@asterdahl I had a moment of inspiration this morning.
Paladin players don’t like the current shield. Paladin players do like Sanctuary. Paladin players do like Auras (but not the current ones on Preview).
So...
TAB becomes “Divine Sanctuary”
Divine Sanctuary: Radius 15' Divinity Cost: 100 per second. While Divine Sanctuary is active you are immune to control effects. Additional Effects: Allies in Divine Sanctuary gain a 5% damage reduction are healed over time. Magnitude: 0.5 Heal. Aura Effects: Divine Sanctuary can be modified by Auras. Having 2 auras active increases the Divinity Cost of Divine Sanctuary by 50.
Auras would then remain passive powers. There should be 4 of them that are available 2 shared and 2 that are specific.
Example Shared Ideas: Greater Sanctuary: The area of Divine Sanctuary is increased to 30'. Additional Effect: Divine Sanctuary increases its cost by 100 per second.
Aura of Purity: When you activate Divine Sanctuary allies in the Sanctuary lose 1 status effect and cannot gain status effects for its duration. Additional Effect: Divine Sanctuary no longer provides damage reduction or healing.
Example Paragon Ideas: Protection from Evil: When you activate Divine Sanctuary allies in the Sanctuary have their threat reduced by 50%. Additional Effect: Divine Sanctuary provides 8% Damage reduction and no longer heals.
Aura of Life: When you activate Divine Sanctuary allies in the Sanctuary are healed. Magnitude 50 Heal. Additional Effect: Divine Sanctuary now heals 5 times for 1.5 magnitude and no longer provides Damage Reduction.
This makes Divine Sanctuary a definitive feature of the Paladin, and really makes it stand out from the other Healers and Tanks in its play style and benefits it brings to the group, while also reflecting elements of the class that people feel are missing at the moment in Mod16.
Interesting idea, I appreciate the inspired suggestion, and certainly the tab mechanic is not set in stone.
Also @asterdahl I gotta say thank you, Justicars gain Divinity via blocking, enemies under cc can not attack the tank so no blocking = no Divinity. Essentially even if you give Justicars the best cc in the game we wont use it cause its counterproductive to our new class mechanic... Sarcasm off. Burning light, the single best pve encounter power of the live Paladin is as good as deleted. Do you really think your present dev team has the capacity to make changes of this caliber to the core game ? I dont, I dont trust you guys. You seem uncertain of what you're doing. If you manage to pull off a good m16 release with actually balanced classes Id be amazed as hell and I'll apologize publicly.
Hi Emilemo, I am sorry to hear that you have so little faith in us. I assure you that my highest priority for Paladin is resolving the pacing debacle that the interaction between Justicar's Charge and Smite has created. I have simply been working on other tasks for the past few weeks so I apologize for letting the issue languish.
In terms of achieving actual DPS balance, nerfing Justicar's damage and buffing the underperforming DPS classes is a fairly trivial thing to do, now that we have cleaned up the rat's nest that was going on under the hood with the classes pre module 16. That's not to say that we're going to achieve perfect balance at launch of Module 16, but right now we're focusing on getting everything to feel good, making numerical adjustments is not particularly difficult. I truly believe that class balance will be in a better place when Module 16 launches, than it is currently on live.
Interesting news @asterdahl and thank you for the update. While I understand the need to adjust downward on its effect, I'm happier for a 100% uptime and that they are not tied the dailies. I'm sure @obsidiancran and others will welcome the change to smite, though I, myself, will wait and see how it goes after the change.
I'm not sure about the Smite change, I'm not a huge fan of variable effects. I will however hold judgement until after I can test the patch.
Thanks indeed @asterdahl and sorry for the Smite storm over the last few pages
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Thanks for clarifying on the stats @asterdahl but this now leads to a disconnect for me that I'm posting here (rather than the Stat thread) because the disconnect has to do with Paladins in DnD vs NW.
In NW now my level 80 Paladin has the following base stats (only my level applied stats, no gear or campfire): Str 10, Con 17, Dex 10, Int 20, Wis 16, Cha 26 as a tank. As a healer the Int and Wis are balanced out.
In DnD that would be some sort of strange Wizard/Paladin combination.
DnD Paladins favor Str, Con and Cha (not in that order) if they plan to wear heavy armor like they do in NW.
So when I look at my stats I have a disconnect.
It doesn't feel "DnD" when I look at the most "DnD" thing about the character sheet.
Which seems odd.
The fact that my Warlock, Wizard and Paladin end up with very similar stat arrays just makes it stranger.
Post edited by obsidiancran3 on
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Yuan-ti Fear effect does not respect shield being up when applied.
That's because gaze effects (big-bad-eye-over-the-enemy effect) is not meant to be blocked and has to be avoided turning around, as stated in many occasions by developers. That's WAI.
@asterdahl can we please have any insight on possible plans concerning Tab and Shield mechanics of the Paladin? It's something that a number of people playing this class feel more significant than tweaking magnitudes and cooldowns and that concerns the core identity of the Paladin's role and gameplay. Thank you in advance for any informations on this regard.
Thanks for clarifying on the stats @asterdahl but this now leads to a disconnect for me that I'm posting here (rather than the Stat thread) because the disconnect has to do with Paladins in DnD vs NW.
In NW now my level 80 Paladin has the following base stats (only my level applied stats, no gear or campfire): Str 10, Con 17, Dex 10, Int 20, Wis 16, Cha 26 as a tank. As a healer the Int and Wis are balanced out.
In DnD that would be some sort of strange Wizard/Paladin combination.
DnD Paladins favor Str, Con and Cha (not in that order) if they plan to wear heavy armor like they do in NW.
So when I look at my stats I have a disconnect.
It doesn't feel "DnD" when I look at the most "DnD" thing about the character sheet.
Which seems odd.
The fact that my Warlock, Wizard and Paladin end up with very similar stat arrays just makes it stranger.
THIS.
Paladins in 5e don't have the horrendous MAD problem they did in 3rd, but it's actually worse in mod16 than it was in 3e specifically because of the bizarre interaction between the new ability score rules and the paladin's damage types, and furthermore gives the farcical paradigm that a melee-focused character in full plate with a tower shield DOES NOT want Strength at all.
There are a couple of options to address this dissonance, and all of them will require changing something. Option 1: make more of the Justicar's powers deal Physical damage. This one is a bit of a weird sell in that the majority of the power appearances are clearly at least partially radiant (although some, like Smite, have an obvious physical component as well) Option 1 corrolary: split the damage for applicable Justicar powers between Physical and Magical. This isn't a great idea, either, in that it puts Justicars in the even worse place of wanting to chase both Strength and Intelligence for the same powers.
Option 2: Base Justicar radiant damage on Strength. This would require uncoupling it conceptually from the Cleric a little, but with the redesign work you guys have done, that should be easier now than it has ever been.
Option 3: give Justicar a passive(Holy Warrior? A rider on Justicar's Charge?) that causes Strength to increase all of its melee/PBAoE damage, regardless of damage type.
There are definitely other options, but it's clear by now that I'm not alone among the tabletop aficionados in desperately wanting characters in neverwinter to want somewhat similar stat distribution to what they'd want in a tabletop campaign.
We really need the damage reduction back. We were not doing that bad on damage it was agro management where our biggest problems lay.
A little afraid of the plans for changes to divinity return changes. Much worse against normal mobs spells trouble for solo play when facing mobs of normies.
For agro while shielding I depend heavily on Binding Oath, I have always loved it and still do. Been running VoE and TW as well solo seeing how it works with BO and shielding, promise there. Divinity recharge rate will make us second guess ourselves as to when to Not use a divinity power.
Not So Divine Pali... aww hell Cone of Suck, well you managed to actually make this even worse than it was. So congratulations, didn't think it was possible. Drains divinity and the stamina I will need to recharge that divinity? April Fools?
Ok, PUGs for me end with Mod 16, just will not happen again. When each member of the party is needed to play at high levels of skill and a good number are looking to be carried, bots, or subpar skill wise: no more PUGs.
Still not sure that a tank will be really needed in mod 16. I wonder if 5 tank companions spamming their taunts could confuse mobs long enough for a party of 4-5 DPS to clear the area?
Healers rest well, you will have a job.
Some things great, but tone down the damage and may be hit points too.
Almost forgot, posted in stats as well, charisma does not change the ratings with companion influence. The correct % is listed on character sheet but ratings do not change when you add points to charisma. Which means ratings will change a bit, for me it was about 120 points/2% increase. With a 28 charisma that is a little over 1000 ratings increase.
Thank you for the replies to feed back, and again sorry but do not know how to color code this.
Hmmm, when a power says reduces incoming damage by a %, is that a second layer of defense like on live or does that go into damage reduction now? Cone of suck may have a small value if it, Divine Palisade, provides a second layer of defense. Same goes for anything that states reduces damage by a %.
Hi Obsidiancran3, I appreciate your continued feedback. In regards to divinity regeneration, I do believe your post was before the divinity regeneration buff hit preview at the end of last week.
It might well have been, but the reality remains our Divinity recovery is clunky, slow and hinders smooth game play; especially in comparison to the DC (either Paragon) and the Heal Warlock.
In fact after some testing last night, our Divinity Recovery isn't even the same from both Paragons in our class, it is far, far easier to keep Divinity up as an Oathkeeper, even with the same power rotations.
Strangely in dungeon content I think the Justicar has the advantage on Divinity Recovery, as long as they can hold aggro while it does its thing. That said its still clunky and hinders smooth game play.
Groups are not going to want to stand around for a Paladin to get Divinity back.
The threat bonuses are quite generous, so even if you are the lower end of the spectrum when queuing, you should be able to keep threat. Of course, hitting that mark perfectly so that a lower end tank can keep threat off of a higher end DPS in a queue, without making it mind shatteringly easy to hold threat when the two are evenly geared can be difficult—and we are closely testing a variety of scenarios and making adjustments.
In truth I have no real trouble keeping aggro, but then I'm running a 22k iL Paladin for much of this stuff on preview and it shouldn't be having trouble. Yet even acknowledging my experience I recognize in that experience that lower geared Paladins are going to struggle more than I have in my play.
Maintaining aggro means pretty much running Vow + Divinity Aggro + Non-Divinity Power as encounters (Oath Strike as at-will), and while Vow certainly doesn't need a reduction in Magnitude this week that has been implied by noworries' post, it could use a reduction in cool down - or we need something done about our Divinity mechanic in order to make it all work more smoothly (solo play and Divinity management in party).
My main concern now is there are only 3 Fridays for patches that can lead to change between now and release and a whole lot of stuff seems to be in the "not set in stone" category across the game at this time. I know "infinite testing" isn't a reality, but the game seems far too volatile now to be ready to push out the door in 4 weeks.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
@asterdahl Rather than an internal cooldown for Divinity gain, perhaps a cap per second? That way, you don't have to worry about some little hamster eating your cooldown with a normal swing, generating an accordingly small amount, only for you to block a white-flash windup and gain no divinity from it.
Since its most likely redundant to give more feedback before this week's patch I'll just say this.. I feel I've been too negative in my last posts, I dont fully hate the Justicar. Im 50/50 on it. Perhaps the dev team can accomplish wonders in 3 weeks, because nothing short of a wonder would do.
Enchantments, companions, down-scaling, dungeon difficulty.. these are just some of the main things that need to be re-balanced before m16 goes live. And of course classes. Feels like you guys have a lot of top priorities, not just one. Hope you're up to the task.
Post edited by emilemo on
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
@asterdahl hey Man, couple ideas that can help. 1 change -30% dmg debuff on justicar, from permanent, to -30% dmg on block for a time ( will help with solo, and mb add some combo or risk/reward for dungs, if not make it last long like 8s) 2 divinity on block, instead a flat ammount with each hit, make it a divinity regen over time, that refreshes. reward reactive blocking with weaving abilities instead of holding shift and calling it a day ( might make it so -30% is not needed or whatever). 3 make powers more interesting, everything is bland and boring as heck. 4 why is there even divinity? make it the way it was for DC long ago, boost a power, that way we dont have to rely on this "mana bar" for everything, it was entire point of NV to not have freaking mana to manage. 5 change heals on justicar, i warn you. that people will find a way to not need tank or healer, and having tank heal, is one of those possibilities. 6 thx for making auras auras i guess, hope they dont give 1% crit.
Just one thing, the Justicar healing Leo mentions upstaris. Do you honestly think a 400 mag heal ability that costs Divinity will be enough for a tank to replace an actual healer while also tanking with other abilities which cost Divinity in grp content?
Cause I dont think so. In my preview runs I never even slotted Divine Touch, no room for it, no Divinity to spare either.
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
@leonidrex 1) it’s a 10% debuff on Damage and a 40% buff in HP for Justicar now. 2) Unless you mean Pallisade, you do recover divinity passively and you recover it faster if you block (on Justicar). 3) Subjective. 4) To make the divine classes distinct and give them a more varied way to manage cooldowns than just having everything on a 20s timer. This is actually helpful in solo play btw. 5) The 1 heal in Justicar is not effective, but it does help increase the utility of the class in 10 and 20 toon content. 6) All buffs are smaller in Mod16 unless they are personal buffs. Also as I was responding Preview hasn’t patched for the week, so Auras are about to change. (But the buff will be smaller...so...)
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
@bobo#5090 I’m curious how you got a fresh 70 in 30 minutes?
Preview only provides easy access to things that are intended to be tested, which included Barkshield a few mods back. So get the Barkshield and take it to the Exchange Vendor, where the Reward Claims Agent is and get whatever Rank 12 you want.
Feytouched isn’t a good choice, try Briartwine.
This week’s patch had not rolled out when you were testing. (It was happening when you were giving your report), so everything is about to change from the experience you just had. Welcome to Preview!
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
@asterdahl. First, apologies to you and all for the length of this post. I wanted to make sure that I experimented with them a bit more before I gave my impressions. Like I mentioned earlier, I'll be focusing on the Oathkeeper side of the paladin class as I think the preponderance of comments on the state of the Justicar more than have that paragon covered. I ran my main (16.6K Devo OP on live) through both the new content as well as back into the campaign areas (Barovia, Chult, SoMI and the rest). I even hopped into a private queue to solo eSoT, eTOS, FBI, and ToNG. Not to try and take a stab at completing them. It was more to get a familiarization of what the Oathkeeper would be facing with respect to the readjusted mobs there and how the encounters fared.
Some encounter powers on the Oathkeeper side need an overhaul, like yesterday. Single target heals are low, we have no powers that remove negative effects to the group (not just a single individual), and even the AoE heals come with some risk as Divine barrier will reduce said barrier if subsequent heals are applied that were lower than the one before. While the damage magnitude is up for debate on on some like Smite (I think its fine personally), and other powers have some interesting effects (Divine Touch, Divine Shelter and Banishment). My impressions of them vary from Fine/like, okay to very lackluster. I'll focus on the latter first:
Lackluster
Bond of Virtue: This WAS one of the signature powers of the Oath of Devotion paragon. Healing was shared between multiple allies, team mates or party members and synergized VERY well with Vow of Enmity's heal. Now - Only use I can see for it as a band-aid. Slap it on the Tank and you can heal others and the tank rather than a useful ability to heal the entire group. Which is...what Divine Shelter does. What I haven't been able to determine yet is if a 40% heal from bond of Virtue also include Divine Barrier from either Touch or Shelter. Clarification on whether it does would be welcome though I strongly suspect that it doesn't. Regardless, I found a power that I once got so much utility from at level 30 reduced to a shell and it unlocks at what...Level 77. It would be nice it if created a bond with the party instead of just one ally. Seriously, this one was EXTREMELY disappointing. So disappointing in fact that I'm wondering if I'd do better letting the tank or hdps take a massive beating first and then just drop Lay on Hands on them for the added barrier. I'm just not feeling this one.
Cleansing Touch: A power that was once shared and now nerfed when given to the Oathkeeper. The strength of its heal is a rather low (even with the removal of negative effects) and the one thing it doesn't do is cleanse multiple party members. In fact, the Devout and the Soulweaver have powers that remove negative effects from multiple party members but Oathkeeper does not. It would be helpful if this cleansed negative effects in a at least small radius the size of Divine touch... kind of like it used to on the Devotion Paladin. Otherwise stuns and poisons from bosses will need to be healed one at a time, which is frustrating and potentially deadly considering how low the it heals. Low divinity cost aside. I'd be happy if you upped the divinity cost of this one to 60 if it either gave a stronger heal, removed negative effects from more than just one target. Even better would be to possibly swap with divine touch. DT doesn't come with a barrier on the Justicar and is a potential divinity sink at 220. Cleansing touch, as is, is a fraction of that cost. Yes, it heals for about half as much but it removes negative effect. Something, new paladins will would probably appreciate as they go through the leveling process. For the justies, its a small heal, spammable, there if they need it, ignore if they don't and could help while soloing - Poisons, Stuns and the like. Not saying change it. The Justicar players would need to weigh in. Just something food for thought.
Burning Light: This one was also disappointing. Yes, charging it to full is faster and it still has a stun. It does okay damage but doesn't do anything else, and the stun duration is very short. Its alright for interrupts but not much else given you really can't do anything about the cooldown. It used to heal as well and it doesn't seem to do that anymore. With a 13s cooldown would it be too much to ask for a 100 magnitude heal? Its the first encounter received on both the Pre and Post-Mod 16 versions and it doesn't even heal on post. Heck, the first heal a pally player gets is Divine Touch and that isn't until level what - 8, 12? It needs a relook.
Okay:
Bane: This power is in between alright and seriously wanting for me. I like that its a AoE and the damage is nice but the divinity cost negates any advantage I have to slotting it. If soloing, I'll either throw down multiple smites or simply burn Radiant Charge and mop up the mess with smite and my companion. It also doesn't do anything else other than dropping damage in an area. Still, depending on the mobs, it's good for what it does.
Sacred Weapon: Adds radiant damage. It's honestly meh for me. I like that you only have to hit it once and it works for about six or seven hits, but other than that I really don't care too much about it. It provides no other benefits than the damage boost.
Circle of Power: I am fond of this one, despite its nerf and reallocation to the oathkeeper. I almost never slotted this one on my devo, but it almost never leaves my bar on Preview. While I know divinity regen rate was increased, trying to channel divinity while CoP is up is still bit slow at around 10 sec from empty to topped off seems to leave the healer in a very vulnerable position for an extended period of time provided the tank hasn't lost aggro. My one gripe with this one is that the circle is fairly small and with not a whole lot of room to maneuver and block while staying in the circle for the healing bonus and divinity regeneration. Please consider returning it to the size of its Mod 15 predecessor. If anything, THIS should be the level 77 power instead of Bond of Virtue given that its a means of divinity regeneration. It would be even more useful if you either increased its duration an extra second or two it gave the reduced incoming damage to the Oathkeeper by 5%. Probably not gonna happen but it would be nice.
Banishment: Another I'm fond of now that enemies aren't immune to damage while stunned. Its helpful in clearing out trash while solo but I don't think I'll slot it at any other time. The time held is pretty low at 6 sec though in that time, one or more of them have fallen to repeated smite or bane shots. While its nice that the target gets a damage debuff, I'd find it more useful if that 5% damage debuff was a 5% damage buff to all allies in the effected area. The former is only useful against a single hard hitting target and in the dungeons, ones that seem to have fairly robust control resist, if not outright immunity. Example, it works in FBI on the Orcs but the Frosties just laugh it off. I'm going to do some more testing and make changes to some of my boons and stats for better Control bonus. If anyone else has knowledge as who it effects, it would be appreciated.
Fine/Like (with some caveats):
Smite: Still love smite. Ole reliable. It hits hard. Only real damaging encounter on the Oathkeeper that doesn't require a blood sacrifice worth of cost with respect to divinity. I'd keep it slotted while in a group, in case of emergencies and wouldn't consider using anything else (other than Divine Judgement or Radiant Charge) while soloing. If fact, it was so useful, the only solo epic I attempted to near completion was eToS. I decided to quit after I got to Syndryth but it was fun while it lasted.
Divine Shelter: I like this one. At first, it seems easy to confuse this one with Divine Touch as they both heal for almost the same amount and come with (roughly) the same effects. The heals are...okay. The AoE radius is nice and there is no need to target a specific individual or small group. Fire it off, and everybody in the radius gets the heal and a barrier. I was a bit shocked to learn when dropping it on my comp during leveling or one of my friend's SWs while teamed that the barrier provided doesn't stack but can either increase or reduce in size depending on the amount healed and will overwrite the previous barrier if reapplied before its expended. Is that working as intended? If so, it would be nice to mention that in the tooltip as it can be tempting to (and certain situations might warrant) reapply it to the same target. Other than it's lower magnitude heals and steeper divinity cost in relation Divine Touch, I'm okay with is power.
Divine Touch: The go-to heals. The targeting mechanics are an improvement from its predecessor, the divinity cost is reasonable. It does seem prone to animation cancellation when used in rapid succession It used to do damage before mod 16. Paltry damage when compared with other encounter powers but damage nonetheless and gave a great multi target heal. I guess the barrier took the place of the damage it used to do. This is fine as the Oathkeeper doesn't need anything extra to add to threat when in a group.
So that about covers my personal impressions of the encounters for the Oathkeeper and the use (or not) I got out of them on Preview. I understand there are changes to the Auras in the works so I'll hold off on taking about those until after they've dropped.
Comments
Hi Emilemo, I am sorry to hear that you have so little faith in us. I assure you that my highest priority for Paladin is resolving the pacing debacle that the interaction between Justicar's Charge and Smite has created. I have simply been working on other tasks for the past few weeks so I apologize for letting the issue languish.
In terms of achieving actual DPS balance, nerfing Justicar's damage and buffing the underperforming DPS classes is a fairly trivial thing to do, now that we have cleaned up the rat's nest that was going on under the hood with the classes pre module 16. That's not to say that we're going to achieve perfect balance at launch of Module 16, but right now we're focusing on getting everything to feel good, making numerical adjustments is not particularly difficult. I truly believe that class balance will be in a better place when Module 16 launches, than it is currently on live.
Thanks indeed @asterdahl and sorry for the Smite storm over the last few pages
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
In NW now my level 80 Paladin has the following base stats (only my level applied stats, no gear or campfire):
Str 10, Con 17, Dex 10, Int 20, Wis 16, Cha 26 as a tank. As a healer the Int and Wis are balanced out.
In DnD that would be some sort of strange Wizard/Paladin combination.
DnD Paladins favor Str, Con and Cha (not in that order) if they plan to wear heavy armor like they do in NW.
So when I look at my stats I have a disconnect.
It doesn't feel "DnD" when I look at the most "DnD" thing about the character sheet.
Which seems odd.
The fact that my Warlock, Wizard and Paladin end up with very similar stat arrays just makes it stranger.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
@asterdahl can we please have any insight on possible plans concerning Tab and Shield mechanics of the Paladin? It's something that a number of people playing this class feel more significant than tweaking magnitudes and cooldowns and that concerns the core identity of the Paladin's role and gameplay. Thank you in advance for any informations on this regard.
Paladins in 5e don't have the horrendous MAD problem they did in 3rd, but it's actually worse in mod16 than it was in 3e specifically because of the bizarre interaction between the new ability score rules and the paladin's damage types, and furthermore gives the farcical paradigm that a melee-focused character in full plate with a tower shield DOES NOT want Strength at all.
There are a couple of options to address this dissonance, and all of them will require changing something.
Option 1: make more of the Justicar's powers deal Physical damage. This one is a bit of a weird sell in that the majority of the power appearances are clearly at least partially radiant (although some, like Smite, have an obvious physical component as well)
Option 1 corrolary: split the damage for applicable Justicar powers between Physical and Magical. This isn't a great idea, either, in that it puts Justicars in the even worse place of wanting to chase both Strength and Intelligence for the same powers.
Option 2: Base Justicar radiant damage on Strength. This would require uncoupling it conceptually from the Cleric a little, but with the redesign work you guys have done, that should be easier now than it has ever been.
Option 3: give Justicar a passive(Holy Warrior? A rider on Justicar's Charge?) that causes Strength to increase all of its melee/PBAoE damage, regardless of damage type.
There are definitely other options, but it's clear by now that I'm not alone among the tabletop aficionados in desperately wanting characters in neverwinter to want somewhat similar stat distribution to what they'd want in a tabletop campaign.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
We really need the damage reduction back. We were not doing that bad on damage it was agro management where our biggest problems lay.
A little afraid of the plans for changes to divinity return changes. Much worse against normal mobs spells trouble for solo play when facing mobs of normies.
For agro while shielding I depend heavily on Binding Oath, I have always loved it and still do. Been running VoE and TW as well solo seeing how it works with BO and shielding, promise there. Divinity recharge rate will make us second guess ourselves as to when to Not use a divinity power.
Not So Divine Pali... aww hell Cone of Suck, well you managed to actually make this even worse than it was. So congratulations, didn't think it was possible. Drains divinity and the stamina I will need to recharge that divinity? April Fools?
Ok, PUGs for me end with Mod 16, just will not happen again. When each member of the party is needed to play at high levels of skill and a good number are looking to be carried, bots, or subpar skill wise: no more PUGs.
Still not sure that a tank will be really needed in mod 16. I wonder if 5 tank companions spamming their taunts could confuse mobs long enough for a party of 4-5 DPS to clear the area?
Healers rest well, you will have a job.
Some things great, but tone down the damage and may be hit points too.
Almost forgot, posted in stats as well, charisma does not change the ratings with companion influence. The correct % is listed on character sheet but ratings do not change when you add points to charisma. Which means ratings will change a bit, for me it was about 120 points/2% increase. With a 28 charisma that is a little over 1000 ratings increase.
Thank you for the replies to feed back, and again sorry but do not know how to color code this.
In fact after some testing last night, our Divinity Recovery isn't even the same from both Paragons in our class, it is far, far easier to keep Divinity up as an Oathkeeper, even with the same power rotations.
Strangely in dungeon content I think the Justicar has the advantage on Divinity Recovery, as long as they can hold aggro while it does its thing. That said its still clunky and hinders smooth game play.
Groups are not going to want to stand around for a Paladin to get Divinity back.
In truth I have no real trouble keeping aggro, but then I'm running a 22k iL Paladin for much of this stuff on preview and it shouldn't be having trouble. Yet even acknowledging my experience I recognize in that experience that lower geared Paladins are going to struggle more than I have in my play.
Maintaining aggro means pretty much running Vow + Divinity Aggro + Non-Divinity Power as encounters (Oath Strike as at-will), and while Vow certainly doesn't need a reduction in Magnitude this week that has been implied by noworries' post, it could use a reduction in cool down - or we need something done about our Divinity mechanic in order to make it all work more smoothly (solo play and Divinity management in party).
My main concern now is there are only 3 Fridays for patches that can lead to change between now and release and a whole lot of stuff seems to be in the "not set in stone" category across the game at this time. I know "infinite testing" isn't a reality, but the game seems far too volatile now to be ready to push out the door in 4 weeks.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Enchantments, companions, down-scaling, dungeon difficulty.. these are just some of the main things that need to be re-balanced before m16 goes live. And of course classes. Feels like you guys have a lot of top priorities, not just one. Hope you're up to the task.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
ps., I don't have any issues in Preview, perhaps its because I refuse to use a DPS hybrid build
hey Man, couple ideas that can help.
1 change -30% dmg debuff on justicar, from permanent, to -30% dmg on block for a time ( will help with solo, and mb add some combo or risk/reward for dungs, if not make it last long like 8s)
2 divinity on block, instead a flat ammount with each hit, make it a divinity regen over time, that refreshes. reward reactive blocking with weaving abilities instead of holding shift and calling it a day ( might make it so -30% is not needed or whatever).
3 make powers more interesting, everything is bland and boring as heck.
4 why is there even divinity? make it the way it was for DC long ago, boost a power, that way we dont have to rely on this "mana bar" for everything, it was entire point of NV to not have freaking mana to manage.
5 change heals on justicar, i warn you. that people will find a way to not need tank or healer, and having tank heal, is one of those possibilities.
6 thx for making auras auras i guess, hope they dont give 1% crit.
Cause I dont think so. In my preview runs I never even slotted Divine Touch, no room for it, no Divinity to spare either.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
1) it’s a 10% debuff on Damage and a 40% buff in HP for Justicar now.
2) Unless you mean Pallisade, you do recover divinity passively and you recover it faster if you block (on Justicar).
3) Subjective.
4) To make the divine classes distinct and give them a more varied way to manage cooldowns than just having everything on a 20s timer. This is actually helpful in solo play btw.
5) The 1 heal in Justicar is not effective, but it does help increase the utility of the class in 10 and 20 toon content.
6) All buffs are smaller in Mod16 unless they are personal buffs. Also as I was responding Preview hasn’t patched for the week, so Auras are about to change. (But the buff will be smaller...so...)
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Preview only provides easy access to things that are intended to be tested, which included Barkshield a few mods back. So get the Barkshield and take it to the Exchange Vendor, where the Reward Claims Agent is and get whatever Rank 12 you want.
Feytouched isn’t a good choice, try Briartwine.
This week’s patch had not rolled out when you were testing. (It was happening when you were giving your report), so everything is about to change from the experience you just had. Welcome to Preview!
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Some encounter powers on the Oathkeeper side need an overhaul, like yesterday. Single target heals are low, we have no powers that remove negative effects to the group (not just a single individual), and even the AoE heals come with some risk as Divine barrier will reduce said barrier if subsequent heals are applied that were lower than the one before. While the damage magnitude is up for debate on on some like Smite (I think its fine personally), and other powers have some interesting effects (Divine Touch, Divine Shelter and Banishment). My impressions of them vary from Fine/like, okay to very lackluster. I'll focus on the latter first:
Lackluster
Bond of Virtue: This WAS one of the signature powers of the Oath of Devotion paragon. Healing was shared between multiple allies, team mates or party members and synergized VERY well with Vow of Enmity's heal. Now - Only use I can see for it as a band-aid. Slap it on the Tank and you can heal others and the tank rather than a useful ability to heal the entire group. Which is...what Divine Shelter does. What I haven't been able to determine yet is if a 40% heal from bond of Virtue also include Divine Barrier from either Touch or Shelter. Clarification on whether it does would be welcome though I strongly suspect that it doesn't. Regardless, I found a power that I once got so much utility from at level 30 reduced to a shell and it unlocks at what...Level 77. It would be nice it if created a bond with the party instead of just one ally. Seriously, this one was EXTREMELY disappointing. So disappointing in fact that I'm wondering if I'd do better letting the tank or hdps take a massive beating first and then just drop Lay on Hands on them for the added barrier. I'm just not feeling this one.
Cleansing Touch: A power that was once shared and now nerfed when given to the Oathkeeper. The strength of its heal is a rather low (even with the removal of negative effects) and the one thing it doesn't do is cleanse multiple party members. In fact, the Devout and the Soulweaver have powers that remove negative effects from multiple party members but Oathkeeper does not. It would be helpful if this cleansed negative effects in a at least small radius the size of Divine touch... kind of like it used to on the Devotion Paladin. Otherwise stuns and poisons from bosses will need to be healed one at a time, which is frustrating and potentially deadly considering how low the it heals. Low divinity cost aside. I'd be happy if you upped the divinity cost of this one to 60 if it either gave a stronger heal, removed negative effects from more than just one target. Even better would be to possibly swap with divine touch. DT doesn't come with a barrier on the Justicar and is a potential divinity sink at 220. Cleansing touch, as is, is a fraction of that cost. Yes, it heals for about half as much but it removes negative effect. Something, new paladins will would probably appreciate as they go through the leveling process. For the justies, its a small heal, spammable, there if they need it, ignore if they don't and could help while soloing - Poisons, Stuns and the like. Not saying change it. The Justicar players would need to weigh in. Just something food for thought.
Burning Light: This one was also disappointing. Yes, charging it to full is faster and it still has a stun. It does okay damage but doesn't do anything else, and the stun duration is very short. Its alright for interrupts but not much else given you really can't do anything about the cooldown. It used to heal as well and it doesn't seem to do that anymore. With a 13s cooldown would it be too much to ask for a 100 magnitude heal? Its the first encounter received on both the Pre and Post-Mod 16 versions and it doesn't even heal on post. Heck, the first heal a pally player gets is Divine Touch and that isn't until level what - 8, 12? It needs a relook.
Okay:
Bane: This power is in between alright and seriously wanting for me. I like that its a AoE and the damage is nice but the divinity cost negates any advantage I have to slotting it. If soloing, I'll either throw down multiple smites or simply burn Radiant Charge and mop up the mess with smite and my companion. It also doesn't do anything else other than dropping damage in an area. Still, depending on the mobs, it's good for what it does.
Sacred Weapon: Adds radiant damage. It's honestly meh for me. I like that you only have to hit it once and it works for about six or seven hits, but other than that I really don't care too much about it. It provides no other benefits than the damage boost.
Circle of Power: I am fond of this one, despite its nerf and reallocation to the oathkeeper. I almost never slotted this one on my devo, but it almost never leaves my bar on Preview. While I know divinity regen rate was increased, trying to channel divinity while CoP is up is still bit slow at around 10 sec from empty to topped off seems to leave the healer in a very vulnerable position for an extended period of time provided the tank hasn't lost aggro. My one gripe with this one is that the circle is fairly small and with not a whole lot of room to maneuver and block while staying in the circle for the healing bonus and divinity regeneration. Please consider returning it to the size of its Mod 15 predecessor. If anything, THIS should be the level 77 power instead of Bond of Virtue given that its a means of divinity regeneration. It would be even more useful if you either increased its duration an extra second or two it gave the reduced incoming damage to the Oathkeeper by 5%. Probably not gonna happen but it would be nice.
Banishment: Another I'm fond of now that enemies aren't immune to damage while stunned. Its helpful in clearing out trash while solo but I don't think I'll slot it at any other time. The time held is pretty low at 6 sec though in that time, one or more of them have fallen to repeated smite or bane shots. While its nice that the target gets a damage debuff, I'd find it more useful if that 5% damage debuff was a 5% damage buff to all allies in the effected area. The former is only useful against a single hard hitting target and in the dungeons, ones that seem to have fairly robust control resist, if not outright immunity. Example, it works in FBI on the Orcs but the Frosties just laugh it off. I'm going to do some more testing and make changes to some of my boons and stats for better Control bonus. If anyone else has knowledge as who it effects, it would be appreciated.
Fine/Like (with some caveats):
Smite: Still love smite. Ole reliable. It hits hard. Only real damaging encounter on the Oathkeeper that doesn't require a blood sacrifice worth of cost with respect to divinity. I'd keep it slotted while in a group, in case of emergencies and wouldn't consider using anything else (other than Divine Judgement or Radiant Charge) while soloing. If fact, it was so useful, the only solo epic I attempted to near completion was eToS. I decided to quit after I got to Syndryth but it was fun while it lasted.
Divine Shelter: I like this one. At first, it seems easy to confuse this one with Divine Touch as they both heal for almost the same amount and come with (roughly) the same effects. The heals are...okay. The AoE radius is nice and there is no need to target a specific individual or small group. Fire it off, and everybody in the radius gets the heal and a barrier. I was a bit shocked to learn when dropping it on my comp during leveling or one of my friend's SWs while teamed that the barrier provided doesn't stack but can either increase or reduce in size depending on the amount healed and will overwrite the previous barrier if reapplied before its expended. Is that working as intended? If so, it would be nice to mention that in the tooltip as it can be tempting to (and certain situations might warrant) reapply it to the same target. Other than it's lower magnitude heals and steeper divinity cost in relation Divine Touch, I'm okay with is power.
Divine Touch: The go-to heals. The targeting mechanics are an improvement from its predecessor, the divinity cost is reasonable. It does seem prone to animation cancellation when used in rapid succession It used to do damage before mod 16. Paltry damage when compared with other encounter powers but damage nonetheless and gave a great multi target heal. I guess the barrier took the place of the damage it used to do. This is fine as the Oathkeeper doesn't need anything extra to add to threat when in a group.
So that about covers my personal impressions of the encounters for the Oathkeeper and the use (or not) I got out of them on Preview. I understand there are changes to the Auras in the works so I'll hold off on taking about those until after they've dropped.
House Miliskeera in exile (NW)
Sereska Miliskeera, Lvl 70 OP - Devotion (Just.)/Protection (Just.)
Shizlee Miliskeera, Lvl 70 DC - Divine Oracle (Right.)/Anoited Champion (Faith.)
Finithey Miliskeera, Lvl 70 HR - Stormwarden (Combat)/Pathfinder (Trapper)
Maya Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 CW - Spellstorm
Irae Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 TR - Master Inflitrator
Member - Houseclan t'Charvon (STO)
Shiarrael e'Tal'Aura t'Charvon, LvL 60, Rom Sci
S'aana ir'Virinat t'Charvon, Lvl 60, Rom Eng
T'Lyra, LvL 60, Fed, Vul Sci
Ta'el, Lvl 60, Rom Tac
Have looked at the Auras on Justicar, and they look good (keeping in mind the general feel of Mod 16).
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
House Miliskeera in exile (NW)
Sereska Miliskeera, Lvl 70 OP - Devotion (Just.)/Protection (Just.)
Shizlee Miliskeera, Lvl 70 DC - Divine Oracle (Right.)/Anoited Champion (Faith.)
Finithey Miliskeera, Lvl 70 HR - Stormwarden (Combat)/Pathfinder (Trapper)
Maya Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 CW - Spellstorm
Irae Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 TR - Master Inflitrator
Member - Houseclan t'Charvon (STO)
Shiarrael e'Tal'Aura t'Charvon, LvL 60, Rom Sci
S'aana ir'Virinat t'Charvon, Lvl 60, Rom Eng
T'Lyra, LvL 60, Fed, Vul Sci
Ta'el, Lvl 60, Rom Tac