Clerics and Paladins are the same class. They should get the Nec/SK treatment

Neblo

Okay, perhaps the title is a little hyperbolic but it is true. Currently they are the same old boring D&D 1.0 cleric and paladin trope. Thus, they suffer from the same old issues, overlapping flavor/themes and lack of utility. Do the gods of M&M's universe really have the exact same trope of followers as The Forgotten Realms (which was created in the late 1960s)?

Clerics and paladins currently overlap in the following themes:

Frontline holy warriors
Divine smite to vanquish enemies
Heavy armor & shield wielding
Divine Healing, Divine Buffing, and Resurrection
Strong vs undead

I.e. They are the exact same theme... They live on the exact same class graph, and the only real difference between them is one is dialed to be better at tanking and the other to be a better at healing. That is it. Hard stop.

If Shadow Knights are becoming "monster hunters" to help differentiate them and add flavor from just a Necro + Fighter hybrid, why did clerics and paladins not get the same treatment?

So what now? I get that it is difficult to manage expectations of what a cleric and paladin is from a nostalgia perspective from both EQ and D&D.. There is already tons of hate coming at the SK rework. But I would encourage the devs to consider re-re-working these two classes as in their current state they are uninspired and flat.

"I dont see you coming up with anything better"... Okay, well I suppose I can't throw this much shade without offering some ideas of my own. So let me spitball some and so you can do the same... note, there are a million different ways you could rework these classes to make them more interesting and distinct. This is just one example for this post.

My off-the-cuff rework that adds distinction to theme and gameplay

The Cleric: "The Mouth of their God & Shepherd of their group"

The Cleric is the authoritative voice of divine law on the battlefield. They do not wade into the mud swinging maces or wearing steel plates. Instead, they stand in the midline wearing elaborate sacred vestments, issuing spoken decrees, ringing sounding bells, and swinging censers to guide, protect, and command the flock.

Armor: Cloth/Vestments only. To a Cleric, wearing heavy plate is heresy—an admission of doubt implying steel protects better than divine mandate. (to add variety I would have druids wear medium and shamans wear heavy)

Weapons/Focus: Sacred texts, censers, sounding bells

Core Mechanic A — Hymns (Voice of the Diety)
Similar mechanic as bard songs but can't be stacked or twisted. Instead a set of hymns rotate in a random (or non-random) order as the cleric sings them one after another. Hymns represent a deities divine "laws". As a mechanic they are conditions which when met trigger certain effects. E.g. when a player hits 40% hp the player is instantly healed, or when a monster casts a spell silence them, or when a PC casts a damage spell imbue it with additional divine damage. The hymn then ends and the next one begins. To keep from being completely random, the player selects a load out of X hymns, but can't control which is playing at a given time.

Core Mechanic B — The Shepherd’s Anointed (A Divine Conduit)

Designating the Anointed: The Cleric speaks a decree to anoint one party member as their deity's physical proxy on the frontline or backline.
Conduit Echoes: Whenever the Cleric casts a Crowd Control spell, Decree, or offensive spell, the divine magic echoes through the Anointed Proxy, triggering a role-specific secondary effect:
Anointed Tank: Casting CC or offensive spells converts divine energy into a direct heal or absorption ward on the tank. The Cleric can lock down adds or burst enemies without stopping the flow of healing to the tank
Anointed Physical DPS: Casting Decrees/Spells imbues the DPS with raw divine wrath, boosting their attack speed, armor penetration, or physical damage output.
Anointed Caster/Support: Casting Decrees/Spells grants spell haste or reduces mana costs for the target, helping maintain backline momentum.

Party Utility:

Sanctuary: A spoken decree that creates a localized sanctuary zone. For a short duration, all damage dealt to both allies and enemies inside the zone is greatly reduced, granting a temporary truce to stabilize, regroup, or stall lethal boss mechanics.
Command: Dictates target priority by force-shifting threat off endangered squishies.
Divine Transportation - can summon PCs to their temple of worship.

The Paladin: "The Hand (Executioner) of their God & the Shield for their party"

While Paladins are visual symbols of their god in wearing shiny armor, they are not the stereotypical saintly heroes — they are their deity’s brutal, morally grey executioners. They handle the bloody, destructive mandates required to preserve the faith, buying protection for their party with the divine favor gained through slaying heretics and monsters (Shadow Knights were originally just an "evil paladin" after all.. so lets just move some of that identity over to paladin and let the new SK be more of a "monster hunter"). They mitigate damage from their allies and draw divine favor from their god by covering themselves in the blood of the unbelievers.

Armor & Gear: Heavy Plate, Tower Shields, Massive Weapons.

Core Mechanic — Litanies & Decrees (Escalating Fanatical Auras):

The Litany (Escalating Aura): The Paladin maintains an active divine aura (Litany of Iron, Litany of Judgment).
Tithe of Flesh (Aura Escalation): As heretics are damaged or executed, the Paladin builds stacks of Zealot's Tithe. Each stack magnifies the active aura's passive benefits (armor penetration, threat generation, damage reduction). Rapid kills stack the aura faster.
The Decree (Aura Detonation): The Paladin consumes accumulated Zealot's Tithe to unleash a devastating Decree (Decree of Ruin, Decree of Absolution). This detonates the active Litany in a wave of kinetic/radiant power—shattering nearby monster armor and converting stored zeal into a damage shield for the Paladin.

Party Utility:

Deferred Mortality (Death Intervention): The Paladin's functional "resurrection." When an ally takes fatal damage, the Paladin physically/divinely stays Death's hand, locking the ally at 1 HP for 4–6 seconds so the party can save them before true death occurs.
Mark of the Heretic: Brands a monster, redirecting damage it deals to allies onto the Paladin.

riverbender

Neblo The Forgotten Realms (which was created in the late 1960s)?

Cyric Did Nothing Wrong

Nullen

Not hyperbolic at all imo. I agree they feel too much the same. The design doc initially said Clerics would steer away from the martial to differentiate them from the paladin. Then in the deep dive they did the exact opposite, we got a melee attack and random procs.

So unfortunately I think this was an intentional decision to make a “battle cleric”, and don’t think it will be changed

Velthorian

frankly, i'd rather they leave shadow knight the fuck alone. no one asked for witcher crap. we wanted traditional shadow knight. count your blessings.

Reith

Velthorian Yeah hopefully they don't lean into monster hunter too much, otherwise they may as well rename them "monster huntin knights that can use some dark magic for some reason" instead of shadow knights

Growlron

Spot on write up. Its crazy to me they leaned so much harder into the over lap after the ENTIRE point of this class overhaul was to give each class its own identity.

I really do hope they give up on this destruction of the SK.

Fanglore

I hope they do apply something akin to how different, but the same, that "monster hunter shadowing monster skill" SK's got to either Clerics or Paladins at some point.

Ralz

Dang! I love this cleric idea. And it never made sense to me that clerics are in heavy armor and shields and weapons. They are PRIESTS! Mouths/prophets of their deities they devote their lives to. Why in the world would they go in battle with heavy armor and shields if they are proclaiming what their gods are saying?

Pancake

Since deity doesn't play a huge role yet, as an alternative, small changes to traits/spells/abilities based on deity (domain, but not just spells). The god of war could have offensive buffs added to his repertoire and permit heavy armor/other weapons etc. the gods of plague/decay could have some dots. Knowledge could have access to arcane spells. Anathema could swap from undead to dragons or even npc races. On the paladin side these become combat abilities more than spells. It can't be too heavy or clerics/paladins would encroach on other classes, but I think you could keep the core of both classes and just flip some switches rather than a total redesign.

Tpoon

I think consecration being more regular would give the pally a little more identity. Right now, its a cast that's interruptible with a 2m cooldown. Just doesn't feel as impactful as it should. Reducing the cool down would be nice.

Cheezo

Nullen good. Battle cleric is fun and paladin holds agro better and takes more hits. It works and both are fun to play.

Nazgrimn

Tpoon There's a cast time to consecration? You're joking, right?

Phile

For Cleric:

Remove "smite the undead" and replace with "turn undead" a small range AOE attack speed decrease debuff, short duration only on undead with a greatly increased chance of lightning/next attack procs lightning if next melee hit is on undead.

Remove Prayer of the Faithful and replace with auras that stack up lightnings and spend them on action I.E. wrath aura stack up to three lightning and on next holy smite triggers wrath spending one stack

..that is the design change id like to see..

moar lightning.

Tpoon

Nazgrimn Its 1 second, but it can be interupted.. So you do the silly thing of spamming it just so it goes off, its the same with the heal.. I think both should be instant just due to we're always getting attacked when we use it. And with the way interupt currently is, you don't know its been interupted since it doesn't register till after the cast.