Opinions on Playing Paladin Thread.

rversant

After waiting for a paladin since like... beta. WE FINALLY HAVE ONE. I just wanted to run through what I like and dislike, and see what other people think as well.



PROS of Class

Amazing Survivability
Acceptable Aoe Damage for tanking, and for general solo play.
Fresh class that isn't just another DPS-warrior
Lots of Buffs and support for team-play
Visually Pleasing
Ability to solo*


CONS of Class

Buggy animations
Buggy Skills
- (Smite cancelling itself a lot if you cast and target moves)
- (Sanctuary not going off)
- (Blinding flash not going off)
- (Auras infinitely dotting if 2 paladins fight, HR and Paladin instakilling other people from careful attack / aura interaction)
Other than DJ and Smite, very low single target damage
Reliance on team for multiple skills to work limits solo ability
Did I mention low "reliable" Single target damage?


Personal Opinions
Sanctuary needs to activate instantly. not after 1.5-2 seconds
Needs more Single target viability, maybe Bane could do a DoT, Make protection's addition to skills more effective in PvP (many of them are just taunts and dont reduce ally dmg, only a few do)
More transmogs for weapons. The protector Paragon even mentions "my spear and shield" why don't we have a big lance transmog?
More accurate infomation on skills (I think all classes need their feats and skills to update the original description as you put points into it)
Divine call description is wrong (it heals before level 30, doesnt deal damage)
Oath strike doesnt move towards your target. just stands on the spot. I'm using the start at-will instead because of this.





Anyone else want to give their own Pros/Cons/Opinions on the class?

raedlol

"Reliance on team for multiple skills to work limits solo ability"
I feel like their solo clear speed is more than enough. I completed all the leveling content while constantly being 3-4 levels below all the quests/enemies... And was killing all the trash mobs in a single "Burning Light".
Single Targets were usually dealt with Sacred Weapon + Smite. It's actually a decent amount of damage for a class that's that tanky.
-
"Smite cancelling itself a lot if you cast and target moves"
Isn't that better than having it cast & miss?
Happens all the time with Rogues "Lashing Blade", and it really sucks. I'd rather have the skill cancel and not go on cooldown.
-
"Sanctuary needs to activate instantly. not after 1.5-2 seconds"
I thought this too, but i'v noticed that the effects of Sanctuary are active after about 0.5 seconds.
The animations are just heavily delayed to as you said 1.5-2 seconds.
-
"Did I mention low "reliable" Single target damage"
The Daily Power 1 shots most bosses of equal level. Pretty ridiculous imo.

equ4lizer

rversant wrote: »

After waiting for a paladin since like... beta. WE FINALLY HAVE ONE. I just wanted to run through what I like and dislike, and see what other people think as well.



PROS of Class

Amazing Survivability
Acceptable Aoe Damage for tanking, and for general solo play.
Fresh class that isn't just another DPS-warrior
Lots of Buffs and support for team-play
Visually Pleasing
Ability to solo*


CONS of Class

Buggy animations
Buggy Skills
- (Smite cancelling itself a lot if you cast and target moves)
- (Sanctuary not going off)
- (Blinding flash not going off)
- (Auras infinitely dotting if 2 paladins fight, HR and Paladin instakilling other people from careful attack / aura interaction)
Other than DJ and Smite, very low single target damage
Reliance on team for multiple skills to work limits solo ability
Did I mention low "reliable" Single target damage?


Personal Opinions
Sanctuary needs to activate instantly. not after 1.5-2 seconds
Needs more Single target viability, maybe Bane could do a DoT, Make protection's addition to skills more effective in PvP (many of them are just taunts and dont reduce ally dmg, only a few do)
More transmogs for weapons. The protector Paragon even mentions "my spear and shield" why don't we have a big lance transmog?
More accurate infomation on skills (I think all classes need their feats and skills to update the original description as you put points into it)
Divine call description is wrong (it heals before level 30, doesnt deal damage)
Oath strike doesnt move towards your target. just stands on the spot. I'm using the start at-will instead because of this.





Anyone else want to give their own Pros/Cons/Opinions on the class?

Basically this sums up most of it, and I have also noticed vengenful judge capstone feat not working properly. *edited, seems to be working on devoted paladins instead of protection ones...pending testing

rversant

raedlol wrote: »

"Reliance on team for multiple skills to work limits solo ability"
I feel like their solo clear speed is more than enough. I completed all the leveling content while constantly being 3-4 levels below all the quests/enemies... And was killing all the trash mobs in a single "Burning Light".
Single Targets were usually dealt with Sacred Weapon + Smite. It's actually a decent amount of damage for a class that's that tanky.
-
"Smite cancelling itself a lot if you cast and target moves"
Isn't that better than having it cast & miss?
Happens all the time with Rogues "Lashing Blade", and it really sucks. I'd rather have the skill cancel and not go on cooldown.
-
"Sanctuary needs to activate instantly. not after 1.5-2 seconds"
I thought this too, but i'v noticed that the effects of Sanctuary are active after about 0.5 seconds.
The animations are just heavily delayed to as you said 1.5-2 seconds.
-
"Did I mention low "reliable" Single target damage"
The Daily Power 1 shots most bosses of equal level. Pretty ridiculous imo.

Thats a Daily so unless you have cleric artifact its not up that often, unless you save it specifically for the boss, which is less fun than being able to go "BOOM" a lot more. also limits build options a little bit since if you want to have good single target you NEED to have it slotted. but paladin isnt a damage class. so I can accept that a bit. still would like a little more options for single target dueling, look at how many GF has.



Sanctuary Sometimes it doesnt even activate, and instead goes into a broken GF "Guard stance" with no positive affects.
Smite Does the cancel thing even in PvE against stationary target. I'll charge at an enemy with The at-will. then use smite and it doesnt go off. I just feel it needs a tiny bit more range, even just 2-3ft more so it can be landed after a little rubberband.

Personally I think its an amazing class, We dont do as much damage as GF, but with the right build are just as survivable if not more. I'd like to have a little more damage though. A lot of blinding lights "damage" goes from aura of courage also. its actual damage itself is quite low, but the utility of the daze is amazing. its REALLY annoying in pvp though when you are channelling yours and then another paladins pops his instantly (without channel) and the daze disrupts you. In fact dazes in general really REALLY hurt the class, as when in sanctuary you cant do anything else but move around

karlbarb

I am having A LOT of fun playing as a Devotion Paladin. I find her incredibly survivable in all solo content, and the only time she has ever died was if she got one shot by a zone dragon (which has happened maybe twice I think). Barring that, it takes all of 1 second to go from near death to full health.

That being said, her damage is comparatively low (normal for a defensive class, of course), and the fact that Sanctuary often doesn't trigger, which does <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> me off a great deal as I use it to negate control effects like being stunned or knocked down.

EDIT: Oh, and the Paragon level feats. There are sooooo many useless or near useless feats in the first two trees.

rversant

karlbarb wrote: »

I am having A LOT of fun playing as a Devotion Paladin. I find her incredibly survivable in all solo content, and the only time she has ever died was if she got one shot by a zone dragon (which has happened maybe twice I think). Barring that, it takes all of 1 second to go from near death to full health.

That being said, her damage is comparatively low (normal for a defensive class, of course), and the fact that Sanctuary often doesn't trigger, which does <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> me off a great deal as I use it to negate control effects like being stunned or knocked down.

EDIT: Oh, and the Paragon level feats. There are sooooo many useless or near useless feats in the first two trees.

I felt that also. although a LOT of our heroic feats are AMAZING (Like, WOW). our paragon t1-t2 feats are kind of lackluster. I just shrugged it off as the tradeoff for having such good heroic feats, but it'd be nice for our T1 paragon feats to make more of an impact.

jharlis

rversant wrote: »

PROS of Class

Lots of Buffs and support for team-play

Im just gonna disagree with this a bit.
We do are a great support class BUT the best support skills are actually for ourselves and by this i mean Vow of emnity, why is the buff for ourselves only? the %dmg bonus should be for the whole team even if it then has to be lowered ( GF got that epic few seconds dmg buff on one target tho), just as much as Circle of Power this one makes total no sense at all, an incredible aoe/circle/buff/ 32secs %Dmg /%DR buff but only for us? come on .....
Sacred Weapon too, it should be a team buff...
Is Bane even working for others? i couldn't tell so far...
Blinding Oath COULD be nice if it didn't mean instant death in t1/t2 dungeons.

translucentwolf

Quick note on 'instantly' activating something ( sanctuary ) that works on others.

Not gonna happen. The servers have lag. The only reason powers have 'wind up' animations is to hide that lag.

You *might* be able to get an instant on effect work for your own char, but you'll never see it work when it's going to be applied to other player characters.

animalust

FYI - Pandarus and the team are investigating the Paladine Shield/Animation canceling, and will hopefully conclude if that is WAI or a Bannable Exploit.

With Shield Canceling, we can use Radiant Strike At Will + animation canceling to actually out damage out other abilities, when combined together, we are a one man Mob shredder that can take out whole Clusters of mobs easily and quickly. Granted this only works with aura of Courage.

zvieris

animalust wrote: »

FYI - Pandarus and the team are investigating the Paladine Shield/Animation canceling, and will hopefully conclude if that is WAI or a Bannable Exploit.

With Shield Canceling, we can use Radiant Strike At Will + animation canceling to actually out damage out other abilities, when combined together, we are a one man Mob shredder that can take out whole Clusters of mobs easily and quickly. Granted this only works with aura of Courage.

I hope they get justice capstone fixed first. Even with the shield cancelling it takes like 5+ minutes to kill a a small mob of 2-3 barbarians in IWD.

animalust

Shield canceling right now is nearly a requirement to play Pally effectively lol

zvieris

animalust wrote: »

Shield canceling right now is nearly a requirement to play Pally effectively lol

If vengeful judge worked, I wouldn't be spamming radiant strike just so I could proc echo and get around that 60s cooldown for Circle of Power...