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Devotion : My issues so far.
duskwood
Member Posts: 39 Arc User
Let me preface this with saying I have only been playing a little while, my paladin is barely 2k ilvl, however I have been playing MMOs since 98, and have legitimately played every AAA title to release since then with the exception of anarchy online. So I may pull my opinions based on my experience as a whole.
First of all I want to start with some problems I've noticed with powers.
Oath Strike - The only issue I have with this is purely cosmetic, in that I think shielding strike and valorous strike look much better. Shielding strike especially so.
Burning Light : I really don't like this power. I know a lot of paladins do, but it feels wrong. Everything else I have is instant, and it feels awkward as heck to stop, squat, and grunt till BOOM. The ability itself is not bad, it does good damage, the CC is nice, it just FEELS wrong.
Divine Call : It's boring compared to protections. Like a lot of other powers it feels like folks at cryptic went "meh, just slap a heal on it." instead of giving it any real thought. I don't mean that to sound like an insult, although it sort of is, that is just what it feels like. Also with out vengeance tree we are sort of encouraged to pop it every 10 seconds. It would be a lot more useful if it was a HoT, in my opinion. Everyone may not need a burst of healing every 10 seconds but as soon as you use it, they may need some right after. HoT would have em.
Aura of Vengeance : this really only helps me solo, or the tank (and silly dps) in parties. I just don't think it's very useful and should do something else.
Templar's Wrath : My complaint about this is ONLY in devotion, its amazing in protection, absolutely AMAZING. However, in devotion....what is with the temp hp? It's like ...2% of my health. When I'm protection I hit it and literally get 2x my hp bar in temp hp. As devotion is a support / healing spec I dont expect us to get that, however how about 200% spread among the entire party? Because right now it's the "fun" version of blinding light, imo, but not really helpful to the team at all as devotion.
Bond of Virtue : It's just boring. A passive encounter ability that does nothing but chain and increase heals? Yes, it's very useful, but this should just be a class aura, to be honest. We get -3- encounter slots, and we get this really boring passive one? Again, I don't think its BAD, in fact I use it dang near all the time, it's just ....boring. Did I say it was boring?
Cure Wounds : Who uses this? Anyone? Protection gets a super awesome looking, kick butt new at-will and we get....sparkle dust. This just doesn't feel like it fits paladin. I mean I see the use, sometimes you wanna heal someone who's not near you. However it doesn't fit with the rest of the playstyle of punch things, heal. I know some people prolly use it, I just have never seen it.
Banishment : Maybe this becomes useful later in super hard uber dungeons? I don't know, it seems detrimental and I only ever used it once to see what it looked like.
Absolution: I feel like if this was a longer CD and team wide, it would be absolutely amazing. However I dont use it and dont know anyone who does
Aura of Divinity : Feels extremely weak, should have a secondary effect too. Maybe a pulsing shield or some such. It's just....very weak.
Divine Touch : This is actually a surprisingly huge heal. Like, holy moly big. The damage, however, is less than an at-will. The tool-tip reads like templar's wrath and says "Deals HEAVY radiant damage." It doesn't. It's radiant damage weighs like, 2lbs at most. Extremely not heavy. Makes me sad since its one of -two- melee abilities we get.
Healing Font: Does this thing even heal? I kept it on my bar and tried it for a long time before I took it off. I have not noticed a difference.
Relentless avenger: our hardest hitting ability. And it flings mobs everywhere. Why? People just get pissed off if I use this.
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Feats
Purifying Fire: Okay, what? This talent seems counterproductive to the entire rest of the tree. So this tree seems all about resetting and using your encounter powers as often as possible. Your at-will reset them, you get cool down reduction, your end line ability "vengeful judge" reduces your cooldowns by 35% each use of divine call. Yet...this ability stacks damage per at-will...UNTIL YOU USE AN ENCOUNTER ABILITY? That's all I do is use encounter abilities, this hardly ever gets to full stacks. IMO it should build 1-5 stacks and consume them to do extra damage, or damage over time based on how many stacks consumed when an encounter power is used.
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Other than that, just overall I feel devotion did not get as much attention as protection. I've been playing protection lately so I could get a good overview of it, and I honestly just feel like an immortal god whos HP bar is eternally yellow. I also feel our damage is really poopy. I'm not saying make us spooper damage, but either increase our damage or increase our support. All you see is "looking for DC." No one wants us unless they cant find a DC.
I'm also very unimpressed with our animations in general, and lack of any sort of neat melee daily or even a damaging daily outside of the giant tooth-sword of doom.
Our defenses are very low considering the lack of a dodge or any type of reliable movement speed. I have a shield, I raise it, still get one shot.
I don't know if anyone will read this, or care. I just like to share my thoughts in hope that someone, somewhere does.
First of all I want to start with some problems I've noticed with powers.
Oath Strike - The only issue I have with this is purely cosmetic, in that I think shielding strike and valorous strike look much better. Shielding strike especially so.
Burning Light : I really don't like this power. I know a lot of paladins do, but it feels wrong. Everything else I have is instant, and it feels awkward as heck to stop, squat, and grunt till BOOM. The ability itself is not bad, it does good damage, the CC is nice, it just FEELS wrong.
Divine Call : It's boring compared to protections. Like a lot of other powers it feels like folks at cryptic went "meh, just slap a heal on it." instead of giving it any real thought. I don't mean that to sound like an insult, although it sort of is, that is just what it feels like. Also with out vengeance tree we are sort of encouraged to pop it every 10 seconds. It would be a lot more useful if it was a HoT, in my opinion. Everyone may not need a burst of healing every 10 seconds but as soon as you use it, they may need some right after. HoT would have em.
Aura of Vengeance : this really only helps me solo, or the tank (and silly dps) in parties. I just don't think it's very useful and should do something else.
Templar's Wrath : My complaint about this is ONLY in devotion, its amazing in protection, absolutely AMAZING. However, in devotion....what is with the temp hp? It's like ...2% of my health. When I'm protection I hit it and literally get 2x my hp bar in temp hp. As devotion is a support / healing spec I dont expect us to get that, however how about 200% spread among the entire party? Because right now it's the "fun" version of blinding light, imo, but not really helpful to the team at all as devotion.
Bond of Virtue : It's just boring. A passive encounter ability that does nothing but chain and increase heals? Yes, it's very useful, but this should just be a class aura, to be honest. We get -3- encounter slots, and we get this really boring passive one? Again, I don't think its BAD, in fact I use it dang near all the time, it's just ....boring. Did I say it was boring?
Cure Wounds : Who uses this? Anyone? Protection gets a super awesome looking, kick butt new at-will and we get....sparkle dust. This just doesn't feel like it fits paladin. I mean I see the use, sometimes you wanna heal someone who's not near you. However it doesn't fit with the rest of the playstyle of punch things, heal. I know some people prolly use it, I just have never seen it.
Banishment : Maybe this becomes useful later in super hard uber dungeons? I don't know, it seems detrimental and I only ever used it once to see what it looked like.
Absolution: I feel like if this was a longer CD and team wide, it would be absolutely amazing. However I dont use it and dont know anyone who does
Aura of Divinity : Feels extremely weak, should have a secondary effect too. Maybe a pulsing shield or some such. It's just....very weak.
Divine Touch : This is actually a surprisingly huge heal. Like, holy moly big. The damage, however, is less than an at-will. The tool-tip reads like templar's wrath and says "Deals HEAVY radiant damage." It doesn't. It's radiant damage weighs like, 2lbs at most. Extremely not heavy. Makes me sad since its one of -two- melee abilities we get.
Healing Font: Does this thing even heal? I kept it on my bar and tried it for a long time before I took it off. I have not noticed a difference.
Relentless avenger: our hardest hitting ability. And it flings mobs everywhere. Why? People just get pissed off if I use this.
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Feats
Purifying Fire: Okay, what? This talent seems counterproductive to the entire rest of the tree. So this tree seems all about resetting and using your encounter powers as often as possible. Your at-will reset them, you get cool down reduction, your end line ability "vengeful judge" reduces your cooldowns by 35% each use of divine call. Yet...this ability stacks damage per at-will...UNTIL YOU USE AN ENCOUNTER ABILITY? That's all I do is use encounter abilities, this hardly ever gets to full stacks. IMO it should build 1-5 stacks and consume them to do extra damage, or damage over time based on how many stacks consumed when an encounter power is used.
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Other than that, just overall I feel devotion did not get as much attention as protection. I've been playing protection lately so I could get a good overview of it, and I honestly just feel like an immortal god whos HP bar is eternally yellow. I also feel our damage is really poopy. I'm not saying make us spooper damage, but either increase our damage or increase our support. All you see is "looking for DC." No one wants us unless they cant find a DC.
I'm also very unimpressed with our animations in general, and lack of any sort of neat melee daily or even a damaging daily outside of the giant tooth-sword of doom.
Our defenses are very low considering the lack of a dodge or any type of reliable movement speed. I have a shield, I raise it, still get one shot.
I don't know if anyone will read this, or care. I just like to share my thoughts in hope that someone, somewhere does.
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Comments
Vengance actually serves a purpose: to level up your Aura of Truth. Aura of Truth is currently bugged and requires points in Aura of Vengance to boost the potency of Aura of Truth. Don't ask me why this of all things, the class was bugged like this.
I have seen people use Cure Wounds and it makes me cry when I know that you could use something more useful like Oath Strike or Radiant Strike.
About Absolution:
While it is applied to only a single teammate, you can apply Absolution to multiple teammates, including yourself, without anyones' shield disappearing. You can even apply Absolution to people before a raid/bossfight and then swap out Absolution to a more useful power. (I sound like a broken record for saying this...)
With Healing Font: Healadin heals so crazily that Healing font barely does much, if anything to help your already crazy healing capabilities.
Purifying Fire sucks for dealing damage. It barely made up 1% of my DPS, even with 5 points.
I don't know about you, but my Paladin feels fast. Radiant Champion + Radiant Strike = high degree of mobility. If you still find yourself sluggish, you can try using Artificer's Persuasion with a cancelable artifact like a Dragonheart for some extra movement speed.
On a healadin, the shield is not meant to be used as a defensive tactic like the GF or Tankadin. It is best used to constantly heal your teammates.
The biggest "issue" with the Healadin is... that they are too balanced. They heal extremely well, have some nifty buffs, and that's about it. The issue is, lifesteal tends to solve most peoples' healing issues, and the DC's buffing powers tend to be more useful and powerful compared to the Healadin's (compare 3 stacks of Healadin Bane with the DC's EmpBtS, which gives the same damage bonus as 3 stacks of Healadin Bane, but is groupwide).
However, the Healadin is still a nice class and I would definetly take one over having no Heals at all.
Why can't circle buff DR for devotion as well? Like a mediocre astral shield. Anything but more useless freakin bonus healing. Devotion needs HAMSTER to buff the survivability of the group.
I swear it's bugged anyway. Even with shield of faith people, even myself with near max DR are getting one shot. Dunno wtf is going on. I never encounter this problem elsewhere but using my OP in groups. My GF and SW have the same amount of DR, and they don't come close to any one shots in the same dungeons.
@rjc9000 I did not know about the Aura Truth/Vengeance thing - is that on the PS4 as well? And do I have to run both auras or just have points in both auras? Currently I have points in both auras but rarely run the two together.
To do the most with the healadin - you really do have to swap things out based on the group/situation, more than some of the other classes. If I pug I generally go in with Bond, cure, and bane or Bond, smite and bane. I rarely use my divine call, though I'm trying to get better with that.
If I have a pug group that is all over the place, hanging from the chandeliers and leaping into the AOE's - I'll use bond, cure, and bane or that other attack that heals nearby people (at work can't remember what it's called). I'll also swap auras to life and the one that decreases the damage enemies do.
If after the first fight or so I realize they are a good pug group - I'll use bond, bane and vow or bond bane and smite and run different auras.
I only run life (the hand of god) if I'm with a garbage group - or if I'm with my friends and we are trying a new dungeon... so I'll probably use it our first time in FBI.
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
You need 1 point in Truth to actually equip Truth, but you need 3-4 points in Vengance in order for Truth to have its maximum damage mitigation source.
I would assume this bug is on PS4, since it's on PC and we're ahead of you guys (ie, any bugs we'd find would be fixed the soonest).
Unusually, this is not the first time a bug like this was on the Paladin. Vow of Emnity used to be bugged like this: the debuff scaled with points in Divine Touch rather than Vow.
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
I want to add the concers i have to this thread:
In general,a dev Op has very few debuff powers compared to his sibling the prot.Prot gets all the love ,Dev gets heals and more heals.
Smite: In prot path it debuffs enemy damage for 15%.In dev nothing.it does a heal..however this heal is insignificant.it is less than 1k hp!!!
Sacred Weapon: IT DOES NOT WORK AT ALL for Vev Ops.At least for my toons.My prot using SW ,i see it in the log.My dev uses it...nothing in log,no change in tooltips.bugged
Heroism: too long animation (for use in emergency situations)
Bane: it was great.it is not now,since it locks you in place during animation,and funnily enough..and after!!! lol.
useless except boss fights.using bane in FBI giants phase is like looking to die
Templar's Wrath : My complaint about this is ONLY in devotion, its amazing in protection, absolutely AMAZING. However, in devotion....what is with the temp hp? It's like ...2% of my health. When I'm protection I hit it and literally get 2x my hp bar in temp hp. --------> copy pasted i have the same issues.Don't use it anymore ...
Oath Strike: I like the animation but it could get a damage boost...
Cleansing touch: great healing encounter but nothing else.maybe a temp shield or hp aswell?
Banishment: Good power except the fact that you always afraid that it will banish the adds.You can use in boss fights but not in add phase.It would be great if the stunning part would go away
Cure Wounds : Who uses this? Anyone? Protection gets a super awesome looking, kick butt new at-will and we get....sparkle dust. This just doesn't feel like it fits paladin. I mean I see the use, sometimes you wanna heal someone who's not near you. However it doesn't fit with the rest of the playstyle of punch things, heal. I know some people prolly use it, I just have never seen it. ---------->I agree completely with the OP
Divine Touch : This is actually a surprisingly huge heal. Like, holy moly big. The damage, however, is less than an at-will. The tool-tip reads like templar's wrath and says "Deals HEAVY radiant damage." It doesn't. It's radiant damage weighs like, 2lbs at most. Extremely not heavy. Makes me sad since its one of -two- melee abilities we get.
------------------> I agree with the OP
Aura of Life: It procs SoulForge...
Aura of Solitude: Never tested this one.Does companions counts as allies? if they do then for solo it is useless.
In anycase in group it is useless
Aura of Valour: i think that was an aura intended to go to the other tree but all these years none checked this out :P
Relentless Avenger: The cultprint of hastingly Den design,and the proof that the attention was to prots from the beggining
.A power that nukes adds into moon orbit.A power that makes a dev,locking to ally and go near him..lol
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During beta the OP had two auras that were removed.One was raising the crit severity.The other i don't remember.
But they were there designed and ready.maybe some of these could be brought back??rebalanced?
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1225403/doing-it-all-wrong-devop-easy-mode-for-soloing
While Templar's Wrath is less cool on DevOP than ProtOP, I don't use it for the temp HP, but the damage and control. I consider the stun invaluable for charging my Burning Light, which I realize you also don't care much for. Elliot is very DoT-based.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Burning Light: Its honestly not the best encounter but at the same times its one of the best encounters we have for damage....sigh.. anyways its damage is mediocre, but the lower critical strike you have and you get a owlbear cub it does lots for you.
Divine Call: Its very boring but tis very nice to use in a situation where everyone has taken a big hit. Plus it refreshes your encounters if you got the right feats
Aura of useless I mean vengeance: Put maybe one point in it just to "have it".. Otherwise its useless
Templars wrath: Its got very good aoe damage and is better than burning light (if you do not have a owlbear cub) I hit 40-80k on adds around me and it has no cap limit. Also its temp hit points can be sneezed away by a trash mob.
Bond of Virtue: The hands down best and most useful class encounter we have and without it healing becomes a huge problem. Have this equipped 100% of the time.
Cure Wounds: Now I love this at will and I am not exactly sure why people dislike it. If used correctly you gain and allies gain 5% deflection chance, and it heals for 30-200k normally. If combo'd with other skills you can see heals up in the millions.(Not really necessary for such high heals)
Banishment: This encounter is really nice and like I said if you know and understand how to use it it benefits everyone in the party. You can banish targets for a long time and from a distance of like 60ft(bond of virtue range) allies around the affected area gain 20% DR increase for 20 seconds. If combo'd correctly you team can have a perma 20% DR boost. (This is most effective on hard hitting bosses especially like orcus). Now if you throw on bane that is a 50% def buff to everyone (basically).
Absolution: Even with the buff to this skill its still useless you have better and more important encounters to use than this.
Aura of Divinity: Yes you are correct on everything you stated with this one... If it sent out even a 5% DR boost with a 3% increase for each point it would be a top aura. Also to increase the heals to like 10k every 3 seconds and increases by 5% for every point. Now sounds a bit overpowered so increase it from 3 seconds to 6 seconds. Just my thought on it personally because well honestly what class auras do we even use besides Courage, wisdom, life... If there is a tank paladin that means half those auras will be used by them. That leaves heal paladins with well nothing for auras lol.
Divine Touch: Its useful for newbie OP Heals but otherwise it is useless to have equipped in a encounter slot. We already heal large amounts so why use a encounter that does one big heal every 8 seconds and does like 20k damage.
Healing Font: Now I want a huge buff to this daily because ITS a nice daily but its useless as all get go. The biggest problem I find that it heals allies right... but that counts companions as well. In this day and age everyone has a companion which means the chances of a player getting healed are very slim especially if its on someone who needs it. The heal itself is like 3k which is useless all in itself. It chains to allies but who the hell cares when you can just press tab once or use cure wounds once and the entire party is healed and buffed.
Healing Font(updated): Now what I would like to see from this daily is a revamp and what I would like it to do is.... You place a healing font that will heal all allies in the affected area for 20% of their maximum hitpoints this lasts for 10 seconds. In addition when Healing Font is active it radiates rays of hope which buffs allies movement speed and DR by 10% for 10 seconds.
__
Now for a "balance" of this daily it would be like how hallowed ground is where you cannot use it for a certain amount of time even if you have 100% AP. (Maybe like 20 seconds after initial use of the daily) I can gain my daily back in several seconds personally so I feel this could be a good counter balance. Now with each point in healing font you gain either 2.5%. Now it may sound a little overpowered but its a example.
Relentless Avenger: I only ever use this encounter in a dungeon where dps is rather low. I also do not care about making people upset when I use it because it helps keep the party alive and it deals some damage and keeps the enemies from allies if they are hurting.
Purifying Fire: Its good for solo and procing boons and some feats but thats about it. Mainly used for solo and its my own personal choice to have it.
"Oath Strike: I guess you did not read it all because it also applies bonus healing and a healing burst on the third strike. It could use a damage buff but it does 15-30k regularly."
What do you mean? My only complaint was I didn't like the animation, I said nothing about the functionality of the ability? O_o
@beckylunatic
Yea I was using it that way as well, to stun then blinding light. The thing is, the stun is so short I can just half cast blinding light and it CCs just as long while doing more damage. Blinding Light's damage and usefulness isn't in question to me, I just dont like the way it feels at all. Wish Templar's Wrath was more useful to devotion.
All I am saying is in devotion it might as well not even HAVE a secondary effect, where in Protection its secondary effect is amazing. The base skill (which is what you describe you use it for) is fine.
I have watched a TON of guides and read some as well on the class. These are just my personal gripes and things I dont, and how I feel they should be changed. They're just my opinions
And as to your guide it looks great
Your feat choice intrigues me because I wanted to take steadfast as well, but most other guides said we need divine wisdom. So I only put 2 points in it, then into divine wisdom. I'm stll not sure if I want 5 points in steadfast, or 3 in force of will and still leave 2 in divine wisdom. Force of will would be almost 30% crit for me just off my 28 charisma lol.
While Sharpedge's (thefabricant) paladin guide is not current and he requested it be locked as he had no intention of maintaining it, there is a lot of solid information remaining there about things like how feats work (or don't work), and the paladin class has not received a feat rework. So it's worth reading while keeping in mind that many powers have since been updated.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Oath strike makes me think of a kobold. It's so fast and erratic it's just like "ME HIT YOU GOOD" SWINGSWINGSWING
then the burst of healing (as far as I can see) has no animation. The healing buff has no animation.
Functionally though, I believe oath strike and valrous strike both mesh better with our aura of courage, as they hit faster so pump out that % hp damage 2x as fast as shielding.
at-wills no real pb
Dailies: well aside from Judgement and shield of faith in groups and Judgement and
Heroism solo, what do you play? Lay of hands is just unusable and font suffers from stupidity
auras: who uses restoration or divinity or valor for that matter in Dev?
Encounters
Burning light: too cumbersome to launch but effect is good. the same thing without charge would be appreciated. but then it would be the go-to encounter
Sacred weapons: should apply to the party. if the party hit something => extra damage and healed the same amount as the extra damage. The objective beeing to be a real support encounter by both upping dps and adding heals.
Smite: accelerate the animation. Sick of it beeing interrupted by every Jo the bumper.
Bane: get rid of the 3 charges mechanic or quicken the animation and use it while moving... pleaaaase.
Templar wrath: instead of puny temp HP, make so that any heal for the next 3 or 4 seconds gives temp HP to allies with max 50% of their HP bar and then it falls off 2 or 3 seconds later. That way we could capitalize on the rampant overheal
Bond of virtue : I hate not knowing wich cc will turn it off. More consistency would be apreciated.
Divine touch: cut the heal by half, raise the damage imensely then divide the damage by the number of targets in the affected zone. If you are at the target cap you should still do around the same damage than TW on each target but if there are fewer targets the damage per target climbs up.
Absolution is a tank encounter like Cleansing touch is a heal encounter
Circle of power: the shared effect is a joke. On Prot it's wonderfull. On Dev it's usefullness is lacking. As a leader (healer) your supposed to enable your team. Why not something like recharge speed increase instead of useless healing?
One thing about bond of virtue that's been ticking me off lately is sometimes the big circle goes away, and I keep having to look to make sure it's still on. Minor annoyance, but sometimes can be really bad because I just start thinking "it's probably still on xD" then everyone dies and I go "oh, nope, it wasn't."
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
The one that does damage for instance for tank spec, Aura of Radiance. That should be base line. If you're a tank, it should do as it does and give threat. If you are a healer, it should heal. Get rid of that poopy aura that just heals for devotion lol.
Lots of things could be added to auras to put devo clerics in line with DCs. Everytime you trigger aura of courge it could buff something in devo and/or something else in prot.
I know this is just tossing stuff out there, since it doesn't look like the class has really had much attention in a long time.
We always can ask to improve on the basis that the OP has for now but I would advise strongly against undermining it's fundation by changing its behavior completly.
And as I said ADD TO, and not CHANGE aura of courage, I don't see how that would affect anything at all. It would keep the base ability and add a secondary effect based on oath.