Paladin: Sacred Defender Changes

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The cost for the capstone wasn't changed, so it may be that the documentation I copied this from was out of date.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