Armor Up - Developer Diary #3

[Severlin]

Greetings,

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

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

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


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

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

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

We have several goals with this spell:

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

The spell is being redesigned as follows.

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

Channels holy power to increase the effectiveness of your equipped weapons. Weapons you currently are wielding gain an additional +2 holy bonus to enhancement value and +1[W]. The spell also gives a +1 Competent bonus to the threat range and critical weapon multiplier of the weapon.


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



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

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





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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Sev~