Im not gonna talk about how we, as Paladin players, want more damage or faster powers or whatever. I'll talk about something. imo, very important. Why go Justicar? Really why? Right now the only "reward" for choosing the tanking path is doing 30% less damage! Let that sink in, Oathkeeper can block just the same, can do alot more damage, can heal a lot more and the only thing he doesnt have are aggro grabbers..which he doesn't need since dps classes are going to steal aggro from tanks anyway.. So why Justicar? No reason at all whatsoever. Dear devs, take a good look at the Paladin please. How come Sentinel's feats can recharge encounters instantly or give upto 5000 defence, or give temp hp or be actually usefull while Justicar feats do what? Double stamina gain from Shileding Strike..if using Sacred Weapon - umm why would a tank be using a dps booster while tanking? Give more Divinity while Absolution is up..OK what about D recovery when Absolution is not even slotted? Towering Light - D now regenerates faster when above 75%..by far the only one useful Feat..
Anyway, heres my feedback. Right now, choosing the tanking Paladin path is like giving up your own arm. Your sword bearing arm, you are willingly becoming Jaime Lannister post arm chop, AKA useless! There is no point in choosing Justicar. Passives/auras/, at wills, feats, tanking dailies all need to be looked at and actually changed by someone who has played the game as a Paladin tank. On paper your changes may look good but that means nothing. Get in, play as all of the tanks, then play as Justicar and play as Oathkeeper. Let me know which of the above was the most boring.. Hint: I already know
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
Justicar should have been called Justawimp, ohh my god the paladin should have gotten a dps spec like the others. I just don't know what to say. What a mess. Slow divinty charge low at-will damage (not sure at-wills do anything) Maybe if divinity actually charged a little faster. I just don't know and who designed the feats, fired right now. I want to re-roll a GF
Something players not tend to talk about due a lot of them talk only about the negative (for them) aspects, but this should be addressed too because this is not normal imho... I do not want to mislead the Dev's, so I am going to point it out.
Is this normal for a Tank ???? Your Smite deals 15260090 (91922) Radiant Damage to Umber Hulk. Your Smite deals 20577306 (99946) Radiant Damage to Rebellious Glabrezu.
Same thing counts for Rustmonster
I might be hated for addressing this. but hey We all want a balanced game.
So reading the last two bits of feedback I thought I would go and see what options in feats were available to maximize the tank side of the Paragon path. The answer is very sad:
Feats: All feats come as part of a paragon Path, thus they should directly support the role of the Paragon Path.
Paladin Feats: Valorous Judgement: Its a 5% chance to have my next Smite crit, well my Smite already has an 18% chance to crit in level 80 content, so why do I need this again? Sacred Shield: Doubles stamina regenerated by Shielding Strike, ok this sounds like it helps with tanking. That's good. As already mentioned though this power doesn't unlock until level 72, so that's a 32 level wait to get any benefit or you need to respec. So at level 72 or higher this is the better feat...
Divine Reciprocation - This is a healing feat, what is it doing in the Tank spec? Also must run Divine Touch or its a dead feat. Absolute Shield - Must run absolution or its a dead feat.
Bound to the Land - Actually helps with tanking, but as raising your shield also makes you CC immune, it could be better. Also requires running Binding Oath - which is no longer even remotely binding, because it doesn't give threat. Enhanced Radiant Charge - ah a power that makes a daily a gap closer, why?
Vigilant Defender - another tanking feat - yay. Problem is there is no clue what benefit it gives at all. Towering Light - If you use your Divinity Powers this does nothing, unless somehow the fight is over after you Divine Touch (why? you are tanking) or Smite (you don't want to be too bored). Its trigger condition is just too small to make it worth using.
Divine Benefactor - Doubles the range of the (single target) but halves the effectiveness. Why would you take this? I'm already struggling to see any value in Divine Protector as it stands, why would you make it worse? Bulwark of Faith - Shield of Faith now restores 50% of your stamina instantly. At least this says how much stamina it gives you.
Basically everyone of these feats:
Between locking in power choices (ie use the power or waste the feat), being off spec without solving a problem the spec has or just offering no meaningful benefit, they are all in serious need of an overhaul.
You can add most of the passives to that list as well.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Something players not tend to talk about due a lot of them talk only about the negative (for them) aspects, but this should be addressed too because this is not normal imho... I do not want to mislead the Dev's, so I am going to point it out.
Is this normal for a Tank ???? Your Smite deals 15260090 (91922) Radiant Damage to Umber Hulk. Your Smite deals 20577306 (99946) Radiant Damage to Rebellious Glabrezu.
Same thing counts for Rustmonster
I might be hated for addressing this. but hey We all want a balanced game.
That's your broken rust monster doing that, not the encounter power. Currently lots of companions and artifacts are broke.
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...
Paladin is certainly on preview the class that most benefits from blocking in the sense that they gain offensive output from blocking through Crusader's Charge. I'm definitely looking into providing alternate play styles through feats, perhaps with something more like the turtle-and-riposte style being one of two options instead of the only option. I apologize that there haven't been any revisions on the Paladin feats yet, I'm working on them but they won't be ready for this week's build.
That being said, there are going to be some changes. Here's a sample of what's in store:
Out of combat divinity regeneration is being increased slightly.
Divine Call will now return more divinity when used out of combat.
Burning Light's recast decreased to 15s from ~20s, magnitude increased from 200 to 300, it will deal 200 magnitude if you tap it, 300 if you hold it down for its ~1.5s cast.
Sacred Weapon's added damage magnitude increased from 40 to 80 per hit.
Radiant Charge now stuns (knocks down) targets briefly.
The Oathkeeper daily Sanctuary will now provide the caster with immunity to control effects.
The Justicar class mechanic "Divine Palisade" has been adjusted to an alternate version of block that consumes 60 divinity every second but reduces the damage you and anyone behind you takes by 10%. Similar to the fighter's "Dig In" mechanic you cannot move while using Divine Palisade, however, unlike "dig in" the power is snappy, and not meant to be held down continually. (Dig In is getting some changes too, but I'll address that in the fighter thread.)
And finally, one nerf: smite's damage will be reduced from 1600 to 1200 magnitude.
These are simply some of the changes I could manage to get in place in time for this week's build, and I promise more will be coming next week, which will hopefully include some major feat adjustments. Just a reminder, that none of these changes are set in stone, and things will continue to change based on performance and feedback.
@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
I apologize that you found the streams you are watching to be horrifying. Unfortunately, players being exposed to streams of unfinished content is one of the drawbacks of offering a preview shard. Although many streamers take it upon themselves to clarify to their audience that the content they're playing is in test, others may not, and so if you watch a video of your favorite class getting demolished in a fight they should easily win, you might think that what you're watching is an intentional balance change, when in fact it's simply a bugged critter or power causing an issue.
I promise you we're not trying to take away Paladin's ability to solo, they will absolutely still be a strong and capable solo class in the post Module 16 world. They'll benefit from high durability and the ability to self-heal. When compared with dodge-based classes, you'll almost certainly have an easier time soloing if you find yourself suffering from low reaction time. I hope you'll reserve judgement until you get your hands on the final version of the changes.
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!!!!!!!!
Hey Ragnarz, thanks for the feedback and going into detail about the encounters you had issues with—I'll make a note of looking at the final encounter of Kessell's, please post that sort of thing on the unexpected difficulty thread too if you can, it helps us keep those items organized so we can make sure they get reviewed.
On a side note, I also used to raid in games with 60+ group sizes, fun times! Obviously, we're not intending for you to need 2 tanks in Kessell's. That being said, there are almost certainly multiple elements contributing to the difficulty of this encounter, possibly including the other players' approach. Since that's an encounter with a boss and 2 large health adds, that fight is almost certainly best dealt with 1 beholder at a time, so assuming the DPS are all running single target, if they are focus firing on different beholders, it might be unsustainable to keep aggro on all 3 enemies at once. That said, this week's build will finally have aggro drop when a player gets KO'd, which was broken on the preview build (I apologize for that) so at least when the DPS goes down, they'll lose their threat even when they're picked up.
Setting all that aside, I have been having an exceptionally easy time keeping aggro in playtests, especially since I increased threat generation a bit in last week's build. I am actually having the reverse experience to you, where the only time anyone pulls off of me is if they jump the gun and open up too hard too early in a fight. Once I get a lead, no one ever takes it back. But I'll be making more improvements to Paladin, and once those are in, I'll be asking for more feedback on threat.
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
I'm very sorry to hear that you both are very upset with what you're seeing from preview. Can you be more specific about what you are upset or concerned about? If you can, please read my reply to "ananxiousnoob," just above this post. If you're frustrated with Paladin's ability to solo or survive in certain content, I can almost guarantee that you've watched or experienced content with bugs. That being said, if you have some other specific concerns, I'm happy to try to address or respond to them.
@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?
Hi Impek, thanks for sharing your thoughts! We certainly didn't make all of the Barbarian's attacks ranged attacks. I'm sorry that you feel that Paladin is the same as Fighter now. I do hope you have the chance to try them both out and let me know if you still feel that way.
Paladin's have always equipped shields but because of the way the resistance from sanctuary was calculated, it has never really been useful. I was actually on the team when the designer who built the paladin was working on the class, and they did not meant to create a block that no one used, but unfortunately it was poorly implemented, and never revisited.
In the senes that all 3 classes use a form of block now, they have certainly become more similar. However, Paladin is still quite different from fighter, having access to spells which allow dealing heavy single target or AoE damage at a range, templar's wrath which is a high threat self-centered AoE (as opposed to fighter's Linebreaker which is more of a skill shot) and the ability to cast healing magic even as a tank.
The issue with temporary hit points and shields being a prevalent form of mitigation is that when the effective maximum hit points of players change, balancing content becomes very difficult. The content either has to assume you have the added maximum hit points and outright kill anyone that does not, or become trivial if you have the extra hit points. The goal of many of Module 16's changes was to support being able to better balance content so we can make challenges that are engaging for a wider variety of players.
That being said, I'll continue to work, as I go over the various class's feats and powers, to try to play up the natural differences in the classes even further, as this is something I know everyone feels passionate about, and it was never a goal to make them feel any more similar than they have to.
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.
Hi Jawlsyno! I'd be happy to answer your questions!
Burning light was bugged and will be fixed this week.
Sacred weapon is balanced as an AoE power, because it adds damage to all targets, you can swing around with an AoE at-will and hit 15 mobs and deal that bonus damage to all of them.
Vow of Enmity only puts you at the top, you must maintain a lead with other powers. (Templar's Wrath is great for this if you're not confident yet.) There are no longer any powers that hold your position at the top of a threat list.
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.
Hey Skrimshaw72, thanks for checking out the changes and providing your unique perspective on the class. I really appreciate that you are keeping an open mind about the changes. There are more changes coming, especially to feats and some of the harder to use single target powers.
I'm also looking into making some changes to auras, for next week I am going to be testing a design where auras go back to being up all the time (with somewhat adjusted effects from what they are now) but you may only slot one aura at a time, and must use one of the other 4 class features for your second slot. We'll see how this plays out, we'd like to not have 2 permanent aura buffs on the group for each Paladin.
In regards to the single target powers: please note that enemies cannot intercept your heals, in fact, they shouldn't even prevent you from targeting your ally. What I mean by that is, if you are trying to heal the tank with cleansing touch and a bunch of enemies run in front of them, the game should properly allow you to heal the tank right through them. The only issue actually comes when your own teammates intercept the heal, but I do understand that it can be difficult.
Finally, on the topic of circle of power, it has a new effect, and only increases your outgoing healing, it's a zone you can drop to improve your healing and restore some divinity over time. The FX are going to change a bit, to make it seem less like it is providing a defensive buff that the group should stand in. Instead, you can think of it as dropping a little fort where you want to hang out to get a benefit from, once you've settled into an area for a fight. Of course, you may have to move out of it to dodge an AoE occasionally, but the more you can stay within its boundaries, the more of a benefit you can reap.
I hope you'll keep trying out Oathkeeper as the changes continue. We are aiming for Oathkeeper to be 100% as desirable as any other healer for group play, which should at least put them in a better spot vis-a-vis Clerics when compared to live, where although the Cleric wasn't needed as a healer, they were much more desirable than Devotion Paladins in most cases.
Something players not tend to talk about due a lot of them talk only about the negative (for them) aspects, but this should be addressed too because this is not normal imho... I do not want to mislead the Dev's, so I am going to point it out.
Is this normal for a Tank ???? Your Smite deals 15260090 (91922) Radiant Damage to Umber Hulk. Your Smite deals 20577306 (99946) Radiant Damage to Rebellious Glabrezu.
Same thing counts for Rustmonster
I might be hated for addressing this. but hey We all want a balanced game.
Seems to definitely be a bug going on with your character, thanks for the report. Obviously this is not happening with everyone's Paladin, or no one would be upset about the change! (Haha.) Can you post your character's name so we can take a look?
Hello, I felt like addressing something about the changes for the Paladin, in particular the Justicar path. Trying out the preview I found the new campaign very doable. But there was something that concerned me, even though I could not really grasp it before. Now that I have played a bit more and kept an eye on this topic, I’ve noticed the word ‘unreliable’ and that made me realise what it was: the lack of a reliable source of divinity.
As a tank I want to be reliable and I am expected to manage my divinity in such a way that I’m able to a) hold aggro, b) survive and c) protect my fellow teammates by being in control of the fight. As the new mechanics work, we achieve this management through timed use of our blocks, powers and ‘divine’ powers. However, as we can only (re)gain divinity from 1 source, namely blocking, we very much rely on getting hit.
My biggest concern then is how we are expected to manage our divinity in the circumstances that we a) will not get hit (enough), or b) get hit so much our shield-stamina immediately gets depleted. Examples of the first case for me have been as many have posted here already: trash mobs attacking too slowly because most of them died, or a Boss within a dungeon that attacks too slowly for me to regain divinity to get aggro back. The second circumstance also happened: groups of hard-hitting mobs depleting my shield-stamina immediately, leaving me defenseless, or a Boss that overwhelms me for the same reason. I realise there are other powers that may afflict the defense or aggro needed, but those often have high cooldowns and slow animations. Making it hard to cast when you’re defenseless.
I want to add that there certainly have been times that I was able to manage my divinity, and I admit it has become a bit easier as I have been progressing and as changes were implemented. However, circumstances will continue to appear where I suddenly find myself without a source of divinity. I would very much like to be a stable factor within dungeons runs, as one would expect from a tank. Even if someone (such as the healer) dies for whatever reason and I cannot rely on my own defenses to manage divinity, and therefore not be in control of the fight.
Ideally, I would support the implementation of an external source of divinity, in addition to the blocking. An idea that comes to mind is to replace the feat that gives extra divinity over 75%. One does not really need divinity when it is almost full, but rather when it is almost depleted. Or perhaps adjusting an aura that affects divinity.
Regardless, these are my 2 cents. My apologies for the long post, and also for any errors in English or readability. I’m not a native speaker, nor a good writer.
Something players not tend to talk about due a lot of them talk only about the negative (for them) aspects, but this should be addressed too because this is not normal imho... I do not want to mislead the Dev's, so I am going to point it out.
Is this normal for a Tank ???? Your Smite deals 15260090 (91922) Radiant Damage to Umber Hulk. Your Smite deals 20577306 (99946) Radiant Damage to Rebellious Glabrezu.
Same thing counts for Rustmonster
I might be hated for addressing this. but hey We all want a balanced game.
That's your broken rust monster doing that, not the encounter power. Currently lots of companions and artifacts are broke.
It happened that I don't even had loaded the Rustmonster (or his stats loaded in companion window).. I am a Augment user (Bulette pub) out
Something players not tend to talk about due a lot of them talk only about the negative (for them) aspects, but this should be addressed too because this is not normal imho... I do not want to mislead the Dev's, so I am going to point it out.
Is this normal for a Tank ???? Your Smite deals 15260090 (91922) Radiant Damage to Umber Hulk. Your Smite deals 20577306 (99946) Radiant Damage to Rebellious Glabrezu.
Same thing counts for Rustmonster
I might be hated for addressing this. but hey We all want a balanced game.
Seems to definitely be a bug going on with your character, thanks for the report. Obviously this is not happening with everyone's Paladin, or no one would be upset about the change! (Haha.) Can you post your character's name so we can take a look?
My ingame character is (obviously) Ogguk the Immortal@finmakin Take a look at my character come with a price (with some bribing).. what about some extra AD ??, wink, wink /hides behind a tree
I'm definitely looking into providing alternate play styles through feats, perhaps with something more like the turtle-and-riposte style being one of two options instead of the only option. I apologize that there haven't been any revisions on the Paladin feats yet, I'm working on them but they won't be ready for this week's build.
That being said, there are going to be some changes. Here's a sample of what's in store:
Out of combat divinity regeneration is being increased slightly.
Divine Call will now return more divinity when used out of combat.
Burning Light's recast decreased to 15s from ~20s, magnitude increased from 200 to 300, it will deal 200 magnitude if you tap it, 300 if you hold it down for its ~1.5s cast.
Sacred Weapon's added damage magnitude increased from 40 to 80 per hit.
Radiant Charge now stuns (knocks down) targets briefly.
The Oathkeeper daily Sanctuary will now provide the caster with immunity to control effects.
The Justicar class mechanic "Divine Palisade" has been adjusted to an alternate version of block that consumes 60 divinity every second but reduces the damage you and anyone behind you takes by 10%. Similar to the fighter's "Dig In" mechanic you cannot move while using Divine Palisade, however, unlike "dig in" the power is snappy, and not meant to be held down continually. (Dig In is getting some changes too, but I'll address that in the fighter thread.)
And finally, one nerf: smite's damage will be reduced from 1600 to 1200 magnitude.
This is actually a whole lot of good news (even the nerf)! Though I suspect Burning Light can probably safely go to 200-400 (tap - to full hold).
Can we get Oath Strike's magnitude at least doubled? That would put it on par with Challenger's Slash, but still behind our other at-wills for raw damage potential.
I'm also a bit concerned about the cooldown on Vow, I'm going to struggle to test it thanks to timezone, but I will try. I see a problem where you hit Vow, then Templar's and things aren't all dead and you need that aggro surge again but you're out of divnity and now everyone is dying. Because 18.4s for 100 mag damage is an eternity for a pittance - when what you want is threat.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Sorry for my english, this is not my mother tongue.
Hi @asterdahl thank you for the way your are handling this thread and the tanking design of MOD16. I was aware since few mods that the tanking OP was overpowered trusting every tanking slot in the game, leaving no place for GF in this role. I'm pretty happy to have changes on my favorite class and offering a different gameplay.
There are many flaws on this new Justicar : - Movement : to be competitive we need to be mobile. So I was used to play with 5 Dark enchant R14 to be fast enough because we haven't go any speed increase hability as the other class have. The enchant revamp deprive the OP of this possibility. The only that remains to us is the Gladiator's Guile mount bonus which can be a waste compare to other mount bonus. The other classes have the dodge hability (except GF) to fasten their movement and the GF an encounter to do so (don't know if the power is still the same). Being the first to engage the fight is very important for a tanking class, and as a turtle class with no fastening hability and speed runner team a tanking class moving faster than the justicar will be prefered. Working on a speeding movement hability for the Justicar should be great. - Keeping aggro and shift hability, it may present some difficulty to keep aggro by doing nothing except hiding behind our huge shield especially with numerous ennemies. We are not aggressive with our shied up, and no power is usable during this time to maintain aggro or aggro new monsters. This can be even harder if we don't get aggro first with our legendary turtle movement. - Overwhelming monsters : the AI of monster tend to overwhelm us and moving in my back to hit me. So I need to move backward with shied up. My DPS mate won't be happy with this new tanking mode.
My test are only made on a 19k lvl 80 Justicar in solo mode. I've not tested in group content, neither on a fresh OP. I'm nearly capped with every stat recommended by @noworries#8859
The DPS hability is really good by now : encounters, at-wills. The difference of damage made by an encounter and a daily is too close. Maybe a small up is required on dailies, and down on the encounters (only up is good too).
So, this issue Im about to address is old, very old but still present. It's more cosmetic than anything but believe me, fixing it would add a lot to the overall feel-good of the Paladin class/
What is the issue? Its simple, the way the Paladin holds Hammers! So, currently on live and preview the Paladin grabs the hammer pretty much on the middle of its handle which makes no sense. This problem Paladins inherit from Clerics since I suspect we share alot with them and I mean alot, including how we hold our weapons. In m16 you are actually adding only the second good looking hammer to the game /shame on you, go check WoW, they really provide the players with cool looking weapons/. Im talking about the Golden Sword of the Watcher of course. Great looking hammer, we really need more of those in the game because the maces you gave Paladins are puny. I know you're super busy with trying to balance the next mod but please, if you have some time left do make the Paladin hold Mace/Hammer type weapons lower on the handle!
Thank you!
Wont let me post image for some reason so I post a link to my screenshot instead https://ibb.co/ZB5WJYX
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
hello @asterdahl, I think it's good how you get into the players here and try to keep the fun on our classes. I would like to hear your idea for the new paladin and how we should play him. In mod 15 playing a paladin feels like beeing a mobile tank in fights. We dont need to block and use sanctuary only to counter cc. I can understand, that this is a problem for you, because it was overperforming. But i dont like the direction it takes in mod 16.
The Justicar class mechanic "Divine Palisade" has been adjusted to an alternate version of block that consumes 60 divinity every second but reduces the damage you and anyone behind you takes by 10%. Similar to the fighter's "Dig In" mechanic you cannot move while using Divine Palisade, however, unlike "dig in" the power is snappy, and not meant to be held down continually. (Dig In is getting some changes too, but I'll address that in the fighter thread.)
This change sound like a combination of "dig in" and "astral shield". In the appropriate threads were enough complains about immoblity while using both. After you solved this complain for the cleric with a feat you give a similar mechanic to us?
But there are more problems with your new idea beside immobility. Casting this class mechanic costs more divinity then astral shield. At the same time astral shield is targetbased and provides additional healing. Means astral shield is far better. (behind the tank is not a save zone)
What is with Stamina?
1. Do we lose Stamina while blocking with "Divine Palisade"?
2. If 1. is true, do we get divinity while we lose stamina like with normal blocking?
3. If 1. is true and 2 is false, how do we get our divinity back after we have sacrificed all stamina and divinity for "Divine Palisade"?
4. If 1. is false, do we take the remaining 90% as normal damage?
I will test this on the next patch day. But it sounds not so good for me.
Sorry for my bad english. Its not my native language.
@asterdahl , it would be nice enough if the Devs bless the "Mod 16 SW Official Feedback" with some love as well.
If I am not mistaken, the main agenda of the Devs in Mod 16 is "Equality of all DPS so an so" which is awesome but I am a believer of "actions speak louder than words" which is clearly absent in that thread.
Now plz dont get me wrong, Asterdahl, but it's very frustrating when these things happen.
When one Dev , you here for example replying back almost 99.99% of the feedback (OP n Fighter thread), while the SW thread been totally dried out for almost 3-4 days lol . So tell me this why will I or any other person will take his time and give feedback there when they not getting responded back. SW been a neglected class (compared to GWF ) for quite sometime and I honestly thought this will gonna change in Mod 16 but now I am not sure ....
Anyway Cryptic is not known for replying back most times which we all aware of haha , but kudos to the Dev team for making that exception this time .... We loving this INTERACTION !
I like to take this opportunity for thanking ya and all other devs , I know its thankless job and ya cant please everybody ....
@My beloved OP friends : sorry for hijacking this thread, I sincerely apologize.
Sorry for my english, this is not my mother tongue.
Hi @asterdahl thank you for the way your are handling this thread and the tanking design of MOD16. I was aware since few mods that the tanking OP was overpowered trusting every tanking slot in the game, leaving no place for GF in this role. I'm pretty happy to have changes on my favorite class and offering a different gameplay.
There are many flaws on this new Justicar : - Movement : to be competitive we need to be mobile. So I was used to play with 5 Dark enchant R14 to be fast enough because we haven't go any speed increase hability as the other class have. The enchant revamp deprive the OP of this possibility. The only that remains to us is the Gladiator's Guile mount bonus which can be a waste compare to other mount bonus. The other classes have the dodge hability (except GF) to fasten their movement and the GF an encounter to do so (don't know if the power is still the same). Being the first to engage the fight is very important for a tanking class, and as a turtle class with no fastening hability and speed runner team a tanking class moving faster than the justicar will be prefered. Working on a speeding movement hability for the Justicar should be great. - Keeping aggro and shift hability, it may present some difficulty to keep aggro by doing nothing except hiding behind our huge shield especially with numerous ennemies. We are not aggressive with our shied up, and no power is usable during this time to maintain aggro or aggro new monsters. This can be even harder if we don't get aggro first with our legendary turtle movement. - Overwhelming monsters : the AI of monster tend to overwhelm us and moving in my back to hit me. So I need to move backward with shied up. My DPS mate won't be happy with this new tanking mode.
My test are only made on a 19k lvl 80 Justicar in solo mode. I've not tested in group content, neither on a fresh OP. I'm nearly capped with every stat recommended by @noworries#8859
The DPS hability is really good by now : encounters, at-wills. The difference of damage made by an encounter and a daily is too close. Maybe a small up is required on dailies, and down on the encounters (only up is good too).
Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for checking out the changes on preview! Also, no worries about your English, I understood all of your points, it was quite fine. In terms of threat, please try out a lot of group content before you decide if it's too difficult or not, it's something that takes a lot of getting used to when compared with the past. I think Justicar and Sentinel are both pretty much fine on threat (Sentinel with changes this Friday) and perhaps fighter is the only one lagging a bit behind.
In terms of your group rushing ahead of you though, there's a paradigm shift that is going to have to happen, and it will once balance gets in the right place—we're already seeing it in some internal playtests, if you face pull as a DPS, you get a dirt nap. But I do understand your point. Have you tried using relentless avenger to move more quickly? It has quite a high range.
@asterdahl , it would be nice enough if the Devs bless the "Mod 16 SW Official Feedback" with some love as well.
If I am not mistaken, the main agenda of the Devs in Mod 16 is "Equality of all DPS so an so" which is awesome but I am a believer of "actions speak louder than words" which is clearly absent in that thread.
Now plz dont get me wrong, Asterdahl, but it's very frustrating when these things happen.
When one Dev , you here for example replying back almost 99.99% of the feedback (OP n Fighter thread), while the SW thread been totally dried out for almost 3-4 days lol . So tell me this why will I or any other person will take his time and give feedback there when they not getting responded back. SW been a neglected class (compared to GWF ) for quite sometime and I honestly thought this will gonna change in Mod 16 but now I am not sure ....
Anyway Cryptic is not known for replying back most times which we all aware of haha , but kudos to the Dev team for making that exception this time .... We loving this INTERACTION !
Excuseme, but why do you come beg for SW class to Paladins topic? We've got enough of a broken OP class on the preview which is not suitable for playing only for crying. I really do not know what try Developers getting at, but changes in the Paladin mechanics puts ours in a losing position in relation to module 15.
hello @asterdahl, I think it's good how you get into the players here and try to keep the fun on our classes. I would like to hear your idea for the new paladin and how we should play him. In mod 15 playing a paladin feels like beeing a mobile tank in fights. We dont need to block and use sanctuary only to counter cc. I can understand, that this is a problem for you, because it was overperforming. But i dont like the direction it takes in mod 16.
The Justicar class mechanic "Divine Palisade" has been adjusted to an alternate version of block that consumes 60 divinity every second but reduces the damage you and anyone behind you takes by 10%. Similar to the fighter's "Dig In" mechanic you cannot move while using Divine Palisade, however, unlike "dig in" the power is snappy, and not meant to be held down continually. (Dig In is getting some changes too, but I'll address that in the fighter thread.)
This change sound like a combination of "dig in" and "astral shield". In the appropriate threads were enough complains about immoblity while using both. After you solved this complain for the cleric with a feat you give a similar mechanic to us?
But there are more problems with your new idea beside immobility. Casting this class mechanic costs more divinity then astral shield. At the same time astral shield is targetbased and provides additional healing. Means astral shield is far better. (behind the tank is not a save zone)
What is with Stamina?
1. Do we lose Stamina while blocking with "Divine Palisade"?
2. If 1. is true, do we get divinity while we lose stamina like with normal blocking?
3. If 1. is true and 2 is false, how do we get our divinity back after we have sacrificed all stamina and divinity for "Divine Palisade"?
4. If 1. is false, do we take the remaining 90% as normal damage?
I will test this on the next patch day. But it sounds not so good for me.
Sorry for my bad english. Its not my native language.
Tilrod
Hi Tilrod! The change to Divine Palisade this week is just an experiment, it may very well change dramatically again, but I'd like everyone to see how it feels. It feels much snappier than dig in, you can pop in and out very quickly, mitigating a big hit with the enhanced resistance over basic block, or help mitigate a group wide unavoidable AoE in endgame content for your party who are already stacked on some other buff.
In regards to stamina, since it works just like regular block but adds the mitigation to you and the teammates behind you, stamina just works the same as regular block, absorbing hits when and if they come in.
I hope you give it a try and let me know what your thoughts are.
Why Relentless Avenger (encounter) now dealing damage only to one target instead of target + all other foes within 15' of the target?
Circle of Power (encounter) has a very reduced area of activity and the Paladin always falls out of the circle, so this skill can not be a static mechanism because it becomes useless.
Templar's Wrath or Absolution - one of these two encounter powers should add any % temporary HP for the Paladin.
New long-range At-Will power for the healer path has too slow attack animation and additionally should heal allies close to the target.
Sorry for my english, this is not my mother tongue.
Hi @asterdahl thank you for the way your are handling this thread and the tanking design of MOD16. I was aware since few mods that the tanking OP was overpowered trusting every tanking slot in the game, leaving no place for GF in this role. I'm pretty happy to have changes on my favorite class and offering a different gameplay.
There are many flaws on this new Justicar : - Movement : to be competitive we need to be mobile. So I was used to play with 5 Dark enchant R14 to be fast enough because we haven't go any speed increase hability as the other class have. The enchant revamp deprive the OP of this possibility. The only that remains to us is the Gladiator's Guile mount bonus which can be a waste compare to other mount bonus. The other classes have the dodge hability (except GF) to fasten their movement and the GF an encounter to do so (don't know if the power is still the same). Being the first to engage the fight is very important for a tanking class, and as a turtle class with no fastening hability and speed runner team a tanking class moving faster than the justicar will be prefered. Working on a speeding movement hability for the Justicar should be great. - Keeping aggro and shift hability, it may present some difficulty to keep aggro by doing nothing except hiding behind our huge shield especially with numerous ennemies. We are not aggressive with our shied up, and no power is usable during this time to maintain aggro or aggro new monsters. This can be even harder if we don't get aggro first with our legendary turtle movement. - Overwhelming monsters : the AI of monster tend to overwhelm us and moving in my back to hit me. So I need to move backward with shied up. My DPS mate won't be happy with this new tanking mode.
My test are only made on a 19k lvl 80 Justicar in solo mode. I've not tested in group content, neither on a fresh OP. I'm nearly capped with every stat recommended by @noworries#8859
The DPS hability is really good by now : encounters, at-wills. The difference of damage made by an encounter and a daily is too close. Maybe a small up is required on dailies, and down on the encounters (only up is good too).
Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for checking out the changes on preview! Also, no worries about your English, I understood all of your points, it was quite fine. In terms of threat, please try out a lot of group content before you decide if it's too difficult or not, it's something that takes a lot of getting used to when compared with the past. I think Justicar and Sentinel are both pretty much fine on threat (Sentinel with changes this Friday) and perhaps fighter is the only one lagging a bit behind.
In terms of your group rushing ahead of you though, there's a paradigm shift that is going to have to happen, and it will once balance gets in the right place—we're already seeing it in some internal playtests, if you face pull as a DPS, you get a dirt nap. But I do understand your point. Have you tried using relentless avenger to move more quickly? It has quite a high range.
Thanks for your quick answer. To be more accurate, I've tested retentless avenger. It's a perfect encounter to rush into a fight (with damage as a bonus) coupled to radiant strike as At-will it's OK. But used to run through the stairs in Tomb of the Nine Gods for instance, it's absolutely useless. And fast runners won't appreciate to wait a turtle to engage a fight. If they can find a quick runner tank, Justicar won't be welcome in the dungeons runs. In my opinion, it's the point. So let's make all the tanks running as turtles, with no differences except a different tanking style of their class and their personnal tanking skill.
A friend of mine has made a test last night with a fighter (with unlimited tab aggro hability and full immunity even in backstab) i won't agree that the fighter is behind in tanking. Their DPS maybe a bit to slow.
For group content, unfortunately my guildmates are not interested in testing preview. I will try it in pick up but not easy to succeed in.
Ok so I am gonna re-write my own post as I think I killed my own post when I used the wrong format for a picture and overwritten my old one. Oops.
I will make this short and sweet, I do not like the changes here it feels like passive healing as been killed off It feels like now we have to take the back seat with the Cleric and cast healing we should be able to heal and tank I cannot cast heals and tank at the same time hence passive heals which ticks ever x amount of Seconds.
If I should only be tanking then why call it a Paladin, We have heavy armor we are not as squishy as a cleric would be we can take more hits than them, We should not be taking the role of a Cleric, We are like the best of both worlds is what attracted me to ir, It's when you take my passive heals away is when I start talking.
Also, This Preview feels like its turning into Champions Online game, I already have the game I don't want a second one, By that I mean the Boons Tab, It's acting like the Specialization Tree from Cryptic Studios older Game.
Ok so I am gonna re-write my own post as I think I killed my own post when I used the wrong format for a picture and overwritten my old one. Oops.
I will make this short and sweet, I do not like the changes here it feels like passive healing as been killed off It feels like now we have to take the back seat with the Cleric and cast healing we should be able to heal and tank I cannot cast heals and tank at the same time hence passive heals which ticks ever x amount of Seconds.
If I should only be tanking then why call it a Paladin, We have heavy armor we are not as squishy as a cleric would be we can take more hits than them, We should not be taking the role of a Cleric, We are like the best of both worlds is what attracted me to ir, It's when you take my passive heals away is when I start talking.
Also, This Preview feels like its turning into Champions Online game, I already have the game I don't want a second one, By that I mean the Boons Tab, It's acting like the Specialization Tree from Cryptic Studios older Game.
I believe this is a mistake programmers because just like the DC, we should get paragon paths: Healer and DPS
And there goes my post again, Never mind I am not gonna fight the forums, When I make a edit it goes poof. Anyways
Well I don't DPS, I mainly play Tanks and Healers exclusively its the only thing I am good at I did them for years, The only time I branched to a damage dealer was from another MMO, Elsword. Just I hold by the old Tank and Healer way, but when it's both under 1 roof it's more appealing.
The old classic Tank and Healer way is the tanky guys are at the front. Clerics hang at the back and everyone else is in the middle.
Ok so I am gonna re-write my own post as I think I killed my own post when I used the wrong format for a picture and overwritten my old one. Oops.
I will make this short and sweet, I do not like the changes here it feels like passive healing as been killed off It feels like now we have to take the back seat with the Cleric and cast healing we should be able to heal and tank I cannot cast heals and tank at the same time hence passive heals which ticks ever x amount of Seconds.
If I should only be tanking then why call it a Paladin, We have heavy armor we are not as squishy as a cleric would be we can take more hits than them, We should not be taking the role of a Cleric, We are like the best of both worlds is what attracted me to ir, It's when you take my passive heals away is when I start talking.
Also, This Preview feels like its turning into Champions Online game, I already have the game I don't want a second one, By that I mean the Boons Tab, It's acting like the Specialization Tree from Cryptic Studios older Game.
I believe this is a mistake programmers because just like the DC, we should get paragon paths: Healer and DPS
And there goes my post again, Never mind I am not gonna fight the forums, When I make a edit it goes poof. Anyways
Well I don't DPS, I mainly play Tanks and Healers exclusively its the only thing I am good at I did them for years, The only time I branched to a damage dealer was from another MMO, Elsword. Just I hold by the old Tank and Healer way, but when it's both under 1 roof it's more appealing.
The old classic Tank and Healer way is the tanky guys are at the front. Clerics hang at the back and everyone else is in the middle.
The point is that in the new 16 module, the Tanks will not be very necessary in the dungeon party because DPS characters having the same defensive statistics + e.g. Barkshield enchantment. Therefore, more-desirable classes will be Healer and DPS. At the moment, in the preview, Paladin tank are not something amazing and very often die on normal mobs.
Comments
Im not gonna talk about how we, as Paladin players, want more damage or faster powers or whatever. I'll talk about something. imo, very important. Why go Justicar? Really why? Right now the only "reward" for choosing the tanking path is doing 30% less damage! Let that sink in, Oathkeeper can block just the same, can do alot more damage, can heal a lot more and the only thing he doesnt have are aggro grabbers..which he doesn't need since dps classes are going to steal aggro from tanks anyway.. So why Justicar? No reason at all whatsoever. Dear devs, take a good look at the Paladin please. How come Sentinel's feats can recharge encounters instantly or give upto 5000 defence, or give temp hp or be actually usefull while Justicar feats do what? Double stamina gain from Shileding Strike..if using Sacred Weapon - umm why would a tank be using a dps booster while tanking? Give more Divinity while Absolution is up..OK what about D recovery when Absolution is not even slotted? Towering Light - D now regenerates faster when above 75%..by far the only one useful Feat..
Anyway, heres my feedback. Right now, choosing the tanking Paladin path is like giving up your own arm. Your sword bearing arm, you are willingly becoming Jaime Lannister post arm chop, AKA useless! There is no point in choosing Justicar. Passives/auras/, at wills, feats, tanking dailies all need to be looked at and actually changed by someone who has played the game as a Paladin tank. On paper your changes may look good but that means nothing. Get in, play as all of the tanks, then play as Justicar and play as Oathkeeper. Let me know which of the above was the most boring.. Hint: I already know
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
I do not want to mislead the Dev's, so I am going to point it out.
Is this normal for a Tank ????
Your Smite deals 15260090 (91922) Radiant Damage to Umber Hulk.
Your Smite deals 20577306 (99946) Radiant Damage to Rebellious Glabrezu.
Same thing counts for Rustmonster
I might be hated for addressing this. but hey
We all want a balanced game.
Feats: All feats come as part of a paragon Path, thus they should directly support the role of the Paragon Path.
Paladin Feats:
Valorous Judgement: Its a 5% chance to have my next Smite crit, well my Smite already has an 18% chance to crit in level 80 content, so why do I need this again?
Sacred Shield: Doubles stamina regenerated by Shielding Strike, ok this sounds like it helps with tanking. That's good. As already mentioned though this power doesn't unlock until level 72, so that's a 32 level wait to get any benefit or you need to respec. So at level 72 or higher this is the better feat...
Divine Reciprocation - This is a healing feat, what is it doing in the Tank spec? Also must run Divine Touch or its a dead feat.
Absolute Shield - Must run absolution or its a dead feat.
Bound to the Land - Actually helps with tanking, but as raising your shield also makes you CC immune, it could be better. Also requires running Binding Oath - which is no longer even remotely binding, because it doesn't give threat.
Enhanced Radiant Charge - ah a power that makes a daily a gap closer, why?
Vigilant Defender - another tanking feat - yay. Problem is there is no clue what benefit it gives at all.
Towering Light - If you use your Divinity Powers this does nothing, unless somehow the fight is over after you Divine Touch (why? you are tanking) or Smite (you don't want to be too bored). Its trigger condition is just too small to make it worth using.
Divine Benefactor - Doubles the range of the (single target) but halves the effectiveness. Why would you take this? I'm already struggling to see any value in Divine Protector as it stands, why would you make it worse?
Bulwark of Faith - Shield of Faith now restores 50% of your stamina instantly. At least this says how much stamina it gives you.
Basically everyone of these feats:
Between locking in power choices (ie use the power or waste the feat), being off spec without solving a problem the spec has or just offering no meaningful benefit, they are all in serious need of an overhaul.
You can add most of the passives to that list as well.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
That being said, there are going to be some changes. Here's a sample of what's in store:
- Out of combat divinity regeneration is being increased slightly.
- Divine Call will now return more divinity when used out of combat.
- Burning Light's recast decreased to 15s from ~20s, magnitude increased from 200 to 300, it will deal 200 magnitude if you tap it, 300 if you hold it down for its ~1.5s cast.
- Sacred Weapon's added damage magnitude increased from 40 to 80 per hit.
- Radiant Charge now stuns (knocks down) targets briefly.
- The Oathkeeper daily Sanctuary will now provide the caster with immunity to control effects.
- The Justicar class mechanic "Divine Palisade" has been adjusted to an alternate version of block that consumes 60 divinity every second but reduces the damage you and anyone behind you takes by 10%. Similar to the fighter's "Dig In" mechanic you cannot move while using Divine Palisade, however, unlike "dig in" the power is snappy, and not meant to be held down continually. (Dig In is getting some changes too, but I'll address that in the fighter thread.)
- And finally, one nerf: smite's damage will be reduced from 1600 to 1200 magnitude.
These are simply some of the changes I could manage to get in place in time for this week's build, and I promise more will be coming next week, which will hopefully include some major feat adjustments. Just a reminder, that none of these changes are set in stone, and things will continue to change based on performance and feedback.I promise you we're not trying to take away Paladin's ability to solo, they will absolutely still be a strong and capable solo class in the post Module 16 world. They'll benefit from high durability and the ability to self-heal. When compared with dodge-based classes, you'll almost certainly have an easier time soloing if you find yourself suffering from low reaction time. I hope you'll reserve judgement until you get your hands on the final version of the changes.
On a side note, I also used to raid in games with 60+ group sizes, fun times! Obviously, we're not intending for you to need 2 tanks in Kessell's. That being said, there are almost certainly multiple elements contributing to the difficulty of this encounter, possibly including the other players' approach. Since that's an encounter with a boss and 2 large health adds, that fight is almost certainly best dealt with 1 beholder at a time, so assuming the DPS are all running single target, if they are focus firing on different beholders, it might be unsustainable to keep aggro on all 3 enemies at once. That said, this week's build will finally have aggro drop when a player gets KO'd, which was broken on the preview build (I apologize for that) so at least when the DPS goes down, they'll lose their threat even when they're picked up.
Setting all that aside, I have been having an exceptionally easy time keeping aggro in playtests, especially since I increased threat generation a bit in last week's build. I am actually having the reverse experience to you, where the only time anyone pulls off of me is if they jump the gun and open up too hard too early in a fight. Once I get a lead, no one ever takes it back. But I'll be making more improvements to Paladin, and once those are in, I'll be asking for more feedback on threat.
Paladin's have always equipped shields but because of the way the resistance from sanctuary was calculated, it has never really been useful. I was actually on the team when the designer who built the paladin was working on the class, and they did not meant to create a block that no one used, but unfortunately it was poorly implemented, and never revisited.
In the senes that all 3 classes use a form of block now, they have certainly become more similar. However, Paladin is still quite different from fighter, having access to spells which allow dealing heavy single target or AoE damage at a range, templar's wrath which is a high threat self-centered AoE (as opposed to fighter's Linebreaker which is more of a skill shot) and the ability to cast healing magic even as a tank.
The issue with temporary hit points and shields being a prevalent form of mitigation is that when the effective maximum hit points of players change, balancing content becomes very difficult. The content either has to assume you have the added maximum hit points and outright kill anyone that does not, or become trivial if you have the extra hit points. The goal of many of Module 16's changes was to support being able to better balance content so we can make challenges that are engaging for a wider variety of players.
That being said, I'll continue to work, as I go over the various class's feats and powers, to try to play up the natural differences in the classes even further, as this is something I know everyone feels passionate about, and it was never a goal to make them feel any more similar than they have to.
- Burning light was bugged and will be fixed this week.
- Sacred weapon is balanced as an AoE power, because it adds damage to all targets, you can swing around with an AoE at-will and hit 15 mobs and deal that bonus damage to all of them.
- Vow of Enmity only puts you at the top, you must maintain a lead with other powers. (Templar's Wrath is great for this if you're not confident yet.) There are no longer any powers that hold your position at the top of a threat list.
Hope that helps!I'm also looking into making some changes to auras, for next week I am going to be testing a design where auras go back to being up all the time (with somewhat adjusted effects from what they are now) but you may only slot one aura at a time, and must use one of the other 4 class features for your second slot. We'll see how this plays out, we'd like to not have 2 permanent aura buffs on the group for each Paladin.
In regards to the single target powers: please note that enemies cannot intercept your heals, in fact, they shouldn't even prevent you from targeting your ally. What I mean by that is, if you are trying to heal the tank with cleansing touch and a bunch of enemies run in front of them, the game should properly allow you to heal the tank right through them. The only issue actually comes when your own teammates intercept the heal, but I do understand that it can be difficult.
Finally, on the topic of circle of power, it has a new effect, and only increases your outgoing healing, it's a zone you can drop to improve your healing and restore some divinity over time. The FX are going to change a bit, to make it seem less like it is providing a defensive buff that the group should stand in. Instead, you can think of it as dropping a little fort where you want to hang out to get a benefit from, once you've settled into an area for a fight. Of course, you may have to move out of it to dodge an AoE occasionally, but the more you can stay within its boundaries, the more of a benefit you can reap.
I hope you'll keep trying out Oathkeeper as the changes continue. We are aiming for Oathkeeper to be 100% as desirable as any other healer for group play, which should at least put them in a better spot vis-a-vis Clerics when compared to live, where although the Cleric wasn't needed as a healer, they were much more desirable than Devotion Paladins in most cases.
As a tank I want to be reliable and I am expected to manage my divinity in such a way that I’m able to a) hold aggro, b) survive and c) protect my fellow teammates by being in control of the fight. As the new mechanics work, we achieve this management through timed use of our blocks, powers and ‘divine’ powers. However, as we can only (re)gain divinity from 1 source, namely blocking, we very much rely on getting hit.
My biggest concern then is how we are expected to manage our divinity in the circumstances that we a) will not get hit (enough), or b) get hit so much our shield-stamina immediately gets depleted. Examples of the first case for me have been as many have posted here already: trash mobs attacking too slowly because most of them died, or a Boss within a dungeon that attacks too slowly for me to regain divinity to get aggro back. The second circumstance also happened: groups of hard-hitting mobs depleting my shield-stamina immediately, leaving me defenseless, or a Boss that overwhelms me for the same reason. I realise there are other powers that may afflict the defense or aggro needed, but those often have high cooldowns and slow animations. Making it hard to cast when you’re defenseless.
I want to add that there certainly have been times that I was able to manage my divinity, and I admit it has become a bit easier as I have been progressing and as changes were implemented. However, circumstances will continue to appear where I suddenly find myself without a source of divinity. I would very much like to be a stable factor within dungeons runs, as one would expect from a tank. Even if someone (such as the healer) dies for whatever reason and I cannot rely on my own defenses to manage divinity, and therefore not be in control of the fight.
Ideally, I would support the implementation of an external source of divinity, in addition to the blocking. An idea that comes to mind is to replace the feat that gives extra divinity over 75%. One does not really need divinity when it is almost full, but rather when it is almost depleted. Or perhaps adjusting an aura that affects divinity.
Regardless, these are my 2 cents. My apologies for the long post, and also for any errors in English or readability. I’m not a native speaker, nor a good writer.
Take a look at my character come with a price (with some bribing).. what about some extra AD ??, wink, wink
/hides behind a tree
Can we get Oath Strike's magnitude at least doubled? That would put it on par with Challenger's Slash, but still behind our other at-wills for raw damage potential.
I'm also a bit concerned about the cooldown on Vow, I'm going to struggle to test it thanks to timezone, but I will try. I see a problem where you hit Vow, then Templar's and things aren't all dead and you need that aggro surge again but you're out of divnity and now everyone is dying. Because 18.4s for 100 mag damage is an eternity for a pittance - when what you want is threat.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Hi @asterdahl thank you for the way your are handling this thread and the tanking design of MOD16. I was aware since few mods that the tanking OP was overpowered trusting every tanking slot in the game, leaving no place for GF in this role.
I'm pretty happy to have changes on my favorite class and offering a different gameplay.
There are many flaws on this new Justicar :
- Movement : to be competitive we need to be mobile. So I was used to play with 5 Dark enchant R14 to be fast enough because we haven't go any speed increase hability as the other class have. The enchant revamp deprive the OP of this possibility. The only that remains to us is the Gladiator's Guile mount bonus which can be a waste compare to other mount bonus. The other classes have the dodge hability (except GF) to fasten their movement and the GF an encounter to do so (don't know if the power is still the same). Being the first to engage the fight is very important for a tanking class, and as a turtle class with no fastening hability and speed runner team a tanking class moving faster than the justicar will be prefered. Working on a speeding movement hability for the Justicar should be great.
- Keeping aggro and shift hability, it may present some difficulty to keep aggro by doing nothing except hiding behind our huge shield especially with numerous ennemies. We are not aggressive with our shied up, and no power is usable during this time to maintain aggro or aggro new monsters. This can be even harder if we don't get aggro first with our legendary turtle movement.
- Overwhelming monsters : the AI of monster tend to overwhelm us and moving in my back to hit me. So I need to move backward with shied up. My DPS mate won't be happy with this new tanking mode.
My test are only made on a 19k lvl 80 Justicar in solo mode. I've not tested in group content, neither on a fresh OP. I'm nearly capped with every stat recommended by @noworries#8859
The DPS hability is really good by now : encounters, at-wills. The difference of damage made by an encounter and a daily is too close. Maybe a small up is required on dailies, and down on the encounters (only up is good too).
So, this issue Im about to address is old, very old but still present. It's more cosmetic than anything but believe me, fixing it would add a lot to the overall feel-good of the Paladin class/
What is the issue? Its simple, the way the Paladin holds Hammers! So, currently on live and preview the Paladin grabs the hammer pretty much on the middle of its handle which makes no sense. This problem Paladins inherit from Clerics since I suspect we share alot with them and I mean alot, including how we hold our weapons. In m16 you are actually adding only the second good looking hammer to the game /shame on you, go check WoW, they really provide the players with cool looking weapons/. Im talking about the Golden Sword of the Watcher of course. Great looking hammer, we really need more of those in the game because the maces you gave Paladins are puny. I know you're super busy with trying to balance the next mod but please, if you have some time left do make the Paladin hold Mace/Hammer type weapons lower on the handle!
Thank you!
Wont let me post image for some reason so I post a link to my screenshot instead https://ibb.co/ZB5WJYX
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
I think it's good how you get into the players here and try to keep the fun on our classes.
I would like to hear your idea for the new paladin and how we should play him. In mod 15 playing a paladin feels like beeing a mobile tank in fights. We dont need to block and use sanctuary only to counter cc. I can understand, that this is a problem for you, because it was overperforming. But i dont like the direction it takes in mod 16.
i. E. This change sound like a combination of "dig in" and "astral shield". In the appropriate threads were enough complains about immoblity while using both. After you solved this complain for the cleric with a feat you give a similar mechanic to us?
But there are more problems with your new idea beside immobility.
Casting this class mechanic costs more divinity then astral shield. At the same time astral shield is targetbased and provides additional healing. Means astral shield is far better. (behind the tank is not a save zone)
What is with Stamina?
- 1. Do we lose Stamina while blocking with "Divine Palisade"?
- 2. If 1. is true, do we get divinity while we lose stamina like with normal blocking?
- 3. If 1. is true and 2 is false, how do we get our divinity back after we have sacrificed all stamina and divinity for "Divine Palisade"?
- 4. If 1. is false, do we take the remaining 90% as normal damage?
I will test this on the next patch day. But it sounds not so good for me.Sorry for my bad english. Its not my native language.
Tilrod
If I am not mistaken, the main agenda of the Devs in Mod 16 is "Equality of all DPS so an so" which is awesome but I am a believer of "actions speak louder than words" which is clearly absent in that thread.
Now plz dont get me wrong, Asterdahl, but it's very frustrating when these things happen.
When one Dev , you here for example replying back almost 99.99% of the feedback (OP n Fighter thread), while the SW thread been totally dried out for almost 3-4 days lol .
So tell me this why will I or any other person will take his time and give feedback there when they not getting responded back. SW been a neglected class (compared to GWF
Anyway Cryptic is not known for replying back most times which we all aware of haha , but kudos to the Dev team for making that exception this time .... We loving this INTERACTION !
I like to take this opportunity for thanking ya and all other devs , I know its thankless job and ya cant please everybody ....
@My beloved OP friends : sorry for hijacking this thread, I sincerely apologize.
cheers and have a good day all.
In terms of your group rushing ahead of you though, there's a paradigm shift that is going to have to happen, and it will once balance gets in the right place—we're already seeing it in some internal playtests, if you face pull as a DPS, you get a dirt nap. But I do understand your point. Have you tried using relentless avenger to move more quickly? It has quite a high range.
In regards to stamina, since it works just like regular block but adds the mitigation to you and the teammates behind you, stamina just works the same as regular block, absorbing hits when and if they come in.
I hope you give it a try and let me know what your thoughts are.
Thx and greets.
all other foes within 15' of the target?
Circle of Power (encounter) has a very reduced area of activity and the Paladin always falls out of the circle,
so this skill can not be a static mechanism because it becomes useless.
Templar's Wrath or Absolution - one of these two encounter powers should add any % temporary HP for the Paladin.
New long-range At-Will power for the healer path has too slow attack animation and additionally should heal
allies close to the target.
Thanks
A friend of mine has made a test last night with a fighter (with unlimited tab aggro hability and full immunity even in backstab) i won't agree that the fighter is behind in tanking. Their DPS maybe a bit to slow.
For group content, unfortunately my guildmates are not interested in testing preview. I will try it in pick up but not easy to succeed in.
Well I don't DPS, I mainly play Tanks and Healers exclusively its the only thing I am good at I did them for years, The only time I branched to a damage dealer was from another MMO, Elsword. Just I hold by the old Tank and Healer way, but when it's both under 1 roof it's more appealing.
The old classic Tank and Healer way is the tanky guys are at the front. Clerics hang at the back and everyone else is in the middle.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.