I have some concerns over the balance between the paladin and cleric in terms of the ability to cleanse negative effects, see below for comparison of the 2 classes' comparable divinity-based heals.
Devout Cleric Bastion of Health; 80 divinity, magnitude 800, AoE on target Healing Word; 160 divinity, magnitude 300 + 80 heal over time x 21s, AoE Cleansing Light; 90 divinity, magnitude 400 + cleanse, AoE on target
In terms of healing strength they seem balanced with each other, the Devout has higher healing magnitudes while the Oathkeeper makes up for it with shields which effectively double the potency of the spell. However the Oathkeeper lacks an AoE cleanse, while the Devout and Soulweaver are both able to remove negative statuses from the whole group. I'd like to suggest having another look at cleansing touch with the possibility of making it AoE at a higher divinity cost, otherwise Oathkeeper heals will fall behind the other 2 options in terms of cleansing ability, which from what I've seen of the new dungeon is actually a useful skill. I think an AoE cleansing touch is a fairly reasonable ask, as that is the distinction between Oath of Protection and oath of Devotion on live for the skill; the healer paragon has the skill upgraded to AoE by default.
Thanks for the feedback! Cleansing touch is very fast, and cheaper, so you can use it only on the players that need the cleanse, but I do understand your point, and in certain fights it may place you at a disadvantage. Obviously we want to have each of the healers have some small strengths and weaknesses to set them apart, and I don't believe that currently Oathkeeper is at a tremendous disadvantage because of this.
On the flip side, Oathkeeper is at a pretty large advantage in cases where there are high damage values, because the Oathkeeper can shield party members and prevent them from dying to what would otherwise be lethal damage. With that said, I will certainly be examining the differences between the healers closely, and working to ensure that none are unwelcome in certain cases because of their differences.
I loaded my GF and GWF last night and put their tank specs through enough of the quests to complete the first campaign node. Both of these characters are far below my Paly in gear and campaign completion so I was more interested in the relative “feel” of the classes as tanks.
GF is still a porcupine tank, can attack with shield up or if getting overrun can hit tab to maximise Defence and depend on reflected damage. This feels similar to the Paly because it has a lot of “shield up” play, but the inability to attack for the Paly makes it distinct, and Tab feels very different.
GWF is the crazy tank, depending on taking damage to generate shields and going into berserker mode. It has huge and apparent problems with threat generation, but once those are sorted is by far the most unique tank.
Which then brings me back to the Paly, it’s the turtle tank still, but being a turtle makes aggro generation much harder. So I’d like to suggest a change to the vfx of the Paly shield and it’s function. While the shield is up the OP should get a “divine glow” vfx and gain a 30’ (at least) circle of effect (with vfx that follows them) that gives reduced threat to allies and increases the threat of the Paly. Holding tab then makes that a splat on the ground and locks the Paly in place and begins consuming Divinity (instead of regaining it like shift), this then should apply the party DR effect and give the Paly even more aggro and better personal DR. Duration then becomes controlled by balancing the divinity consumption of its tics. This would very much help to create a clear visual difference between the 3 tanks without removing the “sword and board” flavour of the Paly.
Thanks for taking the time to check out all 3 tanks and give provide your thoughts on their differences. I know most people will not have time to do that level of testing, so it's appreciated! Barbarian is in a terrible spot as far as tanking is concerned, and it's getting massive changes this week, so check it out again after those changes.
I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind as I re-examine Paladin's powers. I actually think Paladin is in a good place threat-wise, particularly since the slight boost this last week, but let me know if you have time to test out any group play and are having a lot of trouble.
Make it reduce a massive amount of incoming damage, drop pallies outgoing damage to little or nothing, and boost threat a ton, for moderate divinity (or none). seems more in line with tanking, allows the use of at-wills and encounters to build threat without turtling. not sure how it would work out, just tossing the idea.
Thanks for taking the time to check out all 3 tanks and give provide your thoughts on their differences. I know most people will not have time to do that level of testing, so it's appreciated! Barbarian is in a terrible spot as far as tanking is concerned, and it's getting massive changes this week, so check it out again after those changes.
I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind as I re-examine Paladin's powers. I actually think Paladin is in a good place threat-wise, particularly since the slight boost this last week, but let me know if you have time to test out any group play and are having a lot of trouble.
I suspect that the Paly is in a good place right now for threat, but I'm also worried about the future as everything gets more tuned. Any time the Paly has to defend, because they got all the aggro, for a sustained time is a period when they are not creating aggro, and then they have to run (sometimes literally) to get it back.
Any time 2 toons with a significant difference in iL enter a dungeon where the lower iL belongs to the tank this is a risk even without sustained tanking - especially now that cooldowns are longer.
WRT Tanking Barbie, its tough to comment on right now, but, with caution, its damage makes my Paly (and Warlock) cry.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
In response to the Devs response to revelons response to me ( I am a boomer who has no idea how to post in the relevant section, sorry) I would say the following.: Firstly you have not replied to my request for a class re roll at existing item levels for those of who no longer enjoy the class we have spent years and substantial amounts of real money perfecting to our satisfaction; Secondly, what percentage of your existing player base like these changes as the majority of comments that I have seen are not complimentary. I assume that you are privy to feedback not available to me. I am sure that some people do like them but as I mentioned in my first comment what are you going to do for those of us who are not happy, if anything; Lastly I have no idea what you mean by your comment ‘opportunities to play roles that have historically not have a place in the game’ I see plenty of GWF; DCs and OPs playing the existing game perfectly happily in the role that they chose. I love my existing role of a power share tank and have no problems getting to do the content I want to do. So what are these roles to which you refer
Paladin (Oathkeeper) - The circle power skill should last much longer and follow the character. Ranged At-Will power should be do faster with greater damage and heal allies close to the target.
The 15% Bonus only applies to the passive regeneration in combat, out of combat I'd expect 69 instead of 63 Divinity every 3 seconds. It looks like it only adds a flat bonus of 3 to every tick.
Here is a table that shows which Feats / Skills generate how much Divinity and what value I would expect. I guess there is room for interpretation regarding some of the tooltips, but there you go : P . (The number outside the braces represents the added bonus and the number inside, the total amount)
The changes made in the Friday update make play way better since I was getting 1 shot by random mobs in several areas using my shield before it, and after can run those same areas without the shield and only take small damage to be able to attack. Feats are pretty much pointless going from what we had with powers that helped us to 5 powers that really aren't worth picking, and the new TAB power is really worthless since the only time it would be worth using are a few boss fights that the boss doesn't move. It won't be helpful to the party since they won't be behind me since I should be being attacked and anyone behind me will get hit.
Thanks for taking the time to check out all 3 tanks and give provide your thoughts on their differences. I know most people will not have time to do that level of testing, so it's appreciated! Barbarian is in a terrible spot as far as tanking is concerned, and it's getting massive changes this week, so check it out again after those changes.
I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind as I re-examine Paladin's powers. I actually think Paladin is in a good place threat-wise, particularly since the slight boost this last week, but let me know if you have time to test out any group play and are having a lot of trouble.
I suspect that the Paly is in a good place right now for threat, but I'm also worried about the future as everything gets more tuned. Any time the Paly has to defend, because they got all the aggro, for a sustained time is a period when they are not creating aggro, and then they have to run (sometimes literally) to get it back.
Any time 2 toons with a significant difference in iL enter a dungeon where the lower iL belongs to the tank this is a risk even without sustained tanking - especially now that cooldowns are longer.
WRT Tanking Barbie, its tough to comment on right now, but, with caution, its damage makes my Paly (and Warlock) cry.
There's going to be a lot of getting used to how often to actually use block, vs. lowering it. That's going to come in time with healers also getting used to their role, and tank healing. You're not really meant to sit behind your shield for massive chunks of time, and perhaps enemy damage is too low in scenarios where that is possible to begin with.
That being said, I share your exact concerns and will be watching closely and making adjustments.
Paladin (Oathkeeper) - The circle power skill should last much longer and follow the character. Ranged At-Will power should be do faster with greater damage and heal allies close to the target.
Circle of Power is intentionally build as a mechanic where you can benefit from trying to stay mostly in a relatively small, immobile space for a short time. It's hopefully a power that allows for some feeling of mastery as you learn when to drop it, and how to best avoid enemies while staying in the circle as much as possible during its uptime.
So that element is by design. Of course any power that incorporates those elements, is also likely to cause frustration when you're getting used to it, or when an unforeseeable situation arises that makes you unable to reap the benefit. I am certainly keeping an eye on the feedback though.
In response to the Devs response to revelons response to me ( I am a boomer who has no idea how to post in the relevant section, sorry) I would say the following.: Firstly you have not replied to my request for a class re roll at existing item levels for those of who no longer enjoy the class we have spent years and substantial amounts of real money perfecting to our satisfaction; Secondly, what percentage of your existing player base like these changes as the majority of comments that I have seen are not complimentary. I assume that you are privy to feedback not available to me. I am sure that some people do like them but as I mentioned in my first comment what are you going to do for those of us who are not happy, if anything; Lastly I have no idea what you mean by your comment ‘opportunities to play roles that have historically not have a place in the game’ I see plenty of GWF; DCs and OPs playing the existing game perfectly happily in the role that they chose. I love my existing role of a power share tank and have no problems getting to do the content I want to do. So what are these roles to which you refer
Hi Ananxiousnoob, I'm very sorry that I haven't managed to respond to your question yet. There are a lot of posts in a lot of threads, so I hope you won't take it personally that I missed yours! I will post an excerpt from another thread, where I replied to another poster to address some of the biases the come into play with forums, hopefully it's informative.
I know it's extremely frustrating to hear this, but only a tiny, tiny portion of the population uses the preview server, or goes on the forums at all for that matter. And then there are further elements to consider. For instance, let's assume 1% of Neverwinter players are active on the forums, that 1% of forum posters are not a representative sample of the population, for various reasons, but mostly self-selection bias.
There's also a bias towards negativity that plays a huge role, which going back to your brick and mortar store example, is why so many small business will try to encourage customers to go review their business. Because if you like it, you're pretty unlikely to go out of your way to tell them about it on the internet. However, if you hated it, you're likely to find your way to Yelp or what-have-you, with no help at all.
Now I don't say all of this with the goal of outright dismissing absolutely any of your feedback, or any other forum poster for that matter. Some of our most dedicated players are posters, and even if you just made an account to post about something that frustrated you on preview this week, we genuinely appreciate the time you've taken to let us know. We do hope we can resolve as many frustrations as possible.
I just feel like these things should be outlined so that you can also understand our position. There is an extremely large population of players who may have completely different, and unvoiced opinions than yourself, or any other forum poster for that matter.
But setting that aside, I want to address your original question: we currently have no plans to offer a "class reroll" service. Unfortunately, it's not technically possible at the moment, and would require a serious amount of work to implement.
That being said, I would like to address the core of your concern, and your comment that you weren't sure what I meant about being able to play roles that have not traditionally existed. In that case, I was referring to pure healing and pure tanking roles, those are roles which really haven't existed in Neverwinter in recent history. In this case, role was referring to the role (tank, healer, dps) not the class (cleric, paladin, etc.)
I would say that, there are plenty of frustrated players of other classes as well, especially Cleric, who were also up there in terms of being kings of the old powershare/buffstacking meta. What we would really like to do, if possible, is to capture as much of the feedback from those of you who have played your class on preview, and are dissatisfied and try to make changes to improve that experience, to eliminate the feeling that you need to reroll your class. I know we won't get there for everyone, but I would say that, if you're particularly upset about losing powershare, that won't be an option on any class.
I do hope you'll keep an open mind as you play through the changes, or if you're mostly speculating based on forum feedback, keep an open mind until you get your hands on the changes yourself. I do appreciate your perspective.
@asterdahl, you are a legend for the way you have been handling this preview cycle and the massive amount of work you have been putting in to keep communicating with us.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Thanks for taking the time to check out all 3 tanks and give provide your thoughts on their differences. I know most people will not have time to do that level of testing, so it's appreciated! Barbarian is in a terrible spot as far as tanking is concerned, and it's getting massive changes this week, so check it out again after those changes.
I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind as I re-examine Paladin's powers. I actually think Paladin is in a good place threat-wise, particularly since the slight boost this last week, but let me know if you have time to test out any group play and are having a lot of trouble.
I suspect that the Paly is in a good place right now for threat, but I'm also worried about the future as everything gets more tuned. Any time the Paly has to defend, because they got all the aggro, for a sustained time is a period when they are not creating aggro, and then they have to run (sometimes literally) to get it back.
Any time 2 toons with a significant difference in iL enter a dungeon where the lower iL belongs to the tank this is a risk even without sustained tanking - especially now that cooldowns are longer.
WRT Tanking Barbie, its tough to comment on right now, but, with caution, its damage makes my Paly (and Warlock) cry.
There's going to be a lot of getting used to how often to actually use block, vs. lowering it. That's going to come in time with healers also getting used to their role, and tank healing. You're not really meant to sit behind your shield for massive chunks of time, and perhaps enemy damage is too low in scenarios where that is possible to begin with.
That being said, I share your exact concerns and will be watching closely and making adjustments.
and yet you have designed it so that this is the most efficient playstyle...
@adterdahl. Thanks for responding to my query. My main concern is not the power share aspect of the OP although this is something that I do like. It is it’s current ability to stay alive during most, if not all, encounters and deal sufficient damage to complete solo content. This suits my playstyle because as a much older player I no longer have the reaction times for some of the other classes. I have tried and dislike the GF which is what I feel that you are turning the OP into and a poorer version of that because at least the GF can hit with its shield up. We need more variety in the classes each having their own strengths not 3 Tanks with at least one, the OP being the poor relation. ( I have not seen the GWF tank gameplay as I understand that the GWF is broken at the moment) I admit that my judgement is based entirely on the videos and live-streams which I have watched as I am a PS4 player but that is all that I can judge on. Console players are not in your loop for consultation. I specifically joined this forum to comment because I was so horrified at what I saw. Neither of us knows whether the majority of your customers who do not comment on forums or watch videos etc will like or dislike the class changes in mod 16 or are even aware of those sweeping changes.They will quietly up and leave or stay. I realise that the Mod 16 class changes are a ‘done deal’ and that there is little point in railing against them, you will do whatever you want, but as someone who cares I felt I needed to comment before the class I love is destroyed. Edited to add You took our Porsche’s and turned them into Trabants
@ananxiousnoob#0947 having actually tested all 3 tanks, at least enough to see them blocking and get a feel for their gameplay, I’m confident that each feels distinct still. I’m also confident that the OP will see improvements as testing goes forward.
The big thing right now is to realise that the first few weeks of this testing phase will be about catching the big problems, like the mobs doing unexpectedly high damage and one shooting everything. The later weeks of the play test will be more about dialing in on the specific balance of the classes.
Still, you will see by looking through the various class threads (especially under Asterdahl”s watch) that the devs are discussing and listening to the player’s ideas on how to make the classes meet player expectations while meeting the team’s design goals. So changes to classes are happening. What the devs are not doing is changing classes due to bugs not tied to the class, which is oft seen by players as not addressing their complaints.
Personally I”ve levelled a boonless OP character that worked nearly entirely off the quest rewards for gear and my main Paly through the content and just not found the problems others are having. I’ve also levelled a Warlock through and nearly finished a Sentinel Barbarian, and of the 4 the Warlock has had the hardest time. (I’ve done some with a GF, but frankly I’m happy it doesn’t feel like my Paly, so couldn’t care enough to keep testing.)
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
You mentioned earlier that it is your belief that as healers get the hang of actually healing then the tanking survivability will improve. That is probably true but lets ignore that for now except to say surviving does not equate to engaging.
Grabbing initial agro is not a problem. After that things can go dicey real fast. I block. I analyze the pattern of attack looking for the window where I can drop my block and attack again. I can usually hold agro against a single mob or if it turns, get it back pretty easily. If there are multiple mobs this proposition has a very small margin of error. If one or more mobs peel off and go after others getting them back can be quite problematic. You have to have your encounters available and hope that you dont die when you have to turn your back on the main group. Otherwise you are SOL for the duration of cooldowns. Because there is no convenience function providing the group the ability to focus fire it becomes common that multiple mobs will go off after different people in different directions. If they are playing at range it gets more complicated. Is it your intent that everyone play in melee range?
Now one encounter where the problem is most eggregious is the last fight in Kessel. Multiple hard hitting mobs and boss. Once we get beyond initial contact it is has been almost impossible for me to control the encounter. The beholders are all over the place killing people. Lots of red to move out of so holding agro is a challenge. With the added wrinkle of periodic stun and the high TTK players just die repeatedly. More mobs will spawn and it is basically over. I think this is a case where the encounter itself is OP compared to the available player mechanic. I am sure there are more examples.
After failing repeatedly with no solution in sight i exhumed a strategy from EQ1. Adding a second tank to the group to control the adds and everyone else on the boss only made the fight win-able BUT very very long. Having multiple secondary tanks in EQ1 was the norm but they were primarily in use during 72 person encounters never in group encounters.
While i can endorse conceptually what you are trying to do from a tanking perspective on the execution side the result can be distilled down to a 2-button meme; block and agro. Spending most of my time blocking gets old really fast. IMO OP tanks need some additional flexibility and utility to make the class sustainable. Hopefully you will be able to evolve it into something compelling. As it stands the dramatic change to a limited and NARROW play style will predictably alienate the player base. The handful of people in this thread who seem to like it are not representative of the community. Neither am I for that matter.
On a side note, the broken Sentinel is a blast to play as dps with survivability. Most fun I have had in a while!!!!!!!!
Thank you so much for destroying the game and character I've been playing for 3 years. I will be expecting a refund for all the time and money I have put into this game!!!!
Thank you so much for destroying the game and character I've been playing for 3 years. I will be expecting a refund for all the time and money I have put into this game!!!!
HAYDEN
Me too, I'm totally depressed with what I saw on the preview module. This is a Paladin disaster. My only character that I played for a few years and I invested a lot of money in my OP
Honestly, I'm going to have to state that I disagree with the current deluge of salt and tears and think the paladin changes are (mostly) good. I will need more time in group content to offer a solid opinion on that aspect, but the soloing is very solid.
@obsidiancran3 Thanks for responding to my comment. I value reading everyone’s experiences and perspectives on mod 16. I am glad that you are feeling differences between the various ‘tanks’. Without an ability to try them out myself I have been going on what I have seen. My problem is that I do not like having to put up a shield, I have a GF and do not enjoy playing them. At the moment my OP can stand in the midst of a huge group of enemies while they pound on me, hitting them and not die. It may take me three times as long to kill them as other classes but I don’t have a problem with that. With the changes in mod 16 it doesn’t look like that will be the case. I will become a GF of a different type. Unfortunately the Devs are not facilitating a class change at existing item and power levels etc as I may, in mod 16, prefer to play a more ranged DPS class. I will keep a close eye on what the Devs do to the OP after they manage to sort out the bugs. Who knows I might change my mind lol. Thank you again for replying
ALL OF OUR DAMAGING POWERS DEAL INCREDIBLY LOW AMAUNT OF DAMAGE!! DPS OR NOT, THERE IS A LIMIT ON HOW MUCH CAN YOU LOWER A CLASS' POWERS! THAT'S RIDICOULUS! MORE DAMAGE NOW!
Honestly, I'm going to have to state that I disagree with the current deluge of salt and tears and think the paladin changes are (mostly) good. I will need more time in group content to offer a solid opinion on that aspect, but the soloing is very solid.
I agree the soloing is solid, I've run through the entire undermountain campaign and leveled mine up to 80 all without partying up. Aside from the very last dungeon bit it was pretty easy. However I've also done the same on most classes now - and i'll post in full when i have completed it on all 8, but at this point i'm yet to find another class that is as slow at soloing as the Pally. My concern isn't that the Pally cant solo, its that my alts are all between 3k and 4k IL lower than my OP, and so far they have all Solo'd just as easily and a lot more quickly. I'm getting the sense that whilst the Dev's my have achieved (not yet but its getting there) in dungeon balance between same job roles, but in solo the OP is behind the curve.
@obsidiancran3 Thanks for responding to my comment. I value reading everyone’s experiences and perspectives on mod 16. I am glad that you are feeling differences between the various ‘tanks’. Without an ability to try them out myself I have been going on what I have seen. My problem is that I do not like having to put up a shield, I have a GF and do not enjoy playing them. At the moment my OP can stand in the midst of a huge group of enemies while they pound on me, hitting them and not die. It may take me three times as long to kill them as other classes but I don’t have a problem with that. With the changes in mod 16 it doesn’t look like that will be the case. I will become a GF of a different type. Unfortunately the Devs are not facilitating a class change at existing item and power levels etc as I may, in mod 16, prefer to play a more ranged DPS class. I will keep a close eye on what the Devs do to the OP after they manage to sort out the bugs. Who knows I might change my mind lol. Thank you again for replying
And this is the main problem with these changes, according to me. Paladin is no longer a paladin. He was a unique class, instead of increasing the defense, we increased life, instead of block mechanics we had a temporary life built on damage dealt, instead of the usual block that the guardian always had, we had sanctuary. If I liked the style of playing Guardian, I would choose it instead of a paladin. I have GF but it will never be just as much fun as my mod15 paladin. Now paladin playstyle looks like this: block skill block skill ended with divinity, block block block .... who came up with the idea of changing the class and making it a GF only with some other encounters and at-wills? I didn't play GWF on preview but did you take sprint from him too? Did you make his all skills ranged? Propably not so why did you do that to paladin (changed everything he was)? These are not changes only in skills and some minor tweaks to character. It's a completely new class, who came up with the idea that players would like it?
> @ron#1747 said: > ALL OF OUR DAMAGING POWERS DEAL INCREDIBLY LOW AMAUNT OF DAMAGE!! DPS OR NOT, THERE IS A LIMIT ON HOW MUCH CAN YOU LOWER A CLASS' POWERS! THAT'S RIDICOULUS! MORE DAMAGE NOW!
Please answer because it's too hard to solo with my paladin now
Thank you so much for destroying the game and character I've been playing for 3 years. I will be expecting a refund for all the time and money I have put into this game!!!!
HAYDEN
Me too, I'm totally depressed with what I saw on the preview module. This is a Paladin disaster. My only character that I played for a few years and I invested a lot of money in my OP
Quick question... Are you a power based tank or a HP based tank ?... You have proper mount / companion combinations ?... Or is it way a OP must engage (like a GF) ?
I've taken a bit of time getting used to the new mechanics and there are some things that struck me as odd as well as some questions. I copied snippets of my combat log which were trimmed for this post. Also limited the samples to only one or two copies of my results.
Burning light damage does not appear to be tied to casting time.
Burning light full duration 3 sec cast results [Combat (Self)] Your Burning Light deals 9133 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Burning Light deals 8687 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
Burning light single click cast [Combat (Self)] Your Burning Light deals 8623 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Burning Light deals 9276 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
I'm not certain if the stun duration is affected by the casting time or not.
Smite vs Sacred weapon damage seems wildly out of league. Smite magnitude 220 [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Smite deals 160366 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Smite deals 116039 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Smite deals 64561 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Smite deals 73079 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
Sacred weapon magnitude 40 results [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 3281 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Sacred Weapon deals 1809 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Sacred Weapon deals 1604 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 2991 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Sacred Weapon deals 1682 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 3458 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Sacred Weapon deals 1902 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 3297 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 3446 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Sacred Weapon deals 1690 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 3406 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
Magnituted 40, 11 strikes Total boost in damage 28566
Given the long cooldown, sacred weapon does a much smaller amount comparatively to a single smite. Even accounting for critical hits within sacred weapon when compared to normal and critical strikes with smite. In previous versions I had found that sacred weapon would outperform smite for the cooldown and wondered if sacred weapon needs a bump or if this is intended due to the divinity nature of smite attacks now?
Vow of emnity places me on top of the level of threat but its not entirely clear to me if this vow is an instantaneous placement or if it has a duration and can hold me at the top of the list for a while.
I love devotion Paladin’s, (Guess they are “Oathkeeper” now, I’ll adjust quickly as I can.) and have been playing them since they first were introduced. When Paladin was introduced to Neverwinter, I immediately reprised my favorite “City of Heroes” (old game by Cryptic) character, a peacebringer, and absolutely love the Paladin class. Because of the Peacebringer tribute aspect, my mentality is 1 quick jab power, 1 slower strong power, and 1 AOE, with as many group buffs as possible. Which is totally possible as Paladin’s currently are on the live servers; with passive “Aura” buffs, the “Tab” heal, and the Shift-power “Sanctuary”.
That being said, here are my skill choices I’ve been testing with the changes with my Oathkeeper… (Please bear with me, I’m not as “meta” as many other gamers, and often my choices have more to do with looks and concept than DPS and mathematics.) I find Single Target heal powers too difficult for me to use. Combat is action packed in groups, and targeting another (usually moving player) to give the heal, while praying an enemy dosen’t choose that time to get in the way is more than I can personally do reliably. I just don’t have that level of “twitch skill”, so I avoid all single target heal powers in my build, which rules out me using… Cure wounds, Cleansing Touch, Bond of Virtue, Lay of Hands.
The ground placed heal “Circle of Power” is too situational. Battle is dynamic, players are dodging, and moving around, which is fun, but also makes Circle of Power difficult to effectively use as players nor caster can clearly tell where the buff area is. When I cast it, I feel like I’m asking the team to stand on this X on the ground and pray my buff outweighs your ability to dodge and move. *side note: it would be helpful if it was easier to tell the effective range of ground location powers during combat. Perhaps a golden ring on the ground? That being said, I do like the “1-2 punch” combo of Divine Touch & Bane, both instant fire - ground location powers, which removes most of the worry about range. It’s a fun combo, all bad guys get bloody, and all good guys get healthy in one instant POW! However that combo is expensive taking ~380 Divinity, which is more than 1/3 of total available Divinity. Fun combo, but need to be careful using it and quickly draining all power.
My personal skills that are available for no Divinity cost are… “Burning Light”: CD of ~ 18 seconds; “Sacred Weapon”: CD of ~ 27 seconds (also lasts less than ½ the CD time, and helps no one but me); “Banishment”: CD of ~ 19 seconds. (6 second stun, no damage. I still need to experiment with this before I can decide on it’s effectiveness in combat.) Circle of Power and Bond of Virtue, I personally avoid them, but are options for people with more confidence in “twitchy” skills than I have.
All Class Feature Aura’s are now tied to the Daily Power as opposed to passive area buffs. Also the Class Feature Composure is now effectively a “Skill Tax”… If you are going to play a Paladin, or at least plan to do anything in combat you must pick this skill. Divine power recharges entirely too slowly, to the point where I’m actually afraid to use it in groups.
Feats… My first thought is “Only two choices?” First feat, as stated above, I avoid Cure Wounds, so I picked Free Blessing, in case I put Divine Touch in my bar. It’d be nice to understand what constitutes a “Divine Benison”, I’m acting on the assumption it’s all skills that have Divinity Cost, but as of yet I haven’t done enough testing to confirm this. Second feat, another single target heal skill, so I avoid Cleansing Ward, and chose Divine Weapon. Which is good since Sacred Weapon is a good option for me to put in my skill bar. Third feat, I chose Keeper’s Wrath because Bane and Smite are both good skills, so having the option to lower their cost is nice. Lasting Bond… effects another single target heal, I avoided this one also, same reason. Fourth Feat, this one was actually a tough choice for me. Both are decent options. I chose Prayer of Opportunity, since from I have seen so far, my best option is to heavily focus on Daily Powers due to Class Feature changes, and work my build so my Daily’s can fire as often as possible.
I tried to stick to my “Peacebringer” tribute build with these changes. Due to there are no longer any passive heal/buff arura’s, the Sanctuary shift-power was replace by Block, (disappointing as it’s no longer special, and is now the same thing as every other shield user gets) and since I’m by definition supposed to be a healer, I feel obligated to have at least one active heal in my toolbar. I chose Divine Shelter for my encounter heal, it’s an AOE that focus around me and not ground location, it has the added bonus of “bubbles” which is really nice. (Anyone else remember CoH “bubble defenders”.) The 80’ radius on Divine Shelter is quite good, and I’m happy with the range. So my current Oathkeeper build goes with 1 single target, 1 AOE, and 1 heal.
My current skill choice is… Daily: Divine Judgement, and Shield of Faith (My test character isn’t level 80 yet, so haven’t checked out the newly relocated Sanctuary.) Encounters: Smite (sometimes I switch this out for Sacred Weapon), Burning light, and Divine Shelter (my personal best option for a heal.) At-Wills: Valorous Strike (on live, I use Oath Strike, but it’s now Justicar only and the heal proc was removed), Radiant Strike (Absolutely love this skill! Advance to target and AOE.) Class Feature: Composure “Skill tax”, and Divine Justice for solo play; Timely Intervention is my current choice for group play. I’m still tinkering with my 2nd available class feature.
Overall, my Paladin may only be a small fraction of the healer he used to be and his passive team buffs are gone, but he does more damage now than he did on the live servers, which is fun! However he doesn’t do near as much as fighter classes and his survivability is notably decreased. I personally am stronger, but I do very little compared to the current live build to increase the power of my teammates overall. I’m no longer a team buffer, and reliable healer but I do hit harder. The little team play I’ve been able to do so far, are showing decent results. I honestly expected to be spending much more time worrying and trying to keep my party alive with 1 heal/bubble and my Daily. Pleasantly I’m finding I actually get to fight much more than I do with my live Paladin, which is fantastic. However, I haven’t had the opportunity to test my build for advanced and higher ques, but I’m having a great time with the added freedom to join the fight rather than just being a dedicated melee healer. On live servers, I use the shift-power Sanctuary quite often at advanced and higher difficulties, and since that is gone, and there are no passives anymore, I’m worried I’ll be unable to do my job at higher difficulties.
Initially, this does feel like a “nerf” and I’m going to miss my Paladin passive auras. Not entirely sure of the paladin role anymore. We have a couple stuns and a couple heals (as long as we don’t run out of power) I’ll need some time to find my niche again that separates the Paladin from fighter classes.
> ALL OF OUR DAMAGING POWERS DEAL INCREDIBLY LOW AMAUNT OF DAMAGE!! DPS OR NOT, THERE IS A LIMIT ON HOW MUCH CAN YOU LOWER A CLASS' POWERS! THAT'S RIDICOULUS! MORE DAMAGE NOW!
Please answer because it's too hard to solo with my paladin now
Comments
On the flip side, Oathkeeper is at a pretty large advantage in cases where there are high damage values, because the Oathkeeper can shield party members and prevent them from dying to what would otherwise be lethal damage. With that said, I will certainly be examining the differences between the healers closely, and working to ensure that none are unwelcome in certain cases because of their differences.
I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind as I re-examine Paladin's powers. I actually think Paladin is in a good place threat-wise, particularly since the slight boost this last week, but let me know if you have time to test out any group play and are having a lot of trouble.
Make it reduce a massive amount of incoming damage, drop pallies outgoing damage to little or nothing, and boost threat a ton, for moderate divinity (or none). seems more in line with tanking, allows the use of at-wills and encounters to build threat without turtling. not sure how it would work out, just tossing the idea.
Any time 2 toons with a significant difference in iL enter a dungeon where the lower iL belongs to the tank this is a risk even without sustained tanking - especially now that cooldowns are longer.
WRT Tanking Barbie, its tough to comment on right now, but, with caution, its damage makes my Paly (and Warlock) cry.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Composure
The 15% Bonus only applies to the passive regeneration in combat, out of combat I'd expect 69 instead of 63 Divinity every 3 seconds. It looks like it only adds a flat bonus of 3 to every tick.
Here is a table that shows which Feats / Skills generate how much Divinity and what value I would expect. I guess there is room for interpretation regarding some of the tooltips, but there you go : P . (The number outside the braces represents the added bonus and the number inside, the total amount)
That being said, I share your exact concerns and will be watching closely and making adjustments.
So that element is by design. Of course any power that incorporates those elements, is also likely to cause frustration when you're getting used to it, or when an unforeseeable situation arises that makes you unable to reap the benefit. I am certainly keeping an eye on the feedback though.
That being said, I would like to address the core of your concern, and your comment that you weren't sure what I meant about being able to play roles that have not traditionally existed. In that case, I was referring to pure healing and pure tanking roles, those are roles which really haven't existed in Neverwinter in recent history. In this case, role was referring to the role (tank, healer, dps) not the class (cleric, paladin, etc.)
I would say that, there are plenty of frustrated players of other classes as well, especially Cleric, who were also up there in terms of being kings of the old powershare/buffstacking meta. What we would really like to do, if possible, is to capture as much of the feedback from those of you who have played your class on preview, and are dissatisfied and try to make changes to improve that experience, to eliminate the feeling that you need to reroll your class. I know we won't get there for everyone, but I would say that, if you're particularly upset about losing powershare, that won't be an option on any class.
I do hope you'll keep an open mind as you play through the changes, or if you're mostly speculating based on forum feedback, keep an open mind until you get your hands on the changes yourself. I do appreciate your perspective.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
The big thing right now is to realise that the first few weeks of this testing phase will be about catching the big problems, like the mobs doing unexpectedly high damage and one shooting everything. The later weeks of the play test will be more about dialing in on the specific balance of the classes.
Still, you will see by looking through the various class threads (especially under Asterdahl”s watch) that the devs are discussing and listening to the player’s ideas on how to make the classes meet player expectations while meeting the team’s design goals. So changes to classes are happening. What the devs are not doing is changing classes due to bugs not tied to the class, which is oft seen by players as not addressing their complaints.
Personally I”ve levelled a boonless OP character that worked nearly entirely off the quest rewards for gear and my main Paly through the content and just not found the problems others are having. I’ve also levelled a Warlock through and nearly finished a Sentinel Barbarian, and of the 4 the Warlock has had the hardest time. (I’ve done some with a GF, but frankly I’m happy it doesn’t feel like my Paly, so couldn’t care enough to keep testing.)
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I have gone through the campaign.
@80 I have all my def (and most off) stats capped based on this post -> https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1246551/ez-reference-stat-caps-table-mod-16-caps-for-lvl-80-pve
You mentioned earlier that it is your belief that as healers get the hang of actually healing then the tanking survivability will improve. That is probably true but lets ignore that for now except to say surviving does not equate to engaging.
Grabbing initial agro is not a problem.
After that things can go dicey real fast. I block. I analyze the pattern of attack looking for the window where I can drop my block and attack again. I can usually hold agro against a single mob or if it turns, get it back pretty easily. If there are multiple mobs this proposition has a very small margin of error. If one or more mobs peel off and go after others getting them back can be quite problematic. You have to have your encounters available and hope that you dont die when you have to turn your back on the main group. Otherwise you are SOL for the duration of cooldowns. Because there is no convenience function providing the group the ability to focus fire it becomes common that multiple mobs will go off after different people in different directions. If they are playing at range it gets more complicated. Is it your intent that everyone play in melee range?
Now one encounter where the problem is most eggregious is the last fight in Kessel. Multiple hard hitting mobs and boss. Once we get beyond initial contact it is has been almost impossible for me to control the encounter. The beholders are all over the place killing people. Lots of red to move out of so holding agro is a challenge. With the added wrinkle of periodic stun and the high TTK players just die repeatedly. More mobs will spawn and it is basically over. I think this is a case where the encounter itself is OP compared to the available player mechanic. I am sure there are more examples.
After failing repeatedly with no solution in sight i exhumed a strategy from EQ1. Adding a second tank to the group to control the adds and everyone else on the boss only made the fight win-able BUT very very long. Having multiple secondary tanks in EQ1 was the norm but they were primarily in use during 72 person encounters never in group encounters.
While i can endorse conceptually what you are trying to do from a tanking perspective on the execution side the result can be distilled down to a 2-button meme; block and agro. Spending most of my time blocking gets old really fast. IMO OP tanks need some additional flexibility and utility to make the class sustainable. Hopefully you will be able to evolve it into something compelling. As it stands the dramatic change to a limited and NARROW play style will predictably alienate the player base. The handful of people in this thread who seem to like it are not representative of the community. Neither am I for that matter.
On a side note, the broken Sentinel is a blast to play as dps with survivability. Most fun I have had in a while!!!!!!!!
HAYDEN
Paladin is no longer a paladin. He was a unique class, instead of increasing the defense, we increased life, instead of block mechanics we had a temporary life built on damage dealt, instead of the usual block that the guardian always had, we had sanctuary. If I liked the style of playing Guardian, I would choose it instead of a paladin. I have GF but it will never be just as much fun as my mod15 paladin.
Now paladin playstyle looks like this:
block
skill
block
skill
ended with divinity, block block block ....
who came up with the idea of changing the class and making it a GF only with some other encounters and at-wills?
I didn't play GWF on preview but did you take sprint from him too?
Did you make his all skills ranged?
Propably not so why did you do that to paladin (changed everything he was)?
These are not changes only in skills and some minor tweaks to character.
It's a completely new class, who came up with the idea that players would like it?
> ALL OF OUR DAMAGING POWERS DEAL INCREDIBLY LOW AMAUNT OF DAMAGE!! DPS OR NOT, THERE IS A LIMIT ON HOW MUCH CAN YOU LOWER A CLASS' POWERS! THAT'S RIDICOULUS! MORE DAMAGE NOW!
Please answer because it's too hard to solo with my paladin now
You have proper mount / companion combinations ?...
Or is it way a OP must engage (like a GF) ?
I copied snippets of my combat log which were trimmed for this post. Also limited the samples to only one or two copies of my results.
Burning light damage does not appear to be tied to casting time.
Burning light full duration 3 sec cast results
[Combat (Self)] Your Burning Light deals 9133 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Burning Light deals 8687 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
Burning light single click cast
[Combat (Self)] Your Burning Light deals 8623 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Burning Light deals 9276 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
I'm not certain if the stun duration is affected by the casting time or not.
Smite vs Sacred weapon damage seems wildly out of league.
Smite magnitude 220
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Smite deals 160366 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Smite deals 116039 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Smite deals 64561 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Smite deals 73079 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
Sacred weapon magnitude 40 results
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 3281 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Sacred Weapon deals 1809 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Sacred Weapon deals 1604 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 2991 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Sacred Weapon deals 1682 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 3458 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Sacred Weapon deals 1902 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 3297 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 3446 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Sacred Weapon deals 1690 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sacred Weapon deals 3406 Radiant Damage to Target Dummy.
Magnituted 40, 11 strikes
Total boost in damage 28566
Given the long cooldown, sacred weapon does a much smaller amount comparatively to a single smite. Even accounting for critical hits within sacred weapon when compared to normal and critical strikes with smite.
In previous versions I had found that sacred weapon would outperform smite for the cooldown and wondered if sacred weapon needs a bump or if this is intended due to the divinity nature of smite attacks now?
Vow of emnity places me on top of the level of threat but its not entirely clear to me if this vow is an instantaneous placement or if it has a duration and can hold me at the top of the list for a while.
That being said, here are my skill choices I’ve been testing with the changes with my Oathkeeper… (Please bear with me, I’m not as “meta” as many other gamers, and often my choices have more to do with looks and concept than DPS and mathematics.)
I find Single Target heal powers too difficult for me to use. Combat is action packed in groups, and targeting another (usually moving player) to give the heal, while praying an enemy dosen’t choose that time to get in the way is more than I can personally do reliably. I just don’t have that level of “twitch skill”, so I avoid all single target heal powers in my build, which rules out me using…
Cure wounds, Cleansing Touch, Bond of Virtue, Lay of Hands.
The ground placed heal “Circle of Power” is too situational. Battle is dynamic, players are dodging, and moving around, which is fun, but also makes Circle of Power difficult to effectively use as players nor caster can clearly tell where the buff area is. When I cast it, I feel like I’m asking the team to stand on this X on the ground and pray my buff outweighs your ability to dodge and move. *side note: it would be helpful if it was easier to tell the effective range of ground location powers during combat. Perhaps a golden ring on the ground?
That being said, I do like the “1-2 punch” combo of Divine Touch & Bane, both instant fire - ground location powers, which removes most of the worry about range. It’s a fun combo, all bad guys get bloody, and all good guys get healthy in one instant POW! However that combo is expensive taking ~380 Divinity, which is more than 1/3 of total available Divinity. Fun combo, but need to be careful using it and quickly draining all power.
My personal skills that are available for no Divinity cost are…
“Burning Light”: CD of ~ 18 seconds;
“Sacred Weapon”: CD of ~ 27 seconds (also lasts less than ½ the CD time, and helps no one but me);
“Banishment”: CD of ~ 19 seconds. (6 second stun, no damage. I still need to experiment with this before I can decide on it’s effectiveness in combat.)
Circle of Power and Bond of Virtue, I personally avoid them, but are options for people with more confidence in “twitchy” skills than I have.
All Class Feature Aura’s are now tied to the Daily Power as opposed to passive area buffs. Also the Class Feature Composure is now effectively a “Skill Tax”… If you are going to play a Paladin, or at least plan to do anything in combat you must pick this skill. Divine power recharges entirely too slowly, to the point where I’m actually afraid to use it in groups.
Feats… My first thought is “Only two choices?”
First feat, as stated above, I avoid Cure Wounds, so I picked Free Blessing, in case I put Divine Touch in my bar. It’d be nice to understand what constitutes a “Divine Benison”, I’m acting on the assumption it’s all skills that have Divinity Cost, but as of yet I haven’t done enough testing to confirm this.
Second feat, another single target heal skill, so I avoid Cleansing Ward, and chose Divine Weapon. Which is good since Sacred Weapon is a good option for me to put in my skill bar.
Third feat, I chose Keeper’s Wrath because Bane and Smite are both good skills, so having the option to lower their cost is nice. Lasting Bond… effects another single target heal, I avoided this one also, same reason.
Fourth Feat, this one was actually a tough choice for me. Both are decent options. I chose Prayer of Opportunity, since from I have seen so far, my best option is to heavily focus on Daily Powers due to Class Feature changes, and work my build so my Daily’s can fire as often as possible.
I tried to stick to my “Peacebringer” tribute build with these changes. Due to there are no longer any passive heal/buff arura’s, the Sanctuary shift-power was replace by Block, (disappointing as it’s no longer special, and is now the same thing as every other shield user gets) and since I’m by definition supposed to be a healer, I feel obligated to have at least one active heal in my toolbar. I chose Divine Shelter for my encounter heal, it’s an AOE that focus around me and not ground location, it has the added bonus of “bubbles” which is really nice. (Anyone else remember CoH “bubble defenders”.) The 80’ radius on Divine Shelter is quite good, and I’m happy with the range. So my current Oathkeeper build goes with 1 single target, 1 AOE, and 1 heal.
My current skill choice is…
Daily: Divine Judgement, and Shield of Faith (My test character isn’t level 80 yet, so haven’t checked out the newly relocated Sanctuary.)
Encounters: Smite (sometimes I switch this out for Sacred Weapon), Burning light, and Divine Shelter (my personal best option for a heal.)
At-Wills: Valorous Strike (on live, I use Oath Strike, but it’s now Justicar only and the heal proc was removed), Radiant Strike (Absolutely love this skill! Advance to target and AOE.)
Class Feature: Composure “Skill tax”, and Divine Justice for solo play; Timely Intervention is my current choice for group play. I’m still tinkering with my 2nd available class feature.
Overall, my Paladin may only be a small fraction of the healer he used to be and his passive team buffs are gone, but he does more damage now than he did on the live servers, which is fun! However he doesn’t do near as much as fighter classes and his survivability is notably decreased. I personally am stronger, but I do very little compared to the current live build to increase the power of my teammates overall. I’m no longer a team buffer, and reliable healer but I do hit harder. The little team play I’ve been able to do so far, are showing decent results. I honestly expected to be spending much more time worrying and trying to keep my party alive with 1 heal/bubble and my Daily. Pleasantly I’m finding I actually get to fight much more than I do with my live Paladin, which is fantastic. However, I haven’t had the opportunity to test my build for advanced and higher ques, but I’m having a great time with the added freedom to join the fight rather than just being a dedicated melee healer. On live servers, I use the shift-power Sanctuary quite often at advanced and higher difficulties, and since that is gone, and there are no passives anymore, I’m worried I’ll be unable to do my job at higher difficulties.
Initially, this does feel like a “nerf” and I’m going to miss my Paladin passive auras. Not entirely sure of the paladin role anymore. We have a couple stuns and a couple heals (as long as we don’t run out of power) I’ll need some time to find my niche again that separates the Paladin from fighter classes.