U51 Preview 2: Unyielding Sentinel

[Torc]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Overview: Unyielding offers great durability, a new taunt mechanic and some powerful healing tools. The playstyle has become more active rewarding attacking with only intermitted blocking. Useful for pure tanks or anyone looking to increase their survivability.

Core 1 (level 20): Unyielding: You gain the Diehard feat. Each core ability of this tree, including this one, grants +35 Hit Points, 20 Spell Points, and 5 Melee Power

Core 3 (level 23): Ward Against Darkness: You are protected by a ward against curses. This ward can absorb one curse every 60 seconds. You gain 10% Evil damage absorption.

Core 6 (level 26): Stand Against the Tide: Immune to most forms of Knockdown while wearing a shield.


Tier 1 (req level 20):

• Ever Watchful: +2/4/6 Spot & Listen. Rank 3: You are immune to blindness effects.
• Divine Energy Resistance: Cost: 15 SP This SLA grants 35 resistance to Acid, Cold, Fire, Sonic, Electric for 1 minute per character level to all allies in the standard area of effect; centered on the caster. You can apply metamagic feats to this SLA for free (extend, quicken). The effect does not stack with Resist Energy spell. Cooldown: 6 seconds.

• Epic Strike - multiselector:

• Celestial Mandate: Melee Cleave: 6W Adds 3000 Hate to target and slows their movement by 50% for 10 seconds. Grants a +1/2/3 buff to Magical and Physical Resistance Ratings for 15 seconds. Double this bonus if using a shield. Stacks 6 times. Cooldown: 6 seconds.

• Guard Up - Gain a Sacred Temporary Hit Point bonus equal to 300% of your Melee Power for 6 seconds. This can be used while stunned, or otherwise disabled. Cooldown: 12 seconds.

• Attack and Defend: +1/2/3 to hit. Triple this bonus if using combat expertise.
• Brace for Impact: +10/25/50% Fortification, rank 3: +1 to all Saving Throws.

Tier 2 (req level 22):

• Renewal: SLA: heal-over time. Heals 1d2 HP per 2 character levels every 2 seconds for 8 seconds.
• Mantle of the Sentinel: Aura of Destiny - You gain a 15 Healing Amp, Absorb 15% of all force, fire, electric, acid, cold, sonic, chaos and evil damage. Grants Immunity to Mind effects from evil creatures
• Knight's Challenge: Requires shield to use. Throws a Spiritual version of your Shield at a single target for 1d20 Law damage per character level, scales with 200% melee power. Creatures struck by the shield reset their hate and are compelled to target the player for 8 seconds. Cooldown: 20 seconds.
• Commanding Presence: +150/300/450% Threat Generation.
• Shield Prowess: Your Shield's Armor Class contribution is increased by 15/30/50%.

Tier 3 (req level 24):

• Legendary Shield Mastery: While wearing a shield, you gain +5/10/15 Physical Resistance Rating. Rank 3: You gain 6% Double Strike
• Hands of the Sentinel: Gain the Lay on Hands feat. Using Lay Hands now uses the highest of Charisma or Constitution score to determine its effect and also uses your total character level instead of paladin level.
• The Rule of Law: Your Mantle of the Sentinel now grants your melee attacks a chance to pulse a out a wave of d3/4/6 law damage per character level around the player. CD: 8s. Scales with the highest of 200% Melee Power or Spell Power.
• Spark of Life: Your armor gains Death Block, protecting you from death effects. Passive: Gain 25 Hit Points.
• Into the Fray: When you first strike a foe with a melee attack gain +2/4/6 Damage & +10/15/25 Physical & Magical Resistance Rating buff for 5 seconds. This effect will not reoccur until you are out of combat for at least 3 seconds.

Tier 4 (req level 26):

• Endless Vigil: Requires Lay Hands or Hands of the Sentinel. Passive Bonus: +1/2/3 Lay On Hands use per rest. Lay On Hands regenerate one use every 180/160/145 seconds.
• Hardened Purpose: +5/10/15 Armor Class. Rank 3: Increase the Mantle of the Sentinel damage absorption by another 5%.
• Throw the Boom: (req Knight's Challenge) Knight's Challenge now affects small area around the target and applies a Stun, DC: 20 + Stun Bonuses + STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA for 6 seconds.
• Divine Bulwark: +5 Physical Resistance Rating. If you have the Bulwark of Defense feat, gain an additional +10 Physical Resistance Rating
• The Best Defense: Blocking a melee attack now grants a +1/2/4 bonus to Damage, Hit and Crit damage for 12 seconds. This can only occur once every 12 seconds. Passive: Gain +20/40/60 to Max Hit Points

Tier 5 (req level 30):

• Resurrection: Cost: 15 SP. Can now cast Resurrection as a spell-like ability. Cooldown: 6 seconds.
• Strength of Vitality: Gain 3/6/10% Insight bonus to Max Hit Points. Rank 3: Increase Insight bonus to 20% if Mantel of the Sentinel is active.
• Undying Vanguard: Activate Your body becomes a fortified fortress. Completely heal yourself and gain 10,000 Temporary Hit Points & +5 Weapon Dice for 30 seconds. You can use this while Crowd Controlled. Cooldown: 5 minutes
• Deific Resilience: You gain the Deific Warding feat. If you already have it, you gain +5% Quality bonus to Maximum Hit Points
• Light the Dark: (requires Lay Hands) Using Lay on Hands is now an AoE, healing friends and damaging undead near the selected target. This effect scales with the highest of 200% melee power or 50% of spell power.

Change from previous preview

Cores now grant 35 hit points up from 20.
Mantle of the Unyielding Sentinel changed to a single rank 2 AP buy
Celestial Mandate Defense now lasts 15 seconds up from 8.
Celestial Mandate now cleaves, but it's cool down has been increased to 6 seconds from 4.5
Reborn in Light replaced by Undying Vanguard in tier 5
Into the Fray now resets after 3 seconds of no combat.
Guard Up's duration increased to 6 seconds from 4 and cooldown reduced to 12 seconds from 15.
Spark of Life now also adds 25 max Hit Points in addition to the death block effect.
Reduced Melee Power in the cores to 5 (the melee power in the epic level feats was increased to off set this)

Known Issues:

Undying Vanguard incorrectly says it's once a rest in the tool tip

[Seph1roth5]

Not sure if I need to reiterate complaints from the first preview? Maybe I'll just mention the ones that stick out heh....

Ward against darkness - Curse ward useless at once per minute. How about some kind of buff when you ARE cursed?

Knight's Challenge - really like this ability, but how exactly does the "compelleted to target the player for 8 sec" work?


Into the Fray - What does "out of combat" entail?



Undying Vanguard - 5 min cooldown is ****. Also +5w odd in a tank tree.

[silinteresting]

Why has the +3 lay on hands been moved from tier 3 on live to tier 4 here, my bladeforged Pali is most upset.

[Zretch]

I think Undying Vanguard is right where it should be now. Only being able to use it once per rest was too restrictive, but being able to meld every 3 minutes made up for that. Now that meld is gone, Undying on a 5 minute cooldown is fine. If it's up too often, it's a crutch and encounters will need to be balanced to assuming the tanks will always have 10k extra hitpoints and it's going to lead to some really cancerous fights. If it's not up often enough, then the group slows down waiting for it to recharge. If you're having to use a bail out button on every fight, it's likely a sign that you're in too high a difficulty for your gear / build.

What I noticed most about the changes were that our hitpoints are basically right where they are on live, with the potential to get a bit more depending on the secondary trees you go into.
MRR, saves, intimidate, heal amp are all pretty comparable.
PRR and AC are about 25 points lower each. PRR is likely due to a loss of Improved Combat Expertise and Martial Hymn. The AC loss is harder to figure out. You lose 5 natural armor from the current core and 5 more from Martial Hymn. That gets you about halfway there, but I don't know where the rest were lost.

Either way, I'll take -25 PRR and -25 AC for a ranged AoE taunt, higher elemental absorption, CON based lay upon hands, and unlimited Undying Vanguards as a fair trade. It was also nice to be able to reclaim multiple AP out of Falconry with Deific Resilience. Allowing the choice between spending a feat to free up enhancement AP, or reclaim the feat and spend more AP into Falconry provides a nice bit of flexibility.

[Amastris]

no adjustments to include Repair amp for Bladeforged pally or neg Hamp for abyss tanklock, what a let down. there are other types tanks besides fleshies!

Edit: but yet there is heal amp in T1 of GMoF which makes little sense. guess its time to roll up a WF monk FTW!

[Baahb3]

Agreed, why add +W to epic moment. Who the hell plays a tank and cares about +W.

Make it a removal of Intimidate cool down, or give them +100 HP/s healing or something useful at least.

I ask again, why make the damage here Law damage. Not all tanks are Paladins. It makes no sense for my CG Stalwart Defender to be throwing around Law damage. Make it untyped already.

[Grunthorno]

Not going to do big writeup format.

Every change made was good, lots of extra HP, we got our epic moment for a defensive clicky.

It's all around where we want it to be.


Bugs?:
The Best Defense (T4) doesn't have the + HP implemented in game.
Hardened Purpose (T3) gives 10% absorb in game, 5% in patch notes.
Celestial Mandate (T1) still has all stacks dropping at the same time, has a 4.5sec cooldown, and a 9sec uptime, instead of the 6/15. Also consistently strikes twice on TWF and only once on S&B

[Tilomere]

My understanding is that mountain stance monks are supposed to be tanks, can we add multiselectors to the shield abilities that grant such monks characters MRR cap in earth stance and increased effectiveness of MRR vs. reflex damage.

I don't think I've seen a mountain stance monk in the last decade.

That same multiselector should also service RM artificer tanks, which also due to a lack of shield doubling MRR vs. reflex and lack of shield deflection take effectively quadruple damage and get automatically pasted by non-evadable raid reflex damage.

I haven't seen a RM tank with a runearm ever.

The four shield abilities in this tree could have the following multiselector:

Alternative defenses: While centered in earth stance or wielding a runearm: 25% bonus threat, 15 MRR Cap, Your MRR is counted an additional 50% vs. reflex. Requires 3/6/9/12 monk or arti levels

Stacked four times, this would give 60 MRR cap and an additional 200% MRR vs. reflex to make up for lack of shield and shield deflection. The % bonus threat will make sure dps don't take it and make up for lack of shield AoE taunt attack. The monk/arti level requirement would prevent splashes from taking advantage of it.

[elvesunited]

So I guess I'll look at this from the perspective of my warlock tank ....
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Not sure on the epic strike. celestrial mandate PRR and MRR add up after a while. Guard provides temporary defense. As with many of these attacks, cast time makes or breaks them.

Renewal of course unless the healing epic strike on Exalted angel is too good to pass up.

Into the fray is useless. A buff that last the first 5 seconds of combat? If I need that additional protection to survive the first 5 seconds then I'm punching way over my weight limit and need to tank easier enemies.

There is nothing wrong with the lay of hands abilties. But I'm unlikely to take as not being a paladin will mean very limited charges and the tree is loaded with other stuff to take.

Rule of law: what counts as a melee attack? what are the chances? Do grazing hits count? Also can this be toggled off? There are times I'm tanking something with the specific intent not to kill it until the time is right.

Throw the boom requires much testing. The stun is useless for me ( and I suspect most tanks ) as I'm not geared for tactics. But define small area around target. Are we talking fireball range, cleave range, literally on top of each other?

Best defense: good for additional HP but still an ability of limited use as I'm either blocking and not attacking. Or I'm attacking and not blocking. I almost never switch between the two.

Divine Bulwark: Is there any chance this feat can be fixed to include multiple other defensive stances that it currently doesn't cover?

Hardened Purpose: Is the AC bonus linked to the mantle? or just the added absorb?

Undying vanguard is back! And now with a 5 minute cooldown instead of a rest reequirement! Probsbly the only ability in DDO which is improved by adding a massive cooldown.

[Alcides]

Combine shield prowess and legendary shield mastery
Have Attack and Defend provide +1/2/3 shield AC to make up for the -5 natural AC from live.
Move resurrection SLA to a lower tier since there are items and scrolls and heroic enhancements of comparable power already.
Replace Ressurection tier 5 with Righteous Wrath which allows defensive stances to stay toggled on while under the effects of rage like abilities.
Reduce the cooldown of Knights Challenge to 12s to align with the cooldown of crowd control abilities from other trees.