Paladin Divine Sacrifice

[TechNoFear]

Paladin Divine Sacrifice I:
Prereqs: Paladin level 5, Paladin Extra Smiting II, 15 Action Points spent
Cost: 1 Action Point
Benefit: Giving up some of your life force to win the battle, you empower your next blow against your foe. This attack deals an additional 5d6 Good damage to evil opponents and increases the critical multiplier of your weapon by 1, but costs you 10 hp and 1 sp, whether or not the attack is successful. (3 second cool down)
Paladin Divine Sacrifice II:
Prereqs: Paladin level 12, Paladin Divine Sacrifice I, Paladin Extra Smiting III, 42 Action Points spent
Cost: 2 Action Points
Benefit: Giving up some of your life force to win the battle, you empower your next blow against your foe. This attack deals an additional 7d6 Good damage to evil opponents and increases the critical multiplier of your weapon by 1, but costs you 10 hp and 1 sp, whether or not the attack is successful.
Paladin Divine Sacrifice III: (Not yet available)
Prereqs: Paladin level 19, Paladin Divine Sacrifice II, Paladin Extra Smiting IV, 69 Action Points spent
Cost: 3 Action Points
Benefit: Giving up some of your life force to win the battle, you empower your next blow against your foe. This attack deals an additional 9d6 Good damage to evil opponents and increases the critical multiplier of your weapon by 1, but costs you 10 hp and 1 sp, whether or not the attack is successful.

I do not think Paladin Divine Sacrifice will be useful at cap but might have limited use at lower levels.

My issue is that levels 2 and 3 are not worth the cost, by any stretch of the imagination.

The only improvement on Paladin Divine Sacrifice I to Paladin Divine Sacrifice II is an additional 2D6 damage, costing 2 AP.

This additional damage (~7 HP) is less than the damage I take each use of Paladin Divine Sacrifice.

In my observation mobs in lvl 12-13 quests have 250-400 HP, meaning 2D6 additional HP is negligible (and the paladin will take a higher percentage of their HP each DS than the paladin does in damage to the mob).


I think DS will be another Vicious style bonus. The Devs think it is useful but the players do not, so DS will not get used.

DS costs to get and costs each use, is the benefit worth these costs?

Anyone think they will take Paladin Divine Sacrifice I and Paladin Divine Sacrifice II? (or am I missing something?)

[GlassCannon]

Having a backward scaling % of your HP instead of a set amount would make more sense. 10% at lower levels, 4% at higher levels, for example.

[Solmage]

Anyone think they will take Paladin Divine Sacrifice I and Paladin Divine Sacrifice II? (or am I missing something?)

The main thing is the crit multiplier for me, so yeah I'll only take the first level unless this is improved.

I think the HP cost should go down as you gain the higher tiers, making them a lot more tempting to choose.

Having said that, I still *HATE* the idea behind this enhancement - what the heck am I, a paladin or a bloody necromancer sacrificing my own life force in some evil ritual for more power?! I mean, seriously, what the heck? Why don't we get a smite good while we're at it. Actually the more I think about it, the more I question if I will even take 1 level of it, I REALLY dislike it.

[Strykersz]

Having said that, I still *HATE* the idea behind this enhancement - what the heck am I, a paladin or a bloody necromancer sacrificing my own life force in some evil ritual for more power?! I mean, seriously, what the heck? Why don't we get a smite good while we're at it. Actually the more I think about it, the more I question if I will even take 1 level of it, I REALLY dislike it.

It's based on a pnp spell so ask them.

[gpk]

It's based on a pnp spell so ask them.

Exactly it's based on a pnp spell.
Based on a very questionable situational spell, meant to be used on pnp mobs where you can afford having someone babysit you, say a cleric while you're dealing with a boss-like mob that you must damage faster.

Not only do players hate vicious, they know the ratio of damage dealt to a mob vs damage taken is likely to kill themselves much faster than the mob dies. The pnp ratio makes no sense in DDO.

Same thing goes here for Divine Sacrifice, the only real changes were a couple more D6s at higher tiers (not free of course)and a 3 second cooldown all this wile still inflicting a ludicrous 10 HP damage to self.
Compare the pnp 5d6/10 pnp mobs, then compare DDO's DS to DDO's inflated mobs both in number and HP, this is NOT a spell that translates from pnp without serious tweak, and this is a spell we're told is for "easier fights"?
All this with all the problems with "special attack" swings.

Personally I'd scrap it altogether and replace it with Righteous Fury or drop the self inflicted damage to 1d3 at most and replace the crit multiplier with more D6s.

[artvan_delet]

The devs said pallys needed love. We were perceived as inferior. And we had fully used our action points before. Now we get these "enhancements" that bleed away other APs. The enhancements are not that great, and don't help that much when we have reallocate APs we spent previously. I'm not taking DS.