The intent is there and there is some nice things, but ultimately, thus far, feels like a swing and a miss. Count is 0 and 1 with the winning runner on 3rd. Here's hoping the next few mini patches and tweaks help.
If you have even a bit of wisdom, the healing isn't too bad at all, just as advertised I'd say. But with the cd and mana costs you aren't doing much of anything in a tougher fight. Conviction being an hour is great, gavel line for pulling is also great. The smites being what they are is just fine and the bonuses when on consecrated area, which is also cool, is cool. The additional healing aura is...ok(?) but I've always felt in games anything that increased healing received I'd happily trade for just better mitigation/prevention, which we didn't get.
They did all these neat things but shoved their heads in the sand over what seems like very obvious, very easy/trivial things to tweak that everyone wanted but they didn't give:
- Aura of Courage additions are spot on, but why did you leave the AC unchanged? Hardly any enemies fear, and a 1 in 5 chance to resist isn't aura worthy. Likewise, all enemies attack. You still want to look me in the eye and say my level 60 aura gives me and my group the AC equivalent of an Iron Breastplate? As if 30 AC matters at all at 60 when I'm seeing single pieces of gear being sold in ooc that have more than double that already. If my clothie gets agro, my AC aura should be saving their life, not preventing 5 damage on a 300 damage hit. If we're providing AC, let us PROVIDE SOME A-CEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
- I'm not even high enough to get warding slam yet since it's 25 so I can't even talk about the damage or if it feels good or not. Why am I waiting 25 levels to get a shield bash that damages when your deep dive itself talks about shield use being pretty important if not core to the class?
- Shield Toss is still a very cool concept on paper. Giving it a shiny animation doesn't change the fact that it's still a largely useless skill for the spell slot. If I'm ever in a situation, or my group too for that matter, where we have multiple casters popping off spells at the same time, we're effed anyway this isn't saving us. And if it isn't, it's because we have an Inq or Enc doing their job and mezzing. This could have, should have, been made into one of the only AoE damage and high threat abilities we have. It should be an attention grabber, not another interrupt.
- Mark of the Crusader still has a very real place and use, but for a spell slot it's still very situational and easily could have been made a standard core kit ability if you made every attack from group members proc the tiny heal onto the paladin, giving the paladin the threat for it too. I'm not a dual wielding, double attacking quad machine. I'm healing myself for 3, maybe 6 every 3 seconds or so. With the changes to our core heal and increased mana cost, this felt like a no-brainer to a unique property to make paladins super cool tanks that allow for healers to do other things than heal in a group due to our efficiency. Let clerics smite, druids nuke, shamans dot, etc, while tossing a heal every now and again instead of being dedicated to one-button-spam like they are for say, fighters, who get the trade off benefit of being dual wielding, double attacking quad machines for damage.
All in all, there was a lot of fun suggestions in numerous threads that just didn't get read or considered imo:
- A defensive attack that guaranteed blocks
- Out of combat passives
- Group beneficial aura options (increased healing received, if everyone is doing their job, is really only for me or whoever is tanking, just like AC is, which is also why it needed a big boost)
- More 'knightly' feel to abilities, some strikes can't be used while behind targets, etc.
I still love playing my paladin, but not because they feel like a good class, but because I get to roleplay a socially stupid holy cop. In terms of group benefit, the changes only make me feel a group wants me for my rez because a cleric wasn't available, not because I do anything else cool they'd otherwise want me around for.
