is not happening at all.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
> I saw exactly one feat for the Justicar Paragon path that I would want to choose. The cooldowns on encounter powers are all 20 or 29 seconds. Looks like all we get to do is at will powers.
Plus the damage on at wills is abyssmal atm.
I took some time to test most recent changes to the class and I'd like to share my thoughts about it too. All the following considerations are made testing the Justicar path, so all the magnitudes listed are already corrected by the 30% damage decrease applied to tank classes.
Burning Light: 210 effective magnitude (140 not fully charged), 14s CD. Till mod 15 charging BL was a risky business for the chances of being stunned and losing important seconds, but it was rewarded with a series of stuns and the application of Aura of Courage procs that granted a substained DPS if used skillfully. Now the Paladin has dramatically reduced options to control adds and that brings the need to use its shield much more. The need to charge a weak encounter to make it a little less miserable makes it not worth slotting it in any combat situation, even with its negligible stun effect.
Divinity regeneration increase: hardly noticeable. Absolution while blocking is the only way to go to keep divinity at adequate levels. Having mandatory powers to use is still not optimal, as it limits the choice and doesn't help to make the game fun to play.
Sacred Weapon: ludicrous CD of almost half a minute for an Aura of Courage-like damage increase of 56 magnitude on any hit, lasting 1/3 of the CD time. With the current state of the renewed combat system, tanks don't have the luxury of all that time to use Radiant Strike in combo with SW for a total of 66 magnitude hits that, ideally, should be repeated for 10 seconds to avoid wasting a long CD encounter. Other than the exceedlingly boring gameplay this would represent, there is no way this could help holding aggro on mobs in party content, neither contribute to the DPS in significant way. Still no reason to take it in place of more useful encounters.
Smite: magnitude lowered to an effective 840, no other changes to the power. If this change came with a similar 25% reduction in divinity cost I could have understood it. Less damage but more uses would have granted a bit more plasticity to combat, but this is just a plain nerf to the Paladin's only single target DD power that wasn't actually needed. On a side note, also the main single target DD encounter of the Vanguard has seen a damage reduction of a 37,5%, with a same percentage reduction of its CD time. DPS is unchanged and Vanguard has more plasticity using it, while Paladin's smite just does less than before.
Divine Touch: 275% increase in divinity cost. At least the cost didn't change for the healing paragon. With the need to focus on aggro handling for a Justicar it was already a questionable choice to slot DT, now it makes even less sense.
Oath of protection bonus threat slight increase: imho it has to be definitely higher than a "slight" increase to let Justicars manage aggro through their abysmal DPS, when competing with the DPS output of any DD class. Other than using hard taunts, there is no way a Justicar can get hold of threat after a DPS started to focus on a target. Simple math indicates that a Paladin doing 20% DPS of a DD class should have a threat generation bonus of at least 500% to compete on the aggro chart. With threat generated through healing powers things are even worse.
Justicar's Charge no longer grants divinity recharge through falling: makes sense.
In addiction to the feedback over the recent changes, I would like to reiterate that Justicars need a signature class mechanic that doesn't feel like an overpriced encounter with little to no use in party content due to its tactical futility (the rest of the party won't stand anywhere near the tank if it can be avoided) and a negligible buff. Barbarians have rage, Rogues have Stealth, Rangers have Stance, Arbiters have Scales of Judgement...all these class mechanics offer a signature style for these classes and are actually fun and vital to master in order to successfully playing those classes. Adding a toggle to Pallisade doesn't change the fact that it can't be in any way considered a class mechanic and it can hardly be integrated in a Justicar's gameplay in the same way the old Divine Call was.
P.S.: I have played the Sentinel to test the different feels of the new tank classes and I'm sorry to say that playing with a Barbarian tank that has 10k less IL feels more rewarding, dynamic and ultimately fun than playing with my Paladin main character. Sentinel's Slash that works as a shield while charging the attack, huge self heals through a low CD Bloodletter, low CD/high damage IBS, low CD Not So Fast, all coupled with frequent uses of CC immunity frames and even faster Attacks through Rage grant the Sentinel a wonderful flow of combat that is seriously lacking in Justicar's gameplay. That's the kind of love every class should deserve.
The next quest "Dispatch and Release" is where we get our first problem (not really a problem but close enough for a new player). Everything is good but the enemies are very close together and have very quick re-spawn times so before I can even kill one group another group shows up and then another and another... They just keep showing up and I cannot kill them fast enough to progress in that area (got passed it, man that was a pain). Now I understand that the re-spawn timer needs to be low with so many people running around that area but I think the enemies might need to be spread out a little more. Just a thought.
Important for the tank role and fun:
Less important for the tank role, old features or just fun:
Lets take a look at the suggested design:
Note: To be significant I expect the abilities to be at at least around ~20% of whatever it increases.The shield should be unique to the other tanks. Let the shield reduce the damage like it does on mod 16 but additionally give it a small area that increases the survivability of near party members like sanctuary did. It increased the usefulness in some situations. It should not be too significant. 5%-10% to the – incoming damage is enough. When shielding the OP can not be controlled.
Tank mechanic: Marks near enemies to increase the threat that is generated. Let the tank get the initial aggro by giving the OP an initial threat threshold. Reduces the damage the targets inflict by ~5%. The marks can not be added twice and disappear after 10s or 20s. This makes the marks important for aggro management. The tank mechanic should have no cooldown nor cost any other resource, since using it twice is useless.
Passives should give the player a significant change in their abilities. This can include damage, threat, survivability, movement or other useful stuff.
Passives, 4 shared and 4 path only:
Shared:
- Aura of Speed: Increases the movement by 20%. This gives the OP the ability to get faster to the targets or party members.
- Divine Justice: Increases the damage the Paladin inflicts if no other party members are around by 20%. This is for solo play.
- Aura of Truth: Increases the damage near targets take by additive 10% for the OP only. This would be great for solo play but unimportant for party play, because debuffs are higher.
- Divine Shieldbearer: Increases the Divinity regeneration by 20%. This passive gives the OP more ease for managing divinity.
Path only:At wills, 2 shared and 2 path only:
Shared:
- Valorous Strike: Significant highest single target damage at will with no additional effect. ~100 magnitude for each hit
- Oath Strike: Significant highest multi target damage at will with no additional effect. Significant less damage than Valorous Strike to one target. ~50/target magnitude per hit
Path only:- Radiant Strike: Lunging at the enemies and dealing damage in a cone. Radiant Strike has increased threat on all targets. Used for aggroing and getting to enemies. ~35 magnitude for each hit, threat worth of 70 magnitude
- Shielding Strike: Damaging one target, recover stamina and getting more threat than Valorous Strike. ~80 magnitude, 160 magnitude threat
Divinity now adds effects to the encounters instead of letting half of the encounters consume it. All encounter powers have a cooldown in the range of 10s-20s. This makes fights less stale. Divinity is gained in time. In fight +20 Divinity per second. Out of fight: +100/s.Encounters should fulfill parts of the the core mechanics of the tank role.
Encounters, 5 shared and 5 path only:
Shared:
- Burning Light: Deals medium amount of damage to near targets. ~400/target magnitude Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +100 magnitude.
- Smite: Heavy single target attack. ~800 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +200 magnitude.
- Banishment: Stuns near targets for and deals medium amount of damage. ~200/target magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +100 magnitude and stuns 1 second longer.
- Relentless Avenger: Lunge at the targets and deal medium amount of damage. Better version of Radiant Strike: ~400 magnitude for target and 200 magnitude for near targets. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +100/+50 magnitude.
- Divine Touch: Heals the OP for 400 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +150 magnitude.
Path only:- Templars Wrath: Deals medium damage and the OP gains 30% temporary HP for 10s. ~300/target magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +20% temporary HP.
- Circle of Power: Increases OPs divinity regeneration by 20% and decreases incoming damage by 10% for allies standing inside it. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: Increases OPs damage by 10%.
- Bane: Deals medium damage and increases damage taken by 10%. Single target only. ~400 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: Holds ~5s longer.
- Binding Oath: Gives the OP a shield of 50% and a targeted ally a shield of 20%. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: No longer depletes after 10s.
- Vow of enmity: Deals low damage and increases threat while it is active by 50%. Single target only. ~300 magnitude. Divinity effect for 200 divinity: +200 magnitude.
Dailies should either have unique abilities that adds usefulness to the fight or should be significant. Dailies should not be used as often as in mod 15.Dailies, 3 shared and 2 path only:
Shared:
- Radiant Charge: Deal Heavy damage to near targets and prone them. 1000/target magnitude.
- Divine Judgement: Deal Heavy single target damage and medium damage to near targets. 2000 magnitude to main target, 500 magnitude to near targets.
- Shield of Faith: Reduces damage taken by 20% on a different layer for 10s.
Path only:- Divine Protector: Redirects 40% of damage taken by allies to the OP and reduces it by 50% for 7s.
- Heroism: The OP gains a shield up to 50% HP and increases his damage by 10% for 15s.
Feats should give the OP a significant change in their playstyle that lets the OP excel at some point, like tanking, damage or party usability. Feats should be less situation dependent than passives, because the player can not change them without re rolling. Feats should always affect more than one ability.Feats, one of each:
T1:
- Divine Threat: Increases the generated threat by 50%.
- Divine Action: Increases Action Point gain by 20%.
T2:- Divinity at will: At wills and dailies now do 20% more damage.
- Divine Encounters: Encounters now do 20% more damage.
T3:- Divine Recharge: Decreases cooldowns for the OP by 20%.
- Divine Effects: All shields, temp hp and effects last 5s longer.
T4:- Overflowing Divinity: At wills now regenerate 5 divinity per hit.
- Spreading Divinity: The temporary Hitpoints and Shields are now spread to all party members with the effect of 20% from what the OP gains.
T5:- Divine Pallisade: Adds the effect of Divine Pallisade to the Tank mechanic, which reduces incoming damage by -10% for all near allies and adds a nice visual effect.
- Divine Champion: Increases OPs outgoing damage by 15%.
There needs to be some tuning and scaling in comparision to the other classes for sure, but I think that design would be more enjoyable. Take from it whatever you think fits well.House Miliskeera in exile (NW)
Sereska Miliskeera, Lvl 70 OP - Devotion (Just.)/Protection (Just.)
Shizlee Miliskeera, Lvl 70 DC - Divine Oracle (Right.)/Anoited Champion (Faith.)
Finithey Miliskeera, Lvl 70 HR - Stormwarden (Combat)/Pathfinder (Trapper)
Maya Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 CW - Spellstorm
Irae Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 TR - Master Inflitrator
Member - Houseclan t'Charvon (STO)
Shiarrael e'Tal'Aura t'Charvon, LvL 60, Rom Sci
S'aana ir'Virinat t'Charvon, Lvl 60, Rom Eng
T'Lyra, LvL 60, Fed, Vul Sci
Ta'el, Lvl 60, Rom Tac
The core issue is that you are comparing an AoE attack to a single target attack. Also, oath strike does do a bit less damage than it would if it did not generate additional threat, but at 4 targets you're talking breakeven damage on oath strike compared with valorous strike.
In other words: you should never really be using oath strike against a boss, or a single enemy. On the other hand, against groups, oath strike is the clear winner, because at 4 targets you're talking breakeven damage, and currently the threat bonus is 700%, so it's a threat increase even against a single enemy. That said, you shouldn't need the additional threat against a single enemy and should be able to keep its attention fine with valorous strike most likely.
Hopefully all of that made sense. I hope you continue your testing, and play around with the two powers in group content!
Only Radiant Strike of our At-wills is a true AoE (10' Radius, not enough to hit 3 dummies in SH by 5' on a side), and while I'd like to see it get a buff (because I suspect all at-wills are too low atm) I think it is in a good spot compared to Valorous and Shielding Strike proportionately.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
As a 18.5k IL Protector Paladin on Live I felt encouraged by the developers to build for dps. My tanking on Live is directly tied to my dps /aggro managing, temp health etc/ and the game itself pretty much only calls for strong dps and buffs. Long gone are the days when a CW would push mobs off edges or simply hold them while dps classes mow them down. Days when different roles meant something. Over the years the game became one huge dps race and the class roles all diluted into one or two at best - dps and buff. M16 sounds like the holy trinity is gonna be back into play in full effect. Im gonna miss my dps sure, since it made me feel powerful and important to the party but if you @asterdahl and the rest of the dev team manage to make my class into a great tank, I would welcome this change.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
As far as I've seen, tanking for a tank class has become very unreliable and it's like the whole combat system has been conceived to prevent tanks to fill in their role in a reliable way. Difficulty in a game should punish errors and award skill, but broken game mechanics just drive away players. This kind of juggling between holding aggro, handling divinity and the need to perfectly alternating parry time with attack frames is dramatically more complex than a DD class gameplay and it gives no room for a single error. Even with a perfect play, losing aggro happens definitely too much and lots of wipes will follow.
Think about granting tank classes the same possibilities they currently have, because all this fear of allowing a tank to tank seems just a random punishment for a class role more than an attempt to make the game more intesting and fun.
Thanks for your reply, and all the hard work you are doing here on the forums. I'll keep tinkering on the TS, and look forward to checking the changes you spoke of.
The 2 of us had no trouble with the content.
The first run I ran:
Relentless, Templar’s, Binding (with feat)
I had some trouble with aggro management here. Basically we killed stuff too fast and I would run out of Divinity as were were not standing around waiting for it.
Second run I ran:
Vow, Templar’s, Binding (with feat).
This time aggro management was easier and I only noticed one significant lapse on the Beholder boss at the end, but recovered swiftly enough. Stopping to change to single target probably would have fixed it.
This time Divinity was less of a problem, instead the problem was Vow coming off cooldown, where it spends far too long.
In both runs I spent a bunch of time shield up using the reflected damage while I gained Divinity. Which is frustrating because frankly the fact it doesn’t just auto-fill after a fight means the smoothness of play in effective groups is hindered.
More practice and some tweaking and this looks very sound.</font>
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.