I thought you Devs disliked Paladins before...

[Junts]

Pal, are those your buffs or group buffs? 35 seems high, my paladin (30 str) tops out at +27 self buffed (5 weapon 10 str 3 df 4 dm 5 PA)

If that involves rage/madstone rage that would get up to +30, but there's still a gap. Very interested in your setup, though.

[Alcides]

I don't completely agree with all the points of the OP; however, there are many I do agree with.

1. All the short term duration buffs in the game need to be given a duration of 24 seconds + 6 seconds / class level of the class the grants the ability. This would include Divine Favor and Divine Power. At level 16 that works out to be 2 minutes of buff duration, 4 minutes extended. It would provide 20 minutes of Divine Might if you have 10 Turn Undead Attempts).

2. Zeal is an awesome spell. I don't think it should have been a level 4 spell. Level 3 seems more appropriate.

3. Divine Might needs to take into account feat bonuses to charisma because it is very hard to get the higher tiers on a non-drow paladin.

4. Mob AI pretty much requires intimidate now. Even with it they still retreat like silly little kids, but it's not as bad without it. Melee really has to work together and flank off each other now to take down mobs.

5. I don't know what to say about the dragon touched armor. I made my blank used up the runes I had collected over the weekend, and wasn't very happy with the end result mods. I think you should be able to trade in X runes for a specific modifier to be put on the armor that way it's just a collect and finish sort of thing. At least there's a foreseeable end to the Shroud Items, the dragon touched armor could take forever to get the desired modifiers. Also the runes should stack and not be bound. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to weasel a +4 max dex bonus out of it on my dwarf paladin w/o wasting a bunch of enhancement points.

[Paladin20]

Pal, are those your buffs or group buffs? 35 seems high, my paladin (30 str) tops out at +27 self buffed (5 weapon 10 str 3 df 4 dm 5 PA)

If that involves rage/madstone rage that would get up to +30, but there's still a gap. Very interested in your setup, though.

10 Str
5 Weapon
5 Power Attack
2 Weapon Specialization
3 Divine Favor
4 Divine Might
2 Madstone Rage
1 Rage
--------------------
+32 + 3 Human Versatility Boost = +35 (yes, only 20 secs but I get to use it 5x and it's uberness =D)

I guess I should've said up to +35 that'd be more accurate.

[Vallin]

Paladins are hard to play - but I thoroughly enjoy mine.

I feel that my Paladin has required the most attention for obtaining the proper melee equipment. Where the other melee classes all function fairly well within their class abilities, the paladin seems to have a lot of inherent melee weaknesses (particularly reliance on clickies and uber loot).

Things that have helped my paladin the most:
Mineral 2 cloak allowed me to free up needed slots.
Tharnes goggles
Transmuting PG weapons/Mineral 2 weapons
Lots of holy GB weapons
Maxing out number of Exalted smites

If I could finally get the Levik's set (still need shield) I would truly be happy. Anyway - my point here is that without high end tweaking he just would not be able to keep up in combat. Not all players have all this uber loot.

Yes, saves are nice - but the spell selection is clickie oriented for combat and that is hard to play. I am looking forward to spells that will help the paladin function even more as a support class. Stalwart pact was a nice addition and the ability to do limited buffs is good too though.

Some of the paladin benefits are no 'seen' though. I am certain people playing around a paladin would like the AC boost and save boost even more if they paid attention to the fact that the boost is there!

Vallin

[Paladin20]

Ahh I see. I don't usually use my HVs for damage, and 11 reavers has yet to get me the boots (and as an ac build, I hate rage with unholy passion).

Makes sense now.

Correct, but Madstone Rage actually gives you +4 Natural if you don't already have it on, so I don't mind it that much. It offsets the other Rage, and when I'm in full DPS mode, why not ;-).

[Junts]

Ahh I see. I don't usually use my HVs for damage, and 11 reavers has yet to get me the boots (and as an ac build, I hate rage with unholy passion).

Makes sense now.

[Junts]

Paladins are hard to play - but I thoroughly enjoy mine.

I feel that my Paladin has required the most attention for obtaining the proper melee equipment. Where the other melee classes all function fairly well within their class abilities, the paladin seems to have a lot of inherent melee weaknesses (particularly reliance on clickies and uber loot).

Things that have helped my paladin the most:
Mineral 2 cloak allowed me to free up needed slots.
Tharnes goggles
Transmuting PG weapons/Mineral 2 weapons
Lots of holy GB weapons
Maxing out number of Exalted smites

If I could finally get the Levik's set (still need shield) I would truly be happy. Anyway - my point here is that without high end tweaking he just would not be able to keep up in combat. Not all players have all this uber loot.

Yes, saves are nice - but the spell selection is clickie oriented for combat and that is hard to play. I am looking forward to spells that will help the paladin function even more as a support class. Stalwart pact was a nice addition and the ability to do limited buffs is good too though.

Some of the paladin benefits are no 'seen' though. I am certain people playing around a paladin would like the AC boost and save boost even more if they paid attention to the fact that the boost is there!

Vallin

The 5 times today I saved party members from incapped status with a flash LOH that didn't even break my swing progression on the named boss I was taking out are the kind of thing people forget about paladins, too.

I admit I still forget to re-DM a lot, though I keep Zeal/DF up constantly.

Quick, how many pallies have ever drank a major mana pot during a fight because they had to keep buffing? I did doing Sorjek the first time

[Paladin20]

Quick, how many pallies have ever drank a major mana pot during a fight because they had to keep buffing? I did doing Sorjek the first time

Eek... with 707sp I have a hard time using it all up. I wonder what I'm gonna do with that extra 100sp from the 3rd Tier Shroud upgrade heh. I suppose I can cast extended fire, acid, and elec resists to a 12-man raid, that should do it =D.

[Junts]

Ahh I don't have my 150 points of (greater) ele spell power yet; those go on my 2nd shroud item (first is mineral2). at 361, I can burn it pretty fast on zeal and DF after buffing resists.

That's what I get for starting at 8 wis (and a worthy tradeoff it was)

DS was a big drain on me, I admit, my melee on nameds consists of drumming myfingers between the smite, divine sac and fight buttons very rapidly, ensuring that smites and DSs happen as soon as their cooldowns are gone (and then DS is the same after smites are gone), since with intimidate I have little to no fear of the mob wandering away from a smite.

I bet I burnt a lot of that SP just on sacrifice, since I use it 20 times a minute.

[Darth_Sizzle]

It's disheartening to know that you feel this way Inzane. I know you've spent an inordinate amount of time on your Paladin, as I have on mine (though, admittedly, not as much as you). I hear what you're saying about the clicky-fest. I just don't know how they could/would change it. Since I built my Paladin in a different way than most people (DPS/Saves/HP, no regard for AC), and since I'm used to playing a Battle-Bard as well, the clickys don't bother me as much.

P.S. To the people questioning Paladin DPS: I believe that a pure Paladin can do more DPS than a pure Fighter (if taking advantage of the clicky-fest), which is sad for Fighters.

P.P.S. Wassssup Inzane! I'm back from my hiatus; hope to see you in-game soon.

[iconiclastic]

The sword and board fighters have tactics,the only problem is the devs made red named boss mobs immune to trips and such,wrong move right there and that is not an opinoin,its false advertising.The devs systematically take away all choices from you,and you pay thier salaries.There is definitly something up with that.As far as the paladin goes I have a 16th pali and I dont play him because he is a gimp toon,something has to be done about it.Further they devs have fallen into the trap of making the mobs too high hit die instead of being more creative.The enter the kobold quest was very good though as they finally gave the mobs terrain advantages(you cant jump back and cast when there is little room to do so),only they made them all red named which is just stupid,there should always be a slim chance of outright killing anything if you roll lucky enough.I have no problems as a DM in p&p using normal enemies even some far lower level than the pc's that severly test if not outright ravage the pc's!Granted the mobs cant be made smarter but they can be prearranged to do certain things and then run away to a location,and lastly a rest shrine should never be a safe place to rest in high level content it should be a place where mobs set up ambushes.

[Paladin20]

Ahh I don't have my 150 points of (greater) ele spell power yet; those go on my 2nd shroud item (first is mineral2). at 361, I can burn it pretty fast on zeal and DF after buffing resists.

That's what I get for starting at 8 wis (and a worthy tradeoff it was)

DS was a big drain on me, I admit, my melee on nameds consists of drumming myfingers between the smite, divine sac and fight buttons very rapidly, ensuring that smites and DSs happen as soon as their cooldowns are gone (and then DS is the same after smites are gone), since with intimidate I have little to no fear of the mob wandering away from a smite.

I bet I burnt a lot of that SP just on sacrifice, since I use it 20 times a minute.

Yep, that's def a great way to ensure aggro... I wish Intimidate wasn't a broken skill back when I rolled this 2nd pally of mine. You used to press the Intimi button and either nothing would happen or there was some weird issue with the ability range heh. It would be insanely nice to apply that +9 Cha Mod to Intimidate checks had I gotten the ranks for it. I'm too deep into it that I really can't reroll him though. I'll work on an Intimitank build another time, I'm satisfied with my Pally.

[Junts]

They have to make anything intended to be hard rednamed because its too easy for me to haste, zeal, hasteboost and s wing my vorpal 20 times at it in about 5 seconds - and I dont even have dual wield.

To say nothing of a wop.

Or spam hit it with an earthgrab weapon..

etc

[calgrissom]

Yes it is way overkill atm..... Clicky fest only to fight for say 45 to 60s only to recast EVERYTHING again. I do more damage not recasting because of the downtime it takes in a fight to RECAST everything Its absurd. I tried to take extend to lessen the pain however since they still do not allow you to respec the highest level of feats that stack Like toughness I have to choose one of my high level feats to lose to take extend so guess what! I lose khopesh for 3 days NICE! cant use my primary weapon for 3 days because of the still broken feat respec mechanic. Please make these clickies last 3-4 minutes its really out of control.

[Holgar]

My main is a 14 Paladin / 2 Fighter. I think the easiest fix to the clickie fest is to extend the durations of Divine Might and Divine Favor. I think these should last for 30 seconds + 6 seconds per level. Divine Might might even warrant something like 5 minutes.

As someone pointed out, you lose 1 or 2 attacks in the middle of the fight to click on Zeal, Divine Favor, and Divine Might. I'm not so sure you make up for the lost damage from the benefits of these clickies.

Holgar

[Paladin20]

Divine Might might even warrant something like 5 minutes.

As someone pointed out, you lose 1 or 2 attacks in the middle of the fight to click on Zeal, Divine Favor, and Divine Might. I'm not so sure you make up for the lost damage from the benefits of these clickies.

Holgar

My guess would be that since you get 3+Cha Modifier Turn Undeads per rest, 5 minutes would be either a) ridiculous/on 100% of the time or b) stupid b/c you never get to use it all. Actually, with 12 usages of turn undead I'm having a really hard time using it all up.

It has been tested that you get roughly 88 attacks per minute sword-and-board. Assuming a low variance, regular 20% critical hit ratio on a Khopesh doing 35 pts main dmg per swing your Damage output is the following:

(66 Regular Hits*35) + (18 Crits*105) + (4 Auto Miss*0) = (2310 + 1890) = 4200

If you lose a full round of attacks (5) while buffing, and assuming you didn't roll any 1s during that period, the lost damage is the following:

(4 Regular Hits*35) + (1 Crit*105) = 245

Now lets add a 10% speed increase from Zeal, +3 Dmg from DF and +4 Dmg from DM II. For simplicity let's say you'll have 80 attacks remaining in that 1 minute, but since you are attacking 10% faster you've just recovered your original number of attacks and are back at 88. So, it's just a matter of whether that +7 Dmg on your remaining attacks will exceed the damage lost:

(66 Regular Hits*7) + (18 Crits*21) + (4 Auto Miss) = (462 + 378) = 840

So of course this is ignoring many factors such as time spent moving, percentage of time actually attacking, mobs with higher AC, etc. But, for illustrative purposes, it becomes clear that for those few times that you will swing for a full minute (ex: Arraetrikos encounter) the time spent buffing is more than well spent. In terms of percentage increase in your DPS we could express it in the following way:

(Extra Dmg)/(Original Dmg)
840 - 245 = 595 Extra Dmg
so,
595/4200 = 0.14 = 14%

[Holgar]

Paladin20:

Thanks for the analysis. Now I don't feel so guilty for buffing in the middle of fighting Sorjek!

For the record, I only have Divine Might I (I still need to find a +2 Cha tome so that I can take Divine Might II), but it seems that it is still well worth it to do the buffing.

Thanks!

Holgar