> @asterdahl said: > There are a few players who are starting to get used to things, and can tell you that in areas where things are not broken, they have no problem surviving, or even dealing solid damage while tanking group content.
Where/who are these players with positive feedback on the gameplay? From what I see in this thread, the majority of players say gameplay is not fun with weak at wills and a lot of time spent waiting for divinity to recharge...
> @buakaw750 said: > It's ridiculous. in solo content, my pet makes 10 times my damage. in practice I spend the time with shield raised to wait for the companion to kill the mobs ... very funny .... > Also, two encounter (useless) powers are enough to finish divinity which then is recharged very slowly....
Lol I would imagine a lot of the mod 16 paladin's time is now spent standing there waiting for the companion to do the work.
my husband and i use the paladin as our main class because
a) i can be carefree and play as a heal focused tank and screw up a lot as i am prone to.
i do this because i'm not a big gamer so my timings are always off... plus i love hopping around in combat
The problem is that a lot of people can do this because the Paladin on live is nigh-unkillable.
I am not "elite". Far from it. I have invested in other characters that I have either deleted or generally abandoned and so I have been very cautious about sinking money into a character that I may not play much in the long haul, and that has been my Paladin (though I must say that I am feeling pretty good about the long-term prognosis for the character, so I may start investing in them after I see the final results of Mod16, but things are looking good now).
Bad item level. Basic companions. Basic mounts. Virtually no enchantments or runestones slotted.
Nearly indestructible in any level-appropriate solo content.
Paladins were easy mode. *Are* easy mode.
The reasons for this mod have been laid out. My Paladin is changing, too.
But somehow I have found a path forward. Somehow I have managed to not die every time a hostile looks at me. Somehow I have managed to take some less than BIS companions and defeat enemies in a timely fashion.
You quoted me but did not seem to be responding to me? Or only read that line to the exclusion of all else 1) I don't know about "easy-mode" but the ease-of-use and passive-play-if-I-want is what attracted me to the class 2) I am not asking for any changes to be reverted
If you are going to impose a 30% dmg penalty for the Tank path then introduce something unique like a riposte mechanic that returns and deals dmg 2 or maybe even 3 fold the dmg taken when blocking or receiving hits. What is it about 30%? You guys nerfed the lion's combat power shield from 100% to 30% on what grounds?! I don't get how you devs arrive at such decisions. Care to explain on it? At the very least alter the shield animation while you guys are at it trying to fix this ludicrous mess. There is no identity anymore.
> There are a few players who are starting to get used to things, and can tell you that in areas where things are not broken, they have no problem surviving, or even dealing solid damage while tanking group content.
Where/who are these players with positive feedback on the gameplay? From what I see in this thread, the majority of players say gameplay is not fun with weak at wills and a lot of time spent waiting for divinity to recharge...
Here is one.
I have provided feedback that is critical of elements of the 3 classes I have devoted time to testing, but I have given positive feedback and agree with what Asterdahl is saying.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
@asterdahl, when I play my Warlock as Soulweaver its Soul Spark meter fills up whenever you leave combat. Is there some reason this mechanic cannot be duplicated for Paladin Divinity?
It would seem that would solve a lot of the problems with experiencing smooth play that players have with the Paly, while still leaving the management of Divinity as part of the tactical combat decisions.
It would certainly address the problem I observe of it becoming harder to maintain divinity between encounters in solo play as you level up and become more able to finish encounters faster and travel between encounters faster.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Hey everyone! Sorry for the slow responses the last few days—spent the last few days burning down a pile of bugs and making as many adjustments as I could for this week's build. The big feat adjustments are going to have to wait for next week but this week will feature the aforementioned changes to divine palisade, an increase to the damage of sacred weapon, control immunity when using the Oathkeeper daily Sanctuary, and most significantly, a large adjustment to both block and "Justicar's Charge."
Justicar's Charge's reduction to damage dealt will be reduced to 10% (down from 30%) and it will now grant a 40% increase to maximum hit points. At the same time, the maximum amount of damage prevented by a full stamina bar will be reduced from 100% of maximum hit points to 50% of maximum hit points.
These changes mean more effective hit points at the start of a fight for any tank. E.g. If you have 100,000 HP, and you used to block for 100,000—you had a total of 200,000 effective hit points. Now you'll have 140,000 HP, and you will block for 70,000—for a total of 210,000 EHP.
Naturally, this means that your block is a little weaker, but it's still very powerful given how quickly stamina regenerates. We think these changes feel good, a bit more tank healing is required in group content, and tanks can't shield quite as much so often in PvP. However, we're absolutely still ironing out the details regarding tank durability, so these numbers could be reverted, or changed further, but we'd like to see how everyone feels about these changes. So please send your feedback once you've had a chance to check them out in this week's upcoming build.
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.
I apologize for the lack of clarity here—the tooltips on the current preview build are misleading—valorous strike may actually use an arc for a hitbox, but it is actually a single target power. Even if there are 10 enemies in that arc, you will only hit the one closest to you/your reticle. Oath Strike will hit all 10 enemies.
This week's build will feature an update: the arc will no longer display on melee attacks that hit a single enemy. We always intended to hide this information eventually, as it is misleading, and unnecessary, as your character will automatically rotate to center their attack on an enemy.
If you're interested in knowing why some single target powers have an arc like this, and some do not, it basically comes down to whether you can swing the attack freely without a target (like most at-wills) or a target is required, like many encounters (smite.)
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.
Hello! Thanks for the feedback! We certainly haven't conceived the entire rework to the combat system to make tanks unreliable, In fact, quite the opposite, we've made a huge number of changes to threat generation to make tanks able to more reliably manipulate the enemy's actual threat, as opposed to bypassing their threat entirely, which means that if you stop keeping the hard taunt up 100% of the time, you immediately lose the enemy's attention.
Keep in mind, that in your example of Smite and Divine Challenger, the other tanks have a similar combo in both cases, but they are on powers with fairly long cooldowns. Smite will come back in about the same amount of time even if you don't block. That being said, I am aiming to look closely at how divinity feels vis-a-vis Justicar's Charge.
But, I'd also like to take a moment to repost some things I posted in the fighter thread on the topic of threat, as I think they may be helpful for any tanks to read.
I do understand that there a lot of frustrating elements at play right now, with various bugs, and with the damage of various classes in flux, but I would like to clarify some things about "damage based threat." I believe you may be getting caught up on the wrong part of threat being damage based, threat being damage based does not mean that you need to eclipse your DPS's damage in order to hold threat. I do not believe that damage based threat is at the core of any of the problems or issues currently present in preview.
I've been trying to explain the way that damage based threat works for those struggling, and I apologize that I've repeatedly failed to convey the concept clearly. So I'd like to make another attempt! (Please note, I'm using hypothetical numbers for this example.)
Sally the DPS and Jane the Tank are both in a level 30 dungeon fighting an Orc.
>Sally hits the orc with a fireball for 500 damage. (She generates 500 threat) >Jane hits the orc with linebreaker for 100 damage. (But she generates 1000 threat because linebreaker generates "additional threat" and she has a passive threat bonus, so 100x5x2 = 1000.)
Jane has the enemy's attention.
Sally and Jane keep leveling up, and they both get stronger equipment, and soon they're in a level 80 dungeon fighting a Dragon.
>Sally hits the dragon with a fireball for 5000 damage. (She generates 5000 threat) >Jane hits the dragon with linebreaker for 1000 damage. (But she generates 10000 threat because linebreaker generates "additional threat" and she has a passive threat bonus, so 1000x5x2 = 10000.)
Jane has the enemy's attention.
As you can see from the example, in both cases, Sally did much more damage, but Jane was able to keep the enemy's attention. Jane's ability to keep the enemy's attention increased as the base damage of her powers did, with her character's equipment getting better and better.
That's really the core concept of damage based threat, as opposed to hard taunts, as you get stronger, you get better at holding threat. So in order to hold threat off of a DPS, you just have to keep getting stronger along with them. You don't need to eclipse their damage or even come close, you just need to get better at a similar pace. Of course, how much leeway there is, or how much worse your equipment can be before you start struggling with threat, is something we are carefully watching. We definitely want to ensure that you can hold threat if you're very focused on it, even off of a much stronger DPS, but if you're very good, you can maybe focus more on pure damaging powers and still keep the enemy's attention.
The biggest challenge, I think, is learning when and how to use block. It may seem like you should turtle with how effective block is now, however, especially if you're losing threat because your DPS are pushing you, you should definitely not be turtling. In those cases, you should limit block to large attacks, or after you've established a good lead on threat. A decent healer should be able to keep you alive without a problem in those cases.
That being said, right now, in a lot of group content, DPS also aren't being punished enough for pulling threat, so we're looking into that very closely.
With this bit in particular, I think it affects paladins a bit differently than fighters, as currently justicar's charge certainly encourages heavy turtling, but that is something I will be looking at.
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.
Divinity regeneration out of combat was significantly increased. I do understand why there is feedback about wanting the bar to refill even more quickly, but please keep in mind this would put divinity based classes at a serious advantage moving from group to group compared with cooldown based classes. But that doesn't mean further adjustments won't happen.
In regards to Vow's cooldown: we may make some minor adjustments to cooldown, but ultimately, we are not aiming for this to be something you spam. If you do lose threat, and you just recently used it, that is a failure and you'll have to pull it back with other powers, or try to at least.
This is on preview, obviously- I don't know if this has been covered if it's a game bug in general or only a paladin bug, but I can't save my ability scores to create a second loadout. I've created the first one as a healer, as I normally play console and my main is set up to have some heal ability so I can solo and survive. Ya know cuz in D&D the Paladin is a holy warrior, able to fight(not like barbarian but still do some good damage) and cast limited spells(healing, turn undead...). But when I try to create the new 1 loadout and click ok to accept my ability scores nothing happens. The button is still blinking like it needs attention, even though i have selected all the ability points I have available. The only workaround I see for the time being is for me to copy my character from live again, and respec as a tank, I just won't be able to change on the fly like loadouts allow you to do.
Thank you for the report! I apologize that you're running into this issue. Have you tried respecing your character before trying to save a new loadout? There are a lot of changes happening on preview that will break characters until they respec, that we haven't written fixups for. When the updates finally go to live, we'll be making sure that the proper fixups are in place.
> Am I the only one who wants the Op to have a dps path?
You aren't the only one. Me too. But looks like the devs want to make us support slaves that can't damage by their own. I personnaly would be happy to sacrifice a few tanking and healing abilities for damage
Paladin already had access to a healing and tanking path before Module 16, so that's the rationale behind the two paths that are available to them. We wanted to continue to support the two play styles that were available to Paladins since the class was first introduced.
I am guessing this is a bug, so I'll put it here and you can decide...
My Oathkeeper (again, bad name, please change) has Bane and Smite on their action bar. Whenever I can not use those powers their divinity cost appears in the slot.
For Bane it is 270. For Smite it is 198.
l have not noticed this before and am wondering if it is something in settings or if it supposed to show at all.
This is an intentional quality of life improvement, of course, we're open to feedback if you found this to not be helpful, or even worse—frustrating. Changes like this are going to happen since we went to preview earlier than usual, and some things like this overlay, were planned months and months ago, but the UI team is just now getting to them.
@mithrosnomore From what I see on videos and read it appears that the meta is tending towards 5 DPS with healer companions. Where exactly would that leave the OP in its current iteration ? At least the Cleric can do DPS. Of course we can only wait and see
Please keep in mind that it is far too early to call what the meta will be when module 16 ships live. We could suddenly nerf and buff huge swathes of monster damage, companion power, healing, tanking, etc. to dramatically re-align things.
Ensuring that 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 DPS is one of our highest priorities. We will be making the necessary adjustments to class survivability, enemy damage and companion healing potency to ensure this ahead of launch.
I'm putting this here because it impacts the Paladin, or at least one Paragon path, but it is not specifically about the Paladin class itself.
I noticed yesterday that, when comparing the Vistani gear (which my Paladin had equipped) and the Undermountain gear (which my Paladin was gifted from Neverember), that there was an issue with the maces.
The Vistani Mace gives a 10% bonus to Oath Strike damage. The Undermountain Mace gives a 10% bonus to Shielding Strike damage.
The Vistani Mace on live is fine. Any Paladin that so desires can pick Oath Strike as an at-will power, but when this goes live that changes.
Oath Strike and Shielding Strike both become Justicar powers and the Oathkeeper (insert obligatory "please change this Paragon Path name" here) is left out. Changing the Undermountain Mace to give a bonus to an Oathkeeper at-will, or even a generic Paladin at-will, would be nice.
Some people may not care. Some people may start out with better and not care to use the weapon at all. But some people will be starting fresh and using this Undermountain (or Vistani) gear may be their best option in the short-term and, if refined, the weapon and shield may be their best choice for a long time to come.
Thanks.
Thanks for the report! I'll talk with the item designer tomorrow morning and see if we can get this changed.
Just finished the campaign after the fix ( couldn't enter the dragon's room before) and the changes to damage seem to make it a bit better, though combat still consists of smite, smite, smite then hold shield to regain divinity and then spite on anything my pet hadn't killed. That saying the vampire mini boss,Keresta Delvingstone, before the dragon is way over powered, couldn't last more than 2 sec against her, even when using all damage mitigation means available. The first fight went like this use sigil of paladin, cast shield on me{daily} cast absolution, then smite a few times as she approaches the hold shield to regain divinity> She then hit 3 times in a row {with the attack that makes the purple balls} and does 1664379(247780) necrotic damage three times in a row .The first hit drains the shield and the next 2 kill the paladin. The next 4 tries didn't even last long enough for me to cast anything, averaging @3 sec per fight (she used the same attack exclusively). She then got stuck in the rock pile and my pet killed her when she couldn't move. If she hadn't got stuck I'd still be fighting her.
so... this might be a very late suggestion/request for a core mechanic to be changed... and i might be the only one / very tiny minority... and i fully realize 99.99% chances of it not happening buuuuuut...
please change the shield mechanic - replace it with a more generic, non-facing and non-active playstyle deal
personally, i feel that the fighter (as tank) is the shield, barbarian (even as tank) is the weapon, so let the paladin be the armor
more detailed reasoning:
your studios' other titles allow one to play (if we choose) in a static, mostly stationary format or be more carefree, if we like without severe penalties in combat, regardless of enemy mechanics. Of course, if we choose to be that way, we get hurt more but you give us options to mitigate that by letting us emphasize defense / healing at the cost of damage, etc. key point the choice is there, movement and facing is not the core mechanic but seems to be the case for Neverwinter
my husband and i use the paladin as our main class because
a) i can be carefree and play as a heal focused tank and screw up a lot as i am prone to.
i do this because i'm not a big gamer so my timings are always off... plus i love hopping around in combat
b) my husband doesn't have to move/face enemies all the time because he has made his paladin into a ranged tank, of all things. he sets up a combat area and pulls enemies from far off with his auras and whatever ranged options he has, he focuses mainly on mitigation, ridiculous threat and positioning the enemy
note: positioning the enemy, not moving himself
he does this because he prefers a more passive playstyle and he can be absurdly innovative AND he has a busted up arm, so he has mobility issues with his hand/fingers and cannot constantly turn to face enemies AND move AND have shield up, blah blah, basically too many actions at once too frequently are a no go... he doesn't even use at-wills much
we don't play any of the latest/endgame dungeons (obviously) because that requires a lot more coordination and precision than we can realistically ever manage
this shield mechanic is why we don't like the Fighter if it is possible please change this mechanic; especially when normal/trash mobs are involved.. i can agree with facing being important with bosses though
if it cannot be changed, allow a class-change option down the line
otherwise... and please don't read this as a threat, but this is something that will keep me from playing because this core mechanic will see him struggle... and i know he won't complain one bit but i absolutely do NOT want to see him struggling just because i want us to game together on Neverwinter too
The upcoming changes that reduce the amount of damage mitigation provided by block, but increase the justicar's base health should at least somewhat alleviate your issues, by making you more durable in general. Block is still something you can use much more easily than dodging on other classes, and since Neverwinter is an action game, we feel that blocking as it is, is not out of line.
That being said, I do understand the feedback. Does your husband play mostly on console or PC? We would definitely like to look into more accessibility options in the future though I don't have a specific timeline. Please let us know if he has a chance to play with the changes, and how he feels after getting used to them.
> Building divinity on Justicar seems slower than for the Oathkeeper. Wouldn't be better to give the Justicar either a way to build up divinity at a steady pace like the Oathkeeper as well?
>
> it pains a bit the fact Paladin's encounters have a big cooldown and no way to reduce it like before.
>
> About the auras, any way/hope to get something aura of wisdom back or make Paladin auras not so about using your dailies to get an actual benefit? I mean, an aura should theorically be something always active and not requiring a condition to take place. I did notice the compusure aura for the Justicar but still feels forced to have to use one aura just for it rather than buff/protect my allies)
This. Especially since there's no recovery, no Aura if Wisdom, no cooldown reduction feats, it makes these auras based on daily use far less useful...
I'm planning a major adjustment to auras, I know that they're lousy right now, and place a lot of emphasis on activating dailies, which is something we have intentionally de-emphasized, a combination that doesn't feel great.
Thanks for movie, but it looks like a desperate combat for survival and not for winning Enemy one hit takes you over half a HP [2:22]. Fortunately, you had healing potions. Seriously, tanking in module 16 going to look like this?
Obsidiancran3 is soloing a pack of enemies in the toughest dungeon in the game, intended for a group of 5, where they would be supported by a healer and 3 DPS. Please keep that in mind.
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.
Thank you for your lasts posts.
After a very thorough test of the Paladin tank 21k6 on the preview server, I am still as frustrated as ever.
After having tried quite a few configuration of enchantments, I chose to equip myself with cruel enchantments in the defense slots and radiant ones in the attack slots. So I chose to maximize defense and deflection and put everything in power.
To improve survivability I have chosen: - the "blood-theft" enchantment on the armor coupled with "justice enchant" on the weapon - companion powers: "redemption", coupled with "survivor's blessing" and "opressor's reprieve" as a mount bonus It makes me almost immortal in combat, which in my opinion is not a desired thing for the game and its future.
Justicar in solitary combat: Even using the divinity sparingly, I quickly run dry, allowing the companion to quickly take the aggro. The DPS is quite honourable. The companions' DPS is totally unbalanced. Some even do fixed damage at 1,805,000 (Rust monster, Sell sword).
Justicar in group content (mad magician's lair): I felt like I was totally useless, as the DPSs continued to rush ahead and were immortal. Maintaining the aggro is a challenge. This may be due to the choice of companion powers for which "redemption" seems to be almost unavoidable.
Oathkeeper: I haven't tested anything yet. But it would seem that this path is much more effective. That's good, I don't like being a healer.
In summary: To really test the paladins, we would need a rebalancing of the "redemption" power of the companions, as well as the powers of mounts that always allow an excellent survivability to all classes allowing to exclude tanks and healers from the groups optimized to make dungeons.
Just to make sure: Are you guys 100% commited to remove Sanctuary as the Paladin's block? I mean, I don't even mind if as a Justicar you can only 'BLOCK' from the front, but the buff Sanctuary gave as Protection?Healadin was the main reason good OP's did used it a lot.
As a Paladin main, please keep Sanctuary and if not, at least have the decency of not giving the Paladin a half useless fighter block. If Paladin is to block like 'GF did', then make it consistent.
Edit: On an additional note, I would not mind a nerfed Templar's wrath that would grant only like the Paladin's Hit Points in Temporary or double it so that we could keep using Divine Protector. And make it last longer. Whoever had the brilliant of nerfing a 100% Justicar worthy daily should get a promotion for the fact the idea passed to. Congrats, Shields of Faith will now become the number 1 daily for Paladins when the daily that actual does something like protecting the party is now based on nearest ally. At least make it reach like two people instead of one? If you wanted to nerf Divine Protector you could just reduce the duration and leave it for a player to decide which daily to use.
I do not currently have any plans to change block back to sanctuary. That said, I would like to clarify that fighter's block has changed as well, you are not getting a "half useless fighter block." That being said, I do understand that there are some concerns about the relative usefulness of the oathkeeper's tactical power, when compared with other classes, so it is something I have my eye on.
Seeing it doesn't really matter how they are derived, these are my standing stats in PE for my solo load out: HP 344717 Power 79430 Armor Pen 31653 Defense 40330 Crit Strike 48493 Crit Resist 30614 Accuracy 32326 Deflect 28065 CA 37854 Awareness 22358 (I definitely need more here) AP 6.7% Recharge Speed 8% Companion Influence 8% Stamina Regen 17% Crit Severity 84%
Companion choices of note are: Redemption and Conartist's Discipline
I recently changed to Briartwine and Bronzewood enchants, but the Bronzewood alone had a positive impact on the feel of play.
With this array I'm just not feeling the struggle people are reporting.
Post edited by obsidiancran3 on
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Seeing it doesn't really matter how they are derived, these are my standing stats in PE for my solo load out: HP 344717 Power 79430 Armor Pen 31653 Defense 40330 Crit Strike 48493 Crit Resist 30614 Accuracy 32326 Deflect 28065 CA 37854 Awareness 22358 (I definitely need more here) AP 6.7% Recharge Speed 8% Companion Influence 8% Stamina Regen 17% Crit Severity 84%
Companion choices of note are: Redemption and Conartist's Discipline
I recently changed to Briartwine and Bronzewood enchants (and I'm about to go off and get thumped on in order to see if Briartwine works), but the Bronzewood alone had a positive impact on the feel of play.
With this array I'm just not feeling the struggle people are reporting.
I'll post my stats as soon as I can. I can't say that solo experience is hard. I'm almost immortal, but many times my pet steal me aggro especially when facing many monsters. It's not very engaging for the rest of the game, especially when you have to throw dungeons at random with rather inattentive players (Why do I think of big sword DPS?).
Divinity regeneration out of combat was significantly increased. I do understand why there is feedback about wanting the bar to refill even more quickly, but please keep in mind this would put divinity based classes at a serious advantage moving from group to group compared with cooldown based classes. But that doesn't mean further adjustments won't happen.
In regards to Vow's cooldown: we may make some minor adjustments to cooldown, but ultimately, we are not aiming for this to be something you spam. If you do lose threat, and you just recently used it, that is a failure and you'll have to pull it back with other powers, or try to at least.
Thanks again for the responses.
Is that another increase coming this week or the one that is currently on preview? If you mean on live, its inadequate between combats for smooth game play once you start reaching the 20k window. (And I believe will not hurt lower geared toons to be faster.)
Its not a matter of spamming it, a 15s base cooldown looks like it would refresh about every 13.8s for me (with my 8% stated recharge speed). That's enough that in most combats it would be ready in time for the next combat, much like the powers of DPS.
And this comes back to your example of Jeanne and Sally. You example is engineered to make it so that the tank always wins the threat race, but its just as easy for that not to be the case.
DPS hits for 1050 Tank hits for 100x5x2. Tank looses Threat. DPS dies because tank cannot get threat back because cannot hit hard enough or force itself to top of list because everything is on cool down. (Because the game is engineered that way.)
Going back to Oathstrike (thanks for the clarification, I forgot to come back and clarify that I learnt it was a true AoE vs Valiant's single target).
Lets say the tank hits for 10x5x5=100 (giving it more "extra threat" because its a low damage at-will and essentially replaces marking) The DPS hits with an encounter for 300. Both are AoE.... oops the tank just lost aggro, because their most reliable aggro generator is too low in damage and threat.
But if that's even 15 on Oath strike we get 15x5x5= 375. So if the game is looking at just magnitude (rather than resolved damage) for threat the tank can win that race against most encounter powers, and can then use their own encounter powers more to keep control of the mobs when the DPS does spike damage (same with heals).
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I'll post my stats as soon as I can. I can't say that solo experience is hard. I'm almost immortal, but many times my pet steal me aggro especially when facing many monsters. It's not very engaging for the rest of the game, especially when you have to throw dungeons at random with rather inattentive players (Why do I think of big sword DPS?).
I've mentioned this before, sometimes (especially in open world), there seems to be a bug with pet aggro. I've seen enemies literally run across the room to hit my Conartist that is stuck behind a bit of terrain and had to chase them.
DPS not paying attention and running ahead is something they are going to have to learn not to do. Its going to take some adjustment. Every dungeon will be more like K-Team
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I'll post my stats as soon as I can. I can't say that solo experience is hard. I'm almost immortal, but many times my pet steal me aggro especially when facing many monsters. It's not very engaging for the rest of the game, especially when you have to throw dungeons at random with rather inattentive players (Why do I think of big sword DPS?).
I've mentioned this before, sometimes (especially in open world), there seems to be a bug with pet aggro. I've seen enemies literally run across the room to hit my Conartist that is stuck behind a bit of terrain and had to chase them.
DPS not paying attention and running ahead is something they are going to have to learn not to do. Its going to take some adjustment. Every dungeon will be more like K-Team
But what about the Paladins who prefer to run with an active Ioun Stone instead of a normal Companion? The stone provides more statistics for the character, but the game becomes much harder
I'll post my stats as soon as I can. I can't say that solo experience is hard. I'm almost immortal, but many times my pet steal me aggro especially when facing many monsters. It's not very engaging for the rest of the game, especially when you have to throw dungeons at random with rather inattentive players (Why do I think of big sword DPS?).
I've mentioned this before, sometimes (especially in open world), there seems to be a bug with pet aggro. I've seen enemies literally run across the room to hit my Conartist that is stuck behind a bit of terrain and had to chase them.
DPS not paying attention and running ahead is something they are going to have to learn not to do. Its going to take some adjustment. Every dungeon will be more like K-Team
I love K-team for this reason.
I thought of an improvement to see if a monster is controlled by a tank or not. Previously when a paladin made a bind with "Bane" a shield floating at the level of the player's heart appeared. Is it possible to implement a specific mark (such as this floating shield) indicating that the aggro is maintained by the tank on a given monster.
The loss of the aggro would consist in seeing this mark disappear, signalling to the DPS to be wary of monsters.
I’ve played a few levels of a character whose gear got a major upgrade from Neverwinter and had no trouble in the new zones. Got its first Boon point ever from the Undermointain progression.
I suggest moving from Barovia to Undermountain and working on it to get to 80. Partly because it’s possible Barovia is affected by the issues with scaling that plague the game at the moment.
Thanks for your reply. I forgot the fact, that the scaling in some zones is not working correctly. I find it hard to distinguish: okay, that problem is because of the scaling, that problem is because the new mechanics and that problem is definitely myself :P
Hey everyone! Sorry for the slow responses the last few days—spent the last few days burning down a pile of bugs and making as many adjustments as I could for this week's build. The big feat adjustments are going to have to wait for next week but this week will feature the aforementioned changes to divine palisade, an increase to the damage of sacred weapon, control immunity when using the Oathkeeper daily Sanctuary, and most significantly, a large adjustment to both block and "Justicar's Charge."
Justicar's Charge's reduction to damage dealt will be reduced to 10% (down from 30%) and it will now grant a 40% increase to maximum hit points. At the same time, the maximum amount of damage prevented by a full stamina bar will be reduced from 100% of maximum hit points to 50% of maximum hit points.
These changes mean more effective hit points at the start of a fight for any tank. E.g. If you have 100,000 HP, and you used to block for 100,000—you had a total of 200,000 effective hit points. Now you'll have 140,000 HP, and you will block for 70,000—for a total of 210,000 EHP.
Naturally, this means that your block is a little weaker, but it's still very powerful given how quickly stamina regenerates. We think these changes feel good, a bit more tank healing is required in group content, and tanks can't shield quite as much so often in PvP. However, we're absolutely still ironing out the details regarding tank durability, so these numbers could be reverted, or changed further, but we'd like to see how everyone feels about these changes. So please send your feedback once you've had a chance to check them out in this week's upcoming build.
Currently I am soloing (as Justicar at the moment) Master Expedition with Crystals enabled, I am about to enter the Expedition with all 3 crystals enabled for testing purposes.
I will get back on this once i have putted my findings together.
But what about the Paladins who prefer to run with an active Ioun Stone instead of a normal Companion? The stone provides more statistics for the character, but the game becomes much harder
Well I can only talk about my experience with playing with an Augment summoned, I found it slightly slower, but not particularly harder.
The truth is the main thing you are loosing when you run an Augment, isn't the dps of the pet, but rather any effects of its attacks. For example the Conartist still has a debuff on his attack, in a land where debuffs are rare any reliably applied debuff is king.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Comments
> There are a few players who are starting to get used to things, and can tell you that in areas where things are not broken, they have no problem surviving, or even dealing solid damage while tanking group content.
Where/who are these players with positive feedback on the gameplay? From what I see in this thread, the majority of players say gameplay is not fun with weak at wills and a lot of time spent waiting for divinity to recharge...
> It's ridiculous. in solo content, my pet makes 10 times my damage. in practice I spend the time with shield raised to wait for the companion to kill the mobs ... very funny ....
> Also, two encounter (useless) powers are enough to finish divinity which then is recharged very slowly....
Lol I would imagine a lot of the mod 16 paladin's time is now spent standing there waiting for the companion to do the work.
1) I don't know about "easy-mode" but the ease-of-use and passive-play-if-I-want is what attracted me to the class
2) I am not asking for any changes to be reverted
I have provided feedback that is critical of elements of the 3 classes I have devoted time to testing, but I have given positive feedback and agree with what Asterdahl is saying.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
It would seem that would solve a lot of the problems with experiencing smooth play that players have with the Paly, while still leaving the management of Divinity as part of the tactical combat decisions.
It would certainly address the problem I observe of it becoming harder to maintain divinity between encounters in solo play as you level up and become more able to finish encounters faster and travel between encounters faster.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Justicar's Charge's reduction to damage dealt will be reduced to 10% (down from 30%) and it will now grant a 40% increase to maximum hit points. At the same time, the maximum amount of damage prevented by a full stamina bar will be reduced from 100% of maximum hit points to 50% of maximum hit points.
These changes mean more effective hit points at the start of a fight for any tank. E.g. If you have 100,000 HP, and you used to block for 100,000—you had a total of 200,000 effective hit points. Now you'll have 140,000 HP, and you will block for 70,000—for a total of 210,000 EHP.
Naturally, this means that your block is a little weaker, but it's still very powerful given how quickly stamina regenerates. We think these changes feel good, a bit more tank healing is required in group content, and tanks can't shield quite as much so often in PvP. However, we're absolutely still ironing out the details regarding tank durability, so these numbers could be reverted, or changed further, but we'd like to see how everyone feels about these changes. So please send your feedback once you've had a chance to check them out in this week's upcoming build.
This week's build will feature an update: the arc will no longer display on melee attacks that hit a single enemy. We always intended to hide this information eventually, as it is misleading, and unnecessary, as your character will automatically rotate to center their attack on an enemy.
If you're interested in knowing why some single target powers have an arc like this, and some do not, it basically comes down to whether you can swing the attack freely without a target (like most at-wills) or a target is required, like many encounters (smite.)
Keep in mind, that in your example of Smite and Divine Challenger, the other tanks have a similar combo in both cases, but they are on powers with fairly long cooldowns. Smite will come back in about the same amount of time even if you don't block. That being said, I am aiming to look closely at how divinity feels vis-a-vis Justicar's Charge.
But, I'd also like to take a moment to repost some things I posted in the fighter thread on the topic of threat, as I think they may be helpful for any tanks to read. With this bit in particular, I think it affects paladins a bit differently than fighters, as currently justicar's charge certainly encourages heavy turtling, but that is something I will be looking at.
In regards to Vow's cooldown: we may make some minor adjustments to cooldown, but ultimately, we are not aiming for this to be something you spam. If you do lose threat, and you just recently used it, that is a failure and you'll have to pull it back with other powers, or try to at least.
Ensuring that 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 DPS is one of our highest priorities. We will be making the necessary adjustments to class survivability, enemy damage and companion healing potency to ensure this ahead of launch.
Just finished the campaign after the fix ( couldn't enter the dragon's room before) and the changes to damage seem to make it a bit better, though combat still consists of smite, smite, smite then hold shield to regain divinity and then spite on anything my pet hadn't killed. That saying the vampire mini boss,Keresta Delvingstone, before the dragon is way over powered, couldn't last more than 2 sec against her, even when using all damage mitigation means available. The first fight went like this use sigil of paladin, cast shield on me{daily} cast absolution, then smite a few times as she approaches the hold shield to regain divinity> She then hit 3 times in a row {with the attack that makes the purple balls} and does 1664379(247780) necrotic damage three times in a row .The first hit drains the shield and the next 2 kill the paladin. The next 4 tries didn't even last long enough for me to cast anything, averaging @3 sec per fight (she used the same attack exclusively). She then got stuck in the rock pile and my pet killed her when she couldn't move. If she hadn't got stuck I'd still be fighting her.
That being said, I do understand the feedback. Does your husband play mostly on console or PC? We would definitely like to look into more accessibility options in the future though I don't have a specific timeline. Please let us know if he has a chance to play with the changes, and how he feels after getting used to them.
After a very thorough test of the Paladin tank 21k6 on the preview server, I am still as frustrated as ever.
After having tried quite a few configuration of enchantments, I chose to equip myself with cruel enchantments in the defense slots and radiant ones in the attack slots. So I chose to maximize defense and deflection and put everything in power.
To improve survivability I have chosen:
- the "blood-theft" enchantment on the armor coupled with "justice enchant" on the weapon
- companion powers: "redemption", coupled with "survivor's blessing" and "opressor's reprieve" as a mount bonus
It makes me almost immortal in combat, which in my opinion is not a desired thing for the game and its future.
Justicar in solitary combat:
Even using the divinity sparingly, I quickly run dry, allowing the companion to quickly take the aggro. The DPS is quite honourable.
The companions' DPS is totally unbalanced. Some even do fixed damage at 1,805,000 (Rust monster, Sell sword).
Justicar in group content (mad magician's lair):
I felt like I was totally useless, as the DPSs continued to rush ahead and were immortal. Maintaining the aggro is a challenge. This may be due to the choice of companion powers for which "redemption" seems to be almost unavoidable.
Oathkeeper:
I haven't tested anything yet. But it would seem that this path is much more effective. That's good, I don't like being a healer.
In summary:
To really test the paladins, we would need a rebalancing of the "redemption" power of the companions, as well as the powers of mounts that always allow an excellent survivability to all classes allowing to exclude tanks and healers from the groups optimized to make dungeons.
HP 344717
Power 79430
Armor Pen 31653
Defense 40330
Crit Strike 48493
Crit Resist 30614
Accuracy 32326
Deflect 28065
CA 37854
Awareness 22358 (I definitely need more here)
AP 6.7%
Recharge Speed 8%
Companion Influence 8%
Stamina Regen 17%
Crit Severity 84%
Companion choices of note are: Redemption and Conartist's Discipline
I recently changed to Briartwine and Bronzewood enchants, but the Bronzewood alone had a positive impact on the feel of play.
With this array I'm just not feeling the struggle people are reporting.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Is that another increase coming this week or the one that is currently on preview?
If you mean on live, its inadequate between combats for smooth game play once you start reaching the 20k window. (And I believe will not hurt lower geared toons to be faster.)
Its not a matter of spamming it, a 15s base cooldown looks like it would refresh about every 13.8s for me (with my 8% stated recharge speed). That's enough that in most combats it would be ready in time for the next combat, much like the powers of DPS.
And this comes back to your example of Jeanne and Sally. You example is engineered to make it so that the tank always wins the threat race, but its just as easy for that not to be the case.
DPS hits for 1050
Tank hits for 100x5x2.
Tank looses Threat.
DPS dies because tank cannot get threat back because cannot hit hard enough or force itself to top of list because everything is on cool down. (Because the game is engineered that way.)
Going back to Oathstrike (thanks for the clarification, I forgot to come back and clarify that I learnt it was a true AoE vs Valiant's single target).
Lets say the tank hits for 10x5x5=100 (giving it more "extra threat" because its a low damage at-will and essentially replaces marking)
The DPS hits with an encounter for 300.
Both are AoE.... oops the tank just lost aggro, because their most reliable aggro generator is too low in damage and threat.
But if that's even 15 on Oath strike we get 15x5x5= 375. So if the game is looking at just magnitude (rather than resolved damage) for threat the tank can win that race against most encounter powers, and can then use their own encounter powers more to keep control of the mobs when the DPS does spike damage (same with heals).
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
DPS not paying attention and running ahead is something they are going to have to learn not to do. Its going to take some adjustment. Every dungeon will be more like K-Team
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I thought of an improvement to see if a monster is controlled by a tank or not. Previously when a paladin made a bind with "Bane" a shield floating at the level of the player's heart appeared. Is it possible to implement a specific mark (such as this floating shield) indicating that the aggro is maintained by the tank on a given monster.
The loss of the aggro would consist in seeing this mark disappear, signalling to the DPS to be wary of monsters.
I will get back on this once i have putted my findings together.
The truth is the main thing you are loosing when you run an Augment, isn't the dps of the pet, but rather any effects of its attacks. For example the Conartist still has a debuff on his attack, in a land where debuffs are rare any reliably applied debuff is king.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.