Armor Up - Developer Diary #3

[the_one_dwarfforged]

Holy Sword
Evocation (Good spells)
Paladin 4
Components: Verbal, Somatic
Metamagic: Quicken
Range: Touch
Target: Self
Duration: 1 minute per caster level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
Cooldown: 3 seconds

Channels holy power to increase the effectiveness of your equipped weapons. Weapons you currently are wielding gain an additional +2 holy bonus to enhancement value. The spell also increases the threat range and critical weapon multiplier of these weapons by 1.

if this is the only way physical dps classes are going to get buffed from now on, youd better just give fighters and barbs +3 crit range and multiplier. why not auto crit with +10 multiplier while were at it? seriously...lack of vision...

paladins already had exalted smite increasing crit profile, is this going to stack with that? what type of bonus is it going to be? you are also giving paladins more chrages of smite, if they do stack this could be an issue. why should anyone play a barbarian or fighter if paladins get extra on hit damage effects, +1 perma crit range (the mark of fighters for a long time), +1 perma crit multiplier to all critical hits (the mark of barbarians for a long time, except only on 19-20 which was balanced by getting more than just +1 multi), and a recharging ability which increases both of those numbers as well as dealing some additional damage, and comes with built in self healing that doesnt require the player to pay for and play bladeforged, and can benefit easily from high amounts of healing amp. do you not see whats going on here? at this rate to balance fighters and barbs and rangers against this, they will all need their dps increased and fighters and barbs will have to be given access to healing spells. personally i really really dont want that.

this trend of buffing every class to unheard of heights though the same generic (now, used to be unique) methods just because everyone wants their favorite icon to be top dps with no tradeoff is sickening.

[ddorimble]

Tier Two (5 AP Required)
• Divine Might: Channel Divinity: Channel Divinity: You gain an Insight bonus to Strength equal to your Charisma modifier for 30/60/120 seconds. (Cooldown 20 seconds)

I'd like to see a little more thought put into this. It seems weird that to a certain extent you're encouraging Charisma Paladin builds, but then this defining ability really does nothing for them. I wonder if this could be a multi-selector, on the one hand, this normal 'Cha bonus to Str' ability that other classes splash for or that a Strength Paladin would be excited for...and on the other hand, something a Charisma Paladin might want to have running for 120 seconds at a time...+Melee Power, a healing aura, PRR, DR, Dodge, Doublestrike, Positive Spellpower...something...perhaps make it scale by Paladin level so it's less useful to a splash, but enticing to someone with 14+ Paladin levels.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

Greetings,

To give insight to player about the changes involved with our Armor Up changes, Paladin buffs, and other balance changes we are writing a series of developer diaries to explain upcoming changes we have planned for the game.

In the last developer diary we discussed how Melee Power will work with Epic Destinies. If you haven't read through it you can check it out here:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...eloper-Diary-2


With this post we go into more depth about:
~ The redesign of the Paladin spell Holy Sword spell.
~ The increase of the duration of the Zeal spell.
~ Knight of the Chalice changes.

We have previously posted some proposed Paladin changes. While players were happy that we are giving Paladin's much needed attention, we received feedback that some players preferred that the core classes remain close to D&D. As a result we have moved our improvements into the Paladin enhancement trees, and made changes to two spells to help keep Paladin's fun and competitive with other classes.

Holy Sword
We wanted to discuss changes to the Holy Sword spell as part of our ongoing discussion of Paladins.

We have several goals with this spell:

~ Make Paladin spellcasting more valuable.
~ Make the spell valuable when the Paladin has high end gear.
~ Increase the effectiveness of the Paladin class.

The spell is being redesigned as follows.

Holy Sword
Evocation (Good spells)
Paladin 4
Components: Verbal, Somatic
Metamagic: Quicken
Range: Touch
Target: Self
Duration: 1 minute per caster level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
Cooldown: 3 seconds

Channels holy power to increase the effectiveness of your equipped weapons. Weapons you currently are wielding gain an additional +2 holy bonus to enhancement value. The spell also increases the threat range and critical weapon multiplier of these weapons by 1.


Zeal
Zeal is already quite good, but as a quality of life change we are increasing its duration to match the new Holy Sword spell. It will now last one minute per caster level.



Knight of the Chalice
As part of our ongoing Paladin examination, we have made a number of changes to Knight of the Chalice to increase the effectiveness of the Paladin.

Keep in mind that many of these abilities scale with Melee Power. If you are unsure what that entails I encourage you to read our previous developer diaries.





Core Abilities
• 1 AP, class level 1: Slayer of Evil I: You gain +1 to hit evil and undead creatures. Your attacks deal 1d6 additional Light damage. You resist evil influences particularly well, gaining a +2 bonus to saves against spells and effects produced by evil creatures. All Light damage from core abilities scale with 100% Melee Power.
• 5 AP, class level 3: Courage of Heaven: Your Aura of Courage grants an additional +2 Sacred bonus to saves against Fear and now also grants a +2 Sacred bonus to saves against Enchantment. You gain +1 to hit for all attacks. Your attacks now deal 2d6 additional Light damage.
• 10 AP, class level 6: Slayer of Evil II: You now gain +2 to hit evil and undead creatures. Your attacks now deal 3d6 additional Light damage. All your attacks are considered to be Ghost Touch. You resist evil influences particularly well, gaining a +3 bonus to saves against spells and effects produced by evil creatures.
• 20 AP, class level 12: Improved Courage of Heaven: Increases the Aura bonuses granted by Courage of Heaven by an additional +2. You now gain +2 to hit for all attacks. Your attacks now deal 4d6 additional Light damage.
• 30 AP, class level 18: Slayer of Evil III: You now gain +3 to hit evil and undead creatures. Your attacks now deal 6d6 additional Light damage. You resist evil influences particularly well, gaining a +4 bonus to saves against spells and effects produced by evil creatures. Your vorpal hits against undead do an additional 500 damage.
• 41 AP, class level 20: Champion of Good: You gain +4 Charisma and 10 Melee Power. The bonuses granted by Courage of Heaven are increased by an additional +2. Your attacks now deal 8d6 additional Light damage. Any weapon you wield is considered Good aligned for purposes of bypassing damage reduction.

Tier One (0 AP Required)
• Extra Turning: +(1/2/3) Turn Attempts per rest.
• Divine Light: Your Turn Undead ability now also deals 6d6/12d6/18d6 light damage to nearby undead. Scales with 200% Melee Power.
• Extra Remove Disease: +(2/4/6) Remove Disease uses per rest.
• Exalted Smite: You gain 2/4 additional use of Smite Evil per rest.
• Action Boost: Attack: Activate to gain a +(4/6/8) Action Boost bonus to hit for 20 seconds.

Tier Two (5 AP Required)
• Improved Turning: You count as (1/2/3) levels higher when turning undead, and add (2/4/6) to the number of hit dice turned.
• Divine Might: Channel Divinity: Channel Divinity: You gain an Insight bonus to Strength equal to your Charisma modifier for 30/60/120 seconds. (Cooldown 20 seconds)
• Rally: Channel Divinity: Remove fear from nearby allies. You and the affected allies gain a +2/+4/+6 Moral Bonus to Will Saves vs. Fear effects and a +1/+2/+3 Morale Bonus to Attack and Damage for 60 seconds. (Coodown: 3 minutes)
• Exalted Cleave: Shares its cooldown with the Cleave feat. Make a sweeping attack against all nearby enemies for +1/+2/+3[W] damage.
• Action Boost: Damage: Activate to gain a (+10/+20/+30)% Action Boost bonus to Melee Power for 20 seconds. (Cooldown: 30 Seconds)

Tier Three (10 AP Required)
• Improved Restoration: Your Paladin Remove Disease ability now also applies a (Lesser Restoration / Restoration / Greater Restoration) effect.
• Divine Sacrifice: Giving up some of your life force to win the battle, you empower your next blow against your foe. This attack deals an additional (5/7/9)d6 Light damage and increases the critical multiplier of your weapon by 1, but costs you 5 hp and 1 sp, whether or not the attack is successful. Light damage scales with 100% Melee Power.
• Vigor of Life: Your Positive Healing Amplification is increased by (5/10)%, and you take (5/10)% less damage from Negative Energy.
• Exalted Smite: Active: An improved smite that adds +1/+1/+2 to your weapon's critical damage multiplier and 0/+1/+2 to your weapon's critical threat range.
• Str or Cha: +1 Strength or Charisma

Tier Four (20 AP Required)
• Censure Demons: You gain On Vorpal: Stuns Chaotic Evil outsiders for 3 seconds.
• Passion: Your Divine Sacrifice ability gains: On Damage: Gain (5/10/15) temporary spell points if you strike an undead or evil outsider an evil creature with this attack.
• Vigor of Life: Your Positive Healing Amplification is increased by (5/10)%, and you take (5/10)% less damage from Negative Energy.
• Empowered Smite: Your Smite Evil and Exalted Smite abilities now grant a buff that increases Melee Power by 10 for 10 seconds.
• Str or Cha: +1 Strength or Charisma

Tier Five (40 AP Required)
• Censure Outsiders: Your Censure Demons ability now applies to all Chaotic or Evil outsiders.
• Vigor of Life: Your Positive Healing Amplification is increased by (5/10)%, and you take (5/10)% less damage from Negative Energy.
• Holy Retribution: Melee Channel Divinity: Executes a powerful holy strike against the target that deals +1/+3/+5[W] damage. On Damage: Evil creatures with less than 1,000 HP have a 50%/75%/100% chance to be forced to make a Will save (DC 10 + Paladin Level + Charisma Mod) or be destroyed. On a successful save, the affected creature takes 100 holy damage from this attack as well as -6 to all ability scores for ten seconds. (Cooldown: 6 seconds) This ability also recharges one Smite Evil.
• Sealed Life: You are immune to Energy Drain.
• Avenging Cleave: Shares its cooldown with the Great Cleave feat. Make a powerful sweeping attack against all nearby enemies that deals +1/+3/+5[W] damage. Each creature gains one stack of Vulnerability.


We are still in the process of examining the Sacred Defender tree and will describe those changes in a future post.

Sev~

Just to be sure...
I will have a paladin w/ 30%+ sustainable doublestrike(10% sacred, 10% windstance, 10% enh from DC), wielding 11-20/x3 oath blades(x4 on 19-20) or
13-20/x3 any other longsword
that deal 4d6 light damage/hit(scales to 10d6 w/ MP)
with at least 2.25 healing amp(1.3 pal, 1.1 monk, 1.1 human, 1.3 gear, 1.1 DC)(could be more depending on what SD tree looks like)
enough feats to take OC, GM of Forms, Gtwf, and WSS with left overs(whoever heard of paladins with left over feats?)


You sir are my new hero...

[HatsuharuZ]

i swore it was a fortsave, i could never get my paladin to land one with a DC 56 willsave on the fighters but vs spellcasters they only saved on a 20

basically, its the target the weak save logic.

It only activates 100% of the time it's used if you spend 6 AP. Furthermore, it only activates on targets under 1000 HP, meaning it gets harder to use as you go up in levels. Something in this ability needs to be removed: the 1000 HP limit, the DC check or the percent chance to activate.

[Munkenmo]

You are kidding right? You have to give up so much for 14 level splashes in a tree just for +1 range and multi on a single dispellable spell, and even then it helps Rogue splashes...and that's it. Paladin literally has nothing else going for it, a truth I think will remain the same as we move forward.
Running my math on it there are only a small handful of splashes that seem to benefit, and those are tough choices where the holy sword bonuses are weight heavily with all the things you give up because of a deep splash in a class with little else going for it.

Devs have said they want tough choices. This is one, and one that brings a very tiny amount of builds into a upper 20% range of viability.

What am I giving up exactly?
Divine might check.
Divine grace, check.
2 free cleaves, check.
Empower heal, check.
Power attack, icrit, 3*combat feats, check.

Granted, theres no hasteboost.. but thats easily fixed.

Given the option to get a unique & stacking crit profile 14 paladin levels are going to become the new flavor of the month, entirely because of holy sword.

Especially true for dagger, staff and throwing builds.

[Trillea]

I have not seen any mention of it in this thread, but do you still have any plans on nerfing Divine Grace at all?

Please say no.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I haven't even read your changes yet....lol
But I read part of a thread worrying about Ranged being nerfed.

So... here's an uniformed thought to consider.


I have always thought that the Epic Destiny system, was supposed to give power to all classes in any destiny.
This was never implemented correctly, or well IMO, but it seemed to me that that was the original goal.


Or should have been anyway.

Leveling up in other destinies is un-fun for many players, especially of some classes.

So.... don't be anxious to nerf ranged combat (or spell or anything else) in certain destinies.



That said, things should work like advertised.
If there is a bug, fix it.



Ok, another thought.

Buffing melee is great.
But make sure it buffs melee for all classes.




and I would love to know why we can't just tie Manyshot and 10K stars together so you can use one or the other but not both in succession.



Buff don't nerf.
if you must nerf, nerf slowly.

[Nascoe]

Said something similar in the other thread - I don't particularly like, conceptually speaking, that LIGHT damage scales with melee power instead of Light or Universal spellpower. That doesn't make any sense at all in terms of what one might expect from class to class - in fact if we're adding 'power' mechanics to melee and ranged, I think I'd rather that relevant spellpower just started working on weapon effects, guards and so on in general.

I don't think melee base damage is really that much of an issue these days with all the [W] and crit range/mult effects that are available, it's more that effects such as 1-10 cold damage on L28EE are such a tiny proportion of the damage on a so called 'epic' weapon. In that particular example i would expect COLD spellpower to boost that output. Melee power/ranged power should be affecting the pure underlying damage - the weapon dice, sneak attack damage, heartseeker type effects and so on. Anything with a 'magical' flavour ought to be boosted by relevant magical spellpower, and this would itself start presenting interesting gear choices for melees without actually needing to add the ranged/melee power abilities to the loot tables making them even more incomprehensible, devaluing named items further (sure as eggs is eggs, as with other new 'gear types' named items won't get a proper pass to bring them up to date for ages after the new system goes in, if ever), moving further away from Cannith Crafting (sheesh just admit you've abandoned it already and remove it from the game so new players don't get caught in the trap and we can free up some **** bag space) etc.

I agree that instead of introducing something new and forcing yourself to either address ranged too in one go or by proxy nerf it (losing many advantages of using Blitz, possibly fury, maybe DC stuff as well as they get changed from % damage to just melee damage), as well as having to solve what a melee is going to do in other EDs that do not offer any melee power buffs you would be better advised to just use existing spellpower stuff to boost it.

For a Paladin that should then be based primarily of positive spellpower and light spell power (both would need ways to get them on a Paladin), for running in arcane destinies one could choose weapons that have effects based of them (using sonic or positive for fatesinger, the elemental damages for Draconic and things like negative or maybe force for magister) etc. Off course for the fighter there should still be things based off tactical abilities and for Barbarians a good way to use rages. The point is, it would make it far easier to understand for everyone, and you could more easily add it step by step instead of having to go into half of the EDs and upsetting everyone ranged who suddenly lose many benefits of the best DPS EDs.

One other thought I just had when reading the comments above - if we are talking about Spellpower, why not have positive spell power boost your turns? Might that make them actually be usefull against mobs on higher lvls? It just seems such a waste if TU are only used as the source for a buff.

[Nascoe]

Not sure if I'm reading this right, but does this mean someone with 14 paly + 3 bard can basically use a rapier and add +1 threat range and +2 critical multiplier (+1 crit from holy sword and +1 crit from swashbuckler)? That would make balizard a 40% threat range 5x multiplier weapon!

No. Because alignment restrictions prevent that option (that is why bard is/was weak as it cannot be combined with Paladin nor with Monk, something that holds back Barbarians as well.)

[LeoLionxxx]

Because paladin's are already immune to fear so half the bonus doesn't even do anything for them? The other half of the bonus is pretty lackluster since with their high saves enchantments aren't much of a issue either?

And then of course you can't read anyone's biography because the aura keeps jumping you back to the top every 3 seconds.

So basically it's only useful to the party, if they stay close, not the actual Paladin.

more accurately because the area of effect is so short that only paladins benefit from the aura, and what benefits it does give are minimal as it is. If an ally can benefit from the effects of Aura of Courage, then they are definitely out of possition

the +3 stacks with saving throws is good in DoS, its just that unlike paladin auras from WoW, which had an AoE of 60 yards, the aura of courage is 10 feet in radius, meaning it covers 1/324th of the area.

Hmm. In that case, perhaps the sacred defender tree could be amped up to give more bonuses to the aura and make it more of an asset.

And yes, that refresh-every-5-seconds thing does get tedious. Perhaps if it expired/refreshed only every minute?

[DagazUlf]

This is not what was said. This is not what was said. This is not what was said. We said the proposed changes did not actually help. Not that you should scrap fixing the base class AND only work on the trees.

Apparently the disconnect between what players write for feedback and what Turbine Development is still as strong as ever.

[toapat]

It only activates 100% of the time it's used if you spend 6 AP. Furthermore, it only activates on targets under 1000 HP, meaning it gets harder to use as you go up in levels. Something in this ability needs to be removed: the 1000 HP limit, the DC check or the percent chance to activate.

its not 2/rank, its 1/rank. ive had it before, it sucks because it runs off of a much too important resource for its strength. It could have no trigger threshold, and no save, AND work vs raid bosses, and it still wouldnt be good enough to justify 3 points and a charge of turn undead.

The death effect should be removed, and R3 should recharge 2 or 3 uses of smite evil, while the debuff and 100 damage would apply 33/66/100% of the time depending on rank. Then the ability would matter and be worth investing charges of Turn Undead into.

[Varinon]

Holy Sword

Holy Sword
Evocation (Good spells)
Paladin 4
Components: Verbal, Somatic
Metamagic: Quicken
Range: Touch
Target: Self
Duration: 1 minute per caster level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
Cooldown: 3 seconds

Channels holy power to increase the effectiveness of your equipped weapons. Weapons you currently are wielding gain an additional +2 holy bonus to enhancement value. The spell also increases the threat range and critical weapon multiplier of these weapons by 1. Assuming this stacks with weapon enhancements from Artificer, this is incredibly good, and a very strong draw to take 14 paladin levels. Enhancement value is worth less than the crit, but it's a decent boost at it's minimum level (14)



Zeal
Zeal is already quite good, but as a quality of life change we are increasing its duration to match the new Holy Sword spell. It will now last one minute per caster level. Will allow paladins to save some spell points for heals/other buffs. No complaints.



Knight of the Chalice
As part of our ongoing Paladin examination, we have made a number of changes to Knight of the Chalice to increase the effectiveness of the Paladin. I like the direction in updating the enhancement tree instead of the core abilities. Good choice.

Keep in mind that many of these abilities scale with Melee Power. If you are unsure what that entails I encourage you to read our previous developer diaries. I have no suggestions for something better, but the phrase 'Melee Power' sounds silly to me.


Core Abilities
• 1 AP, class level 1: Slayer of Evil I: You gain +1 to hit evil and undead creatures. Your attacks deal 1d6 additional Light damage. You resist evil influences particularly well, gaining a +2 bonus to saves against spells and effects produced by evil creatures. All Light damage from core abilities scale with 100% Melee Power. So if you've got 150 melee power (Level 28, maxed ED that grants melee power), these should deal (2.5)d6/(5)d6/(7.5)d6/(10)d6/(15)d6/(20)d6. On average, 20d6 damage deals 70 damage, which cannot crit. This isn't that great, but it's okay damage. If it could crit it'd be too strong, but unfortunately a lot of the paladin changes seem to revolve around crit. The other benefits are nice, but nothing worth mentioning. Saves on paladins will continue to be great, +hit will hopefully let more smites hit (though it probably will only matter non-epic).

• 5 AP, class level 3: Courage of Heaven: Your Aura of Courage grants an additional +2 Sacred bonus to saves against Fear and now also grants a +2 Sacred bonus to saves against Enchantment. You gain +1 to hit for all attacks. Your attacks now deal 2d6 additional Light damage. Saves against fear is mostly worthless. Enchantment is a little better. Probably not going to do much, but every enhancement can't be amazing.

• 10 AP, class level 6: Slayer of Evil II: You now gain +2 to hit evil and undead creatures. Your attacks now deal 3d6 additional Light damage. All your attacks are considered to be Ghost Touch. You resist evil influences particularly well, gaining a +3 bonus to saves against spells and effects produced by evil creatures. Ghost touch isn't bad, but it's not good. Comments on the other parts above.

• 20 AP, class level 12: Improved Courage of Heaven: Increases the Aura bonuses granted by Courage of Heaven by an additional +2. You now gain +2 to hit for all attacks. Your attacks now deal 4d6 additional Light damage. Same as above.

• 30 AP, class level 18: Slayer of Evil III: You now gain +3 to hit evil and undead creatures. Your attacks now deal 6d6 additional Light damage. You resist evil influences particularly well, gaining a +4 bonus to saves against spells and effects produced by evil creatures. Your vorpal hits against undead do an additional 500 damage. Why not extend the vorpal effect to all evil creatures? Maybe less damage--something like 100 damage to evil creatures or 500 to undead. It feels out of place only applying to undead, as everything else is evil creatures and undead creatures. Either way, it's not that great, but it's a nice boost. Scaling it with melee power would probably be okay, possibly too strong (500 + (500 * 1.5)) = 1250 damage 5%/10% of the time. But only against undead.

• 41 AP, class level 20: Champion of Good: You gain +4 Charisma and 10 Melee Power. The bonuses granted by Courage of Heaven are increased by an additional +2. Your attacks now deal 8d6 additional Light damage. Any weapon you wield is considered Good aligned for purposes of bypassing damage reduction. Previous melee power calculations did not include this capstone. Paladins are the only (non-Cleric/FvS)class I think you could get away with +4 cha on their damage tree and it'd still be good. Good aligned DR-breaking is less good than it used to be. Possibly allow Slayer of Evil's to-hit bonuses to additionally be damage bonuses (So +3 damage) at this point. Decent for a capstone as it is, however.

Tier One (0 AP Required)
• Extra Turning: +(1/2/3) Turn Attempts per rest. Could increase these to +1/+3/+5, or allow regen at rank 3 (1/30s isn't good, but gives some draw to it.)
• Divine Light: Your Turn Undead ability now also deals 6d6/12d6/18d6 light damage to nearby undead. Scales with 200% Melee Power.(18 + (18 * 3))d6 = 72d6 light damage. This sounds incredibly good initially. However... Average of d6 = 3.5. 3.5*72 = 252. This is incredibly low. This is roughly two attacks, which probably would happen faster than casting Divine Light. You could scale it with spell power, but that wouldn't help the paladins either. You could make it apply to weapons and hit as a bonus effect, but that would hurt clerics. I don't see anyone ever using this, and I would suggest replacing it with something new. A light based attack that scaled with melee power and didn't consume turn undead would be preferable. Maybe something like "Your next attack deals 1d6/2d6/3d6 bonus light damage (+100% Melee Power) to an evil creature. If the target is undead, instead deal 3d6/6d6/9d6 light damage (+200% Melee Power) instead. Cooldown: 6 seconds."
• Extra Remove Disease: +(2/4/6) Remove Disease uses per rest. This might see some use with Improved Restoration. Niche, but okay.
• Exalted Smite: You gain 2/4 additional use of Smite Evil per rest. Smiting is good.
• Action Boost: Attack: Activate to gain a +(4/6/8) Action Boost bonus to hit for 20 seconds. Attack boosts are pretty worthless, especially with all the core attack boosts in this tree. Consider changes mentioned on Damage Boost below.

Tier Two (5 AP Required)
• Improved Turning: You count as (1/2/3) levels higher when turning undead, and add (2/4/6) to the number of hit dice turned. This is awful. You will never turn undead in epics, and even in heroics it falls off quickly. Consider letting this regenerate turn uses (for synergy with Holy Retribution) or replacing it with something else. A positive energy spell power ability could be useful here, as paladins DO heal too.
• Divine Might: Channel Divinity: Channel Divinity: You gain an Insight bonus to Strength equal to your Charisma modifier for 30/60/120 seconds. (Cooldown 20 seconds) This remains one of the best paladin enhancements. Might want to make it use spell points instead of turns, but it doesn't matter much.
• Rally: Channel Divinity: Remove fear from nearby allies. You and the affected allies gain a +2/+4/+6 Moral Bonus to Will Saves vs. Fear effects and a +1/+2/+3 Morale Bonus to Attack and Damage for 60 seconds. (Coodown: 3 minutes) A bard makes everything on this enhancement worthless. In general it's bad, and it's even worse because it costs a turn. I understand the desire to make turns more valuable, but this is not the way to do it. If it cost a remove disease, it might be used in niche support paladin builds (with the other remove disease changes). Alternative: "Remove fear from nearby allies. You and the affected allies gain a +1/+2/+3 Morale Bonus to Will Saves vs. Fear effects, a +1/+2/+3 Holy Bonus to Attack and Damage for 60 seconds, and heal for 1d2/1d4/1d6 (+Spell Power) hit points per two paladin levels." -- This lets it be desireable, but competitive with the other relatively decent enhancements in the same tier.
• Exalted Cleave: Shares its cooldown with the Cleave feat. Make a sweeping attack against all nearby enemies for +1/+2/+3[W] damage. Very good.
• Action Boost: Damage: Activate to gain a (+10/+20/+30)% Action Boost bonus to Melee Power for 20 seconds. (Cooldown: 30 Seconds) This is a good boost. You could move it to tier 1 and apply some sort of modification to it here, similar to humans. Don't do stats, as that would take away from the uniqueness of human boosts. Maybe something along the lines of "While under the effects of an action boost, you deal +2d6/+4d6/+6d6 (+50% Melee Power) light damage to evil creatures."

Tier Three (10 AP Required)
• Improved Restoration: Your Paladin Remove Disease ability now also applies a (Lesser Restoration / Restoration / Greater Restoration) effect. Niche, but good. People will complain about this and it won't see much use, but I like the variety. Stupid neg levels.
• Divine Sacrifice: Giving up some of your life force to win the battle, you empower your next blow against your foe. This attack deals an additional (5/7/9)d6 Light damage and increases the critical multiplier of your weapon by 1, but costs you 5 hp and 1 sp, whether or not the attack is successful. Light damage scales with 100% Melee Power. This is good.
• Vigor of Life: Your Positive Healing Amplification is increased by (5/10)%, and you take (5/10)% less damage from Negative Energy. This is good.
• Exalted Smite: Active: An improved smite that adds +1/+1/+2 to your weapon's critical damage multiplier and 0/+1/+2 to your weapon's critical threat range. This is still one of the paladin's best tools.
• Str or Cha: +1 Strength or Charisma Appropriate stats.

Tier Four (20 AP Required)
• Censure Demons: You gain On Vorpal: Stuns Chaotic Evil outsiders for 3 seconds. Way too specific. There are hardly any evil outsiders at endgame, much less chaotic evil ones. It would require a name change, but consider extending this effect to all outsiders and undead. If you extend the creatures affected, I don't think anyone would be too upset if you changed the stun to 2 seconds, or made this enhancement scaling for a 1/2/3 second stun (Cost: 1 AP/Rank).
• Passion: Your Divine Sacrifice ability gains: On Damage: Gain (5/10/15) temporary spell points if you strike an undead or evil outsider an evil creature with this attack. This is okay. I've never been a fan of temporary spell points but it's somewhat cool to swap HP for SP. I assume the description means "all evil creatures" and is just not edited correctly. If not, it should be.
• Vigor of Life: Your Positive Healing Amplification is increased by (5/10)%, and you take (5/10)% less damage from Negative Energy. Good. Paladins should still be the masters of healing amp.
• Empowered Smite: Your Smite Evil and Exalted Smite abilities now grant a buff that increases Melee Power by 10 for 10 seconds. Interesting choice. I don't know how strong this will be, but I don't think it'll be weak. It's like a mini-damage action boost, and encourages the spacing of smites.
• Str or Cha: +1 Strength or Charisma Still appropriate.

Tier Five (40 AP Required)
• Censure Outsiders: Your Censure Demons ability now applies to all Chaotic or Evil outsiders. With the suggestions above, this could extend it to all evil creatures.
• Vigor of Life: Your Positive Healing Amplification is increased by (5/10)%, and you take (5/10)% less damage from Negative Energy. Good.
• Holy Retribution: Melee Channel Divinity: Executes a powerful holy strike against the target that deals +1/+3/+5[W] damage. On Damage: Evil creatures with less than 1,000 HP have a 50%/75%/100% chance to be forced to make a Will save (DC 10 + Paladin Level + Charisma Mod) or be destroyed. On a successful save, the affected creature takes 100 holy damage from this attack as well as -6 to all ability scores for ten seconds. (Cooldown: 6 seconds) This ability also recharges one Smite Evil. DC 30 + Cha mod isn't that great once you pass non-epic. The ability to regenerate smites is where this really shines. -6 to all ability scores is worthless to the paladin, and probably to his party too. Consider removing the stat penalty and making the holy damage scale with melee power. Can't really change the DC or it'll break it in non-epic. A cha-based paladin might make use of this and divine might (50 cha gets you a DC of 50, which is still bad unfortunately). If the DC scales with tactics, this is much better and possibly viable in epic.
• Sealed Life: You are immune to Energy Drain. Kind of takes away from Shadowdancer. But no self-respecting paladin will be dancing in shadows, and it makes sense. Good.
• Avenging Cleave: Shares its cooldown with the Great Cleave feat. Make a powerful sweeping attack against all nearby enemies that deals +1/+3/+5[W] damage. Each creature gains one stack of Vulnerability. Good.


We are still in the process of examining the Sacred Defender tree and will describe those changes in a future post.


Responses in green

[Nightmanis]

Holy Sword
We wanted to discuss changes to the Holy Sword spell as part of our ongoing discussion of Paladins.

We have several goals with this spell:

~ Make Paladin spellcasting more valuable.
~ Make the spell valuable when the Paladin has high end gear.
~ Increase the effectiveness of the Paladin class.

The spell is being redesigned as follows.

Holy Sword
Evocation (Good spells)
Paladin 4
Components: Verbal, Somatic
Metamagic: Quicken
Range: Touch
Target: Self
Duration: 1 minute per caster level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
Cooldown: 3 seconds

Channels holy power to increase the effectiveness of your equipped weapons. Weapons you currently are wielding gain an additional +2 holy bonus to enhancement value. The spell also increases the threat range and critical weapon multiplier of these weapons by 1.


Zeal
Zeal is already quite good, but as a quality of life change we are increasing its duration to match the new Holy Sword spell. It will now last one minute per caster level.


Sev~

Thank you for the increase on time for Zeal.

Also, make Holy Sword a competence bonus so it does not stack with the like of Knife Spec, Staff Spec, pulverizer etc. This will eliminate all the problems people are going to make of having a 14 paladin 5 rogue 1 monk acrobat.

Also make the light damage stack with light spellpower. Someone suggested that in the first diary and I like the idea so I wished to echo it here.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Sev,

I need you to take a step back. Look at EVERY class and EVERY tree.

Now please tell me, why would ANY character, melee or ranged, not simply go 14 Paladin/6 whatever and have the absolute best version of what melee/ranged character they want? Ranger for Manyshot, Monk for Throwing or Monking, Rogue for Staffing...It's TOO powerful. And I almost never call for nerfs.

Zeal and Holy Sword MUST become Competence based like almost EVERY OTHER class/ED/Race based Critical Threat and Multiplier adjustment (Swash, Halfling, LD, Kensei, etc).

If you need help from some expert builders who can already tell wht terrible things will happen if you go through with these changes, please just let us know. There are a few of us left who will tell you the truth.

Well, it doesnt stack with bard or barbarian crit bonuses because of alignment.

It doesn't stack with kensai since you would need 8 fighter and 14 paladin. And skipping all thos efighter levels would cost you a lot of feats, so making a melee toon with all the needed melee feats plus manyshot, isn't going to happen. You could do one or the other, fighter (or a fighter with a few things splashed) can do both.

Going 6 ranger 14 paladin would give up evasion and give up 10k stars from not taking monk.

Going 14 paladin 6 monk would give up enough unarmed dice that you would have to make some kind of weapon using monk, and then it doesn't stack with the crit bonuses from ninja spy because those would require 20 monk.

Really the only ones these stack with would be assassin knife training and acrobat/henshin staff training. I can't see someone making an assassin and giving up assassinate.

So that leaves henshin/acrobat, then you have a choice, do you give up 15% melee alacrity or shadow fade or give up holy sword at which point you might as well give up paladin.

[jakeelala]

Well, it doesnt stack with bard or barbarian crit bonuses because of alignment.


Going 14 paladin 6 monk would give up enough unarmed dice that you would have to make some kind of weapon using monk, and then it doesn't stack with the crit bonuses from ninja spy because those would require 20 monk.

This will be the most powerful Ranged, Centered Melee, and Throwing build in the game (14/6). All three categories, dominated by 1 class split. Melee = Staff (Stacking Qstaff crit), Ranged = Bow (only way to get bow Crit imporved, Manyshot, and 10k), Thrown = Shuriken (with stacking Halfling crit enhancements).

You are wrong.

[Scrabbler]

This will be the most powerful Ranged, Centered Melee, and Throwing build in the game (14/6).

Aside from those examples, there is forward compatibility to think about.

Maybe someday they want to change Tempest t5 to have crit, or reduce the level requirement for Kensei t5, or give Warpriest a crit bonus with the favored religious weapon. All of those possibilities are restricted if the devs have to worry about stacking it together with Paladin Holy Sword.

[Bingobong]

Holy Sword
We wanted to discuss changes to the Holy Sword spell as part of our ongoing discussion of Paladins.

We have several goals with this spell:

~ Make Paladin spellcasting more valuable.
~ Make the spell valuable when the Paladin has high end gear.
~ Increase the effectiveness of the Paladin class.

The spell is being redesigned as follows.

Holy Sword
Evocation (Good spells)
Paladin 4
Components: Verbal, Somatic
Metamagic: Quicken
Range: Touch
Target: Self
Duration: 1 minute per caster level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
Cooldown: 3 seconds

Channels holy power to increase the effectiveness of your equipped weapons. Weapons you currently are wielding gain an additional +2 holy bonus to enhancement value. The spell also increases the threat range and critical weapon multiplier of these weapons by 1.

Sorry, but no matter how I look at this, it looks way OP. At most, I think it should just get either +1 to threat range or +1 to critical multiplier, but not both. In fact I think even if it was +1 critical multiplier by itself, it would still be OP. Just +1 threat range is probably all it needs. Compare this to one of the fighter's best assets : +1 threat range to just ONE specialized weapon (and that's only with tier 5 enhancement and min of 8 fighter levels).

As mentioned by others, almost every non-bard melee toon will want to go 14-Paly / 6-something.

[Qhualor]

Sorry, but no matter how I look at this, it looks way OP. At most, I think it should just get either +1 to threat range or +1 to critical multiplier, but not both. In fact I think even if it was +1 critical multiplier by itself, it would still be OP . Compare this to one of the fighter's best assets : +1 threat range to just ONE specialized weapon.

As mentioned by others, almost every non-bard melee toon will want to go 14-Paly / 6-something.

A fighter that specializes in one weapon has more than one enhancement that increases their damage. They also have lots of feats to easily take the weapon fighting line, unlike a paladin that has a lot more feats to consider and they have less feats than a fighter.

[Scrabbler]

Sorry, but no matter how I look at this, it looks way OP. At most, I think it should just get either +1 to threat range or +1 to critical multiplier, but not both.

Notice that this is the same developer group who last month thought it was a good idea to give Bards +1 crit mult +2 crit range, at level 3.