Ideas to Fix/Help Pallys

[Meat-Head]

I do agree that the majority of Paladins I come across do not use their buffs or clickies terribly well. In chatting with other Paladins in game I usually find they have horrible builds as they are tricky to get right.

However as I mentioned earlier, my current Paladin has decent gear (3 tier 3 dual shard greensteel items, a handful of epic stuff, etc), I use divine might, divine favor, zeal, spam divine sacrifice, exhalted smites when appropriate, etc. I have a ton of experience and I don't think I could play any better. In non-epics I do very well, but as soon as I step into an epic I feel like I'm piking compared to the monster DPS builds, arcanes, assassins, etc. Paladins are definitely behind where they should be. Oh, and Strength is the #1 attribute for a Paladin, not Charisma.

I second EVERY SINGLE STATEMENT YOU JUST MADE... Are you me?



2012 = PrEs and PrE pass. Whadda ya say?

[RTN]

Epic is definitely where paladins struggle. For a DoS, they should definitely get some of the shield feats for free. It doesn't make them overpowered, but it does make them a little more viable. Granted, you still won't see many (any?) DoS tanks for eLoB, but perhaps that's the way the devs want it (and a KotC loses their advantages in most of the epics, as others have written).

[bigolbear]

id suggest regenerating LOH's and more of them.

more and better spells to the spell list, some could be added to cleric too for that matter.

make angelskin DR/good cos DR/evil makes no flippin sense.

and finaly smite evil could use a serious bump - either as people have suggested make it like pathfinder or alternatively make it bonus damge and save or die for evil outsiders/undead.

Curently as with pen and paper I see no reason to play a paladin other than 2 lvls for divine grace. There is nothing a paladin can do that a well built battlecleric or FVS cant do better.

A battle cleric/FVS is more surviveable, beter damage (considering spells + mele) and has options for crowd control. a paldin MAY make a better tank... maybe, but only when looking at things from a traditional and somewhat floored perspective of 'tank, healer, dps'

Id actualy suggest giving both paladins and fighters some kind of party buff, group leader type benefits - they are the traditional party leaders and more could be made of this, much more.

[Emili]

I would support the idea of lower AP costs.

My Paladin's Charisma is 32 (34 w Ship Buff) and that's extraordinarily high. In fact, I have a hard time seeing a Human hitting it. She's Drow w a +3 Tome, +7 Item, +3 Enhancement points and +3 Exceptional. That's frankly quite a lot of emphasis on Charisma and I feel sure it's more than 99% of Paladins at endgame.

That is where Amilia's hovers about... 32 (34 with a Yugo) and pays for it with con so has to be shored up harder via items.

I totally agree with the AP costs... Pallys seem to have a very steep AP buyin, I suppose due the less concetrated feating reqs. Sporting a lower costs on many of the reqs for PrE would be a good thing... allowing pally to gain a little more versitility among the other enhancements be available.

I think it's funny people comparing DoS to Sd ... Dos > Sd at the moment - even with tight feats the pally tank often tanks eLoB far better than the Ds.

Kotc - Pallys however have a ton of procs flying off them ... to be honest the die rolls flying off Kotc for instance on devils for instance... buries barb and fighter spike damages. constant damages in dice eqautes to the +8 to 10 kensei pulling from straight away, likewise the barb until that barb is doubling frenzie on spiking strs... (which btw is a small window).

Smites regen, would be nice if turns regened - like RS - then DM would be a slight more managable... which leaves me thinking...

Blue bar regens as is ... con op is easy to attain and wear so really zeal and DF my pally is never without...

People talk about double-strikes comming off boosting fighter classes as if they're just full of them - they're not especially in elite/epic settings - do not believe me go run your kensei in an average group elite ToD or among the heavies in an epic LoB. Limited bursting options are at a low at the moment.

The latter the pally general resource pool outlasts a kensei's 12 haste/powersurges in resource management... Sometimes Barbs are running scarce of Rages... but Amilia a lot easier to manage the resources there in eLoB than my kensei and sometimes my barb... where she may be lacking would be DM ... but can smite well enough, has mana enough for zeal/df np... like the kensei power surges DM runs low and must be managed...

Scope however! Where the Pally ... a Full BaB melee lack - To-Hit, Unlike the Barb or Fighter maintaining a "To-Hit" at hieghts needed in end game content. So's... Add some "to-hit" to either DM or toss in half of cha mod towards "to-hit". (id' not expect it to be better than a kensei surge though).

Then the pally is set on par with the other full BaB classes...

Noone has brought it up ... but all those people whinning of monks and rogues lacking things in DPS really are clueless - if we were to build the top DPS toons - ToDaY - for today it is a Monk based toon... closely followed by rogues.

[Mithran]

I can sometimes struggle hitting bosses in Epic runs with CE on.

Another issue is that it's hard for me to keep all my various spells active, especially if I've been instructed to pass out Resist Energy to a full raid. These instructions typically come from someone who hasn't played Paladins and has contempt for them as a Class, something very frequently encountered in Barbarians and Fighters.

Paladins are very difficult to build well, primarily because they're fundamentally stat-point starved. Having finally finished my Epic Cloak of the Silver Concord, I re-Enhanced Nellas and was obliged to sac a great deal for the +3 Charisma.

Even now, she's only a pre-Cannith build.

I haven't really had problems in her viability in Epic runs, but it could certainly be better.

[sephiroth1084]

I do agree that the majority of Paladins I come across do not use their buffs or clickies terribly well. In chatting with other Paladins in game I usually find they have horrible builds as they are tricky to get right.

However as I mentioned earlier, my current Paladin has decent gear (3 tier 3 dual shard greensteel items, a handful of epic stuff, etc), I use divine might, divine favor, zeal, spam divine sacrifice, exhalted smites when appropriate, etc. I have a ton of experience and I don't think I could play any better. In non-epics I do very well, but as soon as I step into an epic I feel like I'm piking compared to the monster DPS builds, arcanes, assassins, etc. Paladins are definitely behind where they should be. Oh, and Strength is the #1 attribute for a Paladin, not Charisma.

I agree. My paladin is my best-geared toon, with tons of epic items, time and thought invested in him, and I keep Divine Favor and Zeal running full-time, keep Divine Sacrifice running at pretty close to max, and keep Divine Might managed to have it up for most of a quest, holding back enough to bring it to bear for the tougher fights; and he feels way behind my barbarian, monk and rogue in epic content (and stuff like elite Amrath, though there, at least, AC is still fairly relevant), who are all moderately geared.

Paladins certainly need a small boost in to-hit, and a significant boost to their DPS. I'd like to see smite evil get boosted to be relevant for longer.

Regenerating turns seems like it would be maybe too strong, unless it's thought that having Divine Might up 100% of the time is okay. Even at 2 min. a regen, you'd be gaining back turns before you could ever run out of them, unless you're spending them on something else. A tanking DoS would struggle a bit, using Divine Might and Divine Righteousness (and maybe the poor SLAs they get, and Glorious Stand), but turns for other paladins aren't the same resource that they are for clerics. Still, regening turns would be nice. Regening LoH would be very nice.

Emili mentioned that DoS is better than SD for tanking currently (and mentioned LoB specifically), and I really have to disagree. As far as I'm aware, the only major saves in there are Reflex vs. Cometfall, which from what I can tell tends to get aimed away from the tank most of the time. Fighter's get get a pretty reasonable Reflex save, particularly since they want more Dex to fill out their armor than paladins do. Other than that, the fighter has more intimidate probably (+6 from SD, more possible with extra feats), more HP, more DR (6/- vs. some variety of 5/x), probably better DPS (more room for things like khopesh, of BS/DA w/ GTHF, Improved Shield Bash), and better damage mitigation (room for both Shield Mastery and Improved Shield Master). Now, yes, a SD can't fit all of that in, but they can fit a lot of it. The hate bonus paladins have over SDs is minimized slightly by the paladin's having to use a limited resource for that and their likely lower overall DPS. Self-healing, while relevant and useful, tends to not be a very big factor when tanking raid bosses since you're usually guaranteed at least one, if not two or three healers watching after your health.

I feel like the 2 PrEs are close, but that fighters gets way more out of their defender PrE than do paladins, and paladins are usually paying quite a bit more for theirs.

DoS needs a small boost--I think granting one or two of the shield feats for free will set them in a pretty good spot.
KotC needs a big boost against non-Evil Outsiders. Granting their EO damage/2 vs. other evil creatures is a good start. Enhancing their smites is probably another way to go...cut down the regen time, give them stronger smites, or chaining smites, and maybe boost their Divine Sacrifice by a little more.
HotD needs a very big boost, as too many of its features are replicable with buffs and items. Not really sure where to go with this one, since I don't want to see it end up in the same niche as KotC, but against undead.

[Mithran]

Misread

[keefer1]

Love my Pally as is...nuff said




Devilsbane....G-Land

[sephiroth1084]

Love my Pally as is...nuff said




Devilsbane....G-Land

That was useful.

Just because you like something doesn't mean it couldn't or shouldn't be better.

[STROBE]

Hello DDO Brethren and Sistren,


I was pondering pallys pensively today and considering some ideas on how to help/fix/un-nerf them.

snip

Other ideas/thoughts?

Easy to code suggestions to improve paladins - that will help ALL paladins:

1. Isn't smite damage currently based on pen and paper rules? And DDO mobs hitpoints are based on ...? How about increase the damage that smite does so that it is relatively as powerful in DDO as it would be in pen and paper?

2. For flavor and a little more dps, I would like to be able to summon an archon. Base it on the summon monster spell, but make it an inate paladin ability - 'Call Archon' (we are lawful good, already, don't we deserve a little help here . Add a more powerful archon at every 2 levels. Final summon archon should be at least as powerful at the lvl 9 summons Ghale (CR16?). Let if be on a 10 minute cooldown like the faith based enhancements.

How about the golden winged archon from one of the amrath quests. Paladins should be able to 'call' one of those when we need help. That's what I'm talking about!

3. Paladins could use either more feats or more action points. To convince the developers (who are always afraid they are going to overpower something) how about 1 extra feat and/or 4 more actions points. Or optionally, lower the cost of some of the enhancements so they are 1,1,1,1 instead of 1,2,3,4. Come on devs, you know you can at least lower the cost of some paladin enahancements without jeapardizing the balance of the world.


STROBE (Paladin has been my main since March 6, 2006)


PS: for the Defender prestige, you could add the feats Improved Shield Bashing, and Shield Mastery as alternitives to the Tower Shield Proficiency feat, to satisfy the feat requirement. I don't get the implication that tower shields are required to be used. Aren't some of the paladin oriented raid shields *large* instead of tower? Seems like an inconsistancy.

[Habreno]

Easy to code suggestions to improve paladins - that will help ALL paladins:

1. Isn't smite damage currently based on pen and paper rules? And DDO mobs hitpoints are based on ...? How about increase the damage that smite does so that it is relatively as powerful in DDO as it would be in pen and paper?

2. For flavor and a little more dps, I would like to be able to summon an archon. Base it on the summon monster spell, but make it an inate paladin ability - 'Call Archon' (we are lawful good, already, don't we deserve a little help here . Add a more powerful archon at every 2 levels. Final summon archon should be at least as powerful at the lvl 9 summons Ghale (CR16?). Let if be on a 10 minute cooldown like the faith based enhancements.

How about the golden winged archon from one of the amrath quests. Paladins should be able to 'call' one of those when we need help. That's what I'm talking about!

3. Paladins could use either more feats or more action points. To convince the developers (who are always afraid they are going to overpower something) how about 1 extra feat and/or 4 more actions points. Or optionally, lower the cost of some of the enhancements so they are 1,1,1,1 instead of 1,2,3,4. Come on devs, you know you can at least lower the cost of some paladin enahancements without jeapardizing the balance of the world.


STROBE (Paladin has been my main since March 6, 2006)


PS: for the Defender prestige, you could add the feats Improved Shield Bashing, and Shield Mastery as alternitives to the Tower Shield Proficiency feat, to satisfy the feat requirement. I don't get the implication that tower shields are required to be used. Aren't some of the paladin oriented raid shields *large* instead of tower? Seems like an inconsistancy.

You could take Combat Expertise. And if you're going for an AC-paladin, CE > Tower Shields.

[Falco_Easts]

You could take Combat Expertise. And if you're going for an AC-paladin, CE > Tower Shields.

Was thinking this morning, what about an enhancement "Righteous Cleave". 1AP and must have the Cleave feat. Allows your to Cleave your Smite Evil.

[keefer1]

It's not that I "like" my pally..I'm saying they're not broken, Pally can be a dps toon if you build it right..but also you have to remember pallys bring alot to the game with the auras ect. they have. If you're looking to make a pally a tank you can make a realy effective one also. it's a matter of taking what they give you and deciding how you want to play you're toon. there are 1400 hp Pallys out there...run with them before... it's a point restricted class and one of the hardest to make end game effective. I understand it's frustrating but still my pally's one of my fav toons


Devilsbane

[Ralmeth]

PS: for the Defender prestige, you could add the feats Improved Shield Bashing, and Shield Mastery as alternitives to the Tower Shield Proficiency feat, to satisfy the feat requirement. I don't get the implication that tower shields are required to be used. Aren't some of the paladin oriented raid shields *large* instead of tower? Seems like an inconsistancy.

The developers gave DoS an improvement in max dex bonus on a tower shield back in the day when you HAD to splash fighter or Rogue in order to make a proper Pally tank so that you could have intimidate as a class skill. Back then the only way to tank was to turtle up and hit intimidate every 6 seconds. So we all have an idea how long ago it was that the Paladin enhancements and prestige classes were worked on...

[sephiroth1084]

It's not that I "like" my pally..I'm saying they're not broken, Pally can be a dps toon if you build it right..but also you have to remember pallys bring alot to the game with the auras ect. they have. If you're looking to make a pally a tank you can make a realy effective one also. it's a matter of taking what they give you and deciding how you want to play you're toon. there are 1400 hp Pallys out there...run with them before... it's a point restricted class and one of the hardest to make end game effective. I understand it's frustrating but still my pally's one of my fav toons


Devilsbane

Uh...the best DPS paladins will be quite a bit behind the good (not best) members of other DPS classes. In some cases, quite far. That is one problem being addressed.

Another is that a defender paladin will likely end up with one or more of DPS, HP or AC less than an equivalently geared Stalwart.

Another is that the KotC PrE serves no purpose whatsoever in much of the end game, and HotD serves almost no purpose whatsoever.

Still another is that, while paladins should be providing some benefits via their auras and access to reasonable healing, many don't because it is too expensive to invest in those things unless they are your primary focus, and investing in them tends to remove your ability to function fully in other areas.

On my paladin, for example, I decided that self-healing and tanking ability were more important than DPS, so although I can gear myself for DPS, I will always be quite far behind any even moderate DPS toon, because I cannot fit in the feats and AP needed to be competitive there. More importantly, killing high-HP mobs takes a very long time, because my DPS is rather low for a character who's ultimate purpose is to swing a weapon to kill things.

A KotC probably doesn't invest in their aura at all, because they have to meet expensive prerequisites elsewhere, and because there is not much point in carrying an AC aura if you don't care about AC yourself, a saves aura if you are making everything on a 2+ anyway, an anti-fear aura if you are immune, or a Concentration aura if you don't bother investing there yourself anyway.

Just because your character feels like they are good enough doesn't mean that they aren't in need of a boost.

[Meat-Head]

Added a summary to OP.

Keep ideas coming. A lot of good ones.

[Xenostrata]

Some ideas I've had recently -

Balancing THF and TWF:
As it is now, the Paladin class STRONGLY favors two weapon fighting, to the point that someone recently posted the reasonably good advice that pretty much every paladin should go twf unless s/he has an eSoS lying around for them to use. That said, I'd make the following suggestions:

• Make smites, exalted smites, and divine sacrifices apply to glancing blows 100% of the time
• As has been said, scale Divine Might with THF by either 1.5 or 2
• Rerelease the Divine Vengeance as a useful weapon (breaking more than just Demon DR would be a good start) on multiple weapon bases, at least one of which being THF. I'd suggest it dropping as something less defined, so that the loot tables don't get overfilled with the different versions.
• MAKE A FALCHION/GREATAXE FOR THE HOLY SWORD SPELL. Seriously.

Spells:
Paladins, as a rule, have a list populated with a few awesome spells and a ton of useless spells. Level 2 in particular appears to be completely devoid of anything useful: of the 6 spells, half are the stat bonuses. Some paladin spell pass ideas:

• Angelskin is a spell that is decent in some content and useless in others. Since almost all devils have DR/Evil bypass, the spell doesn't protect against what should be the Paladins main enemy. I'd suggest making it DR Silver+Evil instead, the proper alignment of powerful Lawful Good beings.
• Change the cure spell progression to include critical at 4, serious at 3, and moderate at 2.
• I'd suggest adding a "Weapon of the Holy Warrior" spell that grants DR breaking of all alignments. I'll explain more in the capstone section. If this happens, make it 1 min per character level - Paladins have enough micromanaging already without another spell to refresh every 2:30.

Capstone:
The current paladin capstone has been total **** since u11 hit. Before u11, it was a really good - free DR/good bypass meant that you could have any Epic weapon with a red slot, and get it to bypass almost any DR. However, when artificers came out, this changed from "Quite Nice" to "Wow... ew." 3d6 uncrittable damage isn't nearly enough of an incentive to stay pure, especially on a class that gains so much (feats, evasion) and loses so little from splashing. I'd suggest instead throwing the DR bypass on a spell, and getting a couple of different capstones depending on the purpose of the paladin:

• Soldier of the Light - Your smites are much improved, and you have become a true holy warrior. Your smites regenerate faster, are considered to be Improved Shattermantle, have +1 to critical damage multipliers. (I like the idea of making all smites crits; however, if this is deemed slightly too OP, put that here instead.)
• Defender of the Faith - You have become a bastion against the forces of evil. All of your aura bonuses increase by 2 (If the HAmp aura gets implemented - which it should, it sounds awesome - have this be +10%.) and your Lay on Hands ability now regenerates at a slow rate (anywhere between 60 and 120 seconds, unsure what).

PrEs:
Right now paladins only have one truly viable PrE, the Defender of Siberys. They also have one DPS PrE that is useless because it only applies to one creature, and one PrE that appears to have no purpose whatsoever except for leveling up and hitting Hamp records. Herein are my suggestions.

• Defender of Siberys - my only objection here is how incredibly feat and AP starved a DoS. My suggestion would be to reduce the AP costs of some paladin enhancements and to give all Paladins Tower Shield Proficiency. This would be good for all Paladins, but would be particularly useful for DoS. I've always wondered why Paladins don't have Tower Shield proficiency, even in PnP - specifically in DDO, one of the best shields in the game is Paladin themed - Levik's Defender, a tower shield. I'd also comment on glorious stand - 30 seconds isn't as much of an "OH ****" button as it should be. Consider tripling the duration and cooldown (90 sec duration, 9 minute cooldown).
• KotC - There needs to be some serious additions to this one to make it worthwhile again. My first idea is to have each tier reduce the regen of a smite by a certain amount - when stacked with the melee oriented capstone, it could make smites much more pivotal in a Paladin's dps. Then, instead of having "+1d6 extra damage against evil outsiders," I'd say throw on +2 (or maybe +3) to-hit and damage against non-good targets at tier 1, +2/3 to-hit and damage against evil targets at tier 2, and +3/4 to-hit and damage against evil outsiders at tier 3. That should increase utility against non-outsiders, something Paladins desperately need. The Censure Demons should be changed to Censure Outsider, too - there are way too few demons in the game for it to be remotely considered worth it.
• Hunter of the Dead - This is the biggest joke of a PrE currently in the game, and tier 3 to boot. It appears to be meant for the paladin built exclusively for turning undead. My general idea for this one was kind of a combination of a Radiant Servant and the opposite of a Palemaster - someone really good at channeling positive energy, both for healing themselves and their party and for damaging undead. No idea what this means atm, but pretty much anything is better than what it is now.

[Meat-Head]

Some ideas I've had recently -

Balancing THF and TWF:
As it is now, the Paladin class STRONGLY favors two weapon fighting, to the point that someone recently posted the reasonably good advice that pretty much every paladin should go twf unless s/he has an eSoS lying around for them to use. That said, I'd make the following suggestions:

• Make smites, exalted smites, and divine sacrifices apply to glancing blows 100% of the time
• As has been said, scale Divine Might with THF by either 1.5 or 2
• Rerelease the Divine Vengeance as a useful weapon (breaking more than just Demon DR would be a good start) on multiple weapon bases, at least one of which being THF. I'd suggest it dropping as something less defined, so that the loot tables don't get overfilled with the different versions.
• MAKE A FALCHION/GREATAXE FOR THE HOLY SWORD SPELL. Seriously.

Spells:
Paladins, as a rule, have a list populated with a few awesome spells and a ton of useless spells. Level 2 in particular appears to be completely devoid of anything useful: of the 6 spells, half are the stat bonuses. Some paladin spell pass ideas:

• Angelskin is a spell that is decent in some content and useless in others. Since almost all devils have DR/Evil bypass, the spell doesn't protect against what should be the Paladins main enemy. I'd suggest making it DR Silver+Evil instead, the proper alignment of powerful Lawful Good beings.
• Change the cure spell progression to include critical at 4, serious at 3, and moderate at 2.
• I'd suggest adding a "Weapon of the Holy Warrior" spell that grants DR breaking of all alignments. I'll explain more in the capstone section. If this happens, make it 1 min per character level - Paladins have enough micromanaging already without another spell to refresh every 2:30.

Capstone:
The current paladin capstone has been total **** since u11 hit. Before u11, it was a really good - free DR/good bypass meant that you could have any Epic weapon with a red slot, and get it to bypass almost any DR. However, when artificers came out, this changed from "Quite Nice" to "Wow... ew." 3d6 uncrittable damage isn't nearly enough of an incentive to stay pure, especially on a class that gains so much (feats, evasion) and loses so little from splashing. I'd suggest instead throwing the DR bypass on a spell, and getting a couple of different capstones depending on the purpose of the paladin:

• Soldier of the Light - Your smites are much improved, and you have become a true holy warrior. Your smites regenerate faster, are considered to be Improved Shattermantle, have +1 to critical damage multipliers. (I like the idea of making all smites crits; however, if this is deemed slightly too OP, put that here instead.)
• Defender of the Faith - You have become a bastion against the forces of evil. All of your aura bonuses increase by 2 (If the HAmp aura gets implemented - which it should, it sounds awesome - have this be +10%.) and your Lay on Hands ability now regenerates at a slow rate (anywhere between 60 and 120 seconds, unsure what).

PrEs:
Right now paladins only have one truly viable PrE, the Defender of Siberys. They also have one DPS PrE that is useless because it only applies to one creature, and one PrE that appears to have no purpose whatsoever except for leveling up and hitting Hamp records. Herein are my suggestions.

• Defender of Siberys - my only objection here is how incredibly feat and AP starved a DoS. My suggestion would be to reduce the AP costs of some paladin enhancements and to give all Paladins Tower Shield Proficiency. This would be good for all Paladins, but would be particularly useful for DoS. I've always wondered why Paladins don't have Tower Shield proficiency, even in PnP - specifically in DDO, one of the best shields in the game is Paladin themed - Levik's Defender, a tower shield. I'd also comment on glorious stand - 30 seconds isn't as much of an "OH ****" button as it should be. Consider tripling the duration and cooldown (90 sec duration, 9 minute cooldown).
• KotC - There needs to be some serious additions to this one to make it worthwhile again. My first idea is to have each tier reduce the regen of a smite by a certain amount - when stacked with the melee oriented capstone, it could make smites much more pivotal in a Paladin's dps. Then, instead of having "+1d6 extra damage against evil outsiders," I'd say throw on +2 (or maybe +3) to-hit and damage against non-good targets at tier 1, +2/3 to-hit and damage against evil targets at tier 2, and +3/4 to-hit and damage against evil outsiders at tier 3. That should increase utility against non-outsiders, something Paladins desperately need. The Censure Demons should be changed to Censure Outsider, too - there are way too few demons in the game for it to be remotely considered worth it.
• Hunter of the Dead - This is the biggest joke of a PrE currently in the game, and tier 3 to boot. It appears to be meant for the paladin built exclusively for turning undead. My general idea for this one was kind of a combination of a Radiant Servant and the opposite of a Palemaster - someone really good at channeling positive energy, both for healing themselves and their party and for damaging undead. No idea what this means atm, but pretty much anything is better than what it is now.

First off, about time you chimed in. You're always whining about Pallys being weaksauce.. :P

Anyway, great ideas. I like all of em I think. What do you think about HotD being a fort debuffer like someone earlier mentioned?

Also, I particularly like the capstone ideas.

[Xenostrata]

First off, about time you chimed in. You're always whining about Pallys being weaksauce.. :P

Anyway, great ideas. I like all of em I think. What do you think about HotD being a fort debuffer like someone earlier mentioned?

Also, I particularly like the capstone ideas.

First off, I don't whine. I make manly guttural utterances.

Secondly, I think there are enough fort reducers in the game as is. Given an FvS aura, improved sunder, improved destruction, and something else that I can't quite remember, most bosses get drastically reduced fort. I'd prefer someone who:

• Has good healing amp, and can cast decent healing spells
• I remember my idea for a tier 3 ability - Positive Energy Spike - On any vorpal hit, you are affected by a Heal spell (CL 15). If your opponent is undead, he too is hit by a heal spell.
• Cone of Cold shaped mass cures?
• One idea I'm particularly fond of is having a toggle aura at tier 3, where you get to choose what aura you give off - selections could include stun immunity, curse immunity, deathward (for those pesky beholders), Regenerative aura. Maybe have a Healing Amp aura be one of the choices here.
• If I was going to follow through on the polar opposite of a Palemaster idea, there could be various forms as well, that grant different abilities - trumpet archon, etc.

I see the Hunter of the Dead as almost a Bard version of the paladin - He's not going to be the best DPS or the best Tank (that's for KotCs and DoSs), but he can have some good to great support abilities and some of the best self healing.

[Xenostrata]

As someone with a paladin, I thought I would make these comments:

AP wise, as a KotC I had to sacrifice all auras except +1 to saves, the last toughness tiers, Healer's Friend 2 and 3, charisma 2 and 3, brute fighting 2+, wf con 2. As a DoS, I had to sacrifice Exalted smite 3+, healer's friend 3, toughness 3+ as paladin and wf, WF con 2, pally cha 2+, healer's friend 3, brute fighting 2+. And this is only the stuff I can think of right now.

As a DoS, I had to trade Extend for Shield Mastery. Having my buffs last 2:30 is incredibly annoying, and generally means there are large periods of time in which I don't have zeal or divine favor running.