Paladin: Sacred Defender Changes

[Severlin]

Greetings.

We are updating a few enhancements in the Sacred Defender tree for Paladins. These changes are designed at making the tree more desirable and allowing it to better work with the armor mitigation changes.

First, we changed some AP costs for existing enhancements:

AP cost of Saves Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Defense Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Reinforced Defense changed to 1/1/1 both times you can take it.
AP cost of Harbored by Light changed to 1/1/1.

Now onto the tree changes:


Innate Abilities



1 AP: Holy Bastion: You gain +1 Hit Point and 1 Positive Energy Spell Power for each action point you spend in this tree. Each Sacred Defender Core Ability you possess grants +2% Fortification.
(Moved to tier 2) 5 AP, Pal3: Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical Resistance and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to threat generation. (Note: the movement penalty was removed.) (Note: the stance does not require a shield.)
(Moved to tier 3) 10 AP, Pal6: Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score and a 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation for 60 seconds.
20 AP, Pal12: Redemption: The following spells are added to the Paladin spell list: Level 2: Raise Dead Level 3: Resurrection Level 4: True Resurrection. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
30 AP, Pal18: Glorious Stand: Channel Divinity: For a short duration you gain DR 20/epic, take reduced damage from elemental and negative energy, receive double healing from positive energy, and are immune to secondary effects of attacks such as 'wounding' or 'vorpal'. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating.



Tier One (0 AP Required)



Item Defense: You have a (25/50/75)% chance to negate potential item wear.
Extra Lay on Hands: You gain +(1/2/3) uses of Lay on Hands.
Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Resilient Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(1/2/3) Sacred bonus to all Saving Throws.
Durable Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(5/10/15) Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resist Rating.
Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.


Sacred Armor Mastery: +(1/2/3) Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Maximum Dexterity Bonus when wearing Armor.
Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1.



Tier Two (5 AP Required)



Instinctive Defense: You take 5% less extra damage when struck while helpless.
Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Sacred Shield Mastery: +(5%/10%/15%) Shield Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Tower Shield Maximum Dexterity Bonus.
Defense Boost: Activate to gain a (+5/+10/+15) Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds.



Tier Three (10 AP Required)



Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Greater Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Strong Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Strength
Hardy Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Constitution
Tenacious Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(10/15/20)% Sacred bonus to maximum hit points.

+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Four (20 AP Required)



Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor.
Choose One:
Reinforced Armor: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15%/30%/50%.
Reinforced Shield: The Armor Class bonus you gain from using a shield is increased by 15%/30%/50%¹.
Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance.
Swift Defense: Sacred Defense grants you a 10% sacred bonus to movement speed.
Greater Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Five (30 AP Required)



Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.
Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor. Choose the option you didn't choose at Tier 4.
Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain 1/2/3 uses of Lay On Hands.* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage.
Greater Sacred Defense: Further improves your Sacred Defense stance. Pick the third option left.





*Note: Harbored By Light mistakenly gives 1/2/3 Lay On Hands on live. We made it an official bonus.

Sev~

[ForgettableNPC]

Hmm, I'm somewhat turned off by the fact Eternal Defender will consume Lay on Hands as well as Turn Undead charges.

Why not move Sacred Defense to Tier 1 if there's also an Enhancement improving the said Sacred Defense in tier 1 as well?

What sort of other Core Abilities will replace lv 3 and lv 6 Core Abilities now? More Lay on Hands/Turn Undead? Regenerating Lay on Hands and Turn Undead Charges?

EDIT: Boop, silly me, didn't notice the tier 2 and tier 3 core abilities were simply switched.

[Zurrander]

Soo... We lose the light damage form Harbored by Light, and Reinforced defense is now restricted to Heavy Armor? I Love the AP changes, but could you put Harbored by Light back the way it was (6 AP was fine & the Light Damage didn't hurt) and move Reinforced Defense back to Tier 4-5 (This makes taking at least 5 pally levels more attractive). Also, having Eternal Defender Use 2 Lay on Hands is a bad idea (it makes this already lack luster ability much to costly, 2 Lay on hands heals for much more than 250hp by it self). Also, is the +50 PRR form Harbored by Light WAI or are we losing that too?

[slarden]

Wow you keep busy! Thank you for all the work and communication.

My only comment is that the capstone seems underwhelming. I would prefer to see something unique for the capstone like maybe a good dps clickie of some kind and/or a self-healing SLA. While +2 cha and more PRR/MRR is always good, returns are diminishing.

[Krumm]

Tier Five (40 AP Required)
Sev~

I'm going to assume that this is a typo.... right?

Also, I too would like clarification on "Also, is the +50 PRR form Harbored by Light WAI or are we losing that too?"

[Vargouille]

Tier 5 is 30 AP as always; that's definitely a typo.

[Severlin]

Soo... We lose the light damage form Harbored by Light, and Reinforced defense is now restricted to Heavy Armor? I Love the AP changes, but could you put Harbored by Light back the way it was (6 AP was fine & the Light Damage didn't hurt) and move Reinforced Defense back to Tier 4-5 (This makes taking at least 5 pally levels more attractive). Also, having Eternal Defender Use 2 Lay on Hands is a bad idea (it makes this already lack luster ability much to costly, 2 Lay on hands heals for much more than 250hp by it self). Also, is the +50 PRR form Harbored by Light WAI or are we losing that too?

I don't know why that color transferred when I copied the code. We didn't change the light damage in Harbored by Light. Fixed in the OP.

When I tested Harbored by Light locally it provided 25 PRR. If it provides 50 PRR on live it's a bug. With the buff to PRR to use (100 + Rating) / 100 that would be too much.

The cost of Eternal Defender didn't change.

Sev~

[Varinon]

No longer requires a shield, and that is all that matters.

Everything else is nice too!

Edit: Making the defensive stances not slow your down (and potentially speed you up) is a huge improvement. Nobody wants to wait for a tank to get there to do his job, he should be there already.

[Violith]

I'm going to assume that this is a typo.... right?

Also, I too would like clarification on "Also, is the +50 PRR form Harbored by Light WAI or are we losing that too?"

if its not wai, it should be. with these changes even with the pure pali capstone Im still losing 5prr compared to what he has on live, and he's barely hitting the 40% reduc mark.

also while I like the +2con in the capstone as well as the prr/mrr... I dont like the fact that it uses LOH, at all. using purely turn undead were fine, they fueled other abilities and while they regenerated I dont see how it'd be OP'd to allow it to continue using just turn undeads. LOH dont regen at all (without a t4 epic destiny ability) are one of the only healing abilities (aside from useless cure spells) that paladins get. Costing even 1 loh would be too much for what little it gives. Even if you were fully maxed out on the uncouncious HP which is probably like ~-90 given that the item/enhancements all stack, the little it heals isnt worth the cost of a loh especially since if you went that low it would either be by massive damage, in which case the 250hp it heals would be close to meaningless, or your already out of LOH, and thus this ability wouldnt be activated. if it has to cost LOH, restrict it to 1, and make it heal more, either make it truely an eternal defender and have it fully heal them, or at least 50% of their max hp.

edited: didnt see the reinforced defense at t2, so nvm.

[Zurrander]

Thanks for the quick response Sev. One more thing, are paladin & fighter keeping the same reinforced defense? It might just be a typo but the new Paladin tree has it moved to tier 2 and only working with Heavy Armor, yet the New fighter tree has it kept at tier 4 and working with any armor. If possible, can we keep the current version (the fighter one) of Reinforced Defense for both trees? And Violith, i understand how you feel but like Sev said "the formula has changed", after the update you will end up with more defense even if your PRR goes down (and Reinforced Defense is being moved to Tier 2-3 "to my dismay).

[Comp.preacher]

Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.

Sev~

Just to clarify, will this activate on ranged or melee attack whether it hits or misses? Could actually go sacred defender tier 5 as opposed to KotC with this and the stance requirement changes.

[Violith]

Thanks for the quick response Sev. One more thing, are paladin & fighter keeping the same reinforced defense? It might just be a typo but the new Paladin tree has it moved to tier 2 and only working with Heavy Armor, yet the New fighter tree has it kept at tier 4 and working with any armor. If possible, can we keep the current version (the fighter one) of Reinforced Defense for both trees? And Violith, i understand how you feel but like Sev said "the formula has changed", after the update you will end up with more defense even if your PRR goes down (and Reinforced Defense is being moved to Tier 2-3 "to my dismay).

yea, I seen that after I posted, but still dont quite get what exactly will be changed.. im terrible at math, so. say that his prr is at 120, currently thats a 45% reduc, what will it be in the new system?

[MonadRebelion]

I think Sacred Defense should be moved back to a tier 3 ability requiring 6 levels of paladin. I don't think making it only require 3 levels of paladin will encourage people to play paladins. I think it will encourage people to take 3 levels of paladin and produce even more powerful multiclass builds. Thus, I don't see this change as addressing the issue concerning the power disparity between pure and multiclass characters. As far as I can tell, allowing people to take Sacred Defense with only 3 paladin levels is just going to exaggerate difference between multiclass characters and pure class characters. I think the result of this is you end up making the game's content more trivial without much of a pay off. Everyone gets more powerful, but pure classes don't catch up with multiclasses, so you don't address what is probably the primary concern for why people to want paladins to be boosted.

[Varinon]

yea, I seen that after I posted, but still dont quite get what exactly will be changed.. im terrible at math, so. say that his prr is at 120, currently thats a 45% reduc, what will it be in the new system?

EditEdit: I was wrong.

Old vs. New PRR

Old
10 PRR = 6.22% Reduction
20 PRR = 11.84% Reduction
30 PRR = 16.92% Reduction
40 PRR = 21.52% Reduction
50 PRR = 25.67% Reduction
60 PRR = 29.43% Reduction
70 PRR = 32.84% Reduction
80 PRR = 35.91% Reduction
90 PRR = 38.69% Reduction
100 PRR = 41.21% Reduction
110 PRR = 43.48% Reduction
120 PRR = 45.54% Reduction
130 PRR = 47.40% Reduction
140 PRR = 49.08% Reduction
150 PRR = 50.61% Reduction
160 PRR = 51.98% Reduction
170 PRR = 53.23% Reduction
180 PRR = 54.35% Reduction
190 PRR = 55.37% Reduction
200 PRR = 56.29% Reduction

New
10 PRR = 9.09% Reduction
20 PRR = 16.67% Reduction
30 PRR = 23.08% Reduction
40 PRR = 28.57% Reduction
50 PRR = 33.33% Reduction
60 PRR = 37.50% Reduction
70 PRR = 41.18% Reduction
80 PRR = 44.44% Reduction
90 PRR = 47.37% Reduction
100 PRR = 50.00% Reduction
110 PRR = 52.38% Reduction
120 PRR = 54.55% Reduction
130 PRR = 56.52% Reduction
140 PRR = 58.33% Reduction
150 PRR = 60.00% Reduction
160 PRR = 61.54% Reduction
170 PRR = 62.96% Reduction
180 PRR = 64.29% Reduction
190 PRR = 65.52% Reduction
200 PRR = 66.67% Reduction

[Wizza]

So you want to nerf Divine Grace so people will not just splash paladins for 2 levels for the saves but you are moving Sacred Defense to tier 2 which gives:

25 PRR
25 MRR
+3 saves

Then, for another level of paladin, you can get:

Either +6 STR/ +6 CON/ +20% HP


This on top of Divine Grace and Divine Might. You are not encouraging people to play paladins.


The Capstone is garbage. Range of unconsciousness? Oh please, noone drops below 0 HP, we either die or not.

Reprisal is horrible. 1 hit on EE is 300 damage and we just gain +1 damage for ONE attack? And you want us to stack it TEN TIMES? It makes no sense. When you balance mobs damage/HP of harder content, then we can talk about having enhancements that has to make you take damage to gain X benefit.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

if its not wai, it should be. with these changes even with the pure pali capstone Im still losing 5prr compared to what he has on live, and he's barely hitting the 40% reduc mark.


A pure paladin in this tree w/ capstone will hit 75 PRR just from enhancements, and harbored by light is now less cost as well. Before you had to spend 4 ap for 25PRR(counting but), now it's only 3 ap. And in the new system, that 75 PRR is ~43% reduction, 100/(100+75)=.571. That's not counting PRR from Gear, from wearing heavy armor, from a shield, or from shield mastery feats.

When we count those, we get:
30 from heavy armor -new
26 from heavy armor - current
15 from tower shield -new
24 from item( lvl 19 guardian's ring)
15 from improved shield mastery

for an additional 110 before Epic destinies. That's 185PRR total, or ~65% damage reduction.
and of that 185PRR, 120 of it grants MRR, for 55% reduced magic damage

Oh, and Unyielding sentinel will offer up to 45 more PRR, for 230 total for almost 70% damage reduction.

[janave]

I think Sacred Defense should be moved back to a tier 3 ability requiring 6 levels of paladin. I don't think making it only require 3 levels of paladin will encourage people to play paladins. I think it will encourage people to take 3 levels of paladin and produce even more powerful multiclass builds. Thus, I don't see this change as addressing the issue concerning the power disparity between pure and multiclass characters. As far as I can tell, allowing people to take Sacred Defense with only 3 paladin levels is just going to exaggerate difference between multiclass characters and pure class characters. I think the result of this is you end up making the game's content more trivial without much of a pay off. Everyone gets more powerful, but pure classes don't catch up with multiclasses, so you don't address what is probably the primary concern for why people to want paladins to be boosted.

Exactly, the really good stuff is optimally placed into the core abilities. 18 - 20 is where it would get from "meh" to "woah"!4!!

Reprisal optimally would add %scaling damage source or other kind of goodie, please do away with +1damages, no matter how hard they stack, +1 is meaningless.

I would also rebalance many melee feats granting +1 attack, +2 damage. These are nice until lvl4-5, but as the game scales, every 4 levels or so you need to multiply your damage. Elite Inspired Quarters features 4-5k hps average noname opponents. +10 damage even after a good kind of crit multiplier is not very helpful. A finger of death takes care of these mobs every 6/8 seconds, instantly, from range. Kinda the place where melee characters grouping with arcanes wanna hit alt+f4 every few minutes-

The feat rules are nice for turn based D&D, but even the really mean things rarely feature more than 300 hps. :D

[Krelar]

Glad some things were reduced in cost (although I still have no interest in the action boosts)

No shield requirement is great, I can finally go back to using my 2 handed weapon when DPS is required and pull out the shield if I need more survivability or to tank.

Reprisal sounds interesting and I nice way to boost damage a bit.

The capstone is still awful. Did you make it more expensive or is that a typo? (On live it uses 2 uses of turn undead, not lay on hands and turn undead)
I said it last time and I'll say it this time. The number of times this would save my life are maybe once a month. That is awful when compared to a capstone that adds damage every time I attack something.
Add tower shield proficiency (this really needs to be somewhere if you want tanks to stay pure) and boost the stat bonuses to +4 then I would be interested.

[ddorimble]

Reprisal is horrible. 1 hit on EE is 300 damage and we just gain +1 damage for ONE attack? And you want us to stack it TEN TIMES? It makes no sense.

If it lasted 3s or something, so you could stack it up while being constantly attacked...ok, maybe...but just for ONE attack? Really really just inexplicably awful.

[btolson]

It's still awfully strange that you can upgrade the defensive stance before receiving it. A possible solution to make this more seamless but (hopefully) not more splashable:

Change level 1 innate to grant the stance itself with +50% bonus threat, but with 0 PRR, 10% movement speed penalty and double spell-casting cooldowns
Change level 3 innate to upgrade the stance by 10 PRR and remove the movement speed penalty and spell-casting cooldown



Also, this information is not represented in the OP, but have any dependencies changed? For example, have the Aura upgrades been de-chained (hopefully yes)?

[Severlin]

The capstone is still awful. Did you make it more expensive or is that a typo? (On live it uses 2 uses of turn undead, not lay on hands and turn undead)

I said it last time and I'll say it this time. The number of times this would save my life are maybe once a month. That is awful when compared to a capstone that adds damage every time I attack something.
Add tower shield proficiency (this really needs to be somewhere if you want tanks to stay pure) and boost the stat bonuses to +4 then I would be interested.

The cost for the capstone wasn't changed, so it may be that the documentation I copied this from was out of date.

As a side note, feedback from players wasn't that Paladin had issues surviving. We didn't boost the survival enhancements. What we concentrated on was bringing these trees in line with the new armor up changes and reducing costs since that was the biggest concern players had.

Sev~

[btolson]

Add tower shield proficiency (this really needs to be somewhere if you want tanks to stay pure) and boost the stat bonuses to +4 then I would be interested.

This is a feat that should definitely be added somewhere for Sacred Defender, just as KotC is getting cleaves.

[OverlordOfRats]

I think there are too many paladin abilities that use turn undead.

Divine Might, Rally, Holy Retribution, Divine Righteousness, Glorious Stand, and Eternal Defender all use turn undead.

Some of these need to be put on a cooldown instead.

[bbqzor]

We are updating a few enhancements in the Sacred Defender tree for Paladins. These changes are designed at making the tree more desirable and allowing it to better work with the armor mitigation changes.

Fine, but as usual of late, this set of changes is incomplete and insufficient. Details below etc.


First, we changed some AP costs for existing enhancements:
AP cost of Saves Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Defense Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Reinforced Defense changed to 1/1/1 both times you can take it.
AP cost of Harbored by Light changed to 1/1/1.
Good in abstract, though Im not sure it will get anyone to change how theyre spending their AP much.


Innate Abilities

First, what are the two cores being added in place of the lv3 and lv6 moved ones? Obviously, this is critical to know. Does the "stance moved to tier 2" mean that the first rank of stance you buy comes with BOTH the passive prr/threat from the core AND whichever bonus you select from the enhancement? Otherwise.. hows that going to work. I will say that removing the speed penalty is beyond overdue, thanks. We have been saying that the tank needs to move fast to go to where he needs to get agro since whenever that stupid move penalty showed up.

Second, why nerf the capstone? Making it require 2 LoHs in addition to turns is exactly that, a huge huge nerf. With a generally high Cha its possible for paladins to have enough turns to assume a couple leftover, but not so with LoH. Which, as a matter of course, are often expended trying to live before the capstone might come into play. What was the possible motive behind this change... to ensure no one goes 20 paladin? Oh but it adds 2 con now... worth almost nothing if the actual ability is now un-playable. I have no idea why this was done, but I hope it is un-done. It was a cool and unique thing, and its being changed into something that only works for not actually using your class abilities to begin with... horrible design which punishes people for wanting to use their defining features (loh) to instead "store" them by not dynamically playing.

Third, the core PRR adds... Harbor in light, on purpose or not, adds 50 prr on live. This has been well documented since the changes went live a year ago (exactly, to this day). Now, with the full enhancement setup, the total is 45 PRR for pure paladins and 25 for splash. So minor nerf, but livable, no ones going to notice 5 prr one way or the other, and I think its fair to take paladin spashes down a notch through methods like this rather than messing with divine grace. As for the mrr, non-issue, everyone should be getting that on all prr sources according to your other posts, so dont care. Do note: that means the prr changes here arent "buffs to the core" its "time shifting a bonus we already had". If you reply with "well we could just nerf it cause its an accident" I would comment "youve had a year to tell us that and didnt, and further more nerfing a class already at the bottom of the power scale is ludicrous". So we can sidestep that discussion later.


Tier One (0 AP Required)

Basically totally unchanged, so no comments.


Tier Two (5 AP Required)

Again, unchanged so no comments on that part.

However, one request. Can we PLEASE get "Sacred Shield Mastery" separated from "Sacred Armor Mastery" before it? Look, if we need to buy tower shield max dex bonus, it means our armor bonus is already too high. Because tower shields have lower minimums than armor. This just makes buying tower shield dex basically cost double. If people want or need both, they can still buy them. But allowing guys who only need the tower dex bump to cherry pick that out saves AP and makes it actually worth considering. Please just make them separate choices and not in a tree, its been needed for ages.


Tier Three (10 AP Required)

Again few changes so few comments. Changing the stance to be Med/Hvy/Shield is nice. Question, what sized shield? Buckler gonna work? Etc. Also, I dont see Divine Righteousness here from the core at all. Theres one blank spot in the tree so I assume it fits, but it wasnt listed. Whats up with that (also, Im stating it now, if this thing costs more than 1 AP its going to be pretty irritated considering its free now and only a minor boost over the stance's passive bonus of the same type).


Tier Four (20 AP Required)

More minor changes. Question, was the "Reinforced Shield" bonus type changed to allow stacking with Unyielding Sentinel? Because right now on live, the paladin one and the sentinel one are the same type and dont stack (while the fighter equivalents do stack). Obviously... no reason to not make them stack for paladins, so please fix.

As for swift defense... so if Im reading this right, this will now make paladins move 10% faster than base speed. The stance move penalty was removed, and now a 10% buff was added. So when they turn their stances on they speed up compared to a "normal striding 30 or haste spell" kind of thing? Not saying Im complaining, but not sure its entirely necessary either. Its cool though, just wonder a bit what else might have been, if the current trends are any indication though, better the bonus here that takes no time to code that is good, than gambling on whatever gets coughed out in its place.


Tier Five (30 AP Required)

More almost non-changes, surprise. Adding reprisal? Lol. This ability is terrible unless the functionality is changed DRAMATICALLY from how it works on live. Im seriously supposed to get attacked 10 times before swinging? Ever? For +10 damage? Or, I could swing *even one single time during that time frame*, and do *10+ damage even at level 1* and wind up ahead. Yea no thanks, what a joke.

Harbored in Light changes, so prr fixed and time shifted to cores, which promotes more class levels over splashing for a huge prr bump, okay fine. LoH bonus included, again okay fine. Where is the note about the guard damage scaling with Melee Power? Isnt that the point of Melee Power? KotC got it, shouldnt this tree get it on the only light damage thing in the whole freaking tree? Now one of two things things the tree even has to do more dps at all (other being reprisal, choke), which was previously the ONLY dps thing in the entire tree for a tank class which needs agro? Seriously? I hope this can be changed to does the damage as a guard when blocking, and does the damage on a shield bash when not-blocking, and does the damage on both when using Improved Bash, and the damage scales with melee power. Because seriously, its T5, wheres the beef. Reprisal isnt it, lol.

-----

So there you have it. A few AP costs went down, but mostly ones no one takes. The net PRR of the class dropped 5-25, depending on how many paladin levels you take. The Capstone now drains LoH uses (oh but adds 2 con, so thats fair). Shield mastery still requires armor mastery, which is terrible. Reinforced shield still typed to not stack with Unyielding. Reprisal added as yet another AP trap. Harbored in Lights damage still limited and not melee powered.

But, the tree gained 10-20% move speed, depending on what setup you used before. And the greater stance is more flexible allowing more ways to use it. Far from an overhaul the bards got, this is barely even some makeup applied. Moving faster and using the stance more is certainly things people will get mileage out of, but look at that list of problems above. And the fact that there is ZERO dps stuff in here to help get agro with (I refuse to even count reprisal at this point). Fix the problems, maybe add some dps stuff to those missing cores, or as part of Glorious Stand (like while in Glorious Stand, you get 2d6 holy for the duration which scales with melee power) or something like that.

Bards got some love, paladins need some. This isnt love, its more like getting a valentine in elementary school, where everyone gets them. Ok, its not being left out, but its also generic and meaningless. Hope the next pass is greatly improved.... because if this is where things sit, Im not sure what to say except "total disappointment".

[Scrabbler]

Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.
That Reprisal is a really bad design. In general, enhancements where more tiers just increases the maximum stack size are questionable. And also in general, monsters have a low attack rate so anything linked to monster swing speed tends to be weak.

A better Reprisal might be: "On Attacked: Your next attack gains +3/6/9 damage. This effect stacks 3 times."

[bbqzor]

The cost for the capstone wasn't changed, so it may be that the documentation I copied this from was out of date.

Why? Why was the documentation you used out of date? Why didnt it include going and looking at live? Why is this not the first time we have heard this? (Back when the loot guys were designing haunted halls loot, the loot dev copied some bonuses from Turbines documentation of shroud notes. Except shroud has changed a lot of times since then and the notes didnt. And it took him like several loot passes to get it up to current. Why is ddowiki more up to date than the notes you are using to design the game? Just curious.

If the capstone cost is still only 2 Turn attempts, then I will (happily I might add) rescind my comments asking for, well, it to be the same, lol. In which case adding 2 con isnt bad for a bump. But the rest of the problems I mention (stacking, splitting requirements, no dps, reprisal being terrible, etc etc etc its in the other post) stand. I am happy to hear there is no capstone nerf though.. that was seriously a slap in the face. So thanks for the update on that.

[Krelar]

The cost for the capstone wasn't changed, so it may be that the documentation I copied this from was out of date.

As a side note, feedback from players wasn't that Paladin had issues surviving. We didn't boost the survival enhancements. What we concentrated on was bringing these trees in line with the new armor up changes and reducing costs since that was the biggest concern players had.

Sev~

I'm still hoping for a reason to go pure again and I'm still not seeing it.

I'll have to do some AP cost checking but with the amount I'd want to spend in this tree there won't really be enough left to get a capstone in a different tree, especially with the impending addition of a 3rd tree to choose from.

This is why I continue to be concerned about this capstone.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

First, what are the two cores being added in place of the lv3 and lv6 moved ones? Obviously, this is critical to know. Does the "stance moved to tier 2" mean that the first rank of stance you buy comes with BOTH the passive prr/threat from the core AND whichever bonus you select from the enhancement? Otherwise.. hows that going to work. I will say that removing the speed penalty is beyond overdue, thanks. We have been saying that the tank needs to move fast to go to where he needs to get agro since whenever that stupid move penalty showed up.


They are being(were) switched, not moved into the tree.

[Scrabbler]

As a side note, feedback from players wasn't that Paladin had issues surviving. We didn't boost the survival enhancements.
Paladin defensive enhancements aren't only there to protect the Paladin, but also his teammates. Even if the Paladin can survive, his aura is supposed to help others. The goal should be that standing next to a Paladin lowers your incoming melee damage.

Currently the saves aura effect does this, but the AC part really does not.


Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class.
That Bulwark of defense really needs an AC bonus that scales with level (as should every defensive enhancement that is opposed by a standard monster stat).

For example, Bulwark Aura could give +2/3/4 Armor Class plus 1 per 5/4/3 character levels. (Or a different way to improve it would be a PPR aura bonus; maybe too obvious)

[droid327]

Who do you envision using Medium Armor as a Paladin? SD supports Medium armor, but a pure Pal would still be better off in Heavy, an Evasion char wouldn't use either, and the only other classes that support Medium but not Heavy are Bard Warchanter, which you cant take with Pal levels, and EK, which would probably mean just a splash of Wiz/Sorc and then deep Pal, and still using Heavy Armor with a melee non-caster playstyle.

[MonadRebelion]

Reprisal is horrible. 1 hit on EE is 300 damage and we just gain +1 damage for ONE attack? And you want us to stack it TEN TIMES? It makes no sense. When you balance mobs damage/HP of harder content, then we can talk about having enhancements that has to make you take damage to gain X benefit.

I agree with most of what you said. Though I'd tend to disagree on this point here. Let's assume you're a tank with reprisal. That means you're basically going to always have a +10 to damage in combat that stacks with everything else. That's a pretty good shot in the arm for a character that typically has trouble keeping up with the dps on more dps focused character. I suspect your real concern is with the 10 hits that cost you 300 hp each, and here is where I think we disagree. I suspect you aren't assuming the character taking hits for 300hp is a tank. When I play my tank against mobs who hit my other characters for a 300 hp blow my tank takes round 30-75 hp for the same blow. So if we assume the person using Reprisal is getting a +10 bonus by stacking 10 blows at 30-75 hp a pop, the damage seems pretty easily managed.

[Nascoe]

I think Sacred Defense should be moved back to a tier 3 ability requiring 6 levels of paladin. I don't think making it only require 3 levels of paladin will encourage people to play paladins. I think it will encourage people to take 3 levels of paladin and produce even more powerful multiclass builds. Thus, I don't see this change as addressing the issue concerning the power disparity between pure and multiclass characters. As far as I can tell, allowing people to take Sacred Defense with only 3 paladin levels is just going to exaggerate difference between multiclass characters and pure class characters. I think the result of this is you end up making the game's content more trivial without much of a pay off. Everyone gets more powerful, but pure classes don't catch up with multiclasses, so you don't address what is probably the primary concern for why people to want paladins to be boosted.

No please, this change is excellent. I have seen quite a few newer paladin players select the nice and low enhancements to boost their sacred defence stance as soon as they could when going defender, only to find out that the tree is more or less defunct until they reach lvl 6 and can actually use most of it.

This change is not about "adressing the issue concerning power disparity between pure and multiclass" it should be about improving paladins so they are fun, interesting and powerfull enough to make it a choice you don't regret. Changing something that felt like a bit of a trap for new players to a more workable way forward can only be good.

[Wongar]

Moving the defensive stance down to only 3 levels of Paladin, removing all the penalties associated with it, and greatly reducing the requirements to be in it will just make it easier for a Pal splash. It seems to me that this coupled with the Devine Grace changes will make a 3 or 4 level Paladin splash very attractive but do little to help actual Paladins. As I see it, the only motivation to move the stance to the second core is to encourage splashing as any Paladin build would get it either way.

[bbqzor]

They are being(were) switched, not moved into the tree.

Okay, re-read it and youre right. Good catch AA, ty. So just affects splashes getting the stance. Whatever, nothing to see here, just more people taking 3-4 pal/ftr for stances like the devs were trying to prevent when they added it. Sad panda.

[Dilbon]

Currently the capstone is bugged, it doesn't use any turn attempts, allowing you to live forever.

[ddorimble]

I'm really disappointed in the lack of offensive abilities...i.e., there isn't a single one (no, Reprisal, put your hand down). I know, and I agree, go into the DPS tree for DPS. But seriously, having your Paladin Aura do some AoE Light Damage, or an AoE +Threat/Taunt thing, or doing constant retributive Light damage, SOMETHING...there's just nothing PALADINY here, other than doing a find/replace to put 'Sacred'...

And you can't even give a full 10,000 HP Heal on the capstone even after consuming two Turns and LoH's? C'mon...

[bbqzor]

Let's assume you're a tank with reprisal. That means you're basically going to always have a +10 to damage in combat that stacks with everything else

No. Because you arent getting hit 10 times between each of your swings, and the bonus only applies to your NEXT swing, then the stack clears and starts over. Its not +10 damage forever. Its maybe +1-2 damage if youre getting hit while also hitting. Or +10 if you sit there and shield block and let yourself get hit 10 times before finally attacking back. Its not helpful in abstract, and certainly not worth AP. If it just built up and sat there like scourge or something, okay fine, but this isnt it.

[cru121]

Who do you envision using Medium Armor as a Paladin? SD supports Medium armor, but a pure Pal would still be better off in Heavy, an Evasion char wouldn't use either, and the only other classes that support Medium but not Heavy are Bard Warchanter, which you cant take with Pal levels, and EK, which would probably mean just a splash of Wiz/Sorc and then deep Pal, and still using Heavy Armor with a melee non-caster playstyle.

medium armor = more dodge?

[MonadRebelion]

This change is not about "adressing the issue concerning power disparity between pure and multiclass" it should be about improving paladins so they are fun, interesting and powerfull enough to make it a choice you don't regret.

To be honest, they could do nothing to paladins, and I'd be happy running my paladin. I think my paladin is plenty powerful. Thus, don't think the native power of paladins poses any kind of barrier to people having fun on them. What I think causes people to view paladins as under powered is their experiences with other players. Specifically, they see how easily some player on a multiclass build smashes content. Thus, I don't see the power issue as having anything to do with some class' ability to make it through the content. As far as I can tell it's all about people feeling like their characters aren't powerful enough when they compare them to others (usually multiclass characters).

[Wongar]

I agree with most of what you said. Though I'd tend to disagree on this point here. Let's assume you're a tank with reprisal. That means you're basically going to always have a +10 to damage in combat that stacks with everything else. That's a pretty good shot in the arm for a character that typically has trouble keeping up with the dps on more dps focused character. I suspect your real concern is with the 10 hits that cost you 300 hp each, and here is where I think we disagree. I suspect you aren't assuming the character taking hits for 300hp is a tank. When I play my tank against mobs who hit my other characters for a 300 hp blow my tank takes round 30-75 hp for the same blow. So if we assume the person using Reprisal is getting a +10 bonus by stacking 10 blows at 30-75 hp a pop, the damage seems pretty easily managed.

If reprisal works the same way as it does in the Stalwart Defender tree, it will not be very useful. You don't build up stacks all that fast and the entire stack is dumped as soon as you attack. For me it seemed to amount to an occasional +1 damage as I never stop attacking to let stacks build. I never take it in Stalwart Defender so doubt I would in the Paladin tree either. It may be worth it if it does not have a pre req like Counterattack in Stalwart Defender.

[Wizza]

I agree with most of what you said. Though I'd tend to disagree on this point here. Let's assume you're a tank with reprisal. That means you're basically going to always have a +10 to damage in combat that stacks with everything else. That's a pretty good shot in the arm for a character that typically has trouble keeping up with the dps on more dps focused character. I suspect your real concern is with the 10 hits that cost you 300 hp each, and here is where I think we disagree. I suspect you aren't assuming the character taking hits for 300hp is a tank. When I play my tank against mobs who hit my other characters for a 300 hp blow my tank takes round 30-75 hp for the same blow. So if we assume the person using Reprisal is getting a +10 bonus by stacking 10 blows at 30-75 hp a pop, the damage seems pretty easily managed.

No because as it is worded, your NEXT ATTACK has +1 damage which means that unless you don't attack at all, you will only ever get a +1 damage after 1 hit. You lose the stack after every attack that you make.

[Dilbon]

I'd like to see a tier 5 ability that gives +5 to damage when using Combat Expertise. Just like what swashbucklers have with Precision.

Or buff CE in some other way.

[Varinon]

Greetings.

<lots of text>


Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.

Sev~

Due to the immediate feedback on how 'useless' this ability is (it's pretty bad, honestly), here's my suggestion for a quick fix:


Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +[1/3/5] damage. This effect stacks 2 times.

[tiamat1985]

So you want to nerf Divine Grace so people will not just splash paladins for 2 levels for the saves but you are moving Sacred Defense to tier 2 which gives:

25 PRR
25 MRR
+3 saves

Then, for another level of paladin, you can get:

Either +6 STR/ +6 CON/ +20% HP


This on top of Divine Grace and Divine Might. You are not encouraging people to play paladins.



Agree with this.



The Capstone is garbage. Range of unconsciousness? Oh please, noone drops below 0 HP, we either die or not.

Reprisal is horrible. 1 hit on EE is 300 damage and we just gain +1 damage for ONE attack? And you want us to stack it TEN TIMES? It makes no sense. When you balance mobs damage/HP of harder content, then we can talk about having enhancements that has to make you take damage to gain X benefit.

Totally disagree, most of the mobs in EE hit a tank far less than 300 damage. In my guild there is a pally with the capstone and right now he is almost immortal even on EE (not against bosses of course); he can go down to -110 or more without dying and with the auto resurrection he can't die in fact.

[Ralmeth]

First off, I would like to THANK YOU for working on improving Paladins! FYI, I have played and play tested Paladin S&B tanks since a little after DDO launched, so here are my thoughts on the proposed changes:

Reduced AP Costs
Yes! Thank you :) This is definitely needed

Capstone
I still think the capstone is weak because the damage you receive at high / epic levels is high enough that you will rarely take just the right amount of damage for the auto heal to activate. I would rather see the capstone improve Glorious Stand, which is a really great ability if you know how to use it properly and not think of it as god-mode.

Reprisal
I like it!

Other Changes
These seem fine.

Requested Enhancement
Could you please consider adding in a shield bash / knockdown attack enhancement similar to "Low Blow" in the Swashbuckler tree? It seems odd that my Swashbuckler can use a swashbuckler shield to knock an opponent down, but my Paladin S&B character cannot. Either a knockdown and/or stunning shield bash attack would be useful.

Thanks,
Ralmeth

[MonadRebelion]

No. Because you arent getting hit 10 times between each of your swings, and the bonus only applies to your NEXT swing, then the stack clears and starts over. Its not +10 damage forever. Its maybe +1-2 damage if youre getting hit while also hitting. Or +10 if you sit there and shield block and let yourself get hit 10 times before finally attacking back. Its not helpful in abstract, and certainly not worth AP. If it just built up and sat there like scourge or something, okay fine, but this isnt it.

You are right here. I misremembered how the ability worked (I haven't played my tank in a while now). I logged over to my tank to see how the mechanic was working, and I noticed I only had one AP in this ability. I went into a EE Cabal and quickly figured out why. Basically, it's as you said, since the stacks apply to hits between sings you're only ever going to find the first tier useful.

[MonadRebelion]

No because as it is worded, your NEXT ATTACK has +1 damage which means that unless you don't attack at all, you will only ever get a +1 damage after 1 hit. You lose the stack after every attack that you make.

Yeah, see my reply to bbqzor

[Monkey_Archer]

AP cost reductions are great. (This will take my paladin from ~55 AP spent on nothing but defense to a slightly more reasonable 46, allowing me to pick up reprisal and a few KOTC enhancements. Still slightly expensive, but at least its more reasonable)
Increased movement speed is great and will allow tanks to do their job a bit more efficiently.
Moving stance to level 3 is very questionable. 3 level paladin splash is going to be basically mandatory for all lawful builds if this goes through. How does any other 3 level splash even remotely compare with pali saves and defender stance? At least level 6 made it a reasonable class investment.
Level 6-12 cores are extremely weak now. 3 level splash for defender stance is going to be crazy, and 14 levels for holy sword will be great as well, but I don't see any reason to build anything in between those break points.
Small PRR/MRR bonuses are likely not going to be enough to justify 18-20 level paladin defenders.

[Scrabbler]

Tier Five (30 AP Required)
[COLOR=#ff0000]Reprisal, Reinforced Defense, Harbored By Light, Greater Sacred Defense
Sacdef tier 5 is very weak!

It's already been pointed out that Reprisal is puny, but none of the other things are impressive either. +25 PPR is the best part, and that's a decent bonus but not exactly what you'd write home about.

Two of the four tier5 options are in the form of "take the one you didn't take before", which means they are strictly weaker than lower-tier enhancements. Players will always take the best kind of Greater Sacred Defense or Reinforced Defense first, so naturally tier5 only gets whats left over. And if we look over at the similar Fighter Defender tree, that's got the powerful Block And Cut attack, which adds a bit more than 12.5% doublestrike long-term. Surely nothing in Sacdef t5 can compete with 10% doublestrike.

[Seikojin]

I think reprisal should be the same stacking, however adds a timed amount which your attacks gain that damage boost. This way you can actually use it instead of it being +1 and gone.

[Seikojin]

Are all the abilities that have non-melee damage types affectable by spellpower? If so, it should be noted. if not, it should be.

[Monkey_Archer]

Due to the immediate feedback on how 'useless' this ability is (it's pretty bad, honestly), here's my suggestion for a quick fix:


Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +[1/3/5] damage. This effect stacks 2 times.


Reprisal is not at all useless for a paladin that actually builds and plays like a tank. I suspect people who say this is useless aren't actually playing tank builds and rather just want another generic dps tool to deal damage to single mobs. Real tank builds can easily get reprisal stacked 5+ times between autoattacks with a group of mobs. Your suggestion may as well just be +10 damage because thats how it would play out.

EDIT: I could maybe agree with +1/1/2 stacking 2/4/6 times, or something like that because 10 stacks is a bit difficult.

[Varinon]

Reprisal is not at all useless for a paladin that actually builds and plays like a tank. I suspect people who say this is useless aren't actually playing tank builds and rather just want another generic dps tool to deal damage to single mobs. Real tank builds can easily get reprisal stacked 5+ times between autoattacks with a group of mobs. Your suggestion may as well just be +10 damage because thats how it would play out.

I won't pretend I've played what would be called a tank nowadays (I used to run high HP fighters back in '11 to tank stuff like Horoth with.. But it's different now). Do tanks not attack, and just shield/weapon block most of the time? If so, then that would be a problem. Last time I tanked, I attacked 95% of the time.

[Scrabbler]

Real tank builds can easily get reprisal stacked 5+ times between autoattacks with a group of mobs.
Sometimes there's a group of mobs to fight, and sometimes there is one huge raid boss. The tank characters should not have their DPS lowered by a lot just because they're fighting one guy. (They also shouldn't have incentive to avoid killing the weak monsters to get more damage against the main target)

[toapat]

Bards got some love, paladins need some. This isnt love, its more like getting a valentine in elementary school, where everyone gets them. Ok, its not being left out, but its also generic and meaningless. Hope the next pass is greatly improved.... because if this is where things sit, Im not sure what to say except "total disappointment".

As i said in the KotC thread, the minimal changes and buffs paladins are getting, both here and there, litterally dont matter and wont bring them back from the absolute worst class in the game.

will the KotC changes increase paladin dps? sure, but only by a factually smaller margin then anyone else will benefit from the meleepower changes. Will these DoS changes help? sure, but only by the degree of the number of AP that tree has had pruned from its terrible and bloated design.

My desire was for DoS to have the stance and aura buffs condensed into 3 single node 6/3 enhancements, while replacing the saves/defense boost into a single node and then using the newly opened 7 slots along with the already open 3 nodeslots to provide shield attacks, Unique abilities which use LoH/Turn undead as fuel, endless lay on hands, a condensed version of Vigor of life 1-3 + Sealed life, and AP for Feat nodes.

[maddong]

With diminishing Prr returns harbored by light was worthwhile at 50. Lowering it to 25 just makes it more tempting to splash 5 levels of another class where you can get a real tier 5 power. I'd increase it back to 50 but increase the ap back to 2 per rank.

Defensive stance should be moved back to level 6 otherwise people will go back to splashing paladin. Instead of removing the movement penalty completely the level 12 core should remove the penalty.

[Monkey_Archer]

I won't pretend I've played what would be called a tank nowadays (I used to run high HP fighters back in '11 to tank stuff like Horoth with.. But it's different now). Do tanks not attack, and just shield/weapon block most of the time? If so, then that would be a problem. Last time I tanked, I attacked 95% of the time.
Its a playstyle/build thing. When I'm playing my paladin I am always intentionally grabbing as many mobs as possible to attack/cleave down. When you have 10 mobs surrounding you its very easy to get attacked at least 5 times between each of your own auto attacks. If you're on a dps focused non-tank build you obviously cant take that sort of punishment on EE, so reprisal becomes less useful. Thats exactly why I like reprisal, it rewards defense with offense.

[maddong]

I'd make reprisal a real power:
On attacked you get a stacking +1 damage bonus for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 3/6/10 times.

[thegreatneil]

I'd make reprisal a real power:
On attacked you get a stacking +1 damage bonus for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 3/6/10 times.

This

[Wongar]

Its a playstyle/build thing. When I'm playing my paladin I am always intentionally grabbing as many mobs as possible to attack/cleave down. When you have 10 mobs surrounding you its very easy to get attacked at least 5 times between each of your own auto attacks. If you're on a dps focused non-tank build you obviously cant take that sort of punishment on EE, so reprisal becomes less useful. Thats exactly why I like reprisal, it rewards defense with offense.

Agree that as a Tank the best way to max DPS is by getting more mobs around you to attack. My concern with reprisal is that I don't really have much trouble generating good overall DPS against a pack of mobs now. Where I really feel the lower DPS is when Tanking a single target or chasing down casters/archers one or two at a time - and I spend more time doing this than standing in a large pack of mobs. So for me reprisal will give a little more help with a large pack of mobs (where I don't really need it) but do very little against individual/smaller groups of mobs mobs (where I feel I need help the most)

[Wongar]

I'd make reprisal a real power:
On attacked you get a stacking +1 damage bonus for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 3/6/10 times.

A mechanic like this would make it much more useful - though the numbers you suggest might need some adjustment.

[Nandos]

•Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain 1/2/3 uses of Lay On Hands.* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage.

Any chance the light damage guard can be changed from actively blocking with a shield (holding the shift key) to maybe just using a shield? Actively blocking is something that is done so rarely in this game, so the extra damage would almost never come into play. Morninglords get one that has no shield requirements.

or

Strip out the light damage and add a new ability:

You gain a light guard.
If you are using a shield, the light guard damage is improved.
If you are using a shield and actively blocking, the light guard damage is further improved.

[toapat]

A mechanic like this would make it much more useful - though the numbers you suggest might need some adjustment.

i think 3 seconds with 1 charge lost per expiration would be good, with stacks over 10 resetting the timer

[Monkey_Archer]

Agree that as a Tank the best way to max DPS is by getting more mobs around you to attack. My concern with reprisal is that I don't really have much trouble generating good overall DPS against a pack of mobs now. Where I really feel the lower DPS is when Tanking a single target or chasing down casters/archers one or two at a time - and I spend more time doing this than standing in a large pack of mobs. So for me reprisal will give a little more help with a large pack of mobs (where I don't really need it) but do very little against individual/smaller groups of mobs mobs (where I feel I need help the most)
Oh I fully understand that single mobs are the toughest for tanks to deal with. Remember though, that all melees are getting 70 melee power, paladins are getting holy sword, and the S&B feats are also getting buffs. These will all help a lot for single target dps. I think its perfectly fine to leave reprisal in the AOE tank category, especially considering that heroic level tanks don't have access to all the AOE dps that epic tanks do.

[Scrabbler]

When you have 10 mobs surrounding you its very easy to get attacked at least 5 times between each of your own auto attacks.
I think you are overestimating by a factor of 2 or more. It's a rare monster that can attack at even 30% the rate of a player.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Reinforced armor--should not be restricted to hvy armor--open it up to all armor.

I disagree that +1 damage is insignificant. Since it is affected by crits, it's good. However +1 dam on next attack ONLY is horrible.

Stance at pal 3? The pal 2 splashes just became pal 3 splashes.

Swift defense doesn't belong. Removing the movement penalty was enough. Heavily armored types should not be outrunning the pajama platoon.

I would really like to see Pal12 innate gain: You gain proficiency with tower shields.

[Lighti2]

I would really like to see Pal12 innate gain: You gain proficiency with tower shields.

Tower Shield Prof sounds more like a Vanguard ability seeing as its meant to be the shield tree.

[Severlin]

I am not sure how I screwed up the tree write up to include Reinforced Defense twice and drop Instinctive Defense but its fixed in the OP.

Sev~

[XodousRoC]

Reinforced armor--should not be restricted to hvy armor--open it up to all armor.

I disagree that +1 damage is insignificant. Since it is affected by crits, it's good. However +1 dam on next attack ONLY is horrible.

Stance at pal 3? The pal 2 splashes just became pal 3 splashes.

Swift defense doesn't belong. Removing the movement penalty was enough. Heavily armored types should not be outrunning the pajama platoon.

I would really like to see Pal12 innate gain: You gain proficiency with tower shields.

1) I have to disagree on the the +1 damage being anything close to significant...even if it is affected by crits.
2) 2 Pal may well become 3 Pal, but it's never made sense to place stance improvements in front of the actual stance...
3) I'll have to disagree here again. Tanks forever chasing stuff around because they can't catch it to intim it makes for a poor (if comedic) and frustrating tanking experience.
4) 12 levels of Pally to gain tower shields? I think this would be more appropriately placed at 6. Tanks shouldn't have to wait for level 12 to suddenly become defensively useful, and fighter tanks (or non-tanks even) can use this from level one. What's needed at 12, 18, 20 is something that rather functionally increases the benefit of tower shield use by adding a light guard effect (to aid in holding agro) or somesuch. To add teeth to the capstone, make it grant a chance (say 5-10 percent) of knockdown when the guard procs (for a reasonably short duration...3 seconds would seem fine here for a passive proc). This also adds inherent cc potential to a toon that is still likely to be overwhelmed if surrounded by enough mobs to make some of their other abilities matter in EE content.

[EllisDee37]

Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor.
Choose One:
Reinforced Armor: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15%/30%/50%.
Reinforced Shield: The Armor Class bonus you gain from using a shield is increased by 15%/30%/50%¹.
Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance.
Swift Defense: Sacred Defense grants you a 10% sacred bonus to movement speed.
Greater Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma
Just an FYI, for those of us who use JJ's excellent forum color fixer thingy, the description of Reinforced Defense is invisible by virtue of being black text on black background.

[bbqzor]

Reprisal is not at all useless for a paladin that actually builds and plays like a tank. I suspect people who say this is useless aren't actually playing tank builds and rather just want another generic dps tool to deal damage to single mobs. Real tank builds can easily get reprisal stacked 5+ times between autoattacks with a group of mobs.


Its a playstyle/build thing. When I'm playing my paladin I am always intentionally grabbing as many mobs as possible to attack/cleave down. When you have 10 mobs surrounding you its very easy to get attacked at least 5 times between each of your own auto attacks. If you're on a dps focused non-tank build you obviously cant take that sort of punishment on EE, so reprisal becomes less useful. Thats exactly why I like reprisal, it rewards defense with offense.

Okay so, what we have here is a "best case" kind of situation: youre on a tank, theres a ton of mobs, you get 100% agro on all of them, theyre all able to reach you enough to swing 5+ times to your 1. Assuming you swing at ~103 swings per min (roughly base s/b attack speed with haste, animation wise not counting doublestrikes etc) thats roughly one of your attacks every 0.58 seconds. Or roughly 1 mob attack every 0.11-0.12 seconds. I would say very unlikely to be maintained consistently over enough content to be applicable, but for now, lets just ignore that and say okay this is a reality.

Then, theres this:


I'd like to see a tier 5 ability that gives +5 to damage when using Combat Expertise. Just like what swashbucklers have with Precision.

Now, again, Id rather not see a paladin CE buff, because CE screws casting and paladins cast, but lets take the idea here. Swash get +5 dmg at T5. All the time. Not situationally, 100%.

So paladins "best case" is the same as bards, only paladin is VERY prone to fluctuation regarding number of mobs, number of attacks, holding agro on a large group, etc. All of which can (and I would argue, do) frequently fail to hold up over a majority of time in a quest.

This is exactly why Reprisal should be changed. Make it so like when attacked you get +1 damage for 6 seconds, where it times down passively like, oh I dont know, virtually every other similar ability. And thats not hyperbole... lets look. Scourge in angel of vengeance, Erosion in earth savant (and others in the other 3), Fury in ravager, celestial champion in divine crusader, unstoppable fury in fury of the wild, advanced blows in dreadnought, ephemeral evolution in primal, etc etc. The list goes on and on.

Make it 1/3/5 stacks, so tanks under attack get the magic "+5 dmg" number which shows up several other places as T5 material, and what is claimed to (under ideal circumstances) be the practical value used here. Then make it time down, rather than go on next attack only. And then maybe youve got something. Right now... its nothing. All the "best case" talk about it being +5 perma dmg, even if true, doesnt compare to the ftr tree which has doublestrike in the top tier.

At least make the only "dps" enhancement in the whole tree workable, more than just some small amount of time you can manipulate things to work the way it "wants" you to.

[bbqzor]

I would really like to see Pal12 innate gain: You gain proficiency with tower shields.

Whether or not it winds up tied to a core or a T5 or whatever, it does indeed make a good deal of sense to provide a way for paladins to get Tower Shield Prof without sinking the feat.

Perhaps this could be some lower hanging fruit in the Vanguard tree, if not Defender? I mean Vanguard is the shield tree, as long as its only T2 or something its reasonable that Defenders could snag it as well.

Can we get a comment on that? The way the future of the game is shaping up, it seems like to be "tanking" a tower shield is a tool youll want to have in your bag. Thanks.

[Delacroix21]

Sev, can you please adjust the 1 point of positive spell power to also include 1 point repair for BF and WF paladins? There is a lack of synergy with this race.


It would also be nice if night of the chalice gave repair amp as well.

[Delacroix21]

P.s. Reprisal is extremely weak. You have to be attacked 10 times to match a deadly 10 item, which means next to nothing at cap. Increased threat range etc. be better.

[Thar]

The changed do nothing to address the fact (that we know of as listed) that this tree costs too much to take as most are 3 tier abilities for a tank. where are the tier 1 attack as most other trees have or a dodge bonus? Where is some inate threat so a tank can hold agro? +1 damage (stacking on hit for a class that is trying not to get hit) for a tier 5 ability is not up to par with other classes tier 5 damage abilities (ie coup de gra, tempest attacks, barbarian crit increase, etc).

for each ability pt spent should increase inate threat by 1%.

pally's need DPS help and enhancement cost help. What other trees cost the same amount for the same amount of abilities (other than stalwart).

This is not the revamp as bards got. please readdress what a pally's role is and how this can help. 1 pt of ac is almost useless with the current to hit model and the ap's should be adjusted accordingly. 1 pt for 3 ac for the tier 1 abillity (no tiers) or at most 2 pts. 1 pt of ac is what? .25% change in getting hit at level?

Edit, yes the top tier enhancment reductions help. gj there. just not enough boost to the class.

glorious stand - not long enough to be useful for the long fights a pally tank ends up with due to low dps and not good enough at end game to be of any use. change the duration and have 50% stacking bonus to prr/mrr?


Item Defense: You have a (25/50/75)% chance to negate potential item wear. does anyone even take this?

Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Resilient Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(1/2/3) Sacred bonus to all Saving Throws.
Durable Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(5/10/15) Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resist Rating.
Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.

9 ap for 3 saves, 15 prr/mrr and 75% bonus to threat? seems expensive.


Sacred Armor Mastery: +(1/2/3) Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Maximum Dexterity Bonus when wearing Armor.

3 ap for 3 ac? how much does that change your to be hit? 1%? needs ac boost here. 3/6/10 is recommended boost or change to additional % of ac increase for end game compatibility?

Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1.

good but i don't use as either my saves are good enough all the time or they aren't. 20 sec is too short to bother, but i know some like this.

Instinctive Defense: You take 5% less extra damage when struck while helpless.

if i'm helpless this isn't gonna save me. get rid of this and give an attack or dodge bonus.

Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class.

this boost is ok, but 3/6/10 as above is more in line with being useable.

Sacred Shield Mastery: +(5%/10%/15%) Shield Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Tower Shield Maximum Dexterity Bonus.

at level 20, 15% to my shield ac, was... 2 ac in stance. needs to be more or a 3/6/10 ac boost.

Defense Boost: Activate to gain a (+5/+10/+15) Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds

how often does a pallytank finish a fight in 20 sec? not good enough to save you in an oh **** moment and not long enough to be useful in a fight.


Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.

seems ok cost wise although better if 2ap for 3 to saves and no tiers.

Greater Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Strong Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Strength
Hardy Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Constitution
Tenacious Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(10/15/20)% Sacred bonus to maximum hit points.

like the change to not need a shield. more options are better. (as long as this is ANY shield unlike the evasion shield nerf).


Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor.
Choose One:
Reinforced Armor: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15%/30%/50%.
Reinforced Shield: The Armor Class bonus you gain from using a shield is increased by 15%/30%/50%¹.

good cost reduction change.

Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance.

good if your a drow, otherwise who finds 6 spell resis useful? add mrr bonus?

Swift Defense: Sacred Defense grants you a 10% sacred bonus to movement speed.

speeeeeeed.... thank you! how about make it 2 ap and add 10% melee attack speed? (stacking with haste, etc) helps dps and high enough that most splash's won't spend that much to get.

Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.

useless if only next attack? how does it stack then? doesn't compare well to other tier 5 attack abillities. great cleave for the other tree or 10 damage only when your getting the snot beat out of you? this needs to be a flat +1d6 untyped or good damage per hit when in stance stacking on hitting enemy to 10 damage (think of it as a mini masters blitz for a tank). or some big hit ability on a timer (NOT CHARGES)


Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain 1/2/3 uses of Lay On Hands.* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage.

good ap reduction! makes this much more useful.

still doesn't help the pally's inability to kill mobs as a tank which is the primary reason people don't like playing pally's. the ap cost reduction is a help but not enough.

a ok start but please add more. an attack would be useful that does 1(w) and small ac buff (3/6/10) for short time like the monk shinto ability that gives +3/6/9 dodge.

[Monkey_Archer]

So paladins "best case" is the same as bards, only paladin is VERY prone to fluctuation regarding number of mobs, number of attacks, holding agro on a large group, etc. All of which can (and I would argue, do) frequently fail to hold up over a majority of time in a quest.

To be clear, I only said that it was not useless and that I like the mechanic of reprisal. For a tier 5 ability it is quite weak, but I'd rather see it keep the same mechanic with more damage and less stacks than change it to just another generic damage mod to suit non-tank dps builds. Something like +1/2/3 damage stacking 3/4/5 times would be more appropriate relative to other tier 5 abilities.

[PermaBanned]

Sev, can you please adjust the 1 point of positive spell power to also include 1 point repair for BF and WF paladins? There is a lack of synergy with this race.


It would also be nice if night of the chalice gave repair amp as well.

Same for the capstone, dual type the 250 as both Poasative & Repair please.

[Thar]

doesn't this tree also have issues where some abilities don't stack with the divine destiny abillities? was that fixed?

[Ladislaio]

First I would like to say that, in general, I like the enhancement changes. The tree is still quite costly, but with the cheaper AP and the general buff to PRR and addition of MMR it might not be too costly anymore. The ability to choose between heavy/medium armor and shields (or both)is also very nice, and should help with improving dps on some builds because they can use thf instead of a shield. What I AM worried about tho is threat.

As documented Divine Righteousness(3ed innate), Improved Sacred Defense: Inciting Defense(t1-3, multi selector), and Intolerant Blows(Unyielding Sentinel, t3) are all Sacred bonuses to threat generation. This would mean that they do not stack.

Maybe this isn't bad, and the improved *real* damage from Holy Sword (Paladin spell, lv4) will make up for the non-stacking threat, and maybe also the Melee Power causing damage improvements in general for melee toons will help here too. I DO think that having non-stacking things in the same tree is somewhat misleading. I think it would be a good thing to make Divine Righteousness and ISD: Inciting D stack, perhaps by making ISD: Inciting D a fully stacking bonus like the one from the Fighter tree, or if you choose not to do such to make it very, very clear that they do not in the enhancement descriptions.

[maddong]

Just to clarify when I suggest:
On attacked you get a stacking +1 damage bonus for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 3/6/10 times.

I mean that after 6 seconds you lose the whole stack, not the decrement by 1 that happens with other powers.
To keep it at a +10 damage stack you would have to be constantly attacked.
So after every skirmish it would be reset to 0.


If reprisal was actually the reason you take tier 5 I would be ok with the harbored by light nerf. Otherwise I don't think harbored by light should be nerfed when you compare it to other tier 5 powers.

If harbored by light is nerfed I think it should be unnerfed in the capstone by adding: Harbored by Light (if taken) also grants an additional 25 PRR/MRR.

Also I'm not sure you want the speed boost as is. A Monk 15/paladin 4/x 1 would have a permanent 35% base run speed (greater than the current 30% non "action boost boosted" max). You could either make the speed boost the same type as the monk boost or just cap run speed at a certain limit (and let the player base know what it is capped at).

[Zasral]

I like the listed changes, but I was hoping you would drop rage not working with DoS stance. This would be a large increase to both dps and survival of pally tanks, as well as buff to kotc pally's who spend ap in defender.

[Ladislaio]

doesn't this tree also have issues where some abilities don't stack with the divine destiny abillities? was that fixed?

Some abilities are Sacred bonus to threat, which do not stack with Intolerant Blows(Unyielding Sentinel, t3). I was writing up my post about this when you posted yours.

Another stacking issue is Reinforced Defense: Reinforced Shield(Paladin and Fighter trees, t4-5) does not stack with Shield Prowess(Unyielding Sentinel, t1). These both grant 15%/30%/50% bonus to your shield's AC bonus.

I would be very interested in if this is planned to be fixed also, now that the AP cost have been lessened such that we can actually afford the enhancements :)

[Ladislaio]

Reprisal(Paladin and Fighter trees, t5) seems to be getting a lot of comments about how it is too weak, and I must say that I agree with them.

Perhaps something akin to Thread the Needle(Swashbuckler, t5) would be better here? '2 ap: while Combat Expertise is active gain 5 damage if you have been attacked within the last 3 seconds'. Maybe even make it 10 points of damage if you are using a shield, or remove the 'have been attacked' portion.

...
Thinking about that I think I would like to see an enhancement that improved Combat Expertise in the trees. Maybe have it grant more AC while active as a T5, or maybe additional threat?
...

[Thar]

Reinforced armor--should not be restricted to hvy armor--open it up to all armor.

I disagree that +1 damage is insignificant. Since it is affected by crits, it's good. However +1 dam on next attack ONLY is horrible.
.

where does it say heavy armor only? if so yes this needs to be for all as it is today.

+1 damage is insignificant when trash mobs have 7000 hp. +1 damage on the next attack is a waste of coding time as no one is going to use it.

41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating.

this needs some umph... what other capstones do you have to DIE to use. Isn't the whole of this tree to get ac/prr so you don't die? At the minimum give a holy blast of 200-300 upon use to all mobs in the surrounding area.

it really should be scrapped to give some useful ability while tanking do some type of damage or protect another player for a time.

defending is great... but if you can't kill it you can't defend forever... this isn't the ac world of 3-4 years ago. AC means a lot less with dimishing returns and glancing blows. 3 ac at 120 ish is only a 1%bump in miss chance per the ui bar. less on EE.

[bbqzor]

Sev, can you please adjust the 1 point of positive spell power to also include 1 point repair for BF and WF paladins? There is a lack of synergy with this race.

This is a good idea. The "risk" of some wf caster or whatever taking it just for "more repair" is pretty minimal. Spending 20 AP here to get 20 sp is just generally too compromising to casting and such, to cause problems over "more repairing". Meanwhile, Bladeforged not only forces paladin, but alters the spell list to have repairs, and is otherwise totally without a way to affect them. Very solid suggestion.


Same for the capstone, dual type the 250 as both Poasative & Repair please.

As with the above, probably a good move. Or just change it from "cure" to "heal", so it works on both (like LoH does). Whatever technical change it is, making it work for Bladeforged so they have a usable capstone is a worthy fix while you are in the tree.


Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance.

good if your a drow, otherwise who finds 6 spell resis useful? add mrr bonus?

Another good suggestion. 6 SR is basically worthless, even on drow. But since someone will undoubtedly post "hey I use that" just leave it there. Adding some MRR too, now that we have that stat, will ensure this is not simply discarded by 99% of your players, and instead add something unique to the paladin tree to help balance out the better mix of abilities in the fighter one. Id suggest +10/20/30 but Im sure that will be seen as too high so maybe +5/10/15, and keep the SR bonus so people trying to build "anti caster" drow paladins or something can double dip a bit or something.


To be clear, I only said that it was not useless and that I like the mechanic of reprisal. For a tier 5 ability it is quite weak, but I'd rather see it keep the same mechanic with more damage and less stacks than change it to just another generic damage mod to suit non-tank dps builds. Something like +1/2/3 damage stacking 3/4/5 times would be more appropriate relative to other tier 5 abilities.

I think anything which strips off after you swing 1 time is, by its very nature, going to remain "quite weak for a tier 5 ability" unless it becomes silly (like +100 dmg, ok obviously not weak but clear hyperbole). Why not simply allow it to scale up and down by time, as long as you are under attack? Similar to how other such things work?

You seem focused on the idea that tanking huge waves of 10+ guys is the best gameplay for the ability to promote, in order to create a situation where you can actually get hit 5+ times between your own attacks. Many tanks dont encounter that much while playing. Many tanks are not super end-game and couldnt even if they wanted to. Many tank situations in raids revolve around single big targets rather than waves even for those that can tank waves. The list goes on and on, where this is not ideal.

I dont think its appropriate for the only DPS enhancement in the tree, which is also a T5 one competing with other trees, to focus only on that one situation. Tanks need to be viable elsewhere, and need to be able to contribute dps even when they are not "tanking" at full tilt. If anything, thats when they need DPS the most, as their other skill set (damage mitigation / mob control) isnt being brought to bear.

I understand its encouraging tanking. And I understand youd prefer it be something different than just +X dmg (which I might add is completely reasonable and a shared sentiment). But having it be forced to occur in the tiny window between your own attacks is an absurd requirement which only caters to one playing situation which, even if you wanted to use it, is not available all the time. Let alone the times you really want/need a tank, such as raid bosses.

Let it remain tied to being swung at. Using that as a trigger for the bonus is fine, and prevents "non tanks" from trying to capitalize on it. If there is concern over someone just generally getting swung at in the course of play from cleaves and such, make the timer only 3s. There are several other cases of this where it works fine, such as Beguile, which are entirely playable. Getting swung at multiple times every 3s should be enough to keep non-tanks from getting use out of more than 1 tier of this, and thats fine. If a non-tank takes T5 in this tree, its okay to get some benefit... and having only full heavy tanks get the benefit of max ranks in it is fair too. Hopefully this leads to some better suggestions, as the way it stands its just not worth any AP to a majority of players.


Some abilities are Sacred bonus to threat, which do not stack with Intolerant Blows(Unyielding Sentinel, t3). I was writing up my post about this when you posted yours.

This is less of an issue than it somewhat seems, as getting Intolerant Blows costs non-paladins more Destiny Points (they dont start with smite so have to buy Fanaticism, bigger cost but bigger threat gain), and means Paladins are less inclined to feel they need to spend Destiny Points on Intolerant Blows (they can use Divine Righteousness and have more points free for other choices in the Sentinel tree). I wouldnt mind a fix, but there is too much to buy in the Sentinel tree already, and this is one of those cases where rather than being seen as a problem, I see it as promoting different epic tree choices.

Not everyone will agree, and I realize that, but I wanted to point out that since the abilities have different net-costs and net-gains, because ftr/pal start in different places re: smite and sacred agro mods, it doesnt have to be totally equal. They can, in the end, be afforded the same agro mods, they just get there via different paths, so fix or no its workable because the max-values are balanced.


Another stacking issue is Reinforced Defense: Reinforced Shield(Paladin and Fighter trees, t4-5) does not stack with Shield Prowess(Unyielding Sentinel, t1). These both grant 15%/30%/50% bonus to your shield's AC bonus.

Last time I tested this, which was oh... back around U18 now I suppose, I believe only the paladin one did not stack. I am not 100% sure on if the fighter one did or didnt, Ive since reworked that character and dont have those notes it seems. In either event, both of them should stack. There is no "smite requirement" here to differentiate things, or parallel abilities at different values. Flat out, both classes should have access to the same amount of modifier here at the same cost. Right now they either dont (if ftr stacks and paladin doesnt), or neither of them have access (their enhancements preempt the epic mod).

Point blank, your T5 enhancement (assuming they take the armor mod first at T4, as its much more likely to be the bigger number and more reliably equipped) shouldnt not-stack with an epic destiny. And thats the situation there is here, at least for one class maybe for both. Fix that stuffs!

Between this and the junky Reprisal, vs the terrible holy retribution and censure outsiders, its like you dont want anyone taking any paladin T5. While Im on the topic... can we get the 2 paladin cleave enhancements to affect Dreadnoughts timers the way the Thief Acrobat cleaves do? I mean come on, Sweeping Strikes with a staff powers up Momentum Swing but paladin Great Cleave, which even shares a timer with the feat, doesnt? Be nice to get confirmation on that too.

[Wizza]

Totally disagree, most of the mobs in EE hit a tank far less than 300 damage. In my guild there is a pally with the capstone and right now he is almost immortal even on EE (not against bosses of course); he can go down to -110 or more without dying and with the auto resurrection he can't die in fact.

You need a tank for EE questing? :\ If you want to make it any useful, improve the range of unconsciousness by 200. 40 is just meh. You will see its usefullness rarely and that is not good for a capstone. Hell, Human gets extended range of unconsciousness at TIER 1 for HALF OF THE CAPSTONE BONUS.

Not a capstone worthy.



As i said in the KotC thread, the minimal changes and buffs paladins are getting, both here and there, litterally dont matter and wont bring them back from the absolute worst class in the game.

Agreed. I was expecting a complete full revamp of these trees to bring paladins back, just like Bards. Heck, holy sword alone is better than "these" changes.

[Dilbon]

Another stacking issue is Reinforced Defense: Reinforced Shield(Paladin and Fighter trees, t4-5) does not stack with Shield Prowess(Unyielding Sentinel, t1). These both grant 15%/30%/50% bonus to your shield's AC bonus.

But they do stack, my paladin gets 115% AC bonus to shield in Sentinel.

[bloodnose13]

comments in blue:

Greetings.

We are updating a few enhancements in the Sacred Defender tree for Paladins. These changes are designed at making the tree more desirable and allowing it to better work with the armor mitigation changes.

First, we changed some AP costs for existing enhancements:

AP cost of Saves Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Defense Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Reinforced Defense changed to 1/1/1 both times you can take it.
AP cost of Harbored by Light changed to 1/1/1.

great idea to finaly drop the ap cost, it will help a lot with customizing the build

Now onto the tree changes:


Innate Abilities



1 AP: Holy Bastion: You gain +1 Hit Point and 1 Positive Energy Spell Power for each action point you spend in this tree. Each Sacred Defender Core Ability you possess grants +2% Fortification.
(Moved to tier 2) 5 AP, Pal3: Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical Resistance and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to threat generation. (Note: the movement penalty was removed.) (Note: the stance does not require a shield.) why do we even need it to be a stance?, there is no reason for this to be a toggle anymore
(Moved to tier 3) 10 AP, Pal6: Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score and a 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation for 60 seconds.
20 AP, Pal12: Redemption: The following spells are added to the Paladin spell list: Level 2: Raise Dead Level 3: Resurrection Level 4: True Resurrection. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
30 AP, Pal18: Glorious Stand: Channel Divinity: For a short duration you gain DR 20/epic, take reduced damage from elemental and negative energy, receive double healing from positive energy, and are immune to secondary effects of attacks such as 'wounding' or 'vorpal'. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating. this ability to get immediate healing at cost of !!!!!!!!!2!!!!!!!!! layons for !!250!! needs to go, first of all its a crutch, second of all its a similar weird design as resurrect ability from shintao monk, where monk has to be dead to rez someone else................please replace it with something usefull for actualy is for staying alive or dealing damage (maybe something that activates or has chance to activate when getting attacked, a smite charge returning ability on being attacked for example?, similar mirrored for attacking could go to kotc tree capstone?)



Tier One (0 AP Required)



Item Defense: You have a (25/50/75)% chance to negate potential item wear. i dont know why we even need this in the tree, unless dieing over and over again, item wear is not that great of a problem
Extra Lay on Hands: You gain +(1/2/3) uses of Lay on Hands.
Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector: this is still same kind of weird space hog as it was before, an ability that takes 3x3 slots!!!, please merge it into one, even if you made it cost 2 ap for 3 stacks of 1 ability it will be good, and then move it to tier 3, at tier 1 there could be an enchancement for something that each paladin has soon, like auras, maybe a multiselector of 3-4 to choose from an ability "stance" if you would like to call it that, each of them for diffrent situation (one for attack, one for defence against magic, one for tanking one against many enemies? whole line of enchancements in this tree could expand on this idea, and add additional bonuses to those "stances"), at tier 2 ability a second choice, but never allowing to take all 4, maybe abilities to choose from that would be added to the aura, not only for defence but maybe for temporary boosting attack abilities

Resilient Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(1/2/3) Sacred bonus to all Saving Throws.
Durable Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(5/10/15) Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resist Rating.
Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.


Sacred Armor Mastery: +(1/2/3) Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Maximum Dexterity Bonus when wearing Armor.
Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1. nice but pointless, usefull only for a zerger that does not wait for rogue to disable traps...... tyvm but no



Tier Two (5 AP Required)



Instinctive Defense: You take 5% less extra damage when struck while helpless. here i would like to suggest moveing it higher in tree and changeing it to a chance to reroll a save roll of 1, it would actualy be something usefull then, it would be a mini version of no fail on roll of 1
Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class. again merge, merge, merge and add more abilities that would ride on aura and give some extra bilities near paladin, to make party actualy want a paladin tank with them and to hang around him/her/it
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Sacred Shield Mastery: +(5%/10%/15%) Shield Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Tower Shield Maximum Dexterity Bonus. you gave rogues kukri proficiency so why not give paladin a tower shield proficiency as part of this? maybe move it higher in tree if you do, but please do it.
Defense Boost: Activate to gain a (+5/+10/+15) Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds.



Tier Three (10 AP Required)



Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Greater Sacred Defense: Multiselector: since stance is no longer needed and coult be removed, this could as well go to be added to cores, cores 6/12/18 as it was in old enchancements, it would actualy mean that someone splashing 12 paldin levels wont get full +6.........

Strong Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Strength
Hardy Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Constitution
Tenacious Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(10/15/20)% Sacred bonus to maximum hit points.

+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Four (20 AP Required)



Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor.
Choose One:
Reinforced Armor: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15%/30%/50%. could you please make both of those abilities two stacks 25%/50%, it would free 2 ap and make this ability less of annoyance, it always felt to me annoying i have to unlock it 3 times each to get full bonus
Reinforced Shield: The Armor Class bonus you gain from using a shield is increased by 15%/30%/50%¹.
Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance. kinda pointless, i would suggest similar approach as with barbarian, giveing a sr based on charisma stat, and then maybe a bonus on top of it if you realy want to make stack of it.
Swift Defense: Sacred Defense grants you a 10% sacred bonus to movement speed.
Greater Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Five (30 AP Required)



Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times. i would suggest same approach as with vulnerability, stacks with short duration, 4-6 seconds? and additional thing +1% alacrity per stack, that would make this ability from complete meh to something that would make any tank to want to have it, and to want to have aggro. abilities that require being attacked, not actualy hit are the way to go in tank trees.
Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor. Choose the option you didn't choose at Tier 4.
Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain 1/2/3 uses of Lay On Hands.* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage. two things, one, maybe a layon regeneration, very slow, 1 per 5 minutes, with timer lowering to 3 and 2 minutes for takeing core 18 and capstone, second please make this light damage dont require blocking but put it on toggle, so it can be turned off in situation when tank does not want to have guard on, being stuck with a guard you cant take off is pretty nasty, also i would like to suggest that maybe it should be something else than an actual damage guard, we can get damage guards on items easly enough, but something like vulnerability on being attacked or other type of weakening stacking ability would be way better than this, and it would not require toggle then, maybe regular attack against player (hit or no) a vulnerability stack, when enemy rolls crit, no matter if it gets through fort or no, its a 1d4 negative level for enemy?
Greater Sacred Defense: Further improves your Sacred Defense stance. Pick the third option left.




one last thing i would like to suggest adding a stunning smite to tier 5, it would take its dc from str + cha modifiers, no other bonuses from tree, and would be affected by item and destiny bonuses to the tac dc.

*Note: Harbored By Light mistakenly gives 1/2/3 Lay On Hands on live. We made it an official bonus.

Sev~

this tree was a hog when it first appered and it will remain a hog untill you do sometihng usefull in it, paladin levels by themselves dont give anything thrilling past certain point, and this enchancemetn tree is extension of it, you just get stuff that was part of a STANCE in old system but now you need to take each of it in stacks separately!!, there is a lot of aspects of such class /gameplay choice combination that are barely explored, paladin defender, as name suggests should be focusing not only on himself but also on party, so any ability that not only helps party to survive but to do better damage would be a great idea, similar for fighter defender, they should be based closer on marshal class, with command/formation like abilities that would boost party, and make both paladin and fighter feel more like more active part of party.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Tower Shield Prof sounds more like a Vanguard ability seeing as its meant to be the shield tree.

Your excellent point has convinced me.

[CaptainSpacePony]

1) I have to disagree on the the +1 damage being anything close to significant...even if it is affected by crits.
2) 2 Pal may well become 3 Pal, but it's never made sense to place stance improvements in front of the actual stance...
3) I'll have to disagree here again. Tanks forever chasing stuff around because they can't catch it to intim it makes for a poor (if comedic) and frustrating tanking experience.
4) 12 levels of Pally to gain tower shields? I think this would be more appropriately placed at 6. Tanks shouldn't have to wait for level 12 to suddenly become defensively useful, and fighter tanks (or non-tanks even) can use this from level one. What's needed at 12, 18, 20 is something that rather functionally increases the benefit of tower shield use by adding a light guard effect (to aid in holding agro) or somesuch. To add teeth to the capstone, make it grant a chance (say 5-10 percent) of knockdown when the guard procs (for a reasonably short duration...3 seconds would seem fine here for a passive proc). This also adds inherent cc potential to a toon that is still likely to be overwhelmed if surrounded by enough mobs to make some of their other abilities matter in EE content.

Regarding +1 damage, DDO is a game of small increments that add and multiply to very significant numbers. I would agree that +1 is insignificant in cases when it doesn't stack with other things.

The stance bonuses before stances availability is a great point, and always has been. I understand the constraints of tree design and understand why it's the way it is. I accept that, but like you don't like it. My main point here is still that stance is very strong and making it splashable strikes me as unwise.

I agree that tanks want to be fast. Just because they want to be doesn't mean they should be able to strap on their Volkswagen beetles and hit the accelerator. I do appreciate the removal of the speed penalty, but the bonus is pushing it too much.

Pal 6 vs 12 for tower shiled is a judgment call. Since it is something new, I lean conservative, especially because they can blow a feat or splash a lvl of ftr to get it if they really want it. I should add that I have revised my opinion and think this ability belongs in the Vanguard tree rather than defender.

[CaptainSpacePony]

where does it say heavy armor only? if so yes this needs to be for all as it is today.
.
It was in the OP, but has been changed. Probably was a typo.

[ChicagoChris]

•41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating.

...
The cost for the capstone wasn't changed, so it may be that the documentation I copied this from was out of date.

As a side note, feedback from players wasn't that Paladin had issues surviving. We didn't boost the survival enhancements. What we concentrated on was bringing these trees in line with the new armor up changes and reducing costs since that was the biggest concern players had.

Sev~

I hope this scales with spell power, or its marginalized at L20. At L20, a paiy might have 350-450 HP, so that's about 2/3's, which would probably save the pali. At L28, however, the pali could have 800, making this about 30% - and against epics, an additional 250 would be gone in seconds.

Can't we change this to 1) either be a fixed percentage (heals a base of 50% plus positive spell power) or heals a fixed amount that scales per level (heals 150 + 5 per level - 250 at L20, 290 at L28, all scaled by positive spell power).

You're making great efforts into scaling damage based off level, lets aim to do the same for all other fixed numbers.

[harry-pancreas]

(it makes this already lack luster ability much to costly, 2 Lay on hands heals for much more than 250hp by it self). Also, is the +50 PRR form Harbored by Light WAI or are we losing that too?

Most things are cool, good changes, but this is overwhelming. Currently i have a lvl 20 pally and my LoH heals around 450. The capstone heals me around 400 after all the Hamp and everything. So i'd be losing 2 turns and 2 LoH uses for a 400+ heal, when i could use 2 LoH for 900-ish, and keep those 2 turns (not super useful but, hey, that's 4 mins of div. might if full tiered). I think if you remove the 2 LoH cost, or even if you make it just 1 LoH looks better.

Reprisal sucks. Can't think a way to make it better, i'd replace it with something else (why not something adding melee power 3/6/10, 2 ap's per tier. Or, if you don't wanna give a DPS boost, reducing the cooldown of intim could help to keep the aggro. Something like +2/+4+/6 intim and -1s/3s/5s reduction to the cooldown).

And 6 spell resistance bonus it's worthless. IMO you should make the bonus to be the double (or triple) or replace it with something else

[zaldron36]

These are my ideas for the changes on the core abilities for the Sacred Defender:

Pal1 - Holy Bastion: No changes

Pal3 - Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score, 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation and on hit 1d6 light damage for 60 seconds. Light damage increases by 1d6 per each core ability taken beyond this one (max: 5d6) and scales with light spellpower.

Pal6 - Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: No changes

Pal12 - Eternal Defender: grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for a number of points of Positive Energy healing equal to one of your Lay on Hands.

Pal18 - Glorious Stand: No changes

Pal20 - Favor of the Gods: Passive: No changes. Activate: For 30 seconds you are immune to one attack every 3 seconds and one of your melee attacks scores an automatic critical hit every 3 seconds. The immunity affects the first attack (melee, ranged or magical) within a 3 second period that would otherwise hit. The automatic critical hit applies to the first successful attack made within a 3 second period. Cost 50 sp and maybe have a cooldown. Maybe share cooldown with Glorious Stand. It could last 60 seconds with 6 second periods or something like that.

[XodousRoC]

Regarding +1 damage, DDO is a game of small increments that add and multiply to very significant numbers. I would agree that +1 is insignificant in cases when it doesn't stack with other things.

The stance bonuses before stances availability is a great point, and always has been. I understand the constraints of tree design and understand why it's the way it is. I accept that, but like you don't like it. My main point here is still that stance is very strong and making it splashable strikes me as unwise.

I agree that tanks want to be fast. Just because they want to be doesn't mean they should be able to strap on their Volkswagen beetles and hit the accelerator. I do appreciate the removal of the speed penalty, but the bonus is pushing it too much.

Pal 6 vs 12 for tower shiled is a judgment call. Since it is something new, I lean conservative, especially because they can blow a feat or splash a lvl of ftr to get it if they really want it. I should add that I have revised my opinion and think this ability belongs in the Vanguard tree rather than defender.

I think we both are able to see each others points for the most part here, and while we may respectfully disagree with each other, I think your last point is something that resonates. Making the tower shield available (relatively cheaply) in the Vanguard line makes a lot of sense. My thought, given the state of the two current tree revisions, is that Vanguard is going to (have to) have some nice low hanging fruit for pure Pallies to pick whether in KoTC/HoTD or Sacred Defender. The Defender tree just doesn't look all that attractive to me, and the heavy AP investment in it will make a deep dive into Vanguard difficult. It may turn out that most Defenders are actually T5 Vanguards with whatever Defender benes they can squeeze in...

[EllisDee37]

Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1.

good but i don't use as either my saves are good enough all the time or they aren't. 20 sec is too short to bother, but i know some like this. It's mostly the "don't auto-fail on a 1" that makes it useful, especially for running through a dangerous trap you have plenty of saves to beat but rolling a 1 might kill you.

[toapat]

As documented Divine Righteousness(3ed innate), Improved Sacred Defense: Inciting Defense(t1-3, multi selector), and Intolerant Blows(Unyielding Sentinel, t3) are all Sacred bonuses to threat generation. This would mean that they do not stack.

percentage threat increases stack when of the same type but not of the same value. My main character wouldnt be able to pull aggro passively off of classes that deal 4-7 times her DPS by virtue of KotC being virtually worthless as is for an offensive tree and which with the revisions still wont be good.

[Krelar]

percentage threat increases stack when of the same type but not of the same value. My main character wouldnt be able to pull aggro passively off of classes that deal 4-7 times her DPS by virtue of KotC being virtually worthless as is for an offensive tree and which with the revisions still wont be good.

Are we sure they stack?

Dodge on equipment used to, no longer does. (Intentional, documented change)
Armor piercing on equipment used to, no longer does. (Undocumented change as far as I know)
Elemental absorption on equipment used to, no longer does. (Undocumented change as far as I know)

Healing amp on equipment still does.


Not sure how to even test threat stacking well.

[harry-pancreas]

Are we sure they stack?

Dodge on equipment used to, no longer does. (Intentional, documented change)
Armor piercing on equipment used to, no longer does. (Undocumented change as far as I know)
Elemental absorption on equipment used to, no longer does. (Undocumented change as far as I know)

Healing amp on equipment still does.


Not sure how to even test threat stacking well.

the thread is old, but i think the threat still works as it's explained there. Look for eladrin's post.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/287740-Dear-Devs-A-request-re-threat-mechanics-discussion/page2

[Alcedes]

Greetings.

We are updating a few enhancements in the Sacred Defender tree for Paladins. These changes are designed at making the tree more desirable and allowing it to better work with the armor mitigation changes.

First, we changed some AP costs for existing enhancements:

AP cost of Saves Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Defense Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Reinforced Defense changed to 1/1/1 both times you can take it.
AP cost of Harbored by Light changed to 1/1/1.
.
.
.
.
*Note: Harbored By Light mistakenly gives 1/2/3 Lay On Hands on live. We made it an official bonus.

Sev~

While I'm sure these changes are made with the best intent, and they are not bad changes I guess, Paladin tanks really are not in need of more survivability...they are in desperate need of DPS. You guys literally added 0 DPS with these changes. ((Sure, reducing the cost of some abilities can help a little...but you STILL have to spend 41 (on stuff that doesnt help boost dps and hence hold aggro!) points to get all the goodies))

Can you PLEASE add some light damage to some of that stuff or something?

Also, you have to severely gimp a paladin in order to obtain Intimidate scores that are even remotely usable in in Epic Elite content. How about adding some more intimidate in their some where? Pretty please?

Super pretty please with a cherry on top..a bit more DPS and bit more Intim?

[Krelar]

the thread is old, but i think the threat still works as it's explained there. Look for eladrin's post.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/287740-Dear-Devs-A-request-re-threat-mechanics-discussion/page2

Being old is the problem.

Armor piercing was officially announced as supossed to stack with different values but it no longer does and there was no announcement about it. For all we know threat got the same treatment.

[toapat]

Are we sure they stack?

absolutely, i would be incapable of holding aggro off of a lvl 1 commoner with Chickent Infested and Dirt Farmer otherwise on my main. i typically pull aggro before even the second stack of stand against the tide, and 160% threat wouldnt let me pull off of anyone else.

The only thing im not certain is whether Divine Righteousness is the same type of sacred bonus as Intolerant blows, because i seem to also benefit from having it up

the thing that has to be noted, however, is that only Sacred and Incite will stack unlike values of threat gen. Dodge was changed from an AC bonus to a percentile ignore chance, which is why it doesnt stack, while for armor piercing, i dont even know of anywhere you can get it that isnt an armorslot or Treason

[harry-pancreas]

absolutely, i would be incapable of holding aggro off of a lvl 1 commoner with Chickent Infested and Dirt Farmer otherwise on my main. i typically pull aggro before even the second stack of stand against the tide, and 160% threat wouldnt let me pull off of anyone else.

The only thing im not certain is whether Divine Righteousness is the same type of sacred bonus as Intolerant blows, because i seem to also benefit from having it up

the thing that has to be noted, however, is that only Sacred and Incite will stack unlike values of threat gen. Dodge was changed from an AC bonus to a percentile ignore chance, which is why it doesnt stack, while for armor piercing, i dont even know of anywhere you can get it that isnt an armorslot or Treason

stack or not, Div. Righteousness is 100% bonus and intolerant blows 200% (used to be 1k iirc), so it will go up, no matter if it stacks or not.

[Scrabbler]

stack or not, Div. Righteousness is 100% bonus and intolerant blows 200% (used to be 1k iirc), so it will go up, no matter if it stacks or not.
Since Unyielding Sentinel is based on Paladin, it is undesirable that a Fighter Stalwart Defender gets more benefit from Intolerant Blows than a Paladin Sacred Defender does.

[Alcedes]

AP cost of Saves Boost changed to 1/1/1.
Doesn't this share a cooldown with other MUCH more useful boosts? And considering paladins have insane saves to begin with.../sigh
How about replacing this with some kind of boost to either DPS, Intimidate, or Incite?

AP cost of Defense Boost changed to 1/1/1.
Doesnt this share a cooldown with other MUCH more useful boosts? Please see above. ^^

AP cost of Reinforced Defense changed to 1/1/1 both times you can take it.
Great! Free up 3AP

AP cost of Harbored by Light changed to 1/1/1.
Again, great! Free up 3AP...
But what is with all this "active blocking" stuff? Paladin's have a hard enough time building aggro due to lack of DPS..they cant afford to "actively block"

1 AP: Holy Bastion: You gain +1 Hit Point and 1 Positive Energy Spell Power for each action point you spend in this tree. Each Sacred Defender Core Ability you possess grants +2% Fortification.
Could fit some intim in here. I'd rather 5 more Intim over the 10% fort.

5 AP, Pal3: Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical Resistance and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to threat generation. (Note: the movement penalty was removed.) (Note: the stance does not require a shield.)
Excellent changes! Though, Intim could fit here if not else where!

10 AP, Pal6: Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score and a 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation for 60 seconds.
Seriously, a tank with 1500-2500 HP doesn't need an extra 30-40 temp HP.
And 100% Sacred Bonus to Threat? So what really it is +25% Threat since the stance already grants 75%, correct?

]20 AP, Pal12: Redemption: The following spells are added to the Paladin spell list: Level 2: Raise Dead Level 3: Resurrection Level 4: True Resurrection.
Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
I absolutely, positively DESPISE this as a Core. PLEASE remove this and drop it in the tree else where. Most Paladins have res clickies already and quite honestly, as a core ability, i feel cheated by it. More Incite. More intim. More DPS. TANK stuff please.

30 AP, Pal18: Glorious Stand: Channel Divinity: For a short duration you gain DR 20/epic, take reduced damage from elemental and negative energy, receive double healing from positive energy, and are immune to secondary effects of attacks such as 'wounding' or 'vorpal'.
This does not scale into epic well. DR20/epic is something that basically every tank already has on their gear some where.

41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating.
Seriously? This is the capstone? Extend the range of unconsciousness by 30 or 40? And then consume 4 charges??? Turbine, you can do better. MUCH better than this.

Item Defense: You have a (25/50/75)% chance to negate potential item wear.
Again, does anyone actually use this?

Extra Lay on Hands: You gain +(1/2/3) uses of Lay on Hands.
Not much to say here.

Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector:
Resilient Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(1/2/3) Sacred bonus to all Saving Throws.
Durable Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(5/10/15) Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resist Rating.
Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.
Only real complaint here is the Sacred Bonus to threat generation that will not be useful thanks to Divine Righteousness..and im not sure paladins really need +3 saves as much as they need a bit more DPS or Intim

Sacred Armor Mastery: +(1/2/3) Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Maximum Dexterity Bonus when wearing Armor.
+3 AC isnt what it use to be...Just sayin.

Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1.
With the changes to tanking, and the "tank evasion" this becomes an even less useful sink of AP. And it was rarely ever used to begin with.

Instinctive Defense: You take 5% less extra damage when struck while helpless.
This was not really needed to begin with...That being said, I certainly hope that the other 2 ranks were left off of your list erroneously or nobody will take this ever.

Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class.
5 Ac is not worth 3AP.

Sacred Shield Mastery: +(5%/10%/15%) Shield Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Tower Shield Maximum Dexterity Bonus.
I am sorry....but how much AC do you imagine this granting?

Defense Boost: Activate to gain a (+5/+10/+15) Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Physical Resistance
and Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds.
Does this still share cooldowns? If so, its not going to be used in place of more useful boosts that increase dps/threat

Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.
Nothing really to say about this

Greater Sacred Defense: Multiselector:
Strong Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Strength
Hardy Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Constitution
Tenacious Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(10/15/20)% Sacred bonus to maximum hit points.
A definite improvement!

+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma
Nothing to say here.

Reinforced Armor: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15%/30%/50%.
50% is a nice bonus to AC granted by armor

Reinforced Shield: The Armor Class bonus you gain from using a shield is increased by 15%/30%/50%.
Same as above ^^

Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance.
This is another one of those things I do not see anyone taking ever. Does spell resistance even work in Epic Elite content??

Swift Defense: Sacred Defense grants you a 10% sacred bonus to movement speed
A welcome change.

Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.[/COLOR]
I think this could be done better. MUCH better. The only way you ever build up any kind of respectable bonus is to be getting attacked but not be attacking back...This is not one that is going to be useful enough to put AP into. Especially not as a tier 5. Or am I reading this wrong? It seems that once you attack, you lose the bonus and have to start all over building it up...

Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain 1/2/3 uses of Lay On Hands. In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage.
This would almost be a great thing to have. Except it is tier 5 and requires the tank to stop dealing dps (and therefore stop gathering threat!) and turtle up behind their shield. This is not a viable tactic if you wish to hold aggro.

*Note: Harbored By Light mistakenly gives 1/2/3 Lay On Hands on live. We made it an official bonus.
Wonderful to hear!


So overall, I still feel the Paladin is missing DPS to hold aggro. The damage a tank built paladin does by comparison to a decent DPS is horrifically lopsided. What good is being nearly unkillable, if you cannot properly protect your party?

In addition, there are a couple places in the tree (not to mention on gear and on the Unyielding Sentinel tree!) that require you to actively block in order to function. This is NOT viable for a paladin. Their Intim score is not high enough to successfully Intim on epic elite nor is their DPS high enough to build any kind of "lead" on the threat list. This is a nice bunch of changes, but you will not entice many to play a paladin tank with what you have posted up here so far. Sorry. :(

[Thar]

First I would like to say that, in general, I like the enhancement changes. The tree is still quite costly, but with the cheaper AP and the general buff to PRR and addition of MMR it might not be too costly anymore. The ability to choose between heavy/medium armor and shields (or both)is also very nice, and should help with improving dps on some builds because they can use thf instead of a shield. What I AM worried about tho is threat.

As documented Divine Righteousness(3ed innate), Improved Sacred Defense: Inciting Defense(t1-3, multi selector), and Intolerant Blows(Unyielding Sentinel, t3) are all Sacred bonuses to threat generation. This would mean that they do not stack.

Maybe this isn't bad, and the improved *real* damage from Holy Sword (Paladin spell, lv4) will make up for the non-stacking threat, and maybe also the Melee Power causing damage improvements in general for melee toons will help here too. I DO think that having non-stacking things in the same tree is somewhat misleading. I think it would be a good thing to make Divine Righteousness and ISD: Inciting D stack, perhaps by making ISD: Inciting D a fully stacking bonus like the one from the Fighter tree, or if you choose not to do such to make it very, very clear that they do not in the enhancement descriptions.

the holy sword is only a buff for pally's > 14 the level so multiclassing loses out and more if you factor in that zeal needs to be the other slot which means 18 pally for these two necessary buffs. All the ap reductions are tier 4/5 so again multiclassing loses out. Melee power will be better potentially but so will all other melee toons so threat/dps will still be the problem.

The tree is too costly for the minimal ac bonuses. To give any real buff to pally's the vanguard tree would have to have MAJOR dps assistance low in the tree so it is obtainable. How many characters can afford this tree and get improved smiting now with anything left over? so it will be giving up the defense from this tree or improved smiting from koc tree for vanguard. It will need to be too good. These two existing trees need some dps/threat assistance.

no dev responses today?

[Scrabbler]

+3 AC isnt what it use to be...Just sayin.
Due to the newer non-D&D rules for attack rolls, most all enhancements which add +X AC should be changed to scale with your level.

A 3% Dodge benefit is similarly useful at all levels, but a +3 AC is only helpful when very low. Yet both of them cost the same number of AP; scaling the AC gain might fix that.

[Dilbon]

About that Spell Resistance enhancement, I took it once but noticed that it doesn't even stack with spell resistance items. So it's worthless.

And the capstone, making the range of unconsciousness a charisma score increase can be a nerf in many cases, I don't think many non-PDK paladins have 40 charisma. So how about making it a 2 x charisma bonus instead. The effect itself is nice, especially with Ward Token and the human enhancement that also increases unconsciousness range.

[XodousRoC]

About that Spell Resistance enhancement, I took it once but noticed that it doesn't even stack with spell resistance items. So it's worthless.

And the capstone, making the range of unconsciousness a charisma score increase can be a nerf in many cases, I don't think many non-PDK paladins have 40 charisma. So how about making it a 2 x charisma bonus instead. The effect itself is nice, especially with Ward Token and the human enhancement that also increases unconsciousness range.

As was stated earlier in the thread, a capstone that requires us to be in dire threat of dying to work is a bad capstone. How does getting another 30 points (or even 60) for range of unconsciousness compete with evasion for a capstone? +4 to a primary stat? In what way is this even comparable? I'm sorry, but giving a us a limited use capstone mechanic that may actually help us a couple times/life versus having bonuses that help us all the time is bad design. The capstone should help us to avoid becoming dead/near death, not just proc when we're in that situation. I would prefer a capstone that included some kind of guard that procs a low percentage auto retaliation with a chance for knockdown or stun (maybe a 5% proc with a save of char lvl + cha). This would play well with the idea of turtling up, adding in a potential bit of cc to help keep mobs where they belong; around the tank. Include a +4 to a primary stat (str/con), and away we go. The capstone as presented is poor design. I'm sorry devs, but I'm quite disappointed in your efforts here.

[harry-pancreas]

About that Spell Resistance enhancement, I took it once but noticed that it doesn't even stack with spell resistance items. So it's worthless.

And the capstone, making the range of unconsciousness a charisma score increase can be a nerf in many cases, I don't think many non-PDK paladins have 40 charisma. So how about making it a 2 x charisma bonus instead. The effect itself is nice, especially with Ward Token and the human enhancement that also increases unconsciousness range.

i agree it will be a nerf for more people, and a buff for almoast nobody, nor a big one. But 2x CHA bonus ir worse. The formula for the bonus of any stat is (stat-10) / 2
i.e. charisma (or any stat) 18 grants a +4 bonus (18-10)/2 = 4
so you'd need 50 CHA to reach a -40 range (CHA 50-10=40 and 40/2=+20 bonus)---and then 20x2 for the actual calculation of the range of unconsciousness (40)

i guess 30+CHA bonus could work, you'd need CHA 30 to reach a -40 range of unconsciousness. But it's a random number i just threw there, it could be too much and probably not easy to control de range of power of most builds out there

[maddong]

I think the 2 biggest problems with the current arrangement are:

1. We don't need to encourage splashing paladin so the stance needs to be moved back to 6.

2. Regardless of the enhancements we will see plenty of 14+ paladins after the update due to holy sword... but you have to give some meat to tier 5 powers (50 PRR harbored by light was at least some meat) otherwise everyone will just be playing 14 paladin/6 monk for:
evasion, fist of iron, ninja poison, 4d6 sneak attack, 25% incorporeal, no mercy, shadow double, possibly touch of death (I heard it doesn't apply to offhand?), +10% offhand, iron skin earth stance with +1 crit 19-20
With brush hooks or thunderforged shortswords....

[J-mann]

I think the 2 biggest problems with the current arrangement are:

1. We don't need to encourage splashing paladin so the stance needs to be moved back to 6.

2. Regardless of the enhancements we will see plenty of 14+ paladins after the update due to holy sword... but you have to give some meat to tier 5 powers (50 PRR harbored by light was at least some meat) otherwise everyone will just be playing 14 paladin/6 monk for:
evasion, fist of iron, ninja poison, 4d6 sneak attack, 25% incorporeal, no mercy, shadow double, possibly touch of death (I heard it doesn't apply to offhand?), +10% offhand, iron skin earth stance with +1 crit 19-20
With brush hooks or thunderforged shortswords....

Sorry I fail to see how stance at 3 and not requiring shield makes me want to splash pally all that much more. If you take stance, you loose all rage bonuses, so basically I trade 2-5 str for 10 prr 10 mrr and 50% threat, and I dont even WANT the threat as a dps. You cant compare with upgraded stances as that costs ap and it is impossible to tell me what you gave up for that ap spent. I feel the trade offs of no rage and extra threat are more than enough to discourage dps from splashing 3 ftr/3 pally for the stance (not to mention the huge ap sink that the tree is).

for your second point, more meat in tier five is not going to discourage your listed splash, but I dont disagree that more meat in t5 isnt warrented for pallies and fighters.

[Sgt_Hart]

Innate Abilities

(Moved to tier 3) 10 AP, Pal6: Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score and a 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation for 60 seconds.


Tier One (0 AP Required)



Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.





Just to be clear, the intention here is "Ha ha, I see you took the threat gen clicky, however, its Only 75-25% more effective than the stance you're probably always in!" What are the odds of untyping that clicky bonus on pally's, or making it Competence, or something? Hate Generation clicky, as a core ability, that won't stack with stance....

Well, that's just inexcusably silly.

[bbqzor]

Since Unyielding Sentinel is based on Paladin, it is undesirable that a Fighter Stalwart Defender gets more benefit from Intolerant Blows than a Paladin Sacred Defender does.

Fighters have to spend 4 destiny points to get it though, since they do not come with smite. It costs more for them, so they get more. As there are not enough points to buy all the useful things in Unyielding anyhow, this is a pretty weighty trade off. Paladins can even choose to spend 0 points and use Divine Righteousness for 25% of the 125% "extra over stance" its worth, for free.

So Fighters pay 4 destiny points for 200%, or paladins spend 2 points for 100%, or paladins spend 0 points for 25%. Its not equal gains, but it also isnt equal in cost, paladins have it cheaper.


Just to be clear, the intention here is "Ha ha, I see you took the threat gen clicky, however, its Only 75-25% more effective than the stance you're probably always in!" What are the odds of untyping that clicky bonus on pally's, or making it Competence, or something? Hate Generation clicky, as a core ability, that won't stack with stance....

The devs (sev) have said multiple times "we cant or we miss our deadline" so this isnt design by ideals, its design by management deadline. They arent going to do "whats right", that much is becoming evident. Theyre doing to do "whats the best-fit convenient" treatment. Maybe they come back later, maybe not (count me as a vote for not, track record says it all) but whatever future plans are, none of thats going to affect the now. And the now is "whatevers a quick fix".

Heres how to fix this whole threat-typing-cost thing in the "we are on a deadline" way. Step 1, type the Paladin stance upgrades to Competence same as the Fighter one. Step 2, Reduce Divine Righteousness to a +50% clicky but leave it typed as Sacred. Step 3, dont do anything to Unyielding.

It means, stances are equal. And any AP spent to upgrade them always applies. Equally.

The Paladin hate-gen clicky (Divine Righteousness) is +50% which then stacks with the base stance (50%) and the stance upgrades (0-75%). For someone who had spent no AP, this is less bonus (100 now, vs 150 on live). While for someone who spent AP, this is more bonus (175 now, vs 150 on live). This means that if you spend no effort into buying your stance up, you dont get as far, and thats fine. And if you do spend AP into buying your stance up, you are now farther along, which is rather befitting of something which you dont get a choice about since its a CORE ability and should help what youre spending AP on, not over-write it.

Then, when you get to Unyielding, Fighters can spend 4 points to get 200% gain. Paladins can spend 2 points to get 150% gain (or skip it, and use their base 50% gain). Yes, its a slightly more appealing position for paladins to be in, but again... thats okay. Its supposed to be the destiny based on their class. They should be in a good place to take advantage of what it offers. And right now, there is too much to buy in the tree. This both means Paladins who spend the points get more for them, and Paladins who dont spend the points lose less. Meaning its both more worthwhile, and more worth it to buy something else... just better in the tree period. And fighters? They still gain the most, at the same cost, no ground lost.

As far as dev time it takes changing one bonus type and one bonus amount. Change the Paladin stance type to Competence. Change the Div Righteous amount to 50%. Done.

Not what I would propose given infinite resources, but since all the dev responses lately are "we cant cause no time so heres a slide-by fix rather than a real one" there you go. This is about as much "fix" as I can think of, while still taking almost no time. Hopefully helpful. Cheers.

[Ayseifn]

Sorry I fail to see how stance at 3 and not requiring shield makes me want to splash pally all that much more. If you take stance, you loose all rage bonuses, so basically I trade 2-5 str for 10 prr 10 mrr and 50% threat, and I dont even WANT the threat as a dps. You cant compare with upgraded stances as that costs ap and it is impossible to tell me what you gave up for that ap spent. I feel the trade offs of no rage and extra threat are more than enough to discourage dps from splashing 3 ftr/3 pally for the stance (not to mention the huge ap sink that the tree is).

for your second point, more meat in tier five is not going to discourage your listed splash, but I dont disagree that more meat in t5 isnt warrented for pallies and fighters.

I usually want threat as a DPS, when mobs run away from me they generally take longer to kill. Splashing 3 paladin or fighter might not appeal to you but it does others, there's a fairly popular 12 bard/6 fighter/2 rogue build floating around that could drop 2-3 fighter levels now without really missing anything. I really like the idea of being able to grab a ton of defence out of 3-4 pally levels but it does marginalize levels 5-13.

[Dilbon]

i agree it will be a nerf for more people, and a buff for almoast nobody, nor a big one. But 2x CHA bonus ir worse.

Yes, I meant 2 x charisma (80 if you have 40 charisma).

[Dilbon]

As was stated earlier in the thread, a capstone that requires us to be in dire threat of dying to work is a bad capstone. How does getting another 30 points (or even 60) for range of unconsciousness compete with evasion for a capstone? +4 to a primary stat? In what way is this even comparable? I'm sorry, but giving a us a limited use capstone mechanic that may actually help us a couple times/life versus having bonuses that help us all the time is bad design.

I just have to ask all who think the capstone is bad: have you actually seen it in action personally?

[XodousRoC]

I just have to ask all who think the capstone is bad: have you actually seen it in action personally?

I'm very sorry, and I mean no disrespect to your opinions, but this response made me laugh.

When my PM hits his lich form and receives +4 to his int; this I notice and see the result all the time.
When my Bard swashbuckler hits 20 and receives evasion, I see the result (avoidance of spell/trap damage) all the time.
When my Paladin heroic caps, I get to run through to 28 and almost never see the capstone benefit him.

The capstone is a poor joke at best, and a slap in the face at worst.

If your opinion differs, then I am sorry for the strength of my response. This isn't meant to belittle your opinions. I simply feel strongly that the devs have given us a VERY limited tool as our capstone here rather than a tool that helps us to avoid near death (evasion and +4 to your primary stat do just that). I'd also like to posit that in EE content, extending your unconsciousness by 100 would often still not save you if you find yourself surrounded by mobs and receiving damage at a rate higher than your mitigation and heals can keep up with.

So, to all who apparently don't think this capstone is nigh worthless, I would ask you why? Why is a tool that is only useful in highly limited situations a great capstone? Why is it that you would support a capstone that does not in fact benefit every Paladin who selects it all the time?

[Dilbon]

So, the answer is no then?

[XodousRoC]

So, the answer is no then?

And if it is, does that somehow invalidate my responses?

This cap gives a split +2/+2 and a mechanic that does not benefit you all the time, nor give you active benefit of its use beyond, "You should be dead, but your not, but you will be again as soon as this EE mob realizes your not when you should be." EE mobs hit hard enough that a reactive 250 pt heal won't help. If a paladin, run well, ever gets to this situation then he's already out of sp, loh, and any other form of convenient self heals (sf pots, perhaps scrolls, etc). The fact that I've never taken or received the "benefit" of a poor cap in no way invalidates my opinion. I've played this game long enough (~3 years) to have played all of the classes to cap, and this is just a poor man's reactive heal. It will only save you a few times/life...assuming a modicum of ability...

I don't appreciate the split stat cap, nor do I appreciate a mechanic that does not help my toon to avoid the very situation you have to be in for this to be effective.

Intimating that because I've not experienced this poor mechanic means my opinion is invalid is no different than saying that the fact I've never almost died in a car accident means I shouldn't be able to understand that's a situation I'd rather avoid. I don't need to be bleeding in a ditch to know I don't want to be bleeding in a ditch.

[maddong]

Sorry I fail to see how stance at 3 and not requiring shield makes me want to splash pally all that much more. If you take stance, you loose all rage bonuses, so basically I trade 2-5 str for 10 prr 10 mrr and 50% threat, and I dont even WANT the threat as a dps. You cant compare with upgraded stances as that costs ap and it is impossible to tell me what you gave up for that ap spent. I feel the trade offs of no rage and extra threat are more than enough to discourage dps from splashing 3 ftr/3 pally for the stance (not to mention the huge ap sink that the tree is).

for your second point, more meat in tier five is not going to discourage your listed splash, but I dont disagree that more meat in t5 isnt warrented for pallies and fighters.

A shiradi caster build that is already splashing 2 pal greatly benefits. There are already plenty of caster builds splashing 6 pal. They just got back 3 caster levels to play with.

A melee that wants saves (paladin instead of barb/bard) uses primal rage first then goes into stance.

[Krelar]

I just have to ask all who think the capstone is bad: have you actually seen it in action personally?

I haven't.

That's the problem, I played with it for 2 months and it never saved my life once.

[Dilbon]

And if it is, does that somehow invalidate my responses?

Not at all, it's just easier to agree if you have had first hand experience. Like when you're surrounded by enemies that pound you but you just can't die. Or when you need to run through traps that only do 100 damage each so you can't die (that's with other conciousness range effects). Or when you're doing EE and expect the capstone to save you but the mobs hit too hard and you die.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

So, after giving it more thought and experimenting with different theory builds, I think that the t5 of this tree is still missing something.

Right now, the paladin tanks i'm making value t5 KotC> t5 Sacred Defender, and here's why.

T5 KotC, for 8 points, i get
10% additional healing amp(2pts)
a 5[w] great cleave replacement that frees up a feat(3pts)
immunity to neg-levels(frees up deathward, 2ap)
stun chaotic or evil outsider on vorpal(not great everywhere, but can be useful, 1ap)

t5 Sacred defender's competitive options are:
25 PRR/MRR for (w/ shield block damage, 3ap)
6 con or 6 str (3ap)
Reprisal-get hit 10 times, deal 10 extra damage once(3ap)
(up to 50% more armor from shield/armor, but I don't consider that competitive)

so, for 1 less ap, i sacrifice ~100 health, free up 2 feat slots(because to get great cleave, i need cleave, even if i have the enhancement), immunity to neg levels, and healing amp-which is great for a paladin tank.

suggestion: dump current version of reprisal. Instead change it to something like: when struck, you gain a stack of Reprisal: +2 sacred bonus to melee power, stacks up to 10 times, lasts 6 seconds a stack, fades 2 stacks at a time.

this is actually less damage per swing in most cases, but far more useful and far easier to keep active.

[ddorimble]

Something similar to Shield of Condemnation would fit perfectly into these defensive trees. Any sort of 'debuff the enemy when they attack you' type of effects. Maybe the Paladin one is literally Shield of Condemnation, pairs up nicely with picking up some Light damage from KotC. Maybe the Fighter version dispenses Trips/Stuns/Ripostes/Tactical type things retributively.

Actually, the FvS PrEs are chock-full of things that seem appropriate to Sacred Defender to me. Aura debuff things, retributive light damage...

[Zurrander]

This this and more of This! Sacred Defender should have a T5 pally version of "Shield of Condemnation", and some AC in the Cores as well as a T4-5 Pally version of "Ameliorating Strike" (that works with smite evil). And while we're at it why isn't there more abilities that use "Remove Disease"? Its one of the Pally's main abilities yet its almost completely neglected. The Pally Aura's could use a little love as well. And as for fighters, Beef up Reprisal and give them some Tactical feat love.

[XodousRoC]

I haven't.

That's the problem, I played with it for 2 months and it never saved my life once.


Not at all, it's just easier to agree if you have had first hand experience. Like when you're surrounded by enemies that pound you but you just can't die. Or when you need to run through traps that only do 100 damage each so you can't die (that's with other conciousness range effects). Or when you're doing EE and expect the capstone to save you but the mobs hit too hard and you die.

There u have it, first hand.

Also, inexperience with a deliberately avoided capstone that has obvious flaws and lack of functional use in EE does not mean I should not be able to express my frustrations with its very lack of functionality. I have stood in the middle of a mob in EE. It hurts. It hurts a lot. If you've no EE experience, movement is life. Melee is at an undeniable disadvantage there. It's why these kinds of changes (armor mit changes along with revamped trees) are being done. I've run both heavy armor and evasion toons in EE, and I can tell you this capstone is very unlikely to save the heavy against EE traps. The evasion build is much more likely to survive that scenario. Paladin already lacks for dps; let's not hinder them worse with a capstone that lacks teeth. This does. It absolutely needs to be changed for it to be of use to the extent other capstones are to other classes.

[Severlin]

I will bring up threat and Intimidate with the team. Even if we can't get it into this update it is something we should look at.

Sev~

[bbqzor]

inexperience with a deliberately avoided capstone that has obvious flaws and lack of functional use in EE

I have experience with it, did not avoid it (took it explicitly because I wanted it), dont feel it has obvious flaws (now that the cost is verified to remain 2 turn attempts), and have it functionally work in EE at times. So.... guess my play experience and yours differ greatly.

Its not an "autowin" in EE, but its also a lv20 ability and I dont think it should be "always" saving you in EE. Its not a replacement for good play, its an insurance policy when you take an unforeseen spike. In EH (and EN Im sure) it works very well. Like anything in this game, it doesnt wholly stand on its own, but with some build support its quite passable as a capstone.

Its not perfect, but as Ive said before, the devs have consistently stated "no time, deadline" so for a quick fix this is about as much as one could hope for. In this case, thats upping the stat mod to +4 as is the trend with all capstones, and moving on. Not ideal, but its what we got for the moment. Maybe theyll do another adjustment after this deadline has passed (unlikely, but one can hope).

Not trying to say you cant voice an opinion of course, only that mines very different and its NOT something everyone dislikes. I like it a lot, and would be very upset if it were removed. It is not a universally despised thing, far from it. Many enjoy using it as it combines well with the current round of things added. A year ago I probably would have posted differently, but times have changed, and there is now the support to use this ability. And its fun, useful, and unique: so I like it. Ill agree to disagree I suppose, but Id encourage anyone hating on it to take some complimentary abilities and try them together, before passing judgement. GL.

[Ralmeth]

So, the answer is no then?

From my own experience, I've never come across a situation where the capstone special ability would have saved my Paladin...Glorious Stand on the other hand has saved the day many times (and I laugh at all naysayers every single time that it does). The trick is to not let your HP get so low that you have to rely on the capstone ability to save you.

I would prefer that the capstone special ability to be something else, anything else. IMHO, the capstone would have to be equal to or better than Fighter Haste boost, and until it is I'll be splashing Fighter.

[Leclaire1]

Hey Sev and Varg. Its a bit off topic, but since you're online now, when are we going to find out about the Paladin spells and such? I like the changes to all of the trees, but the only tangible changes so far which requires more than 6 levels of Pally are the awesome changes to Holy Sword and a few core enhancements. The spells will help playing a primarily pally toon more appealing. Thanks.

[bbqzor]

I will bring up threat and Intimidate with the team. Even if we can't get it into this update it is something we should look at.

In addition to the threat stacking mentioned above, I would make a request: Please add an intimidate cooldown shortener to this tree (and, likely, the fighter one).

Its absolutely ridiculous that Henshin Mystic has one at Tier 1, which lowers the cooldown by 10%, and the actual tanking trees have nothing. And while Im on it, the Henshin one doesnt even lower the cooldown on Ki Shout (in Shintao) which is the "intimidate" monks are likely to use anyhow. So double fail. Double fail plus double face palm even. Both Picard and Riker are ashamed at this level of fail.

While getting +1 intim per core or something is probably a good idea (I like this much better than a +1/2/3 skill, as its something tanks should get for free, it encourages taking more class levels, and results in a larger bonus in the end at +6 for someone staying pure, enough to matter even at the high end), a cooldown reducer enhancement would be something I think more important to gameplay, more valuable in terms of actively wanting to spend points on it, and something a bit more well received than just +skill. Especially when the code for it is already there, and in a terrible place, making it a simple cut and paste job to address. It would give tanks a way to manage agro better, and stand out against other builds using intimidate as more playable.

Maybe the threat changes I mentioned before (stance to competence, righteousness to 50%), +1 intim per core, and an enhancement which is +1/2/3 diplo/intim and shortens the cooldown on both by 10% at rank 3. Or whatever, you get the idea... better stacking situation with threat, 10ish total intim (if you count the 2 cha from capstone), and 10% better cooldown.

Thanks. Threat mechanics are obviously important here, and with a virtual total lack of dps in the tree, this is the only area to make it up. Cheers.

[XodousRoC]

From my own experience, I've never come across a situation where the capstone special ability would have saved my Paladin...Glorious Stand on the other hand has saved the day many times (and I laugh at all naysayers every single time that it does). The trick is to not let your HP get so low that you have to rely on the capstone ability to save you.

I would prefer that the capstone special ability to be something else, anything else. IMHO, the capstone would have to be equal to or better than Fighter Haste boost, and until it is I'll be splashing Fighter.

^This^

I'll agree to disagree with those who actively support the current capstone. At least bumping the stat bene to +4 is functionally helpful. I don't believe everyone dislikes the current capstone (though I think you'd be surprised by the lopsidedness of response against it if you polled all pally players), but for me, it's simply a poor mechanic. I'm in total agreement here.

[XodousRoC]

In addition to the threat stacking mentioned above, I would make a request: Please add an intimidate cooldown shortener to this tree (and, likely, the fighter one).

Its absolutely ridiculous that Henshin Mystic has one at Tier 1, which lowers the cooldown by 10%, and the actual tanking trees have nothing. And while Im on it, the Henshin one doesnt even lower the cooldown on Ki Shout (in Shintao) which is the "intimidate" monks are likely to use anyhow. So double fail. Double fail plus double face palm even. Both Picard and Riker are ashamed at this level of fail.

While getting +1 intim per core or something is probably a good idea (I like this much better than a +1/2/3 skill, as its something tanks should get for free, it encourages taking more class levels, and results in a larger bonus in the end at +6 for someone staying pure, enough to matter even at the high end), a cooldown reducer enhancement would be something I think more important to gameplay, more valuable in terms of actively wanting to spend points on it, and something a bit more well received than just +skill. Especially when the code for it is already there, and in a terrible place, making it a simple cut and paste job to address. It would give tanks a way to manage agro better, and stand out against other builds using intimidate as more playable.

Maybe the threat changes I mentioned before (stance to competence, righteousness to 50%), +1 intim per core, and an enhancement which is +1/2/3 diplo/intim and shortens the cooldown on both by 10% at rank 3. Or whatever, you get the idea... better stacking situation with threat, 10ish total intim (if you count the 2 cha from capstone), and 10% better cooldown.

Thanks. Threat mechanics are obviously important here, and with a virtual total lack of dps in the tree, this is the only area to make it up. Cheers.

We may not agree about the capstone, but I'm in total agreement here. Tanks should receive threat benes for being in tanking trees. They are already making dps sacrifices to maximize their defenses, so a little help from the cores would be most warmly received. Nice ideas here.

[XodousRoC]

I will bring up threat and Intimidate with the team. Even if we can't get it into this update it is something we should look at.

Sev~

While I've been a very vocal opponent of this tree's capstone design, I do appreciate that we, the players, are being heard. I also greatly appreciate the efforts of the Turbine staff in attempting to make the Pally a more beneficial playing experience for us. I'm very serious here. You didn't have to revisit the trees, but you have. I don't agree with placing a deadline before quality, but at least the attempt is being made, and we are being listened to.

Thank you very much for your efforts.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Since Unyielding Sentinel is based on Paladin, it is undesirable that a Fighter Stalwart Defender gets more benefit from Intolerant Blows than a Paladin Sacred Defender does.
Not disagreeing here, just pointing out the US isn't really Paladin anymore. It's a strange clericy/paladinish thing. Divine Crusader is the modern paladinish ED.

[oradafu]

Not disagreeing here, just pointing out the US isn't really Paladin anymore. It's a strange clericy/paladinish thing. Divine Crusader is the modern paladinish ED.

Except US is the only way paladins can get unlimited Turning and Lay on Hands, since the Devs refuse to grant those things to the base class. Clerics get Endless Turning in heroics and they can do much more than paladins, and the clerics stuff is arguably more powerful. Heck, even FvS get more chances at Divine Might than paladins since it costs FvS's minor SP compared to their SP pool.

One of the biggest problems the Devs have done with EDs is pigeonholing Paladins into a single tree than nerfing that tree by preventing Paladin abilities from stacking in the tree. Remember the last time they tinkered in the US ED and announced that the Doublestrike of Zeal would not work with the ED.

Makes no sense that Paladins keep getting these proxy nerfs under the guise that it is to help the class.

[toapat]

^This^

I'll agree to disagree with those who actively support the current capstone. At least bumping the stat bene to +4 is functionally helpful. I don't believe everyone dislikes the current capstone (though I think you'd be surprised by the lopsidedness of response against it if you polled all pally players), but for me, it's simply a poor mechanic. I'm in total agreement here.

the problem with the current capstone is that its not worth the cost. 2 uses of Turn Undead is practically equivalent to Unyielding Sovereignty. Make it 1 charge, and move it into T5 as a 2AP node so that the Core 6 can be something that competes with Glorious Stand.

Hell, Glorious Stand is more of a capstone then Eternal Defender has ever been. Personally i want Glorious Stand to be extendable just to make it that much more awesome. Personally i would rather Eternal Defender be moved into the T5 stuff (it is definitely that awesome but not a Capstone) while the C6 would be "Confront Every Foe: Action boost: For 30 seconds your attacks have a X% chance to strike every Foe within 15 feet"


Except US is the only way paladins can get unlimited Turning and Lay on Hands, since the Devs refuse to grant those things to the base class. Clerics get Endless Turning in heroics and they can do much more than paladins, and the clerics stuff is arguably more powerful. Heck, even FvS get more chances at Divine Might than paladins since it costs FvS's minor SP compared to their SP pool.

you are mixing Divine Crusader and Unyielding Sentinel together, when they brought out DC US lost endless turning and confront any foe.

[oradafu]

you are mixing Divine Crusader and Unyielding Sentinel together, when they brought out DC US lost endless turning and confront any foe.

Blah. Still, it doesn't negate that the Devs keep saying that are improving Paladins with such changes but preventing Paladins stuff from stacking with stuff in their ED(s).

[Ralmeth]

the problem with the current capstone is that its not worth the cost. 2 uses of Turn Undead is practically equivalent to Unyielding Sovereignty. Make it 1 charge, and move it into T5 as a 2AP node so that the Core 6 can be something that competes with Glorious Stand.

The current capstone is also not worth the 2 levels of Paladin that you need for it vs. going with 18 Paladin levels, when you compare it to the benefits you can get from multiclassing 2 Fighter levels (2 feats, and access to fighter haste boost and tactics DC bonuses). That's too bad because I know that most hard-core Paladin players WANT to go pure. The choice should be a hard one, and it's currently a no-brainer (to me) to go with a Fighter splash.

Make the capstone make your character glow with an aura of good / awesomeness, and add some really cool aura bonuses (ex. adds healing amp to those within your aura, has a chance to dispel evil magic or breath weapons, etc).

[BDog77]

a 5[w] great cleave replacement that frees up a feat(3pts).

I'm not sure you will be getting that for 3 points. Didn't I read somewhere that this will cost 1/2/3 (thus bringing back the pricing in APs that the devs said was a big reason for the enhancement revamp)? In fact, I thought each cleave would be 1/2/3, thus costing you 12 APs to avoid the 2 feat cost.

Maybe I'm wrong?

[oradafu]

I'm not sure you will be getting that for 3 points. Didn't I read somewhere that this will cost 1/2/3 (thus bringing back the pricing in APs that the devs said was a big reason for the enhancement revamp)? In fact, I thought each cleave would be 1/2/3, thus costing you 12 APs to avoid the 2 feat cost.

Maybe I'm wrong?

One of several reasons why we need to see these changes (along with others) on Lamannia before stuff gets nerfed. It would be nice to see how much stuff actually costs to build and if AP costs were actually reduced to help paladins. As someone pointed out before, when the trees were added the first time, the AP cost was stupidly high to gain what paladins already gained from stances and auras (which admittedly was also stupidly high in the non-tree incarnation).

One of the few things I'm surprised I haven't seen in this tree is a boost to any of the Paladin skills. This would be the tree that should include a boost to Heal and Intimidation, along with possibly Concentration. Diplo could be shoved in here, but its always been sort of an odd duck when it comes to DDO paladins.

Another is the lack of the Tower Shield feat being granted to Paladins. Maybe its going to be in the new tree since the new tree is suppose to be the "Shield" tree.

[Thar]

I will bring up threat and Intimidate with the team. Even if we can't get it into this update it is something we should look at.

Sev~

If your not adding DPS somewhere, it will be a fail with the enhancement trees.

Compare this to the bard changes.

Spellsinger got stronger with new 9th level spells and changes to some enhancements. good improvements to an useable tree

Warchanter got huge changes to add dps and buffs. made the tree viable again! great job.

New swashbuckler line was really nice.

Even if the new vanguard is really nice, the other two trees should be viable options and reducing some points in one and giving us attacks that are high in tree and negate the only good dps heroic feats for AOE damage doesn't help the class enough. We need a tier 1 dps option like every other class for a 1+(w) and something at tier 5 that is wow every so often like mass hold, coup de gra, slayer arrow, etc. Granted doesn't need to be up to that level of instakill but something to make it worthwhile as a tank and be able to kill stuff and solo if needed. The ac boosts are not enough to make the tree since AC is minimally useful since the to hit change until your 200s. 70% to hit vs even level mob isn't enough to survive with minimal dps as a pally.

[toapat]

Maybe I'm wrong?

thats what severlin has said and i immediately thought it should be 2/1/1 or 2/1/2. these are feat replacements, tier 2+3 are factually less valuable then tier 1 even if the first tier doesnt compete with the feats.

[BDog77]

thats what severlin has said and i immediately thought it should be 2/1/1 or 2/1/2. these are feat replacements, tier 2+3 are factually less valuable then tier 1 even if the first tier doesnt compete with the feats.

Since you don't need the cleaves for OC anymore, the only reason to take tier one is if you either planned to go whole hog or IF they will recharge Momentum Swing and/or Lay Waste (which we actually don't know about yet). Otherwise tier 1 is just meh, 2 +1[W] cleaves? No thanks, I'll spend the feats, thanks for trying....

EDIT: I can't tell you how unhappy I am to see the 1/2/3 pricing brought back, BTW, I really thought those days were over....

[XodousRoC]

Since you don't need the cleaves for OC anymore, the only reason to take tier one is if you either planned to go whole hog or IF they will recharge Momentum Swing and/or Lay Waste (which we actually don't know about yet). Otherwise tier 1 is just meh, 2 +1[W] cleaves? No thanks, I'll spend the feats, thanks for trying....

EDIT: I can't tell you how unhappy I am to see the 1/2/3 pricing brought back, BTW, I really thought those days were over....

The change to OC is overdue and will make much more than just Paladins happy. The ability to use AP for feats is powerful, but the pricing does have to be right. Compare these cleaves to the mass ice-statue cleave you can now get in Warchanter. I think 1/1/2 might slide into acceptability, but 1/2/3 is out of line. Looks like I'll continue to splash fighter for haste boosts and 2 xtra feats to pay for cleave/gr cleave...especially since the silence has been so stupendously deafening concerning repeated requests on the functional interplay of the new enhancement cleaves and momentum swing.

I don't want the devs to feel like they are completely whiffing, but the pricing is still too high in this tree if we need to spend 12 AP for the cleaves alone. If we are making Paladin viable to play to cap (both heroic and epic), we need more dps, more threat generation, and lower AP costs. We also need to know if the new enhancements will play nice with momentum swing in LD. Even with the changes coming to EDs, LD will need to remain a viable dps melee destiny for Paladin or we've whiffed there as well. Opening up more destinies to close the current best destiny is a bad trade off.

[maddong]

The change to OC is overdue and will make much more than just Paladins happy. The ability to use AP for feats is powerful, but the pricing does have to be right. Compare these cleaves to the mass ice-statue cleave you can now get in Warchanter. I think 1/1/2 might slide into acceptability, but 1/2/3 is out of line. Looks like I'll continue to splash fighter for haste boosts and 2 xtra feats to pay for cleave/gr cleave...especially since the silence has been so stupendously deafening concerning repeated requests on the functional interplay of the new enhancement cleaves and momentum swing.

I don't want the devs to feel like they are completely whiffing, but the pricing is still too high in this tree if we need to spend 12 AP for the cleaves alone. If we are making Paladin viable to play to cap (both heroic and epic), we need more dps, more threat generation, and lower AP costs. We also need to know if the new enhancements will play nice with momentum swing in LD. Even with the changes coming to EDs, LD will need to remain a viable dps melee destiny for Paladin or we've whiffed there as well. Opening up more destinies to close the current best destiny is a bad trade off.

The cleaves should cost 1/1/1.

[XodousRoC]

The cleaves should cost 1/1/1.

I'd certainly not argue against that. Tying up 6 AP in what would become a must-have would be enough investment. 12 is simply too much, but without Momentum Swing interaction in a manner commensurate with the feats they ostensibly replace, even that cost too much (we'll still need to get the feats).

[bbqzor]

the problem with the current capstone is that its not worth the cost. 2 uses of Turn Undead is practically equivalent to Unyielding Sovereignty.
Huh? How is 2 turns = Unyielding Sov? As a paladin with good Cha, I generally have enough turns to reasonably use, except when using this capstone. I am not sure how you are coming to that conclusion of equal usefulness.


Personally i want Glorious Stand to be extendable just to make it that much more awesome
This is not the first person to say they heavily rely on Glorious Stand. I have to ask, honestly, why? What content are you doing where this comes up time and again as something amazing?

The last time I found it to be seriously awesome was back when VoD was a real thing. Before the enhancement pass. Thats seriously the last time I used it and went "wow amazing". With DR 10-15 available many places at 20+, and the Shadow Guard DR 30 armor at cap, when is this seeing heavy use? From 18 to 22?

Not being facetious here, seriously wondering what the people seeing this in game are experiencing. Please give a full answer if you find time.

And on the subject of why I feel that way about the current capstone, because its amazing imo: Its not too great on its own. But taken together with the ship buff which extends negative hp, some enhancements, and items like the Ward Token, its easy to get a reasonable buffer in negative values. That, combined with healing amp (also easily available to paladins through the past life and kotc tree), means its very very hard to die to damage spikes. In EE, its a little more common, but you at least have a chance. The healers can let you get a bit lower, knowing they have ample room to maneuver, and if a spike happens no problem youre covered.

As with almost anything else in DDO which is actually viable, if you take a few things which work together, and use them together, you get good returns. Its pretty nice to have self-reactive-heal-style safety net all the time. Its not auto-win, but it does mean as the paladin you are usually the last guy to buckle, or the guy least likely to buckle from a bad roll or unexpected lag or the healer spacing out or something. Youre the reliable bulwark of never-say-die goodness... and thats cool and different, as well as effective.

So, thats how the capstone plays for me. What the heck are people using glorious stand for and seeing amazing results on? Seriously wondering... with easy access to DR, deathblock, and ample healing amp already I almost never hit the button anymore. Maybe Im missing something.

[Silverleafeon]

The cleaves should cost 1/1/1.

Better ask Sev, we had a typo else where were 1/2/3 meant total cost not individual cost EI it was a 1/1/1.
Not sure what the case is here?

[Ayseifn]

So, thats how the capstone plays for me. What the heck are people using glorious stand for and seeing amazing results on? Seriously wondering... with easy access to DR, deathblock, and ample healing amp already I almost never hit the button anymore. Maybe Im missing something.

2x healing amp is a pretty solid buff, I could see it allowing you to wade into a pack of mobs with haste boost or something and have Nightmare keep you up pretty well. An 8x multiplier isn't our of the realm of possibilities so that's 16HP/hit.

[bbqzor]

2x healing amp is a pretty solid buff, I could see it allowing you to wade into a pack of mobs with haste boost or something and have Nightmare keep you up pretty well. An 8x multiplier isn't our of the realm of possibilities so that's 16HP/hit.

Yea, but for 20sec, something as simple as Renewal, or Consecrate, or Cocoon, or Regen from a druid, or any number of other options does the same thing. With the CD on glorious, compared to a cd of almost nothing for the others, never stood out as worth it over that. I mean anything that 16 hp a swing heals you through, the capstone could just rez you through too.

Appreciate the response though. Just not something I see a lot of opportunity for. Always up to learn something though, maybe Im doing it wrong =p

[the_one_dwarfforged]

First, we changed some AP costs for existing enhancements:

AP cost of Saves Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Defense Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Reinforced Defense changed to 1/1/1 both times you can take it.
AP cost of Harbored by Light changed to 1/1/1.

Now onto the tree changes:


Innate Abilities
20 AP, Pal12: Redemption: The following spells are added to the Paladin spell list: Level 2: Raise Dead Level 3: Resurrection Level 4: True Resurrection. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
30 AP, Pal18: Glorious Stand: Channel Divinity: For a short duration you gain DR 20/epic, take reduced damage from elemental and negative energy, receive double healing from positive energy, and are immune to secondary effects of attacks such as 'wounding' or 'vorpal'. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating.
[/LIST]


Tier Five (30 AP Required)

Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain 1/2/3 uses of Lay On Hands.* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage.





so, youre giving pure or mostly pure paladins 5-20 free prr that they didnt have before, and cutting the cost of harbored by light in half (a prr source fighters didnt have an equivalent of already, but was extremely expensive for its benefit, especially as a tier 5).

to me this suggests that you think paladins are and should be the hardest to kill, tank melee class. but then i remember a certain terrible idea called holy sword. its a spell, not an enhancement. so if we compare sword and board stalwart fighter, to a sword and board sacred paladin, basically what we have is one class that is 100% useless, and one class that is not. i wonder which is which...

a pure stalwart fighter who takes the tier 5s in that tree is going to be short 45 prr, self healing, saves, +1 crit multi, +1(2, or 10%) crit range, +1[w], and 10% almost permanent sacred double strike compared to a pure sacred paladin. its going to be lacking in defenses, its going to be lacking in self sustenance, and its even going to be lacking in offense. so lets assume that our sword and board fighter doesnt fall into the trap of thinking "hmm if i put more points and levels into the stalwart defender tree, ill actually be a better defensive fighter" and goes for the kensei capstone and keen edge, he then gains dps, tactical dcs, and loses nothing. but even then the paladin has a decisive advantage, +45 prr, good self healing, good saves, +1 crit multi, +1[w].

you know for a fighter/barbarian/dev, you sure seem to have a paladin fetish there bud. at this rate 90% of the people who play melees (yes those 12 people who play only the fotm melee builds because they cant play the melee they really would like to play) will be paladins in u23, because they are going to have every conceivable edge handed to them on a silver platter in what promises to be undead heavy content (extra dmg against undead on hit anyone?). and the update after that will bring the call for moar buffs to classes like barbarian and fighter (one can only hope at least). but how are you going to "balance" them against the monstrosities formerly known as paladin and bards? first bladeforged go on sale. then recon sla is nerfed to uselessness. then barbs and fighters are given spell points and cure spells. next barbs get +20 crit mult on 19-20s, and 3 times as much vicious damage, and built in heal amp. fighter auto crit on every swing, and have an unholy amount of +tactics dcs and double strike. and so on and so forth. sure im all for fighters and barbs getting buffed but i think at that point the game may be getting close to really broken.

i can tell you, no paladin with a brain is going to skip cleave feats to take the special pally cleaves if the pally gcleave is a tier 5 and youre making harbored by light actually affordable. just buff buff buff buff buff. cool. fighters next please.

[bbqzor]

if we compare sword and board stalwart fighter, to a sword and board sacred paladin, basically what we have is one class that is 100% useless, and one class that is not. i wonder which is which

Yea, because paladins losing prr relative to live, not getting 11 bonus feats, not having haste boost or defensive sweep or block and cut, not having power surge or the kensei focus line, and being forced to spend one of their few feats on tower shield clearly makes them the winners.

Its not nearly as cut and dry as you make out. Paladins are getting some adjustments, as are fighters and soon both will have vanguard. But trying to pass off one as wholly invalidating the other... well, lets just say its a statement that no one can really take seriously. Especially not when the changes behind the claim amount to 3 ap back from one ability and the holy sword spell. Sorry.

[EllisDee37]

Yea, because paladins losing prr relative to live, not getting 11 bonus feats, not having haste boost or defensive sweep or block and cut, not having power surge or the kensei focus line, and being forced to spend one of their few feats on tower shield clearly makes them the winners.

Its not nearly as cut and dry as you make out. Paladins are getting some adjustments, as are fighters and soon both will have vanguard. But trying to pass off one as wholly invalidating the other... well, lets just say its a statement that no one can really take seriously. Especially not when the changes behind the claim amount to 3 ap back from one ability and the holy sword spell. Sorry.I agree with you that the fighter benefits were ignored in the previous post's writeup.

However, you can't really include power surge, since that essentially maps to divine might.

[oradafu]

you know for a fighter/barbarian/dev, you sure seem to have a paladin fetish there bud. at this rate 90% of the people who play melees (yes those 12 people who play only the fotm melee builds because they cant play the melee they really would like to play) will be paladins in u23, because they are going to have every conceivable edge handed to them on a silver platter in what promises to be undead heavy content (extra dmg against undead on hit anyone?).

Uh, you might want to re-read the changes to KOTC: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/446140-Armor-Up-Developer-Diary-3

KOTC actually lost that extra damage to Undead and Evil Outsiders. All the current bane and good damage is being replaced by Light damage. The only extra damage against Undead is 500 damage on Vorpal, which appears to have its DC removed compared to the current form.

So I'm not seeing the "every conceivable edge handed to them on a silver platter"

[toapat]

Huh? How is 2 turns = Unyielding Sov? As a paladin with good Cha, I generally have enough turns to reasonably use, except when using this capstone. I am not sure how you are coming to that conclusion of equal usefulness.


This is not the first person to say they heavily rely on Glorious Stand. I have to ask, honestly, why? What content are you doing where this comes up time and again as something amazing?

2 charges of turn undead are more valuable then anything except unyielding sovereignty because you eat through turn undead for more powerful/generally useful abilities

Glorious Stand is doubled incoming healing and all offensive spells deal half damage, as well as negating weapon enchantments. Ive never really used it for the DR just because its nothing worth touching for that reason. It needs to be extendable but that is the paladin version of evasion. When i do use it Incoming damage virtually stops.

the problem with Eternal Defender is its not worth 2 Turn undead unless the ability generates 50 times healed HP as threat to all enemies within 60' and line of sight. The ability isnt worth 2 uses of Turn undead because its not worth 1% of what Glorious Stand does, which is let you eat arcane barrages to the face like they are a pile of feathers.


Better ask Sev, we had a typo else where were 1/2/3 meant total cost not individual cost EI it was a 1/1/1.
Not sure what the case is here?

pretty sure he intentionally ment increasing cost to 6AP. the problem is, that design only works for passives that gain a significant ammount of power at 3rd rank. the fact of the matter is Exaulted/Avenging Cleave are small number boosts for ranks 2+3 vs rank 1 which adds a new attack, a damage increase, and with avenging a debuff application. This is why ive wanted a cost of 2/1/1 since i found out as that is a design relating to the actual value of each tier vs the percieved


Its not nearly as cut and dry as you make out. Paladins are getting some adjustments, as are fighters and soon both will have vanguard. But trying to pass off one as wholly invalidating the other... well, lets just say its a statement that no one can really take seriously. Especially not when the changes behind the claim amount to 3 ap back from one ability and the holy sword spell. Sorry.

it is that cut and dry, just for the reverse conclusion of what he came to. Fighter crushes paladin in basically every way by simple virtue of being able to effectively DPS while going SnB compared to paladins who only get that 50prr and glorious stand. Fighters also have gained 20 more while paladins lost 5 relative PRR, narrowing the gap to only 25 prr

[bbqzor]

2 charges of turn undead are more valuable then anything except unyielding sovereignty because you eat through turn undead for more powerful/generally useful abilities
Such as? What abilities are you eating through all your turns using? I mean, divine might and divine righteousness are two probable ones. But is that really burning all your charges out? I dont really have that issue, with 15-20/rest attempts. Maybe its a build thing.


what Glorious Stand does, which is let you eat arcane barrages to the face
Hm. Ill give that a shot. Honestly with the combination of paladin saves and just everyday resists/absorbs and such, I havent had this problem. Even on Epic Elite, caster spells arent typically what does me in, especially not dps related ones. I tank Fire Peaks irregularly as well so its not like Im not getting my fair share of fireball doom raining down at times.

I suppose its use for this purpose would largely depend on how survivable you are as a baseline against that type of attack. I think the more "end game" you go as far as past life stacking, gear grinding, etc... the less glorious stand is useful, and the more the capstone is useful. Interesting interplay between the two, probably makes it good design tbh.

Thanks for the reply of how youre using it, I think its less of a waste now, just something different for a different set of problems I just never really ran into. Cheers. Still interested in any others people have/find.

[toapat]

Such as? What abilities are you eating through all your turns using? I mean, divine might and divine righteousness are two probable ones. But is that really burning all your charges out? I dont really have that issue, with 15-20/rest attempts. Maybe its a build thing.

I have 17 and Ive never gotten through a bossfight where im the main tank and intentionally such where those 17 charges will get me through the fight. Divine Righteousness takes a charge a minute, Might every other, and if im using Glorious stand off cooldown (which i try to avoid because its not an off cooldown thing), i run out within 8 minutes. this is the reason i dont even cast divine might unless there will be a bossfight.

[Galinar]

Would Love to see a tier 5 ability the gave combat expertise that did not slow down casting or use extra spell points. Also does anyone know if Paladin sacred defender Reinforced Armor, and fighter stalwart Reinforced Armor will stack after the update as they do now?

[bbqzor]

I have 17 and Ive never gotten through a bossfight where im the main tank and intentionally such where those 17 charges will get me through the fight. Divine Righteousness takes a charge a minute, Might every other, and if im using Glorious stand off cooldown (which i try to avoid because its not an off cooldown thing), i run out within 8 minutes. this is the reason i dont even cast divine might unless there will be a bossfight.

Hm. See I dont use divine righteousness 100% of the time, its only 25% more threat. Save it for initial agro grabs and the like. Means I have more like 20-30 mins of uptime (10-15 spent on might for the time, 5-10 on div righteous as needed, checked in game and 19/rest before any epic destiny swap stuff this life so used to low 20s uses per rest total currently). Guess just different play experience, appreciate the walkthrough of yours. Cheers, hopefully they maybe add some turn regen to paladin in light of this kind of thing (or just move divine might to sp like it is for fvs). But I still think spending 2 on the capstone is fine for what it does, just maybe something in house so it doesnt eat a twist to get turn regens would be better.

[toapat]

Hm. See I dont use divine righteousness 100% of the time, its only 25% more threat. Save it for initial agro grabs and the like. Means I have more like 20-30 mins of uptime (10-15 spent on might for the time, 5-10 on div righteous as needed, checked in game and 19/rest before any epic destiny swap stuff this life so used to low 20s uses per rest total currently). Guess just different play experience, appreciate the walkthrough of yours. Cheers, hopefully they maybe add some turn regen to paladin in light of this kind of thing (or just move divine might to sp like it is for fvs). But I still think spending 2 on the capstone is fine for what it does, just maybe something in house so it doesnt eat a twist to get turn regens would be better.

Sacred Threat bonuses are like Incite bonuses (if not the same bonus in the code with just a different description in the tooltip), they stack non-equivalent values. I know this because if i flip Divine Righteousness i wont necessarily pull aggro, and the 200% from Intolerant blows doesnt actually pull off of other classes. If i pop everything i end up with aggro in about 2 seconds, and i maintain Divine Righteousness by virtue of wanting to make sure im not going to lose aggro for an instant.

In any 10m Fight until i get Endless Turning for twisting i run out of turn charges

[the_one_dwarfforged]

Yea, because paladins losing prr relative to live, not getting 11 bonus feats, not having haste boost or defensive sweep or block and cut, not having power surge or the kensei focus line, and being forced to spend one of their few feats on tower shield clearly makes them the winners.

Its not nearly as cut and dry as you make out. Paladins are getting some adjustments, as are fighters and soon both will have vanguard. But trying to pass off one as wholly invalidating the other... well, lets just say its a statement that no one can really take seriously. Especially not when the changes behind the claim amount to 3 ap back from one ability and the holy sword spell. Sorry.

sure, i left that stuff out. but compare those benefits to better self healing and good saves. besides comparing a traditional "tank" fighter to a traditional "tank" pally, is defense or offense more important?

also, its not 11 free feats if you take the weapon focus line, because those cost a feat, and they only add a couple points of damage. paladins are not as feat starved as they used to be now that there are extra feats granted in epic levels. agree with ellis about power surge. haste boost can be picked in dreadnaught and twisted, not real convenient but its there. so that leaves us with a few feats, defensive sweep, and block and cut, vs self heals, saves, and more free prr. still seems like pallies win easily.

[bbqzor]

a few feats, defensive sweep, and block and cut, vs self heals, saves, and more free prr. still seems like pallies win easily.

I was going to type a longer reply, but honestly, it doesnt have a lot to do with the sacred defender tree. So Im cutting it down to this:

- Right now, on live, paladins get 50prr over fighter. After the changes to this tree, paladins will be able to get 45prr over fighter. Its going down, not sure what you are complaining about.
- Self heals... This tree gives 6 more LoH uses. Thats cool. But its also only 6 heals between shrines. That might replace a healer for the tank in some cases, but certainly not for all, and definitely not for the rest of a group. 6 heals isnt suddenly breaking fighters by comparison. Paladins have this now, on live, and fighter tanks are still all over the place and doing just fine. Thats the big self healing difference. Anything else is outside the scope of this tree, and furthermore starts to hinge upon things like epic or hirelings or whatever that anyone can easily access to more or less the same extent.
- As for "a few feats", well, if you cant turn 11 feats into some kind of meaningful advantage for a character, I dont think youre trying very hard. This enhancement tree gives zero free feats to paladins, so does nothing to erode what is perhaps THE class defining feature of Fighters.

If youd rather have 6 LoHs and 45prr over 11 feats, hey great, you know what class you would enjoy playing next and I hope you find a chance soon. But I think, especially comparing with the fighter tree of similar purpose, its hardly game breakingly good. Personally, I think the fighter tree is a lot more solid. Regardless, its almost identical to live where fighters do plenty well. If you had other issues, Id suggest the threads covering those, because things like how much damage weapon specialization gives arent really feedback on sacred defender. Cheers.

[Ladislaio]

I will bring up threat and Intimidate with the team. Even if we can't get it into this update it is something we should look at.

Sev~

Thank you!

[Ladislaio]

Sacred Threat bonuses are like Incite bonuses (if not the same bonus in the code with just a different description in the tooltip), they stack non-equivalent values. I know this because if i flip Divine Righteousness i wont necessarily pull aggro, and the 200% from Intolerant blows doesnt actually pull off of other classes. If i pop everything i end up with aggro in about 2 seconds, and i maintain Divine Righteousness by virtue of wanting to make sure im not going to lose aggro for an instant.

In any 10m Fight until i get Endless Turning for twisting i run out of turn charges

You should check your combat log when you put on your Incite gear, they changed how that works and they no longer stack according to the log. This happened somewhere around u19, not sure where tho.

I picked these up just to show you...
"""
(Effects): You have multiple effects granting an Enhancement bonus to Melee Threat Generation that do not stack. ( Prisoner's Manacles and Iron Cloak of the Bear )
(Effects): --- Enhancement modifier to Melee Threat Generation: +30%
"""
Iron Cloak of the Bear gives 20% and Prisoner's Manacles give 30%.
On my paladin tank
"""
(Effects): You have multiple effects granting a Sacred bonus to Melee Threat Generation that do not stack. ( Inciting Defense and Divine Righteousness )
(Effects): --- Sacred modifier to Melee Threat Generation: +1
(Effects): You benefit from your Divine Righteousness.
(Effects): --- Sacred modifier to Spell Threat Generation: +1
(Effects): You benefit from your Divine Righteousness.
(Effects): --- Sacred modifier to Ranged Threat Generation: +1
"""
So I guess Divine Righteousness is good if you are trying to generate threat with non-melee damage, but not a lot of 6 level paladin builds have that option. Might be something interesting to try tho... sorc/paladin/fvs shiradi caster tank might be fun (but hard on SP pots)

Like named bonuses no longer stack ever, AFAIK.

[Saekee]

Am a noob to paladins but is it possible to add some enhancement so that they can SWF with Shields, just like bards? Or would that be too OP?

[bloodnose13]

Am a noob to paladins but is it possible to add some enhancement so that they can SWF with Shields, just like bards? Or would that be too OP?

that would be a murder for pally feats, i would rather like to see changes made to shield mastery feats, to be closer to swf, instead of giveing doublestrike that is in no way even close as good to haveing bonus to attack speed and damage stat % scaleing.

what would also be nice to see as enchancement in defender:
- enchacnement that would give shield bash chance bonus, and maybe enchancement that would add effects to happen on shield bash, like unbalancing (as i see, unbalancing could make trip easier against the target of it) or outright trip? maybe chance for stun?,

- enchancement that would allow to make main hand weapon attacks and move at walk speed (instead of tumbling) when shield blocking, it would make all the on shield block effects actualy very usefull then

- enchancement shield bash attack, that would require active shield blocking, would move tank few steps forward while makeing shield bash and it would work like overrun (similar to what big monsters do to playrs, xyzzy for example)

[lugoman]

I will bring up threat and Intimidate with the team. Even if we can't get it into this update it is something we should look at.

Sev~

One thing that hasn't been done yet is something to reduce the intim cool down. Maybe something to drop the cool down from 15s to 10s or maybe a proc that resets it to 0.

[toapat]

One thing that hasn't been done yet is something to reduce the intim cool down. Maybe something to drop the cool down from 15s to 10s or maybe a proc that resets it to 0.

Actually, they need to change Intimidate to have a much faster animation so it doesnt lock you out of at least 3 swings. Personally i never use it because i dont feign hope i can hit the DCs (intimidate only starting at lvl 7 for trained ranks). so i dont even know if the CD is too long, but it does suffer from the Smite problem where it kills your rate of attack


Iron Cloak of the Bear gives 20% and Prisoner's Manacles give 30%.

you sure thats a bug with incite and not a bug with items that share the same Hexvalue? the prisoner's Manacles may only be giving 20% at all versions instead of just ML14/15, and id be more inclined to believe items that scale are having display issues then with exactly 0% more threat gen i can magically will the game to pull aggro through force of will and nothing else.

[Thar]

Lets compare to Warpriest. (shown at max for ease of comparison) Obviously the classes are different and cleric needed help to get into a DPS mode, but pally's are not far behind and don't have the clerics other capabilities for heal or blade barrier/implosion or fighter's 11 feats. Intent here is to kinda compare if the warchanter enhancements vs a pally tree. it probably would out class KOTC, and it gives benefits that both Defender and KOTC do in two separate trees to cleric in one.

core

Smite your enemy with a melee attack that deals an additional 2[W] damage. (Cooldown: 15 seconds) (this would be awesome for a pally)
+12 AC (this too would be great adding 2 ac per core enhancment)
+30 fire spell power
+30 light spell power
5 DR - (this too would be great for a pally)

20 seconds, you gain +20 Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance. (Activation Cost: 10 Spell Points. Cooldown: 1 minute)
Haste
Blur
You and nearby allies gain 100 Temporary Hit Points and their attacks will deal 10% additional damage. For the next 18 seconds, these bonuses will refresh every 3 seconds on you and each ally that remains in range. These effects will expire 5 seconds after they are no linger refreshed. (Cooldown: 5 minutes)
+2 Con - Most pally would swap this with the defender capstone.

tree

tier 1
divine might - (same as pally tier 2)
+15 maximum hp (20% hp is better but this is better than item wear or less damage when helpless)
When wielding your religion's favored weapon, it gains +1 to its Enhancement Bonus. (an enhancement bonus would be great for a pally?)
When you heal allies (with positive energy damage spells) they gain +1/+2/+3 AC and +1/+2/+3 PRR for 12 seconds (another good buff pally's would like)
+3 Listen, Search and Spot. Rank 3: +1 save vs traps

tier 2
When you strike an enemy with Smite Foe, they gain four to seven stacks of Vulnerable. ( make smite better? and a lower tier than the pally dps line!)
+10 prr (definately needed for cleric and pally get it in the core line or tier 1 with stance)
When wielding your religion's favored weapon, it gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement Bonus. (see above)
inflame +4 Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Attack Rolls, and Damage Rolls (much better than 5ac/prr bonus. 5 prr is what 1% less damage)
Your Inflame now also grants a +4 Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws.

Tier 3
45% Chance on Being Hit: The enemy that struck you gains one stack of Burdened. (-1 to Strength and Dexterity. This effect stacks up to 10 times, and loses one stack on expiration.) - (meh for both)
When wielding your religion's favored weapon, it gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement Bonus (same as above)
Your Inflame now also grants a +15% Action Boost bonus to Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, and Sonic Energy Absorption. (Energy Absorption reduces damage from that energy type by a percentage, after Energy Resistance has been taken into account.)
+1 STR/WIS/CHR

Tier 4
When you strike an enemy with Smite Foe, you and your nearby allies are healed by 1d2 per character level, and benefit from the effects of the Lesser Restoration spell. (The heal from Ameliorating Strike is affected by your Positive Spell Power) (please give pally's this smiting....)
Enemies that strike you are dealt 3d4 Light Damage. (pally get this as tier 5...)
When wielding your religion's favored weapon, it gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement Bonus (same as above)
+1 STR/WIS/CHR

Tier 5
Your god has imbued you with power and skill in combat, granting a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength, and a base attack bonus equal to a fighter of the same level. (obviously needed to make cleric more of a dps)
Toggle: While active, your attacks generate a stack of Divine Conduit. When Divine Conduit reaches 25, it is removed and nearby enemies take 1d4 Fire and 1d4 Light damage per character level. (Damage from Divine Vessel is affected by Fire and Light Spell Power) (seems better than the pally get hit and do damage next swing thing)
When wielding your religion's favored weapon, it gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement Bonus. When you score a Vorpal Hit with your religion's favored weapon, your attacks gain 3d4 Light Damage on hit for the next 6 seconds. (more dps and on vorpal even more... pally's DS gets nothing even close)
When an enemy damages you with a spell, there is a 10%/20%/30% chance they will be knocked down. (Does not affect bosses.)
Divine Intervention: Ward your target against fatal damage. Hit point damage cannot lower a warded ally's hit point total below -9. When a warded ally is incapacitated, this effect heals the target after a few seconds for 10 to 39 hit points and then fade. (Activation Cost: 30 spell points. Cooldown: 2 minutes) (this could be the pally capstone and it would be better than die and get autorez...)

Lets compare protection to being hit bonuses.

Cleric +12, 5 dr, divine intervention, haste, blur, +4 clickie
Pally +8 +50% of armor/shield

win cleric

Damage
Cleric +5 damage from enhancement bonuses, +4 clickie, divine might, 6 str and BA as fighter, divine conduit, light damage on vorpal, healing smite
pally *(no divine might in DS tree, tier higher in the pally damage tree) 6 str stance, light damage on being hit.

win cleric

prr
cleric 10
pally - 40 with changes?

win pally.

How many pally's would gladly trade some of their enhancements for the the ones in the same tier of the warpriest line? just the first pt smite in the warpriest tree is great for any melee (and not on charges like pally's smite which should have been changed years ago...), but then to upgrade it and make a healing smite. that would be awesome on a pally... Pally smites at minimum need to be auto regen 10% per tier when adding additional smites like on epic when buying additional smites in US, but the cleric one here is leaps and bounds better model.

Pally's Defender tree need something like these. AC bonuses built into the line but more so than every other class than stalwart defender. DPS in the tree easy to obtain even with just the first point. additional prr (which we get).

If you have a pally, what above would you like instead of defender or KOTC core or enhancements?

[the_one_dwarfforged]

- Right now, on live, paladins get 50prr over fighter. After the changes to this tree, paladins will be able to get 45prr over fighter. Its going down, not sure what you are complaining about.


last time i checked, harbored by light was no longer stacking with itself. but it doesnt really matter because if it is, whos to say it will be fixed when they update this tree?

if its not, then your numbers are wrong.

either way the point is that paladins are now going to get even more prr that fighters dont get while also getting a dps buff.

lastly im not saying you cant turn 11 feats into something useful, but if you feel compelled to mention that fighters get 11 feats *and* the weapon spec/focus line, then its not really 11 feats you get to spend on other ways to increase your effectiveness. and ill say it again, there arent many feats which directly increase the number of damage you deal per hit with your attacks.

[bbqzor]

whos to say it will be fixed

Sev did, in this thread, in this post here. (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/446879-Paladin-Sacred-Defender-Changes?p=5403019&viewfull=1#post5403019) So since its part of the whole "enhancement pass" the tree is getting... Id say its pretty safe to bet on.


you feel compelled to mention that fighters get 11 feats

Its not a compulsion. Im saying it in response to lines like this from your post:


so that leaves us with a few feats

Its not "a few feats". Its not some minor thing one can downplay as if its a barely perceptible benefit. Its nearly 3x the feats a paladin gets. Fighters get 11 bonus feats, free tower shield, and 7 for lvs 1-20, a total of 19. In the same span, paladins get... just the 7. Furthermore, its not only about DPS. These are TANKing trees. Spending feats on defense is equally, if not more, valid than using them on offense. And while a Paladin might be able to compete in one arena or the other with a fighter, they cannot do both and do them well. Fighters WILL come out ahead in this area.

Im at the point where I tire of repeating the same thing. You see what you want to see, claim that the fighter advantages dont matter because of some paladin somethings, okay great. The forums are a place for everyone to share ideas, but no actual specific information regarding a build, example, math, or anything regarding these enhancements makes it difficult to discuss those ideas. Its just a generic "yea fighters get stuff but it doesnt matter cause paladins have prr and self healing", followed by the fairly redundant point that "the fighter stuff does matter, thats the point of fighters". When theres something to actually discuss Ill happily resume my part in it, but until then Im out on the matter. Preferably about the enhancements, given the choice. Cheers mate, hopefully what they get to Lama is something everyone enjoys.

[Ausdoerrt]

Moving the stance down one tier is a terrible idea, it will only encourage overpowered splashes. Yes, it is/was awkward to get stance-boosting abilities before getting the stance, but the solution should've been to move the secondary enhancements around and perhaps produce a few new ones, rather than give out ridiculous bonuses to toons with only 3 paladin levels.

One possible solution for this would be to introduce class level restrictions to stance-boosting enhancements, similar to how weapon focus works in the Kensei tree.


Also, I get why the tree now gives the "heavy armor" option. But, medium armor, seriously? First of all, who, other than classes which can't splash paladin, even wears medium armor at all? Secondly, I don't think one should benefit from a "tank" tree wearing only scale armor.

[Robai]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask for this.

I have a problem on my Bladeforged Paladin to reconstruct while playing in groups (that's why I mostly solo on him), because I quite often select fleshy party members accidentally and my recon fails.

Can we please have a version of that spell which is self only which would work despite selection?

Similar thing for my healer, I'd like to have self only version of Heal too (I'd bind two different keys for each version of Heal spell, one for party members, other for self).

Not sure about technical difficulties, but it would perfect if it would be done via autogranted metamagic feat (named as Self Only or something like that) and then it could work for ANY spell.

Or at least make recon work on self even when fleshy party member selected (if you are BF/WF).

[mna]

This is a feat that should definitely be added somewhere for Sacred Defender, just as KotC is getting cleaves.

Yes.

... and I'd say it might be useful to not have this available too early, unless we'd like to encourage more paladin splashes... I'd probably put it in the cores somewhere, maybe the level 6 or 12 one, because those have lower point prerequisites than the regular tiers, and it might be good to have this realistically available to mostly-KotC characters too. And 12-17/something else multiclasses that have other stuff to spend on too.

(For some silly reason I think a 15/5 paladin/warpriest tank should become a multiclass split that'd make sense. Also would like to add optional glancing blow capability to the Sovereign Host and Undying Court weapon lines... maybe that's just me.)

[XodousRoC]

Moving the stance down one tier is a terrible idea, it will only encourage overpowered splashes. Yes, it is/was awkward to get stance-boosting abilities before getting the stance, but the solution should've been to move the secondary enhancements around and perhaps produce a few new ones, rather than give out ridiculous bonuses to toons with only 3 paladin levels.

One possible solution for this would be to introduce class level restrictions to stance-boosting enhancements, similar to how weapon focus works in the Kensei tree.


Also, I get why the tree now gives the "heavy armor" option. But, medium armor, seriously? First of all, who, other than classes which can't splash paladin, even wears medium armor at all? Secondly, I don't think one should benefit from a "tank" tree wearing only scale armor.

I multiclass toons. I've done it since playing the original box sets. There are always tradeoffs. Putting the stances at level three will definitely not promote playing Pally to 20...a part of the impulse to redesign these trees to begin with. I don't want to agree (the change benefits me), but I do on that premise.

Regarding the use of medium armor; might it not be a way to easily reintroduce mithril as a viable source of armor? This way your heavy plate mithril (coded as medium) becomes instantly viable once again. It may be they cannot (or will not) spend the time fixing the actual loot, and this was an easier way to work functional use back in.

[Thar]

Moving the stance down one tier is a terrible idea, it will only encourage overpowered splashes. Yes, it is/was awkward to get stance-boosting abilities before getting the stance, but the solution should've been to move the secondary enhancements around and perhaps produce a few new ones, rather than give out ridiculous bonuses to toons with only 3 paladin levels.

One possible solution for this would be to introduce class level restrictions to stance-boosting enhancements, similar to how weapon focus works in the Kensei tree.


Also, I get why the tree now gives the "heavy armor" option. But, medium armor, seriously? First of all, who, other than classes which can't splash paladin, even wears medium armor at all? Secondly, I don't think one should benefit from a "tank" tree wearing only scale armor.

they moved stance down as they probably want us to migrate to the new unannounced tree and stop complaining that DS is broken and underpowered rather than fixing it appropriately. med armor = meh why not, maybe someone make the medium armor for more dodge/dex bonus which isn't that horrible an idea for shadow scale but the 30/60 dr is too good imo.

[gwonbush]

They moved the stances down because the tree was utterly terrible at levels 1-5. Now it's just terrible at levels 1 and 2.

[Thar]

Sev did, in this thread, in this post here. (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/446879-Paladin-Sacred-Defender-Changes?p=5403019&viewfull=1#post5403019) So since its part of the whole "enhancement pass" the tree is getting... Id say its pretty safe to bet on.



Its not a compulsion. Im saying it in response to lines like this from your post:



Its not "a few feats". Its not some minor thing one can downplay as if its a barely perceptible benefit. Its nearly 3x the feats a paladin gets. Fighters get 11 bonus feats, free tower shield, and 7 for lvs 1-20, a total of 19. In the same span, paladins get... just the 7. Furthermore, its not only about DPS. These are TANKing trees. Spending feats on defense is equally, if not more, valid than using them on offense. And while a Paladin might be able to compete in one arena or the other with a fighter, they cannot do both and do them well. Fighters WILL come out ahead in this area.

Im at the point where I tire of repeating the same thing. You see what you want to see, claim that the fighter advantages dont matter because of some paladin somethings, okay great. The forums are a place for everyone to share ideas, but no actual specific information regarding a build, example, math, or anything regarding these enhancements makes it difficult to discuss those ideas. Its just a generic "yea fighters get stuff but it doesnt matter cause paladins have prr and self healing", followed by the fairly redundant point that "the fighter stuff does matter, thats the point of fighters". When theres something to actually discuss Ill happily resume my part in it, but until then Im out on the matter. Preferably about the enhancements, given the choice. Cheers mate, hopefully what they get to Lama is something everyone enjoys.

He apparently hasn't rolled up a pally or he wouldn't be complaining... They are different animals and fighter tanks need some change/love too, but to even hint that pallys are getting too much... omg. go solo 28 levels with one and come back with some analysis.

[Thar]

They moved the stances down because the tree was utterly terrible at levels 1-5. Now it's just terrible at levels 1 and 2.

nope, 3-5 is still terrible. just no one will care if vanguard is good.

[Thar]

what would also be nice to see as enchancement in defender:
- enchacnement that would give shield bash chance bonus, and maybe enchancement that would add effects to happen on shield bash, like unbalancing (as i see, unbalancing could make trip easier against the target of it) or outright trip? maybe chance for stun?,


shield bash is uselsess. a extra 8-10 pts of damage once in a while from an item that isn't supposed to do damage or have any extra dps effects? when other classes get a 3w-10w attack with additional effects? we just want what other trees have. some low level attack/smite for free on a short recharge and a high level wow dps attack. not something replacing the cleave/greatcleave we have today. we want additional...

[toapat]

nope, 3-5 is still terrible. just no one will care if vanguard is good.

hint, vanguard cant be good for paladin.

[Alcedes]

shield bash is uselsess. a extra 8-10 pts of damage once in a while from an item that isn't supposed to do damage or have any extra dps effects? when other classes get a 3w-10w attack with additional effects? we just want what other trees have. some low level attack/smite for free on a short recharge and a high level wow dps attack. not something replacing the cleave/greatcleave we have today. we want additional...

my shield bash hits for around 80-150 damage per proc.

as far as the cleave/great cleave go..

regular Cleave is +1w, the pally enhancement that shares the timer is +3w
great cleave is +3w, the pally enhancement that shares the timer is +5w

now, im not saying that pally's dont need more to be viable, but i want to make sure that our posts are at least accurate so that Sev can more accurately understand the SEVerity of the situation

[Ausdoerrt]

Regarding the use of medium armor; might it not be a way to easily reintroduce mithril as a viable source of armor? This way your heavy plate mithril (coded as medium) becomes instantly viable once again. It may be they cannot (or will not) spend the time fixing the actual loot, and this was an easier way to work functional use back in.

Except they said on multiple occasions that mithril is not coming back, ever, which makes sense since it conflicts with the new tiered ran-gen armor system.


they moved stance down as they probably want us to migrate to the new unannounced tree and stop complaining that DS is broken and underpowered rather than fixing it appropriately. med armor = meh why not, maybe someone make the medium armor for more dodge/dex bonus which isn't that horrible an idea for shadow scale but the 30/60 dr is too good imo.

IMO, at least medium shouldn't give the same bonuses as heavy. Half the bonus, maybe.

Also, combined with the lowered requirement for the stance, it's just encouraging more awkward splits for artis and druids. I can appreciate that they're trying to make med armor more viable, but this is the wrong place to do so.

[harry-pancreas]

shield bash is uselsess. a extra 8-10 pts of damage once in a while from an item that isn't supposed to do damage or have any extra dps effects? when other classes get a 3w-10w attack with additional effects? we just want what other trees have. some low level attack/smite for free on a short recharge and a high level wow dps attack. not something replacing the cleave/greatcleave we have today. we want additional...

speak for yourself, the fact that you don't know how to get good shield bashes doesn't mean it's utterly useless. I want good trees, which are even with the rest but are DIFFERENT and fit another type of playstyle. NOt the stupid +500(W) swing swing swing swing trip die swing trip trip get killed.
I'd love some free shield bashes while blocking for example.

[bloodnose13]

shield bash is uselsess. a extra 8-10 pts of damage once in a while from an item that isn't supposed to do damage or have any extra dps effects? when other classes get a 3w-10w attack with additional effects? we just want what other trees have. some low level attack/smite for free on a short recharge and a high level wow dps attack. not something replacing the cleave/greatcleave we have today. we want additional...

well its a matter of opinion, depening on what type of shield you try to use with shield bash feat, but what i asked before asking for extra effects to proc on shield bashes, is to add an enchancement that would ADD extra shield bash proc chance, if shield bash went nicely to 60% or more it would be very close to being an equivalent of twf. that would bring nice boost to snb builds, also i think that what i asked about changeing doublestrike for bonuses similar to swf just lower, is not without merit either, just by doing those things devs would give all shield users a much needed boost of dps, not to mention that all tanks would have much less trouble with keeping aggro, since the more often you hit the more hate you gather and the harder it is for anyone else to take that aggro off you, double strike just does not cut it with its, all stars aligned 40%.

i also asked for merging of some overgrown enchancements in defender trees to make space for some other enchancemetns that would bring a diversity to the tree and allow to actualy have CHOICE, lowering enchancement costs is good, but its still like buying a car piece by piece, you may be able to use it with 3 wheels but sooner or later you need to get that 4th, its similar with tanks, you need to get that nearly all of that stuff to be one.

and if you look at sentinel destiny, its about same idea, lot of enchancements to make tank tankier and made in such way that with ap costs that just by takeing things neede for a tank you cant take anything else but hp,ac, hate, stances are a joke, and i hope devs see this and make somehing USEFULL of them for all 3 typical situations (boss, multi target, dps)

[Thar]

my shield bash hits for around 80-150 damage per proc.

as far as the cleave/great cleave go..

regular Cleave is +1w, the pally enhancement that shares the timer is +3w
great cleave is +3w, the pally enhancement that shares the timer is +5w

now, im not saying that pally's dont need more to be viable, but i want to make sure that our posts are at least accurate so that Sev can more accurately understand the SEVerity of the situation

I never got proc's that high so it was useless from my testing. I don't use basion though as i don't want the dex restriction of tower shields as evasion tank. I didn't have the feats to pick up anything to boost it though so i'll defer to you. How often does it proc then buffed up to max, how many feats, etc? I was always of the thinking that if i wanted an off hand that did damage i'd grab another weapon, but that's me. I'd rather the shield do additional defensive abiliites. I don't want them to make the one good sheild we get at end game to be a mix mosh of abillities like the high road stuff. ok for one but not good for anyone. I'd prefer put the dps in the tree and leave the shield for defense so if you need offense you swap it for a weapon. other viewpoints? I don't want neft too so if it's useful then they should have it as an enhancement buff somewhere. Choice is good. I'm not thrilled with the 2 light shields for end game when it should be more options to match what exists today.

OK pally cleaves are more w, but wouldn't another attack be better so you'd have great cleave/cleave AND new attacks? my problem is still with the great cleave is that if you take tier 5 in DS you can't get it. Vanguard is supposed to be wow... or at least worth the weight so i would assume the tier 5 is goog there and will prevent you from getting it in KOTC. If you spend any amount of points in race tree or another you will have problems getting to tier 4 in a 2nd tree. So if you can't get it, is the pally cleave a prereq to regular cleave? Does it work with LD destiny? will you still need/want power attack? The AOE is where I get my DPS to pull in mobs that others didn't hit yet. it would be good if they just gave that to us as extra's that didn't share timer so we'd have more aoe options and that should help keep agro across more mobs.

if your blocking for shield bashes your probably losing dps. I haven't seen tanks shield block since VOD days.

[B0ltdrag0n]

my shield bash hits for around 80-150 damage per proc.



Even if it does. 1 Bash AT MOST every 6 seconds is not a significant source of damage now is it?

[9001]

Even if it does. 1 Bash AT MOST every 6 seconds is not a significant source of damage now is it?

Are the animations not lining up with actual shield bashes? I haven't tested that but I seem to get animations fairly often if I spec into it, tried a swf bucklerbard build and I often got an animation two cycles in a row (with the 30% haste mind you, not sure if that makes out to six seconds but I'm PRETTY sure it doesn't) and a few times I've seen it proc on the first AND third hit.

Any testing (new testing, not something a year or so old) or clarification would be nice.

EDIT: forgot to mention I had a few levels of fighter with shield bash enh

[Sidewaysgts86]

What I would personally like to see added to the sacred defender is some more "sacred" defender paladin inspired flavor. The most obvious choices to me would be some kind of divine capabilities, or some aura enhancements, as those 2 things are largely, to me, what separate the sacred defender from the stalwart, and kind of embody what the paladin "is" (especially to a group). Auras are the easier ones to come up with for me- I love the idea of a line of powerful aura augmenting enhancements, that work a bit like stances- With you being allowed to activate one at a time and turn it off/on as you deem it necessary. Some cookie cutter punishing auras come to mind, auras that diminish enemies to hit chances, or their damage (maybe by a % to make it scale with epic a bit better, dr5 just kind of loses its goodness along the way). Maybe a provocation aura that ticks off an intimidate effect. to keep with the paladin theme, maybe give these auras bolstered effects for monsters that arent targeting the paladin directly- Maybe that provocation aura gets a bonus to intimidate against monsters attacking your wizard companion instead of you. Maybe youre deity is reviled that these monsters are not heading their chosen ones challenge, and blinds them for attacking the rogue in the group instead of the paladin. Maybe you want to focus less on punishing the mobs, and want to bolster your party more- While still being a desirable aspect to your party. Maybe your aura gives better damage reduction than the one mentioned previously- but the trade off is you, the sacrificial bastion of goodness that you are, take more damage when hit- Or maybe you simply "soak up" some of the damage they take (Obvious care/consideration should be exercised here, but you get the idea). Maybe give us some really interesting channel-divinity options. Imagine popping a channel divinity that blesses everyone in your aura with some (relatively decent) extra light damage, or maybe it gives a (BRIEF) bonus to crit range or modifier. And lastly. maybe make these auras benefit from charisma in good ways. The duration of some of the effects, the actual strength of the effects, etc.

[B0ltdrag0n]

Are the animations not lining up with actual shield bashes? I haven't tested that but I seem to get animations fairly often if I spec into it, tried a swf bucklerbard build and I often got an animation two cycles in a row (with the 30% haste mind you, not sure if that makes out to six seconds but I'm PRETTY sure it doesn't) and a few times I've seen it proc on the first AND third hit.

Any testing (new testing, not something a year or so old) or clarification would be nice.

EDIT: forgot to mention I had a few levels of fighter with shield bash enh


It is a hard coded cap.

[A-O]

It is a hard coded cap.

I thought that was hardcoded to once per second, not once per 6. Am I wrong?

[9001]

It is a hard coded cap.

But has that been tested recently? I'm only saying so because I see animations much more quickly than six seconds and want to know if the animations line up with actual hits or not. I saw the testing but exactly how recent was it? I also don't recall any mention of animations specifically there, so maybe I missed it.

[Violith]

It is a hard coded cap.

yea I believe, the only cap is the global 1sec CD on it. other then that it can proc basically on any of your attacks at a %, I believe improved sheild bash states 20%, ... I'd guess that without that its 0% if you dont have any enhancements or items that increase it. Granted, it does go by your attack animation so things that dont use the attack sequence such as cleaves, trip, sunder, etc. dont trigger it.

[Scrabbler]

But has that been tested recently? I'm only saying so because I see animations much more quickly than six seconds
A developer statement within the past 2 months said that it has that bash time limit. In my own play I haven't noticed it more than once a second.

By the way, that limit should be deleted, along with triggering the special animation. (That animation can be instead used for active attacks in the Vanguard or Swashbuckler trees)

[Thar]

It would be nice to get a 5% or 10% lay on hands recharge with the tier 3 lay on hande +1 enhancement like epic but less powerful.

[9001]

A developer statement within the past 2 months said that it has that bash time limit. In my own play I haven't noticed it more than once a second.

By the way, that limit should be deleted, along with triggering the special animation. (That animation can be instead used for active attacks in the Vanguard or Swashbuckler trees)

Thanks for the info. One second sounds more accurate to what I've seen than six. Agreed the animation should be dropped.

[Nodoze]

It would be nice to get a 5% or 10% lay on hands recharge with the tier 3 lay on hande +1 enhancement like epic but less powerful.Any recharge of LoH from Heroic Enhancements would be interesting.

[Ausdoerrt]

Even if it does. 1 Bash AT MOST every 6 seconds is not a significant source of damage now is it?

It's one, not six, seconds. My silly pally/EK build bashes about once every 3-4 swings (that's with a speed boost), so it's actually pretty decent, what with all the ways we have to boost bash chance and damage now.

Yeah it's not as good as TWF, but TWF doesn't also offer all those defensive capabilities. I wouldn't write it off so easily.


well its a matter of opinion, depening on what type of shield you try to use with shield bash feat, but what i asked before asking for extra effects to proc on shield bashes, is to add an enchancement that would ADD extra shield bash proc chance, if shield bash went nicely to 60% or more it would be very close to being an equivalent of twf.

Not that it's an "optimal" build, but you can already get that. ISB feat +20%, Shield with Bash +20%, EK T5 enhancement +15%. If these are cumulative, thats 55%. Now, wiki claims that the shield effect is bugged, but in my experience it seems to have been fixed.

Now all we need is similar enhancements in the Vanguard tree.

[Steiner-Davion]

Greetings.

We are updating a few enhancements in the Sacred Defender tree for Paladins. These changes are designed at making the tree more desirable and allowing it to better work with the armor mitigation changes.

First, we changed some AP costs for existing enhancements:

AP cost of Saves Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Defense Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Reinforced Defense changed to 1/1/1 both times you can take it.
AP cost of Harbored by Light changed to 1/1/1.

Now onto the tree changes:


Innate Abilities



1 AP: Holy Bastion: You gain +1 Hit Point and 1 Positive Energy Spell Power for each action point you spend in this tree. Each Sacred Defender Core Ability you possess grants +2% Fortification.
(Moved to tier 2) 5 AP, Pal3: Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical Resistance and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to threat generation. (Note: the movement penalty was removed.) (Note: the stance does not require a shield.)
(Moved to tier 3) 10 AP, Pal6: Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score and a 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation for 60 seconds.
20 AP, Pal12: Redemption: The following spells are added to the Paladin spell list: Level 2: Raise Dead Level 3: Resurrection Level 4: True Resurrection. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
30 AP, Pal18: Glorious Stand: Channel Divinity: For a short duration you gain DR 20/epic, take reduced damage from elemental and negative energy, receive double healing from positive energy, and are immune to secondary effects of attacks such as 'wounding' or 'vorpal'. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating.



Tier One (0 AP Required)



Item Defense: You have a (25/50/75)% chance to negate potential item wear.
Extra Lay on Hands: You gain +(1/2/3) uses of Lay on Hands.
Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Resilient Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(1/2/3) Sacred bonus to all Saving Throws.
Durable Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(5/10/15) Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resist Rating.
Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.


Sacred Armor Mastery: +(1/2/3) Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Maximum Dexterity Bonus when wearing Armor.
Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1.



Tier Two (5 AP Required)



Instinctive Defense: You take 5% less extra damage when struck while helpless.
Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Sacred Shield Mastery: +(5%/10%/15%) Shield Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Tower Shield Maximum Dexterity Bonus.
Defense Boost: Activate to gain a (+5/+10/+15) Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds.



Tier Three (10 AP Required)



Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Greater Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Strong Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Strength
Hardy Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Constitution
Tenacious Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(10/15/20)% Sacred bonus to maximum hit points.

+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Four (20 AP Required)



Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor.
Choose One:
Reinforced Armor: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15%/30%/50%.
Reinforced Shield: The Armor Class bonus you gain from using a shield is increased by 15%/30%/50%¹.
Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance.
Swift Defense: Sacred Defense grants you a 10% sacred bonus to movement speed.
Greater Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Five (30 AP Required)



Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.
Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor. Choose the option you didn't choose at Tier 4.
Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain 1/2/3 uses of Lay On Hands.* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage.
Greater Sacred Defense: Further improves your Sacred Defense stance. Pick the third option left.





*Note: Harbored By Light mistakenly gives 1/2/3 Lay On Hands on live. We made it an official bonus.

Sev~

Can the Extra Lay-on hands enhancement or Harbored by Light allow for Layon Hands to regenerate over time? 10/8/6 minutes? Or some percentageat rank 2?

[XodousRoC]

Can the Extra Lay-on hands enhancement or Harbored by Light allow for Layon Hands to regenerate over time? 10/8/6 minutes? Or some percentageat rank 2?

Regenerative Hands, while nice, are far lower on my list than regenerative turns. The world doesn't revolve completely around end-game (where turn regeneration is available through EDs), and since important abilities are powered by turns, it would be nice if we could get a regenerative enhancement. LoH is a nice ability, but we do have cures and spell points to augment them; there is no such fall back if you run out of turns.

[Nodoze]

Regenerative Hands, while nice, are far lower on my list than regenerative turns. The world doesn't revolve completely around end-game (where turn regeneration is available through EDs), and since important abilities are powered by turns, it would be nice if we could get a regenerative enhancement. LoH is a nice ability, but we do have cures and spell points to augment them; there is no such fall back if you run out of turns.Agreed. Ideally if any are implemented they will be in a way that works with other Enhancement Trees or EDs that provide similar effects.

[bloodnose13]

Not that it's an "optimal" build, but you can already get that. ISB feat +20%, Shield with Bash +20%, EK T5 enhancement +15%. If these are cumulative, thats 55%. Now, wiki claims that the shield effect is bugged, but in my experience it seems to have been fixed.

Now all we need is similar enhancements in the Vanguard tree.

well regular paladin without splashing fighter wont see bash higher than 40, and there is what, two? three shields ingame that have shiedl bashing on them? so anyone who does not have one ofthose, for any reason wont see bash higher than 20%, some time ago i asked for merging shield bash feat into mastery feats, and replaceing it by greater shield mastery and i still think that would be a good way to do it.

[Ausdoerrt]

well regular paladin without splashing fighter wont see bash higher than 40, and there is what, two? three shields ingame that have shiedl bashing on them? so anyone who does not have one ofthose, for any reason wont see bash higher than 20%, some time ago i asked for merging shield bash feat into mastery feats, and replaceing it by greater shield mastery and i still think that would be a good way to do it.

What I meant to say it, there is already precedent for this, so they can build on existing system rather than reinvent the wheel.

I do agree with you on the mastery feat line, but it seems to me like they won't bother with this. I mean, they've removed the shield requirement from SaD just so they don't have to make an offensive feat line for S&B users.

[Dilbon]

So I took my 20/8 pure S&B Sacred Defender with Unyielding Sentinel to Lamannia and tried EE Devil Assault. Some observations:

PRR increased a lot to 70% absorption. MRR was only about 60% absorption, but funnily it seemed to affect healing too, so it's also negative healing amp.

Reprisal is fine when there are lots of mobs around. Usually it stacked to 2-5, a few times even to 10.

My dps literally doubled. My hits did about twice as much damage as before. But I think that's because of melee power, so it's not just a paladin thing.

I was never in any danger of dying. The lowest my hp went was 400 and that happened once. I didn't use any lay on hands, only Renewal. And healing was gimped by MRR as stated above.

All in all I'm quite happy with the changes. Sure, some things could be better but the buff in general was huge.

[Steiner-Davion]

PRR increased a lot to 70% absorption. MRR was only about 60% absorption, but funnily it seemed to affect healing too, so it's also negative healing amp.

....
And healing was gimped by MRR as stated above.

.

I hope you bug reported that.

[Dilbon]

I hope you bug reported that.

I'm not even sure if it's a bug, as the MRR description includes positive energy. And I kinda like it in a perverse way. I'm sure it will be changed, but if it is in fact WAI then MRR should be able to be toggled on and off.

[aav]

I see a lot of changes coming to Paladin's, but they are all off base. The biggest problem Paladins have is there inability to support other players in this game. They are Fighters with -10 feats, extra saves, and a few LoH. Smites aren't so great as other classes are getting melee clicky attacks now while Paladins aren't. Most of their support abilities are easily covered by pots and item effects. They get spells a few spell points to cast a few useful spells to up there dps but its not much really. Action Boost or using turns ends up being close to the same. So what do Paladin's need to catch up to the other classes?

Taking the shield requirement off isn't really gonna help as Paladins don't have the feats to get the SnB feats and the THF/TWF/SWF lines. I mean you could drop your shield without the feats or use your shield without the feats. Either option leaves you with less dps one side compared to a fighter who can get both. A few more 1d6 dice to all Paladin's past level 7 isn't going to fix the issue either.

Paladins need a passive way to be more useful in groups. That way they can still focus on doing melee damage. We should do less damage than Fighters and Barbs. but we should be able to heal and reduce income damage better than we can as well. Paladin's lack of ability to really assist other party members in a meaning full way is the problem. We cant boost their damage, reduce their damage, or heal them worth anything really. We can add saves and AC but that's worth what? 1%~3% chance to miss them?

If Paladin's had a healing aura like clerics that started at paladin level 12, 18, or even 20 (it would be much better than what they have now, toggle ability 90 second duration 3 min cool down) it would make them so much more useful. Paladin's wouldn't even need the burst portion. Or even giving PRR/MRR in the aura would help out. Right now, Paladin healing is a joke, and Paladin support of party members is pretty low. I always thought that Paladins shouldn't do as much damage as most of the other classes because they spent time getting some divine casting. Other than a few resist there is no need for it in this game anymore. With some gear Paladins can self heal but, Paladin's should be able to support other party members much more than they do. Fighter's have res clickies these days.

As long as Paladins don't have a way to make parties/raids feel their presence on the support side, Paladin's are going to be behind the other classes. Paladin's give up feats and rages and attack spells for support abilities. What sucks is as this game grew up, the Paladin's support abilities didn't. Cleric and Favor Souls have enhancement lines now that boost their melee damage and support players better. They have hastes, blurs, saves boosts, armor boosts, prr boosts, smites, stacking effects, religious weapons, damage boosts, guard damages, and even Divine Mights. Yea. Oh, and many if not most of those effect nearby allies. What can a paladin really do for a nearby ally?

Thanks for what you guys are trying to do.... but please make Paladins.. Paladins.

[Nodoze]

I see a lot of changes coming to Paladin's, but they are all off base. ... lots of good stuff...
Thanks for what you guys are trying to do.... but please make Paladins.. Paladins.Nice first post!

[Zurrander]

\Yes! Devs... I know its not what this pass is meant to do, but please make Paladin Auras at least as good as Bard Auras (they should be much better, Bards have Songs / Pallys have Auras).

[Vulkoorex]

At L12 or L18, the Paladin aura grants Death Ward.

That would be nice. :)

[Zurrander]

At L12 or L18, the Paladin aura grants Death Ward.

That would be nice. :)

I like it, but that could be a little over powered. How about allowing Paladin Aura's to grant Sealed Life or Death Block (but not both), And then Giving Knight of The Chalice the other at Tier 5? That way a L12 pally could have "Pseudo-Death Ward" and all of their comrade would be protected against either instant death or negative levels.

[Vulkoorex]

I like it, but that could be a little over powered. How about allowing Paladin Aura's to grant Sealed Life or Death Block (but not both), And then Giving Knight of The Chalice the other at Tier 5? That way a L12 pally could have "Pseudo-Death Ward" and all of their comrade would be protected against either instant death or negative levels.

Sounds good.

[maddong]

If I were to play a pure paladin I think the kotc capstone is more desirable. I think the kotc tier 5 is better too. Defender needs more meat in the tier 5 and in the capstone.

[Vulkoorex]

If I were to play a pure paladin I think the kotc capstone is more desirable. I think the kotc tier 5 is better too. Defender needs more meat in the tier 5 and in the capstone.

Change the capstone to reactive heal 50% of HP instead of a flat 250.

[Bannith]

I see a lot of good defense boosts here especially with the free prr and mrr bonuses added in(I'd still like to see item protection removed and replaced with something better never seen anyone use it but hey its still got a purpose.). However I understand the fact that defender is a defensive tree and ill respect that but a shield bash bonus similar to the fighter version would be fantastic as it would help dps especially with shields like the purple dragon one out there with sovereign vorpal on it.

Another issue i see with Paladins is a distinct lack of real aggro control and spell point use. I don't know about everyone but I basically ignore wisdom for most of the game cause I cant really effectively spend my spell points the temporary buffs are nice and all but I can spam them for a long time before running out. With the duration increase to zeal its lessens the sp cost of my running quests even further so i propose some new spells or SLAs scattered as free feats enhancement and maybe even added to the ED dedicated to paladins.

Suggestions:

Echoes of a Deity: You chant under your breath the words of your god and each word echoes their power. Effect: triggers an intimidation check(same as a normal intimidation roll) and deals 3d6 light damage in an aoe around the paladin every 3seconds.
Costs 5 sp per 3 seconds while toggled or costs 75sp to activate and lasts 1 minute maybe? Basically this addresses the aggro issue for groups and allows the paladin to take effectively cementing their position as the best tank while giving them some light dps and better use of sp. I'd suggest using this as a midlvl paladin SLA or a spell special to them so maybe granted at 12-16.

Mark the Non-believer: Your divine rage locks a single opponent into a direct confrontation with you ignoring all other aggro sources for 10seconds. Effects: all other aggro sources are void until the 10seconds are up and both u and the marked target deal and additional 25% damage to eachother while other creatures/players deal 10% less to both targets. Each hit on the target also stacks Scorn of Light dealing 1d6 light damage per stack caps at 10 and decay 1 every 5 seconds.
Cost:5-10sp definitely an SLA or set into the sacred defender tree. Useful as a boss beater and good for sustained aggro on tougher targets helps the paladin address the issue of high dps characters stealing aggro.

The Paladins Charge: You have accepted all liability for an allies safety and well being. Effects: The Paladin takes 50% of all damage the Ally would take and the ally receives a defensive buff of 4dr and both the paladin and ally deal and extra 1d6 light damage. Also triggers a guaranteed intimidate in favor of the paladin should the ally fall below 50%.
Costs: 40sp also should the ally die the Paladin is disgraced for 5 minutes resulting in a 10% HP cut and loss of 200sp as well as -2damage and to hit. Probably best placed in sacred defender or a SLA at 8-12.

Light javelins: Fire forth 3 javelins of pure light at your target. Effects: basically a light version of frost lance capable of also blinding the target. Cost: same as frost lance. Mainly for wisdom based paladins to have more of an effect on the battlefield without having to rely on melee so much such as the case of a healer/tank build. probably best as a level 2-3 paladin spell.

Soul Appease: Kneel my faithful defender and pray for those of your companions who have fallen. Effects: The paladin kneels and prays for those lost in battle creating a small burst of healing for living allies and buffing all dead allies so that should they return to battle they gain Righteous rage of the spirits: Grants 10melee ranged and spellpower gives 50temporary HP and increases movement speed by 10% for 2minutes. Cost: 40sp Helps recover from a near wipe and gives the paladin more utility/healing power.

Divine Force: You release a burst of light channeled through you by your god. Effects: Deals 6d8 light damage and stuns all enemies in an aoe who fail a save based on your CHA modifier. Cost: 25sp Gives paladins a little more casting dps and a potential stun if the DC is set right. Good for saving the party from a swarm or killing off a bunch of weak enemies should be a lvl 3-4 spell or SLA.

MARTYRDOM!: You sacrifice everything you have in a divine ball of light to end your enemies once and for all. Effects: Costs all your SP and sets your HP at 0 to deal an insane amount of light damage in an aoe. Cost: All HP to 0 SP to 0. This is a last resort CAPSTONE style SLA only a pure paladin should get this as it will (most likely) result in death. Set for tanks to use in a last ditch effort to save the party from a wipe or kill a near death boss set to weigh the risk and reward of doing so. Only for a pure paladin as stated above. Level 20 Paladin

Divine Cataclysm: Your summon all the wrath of your deity in the form of earthquakes lightning and raining light spears. Effects: similar to storm of vengeance and the earthquake spell deals large amounts of damage and good for crowd control. Costs: 250sp Another capstone spell for Paladins meant to help maintain dps and aggro in conjunction with echoes. Level 20 Paladin

Just a few idea from a Fan of the Paladin sorry if some people have issues but the way I see it Paladins need this. Also the last 2 maybe you should require a Paladin to choose 1 or the other or maybe receive both but reduce their effectiveness. I believe martyrdom is good in conjunction with the sacred defender capstone as it can be a quick step to breaking the ranks then healing for a tank. I feel like if even the aggro skills were added in it would make Paladins a lot more effective in terms of tanking and dps. I also know i left a few holes in there but I thought it better to leave the balancing to the experts if you do use any of this. Anyways thanks for the look at paladins been needing some love for a long time. -Bannith PS- might wanna give paladins access to the light ray spells too as this also makes wisdom based Paladins more viable.

[Tototeto]

Only change in which Status goes up is unnecessary.
It is change which does not feel charm.

Paladin need unique enhance like "Swashbuckling Style " or "Coup de Grace".

[bloodnose13]

first i would like to say that paladin could use more spell changes, i would suggest to make all levels usefull no matter what level is paladin:

divine favor, just make it last longer like zeal, if not uncapping it, +3 is better than nothing.

virtue, this spells usefullness ends after few first levels, i would suggest changeing it into a guard type spell that would have chance on being hit of adding temporary hitpoints while it lasts, current static +20 is pointless at higher levels, as it goes away after 1 hit.

angel skin, i would say that this spell could be way more usefull as 5 dr per 5 character levels, so at 20 it would be 20 dr, also bit longer duration.

second, defender tree, its bloated with defence enchancements that could be merged, +6 stat and +20% hp should not be the way it is, as now when stance does not require shield, kotc and splashers will be the ones that gain from it the most, this bonus should be added into core enchancements 3,4,5 +2 stacking per each of them +20%, as +5% per core up to capstone. in spaces left after merging, defender should get SHIELD or BASH attacks, attacks with own +w bonuses, and effects like stun or trip on them, i dont seriously CARE whats in not yet released vanguard, relying on takeing things from multiple trees while defender is so bloated on AP is just crazy we will end up with about same situation, just with 9 points to spare, and 9 points dont give enough space to move around in trees, especialy when to get something from JUST tier two, you have to spend 4 points in tier 1 and often its on things that are not needed for anything. i want to have prestige in defender that i wont have to go to other, it should be purely optional if i want to stay in defender tree and use what it provides or my gameplay choice calls for getting something from other tree, the cahnges that are made for update 23 seem hardly something more than cosmetic with favoring splashes and kotc or vanguard builds, who wont be focusing on defender tree but will gain from it more than someone focusing on defender will be able to gain from either from those trees, DEVS MERGE STUFF, free up some space in tree and AP and add new stuff defence themed or this change will remain cosmetic.

defender capstone, it was a joke before those changes, now its even bigger joke, this thing if it has ot exist and be in that tree, it should be thier 4/5 enchancement and NOT a capstone.

[XodousRoC]

first i would like to say that paladin could use more spell changes, i would suggest to make all levels usefull no matter what level is paladin:

divine favor, just make it last longer like zeal, if not uncapping it, +3 is better than nothing.

virtue, this spells usefullness ends after few first levels, i would suggest changeing it into a guard type spell that would have chance on being hit of adding temporary hitpoints while it lasts, current static +20 is pointless at higher levels, as it goes away after 1 hit.

angel skin, i would say that this spell could be way more usefull as 5 dr per 5 character levels, so at 20 it would be 20 dr, also bit longer duration.

second, defender tree, its bloated with defence enchancements that could be merged, +6 stat and +20% hp should not be the way it is, as now when stance does not require shield, kotc and splashers will be the ones that gain from it the most, this bonus should be added into core enchancements 3,4,5 +2 stacking per each of them +20%, as +5% per core up to capstone. in spaces left after merging, defender should get SHIELD or BASH attacks, attacks with own +w bonuses, and effects like stun or trip on them, i dont seriously CARE whats in not yet released vanguard, relying on takeing things from multiple trees while defender is so bloated on AP is just crazy we will end up with about same situation, just with 9 points to spare, and 9 points dont give enough space to move around in trees, especialy when to get something from JUST tier two, you have to spend 4 points in tier 1 and often its on things that are not needed for anything. i want to have prestige in defender that i wont have to go to other, it should be purely optional if i want to stay in defender tree and use what it provides or my gameplay choice calls for getting something from other tree, the cahnges that are made for update 23 seem hardly something more than cosmetic with favoring splashes and kotc or vanguard builds, who wont be focusing on defender tree but will gain from it more than someone focusing on defender will be able to gain from either from those trees, DEVS MERGE STUFF, free up some space in tree and AP and add new stuff defence themed or this change will remain cosmetic.

-[I don't disagree with much of this, as I also feel the changes are mostly cosmetic. The point cost reduction is nice, but even for a defensive oriented tree, it offers too little. Even if there is no intent to add dps, there should be better agro management tools. Perhaps adding inherent threat to the Pally aura?]

defender capstone, it was a joke before those changes, now its even bigger joke, this thing if it has ot exist and be in that tree, it should be thier 4/5 enchancement and NOT a capstone.

I want to agree here as well, though I'd caution that the wording is borderline confrontational. I get fed up when I feel unheard, too. I sometimes even promote my opinions before I've had time to cool off. The crux of the problem is that we want the devs to work with us, not tune us out because we start off confrontational. I don't like the capstone either. It won't get me to stay pure. It won't entice me out of KoTC/HotD. It won't even get me to take it on my TANK. There are those who like it, however, and while they may be in the minority, they are just as vocal in its defense. You and I don't have to like every capstone. They don't have to either, but we have to choose our battles sometimes, and this one seems lost. I hope those who like the cap enjoy it the one or two times per life it's useful. I'd definitely prefer something that boosts our toons all the time...or at least with frequency. Mechanics that require we "die" and limited timer ability boosts don't belong in capstones. Such things, to me, do not make my toon better on a consistent basis. I want a cap that forces me to grimace when I have to give it up for a build, not a cap I avoid in my primary build tree...

*Further commentary in red within yours

[bloodnose13]

I want to agree here as well, though I'd caution that the wording is borderline confrontational. I get fed up when I feel unheard, too. I sometimes even promote my opinions before I've had time to cool off. The crux of the problem is that we want the devs to work with us, not tune us out because we start off confrontational. I don't like the capstone either. It won't get me to stay pure. It won't entice me out of KoTC/HotD. It won't even get me to take it on my TANK. There are those who like it, however, and while they may be in the minority, they are just as vocal in its defense. You and I don't have to like every capstone. They don't have to either, but we have to choose our battles sometimes, and this one seems lost. I hope those who like the cap enjoy it the one or two times per life it's useful. I'd definitely prefer something that boosts our toons all the time...or at least with frequency. Mechanics that require we "die" and limited timer ability boosts don't belong in capstones. Such things, to me, do not make my toon better on a consistent basis. I want a cap that forces me to grimace when I have to give it up for a build, not a cap I avoid in my primary build tree...

*Further commentary in red within yours

maybe it is confrontational but im tired of saying same things over and over since day 1 of new enchancement system, i play pally tanks, and it got bit better since first version of it, but it still is not what other trees are, what it could be, there is no other enchancement tree in other classes that is so singleminded and wrapped around one idea, they always have that fragile balance of dps/utility/defence, defender trees are just made of a things that were part of stance in old system, one enchancement that overgrown to a size of nearly whole trees, changes that wont require shield anymore, mean that we will have splashes and kotc/vanguards that will benefit from it way more than defender can benefit from anything else, if you build a tank you cant allow yourself to just not take most of the stuff in the tree, you just cant.

now the other problem is that makeing a defender tree in a source only of defence, pushes away tanks again, becouse sure ppl will want them for raids, but still they will be seen ONLY as a thing that is supposed to take aggro and be forgotten again. paladins get all those auras, by expanding on that idea it would be possible to create something way more usefull for the group than just thing that takes aggro, even ninja dummy can do that with success, most of time better than a real tank...... aint that sad?

all i want is for devs to stop thinking how to make this tree usefull to everyone, and start thinking how to make it usefull to tanks.... all i ask.

[toapat]

all i want is for devs to stop thinking how to make this tree usefull to everyone, and start thinking how to make it usefull to tanks.... all i ask.

Thats what i wanted too.

On Lamania its obvious the only change to paladins that did anything significant was the change to holy sword (which is litterally broken beyond reason). the Cleaves are convenient, but the healing amp is still in KotC (which it shouldnt be), the stances still eat most of DoS and the only good Active in DoS is glorious stand.

Until a proper rebuild to actually make paladin post lvl 2+14 matter though, the DoS/KotC changes have no value to the class and really need to themselves be reworked to conform to these design objectives:

Impossible to completely invest in trees with proper Internal balance asto not have any optimal or suboptimal choices (all classes should have this though)
Smite Evil attacks beyond Pimp my Smite
more uses of Turn undead with better balanced abilities
Smite Evil and Turn undead to not share the same tree
The option to be a ranged combatant

[XodousRoC]

maybe it is confrontational but im tired of saying same things over and over since day 1 of new enchancement system, i play pally tanks, and it got bit better since first version of it, but it still is not what other trees are, what it could be, there is no other enchancement tree in other classes that is so singleminded and wrapped around one idea, they always have that fragile balance of dps/utility/defence, defender trees are just made of a things that were part of stance in old system, one enchancement that overgrown to a size of nearly whole trees, changes that wont require shield anymore, mean that we will have splashes and kotc/vanguards that will benefit from it way more than defender can benefit from anything else, if you build a tank you cant allow yourself to just not take most of the stuff in the tree, you just cant.

now the other problem is that makeing a defender tree in a source only of defence, pushes away tanks again, becouse sure ppl will want them for raids, but still they will be seen ONLY as a thing that is supposed to take aggro and be forgotten again. paladins get all those auras, by expanding on that idea it would be possible to create something way more usefull for the group than just thing that takes aggro, even ninja dummy can do that with success, most of time better than a real tank...... aint that sad?

all i want is for devs to stop thinking how to make this tree usefull to everyone, and start thinking how to make it usefull to tanks.... all i ask.

This is a better post, and I honestly do agree with much of it. They've given us a reason to want a deep investment in Pally with the Holy Sword changes, but I was hoping for a reason to want to be a Defender. This tree does not provide that. The capstone doesn't make me want it; I avoid it on my tanks because I don't feel it provides enough benefit to playing experience...it only lets me not die when I've died a couple times per life; not good for a capstone mechanic.


Thats what i wanted too.

On Lamania its obvious the only change to paladins that did anything significant was the change to holy sword (which is litterally broken beyond reason). the Cleaves are convenient, but the healing amp is still in KotC (which it shouldnt be), the stances still eat most of DoS and the only good Active in DoS is glorious stand.

Until a proper rebuild to actually make paladin post lvl 2+14 matter though, the DoS/KotC changes have no value to the class and really need to themselves be reworked to conform to these design objectives:

Impossible to completely invest in trees with proper Internal balance asto not have any optimal or suboptimal choices (all classes should have this though)
Smite Evil attacks beyond Pimp my Smite
more uses of Turn undead with better balanced abilities
Smite Evil and Turn undead to not share the same tree
The option to be a ranged combatant

A lot of good ideas here. Holy sword makes us want lots of Paladin (and likely will even after the inevitable reduction in power), but this tree doesn't make me want to be a defender. We still don't have regenerative turns, we still can't improve our smites to help hold agro, and we still don't have improved agro holding abilities (read aoe dps improvement). I'm not sure I like idea of ranged options in the defender tree, but reducing costs a bit more would free up some ap for you to invest in other trees should you desire that. The inclusion of a burst dps enhancement attached to smites at the top of the tree, and/or a potential short duration retributive knockdown effect included in the cap would go a long way toward remedying the problems this tree has.

[toapat]

A lot of good ideas here. Holy sword makes us want lots of Paladin (and likely will even after the inevitable reduction in power), but this tree doesn't make me want to be a defender. We still don't have regenerative turns, we still can't improve our smites to help hold agro, and we still don't have improved agro holding abilities (read aoe dps improvement). I'm not sure I like idea of ranged options in the defender tree, but reducing costs a bit more would free up some ap for you to invest in other trees should you desire that. The inclusion of a burst dps enhancement attached to smites at the top of the tree, and/or a potential short duration retributive knockdown effect included in the cap would go a long way toward remedying the problems this tree has.

That list wasnt DoS specific, it was paladin design needs (along with something that clearly needs to be part of the design of all talent trees in the game but none of the trees have). All of which are wholly unsupported by these changes. As i said. in reality, the only relevant change to paladin so far has been Holy Sword, which is so monsterously overpowered that it allowed Turbine to be completely irresponsible with the tree reworks. The problem is, beyond lvls 2, 14, and possibly 18 if you like Glorious Stand, there is nothing paladin has going for it in a "powergamer" sense.

[XodousRoC]

That list wasnt DoS specific, it was paladin design needs (along with something that clearly needs to be part of the design of all talent trees in the game but none of the trees have). All of which are wholly unsupported by these changes. As i said. in reality, the only relevant change to paladin so far has been Holy Sword, which is so monsterously overpowered that it allowed Turbine to be completely irresponsible with the tree reworks. The problem is, beyond lvls 2, 14, and possibly 18 if you like Glorious Stand, there is nothing paladin has going for it in a "powergamer" sense.

Yeah, 2 nets us Divine Grace, 14 nets the only real dps increase (and yeah, it's pretty uber, but what about the trees??), and that's it for me. I can get more from splits the rest of the way out, and it isn't close. 15 Pal/3 rogue/2 monk for Sireth builds. 14 Pal/4FvS/2 Fighter for my SoS build. My current 20 Pal (who was really hoping for a reason to stay pure) will prolly go 18 Pal/2 Fighter, but that's just for more sp in a heavy armor/dmg mit build (meaning a bit of FvS would probably be better here as well, or perhaps one wiz for the free meta and magical training). I suppose even 14 Pal/5 Cleric/1 Fighter would probably be superior (giving me access to the superior warpriest tree, rad servant, extra feat, and still get Holy Sword).

Oh well, maybe next time...

[bloodnose13]

That list wasnt DoS specific, it was paladin design needs (along with something that clearly needs to be part of the design of all talent trees in the game but none of the trees have). All of which are wholly unsupported by these changes. As i said. in reality, the only relevant change to paladin so far has been Holy Sword, which is so monsterously overpowered that it allowed Turbine to be completely irresponsible with the tree reworks. The problem is, beyond lvls 2, 14, and possibly 18 if you like Glorious Stand, there is nothing paladin has going for it in a "powergamer" sense.

if you look from lvl 1, leveling a pally defender and even fighter to some degree, since they have lot in common, are a chore, there is no sense of "oooooh im happy i get something new", its more like "oh i get another stack of ac..."innext level, "i get another stack of ac from other enchancement, this time from shield", and "oh this time i get more ac through getting more dex bonus"................. boooooriiiing.

ac bonuses should be merged and streamlined into ONE enchancement line in the tree, to have less stacks and more scaleing with character level, save line should end up with a tier 5 ability that would allow to reroll 1 in save, mini no fail on 1 enchancement, reprisal in my opinion should have duration on stacks, and add attack speed with each stack, shield users swing those weapons slow, and shield bashes slow it too, there should be enchancement line that would add shield bash chance, and add additional shield bash attacks with +W and a chance for effects like stun, trip, unbalance (that would make trip easier), own smite line that would be for defence, hate generation, that would be something to put in between cleaves to actualy have attack clickie chain, also i had idea for something that could be called shield rush, another enchancemnt line would be about aura, at base all the upgrades we can get now, so typical ac, saves, sr, with upgrades to it being a dodge aura, an aura of glory aura that would be a clickie that when paladin scores critical or vorpal every friendly in aura gets healed 1d4+cha mod, another clickie boost could be a short duration "generate hate for me" aura, so everyone in aura can generate hate for tank? or other way around, everyone in aura has lowered hate generation similar to what druid can do for his summons, pet, charmed creatures.

[11001]

Sacred defender stance currently requires paladin lvl 6 despite being moved (as of core 2), it should be lvl 3 based on its new position (same goes for stalwart defender) i can't believe no one noticed.

[mkmcgw17]

Greetings.

We are updating a few enhancements in the Sacred Defender tree for Paladins. These changes are designed at making the tree more desirable and allowing it to better work with the armor mitigation changes.

First, we changed some AP costs for existing enhancements:

AP cost of Saves Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Defense Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Reinforced Defense changed to 1/1/1 both times you can take it.
AP cost of Harbored by Light changed to 1/1/1.

Now onto the tree changes:


Innate Abilities



1 AP: Holy Bastion: You gain +1 Hit Point and 1 Positive Energy Spell Power for each action point you spend in this tree. Each Sacred Defender Core Ability you possess grants +2% Fortification.
(Moved to tier 2) 5 AP, Pal3: Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical Resistance and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to threat generation. (Note: the movement penalty was removed.) (Note: the stance does not require a shield.)
(Moved to tier 3) 10 AP, Pal6: Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score and a 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation for 60 seconds.
20 AP, Pal12: Redemption: The following spells are added to the Paladin spell list: Level 2: Raise Dead Level 3: Resurrection Level 4: True Resurrection. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
30 AP, Pal18: Glorious Stand: Channel Divinity: For a short duration you gain DR 20/epic, take reduced damage from elemental and negative energy, receive double healing from positive energy, and are immune to secondary effects of attacks such as 'wounding' or 'vorpal'. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating.



Tier One (0 AP Required)



Item Defense: You have a (25/50/75)% chance to negate potential item wear.
Extra Lay on Hands: You gain +(1/2/3) uses of Lay on Hands.
Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Resilient Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(1/2/3) Sacred bonus to all Saving Throws.
Durable Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(5/10/15) Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resist Rating.
Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.


Sacred Armor Mastery: +(1/2/3) Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Maximum Dexterity Bonus when wearing Armor.
Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1.



Tier Two (5 AP Required)



Instinctive Defense: You take 5% less extra damage when struck while helpless.
Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Sacred Shield Mastery: +(5%/10%/15%) Shield Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Tower Shield Maximum Dexterity Bonus.
Defense Boost: Activate to gain a (+5/+10/+15) Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds.



Tier Three (10 AP Required)



Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Greater Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Strong Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Strength
Hardy Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Constitution
Tenacious Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(10/15/20)% Sacred bonus to maximum hit points.

+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Four (20 AP Required)



Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor.
Choose One:
Reinforced Armor: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15%/30%/50%.
Reinforced Shield: The Armor Class bonus you gain from using a shield is increased by 15%/30%/50%¹.
Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance.
Swift Defense: Sacred Defense grants you a 10% sacred bonus to movement speed.
Greater Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Five (30 AP Required)



Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.
Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor. Choose the option you didn't choose at Tier 4.
Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain 1/2/3 uses of Lay On Hands.* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage.
Greater Sacred Defense: Further improves your Sacred Defense stance. Pick the third option left.





*Note: Harbored By Light mistakenly gives 1/2/3 Lay On Hands on live. We made it an official bonus.

Sev~
Let me be perfectly clear the Paladin is grossly overpowered already. Right now I am watching a Paladin solo the shadow dragon raid in thunderholme on EH. No other class can do that. Please nerf the paladin. How can u not see that they're too powerful do u play the game?

[toapat]

Let me be perfectly clear the Paladin is grossly overpowered already. Right now I am watching a Paladin solo the shadow dragon raid in thunderholme on EH. No other class can do that. Please nerf the paladin. How can u not see that they're too powerful do u play the game?

Paladin isnt the reason that person is able to do that. If this is live, their ED's and gear are pulling way more weight in that achievement then you imagine
If this is on lamania, Holy Sword is the only thing allowing them to do that.

[Zurrander]

Let me be perfectly clear the Paladin is grossly overpowered already. Right now I am watching a Paladin solo the shadow dragon raid in thunderholme on EH. No other class can do that. Please nerf the paladin. How can u not see that they're too powerful do u play the game?

While I respect your right to feel that way, you must realize that this is a minority opinion... Most of us who play paladins feel that the class is massively under powered (in terms of offensive & support capabilities), and the Devs had already taken a Poll (which I'm sure showed that Paladins & Barbarians are the weakest classes in the Game) before its was decided that Paladins and then Barbs needed some love. I for one trust the Devs & Players Counsel to know what they are doing (in fact most of my concerns so far have been chalked up to Typos or misinterpreting the intent of the changes). But if your still concerned that Paladins are overpowered to the point of being game breaking then I would ask Sev or Vargouille to share the results of the "Character Balance Survey" with us so that your argument can have the player base behind it, instead of it being a single player crying nerf...

[bsquishwizzy]

That list wasnt DoS specific, it was paladin design needs (along with something that clearly needs to be part of the design of all talent trees in the game but none of the trees have). All of which are wholly unsupported by these changes. As i said. in reality, the only relevant change to paladin so far has been Holy Sword, which is so monsterously overpowered that it allowed Turbine to be completely irresponsible with the tree reworks. The problem is, beyond lvls 2, 14, and possibly 18 if you like Glorious Stand, there is nothing paladin has going for it in a "powergamer" sense.

You know, if you put back the shield requirement for SD enhancements, it balances out Holy Sword.

THF / TWF still get low AC but a decent boost to DPS when DPS really starts to suffer (around 16) because AC / PRR isn't enough. But moar DPS knocks down mobs faster than they can damage you.

Enforcing shield requirements forces SD to go S&B, which is low DPS by its very nature. Holy Sword boosts this to make it mediocre to average.

Nerfing Holy Sword - which is literally USELESS in its current form - is a bad idea. Fixing the trees so that SD forces you to go S&B creates the balance.

Half of the problem here is that S&B is never considered something valid for melee. Right now, tanking requires it. From what I can see (and mind you, I have not been following this closely) removing shield requirements gives everyone access to lovely defensive capabilities that should ONLY be available with a shield (hence the purpose of having a shield).

[BDog77]

From what I can see (and mind you, I have not been following this closely) removing shield requirements gives everyone access to lovely defensive capabilities that should ONLY be available with a shield (hence the purpose of having a shield).

Eh, not from what I can see. The shield requirement was only for the Greater Stance anyway, which only gives +6 Str, +6 Con, and (maybe, I forgot exactly) 20% to HPs. This stance is still horribly broken, btw, causing you to lose these benefits when you swap weapons until you also swap armor. Since my characters will sometimes swap weapons midfight, this stance is not an option, shield or no.

[Nodoze]

Eh, not from what I can see. The shield requirement was only for the Greater Stance anyway, which only gives +6 Str, +6 Con, and (maybe, I forgot exactly) 20% to HPs. This stance is still horribly broken, btw, causing you to lose these benefits when you swap weapons until you also swap armor. Since my characters will sometimes swap weapons midfight, this stance is not an option, shield or no.I think they should fix the stance and keep the greater and upper tiers requiring a shield giving S&B folk some things that others cannot have.

[bsquishwizzy]

Eh, not from what I can see. The shield requirement was only for the Greater Stance anyway, which only gives +6 Str, +6 Con, and (maybe, I forgot exactly) 20% to HPs. This stance is still horribly broken, btw, causing you to lose these benefits when you swap weapons until you also swap armor. Since my characters will sometimes swap weapons midfight, this stance is not an option, shield or no.

Yes. I find it totally annoying that I have to heal myself when I switch out a sword. I've learned to live with it (and honestly, I haven't run my pally in a while).

[bloodnose13]

since defender capstone is this bad, maybe it could be replaced with sla cure critical or at least serious, holy sword spell becomeing something usefull again created a problem of only 4 spell slots in lvl 4 spell list, haveing cure spell granted by capstone would again free a slot used for cure serious. its hard choice to drop any spell from level 4 spell list.

[EllisDee37]

I think they should fix the stance and keep the greater and upper tiers requiring a shield giving S&B folk some things that others cannot have.S&B gets a whole tree: Vanguard.

[Drathsiddh]

Greetings.

We are updating a few enhancements in the Sacred Defender tree for Paladins. These changes are designed at making the tree more desirable and allowing it to better work with the armor mitigation changes.

Tier Three (10 AP Required)



Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Greater Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Strong Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Strength
Hardy Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Constitution
Tenacious Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(10/15/20)% Sacred bonus to maximum hit points.

+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma




Sev~


So with these changes, it is possible to have a two handed or dual weild and have a bonus to str/con/HP?
Good change, paladins are getting the love, but I'm worried they're going to get too over powered (not that they are) which will require a nerf.

[bloodnose13]

So with these changes, it is possible to have a two handed or dual weild and have a bonus to str/con/HP?
Good change, paladins are getting the love, but I'm worried they're going to get too over powered (not that they are) which will require a nerf.

and that is why i think those bonuses should be scattered between core enchancements, just like in old system, +2 str/con +5% at lvl 6, +4,+10% at 12, and +6,+20% at 18, it would still allow to get bonus but not as high, those stat bonuses were made specificaly for defenders, and i dont understand why devs are so keen on giveing out parts of defender for pretty penny for everyone who will either splash in few paladin/fighter levels or be kotc of vanguard, kotc/vanguard and splashers will come out better on all of this, becouse they wont need to "waste" ap on shield enchancements, they will just take armor and stats, and be on their way to the desired tree. and yes it will all end up in nerf that will hit again those who defender tree was designed for instead of those who exploit parts of it. .....ah......... circle of life....

[bloodnose13]

wanted to see how it would look to design defender tree in a way i would like to see it, so i tried, i created this rework of a tree with things in mind i would like to have as a tank, there was too much wasted space in the tree so i cut some of it, merged and added some things i was thinking of before, i diidnt do math on overall ap cost, but they should be about same or less, general idea is that we should be able to take everything defence related, as focusing on defender with less that 40 points, so the rest of points can be used to get either utility or dps abilities from this tree OR others. also merged the stance stat bonuses into cores as they are way too easy to get for spash or user focusing on other tree.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Innate Abilities


1 AP: Holy Bastion: You gain +1 Hit Point and 1 Positive Energy Spell Power for each action point you spend in this tree. Each Sacred Defender Core Ability you possess grants +2% Fortification.
(Moved to tier 2) 5 AP, Pal3: Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical Resistance and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to threat generation. (Note: the movement penalty was removed.) (Note: the stance does not require a shield.)
(Moved to tier 3) 10 AP, Pal6: Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score and a 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation for 60 seconds. Passive: +2 sacred bonus to STR/CON +5% hp
20 AP, Pal12: Redemption: The following spells are added to the Paladin spell list: Level 2: Raise Dead Level 3: Resurrection Level 4: True Resurrection. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating, +4 sacred bonus to STR/CON +10% hp
30 AP, Pal18: Glorious Stand: Channel Divinity: For a short duration you gain DR 20/epic, take reduced damage from elemental and negative energy, receive double healing from positive energy, and are immune to secondary effects of attacks such as 'wounding' or 'vorpal'. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating. +6 sacred bonus to STR/CON +20% hp
41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.), You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating. +1 lay on hands use, SLA cure critical wounds, ability to reroll 1 in save roll (it would become mini version of no save fail on 1)



Tier One (0 AP Required)


Item Defense: You have a (25/50/75)% chance to negate potential item wear.
Extra Lay on Hands: You gain +(1/2/3) uses of Lay on Hands.
Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector:
Resilient Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(1/2/3) Sacred bonus to all Saving Throws.
Durable Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(5/10/15) Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resist Rating.
Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.

Sacred Armor Mastery: +(1/2/3) Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Maximum Dexterity Bonus when wearing Armor.
Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1.



Tier Two (5 AP Required)


Instinctive Defense: You take 5% less extra damage when struck while helpless.
Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Sacred Shield Mastery: +(5%/10%/15%) Shield Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Tower Shield Maximum Dexterity Bonus.
Defense Boost: Activate to gain a (+5/+10/+15) Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds.



Tier Three (10 AP Required)

COMEING THROUGH!!!: while actively shield blocking: overrun enemy in the way (idea is to make it into attack similar to druids winter wolf attack, that freezes enemies, just with shorter move range, and overrun instead of freeze)
Shield bash attack: +1/2/3w, 5/10/15% chance to stun enemy for 6 seconds, dc str+cha modifier, cooldown 30/15/10 seconds
Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Greater Sacred Defense: merged into core 6
+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Four (20 AP Required)


Reinforced Defense: merged into tier 5 , instead Greater shield bash: you gain +5/+10/+15% bonus to shield bash chance, at tier 2 you gain, on critical shield bash: unbalancing strike, enemy affected by it has penalty to balance, at tier 3 you gain, on vorpal shield bash: enemy is tripped for 3 seconds, no save
Spellshield Aura: removed, pointless, replaced with Battle Aura: allies in aura gain +2/4/6 doublestrike/ enemies in aura get 1 vulnerability stack every 3 seconds they remain in aura, 10 stacks.
Greater Sacred Defense: merged into core 12
+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Five (30 AP Required)


Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage, stacks decay at rate 1/6 seconds. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.
Reinforced Defense: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armors, docents and shields is increased by 15%/30%/50%
Mobile Defense: when shield blocking, you can move around at walk speed instead of tumbling/jumping around, tier 2 you can make main hand attacks while shield blocking (moved to tier 5 from 4 as it would be too easy to get there, idk, either way extra 10% run speed does not fit in this tree)
Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain +1 use of Lay On Hands. and they return 1 per 10/7/5 minutes* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage. sacrificing 2 layons for ability for them to return over time would be worth it, and i also added 1 layon to capstone so effective loss would be 1
Greater Sacred Defense: merged into core 18

[XodousRoC]

wanted to see how it would look to design defender tree in a way i would like to see it, so i tried, i created this rework of a tree with things in mind i would like to have as a tank, there was too much wasted space in the tree so i cut some of it, merged and added some things i was thinking of before, i diidnt do math on overall ap cost, but they should be about same or less, general idea is that we should be able to take everything defence related, as focusing on defender with less that 40 points, so the rest of points can be used to get either utility or dps abilities from this tree OR others. also merged the stance stat bonuses into cores as they are way too easy to get for spash or user focusing on other tree.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Innate Abilities


1 AP: Holy Bastion: You gain +1 Hit Point and 1 Positive Energy Spell Power for each action point you spend in this tree. Each Sacred Defender Core Ability you possess grants +2% Fortification.
(Moved to tier 2) 5 AP, Pal3: Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical Resistance and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to threat generation. (Note: the movement penalty was removed.) (Note: the stance does not require a shield.)
(Moved to tier 3) 10 AP, Pal6: Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score and a 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation for 60 seconds. Passive: +2 sacred bonus to STR/CON +5% hp
20 AP, Pal12: Redemption: The following spells are added to the Paladin spell list: Level 2: Raise Dead Level 3: Resurrection Level 4: True Resurrection. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating, +4 sacred bonus to STR/CON +10% hp
30 AP, Pal18: Glorious Stand: Channel Divinity: For a short duration you gain DR 20/epic, take reduced damage from elemental and negative energy, receive double healing from positive energy, and are immune to secondary effects of attacks such as 'wounding' or 'vorpal'. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating. +6 sacred bonus to STR/CON +20% hp
41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.), You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating. +1 lay on hands use, SLA cure critical wounds, ability to reroll 1 in save roll (it would become mini version of no save fail on 1)



Tier One (0 AP Required)


Item Defense: You have a (25/50/75)% chance to negate potential item wear.
Extra Lay on Hands: You gain +(1/2/3) uses of Lay on Hands.
Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector:
Resilient Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(1/2/3) Sacred bonus to all Saving Throws.
Durable Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(5/10/15) Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resist Rating.
Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.

Sacred Armor Mastery: +(1/2/3) Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Maximum Dexterity Bonus when wearing Armor.
Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1.



Tier Two (5 AP Required)


Instinctive Defense: You take 5% less extra damage when struck while helpless.
Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Sacred Shield Mastery: +(5%/10%/15%) Shield Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Tower Shield Maximum Dexterity Bonus.
Defense Boost: Activate to gain a (+5/+10/+15) Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds.



Tier Three (10 AP Required)

COMEING THROUGH!!!: while actively shield blocking: overrun enemy in the way (idea is to make it into attack similar to druids winter wolf attack, that freezes enemies, just with shorter move range, and overrun instead of freeze)
Shield bash attack: +1/2/3w, 5/10/15% chance to stun enemy for 6 seconds, dc str+cha modifier, cooldown 30/15/10 seconds
Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Greater Sacred Defense: merged into core 6
+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Four (20 AP Required)


Reinforced Defense: merged into tier 5 , instead Greater shield bash: you gain +5/+10/+15% bonus to shield bash chance, at tier 2 you gain, on critical shield bash: unbalancing strike, enemy affected by it has penalty to balance, at tier 3 you gain, on vorpal shield bash: enemy is tripped for 3 seconds, no save
Spellshield Aura: removed, pointless, replaced with Battle Aura: allies in aura gain +2/4/6 doublestrike/ enemies in aura get 1 vulnerability stack every 3 seconds they remain in aura, 10 stacks.
Greater Sacred Defense: merged into core 12
+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Five (30 AP Required)


Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage, stacks decay at rate 1/6 seconds. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.
Reinforced Defense: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armors, docents and shields is increased by 15%/30%/50%
Mobile Defense: when shield blocking, you can move around at walk speed instead of tumbling/jumping around, tier 2 you can make main hand attacks while shield blocking (moved to tier 5 from 4 as it would be too easy to get there, idk, either way extra 10% run speed does not fit in this tree)
Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain +1 use of Lay On Hands. and they return 1 per 10/7/5 minutes* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage. sacrificing 2 layons for ability for them to return over time would be worth it, and i also added 1 layon to capstone so effective loss would be 1
Greater Sacred Defense: merged into core 18

We can agree to disagree about the movement speed. You may not like it in the tree because, to you, it doesn't fit; I think it's an awesome addition. As to the rest of it; I like it much better than the Devs' proposal.

Shield bash attack: +1/2/3w, 5/10/15% chance to stun enemy for 6 seconds, dc str+cha modifier, cooldown 30/15/10 seconds
COMEING THROUGH!!!: while actively shield blocking: overrun enemy in the way (idea is to make it into attack similar to druids winter wolf attack, that freezes enemies, just with shorter move range, and overrun instead of freeze)
Reinforced Defense: merged into tier 5 , instead Greater shield bash: you gain +5/+10/+15% bonus to shield bash chance, at tier 2 you gain, on critical shield bash: unbalancing strike, enemy affected by it has penalty to balance, at tier 3 you gain, on vorpal shield bash: enemy is tripped for 3 seconds, no save
-I love that you've incorporated offense into the defensive stance...seems very Defenderish, though it does also tie this tree back into shields despite the Devs' apparent intent to divorce this tree of them.

Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage, stacks decay at rate 1/6 seconds. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.
-I don't like the Reprisal mechanic as presented by the Devs at all, but the stacking mechanic of this version would earn my AP.

Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain +1 use of Lay On Hands. and they return 1 per 10/7/5 minutes* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage. sacrificing 2 layons for ability for them to return over time would be worth it, and i also added 1 layon to capstone so effective loss would be 1
-Regenerative LoH would be pure win for this tree (I still question the lack of regenerative turns in KotC/HotD)

41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.), You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating. +1 lay on hands use, SLA cure critical wounds, ability to reroll 1 in save roll (it would become mini version of no save fail on 1)
-I can't get behind the split stat caps. Make it a multi, benefiting a single stat +4, and I'm on-board. I still greatly dislike the incap portion of the cap. I hate that a cap should include mechanics that may never even be of benefit. Perhaps if it were reworked to make it so our negative hp couldn't be pushed past a certain limit, and then add in the auto-heal, rather than unconsciousness extending by our cha score. I still wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't hate it. The mini no-fail addition would be most welcome.

[bloodnose13]

so i guess defender tree changes are done, and accepted, and this tree will remain in its current state of defence only.

i would like to know why devs ignore this tree so much, it was made wrong since first version of it in new enchancement system and lowering ap cost in it does not fix the tree, vanguard got some neat abilities i give it that but to tell the truth half of them should be in defender tree and not in vanguard.

defender capstone is very bad, and makeing it take additional charges to power it makes it even more useless, if that change was to make everyone want to invest in vanguard well it works, otherwise its a failed attempt.

reprisal? similar idea i think added there to fill the empty space but i dont see anyone even considering thinking of taking it.

for all the pojnts that have to be spent in defender, 90% of them are spent for ac/saves/prr rest is for layons....... i dont know other tree in the whole game that is so single minded and focused on one thing, there is always some form of balance between defence/offence/utility, and defender is mostly defence, for just defence tree it costs way too much ap, and it needs serious rework.

keeping that tree as a defence part of character and giveing us a vanguard as offensive part, is no choice at all, there is no way to customize becosue everyone useing shield, who invested in feats will want to get benefits from vanguard, what about all paladin bonuses, what about smites? there is not enough points to take those things after burning nearly 50 points in defender tree on DEFENCE alone.

i dont see what the problem is with giveing defender tree a proficiency in tower shields, and placeing it in 5th tier, kotc got its cleaves, rogues get their kukris, warchanter get every martial weapon!!.... yet tower shield in a prestige that is built for that shiedl is too much........ im missing some kind of logic here.

you want to hate me, hate me, but fix this tree at last, do those changes once and for good, after that you have my blessing to ignore defender till the end of time....
seriously after 3 weeks of waiting for defender changes after kotc i expected more, way more.

[drowrogue]

add tower shield proficiency (this really needs to be somewhere if you want tanks to stay pure) and boost the stat bonuses to +4 then i would be interested.

this^^^^

[mkmcgw17]

Greetings.

We are updating a few enhancements in the Sacred Defender tree for Paladins. These changes are designed at making the tree more desirable and allowing it to better work with the armor mitigation changes.

First, we changed some AP costs for existing enhancements:

AP cost of Saves Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Defense Boost changed to 1/1/1.
AP cost of Reinforced Defense changed to 1/1/1 both times you can take it.
AP cost of Harbored by Light changed to 1/1/1.

Now onto the tree changes:


Innate Abilities



1 AP: Holy Bastion: You gain +1 Hit Point and 1 Positive Energy Spell Power for each action point you spend in this tree. Each Sacred Defender Core Ability you possess grants +2% Fortification.
(Moved to tier 2) 5 AP, Pal3: Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical Resistance and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to threat generation. (Note: the movement penalty was removed.) (Note: the stance does not require a shield.)
(Moved to tier 3) 10 AP, Pal6: Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score and a 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation for 60 seconds.
20 AP, Pal12: Redemption: The following spells are added to the Paladin spell list: Level 2: Raise Dead Level 3: Resurrection Level 4: True Resurrection. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
30 AP, Pal18: Glorious Stand: Channel Divinity: For a short duration you gain DR 20/epic, take reduced damage from elemental and negative energy, receive double healing from positive energy, and are immune to secondary effects of attacks such as 'wounding' or 'vorpal'. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating.



Tier One (0 AP Required)



Item Defense: You have a (25/50/75)% chance to negate potential item wear.
Extra Lay on Hands: You gain +(1/2/3) uses of Lay on Hands.
Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Resilient Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(1/2/3) Sacred bonus to all Saving Throws.
Durable Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(5/10/15) Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resist Rating.
Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.


Sacred Armor Mastery: +(1/2/3) Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Maximum Dexterity Bonus when wearing Armor.
Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1.



Tier Two (5 AP Required)



Instinctive Defense: You take 5% less extra damage when struck while helpless.
Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Sacred Shield Mastery: +(5%/10%/15%) Shield Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Tower Shield Maximum Dexterity Bonus.
Defense Boost: Activate to gain a (+5/+10/+15) Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds.



Tier Three (10 AP Required)



Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.
Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
Greater Sacred Defense: Multiselector:

Strong Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Strength
Hardy Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Constitution
Tenacious Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(10/15/20)% Sacred bonus to maximum hit points.

+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Four (20 AP Required)



Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor.
Choose One:
Reinforced Armor: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15%/30%/50%.
Reinforced Shield: The Armor Class bonus you gain from using a shield is increased by 15%/30%/50%¹.
Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance.
Swift Defense: Sacred Defense grants you a 10% sacred bonus to movement speed.
Greater Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
+1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma



Tier Five (30 AP Required)



Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times.
Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor. Choose the option you didn't choose at Tier 4.
Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain 1/2/3 uses of Lay On Hands.* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage.
Greater Sacred Defense: Further improves your Sacred Defense stance. Pick the third option left.





*Note: Harbored By Light mistakenly gives 1/2/3 Lay On Hands on live. We made it an official bonus.

Sev~

The paladin is the most powerful class already I'm not sure what your changes will do but if they r intended to increase the power level of the Paladin I would say your going the wrong direction. I can make a Paladin right now on Epic levels that is immune to all elemental damage with no named items. A combination of the right twists and ship buffs is what is required. If Paladin and Monk levels are required to be able to do Elite content I won't play on elite. Right now they are not required on Heroic levels but are required on Epic levels. That's been my experience. Most of the epic elite soloists on the server I'm on play paladins or paladin hybrids. They're immune to most damage have far higher saves than any other class besides monk and get infinite free healing. I'm not sure what your trying to do but I say they're already powerful enough. Thanks for taking the time to hear player input.