I think after reading through the last pages again we have a more then deacent feel of what we think has to change to get Pal into shape for mod 16( maby a bit more digging on the Oathkeepers feat/powers) and it more or less time to sit back and see what the devs thoughts about our proposals/conclusions are.
Many tnx to @emilemo , @obsidiancran3 , @majorcharvenak and all others for taking your time to test and help making the Paladin a fun and good class to play.
> @anoreksja said: > I would like to have a Sacred Weapon under the Tab button, which much more quickly renews the Divine Power and do more damage, etc etc...
This is a great idea for the tab mechanic, and include threat generation as well. There have been several complaints about Divine Palisade and also concerns about getting agro. I think this would be a good fit.
I believe everyone here loves Paladin wanted what good for a Paladin on mod 16. Please test carefully before suggest nerf smite any further, that skill probably the last saving grace for paladin. Inconsistent divinity gain, smite depends on divinity in-order which makes smite inconsistent. In-order to gain divinity need to block therefore smite do actually has downtime.
Unlike other tanks while blocking unable to deal damage means losing threat luckily that smite deal good damage to makes up for the down-time for collecting divinity which I think smite is fine as its.
Base on above cycle we can see there a lot of positioning, resources planning, timing and skill selection/rotation involved unlike other tanks which has more margin for error and just spam keyboard/mouse + holding/without holding shift button and get the job done.
Why people wants to play paladin over Barbarian/Fighter which clearly a easier and more flexible tank that still get the job done? which happens to have both dps(easy to solo lvl) and tank load out which clearly a better choice than paladin?...should I say what makes Paladin unique ? , I would say its divinity which clearly inconsistent, best/efficient way to spend these divinity… smite…nerf smite what to do with these divinities again?
I agree with @emilemo that please suggest alternative/solution before stating a problem. We are looking for solution on how to makes things better not break things/ create problems, while the boat still able to sail please don’t put more hole on the ship unless u know how to fix it/makes it better.
Regarding as why Paladin has higher dps for other tank will need really compare apple to apple, are the person who tested paladin/fighter/barbarian a same person(player skill lvl)/pc and do these tank toons has similar gears? Difference in dps might due to in between battle divinity gain allow paladin to ditch out couple more smite how do paladin fought against other tanks in boss fight (which matter most) in term of threat sustainability/survival/dps?
Post edited by jase2cool on
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gormenghast1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 88Arc User
Hammering for Smite nerfs is like proposing to break the healthy leg of a person carring a cast on the other one for the sake of "balancing internal movement speed". Paladins don't have overpowered powers, they are only lacking viable alternatives in which to invest their new Divinity resource.
Also considering data from a single run made in unknown conditions with who knows what group is pretty useless and should't be even taken seriously for the sake of balancing. All the group was composed by similar equipment and similar potential for their specific classes? Did anyone take a break to get some coffee while the others kept fighting? Everyone had invested the same time to perfect their class knowledge and offer a similar performance? Everyone was similarly invested in maxing out DPS? These tests are best left to the dev team, that can run them in controlled conditions and without biases.
I can't stress more the importance of developing a viable tab mechanic and decide what to do with the current basic, unspecific and passive shield mechanic. Pallisade is useless and in no way a Divinity sink as it should be. The shield is your basic block stripped by any personality. Why not adding Divinity fueled blocking features to it? Damage reflect, HoTs, buffs to encounter DPS...anything that could push a Paladin to make choices on how to invest Divinity other than spam a single encounter. If Paladins could have a bunch of Divinity fueled encounters, a worthwile Divinity based tab mechanic and a block that could also use divinity for additional effects, it's obvious that things would change from the current "Smite, smite, smite, get back divinity, smite, smite, smite..".
Nobody thinks of fine tuning a car that lacks engine, wheels and seats. This class is still lacking real core mechanics which are fundamental for its gameplay. All this chatter about the perceived OPness of Smite is completely worthless till it won't be the only viable choice to invest Divinity in. You want a valid Paladin class? Start with working out a solid core, because that is what we'll have to play with for the years to come.
In an attempt to provide feedback about the Divine Pallisade skill (especially meant for group runs), I still feel confused about the developer’s intention with this skill. Its initial set-up provided us with a stationary shield that gave marginal damage mitigation and incoming healing bonuses for a huge cost of divinity. Sadly enough, after attempting to use it, I found myself not using the tab-button during my preview runs. I failed to see its practical use because as a tank my initial thought was that one should always make the boss face away from the rest of the party, unless of course specific mechanics would force you otherwise. Rare, specific circumstances where one would use this shield for a group to hide behind, seemed to me a lot of effort for a special skill that goes into our Tab-tray. Also because in dynamic fights you would want to move around a lot, especially for non-tanks to avoid damage, making a stationary shield seem somewhat odd.
In its current state we are provided with an upgraded version of our ‘shift-shield’ that moves around with our character, which I found puzzling. My initial thought was that its only practical use would be a ‘back-up’ shift-shield, incase our regular shield runs out of stamina and/or we are close to death so we could use our marginal decrease in dmg taken and increase our incoming heals. As we are still expected to be facing away from our group, making this shield only useful for ourselves. But it is not even that, as it apparently shares the stamina with our regular shield, while its effects remain small. Even if one would be in the circumstance to have to protect the group with this skill, I cannot imagine a marginal 10% bonus would be a life-saver, as one would expect from a tab-skill from tanks. Additionally, you still force the group to take dmg by standing still, in order to receive the bonus.
So I would really like to know as to why we are left with a marginal bonus shield on our ‘class-special’ tab-tray, which usefulness may only appear on rare occasions (which is debatable), while being contradictive towards certain tanking standards? I understand you want to make this skill work, but in its current state I find no real usage for it and I would want to rely on other, more reliable, powers with my divinity. Ideally, I would prefer a whole different skill in the tray, more towards a skill as we have now on our Justice feat path. I am aware though that this is not realistic. Therefore I would really want to suggest increasing its effects, changing its effects directly towards the whole group within range or even adding an effect of forced threat.
Hammering for Smite nerfs is like proposing to break the healthy leg of a person carring a cast on the other one for the sake of "balancing internal movement speed". Paladins don't have overpowered powers, they are only lacking viable alternatives in which to invest their new Divinity resource.
Also considering data from a single run made in unknown conditions with who knows what group is pretty useless and should't be even taken seriously for the sake of balancing. All the group was composed by similar equipment and similar potential for their specific classes? Did anyone take a break to get some coffee while the others kept fighting? Everyone had invested the same time to perfect their class knowledge and offer a similar performance? Everyone was similarly invested in maxing out DPS? These tests are best left to the dev team, that can run them in controlled conditions and without biases.
I can't stress more the importance of developing a viable tab mechanic and decide what to do with the current basic, unspecific and passive shield mechanic. Pallisade is useless and in no way a Divinity sink as it should be. The shield is your basic block stripped by any personality. Why not adding Divinity fueled blocking features to it? Damage reflect, HoTs, buffs to encounter DPS...anything that could push a Paladin to make choices on how to invest Divinity other than spam a single encounter. If Paladins could have a bunch of Divinity fueled encounters, a worthwile Divinity based tab mechanic and a block that could also use divinity for additional effects, it's obvious that things would change from the current "Smite, smite, smite, get back divinity, smite, smite, smite..".
Nobody thinks of fine tuning a car that lacks engine, wheels and seats. This class is still lacking real core mechanics which are fundamental for its gameplay. All this chatter about the perceived OPness of Smite is completely worthless till it won't be the only viable choice to invest Divinity in. You want a valid Paladin class? Start with working out a solid core, because that is what we'll have to play with for the years to come.
Even tho I hate quoting, the above needs to be seen, read and understood by everyone. The Paladin does in fact lack a core. Even back when it was first introduced the class was just an amalgamation of parts from other, existing classes. Yet in its current Live form, despite its design flaws or rather lack of design, it can be very powerful thanks to stuff like Temp Health and a mix of strong Passives/auras/, Dailies and encounters. The devs knew full well that the new Paladin class would be lacking thats why they gave him overpowered abilities to compensate its lack of core design. My OP on Live can reach over 3mil temp HP in grp content, how ridiculous is that?! However, once you take those op abilities away, it becomes glaringly apparent how hollow this holy warrior actually is in Neverwinter.
I mean come on, how hard is it to come up with a good Tab mechanic? Hitting Tab now consumes 40% fo your Divinity and grants every party member /including the caster/ 20% if their hitpoints as temp HP or 10% increased dmg resistance for 10 seconds. There, I just gave you a working Tab ability without even trying. We are Paladin tanks, placing holy barriers on people is what we do.
Or the Sacred Weapon as Tab ability already suggested in a previous post. Hitting Tab now consumes ??% of Divinity and infuses your weapon with radiant energy adding ?? mag rad dmg to all of your attacks and forcing the enemy to attack you for ?? seconds.
The holding-down Tab while standing still mechanic will never work in Neverwinter.
Smite - since this appears to be such a huge problem you devs are gonna have to adjust it somehow. Just FYI , I used Smite only during my PVP testing and it didnt even scratch a Sentinel I was fighting, while it destroyed a Blademaster. So how would go about balancing that? Is Smite too strong? Or is everyhting else we have too weak?
What bothers me is we seem to be having so many questions regarding the Paladin and so few answers with m16 launch around the corner. Should I start gearing up another tank class or installing another game? We'll see
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
@asterdahl or someone who likes number crunching with ACT; can we get a confirm that our powers are Magical and thus boosted by Int?
I did some initial testing and reset my stats to claw as much Int as I could (including +2 from the new artifact set) and that seems to have improved my overall performance. But that could just be wishful thinking.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
In an attempt to provide feedback about the Divine Pallisade skill (especially meant for group runs), I still feel confused about the developer’s intention with this skill. Its initial set-up provided us with a stationary shield that gave marginal damage mitigation and incoming healing bonuses for a huge cost of divinity. Sadly enough, after attempting to use it, I found myself not using the tab-button during my preview runs. I failed to see its practical use because as a tank my initial thought was that one should always make the boss face away from the rest of the party, unless of course specific mechanics would force you otherwise. Rare, specific circumstances where one would use this shield for a group to hide behind, seemed to me a lot of effort for a special skill that goes into our Tab-tray. Also because in dynamic fights you would want to move around a lot, especially for non-tanks to avoid damage, making a stationary shield seem somewhat odd.
In its current state we are provided with an upgraded version of our ‘shift-shield’ that moves around with our character, which I found puzzling. My initial thought was that its only practical use would be a ‘back-up’ shift-shield, incase our regular shield runs out of stamina and/or we are close to death so we could use our marginal decrease in dmg taken and increase our incoming heals. As we are still expected to be facing away from our group, making this shield only useful for ourselves. But it is not even that, as it apparently shares the stamina with our regular shield, while its effects remain small. Even if one would be in the circumstance to have to protect the group with this skill, I cannot imagine a marginal 10% bonus would be a life-saver, as one would expect from a tab-skill from tanks. Additionally, you still force the group to take dmg by standing still, in order to receive the bonus.
So I would really like to know as to why we are left with a marginal bonus shield on our ‘class-special’ tab-tray, which usefulness may only appear on rare occasions (which is debatable), while being contradictive towards certain tanking standards? I understand you want to make this skill work, but in its current state I find no real usage for it and I would want to rely on other, more reliable, powers with my divinity. Ideally, I would prefer a whole different skill in the tray, more towards a skill as we have now on our Justice feat path. I am aware though that this is not realistic. Therefore I would really want to suggest increasing its effects, changing its effects directly towards the whole group within range or even adding an effect of forced threat.
Fighters have a similar problem. @asterdahl I love your passion for your work, and I definitely see the "class fantasy" of an unmoving bulwark that you're leaning into with the shield tanks' tab mechanics, but neither one really meshes well with encounter design as it exists in the game. Tanks need to be mobile, as much to counteract the AI's constant repositioning as anything else, and need to keep the encounter faced away from the party to spare them the cones, lines, and even just the broad swings that come with facing enemies head on. I love your reimagining for Unstoppable that allows the Barbarian to be a MORE active tank by pressing tab- you can position, you can avoid red zones, and you can attack freely without dropping your guard- it feels like using the Bear Totem rage, which is arguably the quintessential example of a barbarian tank. Now, Unstoppable is perfect for the barbarian, obviously not thematically appropriate for the other tanks, but do you see what I mean about it better meshing with encounter design?
> @gormenghast1 said: > There are many improvements that could grant uniqueness to the Paladin's shield, like a Shield Bash that activates automatically after at least 3 seconds of continuous blocking with an added AoE frontal damage and short stun, an aura centered on the Paladin granting a small party buff like the old sanctuary and more. Paladins have the biggest shields in game (tower shields in 5th edition P&P D&D), it would be only reasonable they could make some use of them.
The shield bash idea is a unique suggestion I haven't read yet to improve the shield mechanic and compete with the fact that GF's can attack with their shield up while Pally's can't...
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
edited March 2019
The people in those tests are in my opinion a good representation of the peak performance of each class and they are all playing on best in slot characters. If anything, they do not represent the average person, because they can actually play the game and can play it well, which the average player does not do. There were no coffee breaks, but as I said, it is better to refer to the control test then to the dungeon runs, because then more variables are accounted for.
@alrii You should check out the new Adaptive Controller from Microsoft. It is marketed as an Xbox peripheral, but there are videos showing how to set it up on PC, PS4, Switch, etc. Might give hubby more options for playstyles that work for him.
The problem with the Paladin is that it’s peak performance requires a degree of being hit to accelerate Divinity recovery, so static dummy tests aren’t entirely accurate.
For example getting the shield up for one big boss attack will give enough Divinity to use Smite. So depending on the fight it can be quite easy to basically hit Smite or other high Divinity powers regularly, which will give better performance than your static dummy tests.
But people don’t want to consider that Smite is far closer to a DPS Power and pretty much every class would kill to have a 3s cool down 1200 magnitude power, even if they could only use it 4 times in a row.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Hey everyone, about to read through and reply to the last dew days worth of posts, but wanted to first give an update on some of what we've been up to. We've been working on a some general combat adjustments—Noworries will be posting the full details of those changes tomorrow, so I won't go into detail here—but we will be making some changes to things like at-will damage and, of interest to tanks and healers: damage resistance and mitigative powers. These adjustments will be featured in this week's build.
Also in this week's build, more specific to paladin: I have overhauled how auras work, their effects have been reduced but they now have 100% uptime. The one caveat is that, only one aura may be set at a time. Auras are now a special subset of class features which may only be slotted into the first class feature slot.
Other changes include an adjustment to how Justicar's Charge returns divinity. In particular, the maximum amount that can be restored per block has been increased, and how the value scales based on damage taken has been adjusted. In addition, a small internal cooldown has been implemented on the effect. The end result is that against swarms of smaller enemies it will be much worse than it currently is. However, against slower hitting enemies and bosses, it will be much stronger than it currently is.
I will be making further adjustments to Justicar's Charge, but what I outlined above are adjustments that will be in this week's build. Additionally, Smite has been adjusted such that its damage now increases relative to your remaining divinity. That is to say, that when you cast Smite with a full divinity bar, it will deal more damage than when you cast with a half full bar, which will in turn, deal more damage than when you cast with an empty bar.
Of course, this is in some ways a nerf, but won't affect overall DPS in a longterm fight, and should improve the pace of combat. Further adjustments will be forthcoming, and I am aiming to overhaul various feats and class features as soon as possible. I hope you'll take a moment to check out the changes in this week's build and let me know what you think.
In the interest of saving time catching up on the thread, because you all sure do post a lot! And in the interest of not paraphrasing myself as these topics are certain to come up, I'd like to repost a few of my posts from the fighter thread, that relate to tanking in general.
In regards to the shield "nerf," keep in mind that though the shield doesn't block for as large a percentage of your health anymore, due to the massive increase to your maximum health, the total amount of damage the shield stops is still very similar to before the changes. I am hesitant to increase stamina regenerating mechanics as stamina already regenerates fairly quickly. Which translates into a rather large amount of hit points of damage you can mitigate that don't require any healing.
Of course that being said, that's not to say we won't consider making further adjustments to the survivability of tanks, we are definitely keeping an eye on things as we hone in on the final launch balance for the module.
I want to address the pushback that a certain subset of players is having to the reduction of the tank damage penalty. I want to reiterate what I said to those on the other side of the fence who were frustrated by the 30% damage reduction before I made the changes—our goal is that tanks do roughly 70% of the damage of a DPS when they are opting for all DPS powers.
This goal has not changed. It bears mentioning as I believe some people are forgetting that, the tank paragon paths do not have access to the same damage increasing class mechanics or feats as their DPS focused counterparts. It's of the utmost importance to me that Dreadnought is a completely viable DPS to play, and I will be making adjustments as necessary to ensure that is the case. At the same time, I will be working to make sure that we hit the 70% mark we were aiming for on tank damage.
It just may be that the flat damage reduction does not need to be 70%, because other factors are at play. Just because a single Anvil of Doom used by the two paths can deal similar damage, doesn't mean that the two paths will necessarily deal similar DPS over the course of a fight.
Lastly, and this one requires a little context, but this is my response to feedback discussing implementing "DPS passives" which would do the inverse of those tank passive class mechanics on DPS classes. This came up in general, and specific examples were used, such as players soloing difficult group content on preview on DPS classes.
We would generally prefer not to use heavy handed passive powers that dramatically adjust player stats based on their role. However, soloing EToS while being scaled is obviously not something we are aiming to be possible with Module 16's launch, so we will absolutely be making adjustments.
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).
Hi Obsidiancran3, I appreciate your continued feedback. In regards to divinity regeneration, I do believe your post was before the divinity regeneration buff hit preview at the end of last week.
In regards to my example about threat, as it relates to your counter example. My example was engineered using somewhat realistic values. There shouldn't be cases in queued content where your DPS is hitting for so significantly more than you that your threat bonuses aren't enough to eclipse their damage when used correctly.
The threat bonuses are quite generous, so even if you are the lower end of the spectrum when queuing, you should be able to keep threat. Of course, hitting that mark perfectly so that a lower end tank can keep threat off of a higher end DPS in a queue, without making it mind shatteringly easy to hold threat when the two are evenly geared can be difficult—and we are closely testing a variety of scenarios and making adjustments.
> 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 was thinking as I was reading this, why not take away the heal path and replace it with dps path? That would be interesting. Since we are doing such a major overhaul might as well change the roles. Barbs can tank now new roles are always refreshing.
I just wanted to set the minds of our healer Paladins at ease. We have no plans to remove the healing path. Healing is a path that was always offered to Paladin, and some Paladins identify as healers only, or healers first. In the case of allowing Barbarian to tank—the great weapon fighter always had a tanking feat tree, even if it was completely pointless, and offering them the ability to tank does not diminish or remove the experiences of anyone who played that class before Module 16.
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.
Ok, I tried to solo 3 crystals and this mode definitely need a group to get trough since my DPS was not sufficient enough, but when I look at survivability then it's ok (at least for me).. and had to abort the run.
Went back in with 2 Crystals (Balance and Rage) and went trough with ease, (trash) mobs where hitting pretty hard but was doable... The bosses are too weak imho compared to trash mobs and could be adjusted up a bit (considering when going in normally with a group) Unfortunately the worst thing happened, got Remorhaz as end boss (hope it will be fixed soon), he fled again and never returned.. I had to abort this run too.. Bad thing is that I run out of Balance Crystals quickly this way, so I have to ask around if I can group up with someone so I can get access again to Balanced Crystals...
Anyhow, The tanking part looks ok (for me) considering survivability.
Thanks for sharing your findings and for trying out expeditions on preview! I apologize for the remorhaz and I can assure you that the designers working on expeditions have been working on resolving that issue.
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.
It's not a problem, I just hadn't seen it before so I was wondering if it was supposed to be there.
But it would be much more helpful if we could actually see where our Divinity was number-wise.
Smite takes 198 Divinity? Great. How much do I have? No idea. The bar is up to about *there*. However much that is.
The UI doesn't give me the numbers I need to make a truly informed decision. I just get to guess how close I might be to having whatever amount of Divinity I am needing for whatever power.
Now, give me a small Divinity bar above my action bar? That would tell me exactly what I had, the powers would tell me what I needed, and I could make more informed decisions based on that. Maybe add such a bar for Block, too, telling me exactly how much more damage I can absorb.
Putting those numbers on the screen next to the regular Divinity and Block bars might clutter things up and it might not be so easy to pick out those numbers against a background filled with other numbers as you move and turn in combat.
Might make the existing bars redundant, though. There has to be a good way to incorporate the current bar design and adding numbers that tell me exactly how much Divinity I have and exactly how much more damage I can block.
Thanks for clarifying your thoughts! We are aware that it would be useful to see a number all the time, potentially, but don't have an elegant solution for doing so at the moment. It's something we will probably explore post Module 16. That said, you can view your current divinity if you mouseover the bar in inspect mode. For reference, a full bar is 1000 divinity.
Apologies I cant for the life of me work out how to post a picture on here, but the above link will hopefully take you to a screen shot demonstrating I have indeed tested all 8 classes on preview, taking each of them to level 80, by completing the Undermountain Campaign in full as well as spending some time in the Riversistrict to get a feel for each.
@asterdahl the reason I'm posting in this forum not the general feedback one, is because the testing i was doing was all with a view to how the Paladin performs relative to the other classes. To be clear i only tested solo play so for all my assumptions i'm going to assume you have managed a perfect balance between classes carrying out the same role in dungeons. My Paladin is over 3,000 IL higher than any of my alts on live, but my 7 alts are all within 1000 IL of each other. Because this was solo play i refused to use any scrolls or stones of health, only healing potions and healing kits, as no one wants to waste scrolls on solo play. I also didn't use any of the Undermountain gear i found until I accepted the Waning Darkness quest at the very end to try and avoid accidentally creating additional IL discrepancies.
Finally it did take me quite a while to complete all this on 8 classes so I apologies if anything i mention has already been addressed or changed.
So to get started, my Paladin is 19048 IL on live and I used a Con artist companion. I played the Justicar path as i've always played the Tank version of my OP and don't really like playing healers at all. There has been a lot of comments on this forum from people saying the Paladin is unplayable, others saying it's perfectly capable of completing any content. But the ones that resonate with me are the ones complaining about the play style. To summarise how I feel I firstly need to say that those people who are saying the Paladin can complete any content are right, it can. My question is why on earth would any one want to.
The absolute unavoidable truth of my time on preview is that despite the fact my Paladin is over 3000 IL higher than any other class I have, it took by far the longest to complete the Undermountain campaign, not because it was hard but because it's both slow moving and really slow at killing things. The only real difficulty I ran into was on the shadow vigil quest, where extremely hard hitting vampires are too fast and get behind you too easily turning the quest into a fight to stay alive, and the final waning darkness quest where again hard hitting mobs can flank you too easily, and you take so long to kill them yourself you have to withstand a lot of damage for a long time (Waning darkness on this class was done before your recent changes which made it a lot easier). Also Keresta without scrolls was impossible, but that was true on all classes so i suspect she is way overpowered at the moment.
I wound up running relentless Avenger, Smite and Bane which I found to be the quickest despite the divinity cost. Using these with a lot of blocking got the job done faster than any other combo i found. As has been mentioned several times on this forum I found Divine Pallisade to be a disaster. Not only did it not help me in solo one bit, as I either didn't need the extra defense or needed to keep moving, but it costs you most of your divinity, pressing it is actually a huge mistake. Compared to every other tab function on all the other classes this one is by far and a way the worst tab function in the game.
You can of course switch to Oathkeeper, it undoubtedly solo's better, same kind of damage resistance, better damage and better divinity, but we were told some of the reasons for the Mod 16 changes were for better balance and choice. Being forced to play a Healer I didn't want to play because the two paths in the same class are so unbalanced just annoyed me. I don't want to be a healer.
And balance is another key issue. we've been told its key to mod 16, but i think you have forgotten Solo play is as important as dungeons, from starting a toon from scratch you probably spend significantly longer on solo play than in dungeons right up to the point you have completed all the zones. @thefabricant comments higher up that solo play is trivial, and they are right provided you are only talking about the level of difficulty. But balance is so much more than that, its about enjoyment of playing, how long you need to put aside to complete tasks in comparison to other classes. It no longer becomes trivial when one class needs twice (conservatively) as long as any other class to complete a quest. Its not trivial when you're spending an age fighting just one group of mobs whilst a DPS class clears the whole area and leaves you needing to await respawns, and its definitely not trivial when a barbarian races past you on your way to a target and wipes them all out before you even reach them.
I genuinely think you will eventually reach a point where there are very few people playing Paladins in the game as there is no reason to do so. If you like playing a tank, play a fighter or a barbarian. Equally as good Tanks in a dungeon, with the benefit of a DPS loadout to complete solo play in a time frame Paladins can only dream of. Similarly healers, assuming they get them balanced in dungeon play, pick a Warlock or Cleric for the DPS solo speck. The only people who will end up playing OP's as things stand are those that have already invested a huge amount into one and don't have an alternative. Anyone with an alternative is likely to change class, anyone starting a new character will give them a miss for something with a DPS load out. I myself as things stand will strip my OP of his high level enchants and retire him to his workshop when Mod 16 lands.
I understand the difficulty you have, you cant give Paladins a third path it would be unfair, and you cant ditch either the Healer or Tank paths as you'd upset people invested in one or the other. Also I take on board @thefabricant 's point you cant just up the Paladins DPS as you will make DPS classes redundant. But surely you can split solo and dungeon play? Can you build a mechanic in the means the Paladin does massively reduced damage when both in a party and a dungeon, but when solo can hit like a DPS? I don't care if you reduce Tanks damage in dungeons to zero (provided you build in an aggro mechanism, and we're not trying to solo it) its not our job in them to kill things, but please please let us compete on a level playing field in solo.
Holy smokes Benyr! Thanks so much for taking the time to do such thorough testing on preview so that you could give such well-informed context to your points. I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Paladin's soloing speed, and general combat pacing, and these are certainly areas that I am aiming to continue to improve. The changes to Justicar's Charge are just the first step. I hope you'll play around with Paladin some after the changes, and continue to send your feedback!
Also, I wanted to genuinely thank you for keeping such a positive tone, despite how time consuming it must have been to do all of that testing, and undoubtedly frustrating to find your favorite class at a disadvantage. I really appreciate it!
Interesting news @asterdahl and thank you for the update. While I understand the need to adjust downward on its effect, I'm happier for a 100% uptime and that they are not tied the dailies. I'm sure @obsidiancran and others will welcome the change to smite, though I, myself, will wait and see how it goes after the change.
I'm still concerned that the Oathkeeper's mechanic is still locked out. Are you planning something special to make it standout from the Devout and Soulweaver? Like say a 10% increase in outgoing healing and 25% increase in Divinity or 10% increase in outgoing healing and a 10% increase in recharge speed (or maybe AP generation). I hope it forgotten about and goes live without a functioning and playtested oath. Thanks again.
> And that exactly why my feedback here should be taken seriously. Think of it this way, I have nothing to gain or lose from OP being nerfed. I can play whatever class I like, I have people to run with, I am never going to struggle to have a group and on the offhand chance I wanted to play OP, I could be bis within 30 minutes, just the time it takes me to buy the gear. The devs cannot nerf me. That means I also have no interest in which class is the best here. My feedback here is purely from, "what will be meta in m16," pov, looking at what impact that will have on the average player.
The problem is you seem to fail to understand the average player at all. Your ability with the game means you lack perspective on it.
I totally value your experience with the game, and the devs totally need to be listening to what you and your circle are saying about your game experience.
But it’s nothing like the play experience of most of the player base. Go back a few pages and read over the comments here.
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> I didn't even comment on this thread until the post stating they would reduce the penalty to OP was made, which was only made because a mechanic was exposed which was probably always there. If it had been left hidden, OPs would have gone on none the wiser and happily accepted their 30% damage penalty which they should have.
Your ignorance of the class is showing. It’s not a hidden penalty, it’s clearly stated in the class features. Perhaps if the penalty wasn’t clearly stated there would be less complaints about it and the complaints wouldn’t specifically call out the 30%.
You might also keep in mind that your single target testing has the Oathkeeper (that lacks the debuff) being significantly behind the other classes, the Justicar is behind that!
@obsidiancran3 I mean on live, it is a hidden mechanic that is already there. Now on preview they simply revealed it exists.
As I responded to this general topic a bit already, I'm trying to avoid wading into this discussion as I believe it is really bogging down the thread—but I wanted to jump in and state that this is actually incorrect. While there certainly all sorts of absurd hidden mechanics in place on live, there was no such 30% reduction to tank damage dealt on live. In fact, Paladin had a global passive damage increase to damage dealt.
It was almost impossible to tease out which classes and hidden passives were at play from an end user perspective, because so many pieces varied so greatly from class to class—so I can't really blame you for assuming there was a damage reduction for Paladins on live—but I did want to clarify.
The hidden passives and core magnitudes of powers on each class was such a rat/s nest before Module 16, that it severely hampered even our own ability to keep track of all the variables at play. Which ultimately slowed our ability to respond to class balance feedback with adjustments.
If we were not coming from a world of power share and massive bonding buffs, I believe this module round be received a lot better.
This is certainly true, but it was also something we knew going into the module. These were longstanding issues that have slowly grown over the years, and we knew the decision to rip the bandaid off all at once would be controversial and frustrating to many. However, we truly believe we'll be able to offer better experiences and content as a result of the changes.
We certainly considered making the changes a little bit at a time. But we believe that the feeling of constantly being nerfed, module after module, little by little, would have felt much more oppressive and frustrating. It also would have ended up being significantly more work, as we would have to rebalance the game's content multiple times, which ultimately means less time to build new content.
Also, just to clarify, though it may seem as though I have a matter-of-fact tone explaining our decision making process, we did not make any of the decisions that went into Module 16 lightly, and we genuinely regret that we have had to make changes that have frustrated some of you. Your feedback, however positive—or negative, on all of the changes is always welcome.
Guys, those of you who main a Paladin, please dont feed trolls and stay on topic. We are here to talk about our experience with the class on Preview, nothing more nothing less. Lets not engage into a quote war or play who is better at shutting people up online. Tons of posts from people quoting each other and trying to win arguments are simply counter productive since the sole dev / thank you @asterdahl / who actually comes to talk to us will have to sort thru a mountain of BS to find actual feedback. To that end Im waiting for this week's patch and I'll resume testing.
For the record buffing the Justicar damage was not my idea of fixing the class, providing reliable Divinity recovery, great aggro tools and meaningful passives/feats is what Im looking for.
While I'd rather not wade into whether or not any given discussion is productive, I certainly appreciate the sentiment—staying caught up on the Paladin thread is certainly a Sisyphean task!
First impression of the latest patch is "WOAH". I mean whats going on here, @asterdahl do you guys have a clear vision of the Justicar or are you just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks? Im serious, we get from a nerfed state to being super strong in a day, I almost felt like i feel on Live with my 18.5 OP. My Justicar is in Vanrakdoom. Yesterday the lvl 80 vampires posed a threat, now they barely reduce my HP . I have 800 000 hp with Heroism and an augment pet and Im not fully built for health yet.
Feedback:
HP buff is too high, reduce it to 20% unless you are actaully planning to have 1 000 000 hp Paladins walking around /it will happen/. At the same time buff Block to 80% of HP /up from 50%/. The damage boost is also noticeable but I have to say my toon is pretty maxxed, lower gear guys will have a different story to tell. In any case Oath of Protection can reduce our damage by 20% /up from 10%/ for a more balanced play versus dps classes.
Vow of Enmity needs a lower cooldown or a lingering, active hard taunt effect to make sure Justicars keep aggro without doing damage. Keep in mind spamming Templars Wrath is only possible with Divinity and Divinity gain is tied to Blocking and Blocking happens only if you're attacked and you're attacked only if you have the aggro.. So, make sure tanks have the tools to get and keep aggro.
Feats and Passives - I cant stress this enough. Rework those and make them worthwhile. Look at the Barbarian, both paths /Sentinel and Blademaster/ have great Feats and great Passives. Brainstorm and make ours good too.
I know im actually suggesting a nerf to Justicar HP and damage /cant believe it myself/ but I want a balanced class not an overpowered mess which will be hard nerfed a month post release
Hello! I appreciate the feedback, and we are certainly watching to see whether tanks will have too much survivability after the changes. I would like to say that we do have a vision for each class, however, there are some fundamental issues in play—currently the difference in survivability between a tank and a DPS who gears defensively is too low. The tank's role is not cemented strongly enough in group play.
We are playing with adjustments to enemy auto-attacks in dungeons, but we have not yet finalized those numbers or applied them globally to dungeons. That being said, when those changes go through, you may find that the tank adjustments feel a bit more natural.
In regards to keeping threat, and "spamming templar's wrath." Keep in mind that similar abilities on Barbarian and Fighter simply have cooldowns, and that Templar's Wrath is balanced around being used with your natural divinity recovery rate. We haven't felt any pressure keeping threat in endgame content as Justicar, so we're currently not looking to make any adjustments like what you describe for Vow of Enmity, but I do welcome feedback, especially from those who have a chance to play in group settings and share their experiences.
First impression of the latest patch is "WOAH". I mean whats going on here, @asterdahl do you guys have a clear vision of the Justicar or are you just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks? Im serious, we get from a nerfed state to being super strong in a day, I almost felt like i feel on Live with my 18.5 OP. My Justicar is in Vanrakdoom. Yesterday the lvl 80 vampires posed a threat, now they barely reduce my HP . I have 800 000 hp with Heroism and an augment pet and Im not fully built for health yet.
Feedback:
HP buff is too high, reduce it to 20% unless you are actaully planning to have 1 000 000 hp Paladins walking around /it will happen/. At the same time buff Block to 80% of HP /up from 50%/. The damage boost is also noticeable but I have to say my toon is pretty maxxed, lower gear guys will have a different story to tell. In any case Oath of Protection can reduce our damage by 20% /up from 10%/ for a more balanced play versus dps classes.
Vow of Enmity needs a lower cooldown or a lingering, active hard taunt effect to make sure Justicars keep aggro without doing damage. Keep in mind spamming Templars Wrath is only possible with Divinity and Divinity gain is tied to Blocking and Blocking happens only if you're attacked and you're attacked only if you have the aggro.. So, make sure tanks have the tools to get and keep aggro.
Feats and Passives - I cant stress this enough. Rework those and make them worthwhile. Look at the Barbarian, both paths /Sentinel and Blademaster/ have great Feats and great Passives. Brainstorm and make ours good too.
I know im actually suggesting a nerf to Justicar HP and damage /cant believe it myself/ but I want a balanced class not an overpowered mess which will be hard nerfed a month post release
I'm so sorry @asterdahl you're going to absolutely hate us. But I just went back to Vanrakdoom to test the latest changes, and like @emilemo says, i tore through every circle of vampires in the instance in about 3 mins. As much as I loved it, the changes need dialing back a little to a happy medium. Sorry, and thanks for continuing to listen.
Nonsense, no hate here! I will say that, I did twist the dial fairly far the other direction. I think ultimately it's a bit more productive to hone in on the proper position, than slowly turning the dial up and undershooting the target.
That said, I am of course, going to let these changes soak for a bit, and more changes will happen this week.
First impression of the latest patch is "WOAH". I mean whats going on here, @asterdahl do you guys have a clear vision of the Justicar or are you just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks? Im serious, we get from a nerfed state to being super strong in a day, I almost felt like i feel on Live with my 18.5 OP. My Justicar is in Vanrakdoom. Yesterday the lvl 80 vampires posed a threat, now they barely reduce my HP . I have 800 000 hp with Heroism and an augment pet and Im not fully built for health yet.
Feedback:
HP buff is too high, reduce it to 20% unless you are actaully planning to have 1 000 000 hp Paladins walking around /it will happen/. At the same time buff Block to 80% of HP /up from 50%/. The damage boost is also noticeable but I have to say my toon is pretty maxxed, lower gear guys will have a different story to tell. In any case Oath of Protection can reduce our damage by 20% /up from 10%/ for a more balanced play versus dps classes.
Vow of Enmity needs a lower cooldown or a lingering, active hard taunt effect to make sure Justicars keep aggro without doing damage. Keep in mind spamming Templars Wrath is only possible with Divinity and Divinity gain is tied to Blocking and Blocking happens only if you're attacked and you're attacked only if you have the aggro.. So, make sure tanks have the tools to get and keep aggro.
Feats and Passives - I cant stress this enough. Rework those and make them worthwhile. Look at the Barbarian, both paths /Sentinel and Blademaster/ have great Feats and great Passives. Brainstorm and make ours good too.
I know im actually suggesting a nerf to Justicar HP and damage /cant believe it myself/ but I want a balanced class not an overpowered mess which will be hard nerfed a month post release
I'm so sorry @asterdahl you're going to absolutely hate us. But I just went back to Vanrakdoom to test the latest changes, and like @emilemo says, i tore through every circle of vampires in the instance in about 3 mins. As much as I loved it, the changes need dialing back a little to a happy medium. Sorry, and thanks for continuing to listen.
asterdahl is on vacation sorry but he have no time to make any further changes before this hits live ( you can always dream ...)
I am!? It must be a great vacation because I can't remember any of it.
Comments
Many tnx to @emilemo , @obsidiancran3 , @majorcharvenak and all others for taking your time to test and help making the Paladin a fun and good class to play.
Best
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I would like to have a Sacred Weapon under the Tab button, which much more quickly renews the Divine Power and do more damage, etc etc...
This is a great idea for the tab mechanic, and include threat generation as well. There have been several complaints about Divine Palisade and also concerns about getting agro. I think this would be a good fit.
I believe everyone here loves Paladin wanted what good for a Paladin on mod 16.
Please test carefully before suggest nerf smite any further, that skill probably the last saving grace for paladin.
Inconsistent divinity gain, smite depends on divinity in-order which makes smite inconsistent. In-order to gain divinity need to block therefore smite do actually has downtime.
Unlike other tanks while blocking unable to deal damage means losing threat luckily that smite deal good damage to makes up for the down-time for collecting divinity which I think smite is fine as its.
Base on above cycle we can see there a lot of positioning, resources planning, timing and skill selection/rotation involved unlike other tanks which has more margin for error and just spam keyboard/mouse + holding/without holding shift button and get the job done.
Why people wants to play paladin over Barbarian/Fighter which clearly a easier and more flexible tank that still get the job done? which happens to have both dps(easy to solo lvl) and tank load out which clearly a better choice than paladin?...should I say what makes Paladin unique ? , I would say its divinity which clearly inconsistent, best/efficient way to spend these divinity… smite…nerf smite what to do with these divinities again?
I agree with @emilemo that please suggest alternative/solution before stating a problem.
We are looking for solution on how to makes things better not break things/ create problems, while the boat still able to sail please don’t put more hole on the ship unless u know how to fix it/makes it better.
Regarding as why Paladin has higher dps for other tank will need really compare apple to apple, are the person who tested paladin/fighter/barbarian a same person(player skill lvl)/pc and do these tank toons has similar gears? Difference in dps might due to in between battle divinity gain allow paladin to ditch out couple more smite how do paladin fought against other tanks in boss fight (which matter most) in term of threat sustainability/survival/dps?
Also considering data from a single run made in unknown conditions with who knows what group is pretty useless and should't be even taken seriously for the sake of balancing. All the group was composed by similar equipment and similar potential for their specific classes? Did anyone take a break to get some coffee while the others kept fighting? Everyone had invested the same time to perfect their class knowledge and offer a similar performance? Everyone was similarly invested in maxing out DPS? These tests are best left to the dev team, that can run them in controlled conditions and without biases.
I can't stress more the importance of developing a viable tab mechanic and decide what to do with the current basic, unspecific and passive shield mechanic. Pallisade is useless and in no way a Divinity sink as it should be. The shield is your basic block stripped by any personality. Why not adding Divinity fueled blocking features to it? Damage reflect, HoTs, buffs to encounter DPS...anything that could push a Paladin to make choices on how to invest Divinity other than spam a single encounter. If Paladins could have a bunch of Divinity fueled encounters, a worthwile Divinity based tab mechanic and a block that could also use divinity for additional effects, it's obvious that things would change from the current "Smite, smite, smite, get back divinity, smite, smite, smite..".
Nobody thinks of fine tuning a car that lacks engine, wheels and seats. This class is still lacking real core mechanics which are fundamental for its gameplay. All this chatter about the perceived OPness of Smite is completely worthless till it won't be the only viable choice to invest Divinity in. You want a valid Paladin class? Start with working out a solid core, because that is what we'll have to play with for the years to come.
In its current state we are provided with an upgraded version of our ‘shift-shield’ that moves around with our character, which I found puzzling. My initial thought was that its only practical use would be a ‘back-up’ shift-shield, incase our regular shield runs out of stamina and/or we are close to death so we could use our marginal decrease in dmg taken and increase our incoming heals. As we are still expected to be facing away from our group, making this shield only useful for ourselves. But it is not even that, as it apparently shares the stamina with our regular shield, while its effects remain small. Even if one would be in the circumstance to have to protect the group with this skill, I cannot imagine a marginal 10% bonus would be a life-saver, as one would expect from a tab-skill from tanks. Additionally, you still force the group to take dmg by standing still, in order to receive the bonus.
So I would really like to know as to why we are left with a marginal bonus shield on our ‘class-special’ tab-tray, which usefulness may only appear on rare occasions (which is debatable), while being contradictive towards certain tanking standards? I understand you want to make this skill work, but in its current state I find no real usage for it and I would want to rely on other, more reliable, powers with my divinity. Ideally, I would prefer a whole different skill in the tray, more towards a skill as we have now on our Justice feat path. I am aware though that this is not realistic. Therefore I would really want to suggest increasing its effects, changing its effects directly towards the whole group within range or even adding an effect of forced threat.
I mean come on, how hard is it to come up with a good Tab mechanic? Hitting Tab now consumes 40% fo your Divinity and grants every party member /including the caster/ 20% if their hitpoints as temp HP or 10% increased dmg resistance for 10 seconds. There, I just gave you a working Tab ability without even trying. We are Paladin tanks, placing holy barriers on people is what we do.
Or the Sacred Weapon as Tab ability already suggested in a previous post. Hitting Tab now consumes ??% of Divinity and infuses your weapon with radiant energy adding ?? mag rad dmg to all of your attacks and forcing the enemy to attack you for ?? seconds.
The holding-down Tab while standing still mechanic will never work in Neverwinter.
Smite - since this appears to be such a huge problem you devs are gonna have to adjust it somehow. Just FYI , I used Smite only during my PVP testing and it didnt even scratch a Sentinel I was fighting, while it destroyed a Blademaster. So how would go about balancing that? Is Smite too strong? Or is everyhting else we have too weak?
What bothers me is we seem to be having so many questions regarding the Paladin and so few answers with m16 launch around the corner. Should I start gearing up another tank class or installing another game? We'll see
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
I did some initial testing and reset my stats to claw as much Int as I could (including +2 from the new artifact set) and that seems to have improved my overall performance. But that could just be wishful thinking.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
@asterdahl I love your passion for your work, and I definitely see the "class fantasy" of an unmoving bulwark that you're leaning into with the shield tanks' tab mechanics, but neither one really meshes well with encounter design as it exists in the game. Tanks need to be mobile, as much to counteract the AI's constant repositioning as anything else, and need to keep the encounter faced away from the party to spare them the cones, lines, and even just the broad swings that come with facing enemies head on.
I love your reimagining for Unstoppable that allows the Barbarian to be a MORE active tank by pressing tab- you can position, you can avoid red zones, and you can attack freely without dropping your guard- it feels like using the Bear Totem rage, which is arguably the quintessential example of a barbarian tank.
Now, Unstoppable is perfect for the barbarian, obviously not thematically appropriate for the other tanks, but do you see what I mean about it better meshing with encounter design?
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There are many improvements that could grant uniqueness to the Paladin's shield, like a Shield Bash that activates automatically after at least 3 seconds of continuous blocking with an added AoE frontal damage and short stun, an aura centered on the Paladin granting a small party buff like the old sanctuary and more. Paladins have the biggest shields in game (tower shields in 5th edition P&P D&D), it would be only reasonable they could make some use of them.
The shield bash idea is a unique suggestion I haven't read yet to improve the shield mechanic and compete with the fact that GF's can attack with their shield up while Pally's can't...
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
You should check out the new Adaptive Controller from Microsoft. It is marketed as an Xbox peripheral, but there are videos showing how to set it up on PC, PS4, Switch, etc. Might give hubby more options for playstyles that work for him.
The problem with the Paladin is that it’s peak performance requires a degree of being hit to accelerate Divinity recovery, so static dummy tests aren’t entirely accurate.
For example getting the shield up for one big boss attack will give enough Divinity to use Smite. So depending on the fight it can be quite easy to basically hit Smite or other high Divinity powers regularly, which will give better performance than your static dummy tests.
But people don’t want to consider that Smite is far closer to a DPS Power and pretty much every class would kill to have a 3s cool down 1200 magnitude power, even if they could only use it 4 times in a row.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Also in this week's build, more specific to paladin: I have overhauled how auras work, their effects have been reduced but they now have 100% uptime. The one caveat is that, only one aura may be set at a time. Auras are now a special subset of class features which may only be slotted into the first class feature slot.
Other changes include an adjustment to how Justicar's Charge returns divinity. In particular, the maximum amount that can be restored per block has been increased, and how the value scales based on damage taken has been adjusted. In addition, a small internal cooldown has been implemented on the effect. The end result is that against swarms of smaller enemies it will be much worse than it currently is. However, against slower hitting enemies and bosses, it will be much stronger than it currently is.
I will be making further adjustments to Justicar's Charge, but what I outlined above are adjustments that will be in this week's build. Additionally, Smite has been adjusted such that its damage now increases relative to your remaining divinity. That is to say, that when you cast Smite with a full divinity bar, it will deal more damage than when you cast with a half full bar, which will in turn, deal more damage than when you cast with an empty bar.
Of course, this is in some ways a nerf, but won't affect overall DPS in a longterm fight, and should improve the pace of combat. Further adjustments will be forthcoming, and I am aiming to overhaul various feats and class features as soon as possible. I hope you'll take a moment to check out the changes in this week's build and let me know what you think.
Lastly, and this one requires a little context, but this is my response to feedback discussing implementing "DPS passives" which would do the inverse of those tank passive class mechanics on DPS classes. This came up in general, and specific examples were used, such as players soloing difficult group content on preview on DPS classes.
In regards to my example about threat, as it relates to your counter example. My example was engineered using somewhat realistic values. There shouldn't be cases in queued content where your DPS is hitting for so significantly more than you that your threat bonuses aren't enough to eclipse their damage when used correctly.
The threat bonuses are quite generous, so even if you are the lower end of the spectrum when queuing, you should be able to keep threat. Of course, hitting that mark perfectly so that a lower end tank can keep threat off of a higher end DPS in a queue, without making it mind shatteringly easy to hold threat when the two are evenly geared can be difficult—and we are closely testing a variety of scenarios and making adjustments.
Also, I wanted to genuinely thank you for keeping such a positive tone, despite how time consuming it must have been to do all of that testing, and undoubtedly frustrating to find your favorite class at a disadvantage. I really appreciate it!
I'm still concerned that the Oathkeeper's mechanic is still locked out. Are you planning something special to make it standout from the Devout and Soulweaver? Like say a 10% increase in outgoing healing and 25% increase in Divinity or 10% increase in outgoing healing and a 10% increase in recharge speed (or maybe AP generation). I hope it forgotten about and goes live without a functioning and playtested oath. Thanks again.
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
It was almost impossible to tease out which classes and hidden passives were at play from an end user perspective, because so many pieces varied so greatly from class to class—so I can't really blame you for assuming there was a damage reduction for Paladins on live—but I did want to clarify.
The hidden passives and core magnitudes of powers on each class was such a rat/s nest before Module 16, that it severely hampered even our own ability to keep track of all the variables at play. Which ultimately slowed our ability to respond to class balance feedback with adjustments.
We certainly considered making the changes a little bit at a time. But we believe that the feeling of constantly being nerfed, module after module, little by little, would have felt much more oppressive and frustrating. It also would have ended up being significantly more work, as we would have to rebalance the game's content multiple times, which ultimately means less time to build new content.
Also, just to clarify, though it may seem as though I have a matter-of-fact tone explaining our decision making process, we did not make any of the decisions that went into Module 16 lightly, and we genuinely regret that we have had to make changes that have frustrated some of you. Your feedback, however positive—or negative, on all of the changes is always welcome.
We are playing with adjustments to enemy auto-attacks in dungeons, but we have not yet finalized those numbers or applied them globally to dungeons. That being said, when those changes go through, you may find that the tank adjustments feel a bit more natural.
In regards to keeping threat, and "spamming templar's wrath." Keep in mind that similar abilities on Barbarian and Fighter simply have cooldowns, and that Templar's Wrath is balanced around being used with your natural divinity recovery rate. We haven't felt any pressure keeping threat in endgame content as Justicar, so we're currently not looking to make any adjustments like what you describe for Vow of Enmity, but I do welcome feedback, especially from those who have a chance to play in group settings and share their experiences.
That said, I am of course, going to let these changes soak for a bit, and more changes will happen this week.
I am!? It must be a great vacation because I can't remember any of it.