I read it. Maybe you could point out where the word 'better' appears in it?
Take your time...
"While it is possible to tank as a Justice or Light paladin, it is substantially harder..."
I don't need to see the word "better" in that statement to understand he means Bulwark is better. Please enlighten me as to how else you could interpret that.
"While it is possible to tank as a Justice or Light paladin, it is substantially harder, especially on longer fights where Holy Barrier and your other defensive feats get chances to kick in and contribute quite a bit of defensive power." - System Designer Gentlemancrush
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
Then I guess you missed the part where he went on to talk about how effective Bulwark was for him "in practice".
"While it is possible to tank as a Justice or Light paladin, it is substantially harder..."
I don't need to see the word "better" in that statement to understand he means Bulwark is better. Please enlighten me as to how else you could interpret that.
Are you seriously saying that you are going to take the word of a dev when it comes to how to build and optimise a character? No offense to them, but if they actually truly understoon how the mechanics they designed function, both independently and in conjunction with each other, then maybe the tooltips in game would reflect that understanding instead of being almost completely and utterly useless. (See CW shield, for example) Also, have you looked at the NWO twitch streams to see the way they build characters? Whilst I will freely admit that they can develop a better game then I ever could, I would not take their opinion on an ideal build too seriously. They make the game, they do not spend hours and hours perfecting builds within it. Furthermore, they do not know everything about it, otherwise things like the shadow of demise bug in mod 5 would never have slipped by, or any of the new bugs. (Mentioning SoD as it is sufficiently out of date to no longer be relevant)
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited June 2015
"Easier" doesn't actually mean "better". In fact, the concept that a paragon path permits you to the job in a "more active" playstyle, does in fact equivocate with it being (arguably) harder, but not worse. Depends how much work you want to do as opposed to having your feats passively do it for you.
Seriously, I think crush was refferring to his own experience when he was testing out the paladin.
However, you say the devs don't even know their own game, so don't trust them with builds. My issue with this build is exactly that, here's a build from someone who; hasn't even tested feats he deems "useless", doesn't understand the mechanic of healing with temporary HP, totally misunderstood a tooltip for an at will and didn't test it out to see how it actually works, makes the claim that this guide is for "beginners", but plays this build with greater and perfect enchants and 5 epic companions.
Other than that, this is just exactly the same build that was posted already.
And I get that some of you wanna think you are more "skillful" for playing a more "active" or "hard" feat path, but this game is so gear dependant, if you had greater enchants, all boons and 5 epic companions + an augment with avenger rings, you could probably play this without any paragon feats at all and still "do the job".
And I get that some of you wanna think you are more "skillful" for playing a more "active" or "hard" feat path, but this game is so gear dependant, if you had greater enchants, all boons and 5 epic companions + an augment with avenger rings, you could probably play this without any paragon feats at all and still "do the job".
Nobody has said anything about being more skilful, nor claimed any kudos for playing a 'harder' feat path. And I completely agree about gear dependency vs skill - it's a point I've made myself on numerous threads before now. The discussion has been about whether Bulwark is the outright best choice for tanking or not, triggered by someone who apparently needs to brandish his epeen regarding his choice of feat tree.
Seriously, I think crush was refferring to his own experience when he was testing out the paladin.
However, you say the devs don't even know their own game, so don't trust them with builds. My issue with this build is exactly that, here's a build from someone who; hasn't even tested feats he deems "useless", doesn't understand the mechanic of healing with temporary HP, totally misunderstood a tooltip for an at will and didn't test it out to see how it actually works, makes the claim that this guide is for "beginners", but plays this build with greater and perfect enchants and 5 epic companions.
Other than that, this is just exactly the same build that was posted already.
And I get that some of you wanna think you are more "skillful" for playing a more "active" or "hard" feat path, but this game is so gear dependant, if you had greater enchants, all boons and 5 epic companions + an augment with avenger rings, you could probably play this without any paragon feats at all and still "do the job".
1. I tested EVERY Justice and Bulwark feat. I didn't put explanation about most Bulwark feats because the guide was getting already too big and I had little time to finish it. Have you seen any other guide expaining and testing why they use certain power? I remember a guide telling Binding Oath is awesome for taunting...
2. My whole guide is centered around Templar's Wrath and Temp HP if you didn't notice... I admit I didn't put too much testing on LoH simply because it has nothing to do with this build.
3. Well, as I said about Oath Strike I wasn't sure if it's 75% damage reduction works properly. The tooltip is misleading enough. As I said I fully tested 99% of the powers. Oath Strike, Shielding Strike, Cleansing Touch, LoH, Aura of Wrath and Aura of Valor go in the 1% because the first tests on them were dissapointing enough and. Also the only thing that matter for this build and from these is Shielding Strike's Shield effect. It was a mistake putting Shielding that low and I am now fully testing it. I will update my guide after the new patch to double check if something is broken/fixed after it.
4. I said it's "beginners friendly" which is something very different than what you think. Most guides don't explain why or how they use certain things. In my guide I tried to explain it as clearly as possible. The companions barely make a difference but they are cheap enough anyway. They are for the end goal. And do you expect me to put green companions in a guide? That would be even silier. I played with Lesser SF and Lesser Negation in T1. There is really no problem with them there. And even in T2 Lesser Soulforge is good enough if it wasn't for that stupid Binding Oath bug.
5. Of course T2 will be much more difficult and gear dependant. Do you expect to go with green items in eToS and stomp the place? It's supposed to be end-game. The problem is not that T2 is hard. The problem is that the gap between T1 and T2 is simply too big. I hope this will be fixed if and when Cryptic rework and release the old dungeons and make more balanced progression- T1, T2, T3 and T4.
6. Quote me one other guide who puts Aura of Courage and Blinding Light as highest DPS and that says Relentless Avenger is bad in almost every situation. And tell me someone else who uses Circle of Power in dungeons and why?
And after this I am 100% sure you didn't even bother reading my guide but try hard to discriminate it anyway. Keep up the hate work.
I've ran with him through ToS quite a number of times - also when he was less geared. From my point of view, this man is an excellent tank.
You seemed to mention in your guide that Aura of Truth didn't work. I remember testing it a couple of patches ago and it worked just fine. I'll run another parse tomorrow to confirm.
Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Protection Paladin
We have looked into reports of players experiencing connection problems and have been unable to identify any server, data center, or client-side issues. We believe this may be ISP related.
I've ran with him through ToS quite a number of times - also when he was less geared. From my point of view, this man is an excellent tank.
You seemed to mention in your guide that Aura of Truth didn't work. I remember testing it a couple of patches ago and it worked just fine. I'll run another parse tomorrow to confirm.
Thank you!
Yes, something is not working properly with Aura of Truth. I think it works but not always and when it does it doesn't decrase the damage of the enemies with 10%. ACT shows some weird results. But I will try again after today's patch as some things may be fixed or broken without being in the patch notes.
Thank you!
Yes, something is not working properly with Aura of Truth. I think it works but not always and when it does it doesn't decrase the damage of the enemies with 10%. ACT shows some weird results. But I will try again after today's patch as some things may be fixed or broken without being in the patch notes.
As promised, I would run another parse. And the results actually point very clearly to Aura of Truth working. The test was done in Whispering Caverns, on a single Drow Warrior. I was using a 'clean' character: No feats or boons, at 32.5% damage resistance. This is on a Devotion specced character. For each test I let that single warrior (level 59) beat on me for 5 minutes. In the results I disregarded the outer values, like Critical Hits and Deflections.
IMPORTANT EDIT: I was using Rank 3 (10%) Aura of Truth!
Test one, without Aura of Truth:
Mob effectiveness: 67.5% (Makes sense, considering my DR is 32.5)
Maximum hit: 472,2
Minumum hit: 437.
Test two, with Aura of Truth:
Mob effectiveness: 67.5% (makes sense considering my DR is 32.5% and Truth does not affect DR)
Maximum hit: 437.4
Minimum hit: 404.2
I ran a two more control tests to see if the results would vary a lot - which I didn't think they would considering I was getting beat on for 5 minutes - and indeed they did not. The results looked almost completely the same for both tests.
Important edit number 2: Note I did not heal myself during any of these tests, as to avoid getting added DR from the oathbound buff Devotion specs get, although this only seemed to be about 0.9% in a further control test.
While testing I did make the interesting observation that the heal from Divine Call does not trigger the Oathbound buff of the Devotion Spec. Seems silly.
Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Protection Paladin
We have looked into reports of players experiencing connection problems and have been unable to identify any server, data center, or client-side issues. We believe this may be ISP related.
While testing I took the liberty of also testing the 'Light's Shield' feat, which increases your damage resistance by 2.5% at rank 5, as people were previously reporting - I don't remember where - that it doesn't work.
As one would expect, the mob effectiveness vs. my DR dropped from 67.5% to 65%. This would mean that this feat works, but also that this Warrior has no Armor Penetration and that the usefulness and value per point spent would depend on that Armor Penetration of the mob in question.
Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Protection Paladin
We have looked into reports of players experiencing connection problems and have been unable to identify any server, data center, or client-side issues. We believe this may be ISP related.
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onegaki101Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 327Arc User
edited June 2015
So Aura of Truth seems to be a 8% damage reduction instead of 10%?
We have looked into reports of players experiencing connection problems and have been unable to identify any server, data center, or client-side issues. We believe this may be ISP related.
So Aura of Truth seems to be a 8% damage reduction instead of 10%?
I have tested Shielding Strike, not exhaustively. My testing shows that it is for a flat damage reduction and this amount is not diminished by taking damage. However, the flat damage reduction appeared to be coming before damage resistance was taken into account which drastically reduces its effectiveness against higher base incoming damage. I'll test it more sometime this week. Divine Touch appeared to function in the same manner.
I don't hate your guide, I'm just seriously is all.
[Okay, I feel like beating a dead horse here and wasting too much time but will give this a try anyway.]
What will NOT dissapoint you then? What do you think a real guide for beginners looks like? As I said I have never ever before written a guide. I think it turned out pretty good but I know there could be mistakes. These mistakes can be easily corrected though. Most of these mistakes don't even have anything to do with tanking (except Shielding Strike's Shield effect).
And as I stated I tried with other enchants, including "normal" Holy Avenger, "normal" Terror, Lesser Negation, Lesser Soulforged and even Barkshield. It's not like I immediately started at level 70 with purple gear, full Loyal Avenger items and a Perfect Negation (which I still don't have!). And wrote too many times already that Perfect Negation IS NOT a must have! Why don't you just ignore everything else and save AD for a Greater or Perfect Negation. Be sure to let me know when you can solo run eGWF after you got this godsent enchantment. Because, when reading your posts, you convinced me it's so good that it makes everyone who's using it immortal. Too bad mine must be made in China...
You just fail to understand what is the purpose of a guide. A guide shows you the idea, the excecution and the result. A guide shows you the end product and the main goals to achieve it. If a guide creator shows his best items are level 60 greens do you think that will be a serious guide? Will everyone believe, even if true, that he can finish ANY dungeon?
I tried different things and tactics. What you see is what I learned by myself and believe to be the best combination of all. I expained countless times that this guide is dps based and the importance of doing more damage with Templar's Wrath and party buffs. I never said some item is a must have to "get the job done" as you say. You didn't even bother reading my comments in the guide to know it. You didn't bother to understand its ideas. To me it seems like all you did is to read some posts in this thread and looked at the pictures in the guide and made your own conclusions about things. If you read it, try to understand the core of it and completely ignore your current prejudice you may not be so . Or maybe this build is just not for you. That's okay. It's impossible to make everyone happy. Move on then. I am not forcing anyone to use my guide. I am not saying it's the best.
Oh, and btw I got ALL Loyal Avenger items from doing SCA with using Rust Monster, Angel of Protection, Wererat Thief and the Ioun Stone of Allure. 1 of them is free from doing T1. The other one is also free if you played longer than 1 year but it's also cheap enough in the AH. Another 1 of them I bought from the AH and the last from the Zen Market with the AD from selling a Lostmauth Horn. Yes, it's lucky chance but still possible to achieve by new players.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited June 2015
Hey Predoborg,
I'd just like to say that even though I've been levelling up a Devotion paladin (level 64), I learned a lot from reading your guide (and this thread). There are things that you won't use that I'll probably try because they're clearly meant to work better with a DevOP, but I'm already liking the tip about giving Burning Light another chance.
I thought it was helpful. I don't enjoy cookie cutter builds that tell you do this and get that, but a guide that presents information that you can learn from and customize to suit yourself is very nice.
You shouldn't read what Lazaroth wrote and decide the GWF mechanics won't work without all the legendary gear and mythic artifacts and perfect enchants. You can work within your own means if the information is there. Same thing here.
I really think you guys need to listen to the multiple people who have been running T2 content with Predo. Is this guide perfect? Is any guide perfect? Of course not. Is this a OP build that will be more than welcome in any competant party? HELLS YES! Admittedly some of this comes down to the skill of the individual player. But I have seen people who main three different classes speak up as to the effectiveness of this build in this thread. If you want to shift a power here or a feat there it's likely going to work. For the overall goal of "Let's go nuke some T2s"? This is a good baseline of what you want your OP to be able to do.
I have tested Shielding Strike, not exhaustively. My testing shows that it is for a flat damage reduction and this amount is not diminished by taking damage. However, the flat damage reduction appeared to be coming before damage resistance was taken into account which drastically reduces its effectiveness against higher base incoming damage. I'll test it more sometime this week. Divine Touch appeared to function in the same manner.
Edit: Misread post.
After my current checks I see Shielding Strike's Shield to be totally broken right now. I won't go into details because I think I may be banned or the thread will get closed.
Divine Touch is same but much harder to use.
Wow, I try to end this discussion peacefully and you throw a rant at me... uhm, thanks?
I meant it that I don't hate your guide, my reaction was just like it was because I had hoped for something different. Sorry if I offended you
Interesting guide. I've been running a justice/light spec build, and I have no issues whatsoever tanking! I never fancied bulwark, but that's just my opinion. I'm sure it gets the job done just as well as justice does.
Since this is a guide thread, I hope I'm not necroing... Is this guide still relevant in the current game (Dec 30, 2015)? I ask because I'm about to hit end game with my Paladin and will be using a respec to fix some leveling errors. Thanks.
Morgan West - Oathbound Paladin Jonathan Lonehawk - Hunter Ranger
Comments
Then I guess you missed the part where he went on to talk about how effective Bulwark was for him "in practice".
"While it is possible to tank as a Justice or Light paladin, it is substantially harder..."
I don't need to see the word "better" in that statement to understand he means Bulwark is better. Please enlighten me as to how else you could interpret that.
Are you seriously saying that you are going to take the word of a dev when it comes to how to build and optimise a character? No offense to them, but if they actually truly understoon how the mechanics they designed function, both independently and in conjunction with each other, then maybe the tooltips in game would reflect that understanding instead of being almost completely and utterly useless. (See CW shield, for example) Also, have you looked at the NWO twitch streams to see the way they build characters? Whilst I will freely admit that they can develop a better game then I ever could, I would not take their opinion on an ideal build too seriously. They make the game, they do not spend hours and hours perfecting builds within it. Furthermore, they do not know everything about it, otherwise things like the shadow of demise bug in mod 5 would never have slipped by, or any of the new bugs. (Mentioning SoD as it is sufficiently out of date to no longer be relevant)
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
However, you say the devs don't even know their own game, so don't trust them with builds. My issue with this build is exactly that, here's a build from someone who; hasn't even tested feats he deems "useless", doesn't understand the mechanic of healing with temporary HP, totally misunderstood a tooltip for an at will and didn't test it out to see how it actually works, makes the claim that this guide is for "beginners", but plays this build with greater and perfect enchants and 5 epic companions.
Other than that, this is just exactly the same build that was posted already.
And I get that some of you wanna think you are more "skillful" for playing a more "active" or "hard" feat path, but this game is so gear dependant, if you had greater enchants, all boons and 5 epic companions + an augment with avenger rings, you could probably play this without any paragon feats at all and still "do the job".
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
1. I tested EVERY Justice and Bulwark feat. I didn't put explanation about most Bulwark feats because the guide was getting already too big and I had little time to finish it. Have you seen any other guide expaining and testing why they use certain power? I remember a guide telling Binding Oath is awesome for taunting...
2. My whole guide is centered around Templar's Wrath and Temp HP if you didn't notice... I admit I didn't put too much testing on LoH simply because it has nothing to do with this build.
3. Well, as I said about Oath Strike I wasn't sure if it's 75% damage reduction works properly. The tooltip is misleading enough. As I said I fully tested 99% of the powers. Oath Strike, Shielding Strike, Cleansing Touch, LoH, Aura of Wrath and Aura of Valor go in the 1% because the first tests on them were dissapointing enough and. Also the only thing that matter for this build and from these is Shielding Strike's Shield effect. It was a mistake putting Shielding that low and I am now fully testing it. I will update my guide after the new patch to double check if something is broken/fixed after it.
4. I said it's "beginners friendly" which is something very different than what you think. Most guides don't explain why or how they use certain things. In my guide I tried to explain it as clearly as possible. The companions barely make a difference but they are cheap enough anyway. They are for the end goal. And do you expect me to put green companions in a guide? That would be even silier. I played with Lesser SF and Lesser Negation in T1. There is really no problem with them there. And even in T2 Lesser Soulforge is good enough if it wasn't for that stupid Binding Oath bug.
5. Of course T2 will be much more difficult and gear dependant. Do you expect to go with green items in eToS and stomp the place? It's supposed to be end-game. The problem is not that T2 is hard. The problem is that the gap between T1 and T2 is simply too big. I hope this will be fixed if and when Cryptic rework and release the old dungeons and make more balanced progression- T1, T2, T3 and T4.
6. Quote me one other guide who puts Aura of Courage and Blinding Light as highest DPS and that says Relentless Avenger is bad in almost every situation. And tell me someone else who uses Circle of Power in dungeons and why?
And after this I am 100% sure you didn't even bother reading my guide but try hard to discriminate it anyway. Keep up the hate work.
I've ran with him through ToS quite a number of times - also when he was less geared. From my point of view, this man is an excellent tank.
You seemed to mention in your guide that Aura of Truth didn't work. I remember testing it a couple of patches ago and it worked just fine. I'll run another parse tomorrow to confirm.
Thank you!
Yes, something is not working properly with Aura of Truth. I think it works but not always and when it does it doesn't decrase the damage of the enemies with 10%. ACT shows some weird results. But I will try again after today's patch as some things may be fixed or broken without being in the patch notes.
As promised, I would run another parse. And the results actually point very clearly to Aura of Truth working. The test was done in Whispering Caverns, on a single Drow Warrior. I was using a 'clean' character: No feats or boons, at 32.5% damage resistance. This is on a Devotion specced character. For each test I let that single warrior (level 59) beat on me for 5 minutes. In the results I disregarded the outer values, like Critical Hits and Deflections.
IMPORTANT EDIT: I was using Rank 3 (10%) Aura of Truth!
Test one, without Aura of Truth:
Mob effectiveness: 67.5% (Makes sense, considering my DR is 32.5)
Maximum hit: 472,2
Minumum hit: 437.
Test two, with Aura of Truth:
Mob effectiveness: 67.5% (makes sense considering my DR is 32.5% and Truth does not affect DR)
Maximum hit: 437.4
Minimum hit: 404.2
I ran a two more control tests to see if the results would vary a lot - which I didn't think they would considering I was getting beat on for 5 minutes - and indeed they did not. The results looked almost completely the same for both tests.
Important edit number 2: Note I did not heal myself during any of these tests, as to avoid getting added DR from the oathbound buff Devotion specs get, although this only seemed to be about 0.9% in a further control test.
While testing I did make the interesting observation that the heal from Divine Call does not trigger the Oathbound buff of the Devotion Spec. Seems silly.
As one would expect, the mob effectiveness vs. my DR dropped from 67.5% to 65%. This would mean that this feat works, but also that this Warrior has no Armor Penetration and that the usefulness and value per point spent would depend on that Armor Penetration of the mob in question.
I have tested Shielding Strike, not exhaustively. My testing shows that it is for a flat damage reduction and this amount is not diminished by taking damage. However, the flat damage reduction appeared to be coming before damage resistance was taken into account which drastically reduces its effectiveness against higher base incoming damage. I'll test it more sometime this week. Divine Touch appeared to function in the same manner.
Edit: Misread post.
[Okay, I feel like beating a dead horse here and wasting too much time but will give this a try anyway.]
What will NOT dissapoint you then? What do you think a real guide for beginners looks like? As I said I have never ever before written a guide. I think it turned out pretty good but I know there could be mistakes. These mistakes can be easily corrected though. Most of these mistakes don't even have anything to do with tanking (except Shielding Strike's Shield effect).
And as I stated I tried with other enchants, including "normal" Holy Avenger, "normal" Terror, Lesser Negation, Lesser Soulforged and even Barkshield. It's not like I immediately started at level 70 with purple gear, full Loyal Avenger items and a Perfect Negation (which I still don't have!). And wrote too many times already that Perfect Negation IS NOT a must have! Why don't you just ignore everything else and save AD for a Greater or Perfect Negation. Be sure to let me know when you can solo run eGWF after you got this godsent enchantment. Because, when reading your posts, you convinced me it's so good that it makes everyone who's using it immortal. Too bad mine must be made in China...
You just fail to understand what is the purpose of a guide. A guide shows you the idea, the excecution and the result. A guide shows you the end product and the main goals to achieve it. If a guide creator shows his best items are level 60 greens do you think that will be a serious guide? Will everyone believe, even if true, that he can finish ANY dungeon?
I tried different things and tactics. What you see is what I learned by myself and believe to be the best combination of all. I expained countless times that this guide is dps based and the importance of doing more damage with Templar's Wrath and party buffs. I never said some item is a must have to "get the job done" as you say. You didn't even bother reading my comments in the guide to know it. You didn't bother to understand its ideas. To me it seems like all you did is to read some posts in this thread and looked at the pictures in the guide and made your own conclusions about things. If you read it, try to understand the core of it and completely ignore your current prejudice you may not be so
Oh, and btw I got ALL Loyal Avenger items from doing SCA with using Rust Monster, Angel of Protection, Wererat Thief and the Ioun Stone of Allure. 1 of them is free from doing T1. The other one is also free if you played longer than 1 year but it's also cheap enough in the AH. Another 1 of them I bought from the AH and the last from the Zen Market with the AD from selling a Lostmauth Horn. Yes, it's lucky chance but still possible to achieve by new players.
I'd just like to say that even though I've been levelling up a Devotion paladin (level 64), I learned a lot from reading your guide (and this thread). There are things that you won't use that I'll probably try because they're clearly meant to work better with a DevOP, but I'm already liking the tip about giving Burning Light another chance.
I thought it was helpful. I don't enjoy cookie cutter builds that tell you do this and get that, but a guide that presents information that you can learn from and customize to suit yourself is very nice.
You shouldn't read what Lazaroth wrote and decide the GWF mechanics won't work without all the legendary gear and mythic artifacts and perfect enchants. You can work within your own means if the information is there. Same thing here.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
This is false. You probably have someone targeted.
After my current checks I see Shielding Strike's Shield to be totally broken right now. I won't go into details because I think I may be banned or the thread will get closed.
Divine Touch is same but much harder to use.
I meant it that I don't hate your guide, my reaction was just like it was because I had hoped for something different. Sorry if I offended you
Jonathan Lonehawk - Hunter Ranger