Paladin: Sacred Defender Changes

[Zasral]

I like the listed changes, but I was hoping you would drop rage not working with DoS stance. This would be a large increase to both dps and survival of pally tanks, as well as buff to kotc pally's who spend ap in defender.

[Ladislaio]

doesn't this tree also have issues where some abilities don't stack with the divine destiny abillities? was that fixed?

Some abilities are Sacred bonus to threat, which do not stack with Intolerant Blows(Unyielding Sentinel, t3). I was writing up my post about this when you posted yours.

Another stacking issue is Reinforced Defense: Reinforced Shield(Paladin and Fighter trees, t4-5) does not stack with Shield Prowess(Unyielding Sentinel, t1). These both grant 15%/30%/50% bonus to your shield's AC bonus.

I would be very interested in if this is planned to be fixed also, now that the AP cost have been lessened such that we can actually afford the enhancements

[Ladislaio]

Reprisal(Paladin and Fighter trees, t5) seems to be getting a lot of comments about how it is too weak, and I must say that I agree with them.

Perhaps something akin to Thread the Needle(Swashbuckler, t5) would be better here? '2 ap: while Combat Expertise is active gain 5 damage if you have been attacked within the last 3 seconds'. Maybe even make it 10 points of damage if you are using a shield, or remove the 'have been attacked' portion.

...
Thinking about that I think I would like to see an enhancement that improved Combat Expertise in the trees. Maybe have it grant more AC while active as a T5, or maybe additional threat?
...

[Thar]

Reinforced armor--should not be restricted to hvy armor--open it up to all armor.

I disagree that +1 damage is insignificant. Since it is affected by crits, it's good. However +1 dam on next attack ONLY is horrible.
.

where does it say heavy armor only? if so yes this needs to be for all as it is today.

+1 damage is insignificant when trash mobs have 7000 hp. +1 damage on the next attack is a waste of coding time as no one is going to use it.

41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating.

this needs some umph... what other capstones do you have to DIE to use. Isn't the whole of this tree to get ac/prr so you don't die? At the minimum give a holy blast of 200-300 upon use to all mobs in the surrounding area.

it really should be scrapped to give some useful ability while tanking do some type of damage or protect another player for a time.

defending is great... but if you can't kill it you can't defend forever... this isn't the ac world of 3-4 years ago. AC means a lot less with dimishing returns and glancing blows. 3 ac at 120 ish is only a 1%bump in miss chance per the ui bar. less on EE.

[bbqzor]

Sev, can you please adjust the 1 point of positive spell power to also include 1 point repair for BF and WF paladins? There is a lack of synergy with this race.

This is a good idea. The "risk" of some wf caster or whatever taking it just for "more repair" is pretty minimal. Spending 20 AP here to get 20 sp is just generally too compromising to casting and such, to cause problems over "more repairing". Meanwhile, Bladeforged not only forces paladin, but alters the spell list to have repairs, and is otherwise totally without a way to affect them. Very solid suggestion.

Same for the capstone, dual type the 250 as both Poasative & Repair please.

As with the above, probably a good move. Or just change it from "cure" to "heal", so it works on both (like LoH does). Whatever technical change it is, making it work for Bladeforged so they have a usable capstone is a worthy fix while you are in the tree.

Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance.

good if your a drow, otherwise who finds 6 spell resis useful? add mrr bonus?

Another good suggestion. 6 SR is basically worthless, even on drow. But since someone will undoubtedly post "hey I use that" just leave it there. Adding some MRR too, now that we have that stat, will ensure this is not simply discarded by 99% of your players, and instead add something unique to the paladin tree to help balance out the better mix of abilities in the fighter one. Id suggest +10/20/30 but Im sure that will be seen as too high so maybe +5/10/15, and keep the SR bonus so people trying to build "anti caster" drow paladins or something can double dip a bit or something.

To be clear, I only said that it was not useless and that I like the mechanic of reprisal. For a tier 5 ability it is quite weak, but I'd rather see it keep the same mechanic with more damage and less stacks than change it to just another generic damage mod to suit non-tank dps builds. Something like +1/2/3 damage stacking 3/4/5 times would be more appropriate relative to other tier 5 abilities.

I think anything which strips off after you swing 1 time is, by its very nature, going to remain "quite weak for a tier 5 ability" unless it becomes silly (like +100 dmg, ok obviously not weak but clear hyperbole). Why not simply allow it to scale up and down by time, as long as you are under attack? Similar to how other such things work?

You seem focused on the idea that tanking huge waves of 10+ guys is the best gameplay for the ability to promote, in order to create a situation where you can actually get hit 5+ times between your own attacks. Many tanks dont encounter that much while playing. Many tanks are not super end-game and couldnt even if they wanted to. Many tank situations in raids revolve around single big targets rather than waves even for those that can tank waves. The list goes on and on, where this is not ideal.

I dont think its appropriate for the only DPS enhancement in the tree, which is also a T5 one competing with other trees, to focus only on that one situation. Tanks need to be viable elsewhere, and need to be able to contribute dps even when they are not "tanking" at full tilt. If anything, thats when they need DPS the most, as their other skill set (damage mitigation / mob control) isnt being brought to bear.

I understand its encouraging tanking. And I understand youd prefer it be something different than just +X dmg (which I might add is completely reasonable and a shared sentiment). But having it be forced to occur in the tiny window between your own attacks is an absurd requirement which only caters to one playing situation which, even if you wanted to use it, is not available all the time. Let alone the times you really want/need a tank, such as raid bosses.

Let it remain tied to being swung at. Using that as a trigger for the bonus is fine, and prevents "non tanks" from trying to capitalize on it. If there is concern over someone just generally getting swung at in the course of play from cleaves and such, make the timer only 3s. There are several other cases of this where it works fine, such as Beguile, which are entirely playable. Getting swung at multiple times every 3s should be enough to keep non-tanks from getting use out of more than 1 tier of this, and thats fine. If a non-tank takes T5 in this tree, its okay to get some benefit... and having only full heavy tanks get the benefit of max ranks in it is fair too. Hopefully this leads to some better suggestions, as the way it stands its just not worth any AP to a majority of players.

Some abilities are Sacred bonus to threat, which do not stack with Intolerant Blows(Unyielding Sentinel, t3). I was writing up my post about this when you posted yours.

This is less of an issue than it somewhat seems, as getting Intolerant Blows costs non-paladins more Destiny Points (they dont start with smite so have to buy Fanaticism, bigger cost but bigger threat gain), and means Paladins are less inclined to feel they need to spend Destiny Points on Intolerant Blows (they can use Divine Righteousness and have more points free for other choices in the Sentinel tree). I wouldnt mind a fix, but there is too much to buy in the Sentinel tree already, and this is one of those cases where rather than being seen as a problem, I see it as promoting different epic tree choices.

Not everyone will agree, and I realize that, but I wanted to point out that since the abilities have different net-costs and net-gains, because ftr/pal start in different places re: smite and sacred agro mods, it doesnt have to be totally equal. They can, in the end, be afforded the same agro mods, they just get there via different paths, so fix or no its workable because the max-values are balanced.

Another stacking issue is Reinforced Defense: Reinforced Shield(Paladin and Fighter trees, t4-5) does not stack with Shield Prowess(Unyielding Sentinel, t1). These both grant 15%/30%/50% bonus to your shield's AC bonus.

Last time I tested this, which was oh... back around U18 now I suppose, I believe only the paladin one did not stack. I am not 100% sure on if the fighter one did or didnt, Ive since reworked that character and dont have those notes it seems. In either event, both of them should stack. There is no "smite requirement" here to differentiate things, or parallel abilities at different values. Flat out, both classes should have access to the same amount of modifier here at the same cost. Right now they either dont (if ftr stacks and paladin doesnt), or neither of them have access (their enhancements preempt the epic mod).

Point blank, your T5 enhancement (assuming they take the armor mod first at T4, as its much more likely to be the bigger number and more reliably equipped) shouldnt not-stack with an epic destiny. And thats the situation there is here, at least for one class maybe for both. Fix that stuffs!

Between this and the junky Reprisal, vs the terrible holy retribution and censure outsiders, its like you dont want anyone taking any paladin T5. While Im on the topic... can we get the 2 paladin cleave enhancements to affect Dreadnoughts timers the way the Thief Acrobat cleaves do? I mean come on, Sweeping Strikes with a staff powers up Momentum Swing but paladin Great Cleave, which even shares a timer with the feat, doesnt? Be nice to get confirmation on that too.

[Wizza]

Totally disagree, most of the mobs in EE hit a tank far less than 300 damage. In my guild there is a pally with the capstone and right now he is almost immortal even on EE (not against bosses of course); he can go down to -110 or more without dying and with the auto resurrection he can't die in fact.

You need a tank for EE questing? :\ If you want to make it any useful, improve the range of unconsciousness by 200. 40 is just meh. You will see its usefullness rarely and that is not good for a capstone. Hell, Human gets extended range of unconsciousness at TIER 1 for HALF OF THE CAPSTONE BONUS.

Not a capstone worthy.

As i said in the KotC thread, the minimal changes and buffs paladins are getting, both here and there, litterally dont matter and wont bring them back from the absolute worst class in the game.

Agreed. I was expecting a complete full revamp of these trees to bring paladins back, just like Bards. Heck, holy sword alone is better than "these" changes.

[Dilbon]

Another stacking issue is Reinforced Defense: Reinforced Shield(Paladin and Fighter trees, t4-5) does not stack with Shield Prowess(Unyielding Sentinel, t1). These both grant 15%/30%/50% bonus to your shield's AC bonus.

But they do stack, my paladin gets 115% AC bonus to shield in Sentinel.

[bloodnose13]

comments in blue:

Greetings.

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.

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.

great idea to finaly drop the ap cost, it will help a lot with customizing the build

Now onto the tree changes:


Innate Abilities

• 1 AP: Holy Bastion: You gain +1 Hit Point and 1 Positive Energy Spell Power for each action point you spend in this tree. Each Sacred Defender Core Ability you possess grants +2% Fortification.
• (Moved to tier 2) 5 AP, Pal3: Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical Resistance and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to threat generation. (Note: the movement penalty was removed.) (Note: the stance does not require a shield.) why do we even need it to be a stance?, there is no reason for this to be a toggle anymore
• (Moved to tier 3) 10 AP, Pal6: Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score and a 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation for 60 seconds.
• 20 AP, Pal12: Redemption: The following spells are added to the Paladin spell list: Level 2: Raise Dead Level 3: Resurrection Level 4: True Resurrection. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
• 30 AP, Pal18: Glorious Stand: Channel Divinity: For a short duration you gain DR 20/epic, take reduced damage from elemental and negative energy, receive double healing from positive energy, and are immune to secondary effects of attacks such as 'wounding' or 'vorpal'. Passive: You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating and 5 Magical Resist Rating.
• 41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating. this ability to get immediate healing at cost of !!!!!!!!!2!!!!!!!!! layons for !!250!! needs to go, first of all its a crutch, second of all its a similar weird design as resurrect ability from shintao monk, where monk has to be dead to rez someone else................please replace it with something usefull for actualy is for staying alive or dealing damage (maybe something that activates or has chance to activate when getting attacked, a smite charge returning ability on being attacked for example?, similar mirrored for attacking could go to kotc tree capstone?)

Tier One (0 AP Required)

• Item Defense: You have a (25/50/75)% chance to negate potential item wear. i dont know why we even need this in the tree, unless dieing over and over again, item wear is not that great of a problem
• Extra Lay on Hands: You gain +(1/2/3) uses of Lay on Hands.
• Improved Sacred Defense: Multiselector: this is still same kind of weird space hog as it was before, an ability that takes 3x3 slots!!!, please merge it into one, even if you made it cost 2 ap for 3 stacks of 1 ability it will be good, and then move it to tier 3, at tier 1 there could be an enchancement for something that each paladin has soon, like auras, maybe a multiselector of 3-4 to choose from an ability "stance" if you would like to call it that, each of them for diffrent situation (one for attack, one for defence against magic, one for tanking one against many enemies? whole line of enchancements in this tree could expand on this idea, and add additional bonuses to those "stances"), at tier 2 ability a second choice, but never allowing to take all 4, maybe abilities to choose from that would be added to the aura, not only for defence but maybe for temporary boosting attack abilities
  
  • Resilient Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(1/2/3) Sacred bonus to all Saving Throws.
  • Durable Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a +(5/10/15) Sacred bonus to Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resist Rating.
  • Inciting Defense: While in Sacred Defense, you gain a (25/50/75)% Sacred bonus to melee threat generation.
  
  
• Sacred Armor Mastery: +(1/2/3) Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Maximum Dexterity Bonus when wearing Armor.
• Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1. nice but pointless, usefull only for a zerger that does not wait for rogue to disable traps...... tyvm but no

Tier Two (5 AP Required)

• Instinctive Defense: You take 5% less extra damage when struck while helpless. here i would like to suggest moveing it higher in tree and changeing it to a chance to reroll a save roll of 1, it would actualy be something usefull then, it would be a mini version of no fail on roll of 1
• Bulwark Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/3/5) Armor Class. again merge, merge, merge and add more abilities that would ride on aura and give some extra bilities near paladin, to make party actualy want a paladin tank with them and to hang around him/her/it
• Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
• Sacred Shield Mastery: +(5%/10%/15%) Shield Armor Class and (+1/2/3) Tower Shield Maximum Dexterity Bonus. you gave rogues kukri proficiency so why not give paladin a tower shield proficiency as part of this? maybe move it higher in tree if you do, but please do it.
• Defense Boost: Activate to gain a (+5/+10/+15) Action Boost bonus to Armor Class, Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds.

Tier Three (10 AP Required)

• Resistance Aura: Your Aura now grants +(1/2/3) to Saving Throws.
• Improved Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
• Greater Sacred Defense: Multiselector: since stance is no longer needed and coult be removed, this could as well go to be added to cores, cores 6/12/18 as it was in old enchancements, it would actualy mean that someone splashing 12 paldin levels wont get full +6.........
  
  • Strong Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Strength
  • Hardy Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Constitution
  • Tenacious Defense: Sacred Defense: While wearing medium or heavy armor or wielding a shield you gain a +(10/15/20)% Sacred bonus to maximum hit points.
• +1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma

Tier Four (20 AP Required)

• Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor.
  Choose One:
  Reinforced Armor: The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15%/30%/50%. could you please make both of those abilities two stacks 25%/50%, it would free 2 ap and make this ability less of annoyance, it always felt to me annoying i have to unlock it 3 times each to get full bonus
  Reinforced Shield: The Armor Class bonus you gain from using a shield is increased by 15%/30%/50%¹.
• Spellshield Aura: Your Aura now grants a +(2/4/6) Sacred bonus to Spell Resistance. kinda pointless, i would suggest similar approach as with barbarian, giveing a sr based on charisma stat, and then maybe a bonus on top of it if you realy want to make stack of it.
• Swift Defense: Sacred Defense grants you a 10% sacred bonus to movement speed.
• Greater Sacred Defense: See tier one. (Pick one you don’t have.)
• +1 Con or Cha: +1 Constitution or Charisma

Tier Five (30 AP Required)

• Reprisal: On Attacked: Your next attack gains +1 damage. This effect stacks (3/6/10) times. i would suggest same approach as with vulnerability, stacks with short duration, 4-6 seconds? and additional thing +1% alacrity per stack, that would make this ability from complete meh to something that would make any tank to want to have it, and to want to have aggro. abilities that require being attacked, not actualy hit are the way to go in tank trees.
• Reinforced Defense: Improves the Armor Class bonuses you receive from shields or armor. Choose the option you didn't choose at Tier 4.
• Harbored By Light: You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. You gain 1/2/3 uses of Lay On Hands.* In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage. two things, one, maybe a layon regeneration, very slow, 1 per 5 minutes, with timer lowering to 3 and 2 minutes for takeing core 18 and capstone, second please make this light damage dont require blocking but put it on toggle, so it can be turned off in situation when tank does not want to have guard on, being stuck with a guard you cant take off is pretty nasty, also i would like to suggest that maybe it should be something else than an actual damage guard, we can get damage guards on items easly enough, but something like vulnerability on being attacked or other type of weakening stacking ability would be way better than this, and it would not require toggle then, maybe regular attack against player (hit or no) a vulnerability stack, when enemy rolls crit, no matter if it gets through fort or no, its a 1d4 negative level for enemy?
• Greater Sacred Defense: Further improves your Sacred Defense stance. Pick the third option left.

one last thing i would like to suggest adding a stunning smite to tier 5, it would take its dc from str + cha modifiers, no other bonuses from tree, and would be affected by item and destiny bonuses to the tac dc.

*Note: Harbored By Light mistakenly gives 1/2/3 Lay On Hands on live. We made it an official bonus.

Sev~

this tree was a hog when it first appered and it will remain a hog untill you do sometihng usefull in it, paladin levels by themselves dont give anything thrilling past certain point, and this enchancemetn tree is extension of it, you just get stuff that was part of a STANCE in old system but now you need to take each of it in stacks separately!!, there is a lot of aspects of such class /gameplay choice combination that are barely explored, paladin defender, as name suggests should be focusing not only on himself but also on party, so any ability that not only helps party to survive but to do better damage would be a great idea, similar for fighter defender, they should be based closer on marshal class, with command/formation like abilities that would boost party, and make both paladin and fighter feel more like more active part of party.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Tower Shield Prof sounds more like a Vanguard ability seeing as its meant to be the shield tree.

Your excellent point has convinced me.

[CaptainSpacePony]

1) I have to disagree on the the +1 damage being anything close to significant...even if it is affected by crits.
2) 2 Pal may well become 3 Pal, but it's never made sense to place stance improvements in front of the actual stance...
3) I'll have to disagree here again. Tanks forever chasing stuff around because they can't catch it to intim it makes for a poor (if comedic) and frustrating tanking experience.
4) 12 levels of Pally to gain tower shields? I think this would be more appropriately placed at 6. Tanks shouldn't have to wait for level 12 to suddenly become defensively useful, and fighter tanks (or non-tanks even) can use this from level one. What's needed at 12, 18, 20 is something that rather functionally increases the benefit of tower shield use by adding a light guard effect (to aid in holding agro) or somesuch. To add teeth to the capstone, make it grant a chance (say 5-10 percent) of knockdown when the guard procs (for a reasonably short duration...3 seconds would seem fine here for a passive proc). This also adds inherent cc potential to a toon that is still likely to be overwhelmed if surrounded by enough mobs to make some of their other abilities matter in EE content.

Regarding +1 damage, DDO is a game of small increments that add and multiply to very significant numbers. I would agree that +1 is insignificant in cases when it doesn't stack with other things.

The stance bonuses before stances availability is a great point, and always has been. I understand the constraints of tree design and understand why it's the way it is. I accept that, but like you don't like it. My main point here is still that stance is very strong and making it splashable strikes me as unwise.

I agree that tanks want to be fast. Just because they want to be doesn't mean they should be able to strap on their Volkswagen beetles and hit the accelerator. I do appreciate the removal of the speed penalty, but the bonus is pushing it too much.

Pal 6 vs 12 for tower shiled is a judgment call. Since it is something new, I lean conservative, especially because they can blow a feat or splash a lvl of ftr to get it if they really want it. I should add that I have revised my opinion and think this ability belongs in the Vanguard tree rather than defender.

[CaptainSpacePony]

where does it say heavy armor only? if so yes this needs to be for all as it is today.
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It was in the OP, but has been changed. Probably was a typo.

[ChicagoChris]

•41 AP, Pal20: Eternal Defender: Passive: You gain +2 Charisma and +2 Constitution, and grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Lay on Hands and Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing. Passive: You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating and 10 Magical Resist Rating.

...
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 hope this scales with spell power, or its marginalized at L20. At L20, a paiy might have 350-450 HP, so that's about 2/3's, which would probably save the pali. At L28, however, the pali could have 800, making this about 30% - and against epics, an additional 250 would be gone in seconds.

Can't we change this to 1) either be a fixed percentage (heals a base of 50% plus positive spell power) or heals a fixed amount that scales per level (heals 150 + 5 per level - 250 at L20, 290 at L28, all scaled by positive spell power).

You're making great efforts into scaling damage based off level, lets aim to do the same for all other fixed numbers.

[harry-pancreas]

(it makes this already lack luster ability much to costly, 2 Lay on hands heals for much more than 250hp by it self). Also, is the +50 PRR form Harbored by Light WAI or are we losing that too?

Most things are cool, good changes, but this is overwhelming. Currently i have a lvl 20 pally and my LoH heals around 450. The capstone heals me around 400 after all the Hamp and everything. So i'd be losing 2 turns and 2 LoH uses for a 400+ heal, when i could use 2 LoH for 900-ish, and keep those 2 turns (not super useful but, hey, that's 4 mins of div. might if full tiered). I think if you remove the 2 LoH cost, or even if you make it just 1 LoH looks better.

Reprisal sucks. Can't think a way to make it better, i'd replace it with something else (why not something adding melee power 3/6/10, 2 ap's per tier. Or, if you don't wanna give a DPS boost, reducing the cooldown of intim could help to keep the aggro. Something like +2/+4+/6 intim and -1s/3s/5s reduction to the cooldown).

And 6 spell resistance bonus it's worthless. IMO you should make the bonus to be the double (or triple) or replace it with something else

[zaldron36]

These are my ideas for the changes on the core abilities for the Sacred Defender:

Pal1 - Holy Bastion: No changes

Pal3 - Divine Righteousness: Channel Divinity: You gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score, 100% Sacred bonus to threat generation and on hit 1d6 light damage for 60 seconds. Light damage increases by 1d6 per each core ability taken beyond this one (max: 5d6) and scales with light spellpower.

Pal6 - Sacred Defense: Defensive Stance: No changes

Pal12 - Eternal Defender: grants a Sacred bonus that increases your range of unconsciousness by your Charisma score. (This bonus updates once per minute.) Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points, two uses of Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for a number of points of Positive Energy healing equal to one of your Lay on Hands.

Pal18 - Glorious Stand: No changes

Pal20 - Favor of the Gods: Passive: No changes. Activate: For 30 seconds you are immune to one attack every 3 seconds and one of your melee attacks scores an automatic critical hit every 3 seconds. The immunity affects the first attack (melee, ranged or magical) within a 3 second period that would otherwise hit. The automatic critical hit applies to the first successful attack made within a 3 second period. Cost 50 sp and maybe have a cooldown. Maybe share cooldown with Glorious Stand. It could last 60 seconds with 6 second periods or something like that.

[XodousRoC]

Regarding +1 damage, DDO is a game of small increments that add and multiply to very significant numbers. I would agree that +1 is insignificant in cases when it doesn't stack with other things.

The stance bonuses before stances availability is a great point, and always has been. I understand the constraints of tree design and understand why it's the way it is. I accept that, but like you don't like it. My main point here is still that stance is very strong and making it splashable strikes me as unwise.

I agree that tanks want to be fast. Just because they want to be doesn't mean they should be able to strap on their Volkswagen beetles and hit the accelerator. I do appreciate the removal of the speed penalty, but the bonus is pushing it too much.

Pal 6 vs 12 for tower shiled is a judgment call. Since it is something new, I lean conservative, especially because they can blow a feat or splash a lvl of ftr to get it if they really want it. I should add that I have revised my opinion and think this ability belongs in the Vanguard tree rather than defender.

I think we both are able to see each others points for the most part here, and while we may respectfully disagree with each other, I think your last point is something that resonates. Making the tower shield available (relatively cheaply) in the Vanguard line makes a lot of sense. My thought, given the state of the two current tree revisions, is that Vanguard is going to (have to) have some nice low hanging fruit for pure Pallies to pick whether in KoTC/HoTD or Sacred Defender. The Defender tree just doesn't look all that attractive to me, and the heavy AP investment in it will make a deep dive into Vanguard difficult. It may turn out that most Defenders are actually T5 Vanguards with whatever Defender benes they can squeeze in...

[EllisDee37]

Saves Boost: Activate to gain a (+2/+4/+6) Action Boost bonus to all Saving Throws for 20 seconds. While under this effect you do not automatically fail saving throws on a roll of a natural 1.

good but i don't use as either my saves are good enough all the time or they aren't. 20 sec is too short to bother, but i know some like this.

It's mostly the "don't auto-fail on a 1" that makes it useful, especially for running through a dangerous trap you have plenty of saves to beat but rolling a 1 might kill you.

[toapat]

As documented Divine Righteousness(3ed innate), Improved Sacred Defense: Inciting Defense(t1-3, multi selector), and Intolerant Blows(Unyielding Sentinel, t3) are all Sacred bonuses to threat generation. This would mean that they do not stack.

percentage threat increases stack when of the same type but not of the same value. My main character wouldnt be able to pull aggro passively off of classes that deal 4-7 times her DPS by virtue of KotC being virtually worthless as is for an offensive tree and which with the revisions still wont be good.

[Krelar]

percentage threat increases stack when of the same type but not of the same value. My main character wouldnt be able to pull aggro passively off of classes that deal 4-7 times her DPS by virtue of KotC being virtually worthless as is for an offensive tree and which with the revisions still wont be good.

Are we sure they stack?

Dodge on equipment used to, no longer does. (Intentional, documented change)
Armor piercing on equipment used to, no longer does. (Undocumented change as far as I know)
Elemental absorption on equipment used to, no longer does. (Undocumented change as far as I know)

Healing amp on equipment still does.


Not sure how to even test threat stacking well.

[harry-pancreas]

Are we sure they stack?

Dodge on equipment used to, no longer does. (Intentional, documented change)
Armor piercing on equipment used to, no longer does. (Undocumented change as far as I know)
Elemental absorption on equipment used to, no longer does. (Undocumented change as far as I know)

Healing amp on equipment still does.


Not sure how to even test threat stacking well.

the thread is old, but i think the threat still works as it's explained there. Look for eladrin's post.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...scussion/page2

[Alcedes]

Greetings.

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.

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.
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*Note: Harbored By Light mistakenly gives 1/2/3 Lay On Hands on live. We made it an official bonus.

Sev~

While I'm sure these changes are made with the best intent, and they are not bad changes I guess, Paladin tanks really are not in need of more survivability...they are in desperate need of DPS. You guys literally added 0 DPS with these changes. ((Sure, reducing the cost of some abilities can help a little...but you STILL have to spend 41 (on stuff that doesnt help boost dps and hence hold aggro!) points to get all the goodies))

Can you PLEASE add some light damage to some of that stuff or something?

Also, you have to severely gimp a paladin in order to obtain Intimidate scores that are even remotely usable in in Epic Elite content. How about adding some more intimidate in their some where? Pretty please?

Super pretty please with a cherry on top..a bit more DPS and bit more Intim?