Paladin Deep Dive Discussion

Holy

Had a chance to play with the rework as a level 60 Paladin and rather than re-hash a lot of what has been said, I thought I would summarize pros and cons.

Pros

Threat - Threat is significantly better in the rework and it addressed one of the Paladin's worst issues. This is a big improvement.

Utility - Overall I like the group and raid utility between sacrifice mechanics, consecration and new aura. Paladins will be highly desired for high-end content and the extra group healing will be beneficial, especially in tougher camps and when the AC and threat bonus of courage aura isn't fully needed.

Damage - Damage seems to be slightly better which is another welcome change. Paladins were often neglected for SKs/Fighters due to the fact that the damage differential was fairly large. The changes seemed to have closed the gap a bit. I like the fact that wisdom in general has had its appeal increased through scaling some ability damage we have.

Cons

Consecration Durations - The duration of consecrations needs to be improved OR consecrations shouldn't share cooldowns. It doesn't feel super good where it's at. Yes, the 20% damage reduction consecration will be good, especially at high end encounters, but the uptime is low.

Healing - The value of the heals is good, the mana cost is likely fine, but the heals should cast slightly faster at high level. 1.5 to 1 second would be a nice compromise. Right now I feel like they're a bit too slow.

Undead Dominance - While critical hits are a nice bonus for Paladins, I feel like this rework missed the mark heavily on making Paladins the undead slayers we all want. Specifically, the Exorcism consecration which will never see an ability bar in its current implementation. The damage is... laughable. At level 60 with best-in-slot gear, the consecration was ticking for 30 a tick, not even killing Wyrmsbane undead.

While the snare/fear is a cool mechanic, I feel like this should be at least 5-10x stronger to be worth keeping a spot on the ability bar.

Vengeful Smite - This needs more. 25% additional weapon damage and slightly more holy damage is not enough to ever use this ability over Restorative Smite. Both add the same amount of threat and the damage difference with VERY good weapons (Pustalax sword / Nyxx sword) is negligible. In its current state, Restorative Smite is arguably better in all situations due to the healing.

This also feels bad in that it's a 20 second CD but arguably worse than Crusader Strike since it doesn't proc righteous smite.

Recommendation: Give Vengeful Smite a chance to also proc righteous smite to solidify its place as a primary damage tool.

Conclusion

Ultimately this was a very good rework and brings the Paladin up to a respectable level with the other tanks. The random procs add a fun factor to the class, albeit likely a bit overpowered in early levels. The additional resurrection tiers also add much needed utility and at 75%, some people will still take a Paladin rez when necessary.

If vengeful smite and exorcism received some much-needed love, I think this class would fall into a great place.

Fidric

Holy could you possibly post a full tooltip screenshot or text details e.g. cooldown/mana/range etc of the level 35 Oath of Sacrifice spell please?

Tyrantek

Any plans in the future on changing VFX colors depending on what deity a Paladin worships?

Pineappl

Just got shield toss on a new paladin. While its a cool ability I'd love to use, it doesn't feel very useful considering you already get shield slam as an interrupt. It ends up just being a 2nd interrupt.

Would be cool if it did something extra like a mini-stun or applied a de-buff of some kind.

Alharis-Azurethray

Overall this feels like a real step up from the current Paladin. Good direction, thanks for the work on this.

What's landing well

Heals feel fine as-is, Healing Touch and Restorative Smite synergy makes sense for secondary healing.

Shield Toss doesn't earn a slot

The bounce VFX is a nice touch, but even with it there are too few real occasions to use Shield Toss in practice. I wanted to slot it when I first got it, but it's not competing well against other options for a skill slot.

Oaths, not sold yet

Oath of Vigilance and Oath of Sacrifice are a nice "protect an ally" identity on paper, but as a tank I'd rather have a heal or aggro tool in that slot than trade part of the damage onto myself. The exception would be a mechanic built around deliberately shedding aggro, something like intentionally passing threat to a groupmate for a specific reason. As it stands, neither Oath feels worth the slot.

Block still feels behind for a shield tank identity

Right now Warding Slam is basically the only skill that touches Block %, and only briefly, tied to its cooldown. If Paladin is meant to be the shield tank, block should run through more of the kit, not sit on a single proc off one ability. I'd like to see more skills or passives interacting with Block chance or Block value, not necessarily huge numbers, just more surface area so the shield tank fantasy shows up mechanically, not just thematically.

Consecration, cool concept, unsure it's "major" yet

As written, with Hallowed Ground, Blessing of Sanctuary, and Exorcism sharing one cooldown, Consecration competes directly with Stun, Lull, interrupt, and Root for a CC/utility slot, and those are proven tools for a tank. I'm not sure Consecration wins that slot yet.

Suggestion: give Consecrations their own dedicated system, similar to Auras, on a separate bar that doesn't use up a regular skill slot:

Keep the 30 second active duration as-is
Keep the 2 minute cooldown on casting a Consecration
Add a shorter 1 minute cooldown that lets you switch to a different Consecration without waiting out the full 2 minutes

This would let a Paladin cycle between Hallowed Ground, Sanctuary, and Exorcism as the fight demands, without eating into the CC/utility skill slot, and would make it feel like the major mechanism it's billed as rather than one more ability fighting for cooldown and slot space.

Lay on Hands needs a signature moment

LoH is one of the most iconic Paladin skills in the genre and right now nothing calls that out. It would be great to have a distinct, recognizable animation or VFX on cast, something the whole group immediately recognizes as the Paladin using LoH. A big impact heal deserves a visual payoff to match.

Summary

Heals feel fine, but Shield Toss and the Oaths don't feel worth their slots as designed, block still lacks presence for a shield tank, and Consecration needs its own system to feel like the major mechanism it's meant to be.

Siegfried

LVl 38 Paladin here, I have not played in a group with it, just looked at it at soloed some mobs so my feedback is limited.
My first impression is what has been mentioned already. Consecration is underwhelming, 30 sec uptime on 2 minute cooldown is not amazing for what it does.
It think 1 minute CD would be fine. so you have 50% uptime on your Consecration, or make it last 1 minute and keep the 2 minute CD.
Auras I also think a dps Aura would be nice, so you have 1 heal aura, 1 tank aura, 1 dps aura.
Also I think the healing touch is underwhelming, I like the touch idea, that you have to be near target, that fits the Paladin but I dont like the 1.5 cast time in combination with the 6 second cooldown. I think it should be a really fast heal,
I mean imho it could be instant even, or make it 0.5 sec, make it heal a bit more, but on longer cooldown.
It really should be a saving heal for emergency situations, Paladin is not a healer, but a Savior.
Basically I think healing touch should be a mini Lay on Hands. or more casual lay on hands., I dont know, make it 1 minute cooldown or something, but make it instant or 0.5 and heal a lot more.
Trying to casting a 1.5 sec every 6 seconds on a Tank is just lame.

tbh the only thing were I was really "woooah, thats cool!" are the Righteous Smite Procs, all the other stuff feels a bit whatever.

Verdic_of_Aysen

Tyr Not everybody wants to mash keys like they're in a typing competition. At the end of the day there's nothing wrong with taking on more than one character if you aren't challenged from the tactical perspective and need something more kinetic. It doesn't make the class bad, it just means they are keeping their promise of sandwich combat. Which most of us expected. The fact most people's complaints so far drop to "I wanted more aggro." Or "I want more DPS". Tells me its serving who it should have served. The tanks and people who want to help others. That seems to be the theme over all here and I don't think its a miss.

If anything I would say the protection abilities didn't go far enough. I'll also agree the healing spell line should be better. I don't mind giving up more mana - but it needs to be in the nick of time levels of fast. Factoring in network latency it isn't there yet.

Tyr

Verdic_of_Aysen

It doesn’t have to be extreme mashing, not sure how you got that from my post. The cooldown heavy combat favors just mashing when it’s off cooldown mostly, with no thought what so ever. That’s boring af.

If they want slow ish combat great but there should be more impactful decision making which is what something like resource management gives you. There should be more options to make your class play more passively or actively if you want. Right now they’re all starting to feel the same, button light up, button press, for the main combat abilities anyway, paladin is very much like this. Many of the classes in this regard are actually worse now than before revamp

Warfield

This update gets paladins closer to what they should fee like for sure, but for whatever reason the Paladin seems less tanky than before (maybe it was the loss of Holy Fortitude).

I'll drop a few recommended tweaks to make it even closer:

Hammer of Light: add a short stun
Fervor: Increase haste or add stacking charges
Restorative Smite: rename to "Redeeming Smite"
Aura of Courage: rename to "Aura of Valor", add a greater light source as you level up, needs more AC
Root: rename to "Censure", add DoT if undead
Reckoning: Frontal AE melee attack, requires 2H weapon (there is nothing cool for 2H-pallys)

Warfield

This update gets paladins closer to what they should fee like for sure, but for whatever reason the Paladin seems less tanky than before (maybe it was the loss of Holy Fortitude).

I'll drop a few recommended tweaks to make it even better:

Bobbybick

For those that have played it at the higher levels is the ranged Hammer pull worth a spell slot for? Messing around at the lower levels it felt like something I would pretty quickly never use again and just use standard throwing daggers to pull with which would also save mana.

Tyr

Bobbybick no it’s not really worth the slot in the current iteration

Fudgehammer

Mesh
Restorative smite is actually decent if you are standing in Hallowed ground.

funsl1ng3r

[unknown] it's also an AOE silence?

GeorgeDorn

Hey, everyone. Wanted to make a write up because this was my most anticipated DD, and I feel like it has been met with the pre-EA crunch time letdown of not really changing anything about the class.

The interesting new spell ideas (Consecrations, Gavel of Light, Fervor, new auras, Oaths) have all come out underbaked and seemingly not very useful, I am level 27, and my duo partner with this character has been a druid. I was able to gear this character up decently well by doing tradeskills on the pvp server so I currently sit at at 60s/40s in all my main stats.

Unfortunately, I feel that I have far less control and sustain than ever, particularly when I contrast this character with my poorly equipped PVE based level 20 Inquisitor. Both have the same problems, mana constraints, but the Inquisitor can actually control a pull and deal with spell casters.

With Warding/Shield Slam being a 15 second cooldown compared to 10 of kick, and Shield Throw being a whopping 30 seconds cooldown in which the AoE element will almost never be used to its full extent unless by accident, spell casters are unwieldly to deal with in basically any regard. Gods have mercy if someone gets feared.

Gavel of Light is expensive to cast and does nothing that my bow does not.

Blessing of Sanctuary costs 100mana to give me two Restorative Smites at 61hp~ per, that's 100 mana for less than my Greater Healing Touch; which makes it almost useless to have on my bar. All while only reducing meele damage by 20%. I get hit in meele for 2-20hp by most mobs, while getting hit for 100-200~ by spellcasters that I have little way to deal with as the Paladin has no way to break any CC on itself.

Oath of Vigilance is a pittace of damage mitigation, interesting idea with poor initial implementation. Possibly gets better at level cap but no spell's usefulness should be relegated to max level and not to the leveling journey in my opinion.

I have no complaints with Aura of Piety as it seems great for group play, but Aura of Courage seems incredibly undertuned as posters above have stated, 30AC at level 60 is nothing.

Crusader Strike and Restorative/Vengeful Smite are the same as they were, and are the only two buttons I get to click still for 99% of combatl; but now I get the most un-tank like strange addition I've ever seen in the random Smites for one trillion damage.

The undead only spells are as bad as they've always felt. Type-specific spells in a TTRPG feel good because your DM is your friend and wants you to feel useful. An MMO is impartial and I'd like to have utility fighting the bulk of enemies in the game, not relegated to skeletons in the closet.

Stun is still electrically themed? Root is still... root themed.

The class has little identity and feels very little like a Paladin, a class I am highly interested in and have played in many interations.

GeorgeDorn

Hey, everyone. Wanted to make a write up because this was my most anticipated DD, and I feel like it has been met with the pre-EA crunch time letdown of not really changing anything about the class.

Gavel of Light is expensive to cast and does nothing that my bow does not.

I have no complaints with Aura of Piety as it seems great for group play, but Aura of Courage seems incredibly undertuned as posters above have stated, 30AC at level 60 is nothing.

Stun is still electrically themed? Root is still... root themed.

The class has little identity and feels very little like a Paladin, a class I am highly interested in and have played in many interations.

Tpoon

Has anyone mention a holy thorns passive on pallys shields/aura. It's my last want for pallys

Proculus

I like the changes for the most part. I do think they need to increase the range of our heal and get rid of the recast delay. We are paying a higher mana cost for it, so we should at least be able to spam it.

Tpoon

Consecration needs more, half the cd would make it feel like a core part of the kit. Having a 50% uptime would just feel better.. and I'd argue to remove the cast time on it, being interrupted in melee just gets annoying.

I'm going with the feels on this one 😅

Isenheart

Isenheart
IIsenheart
OnlineJoined 2 days ago
a day ago
As a long time Paladin main, I like most of the rework. But I feel there is some more that could change for the better.

Paladins will never use the undead DD spell, it should be remade into a undead smite for us especially if we are keeping all the smites on the same CD.
Shield Toss really needs to be our AoE agro grab as well as we could use it.
Vengeful Smite is really weak could be adjusted for a 2hd use for more damage giving paladins a DPS attack for 2hd weapons.
Consencrations need a little work feel they are weak and need some adjusting.

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