Can you provide us a list of zones/dungeons that you know are tuned correctly? I know you need us to test out all zones and dungeons to help identify where there are issues. However, if we at least had a list of the ones that are scaled correctly we can test out new builds and combinations and provide feedback in a working setting. A lot of the negative feedback/survivability issues are because we end up in an area that is not working correctly.
Rotation: Open with Relentless Avenger to get to the pack before the dps can start (we are one of the slowest classes so need the boost), Templar's Wrath to get a solid lead on threat, Sacred Weapon to buff damage of Oath Strike for 10 seconds, spam Oath Strike (now Magnitude 50 for 10 seconds). At this point Relentless Avenger is off cooldown so you have a Magnitude 800 single target damage attack and can also swap between Templar's Wrath and some blocks to add more damage and threat until Sacred Weapon is back for more Oath Strike spam. Then rinse and repeat through the mix.
Boss At-will: Valorous Strike / Radiant Strike Encounter: Vow of Enmity, Smite, [Templar's Wrath or Bane (if there are adds) or Absolution (if need protection)] Daily: Divine Judgement / Divine Protector or Heroism (haven't tried this power yet) Class Feature: Composure / Divine Challenger Feat: Valorous Judgement, Absolute Shield
Rotation: Open with Smite (range 80'), charge with Radiant Strike then spam Valorous Strike and Smite when it procs. Use Vow of Enmity if you start losing agro followed by Templar's Wrath or Bane as needed if there are adds or Smite for only boss. If no adds, replace Templar's Wrath with Absolution for better Divinity regen for more Smites. You will likely need to weave in blocks anyway since its a boss so Divinity shouldn't be a problem.
I have a request for relentless avenger. Can we get an added effect of increased threat to enemies around the target? Feel free to reduce the damage to 600 to compensate. I wouldn't reduce it further since it would just be threat to the enemies around the target and not damage to the enemies like Templar's Wrath. This would give us a cooldown based aoe threat generator (Vow of Enmity just puts us at the top). It would work out well in the Trash rotation as something to help us build threat and as its on a cooldown it allows us to look at other divinity costing powers that are not Templar's Wrath.
With this change, in my Trash example above, another great option would be to replace Templar's Wrath with Bane so I can Bane from a distance for initial damage, Relentless Avenger to close the gap and build aoe threat. I could then use Relentless Avenger on cooldown to keep up threat and mix Bane with Oath Strike and Sacred Weapon as described.
After playing for a couple of days with a newly created Paladin, one thing that would be helpful for a new player (not to mention old players) would be if "Radiant Strike" had a "Daze" added to the target when used.
Since you are removing all that is unique to paladin why not allow it to tank like a fighter. Allow paladin to attack while shield is up, just like the fighter.
It seems to me you want paladin and fighter to be level to do this you need to ether remove fighting with shield up for fighter or allow paladin to do the same
There are more than BIS players in this game RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ???? FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
Paladin has been changed beyond recognition. None of the features I liked when I started playing exist anymore. No powershare, no meaningful Auras, no consistent Temp HP, no Feats orthogonal to the encounters. We got a mana pool for no reason at all.
Paladin is no longer the versatile class I used to play. It's a dumb tank. I have spent tens of hours trying to customize my build in terms of Feats, Items, Companions, etc. I have read many guides, and I have never followed one 100%, because I disagreed with the objectives of the author, or their reasoning. The fact that so many guides existed even for a tank class speaks volumes about the depth that was present in its design. ALL of that is gone. And it's not just gone from Paladin. The rampant dumbing-down of so many aspects of the game in Mod 16 means that Neverwinter is no longer addressed to adults who can make choices. I don't know who it is addressed to, but it's not me.
Almost of the specific feedback I wanted to give has been mentioned in other posts. The changes are bad. In fact, the changes are insulting. Having a class mechanic that reduces damage dealt by 30%? So that the run-of-the-mill Rogue who makes poor choices cannot out-DPS me in a PVE environment? Just to save the ego of some teenager who thought DPSing in Neverwinter is like DPSing in Counter Strike? This feature right here is a mark of utter failure: if you had *really* taken your time to "balance" classes, it would have never existed. You can't balance classes, or content. If you could, and if it *really* was a priority, it would have been already polished. There wouldn't be ridiculous battle logs all over the place.
No, this module is not about rebalancing. It is about drastically reducing the complexity of the game, such that it becomes accessible to kids spending their parents money on open-world FPS. I could live with having my character overhauled, but I can't live with the changing in philosophy of the entire game. By the way, speaking about a "completely new game" and how about "we will be accustomed to the changes over time" is also insulting marketingese, and please stop repeating it. There is nowhere in your life where you would be fine with such a thing. If I took your car, your laptop or anything that you own and have spent countless hours being comfortable with, and replaced it with an unrecognizable similar piece, you would be outraged. I am also outraged, and you didn't just take my laptop, you took my diary.
As a final comment, I only have one advice to give to you, @asterdahl , since you are a developer. Much wiser people in Software Engineering have tried your approach, overhauling the product overnight and telling the customer "they will get used to it eventually". Microsoft tried it with Internet Explorer 8. It was a disaster. The new Paladin is a disaster for the same reason. Instead of careful nerfs, you did what is well known as "Shotgun Debugging". I understand that you had problems handling the old complex classes, but the way you "fixed" the issue means that you are incapable of handling customers with complex objectives.
In mod 16, there will be kids all over the place. Live long and prosper.
PS. Just so that this post is constructive, here is a little piece of specific feedback that has been mentioned in the general thread but is especially relevant for Paladin. There are now two defensive stats, Defense and Deflect, with two opposing rolls. In order to get any bonus from the stat, you have to have enough to overcome the opposing roll. This is problematic. If I have 8k of stats to spend among Defense and Deflect, I will put all 8k of it into one stat; if I split it 4k & 4k, I run the risk that both stats end up lower than the opposing stats of the enemy, which makes me have no bonus at all. If the enemy has 6k ArPen and 6k Accuracy, as will be the case, there is only one way for me to build the character so I have some damage reduction. This poorly thought stat mechanic will be the root cause of all cookie cutter builds in Mod 16: there will be many stats, but gearing in a way that increases them all WILL PROVIDE DIMINISHING RETURNS to your gameplay. Games who want to encourage diversity have a diminishing return mechanic on stacking A SINGLE stat. Neverwinter goes completely against the traditional wisdom without any reason at all. There are deep design flaws all over the place, and this particular one isn't something you can tweak, unless there is no piece of equipment in the game that provides a different amount of Defense vs Deflect.
I'm very sorry to hear that you're not enjoying the changes. Though I understand where you are coming from, I would argue that an online game is neither a car nor a laptop—a closer analogy would be a sports club, or another entertainment based organization where the rules, facilities, and benefits change regardless of your previous investment.
That said, we haven't specifically set out to upset or frustrate anyone, though admittedly, we absolutely knew that we would, making changes of this magnitude. I do appreciate you taking the time to go in-depth about the things you liked on Paladin.
In regards to things like stacking temporary health, we made a conscious decision to steer way from things that could wildly alter your EHP so that the game's content could be balanced in a way that is more predictable. If we can assume that the survivability of a group is somewhere at least in the same ballpark if they're at the same item level, we can build much more engaging content.
Although I absolutely understand if you decide to stop playing due to the changes, I do hope you continue to try out the changes over the coming weeks on preview and continue to provide feedback. We truly appreciate your time.
Finally—on the topic of deflect and defense, you have not accounted for the fact that many equipment slots provide a universal boost to your secondary ratings. So you should overcome the base opposing roles of your enemy exclusively by virtue of that base secondary stat. That said, if you have any more feedback on the general stats system, we would appreciate if you could direct it to the stats and mechanics thread. That will ensure the relevant developers see your feedback. Thank you!
@asterdahl Myself and 2 other players paladins grouped up to test last night... 2 of us were not experiencing these one shots (in fact I leveled to 80 never having less than 75% health in any fight, the third was getting one shot on nearly every single mob in every zone while testing.
For those of us not getting one shot the mob damage cycles looked like: enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 10 to 40k
For our teammate getting one shot the mob damage cycle looked like this: enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 600k to 1.5m
Our stats point allocations were nearly identical, so to test we did the following:
Set all our feats to be identical: same result, player three experienced the same damage cycle
Set all our boons to be identical: same result, player three experienced the same damage cycle
Player three cleared all companion power slots: player 3 no longer experiencing one shots from every mob, and damage cycle looks like the players not experiencing crazy high burst from the mobs. We ended up having to stop there, so did not narrow down which companion slotted power might be the factor involved, I hope this helps.
Actually, this is incredibly helpful! I've forwarded this to the designer working on companions. We know your time is valuable, but we really appreciate you and both your friends going above and beyond to isolate the issue you were encountering. Thank you, and send your friends my thanks as well!
This power decreases incoming dmg by 20%, acts as a multiplier of "*0.8". However, it can't exceed the dmg reduction cap of 80%, therefor I would prefer if it would be changed to one of the two following alternatives:
1. Keep it as a "*0.8" multiplier, but let it exceed the dmg reduction cap of 80%, AT the cap the paladin would then take 16%, instead of 20% dmg. This would make it useful for Paladins of all Item Levels.
2. Change it to additive "+0.2". This would make it more powerful than it is right now (given you have more defense than the enemies have armor pen), but it would be somehow balanced because it can't exceed the 80% cap.
Test-details
Tested in Helm's Hold against a Legion Devil who deals the same amount of dmg with every hit. Legion Devil deals 284 (1418) Physical Damage to you with Melee Attack. => 20% cap, with and without Absolution. Legion Devil deals 1210 (1418) Physical Damage to you with Melee Attack. Legion Devil deals 968 (1418) Physical Damage to you with Melee Attack. => 968/1210 = 0.8, multiplier.
Why do you need to reduce the damage you receive from a monster in Helm's Hold? I think you'll be okay without Absolution, friend! Just kidding of course, I understand what you're saying. You're hitting the 80% damage reduction cap on with pure defense.
That being said, you should never come anywhere close to hitting the 80% DR cap with defense in real content, so Absolution should continue to be useful in group content. We're not planning to allow anyone to bypass the 80% DR cap because that would create serious problems for balancing the difficulty of content. Ultimately, we're aiming for you to not run into the cap though, in real content.
I fully agree to this. Reducing the complexity of the game makes it more or less ready to be played on mobile phones. PW took the Devs away from NW, I guess the game doesn't really pay the bills anymore. So reducing complexity, rewriting code, will lead the game to a small team of Devs being able to handle it.
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@asterdahl I am mad, I guess it shows. Though that's nothing personal. Mod 16 will take away something I called "fun." Some Guys in my Alliance already started their Math about the new Stats. That's them, I am not into such. I want easy fun! 85 % Percent Armor Pen? No problem! Not even knowing when or if I ever reach the "new" 50 % cap is something else.
There is a collision of interests. While I can understand yours, I still care more for my own. To me NW was endless hours of fun and pain leveling. It was 4 years ago when I started my Paladin, since my Hunter would be dead all the time. NW slowly grew to something special for me. I didn't have much of a plan at first, but when I found the Forum and MMOminds, the game and classes slowly made sense.
I got me VIP. Paying for good content is never a problem. I even bought Companions and other stuff from the Zen-Market. Yes, this makes me one of those who would spend real money into the game. While my Hunter still stayed weak, the Paladin became my main Character. I played it as a kind of Hybrid, doing (some) damage and being able to keep my Guild-Members alive.
I kept following NW thru all the changes being made. And no, I didn't like all of them. But the Preview of Mod 16, the drastic changes of the Paladin, actually to all classes, took the fun I had away. Mod 16 is not the Game I once started! It has no flesh or bone.
That's it. Thank you for reading.
Hello, and thank you for taking the time to come onto the forums and post your feedback about the changes, even though you are upset about them. I genuinely appreciate your candor.
I would like to say that—none of the changes we are making we're driven by some higher authority, and we certainly aren't targeting a mobile phone client for Neverwinter. Most of the changes we have made were not performance oriented, but were changes the design team has been wanting to make for a long time, so that we can properly balance the game and create exciting new content that players can enjoy without a huge swathe of players defeating it in seconds, while a huge swathe of players is absolutely crushed. (That being said, we're not looking to eliminate skill, on the contrary, we would just like to focus on the skill being how you deal with the encounter, not with what exact buff list your group brings.)
Finally, I would like to address the point you made about wanting "easy fun." I know that right now, due to various bugs and other issues, it might seem like we're targeting these changes to make Module 16 a more punishing module. But I assure you that is not the case. We'd really like the difficulty in normative play to be as close as possible to pre-module 16, and we're only aiming to bring in the outliers. But we're not just looking to bring in the mindlessly easy outliers, we're also looking to bring in the extreme difficulty outliers as well, dungeons or trials where you'd die unexpectedly to a single attack, with no chance to learn before failing.
Unfortunately, some extreme difficulty spikes due to bugs have seriously undercut this goal, but that's why we're on preview. I do hope you'll give the module a chance over the coming weeks and continue to provide feedback, we greatly appreciate it!
I am trying to sit here and figure out where to start. There is just so much wrong with the justicar as it currently sits, and knowing from experience that what I say will fall on deaf developer ears.
First, I am saying this from over 20 years of MMO experience. I started playing Everquest in 1998, and have not stopped playing MMO's since (in fact longer, as I really started in MUD's years earlier but now I am dating myself.) I don't say this to toot my own horn, just to explain that I have seen pretty much everything in MMO's over the years, and have seen what you are currently do fail.
The issues here are not just about the powers, feats, and stats all seeming to work against each other, or having to choose to pigeonhole yourself into a damage sink to the sheer exclusion of anything else. It is the core design principle of the new class that is a failure. You have made a class which is a combination of early EQ hit a button every 30s or so to manage super finite resources and the original attempt of Blizzard to make a paladin tank. Both have been shown by history to be failures. You have made a class with little to no player engagement which performs poorly in survivability, has threat issues, or if you take powers to handle threat has less survivability and no offense. You have made a class which boils down to this: not fun to play.
The problem with your model is that in solo play its painful. plain and simple. which means levelling and casual play with them will decrease... which leads to less tanks and therefore less groups being filled in queue and longer queue times. So less fun for everyone.
Sadly, you have already committed to this model, and nothing said here by anyone about the poor class design will have any impact at all. We are all stuck with your bad decisions until we find something else to play, which is what will happen.
Hello! Thank you for taking the time to come onto the forum and provide your feedback. I assure you it is not falling on deaf ears, and I am genuinely appreciative of your time.
The thing you describe having a problem with—the pace of power usage, is actually the thing we could most easily change, so I wouldn't say we are "already committed to this model." We'd like everyone to have a chance to play around with the changes for more than just a week before making any drastic changes but nothing is off the table.
Hello! Thanks for the feedback and detailed breakdown of your experience. While I know a lot of people are posting in this thread, very upset that they were defeated in an area like Sharandar, please take a look at logs like this—Paladin was able to solo scaled content intended for a group. Please keep in mind that if you're getting crushed, there are likely bugs making things too hard. On the other hand, there are a few things that may be too easy as well! With that out of the way...
To be clear, the 1/5th values I quoted are in normative play with all DPS focused powers, and that is without taking class mechanics into account. Due to the way Justicar's Charge works, if you're mostly blocking to regain divinity, you're not going to be using a lot of at-wills. Particularly when trying to solo content meant for a group, that's going to be the case a lot of the time.
The following video is a solo run in ESoT made by a GF in tank spec lasting a whole 3:34 minutes. The paladin "not meant to solo any content though for a 5 person party" took more than 13 minutes and probably died a bunch of times in the process.
I play an almost 19k OP since the inception of the class and my feedback can be summed up as having lost all of the dynamics that made the paladin unique as a tank and as a buffer. The god granting divinity evidently does it out of shame while looking its "champion" getting ganked behind his shield and could be almost heard saying: "come on, hit them too once in a while like your heroic friends do!" (possibly poking him with a divine invisibile stick).
The logic of granting divine power for getting hit hundreds of times is beyond me. I would expect to see an OP rewarded for his courage with the due amount of righteous wrath by his deity, instead he gets - very slowly - rewarded for hiding 90% of the time behind a shield like a coward. I don't feel any elation to play my class in the sorry state as it is now; at least the other tank classes seem to have received lots of consideration with free dailies, full stamina recharges, control immunity and 4000 magnitude hits. Playing the Dreadnought or the Sentinel feels rewarding, opposite to the slow, turtlish and clunky Justicar's gameplay.
Sorry to say it, but not looking forward at all to play this class without a complete overhaul of the current overhaul.
I just wanted to note, that the user in that YouTube video is actually on the DPS paragon path, Dreadnought. They are also making heavy use of a bug with ITF that gives the player orders of magnitude more AP than intended, in order to spam dailies back-to-back.
I assure you that Dreadnought will not be able to run Shores of Tuern anywhere near this fast once Module 16 is live, or even in the coming weeks. There are also definitely issues with Dreadnought being too durable, that I will also be addressing in the coming weeks.
In regards to paralyze and block—are you referring to being able to block the individual tics or block the initial application of the effect?
I tried blocking the paralyzing shot from a yuan-ti in TONG with the shield and it seemed to apply paralysis through the block, I will try again to double check just to be sure. I noticed that once the debuff is applied it will stun me during blocking, but I assumed that was intended.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll look into this, it is not intended that you cannot block the initial application of paralyze. Though, as you have correctly guessed, if you are successfully hit with paralysis, it is intended that the individual stuns can still affect you while blocking.
2) You feel tanking in other MMOs is more "tactical"
3) You only run groups with playtesters or dev's, people who already know what they are doing
4) It is almost all WoW style runs on dungeons
Play like our experience.
Only run random PUGs, with people 3-4 thousand IL below you, no headset, no keyboard (I am normally console), and maybe different languages. Only have 2 hours to play an evening, set a timer. Make sure you try some solo content.
I hated the GF and loved the OP. Why? I don't find the block mechanism tactical except for bosses. The OP controls mobs- you don't play your toon, you play the mob/adds/fight. It was very dynamic, letting you react to the random groups you would queue with and deal with solo play.
Yeah, I frequently take position 1 or 2 for damage dealer, because a) I built lean and b) I run at 15.4k and i frequently end up queued with 12ks. I should, at that gap, out damage them.
You are making the OP a GF. Don't mistake your preference for what it should be, and don't mistake your ideal grouping situation for standard.
Hello, thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts! I would like to say that, I apologize if anything I said has lead you to believe that I have changed the Paladin kit around strong personal preference. I assure you that, especially when working on a design for an existing piece of content that players are already playing with, I am not approaching it from the perspective of "what do I want this to be."
First and foremost, with the goals we set out to emphasize the three distinct roles of the trinity, the important questions were actually "what does this need to be?" and then "how can we maintain as much of the original flavor of the class?" It may seem like I have made changes exclusively based on my personal preferences, especially if these are changes that conflict with your own personal preference, and I would truly like to apologize for that.
Finally, you mentioned random queues, so I wanted to address that item specifically. While of course, it's impossible for us to test internally as if we were in a random queue, not all of our developers are experts at the game. Many of our developers play the game on live, but when you move outside of the design department, we have a number of more casual players, and so we absolutely involve them in playtests as well, including playtests where we are not all in the same room together.
Although it may not seem like it, many of the sweeping changes we are making should dramatically improve the quality of random queues. There are far less opportunities to completely create a trash build for your character. Equipment gives out a baseline of stats preventing you from totally choosing the wrong stats for your character. Distinct roles for each class, and a removal of emphasis on buffs and debuffs means more classes can participate effectively.
I do hope you will continue to try out the changes on preview and provide more feedback.
This is the first time I am writing a comment on this game. I am so conflicted I thought it was needed. I believe most people in my guild feel like I do. Maybe 2 have written comments in these forums. 7 or 8 are the pally class. Each and every person has come to the same conclusion. The pally is no longer the class and feel that they started all those years ago. It is a new class and should be called something else. Almost all will no long play it. That is the big complaint. Everything we geared out class for has changed. Most of our enchants are wrong for the new class. Not many of us stacked Def after a certain IL. It was HP. HP seems to help our shield but Def seems to be where to invest in now. How much cost alone to time and real money were enchants? Mounts, Gear, Companions, oh my! Of course everyone is different and will play it differently. But its easier for lower IL characters to re-gear. We all heard that we will get used to it and enjoy it as its such a great mod. Possible. Not probable. Why try? It seems a bit insulting to tell us that actually and the established players are your loyal player base.
Thank you for taking the time to come onto the forums and make your voice heard, I apologize that you haven't been enjoying the changes—and I would like to apologize doubly that you ran into issues with being one shot on the preview shard. I do very much hope you will give it another shot once those issues are resolved, I look forward to your own personal thoughts on how Paladin plays after the changes.
That being said, I would like to address your concerns about stats and enchants. Please be aware that you will be able to exchange your enchants for those that have the stat you want after Module 16 launches, so if your build needs to change, you won't have to start from scratch. Also, you'll be getting your hands on new equipment as soon as you start leveling, so you'll be able to adjust your stats there as well.
Is smite meant to have an 80’ range? (It’s awesome, but seems odd.)
Vow of Enmity is a great concept, but I find the execution problematic. You cannot target it effectively to know how many enemies are going to be affected by the “enemies near the target” portion of the damage and added effect. I would much rather see it apply as a more traditional AoE power, even if that means loosing some of the direct damage it deals, as the main strength of the power is the threat anyway for group play.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
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gormenghast1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 88Arc User
I just wanted to note, that the user in that YouTube video is actually on the DPS paragon path, Dreadnought. They are also making heavy use of a bug with ITF that gives the player orders of magnitude more AP than intended, in order to spam dailies back-to-back.
I assure you that Dreadnought will not be able to run Shores of Tuern anywhere near this fast once Module 16 is live, or even in the coming weeks. There are also definitely issues with Dreadnought being too durable, that I will also be addressing in the coming weeks.
Thank you for your reply. Our main concerns are to play a class that won't be considered an underdog in its roles when compared with outperforming ones and to enjoy it while doing it. With its HP layers and control powers (Burning Light's interruptions, Templar's stun and even Relentless avenger knockback to get an opening before the rest of the group), OP's main source of aggro generation was through aggressive gameplay and making use of its 500% bonus aggro generation. It has Always been a fun class to play and able to differentiate itself from the GF on its role, especially on large pulls. Throwing yourself into the fray like a holy brawler and and getting your game in a Bud Spencer way has always been fun and rewarding.
As you said, the intention was to maintain the flavour of the class in this general overhaul. Sadly the OP feels to have lost his holy fervour and strives to get the attention from those enemies that raged against him as till mod 15, being obliged to use timed taunts before cowering behind his shield for the most part of a fight. Divinity is a concern while it should represent a benefit; I suppose that nobody would feel worse if all those divinity empowered powers could just have a cooldown and be done with them that way. Using Divine Call in justice tree gave a nice DPS boost, lowered cooldowns sensibly and generally gave a nice feel of divine empowerment when handled correctly; the new divinity seems only to reward putting a rock on the block key, which doesn't feel satisfying at all.
I know that mod 16's changes are a lot to handle for the dev team for the sheer mass of new stuff, but consider that every aspect of the game becomes irrelevant if one's own character is not fun to play. Hopefully the time to tweak stuff to avoid this is still enough before Undermountain goes live.
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darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
edited March 2019
Suggestion for justicar:
Replace one of the useless feat effects with "on crit" gain X% of divinity so you have some incentive to hit with atwills.
Give atwills some REAL utility if you dont want them to make dmg. I can see some atwills dazing enemies for 1s, or giving few temp hp bassed on your power, nothing like we have on live, but enough to help surviving "normal" hits of trash mobs so the playstyle is not so far than we have on live except for big hits that I agree we need to use the shield.
I suggest to NOT attach feat effects with powers. That reduces the building possibilities a lot.
Make all auras to have some utility, not only 2 viable options. This is supposed to be a reduction in options but I really want to think what options to pick, because they are viable, not discard everything except 2 and pick them because others are irrelevant.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll look into this, it is not intended that you cannot block the initial application of paralyze. Though, as you have correctly guessed, if you are successfully hit with paralysis, it is intended that the individual stuns can still affect you while blocking.
If I'm not mistaken partial paralysis is one of the grievous control effects introduced with tomb of annihilation which purposely disregard immunity (dodge, block, unstoppable, etc...).
Another example is the avatar of orcus's push and stun power which also is part of another set of grievous control effects. These all have red zones but disregard dodging out of the red zone and send you back in if you don't move after the dodge animation finishes but before the attack happens. The most common example within this group is the area stun attack that all kinds of golems use, immunity works for them but not dodge.
I've encountered several NPC's in Undermountain which use partial paralysis. I'm getting really tired of this effect and I'd be glad to see it finally respecting dodge and block.
Fixing all other grievous control effects would great too.
"I'm very sorry to hear that you're not enjoying the changes. Though I understand where you are coming from, I would argue that an online game is neither a car nor a laptop—a closer analogy would be a sports club, or another entertainment based organization where the rules, facilities, and benefits change regardless of your previous investment.
That said, "we haven't specifically set out to upset or frustrate anyone, though admittedly, we absolutely knew that we would," making changes of this magnitude. I do appreciate you taking the time to go in-depth about the things you liked on Paladin.
Although I absolutely understand if you decide to stop playing due to the changes, I do hope you continue to try out the changes over the coming weeks on preview and continue to provide feedback. We truly appreciate your time."
You and people who believe this should NOT be working in this industry, you have NO BUSINESS in this industry with this HAMSTER poor attitude. You sarcasm isn't appreciated, your attitude is HAMSTER poor, You are intentionally alienating 95% of your clients. you could give a HAMSTER less, SONY lost 10 million subscribers with these HAMSTER poor attitude of, "we change it and there nothing u can do it about it, quit crying or move on", is really what your saying, like i have said, before 60 days from release NW will be a ghost town populations on all platforms will reach under 1000, PC will be in the hundreds there will be next to no end game what so ever, NOONE but the developers what ANY of your BS mod. Noone, how is that for feedback. FYI i made the descision to quit the first combat on my OP there nothing what so ever with your current design that can salvage OP in any way shape or form. Just admit you dont know what your doing, quit and find a job in some industry where u dont make descision for thousands upon thousands of other peoples enjoyment, because your are currently not doing a good job at it.
Joe FNA Gunk Stonehand dedicated 5 year + player of NW, lost in the great purge of 2019 Formerly known as Mod 16 or commonly refered to as NW Death mod
p.s. go to youtube and search Mod 16 neverwinter and notice not just the content but the comments as well. If you actually do give a rats HAMSTER about this game, or keep your blinders on, till you get your layoff notices cause your KILLED NEVERWINTER!!!
what idiot puts this in writing "we haven't specifically set out to upset or frustrate anyone, though admittedly, we absolutely knew that we would," You should be fired for that comment alone, admitting you all didn't really give a HAMSTER whether u pissed people off you were going to do what YOU wanted. Well you certainly accomplished the pissing off people, in spades. Good work goal accomplished. If i was your boss, you would be in the unemployment line so fast you head would still be spinning, YOU ADMITTED ON OFFICALL FORUMN THAT DEVELOPERS DID NOT CARE!
Unemployment checks all around, Great work dev team, May you never ever work in this industry again. I truly hope someone takes whatever gives u joy in this life and rips it too shreds in front of you and laugh in your face, Like you are doing to all of us.
Hello! English is not my native language so I apologize if there are any mistakes.
I've been playing neverwinter for 4 years as a paladin and I have to say that at the beginning the changes were a shock, but these days I got used to the mechanics of divinity (playing almost always as justicar) and I'm really enjoying it. As a justicar I can easily do in solo kessel in 7 min, tuern in 5 min and lostmouth in 14.
The problems come when i play in a group because it seems that we just can not do enough aggro (especially on mobs), I did a lot of CN and I used all the skills that increase the aggro but in the end the dps player or pets like the Yeti always took it.
Unfortunately I find that the paladin oathkeeper at the moment is almost unusable because the recharge of divinty with the tab is definitely too slow, and I end up using only divine touch hoping to do a critical hit.
So as justicar:
- when playing in group it is difficult to keep the aggro of mobs. I think the cause is that templar's wrath is too expensive and can be used a few times, and it seems that vow only works on the affected mob. And you know: without aggro no divinity, and no divinty no party.
- aggroing bosses is easier, due to the effect of vow. But they do not hit you often enough so divinity always at zero and you are forced to stay a long time with the shield raised. If the bosses were full of mobs like those of Tales of Old there would be no problem to accumulate divinity (provided you keep the aggro) but now as now bosses like Tal’gath or orcus are boring to tank.
- if there are pet like the yeti it is impossible to have the aggro even to the bosses
- the shield provided by the TAB is inconvenient because it does not protect so much, it never happens that the party has cone behind the tank and it is extremely expensive. It ends up not being used.
- the animation of radiant charge is beautiful!!! But it is very long and you can not protect your self. It happens to come killed while trying to use it.
- in general it would be possible to lower the cost of the divinity and perhaps also the power of encounters (to balance) so as to be able to use them repeatedly and increasing the "action" style of the game.
- in the end: recharge of divinity out of the fight is too slow, it would be good if we were sure to have the aggro of next mob group, but it's not that easy.
Oathkeeper is fun to play now, specially for a player like me who enjoys the healing/support part of game. So thanks for that. It feels fluid aside of "lay of hands" or on hands sorry im french, which is gonna take some time to get used to. But animations arent feeling tedious, i can move while healing, all that (in comparison to Devout, obviously...). So its great to move away from the afkadin model baning 3-6-9 times and thats it.
Justicar is good for soloing. Tank wise, i didnt have any aggro issue either in dungeons.
As for smite the magnitude is good. Its a nice damaging encounter that allows us to still do damage and add to the only tank-role a dps side part.
Also I agree with previous posts. Attaching feats to powers even more reduce the possibilities for us
I can understand some OPs are frustrated somewhat. But after trying dc and hr, this is, for me, the most fun reworked class i had to play with in mod 16 preview. Oathkeepers are going to be the favorite healers if Devout stay in such a poor shape.
@asterdahl Myself and 2 other players paladins grouped up to test last night... 2 of us were not experiencing these one shots (in fact I leveled to 80 never having less than 75% health in any fight, the third was getting one shot on nearly every single mob in every zone while testing.
For those of us not getting one shot the mob damage cycles looked like: enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 10 to 40k
For our teammate getting one shot the mob damage cycle looked like this: enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 600k to 1.5m
Our stats point allocations were nearly identical, so to test we did the following:
Set all our feats to be identical: same result, player three experienced the same damage cycle
Set all our boons to be identical: same result, player three experienced the same damage cycle
Player three cleared all companion power slots: player 3 no longer experiencing one shots from every mob, and damage cycle looks like the players not experiencing crazy high burst from the mobs. We ended up having to stop there, so did not narrow down which companion slotted power might be the factor involved, I hope this helps.
LOL wow really something not working correctly????? NO WAY wow. OP are broken period, currently NOTHING can be done in their current state to correct the grievous and ludicrous nerfs implemented in this mod
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lordaeolosMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 167Arc User
@asterdahl Myself and 2 other players paladins grouped up to test last night... 2 of us were not experiencing these one shots (in fact I leveled to 80 never having less than 75% health in any fight, the third was getting one shot on nearly every single mob in every zone while testing.
For those of us not getting one shot the mob damage cycles looked like: enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 10 to 40k
For our teammate getting one shot the mob damage cycle looked like this: enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 600k to 1.5m
Our stats point allocations were nearly identical, so to test we did the following:
Set all our feats to be identical: same result, player three experienced the same damage cycle
Set all our boons to be identical: same result, player three experienced the same damage cycle
Player three cleared all companion power slots: player 3 no longer experiencing one shots from every mob, and damage cycle looks like the players not experiencing crazy high burst from the mobs. We ended up having to stop there, so did not narrow down which companion slotted power might be the factor involved, I hope this helps.
LOL wow really something not working correctly????? NO WAY wow. OP are broken period, currently NOTHING can be done in their current state to correct the grievous and ludicrous nerfs implemented in this mod
I know that I'm not a normal "player" being one of those multi class whales with seven 18k+ characters in live right now. However, I greatly enjoy this game, and I am still super excited about all the changes so far. Speaking as a software engineer I can tell you that any effort this large there will be bugs and balance issues to work through, and it doesn't help when you are building on an already extensive code base. From the point of view of mechanics and game play, the best we can do as players is to provide constructive feedback on what we think is wrong, and what is working, but at the end of the day these are changes that have been mapped out and worked on for months, so we cannot reasonably expect to see major changes to mechanics at this point. When it comes to bugs it is in our best interests to give as detailed information as possible so that the designers and developers can recreate the bug... trust me this can make the difference between spending 10 minutes finding and fixing a bug, and a bug never getting fixed.
As such can we please keep the sarcasm and critical remarks to a minimum in these forums, and stick to constructive feedback and detailed as possible bug scenarios so that the designers and devs can focus on the task at hand: providing us, the customer with the best experience possible.
I apologize to everyone for not making this a paladin post
"Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events."
I have played a tank paladin from mod 6, 122 days worth. I loved being able to help others through content and PUGed a lot of RIQs in my time.
I understand the need for change and all, I have almost finished the new campaign solo and have enjoyed the new system.
Then I tried group content. I find myself in this strange feast or famine state where in order to maintain agro I have used my divinity and need to shield. Mobs either just swamp me making my shield mostly useless or ignore me and leave me no way to recover divinity.
I have taken as many ways as possible to compensate; feats and boons that provide defense, HP, stating. I pay attention to positioning, always have, tho this is my first tank in an MMO I am by no means new to the concept.
The paladin is suppose to be the healing tank now, but to try that would remove the use of a very needed encounter.
I may be the only player crazy enough to try the feat "Tied to the Earth". Tho an extra way to avoid a possible group wipe CC is nice, it really only works solo. In a group I am unable to reposition in combat with that hefty a speed decrease, and positioning is everything to a tank. In case anyone is under the wrong idea, it only slows you when BO is active. I think, as I really lag behind even with speed buffs to help compensate out of combat but you see the speed decrease when BO is active.
The big glowing shield that takes half my divinity, I have renamed that the "Cone of Suck" as it, well takes half my divinity and stays right there even when the fight moves. I guess if I do not have to react to the situation in a way the requires me to move I am gold.
Red zones are now maddening. I am slow, with BO I crawl, there is almost no way to get out of the zone. Add all the newish attacks that bypass shields and I am at a loss of what to do.
I have gone from the guy that said, "bring the character you want, we will make do", to baggage.
Do not assume that I am calling for a stop to all this change, I welcome it. However, all I get out of group content is frustration and disappointment. If I provide no net gain to a group I will not take a space. Maybe I will solo grind for a time, as I am in a great guild with a lot of friends, but with the feeling that I now lack a role I will probably not stay or play for the long term.
I will hold out hope that some of our concerns here will be looked at. Some tweaks or adjustments may change things. Cryptic, you have a bad reputation of late to push out bugged and unworkable content and I am not expecting much.
@asterdahl Myself and 2 other players paladins grouped up to test last night... 2 of us were not experiencing these one shots (in fact I leveled to 80 never having less than 75% health in any fight, the third was getting one shot on nearly every single mob in every zone while testing.
For those of us not getting one shot the mob damage cycles looked like: enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 10 to 40k
For our teammate getting one shot the mob damage cycle looked like this: enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 5k, enemy hits for 600k to 1.5m
Our stats point allocations were nearly identical, so to test we did the following:
Set all our feats to be identical: same result, player three experienced the same damage cycle
Set all our boons to be identical: same result, player three experienced the same damage cycle
Player three cleared all companion power slots: player 3 no longer experiencing one shots from every mob, and damage cycle looks like the players not experiencing crazy high burst from the mobs. We ended up having to stop there, so did not narrow down which companion slotted power might be the factor involved, I hope this helps.
LOL wow really something not working correctly????? NO WAY wow. OP are broken period, currently NOTHING can be done in their current state to correct the grievous and ludicrous nerfs implemented in this mod
I know that I'm not a normal "player" being one of those multi class whales with seven 18k+ characters in live right now. However, I greatly enjoy this game, and I am still super excited about all the changes so far. Speaking as a software engineer I can tell you that any effort this large there will be bugs and balance issues to work through, and it doesn't help when you are building on an already extensive code base. From the point of view of mechanics and game play, the best we can do as players is to provide constructive feedback on what we think is wrong, and what is working, but at the end of the day these are changes that have been mapped out and worked on for months, so we cannot reasonably expect to see major changes to mechanics at this point. When it comes to bugs it is in our best interests to give as detailed information as possible so that the designers and developers can recreate the bug... trust me this can make the difference between spending 10 minutes finding and fixing a bug, and a bug never getting fixed.
As such can we please keep the sarcasm and critical remarks to a minimum in these forums, and stick to constructive feedback and detailed as possible bug scenarios so that the designers and devs can focus on the task at hand: providing us, the customer with the best experience possible.
I apologize to everyone for not making this a paladin post
Thank You
this is the problem, developer is willing to talk and give his thoughts, but in the end Paladin is currently boring as hell, and all they gonna do is fix some bugs, MAAAAYBE change couple of numbers and release. Im sorry but its not the game i love to play, and its not paladin that i worked hard to get, its boring. boring and one more time boring. Powers didnt get changed at all, only power that has the smae role as before is shield of faith, the rest got removed and we have HAMSTER like this put in place. Power 1 - deals dmg to 1 enemy. (smite) Power 2 - Dals slightly bigger dmg to 1 enemy (DJ) Power 3 - Dashes and deals medicore dmg to 1 enemy ( RA ) Power 4 - Deals medicore dmg in area ( bane ) Power 5 - Deals alright dmg in area ( horse daily )
those are 5 !! yes 5 power slots that do nothing but dmg, BOORIIING. and others are not better. 1 power heals but the other power heals slightly better but costs slightly more. and all powers are like that.
And question to the developer. Do YOU think, version of paladin on preview server is 1 more FUN then the one on live? and 2 are you satisfied with the changes done to the paladin? I dont expect to get an answear, this feedback is all smoke and mirrors in the end.
Radiant Charge will sometimes look to go off without using AP. I have on many occasions gotten 2 animations in a row, did not check damage dealt tho, and at least 1 triple use of the daily before the AP drained.
I like quite a few things about MOD 16 on preview. I have been playing Neverwinter for several years and have experience with every class but I mainly like to play support roles on Paladins and Clerics. The changes to Random queues, ad refinement, the crafting overhaul and Acquisitions Incorporated are what finally drove me to stop playing a few months ago. I am sure there are several people out there that really enjoy that content and who are willing to accept the bugs and inconvenience. I respect and salute you all for your determination. I am not here to throw shade I am here to provide feedback. I came back in anticipation of MOD 16. Take this into consideration while reading what follows.
The new content is beautiful. There is great attention to detail and the areas feel huge and populated with tons of interesting enemies and npcs. The changes to companions are interesting, the additions of new gear and items are great and shake things up a bit. The level cap increase was needed and appreciated. The idea of balancing classes is honorable given that a part of the community asked for it. I respect the Developers for undertaking such an enormous and difficult task. I really hope they can pull things together to make MOD 16 one of the best ever. I wish them luck, I really do. I love this game and miss playing it with my guildmates and friends. It is in this light that I am going to try to provide some constructive feedback, first as a Paladin and later as a Cleric.
Speaking as a long time Paladin: Tanking on preview is the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced in an MMO, and I have played tank classes on several. NOT FUN. Even at over 20k IL I get one shot with my shield up. Not to mention that the shield bug is still in the game, so often even if you are pushing the button to raise your shield there is a HUGE delay before it actually raises or maybe it just won't raise at all. Any server lag exacerbates the situation even with a beast of a pc and a 200mb connection with low ping.
If I have 270k HP and my shield up HOW AM I BEING ONE SHOT? Do I need to stack even more HP? What if I'm not in a level 20 Guild with an HP boon? Even then I would only have 302k HP in my situation. Top this off with bosses that totally ignore the shield mechanic all together and stun, trap, root, or poison the tank followed immediately by a power attack that can not be shielded against or blocked and you create a frustrating experience that is not only not fun, but causes the entire party to die repeatedly.
Often after I use my shield and then exit combat I get stuck in a crab walk type animation but sometimes it is even worse, my character ends up running or walking backwards, sideways or in other weird poses. The only way to make it stop is to use an at-will, but even then it sometimes persists and you have to totally exit the game to make it stop. This happens often.
There is no control, I can get aggro but I can't effectively move or pull mobs, almost every battle ends up with the tanks being totally surrounded by mobs so the shield is useless. There is really no active way to use / keep threat in a meaningful way. Yes you can get aggro but when you have it and get your shield up you are immediately surrounded and killed from behind. Do I need to grab aggro and run to a corner so that I have walls to my back? Really? Do I need to stack awareness to negate the attacks while I am surrounded?
This problem is compounded by vague, nonexistent or misleading descriptions on encounters, feats and just about anything that would help the player determine the "Right" item, encounter or feat to use in any given situation. The words "increases threat" are not enough to describe an encounter, when another encounter has twice as much information and seems to do the same thing. Are we supposed to wait for the community to provide explanations and insight?
Some encounters, feats, at-wills and powers are just useless in most situations.
The Paladin's tab power places a "Shield" in front of the Paladin toward the enemy that gives a 10% DR to everyone who is standing behind it. It cost more than half of your divinity and requires everyone to be standing IN FRONT of the mobs with the Paladin. No combat advantage for the party because they have to be standing beside or behind the tank who by the way is the supposed target of all of the AOE attacks and giant red circles! Circle of Power was nice why not use it as this new tab power? Make the tab power omni directional and large enough to protect party members that are behind the boss or mob group.
Since you need Divinity to use your encounters you have to choose between using your tab power to raise your parties DR or making sure you have threat built up to keep aggro. God forbid you have a glass cannon or healer in the party because they will get the aggro and you will have to drop your shield and spend divinity to get the aggro back. It all really doesn’t matter though because you will already be dead because you dared to drop your shield.
You can't reliably build divinity outside of combat as far as I can tell. This means either stopping to rest and wait or going into another fight with no divinity which means no aggro so everyone hates you because they are now getting one shotted! And for crying out loud the cool downs on the encounters should at least match the up time of the encounter effect.
Which leads me to say the following: In its current state on preview there is no point in being a Paladin anymore. It is really frustrating. All of the fun active Buff/deBuff mechanics are gone, there is no power share there is no complexity. There is no fun. Guess I'll have to be a Fighter now.... Oh wait, it is exactly the same as a Paladin. Well at least a Fighter can be DPS. NOT! I guess that leaves the Cleric, I'll post about that experience as soon as I get him to level 80.
*** Update ***
I now have my cleric to level 80 and have finished the campaign. It was a really great experience, and I am having fun playing both a DPS and Healing loadout. The difference in frustration and overall gameplay experience is shocking when compared with the Paladin.
Calling it now, the "New Meta" will be a five Cleric party! After each fight you can also watch them pray in a corner!
One last thing. I came here to the forums very angry and ready to flame and vent my frustrations. This post looked totally different before I pasted it. Want to guess what changed my level of anger and frustration? A developers feedback to many of the post in this thread. THAT IS HUGE. I can not tell you how many times I came here in the past to report issues with the game and left even angrier and more frustrated because of lack of response, or "We will forward that...". Thank you for taking the time to read and respond, it makes a bigger difference than you think.
Just a little shade, I can't help myself... On the off chance I have your attention: How about making any female fighter character, loading into the game, equipping a large weapon, bow or shield and then looking at the way it is displayed on the characters back. It is such an easy thing to fix, but has been around for YEARS! Please have someone rotate the rear attachment point on the female model down by 15 degrees. If this gets fixed there will be a celebration and maybe even a parade in PE made up of female characters proudly displaying their weapons and shields.
This power decreases incoming dmg by 20%, acts as a multiplier of "*0.8". However, it can't exceed the dmg reduction cap of 80%, therefor I would prefer if it would be changed to one of the two following alternatives:
1. Keep it as a "*0.8" multiplier, but let it exceed the dmg reduction cap of 80%, AT the cap the paladin would then take 16%, instead of 20% dmg. This would make it useful for Paladins of all Item Levels.
2. Change it to additive "+0.2". This would make it more powerful than it is right now (given you have more defense than the enemies have armor pen), but it would be somehow balanced because it can't exceed the 80% cap.
Test-details
Tested in Helm's Hold against a Legion Devil who deals the same amount of dmg with every hit. Legion Devil deals 284 (1418) Physical Damage to you with Melee Attack. => 20% cap, with and without Absolution. Legion Devil deals 1210 (1418) Physical Damage to you with Melee Attack. Legion Devil deals 968 (1418) Physical Damage to you with Melee Attack. => 968/1210 = 0.8, multiplier.
Why do you need to reduce the damage you receive from a monster in Helm's Hold? I think you'll be okay without Absolution, friend! Just kidding of course, I understand what you're saying. You're hitting the 80% damage reduction cap on with pure defense.
That being said, you should never come anywhere close to hitting the 80% DR cap with defense in real content, so Absolution should continue to be useful in group content. We're not planning to allow anyone to bypass the 80% DR cap because that would create serious problems for balancing the difficulty of content. Ultimately, we're aiming for you to not run into the cap though, in real content.
Thank you for the response, I understand your approach to DR. However, currently it is really easy to hit the DR cap of 64k Defense (lvl80) and the Deflection cap of 49k Deflect (lvl80). I am just posting this here, because if I "should never come anywhere close to hitting the 80% DR cap with defense in real content", then some adjustments to the stat-curves or counter stats have to be done. (I do understand that investing that many stat-points into defensive stats will not result into a perfect balance and is overkill as well)
Confirms my assessment: Whoever is designing tank is designing for group play only. Their concept leaves the tank as completely dependent on DPS, with damage revolving solely around keeping aggro but without a real ability to control.
Get rid of the 30% damage decrease. Increase the generation of divinity and increase at-will damage without killing encounter damage. There is nothing wrong with a well built, high level tank out damaging a much lower DPS. There is nothing wrong with a tank not needing a DPS when they are high enough level- ir's how a tank completes campaigns, because for a lot of us, grouping is only for queues.
Confirms my assessment: Whoever is designing tank is designing for group play only. Their concept leaves the tank as completely dependent on DPS, with damage revolving solely around keeping aggro but without a real ability to control.
Get rid of the 30% damage decrease. Increase the generation of divinity and increase at-will damage without killing encounter damage. There is nothing wrong with a well built, high level tank out damaging a much lower DPS. There is nothing wrong with a tank not needing a DPS when they are high enough level- ir's how a tank completes campaigns, because for a lot of us, grouping is only for queues.
The Divinity generation for the tank paragon is extremly good in group content, You can use TW/ Smite literally every 3-5 sec. However it is bad in solo content, did you run any group content yet?
Comments
Thrash:
At-will: Oath Strike / Radiant Strike
Encounter: Relentless Avenger, Templar's Wrath, Sacred Weapon
Daily: Radiant Charge / Divine Judgement
Class Feature: Composure / Divine Shieldbearer
Rotation: Open with Relentless Avenger to get to the pack before the dps can start (we are one of the slowest classes so need the boost), Templar's Wrath to get a solid lead on threat, Sacred Weapon to buff damage of Oath Strike for 10 seconds, spam Oath Strike (now Magnitude 50 for 10 seconds). At this point Relentless Avenger is off cooldown so you have a Magnitude 800 single target damage attack and can also swap between Templar's Wrath and some blocks to add more damage and threat until Sacred Weapon is back for more Oath Strike spam. Then rinse and repeat through the mix.
Boss
At-will: Valorous Strike / Radiant Strike
Encounter: Vow of Enmity, Smite, [Templar's Wrath or Bane (if there are adds) or Absolution (if need protection)]
Daily: Divine Judgement / Divine Protector or Heroism (haven't tried this power yet)
Class Feature: Composure / Divine Challenger
Feat: Valorous Judgement, Absolute Shield
Rotation: Open with Smite (range 80'), charge with Radiant Strike then spam Valorous Strike and Smite when it procs. Use Vow of Enmity if you start losing agro followed by Templar's Wrath or Bane as needed if there are adds or Smite for only boss. If no adds, replace Templar's Wrath with Absolution for better Divinity regen for more Smites. You will likely need to weave in blocks anyway since its a boss so Divinity shouldn't be a problem.
I have a request for relentless avenger. Can we get an added effect of increased threat to enemies around the target? Feel free to reduce the damage to 600 to compensate. I wouldn't reduce it further since it would just be threat to the enemies around the target and not damage to the enemies like Templar's Wrath. This would give us a cooldown based aoe threat generator (Vow of Enmity just puts us at the top). It would work out well in the Trash rotation as something to help us build threat and as its on a cooldown it allows us to look at other divinity costing powers that are not Templar's Wrath.
With this change, in my Trash example above, another great option would be to replace Templar's Wrath with Bane so I can Bane from a distance for initial damage, Relentless Avenger to close the gap and build aoe threat. I could then use Relentless Avenger on cooldown to keep up threat and mix Bane with Oath Strike and Sacred Weapon as described.
Thoughts?
Or am I missing something about it's use?
It seems to me you want paladin and fighter to be level to do this you need to ether remove fighting with shield up for fighter or allow paladin to do the same
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
That said, we haven't specifically set out to upset or frustrate anyone, though admittedly, we absolutely knew that we would, making changes of this magnitude. I do appreciate you taking the time to go in-depth about the things you liked on Paladin.
In regards to things like stacking temporary health, we made a conscious decision to steer way from things that could wildly alter your EHP so that the game's content could be balanced in a way that is more predictable. If we can assume that the survivability of a group is somewhere at least in the same ballpark if they're at the same item level, we can build much more engaging content.
Although I absolutely understand if you decide to stop playing due to the changes, I do hope you continue to try out the changes over the coming weeks on preview and continue to provide feedback. We truly appreciate your time.
Finally—on the topic of deflect and defense, you have not accounted for the fact that many equipment slots provide a universal boost to your secondary ratings. So you should overcome the base opposing roles of your enemy exclusively by virtue of that base secondary stat. That said, if you have any more feedback on the general stats system, we would appreciate if you could direct it to the stats and mechanics thread. That will ensure the relevant developers see your feedback. Thank you!
Actually, this is incredibly helpful! I've forwarded this to the designer working on companions. We know your time is valuable, but we really appreciate you and both your friends going above and beyond to isolate the issue you were encountering. Thank you, and send your friends my thanks as well!
That being said, you should never come anywhere close to hitting the 80% DR cap with defense in real content, so Absolution should continue to be useful in group content. We're not planning to allow anyone to bypass the 80% DR cap because that would create serious problems for balancing the difficulty of content. Ultimately, we're aiming for you to not run into the cap though, in real content.
I would like to say that—none of the changes we are making we're driven by some higher authority, and we certainly aren't targeting a mobile phone client for Neverwinter. Most of the changes we have made were not performance oriented, but were changes the design team has been wanting to make for a long time, so that we can properly balance the game and create exciting new content that players can enjoy without a huge swathe of players defeating it in seconds, while a huge swathe of players is absolutely crushed. (That being said, we're not looking to eliminate skill, on the contrary, we would just like to focus on the skill being how you deal with the encounter, not with what exact buff list your group brings.)
Finally, I would like to address the point you made about wanting "easy fun." I know that right now, due to various bugs and other issues, it might seem like we're targeting these changes to make Module 16 a more punishing module. But I assure you that is not the case. We'd really like the difficulty in normative play to be as close as possible to pre-module 16, and we're only aiming to bring in the outliers. But we're not just looking to bring in the mindlessly easy outliers, we're also looking to bring in the extreme difficulty outliers as well, dungeons or trials where you'd die unexpectedly to a single attack, with no chance to learn before failing.
Unfortunately, some extreme difficulty spikes due to bugs have seriously undercut this goal, but that's why we're on preview. I do hope you'll give the module a chance over the coming weeks and continue to provide feedback, we greatly appreciate it!
Hello! Thank you for taking the time to come onto the forum and provide your feedback. I assure you it is not falling on deaf ears, and I am genuinely appreciative of your time.
The thing you describe having a problem with—the pace of power usage, is actually the thing we could most easily change, so I wouldn't say we are "already committed to this model." We'd like everyone to have a chance to play around with the changes for more than just a week before making any drastic changes but nothing is off the table.
I assure you that Dreadnought will not be able to run Shores of Tuern anywhere near this fast once Module 16 is live, or even in the coming weeks. There are also definitely issues with Dreadnought being too durable, that I will also be addressing in the coming weeks.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll look into this, it is not intended that you cannot block the initial application of paralyze. Though, as you have correctly guessed, if you are successfully hit with paralysis, it is intended that the individual stuns can still affect you while blocking.
First and foremost, with the goals we set out to emphasize the three distinct roles of the trinity, the important questions were actually "what does this need to be?" and then "how can we maintain as much of the original flavor of the class?" It may seem like I have made changes exclusively based on my personal preferences, especially if these are changes that conflict with your own personal preference, and I would truly like to apologize for that.
Finally, you mentioned random queues, so I wanted to address that item specifically. While of course, it's impossible for us to test internally as if we were in a random queue, not all of our developers are experts at the game. Many of our developers play the game on live, but when you move outside of the design department, we have a number of more casual players, and so we absolutely involve them in playtests as well, including playtests where we are not all in the same room together.
Although it may not seem like it, many of the sweeping changes we are making should dramatically improve the quality of random queues. There are far less opportunities to completely create a trash build for your character. Equipment gives out a baseline of stats preventing you from totally choosing the wrong stats for your character. Distinct roles for each class, and a removal of emphasis on buffs and debuffs means more classes can participate effectively.
I do hope you will continue to try out the changes on preview and provide more feedback.
That being said, I would like to address your concerns about stats and enchants. Please be aware that you will be able to exchange your enchants for those that have the stat you want after Module 16 launches, so if your build needs to change, you won't have to start from scratch. Also, you'll be getting your hands on new equipment as soon as you start leveling, so you'll be able to adjust your stats there as well.
Vow of Enmity is a great concept, but I find the execution problematic. You cannot target it effectively to know how many enemies are going to be affected by the “enemies near the target” portion of the damage and added effect. I would much rather see it apply as a more traditional AoE power, even if that means loosing some of the direct damage it deals, as the main strength of the power is the threat anyway for group play.
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A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Thank you for your reply. Our main concerns are to play a class that won't be considered an underdog in its roles when compared with outperforming ones and to enjoy it while doing it. With its HP layers and control powers (Burning Light's interruptions, Templar's stun and even Relentless avenger knockback to get an opening before the rest of the group), OP's main source of aggro generation was through aggressive gameplay and making use of its 500% bonus aggro generation. It has Always been a fun class to play and able to differentiate itself from the GF on its role, especially on large pulls. Throwing yourself into the fray like a holy brawler and and getting your game in a Bud Spencer way has always been fun and rewarding.
As you said, the intention was to maintain the flavour of the class in this general overhaul. Sadly the OP feels to have lost his holy fervour and strives to get the attention from those enemies that raged against him as till mod 15, being obliged to use timed taunts before cowering behind his shield for the most part of a fight. Divinity is a concern while it should represent a benefit; I suppose that nobody would feel worse if all those divinity empowered powers could just have a cooldown and be done with them that way. Using Divine Call in justice tree gave a nice DPS boost, lowered cooldowns sensibly and generally gave a nice feel of divine empowerment when handled correctly; the new divinity seems only to reward putting a rock on the block key, which doesn't feel satisfying at all.
I know that mod 16's changes are a lot to handle for the dev team for the sheer mass of new stuff, but consider that every aspect of the game becomes irrelevant if one's own character is not fun to play. Hopefully the time to tweak stuff to avoid this is still enough before Undermountain goes live.
Replace one of the useless feat effects with "on crit" gain X% of divinity so you have some incentive to hit with atwills.
Give atwills some REAL utility if you dont want them to make dmg. I can see some atwills dazing enemies for 1s, or giving few temp hp bassed on your power, nothing like we have on live, but enough to help surviving "normal" hits of trash mobs so the playstyle is not so far than we have on live except for big hits that I agree we need to use the shield.
I suggest to NOT attach feat effects with powers. That reduces the building possibilities a lot.
Make all auras to have some utility, not only 2 viable options. This is supposed to be a reduction in options but I really want to think what options to pick, because they are viable, not discard everything except 2 and pick them because others are irrelevant.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
Another example is the avatar of orcus's push and stun power which also is part of another set of grievous control effects. These all have red zones but disregard dodging out of the red zone and send you back in if you don't move after the dodge animation finishes but before the attack happens. The most common example within this group is the area stun attack that all kinds of golems use, immunity works for them but not dodge.
I've encountered several NPC's in Undermountain which use partial paralysis. I'm getting really tired of this effect and I'd be glad to see it finally respecting dodge and block.
Fixing all other grievous control effects would great too.
That said, "we haven't specifically set out to upset or frustrate anyone, though admittedly, we absolutely knew that we would," making changes of this magnitude. I do appreciate you taking the time to go in-depth about the things you liked on Paladin.
Although I absolutely understand if you decide to stop playing due to the changes, I do hope you continue to try out the changes over the coming weeks on preview and continue to provide feedback. We truly appreciate your time."
You and people who believe this should NOT be working in this industry, you have NO BUSINESS in this industry with this HAMSTER poor attitude. You sarcasm isn't appreciated, your attitude is HAMSTER poor, You are intentionally alienating 95% of your clients. you could give a HAMSTER less, SONY lost 10 million subscribers with these HAMSTER poor attitude of, "we change it and there nothing u can do it about it, quit crying or move on", is really what your saying, like i have said, before 60 days from release NW will be a ghost town populations on all platforms will reach under 1000, PC will be in the hundreds there will be next to no end game what so ever, NOONE but the developers what ANY of your BS mod. Noone, how is that for feedback. FYI i made the descision to quit the first combat on my OP there nothing what so ever with your current design that can salvage OP in any way shape or form. Just admit you dont know what your doing, quit and find a job in some industry where u dont make descision for thousands upon thousands of other peoples enjoyment, because your are currently not doing a good job at it.
Joe
FNA
Gunk Stonehand
dedicated 5 year + player of NW, lost in the great purge of 2019 Formerly known as Mod 16 or commonly refered to as NW Death mod
p.s. go to youtube and search Mod 16 neverwinter and notice not just the content but the comments as well. If you actually do give a rats HAMSTER about this game, or keep your blinders on, till you get your layoff notices cause your KILLED NEVERWINTER!!!
what idiot puts this in writing
"we haven't specifically set out to upset or frustrate anyone, though admittedly, we absolutely knew that we would,"
You should be fired for that comment alone, admitting you all didn't really give a HAMSTER whether u pissed people off you were going to do what YOU wanted. Well you certainly accomplished the pissing off people, in spades. Good work goal accomplished. If i was your boss, you would be in the unemployment line so fast you head would still be spinning, YOU ADMITTED ON OFFICALL FORUMN THAT DEVELOPERS DID NOT CARE!
Unemployment checks all around, Great work dev team, May you never ever work in this industry again. I truly hope someone takes whatever gives u joy in this life and rips it too shreds in front of you and laugh in your face, Like you are doing to all of us.
I've been playing neverwinter for 4 years as a paladin and I have to say that at the beginning the changes were a shock, but these days I got used to the mechanics of divinity (playing almost always as justicar) and I'm really enjoying it.
As a justicar I can easily do in solo kessel in 7 min, tuern in 5 min and lostmouth in 14.
The problems come when i play in a group because it seems that we just can not do enough aggro (especially on mobs), I did a lot of CN and I used all the skills that increase the aggro but in the end the dps player or pets like the Yeti always took it.
Unfortunately I find that the paladin oathkeeper at the moment is almost unusable because the recharge of divinty with the tab is definitely too slow, and I end up using only divine touch hoping to do a critical hit.
So as justicar:
- when playing in group it is difficult to keep the aggro of mobs.
I think the cause is that templar's wrath is too expensive and can be used a few times, and it seems that vow only works on the affected mob. And you know: without aggro no divinity, and no divinty no party.
- aggroing bosses is easier, due to the effect of vow. But they do not hit you often enough so divinity always at zero and you are forced to stay a long time with the shield raised.
If the bosses were full of mobs like those of Tales of Old there would be no problem to accumulate divinity (provided you keep the aggro) but now as now bosses like Tal’gath or orcus are boring to tank.
- if there are pet like the yeti it is impossible to have the aggro even to the bosses
- the shield provided by the TAB is inconvenient because it does not protect so much, it never happens that the party has cone behind the tank and it is extremely expensive.
It ends up not being used.
- the animation of radiant charge is beautiful!!! But it is very long and you can not protect your self. It happens to come killed while trying to use it.
- in general it would be possible to lower the cost of the divinity and perhaps also the power of encounters (to balance) so as to be able to use them repeatedly and increasing the "action" style of the game.
- in the end: recharge of divinity out of the fight is too slow, it would be good if we were sure to have the aggro of next mob group, but it's not that easy.
Justicar is good for soloing. Tank wise, i didnt have any aggro issue either in dungeons.
As for smite the magnitude is good. Its a nice damaging encounter that allows us to still do damage and add to the only tank-role a dps side part.
Also I agree with previous posts. Attaching feats to powers even more reduce the possibilities for us
I can understand some OPs are frustrated somewhat. But after trying dc and hr, this is, for me, the most fun reworked class i had to play with in mod 16 preview.
Oathkeepers are going to be the favorite healers if Devout stay in such a poor shape.
As such can we please keep the sarcasm and critical remarks to a minimum in these forums, and stick to constructive feedback and detailed as possible bug scenarios so that the designers and devs can focus on the task at hand: providing us, the customer with the best experience possible.
I apologize to everyone for not making this a paladin post
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"Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events."
I have played a tank paladin from mod 6, 122 days worth. I loved being able to help others through content and PUGed a lot of RIQs in my time.
I understand the need for change and all, I have almost finished the new campaign solo and have enjoyed the new system.
Then I tried group content. I find myself in this strange feast or famine state where in order to maintain agro I have used my divinity and need to shield. Mobs either just swamp me making my shield mostly useless or ignore me and leave me no way to recover divinity.
I have taken as many ways as possible to compensate; feats and boons that provide defense, HP, stating. I pay attention to positioning, always have, tho this is my first tank in an MMO I am by no means new to the concept.
The paladin is suppose to be the healing tank now, but to try that would remove the use of a very needed encounter.
I may be the only player crazy enough to try the feat "Tied to the Earth". Tho an extra way to avoid a possible group wipe CC is nice, it really only works solo. In a group I am unable to reposition in combat with that hefty a speed decrease, and positioning is everything to a tank. In case anyone is under the wrong idea, it only slows you when BO is active. I think, as I really lag behind even with speed buffs to help compensate out of combat but you see the speed decrease when BO is active.
The big glowing shield that takes half my divinity, I have renamed that the "Cone of Suck" as it, well takes half my divinity and stays right there even when the fight moves. I guess if I do not have to react to the situation in a way the requires me to move I am gold.
Red zones are now maddening. I am slow, with BO I crawl, there is almost no way to get out of the zone. Add all the newish attacks that bypass shields and I am at a loss of what to do.
I have gone from the guy that said, "bring the character you want, we will make do", to baggage.
Do not assume that I am calling for a stop to all this change, I welcome it. However, all I get out of group content is frustration and disappointment. If I provide no net gain to a group I will not take a space. Maybe I will solo grind for a time, as I am in a great guild with a lot of friends, but with the feeling that I now lack a role I will probably not stay or play for the long term.
I will hold out hope that some of our concerns here will be looked at. Some tweaks or adjustments may change things.
Cryptic, you have a bad reputation of late to push out bugged and unworkable content and I am not expecting much.
Good luck, and good gaming.
Power 1 - deals dmg to 1 enemy. (smite)
Power 2 - Dals slightly bigger dmg to 1 enemy (DJ)
Power 3 - Dashes and deals medicore dmg to 1 enemy ( RA )
Power 4 - Deals medicore dmg in area ( bane )
Power 5 - Deals alright dmg in area ( horse daily )
those are 5 !! yes 5 power slots that do nothing but dmg, BOORIIING. and others are not better. 1 power heals but the other power heals slightly better but costs slightly more. and all powers are like that.
And question to the developer. Do YOU think, version of paladin on preview server is 1 more FUN then the one on live? and 2 are you satisfied with the changes done to the paladin? I dont expect to get an answear, this feedback is all smoke and mirrors in the end.
I like quite a few things about MOD 16 on preview. I have been playing Neverwinter for several years and have experience with every class but I mainly like to play support roles on Paladins and Clerics. The changes to Random queues, ad refinement, the crafting overhaul and Acquisitions Incorporated are what finally drove me to stop playing a few months ago. I am sure there are several people out there that really enjoy that content and who are willing to accept the bugs and inconvenience. I respect and salute you all for your determination. I am not here to throw shade I am here to provide feedback. I came back in anticipation of MOD 16. Take this into consideration while reading what follows.
The new content is beautiful. There is great attention to detail and the areas feel huge and populated with tons of interesting enemies and npcs. The changes to companions are interesting, the additions of new gear and items are great and shake things up a bit. The level cap increase was needed and appreciated. The idea of balancing classes is honorable given that a part of the community asked for it. I respect the Developers for undertaking such an enormous and difficult task. I really hope they can pull things together to make MOD 16 one of the best ever. I wish them luck, I really do. I love this game and miss playing it with my guildmates and friends. It is in this light that I am going to try to provide some constructive feedback, first as a Paladin and later as a Cleric.
Speaking as a long time Paladin:
Tanking on preview is the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced in an MMO, and I have played tank classes on several. NOT FUN. Even at over 20k IL I get one shot with my shield up. Not to mention that the shield bug is still in the game, so often even if you are pushing the button to raise your shield there is a HUGE delay before it actually raises or maybe it just won't raise at all. Any server lag exacerbates the situation even with a beast of a pc and a 200mb connection with low ping.
If I have 270k HP and my shield up HOW AM I BEING ONE SHOT? Do I need to stack even more HP? What if I'm not in a level 20 Guild with an HP boon? Even then I would only have 302k HP in my situation. Top this off with bosses that totally ignore the shield mechanic all together and stun, trap, root, or poison the tank followed immediately by a power attack that can not be shielded against or blocked and you create a frustrating experience that is not only not fun, but causes the entire party to die repeatedly.
Often after I use my shield and then exit combat I get stuck in a crab walk type animation but sometimes it is even worse, my character ends up running or walking backwards, sideways or in other weird poses. The only way to make it stop is to use an at-will, but even then it sometimes persists and you have to totally exit the game to make it stop. This happens often.
There is no control, I can get aggro but I can't effectively move or pull mobs, almost every battle ends up with the tanks being totally surrounded by mobs so the shield is useless. There is really no active way to use / keep threat in a meaningful way. Yes you can get aggro but when you have it and get your shield up you are immediately surrounded and killed from behind. Do I need to grab aggro and run to a corner so that I have walls to my back? Really? Do I need to stack awareness to negate the attacks while I am surrounded?
This problem is compounded by vague, nonexistent or misleading descriptions on encounters, feats and just about anything that would help the player determine the "Right" item, encounter or feat to use in any given situation. The words "increases threat" are not enough to describe an encounter, when another encounter has twice as much information and seems to do the same thing. Are we supposed to wait for the community to provide explanations and insight?
Some encounters, feats, at-wills and powers are just useless in most situations.
The Paladin's tab power places a "Shield" in front of the Paladin toward the enemy that gives a 10% DR to everyone who is standing behind it. It cost more than half of your divinity and requires everyone to be standing IN FRONT of the mobs with the Paladin. No combat advantage for the party because they have to be standing beside or behind the tank who by the way is the supposed target of all of the AOE attacks and giant red circles! Circle of Power was nice why not use it as this new tab power? Make the tab power omni directional and large enough to protect party members that are behind the boss or mob group.
Since you need Divinity to use your encounters you have to choose between using your tab power to raise your parties DR or making sure you have threat built up to keep aggro. God forbid you have a glass cannon or healer in the party because they will get the aggro and you will have to drop your shield and spend divinity to get the aggro back. It all really doesn’t matter though because you will already be dead because you dared to drop your shield.
You can't reliably build divinity outside of combat as far as I can tell. This means either stopping to rest and wait or going into another fight with no divinity which means no aggro so everyone hates you because they are now getting one shotted! And for crying out loud the cool downs on the encounters should at least match the up time of the encounter effect.
Which leads me to say the following:
In its current state on preview there is no point in being a Paladin anymore. It is really frustrating. All of the fun active Buff/deBuff mechanics are gone, there is no power share there is no complexity. There is no fun. Guess I'll have to be a Fighter now.... Oh wait, it is exactly the same as a Paladin. Well at least a Fighter can be DPS. NOT! I guess that leaves the Cleric, I'll post about that experience as soon as I get him to level 80.
*** Update ***
I now have my cleric to level 80 and have finished the campaign. It was a really great experience, and I am having fun playing both a DPS and Healing loadout. The difference in frustration and overall gameplay experience is shocking when compared with the Paladin.
Calling it now, the "New Meta" will be a five Cleric party! After each fight you can also watch them pray in a corner!
One last thing. I came here to the forums very angry and ready to flame and vent my frustrations. This post looked totally different before I pasted it. Want to guess what changed my level of anger and frustration? A developers feedback to many of the post in this thread. THAT IS HUGE. I can not tell you how many times I came here in the past to report issues with the game and left even angrier and more frustrated because of lack of response, or "We will forward that...". Thank you for taking the time to read and respond, it makes a bigger difference than you think.
Just a little shade, I can't help myself...
On the off chance I have your attention: How about making any female fighter character, loading into the game, equipping a large weapon, bow or shield and then looking at the way it is displayed on the characters back. It is such an easy thing to fix, but has been around for YEARS! Please have someone rotate the rear attachment point on the female model down by 15 degrees. If this gets fixed there will be a celebration and maybe even a parade in PE made up of female characters proudly displaying their weapons and shields.
However, currently it is really easy to hit the DR cap of 64k Defense (lvl80) and the Deflection cap of 49k Deflect (lvl80).
I am just posting this here, because if I "should never come anywhere close to hitting the 80% DR cap with defense in real content", then some adjustments to the stat-curves or counter stats have to be done.
(I do understand that investing that many stat-points into defensive stats will not result into a perfect balance and is overkill as well)
Get rid of the 30% damage decrease. Increase the generation of divinity and increase at-will damage without killing encounter damage. There is nothing wrong with a well built, high level tank out damaging a much lower DPS. There is nothing wrong with a tank not needing a DPS when they are high enough level- ir's how a tank completes campaigns, because for a lot of us, grouping is only for queues.
However it is bad in solo content, did you run any group content yet?