Update 56 has proven, well, controversial for a number of reasons, but I generally looked forward to the release of archetypes. I had some technical issues and so didn't get the chance to do much testing before U56 went live, but having had a bit of time with Sacred Fist, let me explain why I think that particular archetype doesn't work well:
It's a trap.
I don't mean that there's nothing good there. The concept is interesting, but the execution is somewhat dubious, especially given the current balance and design of DDO. Any newbie trying to roll up a Sacred Fist paladin is going to get immediately slaughtered on any difficulty higher than normal for the simple reasons that Sacred Fist is fundamentally flawed from a design perspective. This breaks down into several different issues- ability scores, game statistics, and resource value.
Ability Scores
Paladins, as a class, use Strength, Constitution, Wisdom (low priority), and Charisma. Monks, which many of the features of Sacred Fist draws from, use Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom. Being dependent on four attributes doesn't seem like an issue compared to monk, except that Sacred Fist is actually dependent on five attributes (dumping intelligence because DDO is based on 3.5e, after all- it's a proud tradition!).
In order to survive hits without armor and shields, Sacred Fist needs other mitigation options. Evasion is a decent start on this, but Unarmored Defense requires decent scores in both Dexterity and Charisma to provide a boost. That's not a problem if you have maxed out tomes, a bunch of racial past lives boosting your stats, or enough past lives to bump your health, AC, and saves up to a more reasonable amount, but for a new player on a 28 point build, you basically can get one ability score to 16 (10) and three to 14 (6 each)- a 32 point build lets you bring another up to 12 (though it also means it might make more sense to min-max certain ability scores). That means at lease one ability score of the five that Sacred Fist paladins need to access all their features is deficient.
Additionally, different features are so spread out across those different values that there's no way to play a well rounder as a Sacred Fist without really squeezing out optimization. Your attacks and damage depend on strength. Your AC depends on dexterity and charisma. Your spellcasting depends on wisdom. Your health and ki resting point depend on constitution. This creates a toxic situation for Sacred Fist paladins (who don't have tomes or past lives) that you need to either sacrifice part of the class or do all of it poorly. You can get around some of this by tossing in charisma or wisdom to damage from enhancement trees, but those probably aren't available to newbies and are difficult to fit in given the resource costs of Sacred Fist's unique enhancement tree unless you have at least one universal tree AP from tomes to make that investment a little less painful. As a Sacred Fist paladin, you can only be "good" at everything your class does by bringing in munchkin level past lives, essentially gating this "free" option out of the hands of anyone except the most dedicated free players. It's also worth noting saving throws are attached to dexterity, constitution, and wisdom, which makes it difficult for a Sacred Fist to dump one of its "secondary" stats (wisdom is the easiest to dump if you don't care about spellcasting). Fortunately, paladins get a boost to saving throws thanks to Divine Grace, or else this would leave Sacred Fist in a very bad spot. Now, you don't need a lot of wisdom for paladin spellcasting, but your will saves are going to end up pretty bad if you do this and you'll miss out on spellcasting entirely if you don't at least put a few points into it, which is pretty low value.
Game Statistics
Oh boy, Sacred Fist statistics are terrible in so many areas.
Defensive features
This is the #1 reason why Sacred Fist paladins are unplayable for new players. In any content higher than normal (and maybe hard on a good build) this is going to be the sticking point. Monks survive most encounters, not on their incredibly high AC (because they don't have it) but on dodge values that literally scrape the ceiling of maximum values. You know how much dodge Sacred Fist gets? 0%. They also have (unless I am mistaken) the cloth armor MRR cap of 50 and no cloth armor PRR boost, making the default tanking methods for Paladins basically impossible. And, before you say, "They're not meant to tank! They're DPS, silly!" that may be true but they do have a taunt in their first tier enhancements so someone thought they should at least be able to pull aggro for some reason maybe to get themselves killed quickly? Between lacking shield AC, heavy armor options, and having insane multiple attribute dependency (which also affects gearing at later levels, too- it's not just a matter of base ability scores) and trading one of their trees for a healing tree, they just do not have the defensive abilities necessary to survive high level play in DDO, much less for new players without gear and past lives. Without dodge, and with tepid at best AC, and without decent control options (more on that later), Sacred Fist is just worse at staying alive than either monk or paladin (not to mention the fact that they have to invest 3 AP into improved evasion to match a monk's version and can only do so by investing into the Sacred Fist T5).
Radiant Servant
Oh lord where to begin. No. You can't just slap a tree from one class onto a similar class and have it be valuable. Let's look at the major problems here.
Channel divinity is a terrible solution for Paladins. They get turn undead much later into their progression, and channel divinity is a major resource dependency impacted by charisma. Paladins also turn at a three level penalty, which makes additional turning charges less valuable for them. Admittedly, it is a resource they're less likely to use, so at least it doesn't hurt as badly as some of the other pain points in this tree.
Efficient/Improved Empower Healing- If there's a paladin who actually takes empower healing, I'll be impressed by the dedication to the bit. There's a reason this isn't in Vanguard (the replaced tree)- Paladins are not usually casters, especially not face-toward-enemy DPS monk-type paladins. While additional healing is nice for all the extra damage you're going to be taking that's the only use case. Not only is the pitiful paladin spell point pool going to get burned through (and it's based on your wisdom, which you probably dumped because of multiple attribute dependency) you have such a pitiful pool of SP and no magical training to justify a casting build anyway.
Heal skill dependency- You already dumped intelligence because of multiple attribute dependency, and you need concentration for ki. Everything that scales based on how many points you have in heal? Only useful for players with tomes to increase skills and ability scores to the point where heal isn't left behind.
Casting bonuses- I'm not going to trash on positive energy spellpower here, because it is useful for paladins who do want to do a bit of healing. But, for paladins to be viable off healers, the amount you get here is not enough to make up for their poor spell list, tiny SP pool, and other limits. This also applies to a lesser extent for the "minimum caster level" bonuses too- while this does help, you're probably just healing between fights and it's not worth the deep investment in the tree IMO.
Divine Health- This is entirely worthless. You can't take this until paladin 4. You get divine health as a paladin at level 3. You would literally waste 2 AP on this. Did no one check their work here? Was there nothing you could do to make this useful and still balanced? This isn't just bad, it's insulting. At least take it out so no one accidentally wastes two points on it. It shows that there was very little consideration put into slapping this tree onto the paladin class, perhaps more than all the other issues.
Offensive Features
Stunning Fist - Wisdom based. All your other tactical DCs are strength based. Stunning fist is useful for monks, but it's also essential for low level Sacred Fist paladins since it's their only way to spend ki until they get spellcasting at level 3 and its one of their few control (and therefore damage mitigation) options. It's a trap pick even though it should be a useful part of the tool set of a Sacred Fist paladin because you just can't actually use it well. Again, this doesn't apply to people with past lives and tomes and all of that, but for a newbie, you basically get a DC that's a coin toss most of the time at best.
Sacred Flame Dice - Additional damage dice are good, shockingly. It's like inquisitive but for handwraps. There's a bit of an issue because of the fact that they're in melee without defensive tools, which hurts a lot from a balance perspective (if you're doing damage up close, it's almost always worse than doing similar damage at a range), but they also do have decent output. However, despite scaling with melee power and generally being a decent amount of damage dice, they're held back by the relative scantness of the tree. However, this damage is held by being initially fire type damage (which does less against a lot of creatures) and requiring a pretty deep investment to become light damage. While it's an obvious investment choice given that path is tied to damage output, it is late enough that a newer player might start encountering some early game fire type enemies and feel like their damage suddenly drops dramatically. It's also held back by the limited availability of melee power to Sacred Fist paladin's enhancement trees, especially since they miss out on the opportunity to take the melee power action boost from Vanguard. Admittedly, monk also misses out on this, but they trade off for that with versatility in their stances, and being able to further boost those stances. Sacred Fist gets a single boost to doublestrike in the form of an action boost and a 10% offhand strike chance from enhancements. While the damage dice does mean that they do much more damage per hit than a monk in theory, the tradeoffs in durability are not worth it in more difficult content, especially given that they lack access to more powerful finishing moves.
Cleave/Great Cleave/Whirlwind Strike - Cleave and great cleave are the fundamental AoE tools for melee DPS. They're very useful and valuable to have for front liners... but unfortunately, they're not great picks for Sacred Fist because your enhancements share cooldowns with one of them. Your cleave is better off being replaced by your enhancement version (assuming you can ki build- a problem that I'll mention later)- but this means that you need to take a wasted feat to get great cleave. On the other hand, the other alternative, Whirlwind Strike (which is typically a high priority for monks) isn't worth the investment if you're really doubling down on Sacred Fist because it also gets replaced by an enhancement. While this does technically free up feat selections, it also means that you miss out on great cleave *or* you end up spending a bunch of feats to get it anyway (though admittedly power attack is not a big ask- that's a pretty good investment for most melees most of the time). I will note that there is a difference between the patch notes, which indicate the T5 is a great cleave replacement, and live where it states it's a whirlwind strike replacement, so that might be something that needs to be cleared up.
Deity feats - The first deity feat is fine, it's basically identical to any other. The second, however, is terrible! It's literally just "Hey, you know that tree you can't use because of everything you already give up? You can use it now!" Other paladins get an active ability, but you basically just get to stop getting shafted by your defensive tree being built for a fundamentally different playstyle than the one you have to use because of changes to your class.
Damage bypass - the only bypass that Sacred Fist gets is good and lawful, which is somewhat difficult for melee builds since it means you will need other bypass sources. This is something that monk already gets with Ki Strike features. I see no reason why a handwraps dedicated archetype that uses ki can't get a similar bypass, even if it might be moved into the enhancement tree.
Resource Value
This is admittedly a very difficult to quantify area because resource values are very different for new players vs. veteran players. Past lives and other things all contribute a lot to resource availability for a lot of features, but let's start by getting into it.
Turn Undead - As mentioned above a bit, channel divinity charges are a bit sticky because they come in late for paladin compared to cleric. Ironically, they're actually relatively less valuable to paladin because of decreased turning power, making the alternative options in Radiant Servant *more* valuable (unless they depend on something mentioned above), but it does mean that for a new player, they get to spend what might be their entire time trying DDO with features they can't use (assuming that a newbie might run, say, Korthos before deciding whether they want to keep going). At the very least, it should be communicated better that paladins don't gain access to this resource until level 4 (perhaps lock out the Radiant Servant features that *only* use Channel Divinity charges to level 4 of paladin?) so that it doesn't end up resulting in a bad new player experience. Veteran players will probably know not to invest in those early, fortunately. I don't think this is a late game issue, but more clarity in the early game would help newer players. (For veteran players, though, this is one part of Sacred Fist that I think is very interesting and has potential for some dynamic builds!)
Ki - This is a major pain point in my experience, regardless of player experience level. Ki is used in several Sacred Fist features (admittedly not as many features as monk has) but unlike monk, Sacred Fist has no good way to "build" ki. Monks have additional ways to build ki in their stances, which leads to a more dynamic tempo. Sacred Fists have left mouse button. Without actually gaining access to what makes monks play in an interesting way, having a ki bar is basically just a punch things bar. There's also no way to build ki outside of combat, which means if you exit a fight with low resources you just kind of sit there. With no way to increase passive ki regeneration from class features, and no ki builders, this basically just means that a Sacred Fist needs to land a number of hits equal to the ability they want to use, which without attack speed boosts other than flurry of blows (and coupled with the cleave wonkiness listed above) is a bit prohibitive given the ki cost of their abilities. The only Sacred Fist ki builder is a bonus to per hit ki generation that unlocks at the level 18 core, which is far too late to struggle through one ki per hit gameplay (and only lasts for 20 seconds, which is not really a sustainable option for Sacred Fist paladins).
SP - If the advantage of paladin is in their class features, then one of those has to be casting. Not only is casting heavily disadvantaged because of multiple attribute dependency, there's also the detail that paladin gets very few spellpoints to begin with. Since these scale with wisdom, it basically requires you to gear out an attribute in order to keep your SP pool from being rapidly made insignificant.
HP - Without many defensive boosts from Sacred Fist's enhancement tree (some healing amplification and some PRR only), this is a major pain point for Sacred Fists. They rely on Sacred Defender for their defensive buffs, but this is basically all they get for defensive solutions and just because they count as wearing heavy armor for the tree does not mean that they get any of the other benefits of wearing heavy armor and shields, namely higher AC and any bonuses from shields and armor. Especially for newer players who don't have ability tomes, the base AC of a Sacred Fist comes almost entirely from their flat grants of AC from Unarmored Defense and gear (which again is harder for new players). What works for monks doesn't work super well either- dodge from gear alone is not a substitute for dodge from class features and enhancements plus gear.
AP - Oh boy, let's get into some numbers.
Sacred Fist-
Cores- Cores are fine. They're a little bit just "Making your numbers better" but they're not underpowered (at least from a cursory glance). I would like to see the ki building from level 18 moved to a passive feature (and preferably earlier in the cores) instead of being tied to turn undead (see ki above) but that's not a big loss. One thing they are missing though is any interactions with critical hits. Not a big deal, since sacred flame dice will be the majority of the damage anyway, but it's a glaring omission from a melee DPS tree.
T1 - Ki shout is two AP? Well, at least it disincentivizes the "kill me" button.
T2 - 2 AP for a cleave is fine, but fast movement being an extra 2 AP instead of a granted feature is painful. You already give up a ton of proficiencies as paladin, so getting the monk features that you're supposed to be building towards as an extra piecemeal investment is insulting. While this *has* precedent, it usually has precedent as a more interesting feature (such as the warlock's Feeding Frenzy from Soul Eater). Admittedly, that one is also overpriced IMO (being a temporary buff that relies on another feature that you need to invest in and requires using that feature, though admittedly a good one that should be used often for Soul Eater warlocks) but that's besides the point. With everything Sacred Fist gives up, why not let them have fast movement? They're basically sacrificing survival for DPS (like monks without dodge) so having to close more slowly increases the chance of having to stop to heal before being able to do damage (assuming they survive long enough).
T3 - Instinctive Defense is low value in my opinion. You have good saving throws, but terrible defensive attributes otherwise. If you're helpless on anything above hard, you're dead anyway. 15% damage reduction won't save you, or even make a difference. It's also a boring feature in a tree that's supposed to be a spotlight for the archetype.
T4 - Deflect arrows is too high in the tree. It should be moved down to where fast movement is - defensive value is important, especially for a class with limited defense. Note that this only makes sense if fast movement is added to the class features, otherwise it should maybe replace Instinctive Defense. I would like to see some survival boosting option in this space instead- perhaps automatically using a lay on hands charge if your health drops below 20% or something, or really anything to make the class more durable. There's no point having good damage if you're dead. I also think the fire > light conversion is far too late. If the intention is to do light damage, then just have the class do light damage entirely. It's better for bypassing, it's not unprecedented (inquisitive does law damage from the beginning, and illusionist gets force damage- rare damage types are handed out to both of those for next to no investment), and it differentiates from Henshin/fire stance. Adding light to the ki-spells is probably good here though. I don't think anything needs to replace that, just fundamentally fire damage is going to be bad for Sacred Fist in a lot of content so why gate it behind something that you're going to want to take for damage anyway? If it is replaced with anything, a damage bypass might help since at the moment Sacred Fist lacks any good ones.
T5 - Here's where things get a bit dicey.
Evasive Dance - should be 2 AP for 50%, not 3 AP gradually. If you have no defensive abilities in a melee tree, you need to pick that up elsewhere. Dumping 3 AP into improved evasion for a build that should have good saves is not a useful investment. Even at 2 AP, it's not a great investment. To be honest, this should just be in the class features. It's low value for a class with good saving throws by design.
Avenging Whirlwind - says great cleave in patch notes but whirlwind strike live (haven't tested it to see which it actually does) - this should be great cleave. If it's whirlwind strike, it locks out a better progression for melee AoE (and one that doesn't rely on ki) behind taking cleave to just never use it. Whirlwind Strike is a potentially useful AoE ki builder, but if you have an alternative, the investment isn't worth it. Great cleave isn't worth it if you're not using cleave. What the sweet baby Cthulhu is going on here? This is the only really great T5 feature that isn't just the weapon damage line, and we don't even know what to build to make sure we don't waste feats? Seriously?
Violence Begets Violence - the only critical hit improvement in the entire tree and it requires not getting hit, something which nothing else in the tree really helps other than a few +1 bonuses. If you had a high dodge option, or good AC, this would be potentially useful. It's not. It requires you to hold aggro, which you can pull, but can't hold without being turned to paste. Should be something different instead of a copy paste from a monk feature. If you are just going to rip off monk, it should be empty hand mastery instead. Crits are largely irrelevant anyway, though, since base damage is going to be terrible throughout without unarmed strike dice progression. Something interesting would be better here.
Divine Strike - Way too situational for the only powerful level 20 feature that isn't just ripping off something from Monk, and it's basically just a passive version of Tomb of Jade. While powerful, it's also only useful on enemies that can be stunned so the moment you kill the trash mobs it goes from situational to completely worthless.
What I would want to see that's missing- a movement option. Some way to close gaps faster would be huge. Abundant Step is almost essential for monks to close in combat. Faster movement being tucked away in the enhancement tree (and capping out lower than monk's) is insult to injury. Too many things here should be automatically granted at certain levels or just consolidated or changed. There seems to have been very little game-play consideration in how it actually works for combat and more "How can we add in a little bit of monk here?" With everything that paladins lose by dropping armor and shields, and what they get in return being slapdash, this tree needs to be valuable, not a point sink. Too many features here are just buying back monk features.
Sacred Defender
IMO this just needs to be replaced. AC tanking does not make sense for a non-armored build. The fact that you need a 6th level ability to leverage some of the abilities is a fundamental problem too. Not only is the 6th level divine feat basically just "hey you don't get robbed anymore" which is fundamentally bad design it also leads to some serious issues with design. There are too many things here that make it so that you can't have nice things elsewhere- Swift Defense is nice, but "We can't have that and movement speed above 20% in Sacred Fist because that would be faster than monk!" AC is nice, but the maximum armor dex bonus that balances it for paladin is worthless for Sacred Fist. Sacred Shield Mastery and Reinforced Defense are both literally worthless. So much of the tree depends on big AC numbers but without armor and shield bonuses that just doesn't work. This tree fundamentally does not work with Sacred Fist and the only way to fix it is to basically change three or four of the major abilities. Additionally, MRR caps from cloth armor are going to make some of the returns at high level vanish, even without any other sources. AC/HP/MRR/PRR tanking fundamentally does not work in DDO without armor and shields. There's a reason monks use dodge.
Radiant Servant
As mentioned above, there are too many things that don't offer value to paladins. The best abilities in this tree are T5, which makes sense, but also is a huge sacrifice for a tree that throws away so much for their primary gimmick to then throw that away for being a bad healer. Not to mention that healing just isn't sustainable for paladins in Reaper because of self heal restrictions, so it doesn't even fix the limited mitigation options. Paladins also don't have the SP to make use of some of these abilities well, nor do they have the feats to build empower healing. Divine Health is literally worthless here too.
Solutions
I definitely have some strong negative opinions about Sacred Fist, but I don't want to just shout "I DON'T LIKE IT" into the void. So here are my suggestions for some ways to reduce the pain points of Sacred Fist for both new players and veterans-
Move the casting attribute from Wisdom to Charisma. Yeah, this one is a bit hard to flavor, but this is literally the only thing paladins (and by extension Sacred Fists) need Wisdom for (given that Divine Grace basically applies their charisma bonus to their Will saves). This brings them back into line of depending on four attributes, not five, without actually giving a huge buff to experienced players who have a wide spread of tomes. Not only does this just make building and playing a Sacred Fist easier, it also really helps new players who don't have 32 point builds. I get that it's a big change, but it's super important for making the class feel buildable without being overwhelming.
(Alternative: add charisma to attack and damage for handwraps. Their fists are sacred, not strong. This would reduce the need for strength, since they don't wear heavy armor, use shields, or carry big weapons. I know this is obtainable via enhancements, but that's a big ask for a subclass built on a tree that's AP thirsty. However, it does have precedent in universal trees. Even if this is a core 3/6 feature, it would be a huge help for the ability dependence issue. It's also hard to abuse this, since it would only apply to handwraps which benefits maybe FvS but they can already get CHA to damage)
Change the default damage type to light. The only thing that implies fire necessarily is the "spells" borrowed from Henshin Mystic. Just make the fists always do light. Inquisitive dice do law, Arcane Archer dice can do force (as can several other options), just let the damage type be light from the beginning. It makes early game fire enemies less annoying. Yeah, it's currently an enhancement, but taking it from enhancement to default damage type doesn't nerf that enhancement so far that it's worthless.
Ki strikes bypasses added to class features, or some way to access at least a few more bypasses. It's not a major part of the damage output of Sacred Fists, but it is a gearing burden that could be lightened. If I understand ki correctly, the *physical damage* portion of the attack needs to be greater than 0 to generate ki, so by not having bypass it basically means enemies who reduce the base attack damage to 0 (which is relatively easy against handwraps) would not provide ki generation, which is a major gameplay flow issue.
Fast Movement moved into a class feature instead of an enhancement.
Ki building feature (such as meditation) and improved ki generation options. There are many ways to spend ki, but none of the ways to build them. Even just a +1 to passive ki generation somewhere in the enhancement tree would be a huge help for increasing the "resting point" of ki regeneration.
And, finally, the biggest one.
The other enhancement trees don't work. This isn't true for the other archetypes. Dark Apostate has a casting and defense tree that work well with their new tree. That makes sense because they barely change- it's basically what free prep spells you get and one enhancement tree being different. Storm Singer, while losing a bit more than it gets in my opinion, at least has all three trees working well together, since it gives up the most "different" tree compared to its playstyle. All the paladin trees are fundamentally different than Sacred Fist's playstyle, and the tree given to make up for Vanguard is still fundamentally different than its playstyle. Instead of doubling down, or rounding out the pain points, it now has split its intended role even further than "melee DPS focus" that all its changes imply.
Also, [redacted] Sacred Shield Mastery, Reinforced [redacted] Defense, and Divine [redacted] Health enhancements. I am honestly legitimately angry about these. The rest of it can be chalked up to making sweeping changes and just not having enough playtest data to realize that it doesn't work well. But this is just insulting- these features literally do nothing for Sacred Fist, but they're cluttering up trees. This is why you can't just slap trees in places and fundamentally change how a class works and then just ship it. The other archetypes at least can make use of all three of their trees, even if it might be somewhat inefficient at points. But this, this is just worthless. There is no way to ever possibly make up for the missing value potential in these trees. These bonuses are necessary for defense (okay, not Divine Health, they already get it and it's not necessary- that's just insulting because you literally can't take the enhancement until you get it from your class) for normal paladins, but they just don't work for Sacred Fist. Vanguard is the other defensive option, but that's gone (for obvious reasons). However, Sacred Defender as a tree is so heavily armor based in how it actually works that it just falls short of providing what Sacred Fist needs.
In my opinion, while Sacred Fist and its bespoke tree generally has come close to reaching what it needs to, it was way too conservative (to the point of being disadvantaged compared to both paladins and monks) and needs something more than slapdash hybridization to reach a point of being an interesting archetype for anything other than some casual flower-sniffing. I'm sure someone with every past life can come in and make an amazing build (heck, I probably could on my main) but there's plenty of changes that can make it more viable without requiring hundreds of hours of past lives to cover up its fundamental shortcomings.
Edit: I want to make my feedback useful, so I want to explain a few things.
First, I am aware that I made a few mistakes. I was unaware that the level 6 class feature gives charisma to hit and damage. I still don't think this is a good implementation. A new player might think they need to build strength, and it doesn't make the game any easier for beginners. I understand that there may be considerations about why not to have it earlier, but that doesn't make it any less opaque (also it was not in the patchnotes and I didn't check with a character at or above 6). I still think the level 6 feature is lackluster- most of the other level 6 deity feats are activated features that do interesting things, but a couple passive benefits (one being allowing you to benefit from things that just weren't designed for your build) feels very bland and boring, especially since it basically just fixes a fundamental design problem with the class.
Second, I said that "ki pool" depended on Constitution. I was referring to the ability score impacting concentration that impacts your resting ki value, which was obviously unclear. I have fixed that.
Third, I want to make it clear that I am not talking about "first life" characters specifically. I do believe that veteran DDO players can probably make a first life Sacred Fist paladin that at least manages to clear elite or R1 if they have gear, experience, and quest knowledge. On the other hand, new players who do not have this are going to find the class frustrating, even on more mild difficulties, because it is not intuitive to build and relies on gear (and, for experienced players, past lives) to make up for multiple attribute dependency and poorly fitting trees.
Fourth, I think it's clear that of all the archetypes Sacred Fist is both the most ambitious and also the worst. It cherry picked some of the traits from both classes it combined, but ignored fundamentally necessary features for game play mechanics. Some of these shortcomings, like I mentioned, can be bypassed by players who know what they're doing or have imaginative builds that don't play the class to design specs, but for new players who don't read the forums or have build knowledge, you're probably going to try to play the Sacred Fist as a melee DPS.
Fifth, to counter the argument that "Just do this instead and it works", if a class or archetype can't do what it was designed to do, it might have missed the mark. You don't need to be top of the tier list, but you need to at least compete with other classes for the same role. It's great if you can find a use case for Sacred Fist outside intended parameters, but that helps people farming lives and not new players who see what the class was designed to do and try to do that.
I don't want to be toxic and ignore other voices. Perhaps I missed things (like the new level 6 feat that was not properly reflected in the patch notes) or poorly communicated my points, but ultimately if you're not willing to either try to be constructive or at least accurately assess things, then don't chime in. These forums are always full of "Well, but on my reincarnation completionist I can run R10 naked and blindfolded" or "Actually, there's one little thing that's wrong with a subpoint so I'm going to ignore the valid points of your position." This isn't about that, please keep it on topic. If you think Sacred Fist paladin is great, you're welcome to share that- even share it here! But don't just say "I personally enjoy it so you're wrong" or "One person can make it work so clearly it's not broken" because that is a fundamentally not helpful position.
I'm saying these things because I want DDO to be the best possible game. If feedback isn't constructive, the team listens to the voices that do try to be constructive, even when they're wrong and it negatively impacts player experiences (like the Sonic Blast nerfs). I want to be constructive, and I ask that you all be constructive as well so that hopefully Sacred Fist can be fixed in a way that makes it interesting and intuitive instead of obtuse and frustrating. I understand that I wrote a lot. With this edit, it's probably close to something like ten pages, and so that means there will be mistakes or inaccuracies here and there. But please, if you're interested in improving the game, read it. It's fine to disagree, too, though I would ask that you're civil when you immediately go to point out where I'm wrong. But I love this game, and I want it to be better, and it gets increasingly frustrating when I can see glaring, fundamental issues in the first two hours of play with a new feature or archetype that should have been addressed. SSG needs to listen to player feedback, and while I know there's a loud, negative majority, sometimes there is truth in the feedback. We want this game to succeed, they want this game to succeed, and if you don't want this game to succeed, then take a break. Walk away. Don't waste your life being negative about a game that you don't enjoy. In the mean time, let's hope that things get improved so that we can all enjoy the best possible game DDO can be.
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09-01-2022, 05:33 PM #1Community Member
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Why Sacred Fist Paladin is a trap for new players
Last edited by CSQ; 09-02-2022 at 02:46 AM.
I primarily play Zunzyne Siegemaker, and am the guild master of Ares Macrotechnology on Ghallanda.
Reaper Experience Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ewE/edit#gid=0 (out of date as of U42.4, needs testing for new values)
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09-01-2022, 05:42 PM #2Community Member
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Haven't read the entire thing yet but I do want to point out two inaccuracies. Sacred Fist ki pool is based on Charisma. Also they are still paladins and get the Divine Grace feat at level 2, which means they only need to stack charisma for saves, which they will stack anyways for ki.
I do have to agree with the main point of this post though, Sacred Fist is not new player, first-life friendly at all.
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09-01-2022, 05:54 PM #3The Hatchery
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Not new player friendly - that's OK though.
Originally Posted by misterski
Not first-life friendly - I would have to disagree after watching Strimtom stream a Sacred Fist taking names in Hardcore.Server Sarlona / MST / Guild Enslaved / Characters Ionos, Cydekik, Xalavan, Rodessa, Hethrow, Ramsteen
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09-01-2022, 05:58 PM #4Community Member
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OK so too long and I didnt read it all, and not necessarily saying your arguments are without merits, but a few counterpoints...
- A new player should be able to get by with a STR>CON>CHA build. You only need 14 WIS by late Heroic including guild buffs and gear, which doesnt take more than a potion or an augment, and those are accessible enough even to new players. DEX is nice to have but with CHA to saves, your Reflex save isnt as handcuffed to it. Its not optimal, but its viable for first life
- Sac Def provides a lot of the defense you said was missing...25 PRR/MRR and +3 Saves is huge in Heroic. +20% HP and 6 CON/STR too. Also dont forget they get Angelskin for another up to 20 PRR MRR. The cloth MRR cap is a real issue, but it is for Monks too, just Fists will hit it way sooner. The lack of Dodge and Dodge Cap in the tree, though, is a legit criticism. As is the fact that the armor and shield enhancements are unusable. Seems like it would've been easy enough to replace them with some of relevant defensive enhancements from Kensei for Dodge/Cap for cloth builds.
- One thing I think you glossed over is the lack of Hamp relative to KotC. That's a huge loss for Fist's ability to self-heal, especially if you try to push into Reaper leaning on LoH overheals to compensate for Reaper healing reduction
- I dont think Ki is going to be that much of a bottleneck even without Ki generation enhancements. I think the only thing you'll ever spend it on is Wave, since all the other Ki spells are pointless, or are in competition for spell slots with much more useful buffs. Wave at least will do decent damage on a pure Fist, assuming you have good MP. So its just punch things until enough mobs get close to hit them with Wave, and repeat. With WWA double tapping everything every 5 seconds and FoB having high base attack rate, I think 1 Ki per hit will be sustainable for what you actually need. Plus there are a few gear options to improve Ki generation in Heroic, and then GMoF once you hit 20.
- I dont think Fist will be limited by spellpoints any more than regular Paladins, since all their unique spells just use Ki (unless you Quicken them lol...so dont do that)
- Rad Serv...yeah, doesnt really fit the gameplay at all. I suggested elsewhere Kensei or Occult Slayer instead.
I dont think its a noob trap, I just think its not very well designed as a complete subclass unto itself. I worry the best way to play it might be a 14 Fist/5 Fighter/1 FvS CHA based, with T5 Kensei for centering with Falchions or Greatswords, and Divine Might. And that just seems like a KotC Paladin with more steps...
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09-01-2022, 06:00 PM #5Community Member
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Yes, that is true and I believe I have acknowledged both of those (I think I tied ki pool to constitution, because I was thinking of the resting value with concentration, which is misleading and I need to fix that). I think my breakdown is like nine pages long so I may have made some editorial mistakes, apologies. For the saving throws, that is certainly an acknowledgement I do make about Divine Grace later, but it doesn't mean wisdom to will saves isn't still useful, especially since failing a save against a control effect is really dangerous when you lack defensive statistics to make up for it. More of a good thing can overflow its usefulness, but probably not for a first life character, which was my original intent (though some of my suggestions for quality of life would make it better for veterans, too). Originally Posted by misterski
I primarily play Zunzyne Siegemaker, and am the guild master of Ares Macrotechnology on Ghallanda.
Reaper Experience Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ewE/edit#gid=0 (out of date as of U42.4, needs testing for new values)
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09-01-2022, 06:21 PM #6Bounty Hunter
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It really goes well with feydark illusionist which would require a purchase and that purchase may not be intuitive to a new player. Strength is not really needed with feydark illusionist.
I don't think everything SSG puts out needs to be new-player friendly. Standard paladin is certainly new player friendly.
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09-01-2022, 06:38 PM #7Community Member
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I think a lot of people put too much weight on past lives. Most of my character are first lifers, and they plow through LE, R1 and R2 without any problem. Originally Posted by GeneralDiomedes
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09-01-2022, 06:41 PM #8Community Member
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Some good points I didn't consider! Originally Posted by droid327
I think Sac Def doesn't provide enough defense in light of not being able to use the armor specific bonuses, but it is still strong. I just think it would be better to have a defensive tree that isn't dependent on armor or AC tanking given that it probably won't help outside of heroics and to be fair will probably struggle before then on a first life. It's building in a direction that is fundamentally different than the rest of the build suggests, and so I see it as a point of difficulty for newer players without solid gear and past lives to smooth over the gulf between that and a proper cloth armor defense tree. There's also a bit more attribute dependence for Sacred Fist, since their base AC isn't as much from armor as ability scores and static boosts, which particularly punishes first lifers. Dodge, on the other hand, is a lot easier for first life monks to hit high values of than AC, but Sacred Fists can't go that direction. With very limited dodge, AC becomes a lot more important, and I don't think Sac Def reaches that point as is. Consequentially, for veterans, this also means that Reaper is going to be more difficult- not necessarily a problem, but if your defense is based on "I heal myself a lot" it's not great.
HAMP is definitely poor, and I think that's why they added a healing specific tree. I don't actually think it's terrible- you get 5 per core, which is not huge but is also reasonable for a DPS tree- but it's not really enough in light of lacking diverse or robust defensive options. KotC is perhaps exceptional in being a very tanky "DPS" tree with 60 HAMP, but that does require T5. Perhaps adding some HAMP to the late Sacred Fist tree would help both defensive issues and bring it more into parity.
Wave is certainly the most valuable ki spell, but I could also see it being used with the ki cleaves, and a +1 passive ki generation at some point in the tree would make downtime less punitive for little pain, so I think there might be some range between "make it rain" and "ki drought" that might make it feel nicer, since the ki abilities would be more useful if you could actually, you know, consistently use them. Though it is a good point that prep slots make running all the ki spells prohibitive. Some of this also depends on if WWA is actually the shared cooldown of the T5 cleave, because if so, it makes the cleave/great cleave/WWA feat cooldowns super dicey or if, as according to the patch notes instead of the in game information, it's actually great cleave, because being able to WWA to build ki is a lot nicer (and builds off feats that are helpful for the defensive deficits of Sacred Fist). Can't reincarnate an iconic into it to check until reincarnation is fixed, though.
Also, the spellpoint limit only really applies if you dive into the healing tree, not so much if you go elsewhere, and especially only if you take empower healing. It's more that Radiant Servant doesn't work because of SP limits on paladins rather than paladins will run out of SP because their casting options are pretty limited. If you can only cast a fifth of the spells of a cleric (or less, considering you won't get echoes) then a healing spellcasting tree is a lot less valuable. Probably could make that more clear though. Thanks!
The point about wisdom is really good, but I do also want to acknowledge that while guild bonuses and gear boosts are easy for veteran players, a newbie with no gear (especially with the way that the character builder describes it) might not know that. It's also extra itemization for fairly limited return, IMO. On a heroic completionist with guild bonuses and tomes, you can just dump it, but a brand new player running a small guild with friends would not know or maybe even be able to do that, and that's probably not ideal.
I do agree though that optimal builds for Sacred Fist look to be a bit like KotC but not. Kensai might actually be a better tree than Radiant Servant, in that regard, by eliminating the fighter splash requirement and bringing in some cloth defense options. Might still push you towards handwraps for favored weapons/offhand strike synergies, but it would address the lack of critical bonuses as well. Food for thought.I primarily play Zunzyne Siegemaker, and am the guild master of Ares Macrotechnology on Ghallanda.
Reaper Experience Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ewE/edit#gid=0 (out of date as of U42.4, needs testing for new values)
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09-01-2022, 06:43 PM #9Community Member
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Strimtom, a player with exceptional building and gameplay skills, is very different than an average player. I have over a thousand hours in DDO and I don't even come close. I'm not saying it can't work. I just think it's really janky the way it's implemented. Also, "not new player friendly" kind of defeats the point of "TRY OUT THESE FREE NEW ARCHETYPES AVAILABLE FOR ALL PLAYERS" that was pushed pre-release. Originally Posted by GeneralDiomedes
I primarily play Zunzyne Siegemaker, and am the guild master of Ares Macrotechnology on Ghallanda.
Reaper Experience Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ewE/edit#gid=0 (out of date as of U42.4, needs testing for new values)
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09-01-2022, 07:15 PM #10Community Member
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And requires that you get magical training while paladins are already feat starved as it is. Originally Posted by slarden
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09-01-2022, 07:19 PM #11Community Member
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As has been said they should have tailored Sacred Defender more for the archetype and thought of something better to put in place of vanguard rather than radiant servant which is completely out of place on any type of paladin archetype. Maybe they consider it a work in progress but then why release it in this state? Originally Posted by CSQ
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09-01-2022, 07:34 PM #12Bounty Hunter
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Paladin is definitely not too feat-starved to take magical training for feydark illusionist. It's well worth the feat. Originally Posted by misterski
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09-01-2022, 08:28 PM #13Community Member
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Another option is at 20th to just take one of the EDs that grants magical training, then redo your enhancements. You'll have magical training via the ED, and you can just pick up feydark at that point without needing to spend a feat. Of course it does require waiting 'til 20th. Originally Posted by slarden
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09-01-2022, 09:19 PM #14Community Member
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I don't agree with the entire post, but I strongly believe that any dead on arrival enhancement (like the shield and disease immunity ones for Sacred Fist) that don't do anything need to be replaced with other enhancements.
This would go a long way to make these new Archetypes feel different and special.
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09-01-2022, 09:43 PM #15Community Member
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I agree completely. I still say that they took the worst parts of monk/paly trees and turned a blind eye to the good stuff. I mean, a t5 cleave that costs ki and blows? Violence begets violence?
Mains - Messam, Indalecio, Mozenrath, Quackerjack.
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09-01-2022, 09:52 PM #16Community Member
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Just want to quote Lyn on this on - didn't make it to the patch notes, don't know if it made it to Live, but probably will.
No need for Feydark if/when that hits live, and Sacred Fist will be a LOT less dependent on multiple abilities, or at least a lot less feat-starved for the extra Magical Training if you like the heroic lifestyle. Originally Posted by Lynnabel
Enthusiasm enthusiast enthusiast.
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09-01-2022, 10:18 PM #17Community Member
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This is only because you are using twink gear. New players will be using mostly random loot and have less than 1k hp at cap. Originally Posted by Lorianna
Sacred fist is a trap for everyone. Literally the only reason most people will run this is for the heal amp. It is inferior to a standard paladin in every way and you cannot combine it with bladeforged to start at level 15.
I know people have tried desperately to provide feedback during lamnia on how to improve this but sadly, it clearly hasnt worked (as usually happens).
Main problems summarized :
- Cloth armor melee class with low dodge = literally squishier than a sorc/wiz using EK as a secondary tree
- Requires way too many attributes
- Doesn't get cha to hit/damage till level 6, so basically hits like a wet noodle before level 6
- No divine might, meaning you hit like a wet noodle even after level 6
- Sacred Flame is fire damage till you get the tier 4 ability to convert it into light, and fire is the most commonly resisted element
- Virtually no melee power in heroics, very little melee power even at level 20, meaning you hit like a wet noodle always.
- Intended handwraps playstyle does significantly less damage compared to a regular 2H paladin in every way, and you do not get monk finishing moves to compensate
- No access to good AOE like strikethrough
- No bonus martial feats like what monks get
- T5 sacred fist is awful, for reasons that have already been explained in the lamania threads
- Radiant servant makes no sense, this is not a class that can play as a healer. Its like giving the Assassin tree to Dark Apostate.
Its quite obvious that nobody play tested this from level 1 to 20 on elite, let alone tried running this in endgame content. Of course there are veterans who are powering through with the power of their +8 tomes, dozens of past lives, max reaper hp and full sets of twink gear but its still sub optimal to a regular paladin in every way. Any newbie who tries to play this as intended (handwraps + cloth armor) is going to struggle to kill korthos mobs on elite and give up pretty quickly. Without exception, every newbie that i have seen try to run some cloth or light armor melee build in low heroics has had an awful time and basically died in less than 5 seconds after running into melee range. Sacred fist probably wins the "build that gets newbies killed the quickest" award.
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09-01-2022, 10:40 PM #18Community Member
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Doesn't a Sacred Fist still need to invest quite a bit in DEX for Two Weapon Fighting? Originally Posted by droid327
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09-01-2022, 11:10 PM #19Community Member
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Because the patch notes DOESN'T say this. Sacred Fist does get Charisma to hit and damage from the Divine Dream feat at lv 6. So you don't need to fit in magical training or go feydark for Charisma to hit and damage. Originally Posted by slarden
Last edited by Deivonte; 09-01-2022 at 11:12 PM.
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09-01-2022, 11:19 PM #20Community Member
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Can I bring a little common sense to the table ?
A REAL new player would look at that block of text,
scratch their head, try to kinda read it.
Not have any idea what any of that means.
Say "To heck with this"
Delete the game to make room on their hard drive
and go play something else.
I do think that many of the veteran players have lost the sense
of reality on what a 'new player' is. They must be absolutely clueless.
I will give you a HINT.
A new player is still trying to figure out if it is worth their
effort to try and use shield block.
They still are having trouble picking through trash loot to
figure out if they should wear this pair of gloves or that one. (we know both
pairs are worthless trash)
It doesn't help that the game gets very very very few REAL new players.
If you don't like a new class, FINE, say that ... make your point,
but don't claim your doing to to help or warn New Players.
I feel sorry for new players,
the game is intimidating enough without
adding Vet players to the mix.
