Longknife

I wanna take this moment to apologize to you guys if I sound a bit like a broken record in what I'm about to say. I'm not sure why I always repeat myself, whether it's warranted or not or whether it's just me relating my experiences to the issue in ways I know how to, but I cannot stop stressing how it never seems to amaze me how poorly people perform at being objective. I can fully look at what I've seen from the Baltimore protests/riots and say that it's shameful and should be put to an end. I can look at what I've seen and say that race does seem to be developing into a dividing line here, and even if it were warranted to a degree (I've since read some troubling things about Baltimore's history), that won't change the fact that this looks horrendous from an outsider's third person perspective (a perspective highly cherished in the court of law) and that two wrongs do not make a right. I can admit race is an issue here and that we can see some (a disappointing amount; not neccesarily a majority but a large enough percent to cause concern regardless) black people on the street acting downright shameful towards white people for no reason, and I can do so because I am able to reflect on my own statement objectively and realize that nowhere in this statement am I saying something racist. I am not implying black people are inheritly hateful, uncivilized, or what-have-you, nor am I implying these attitudes extend outside of this very specific community, nor am I even saying this applies universally to all black people of the community. When I read stuff like the "article" linked above, I cannot feel that this is good intentions meets an inability to be objective. Yes, there is racist stuff going on. From the cops? Probably, given Baltimore's history. I don't neccesarily think race was an issue with Freddie Grey given that the guy had a VERY healthy criminal record (I would sooner consider this a story of police brutality vs. repeat offenders rather than one vs a minority), but regardless it is being perceived as one, and based on what I've read and heard about Baltimore, I doubt those sentiments are unfounded. Is there now racist stuff going on on behalf of the black people in that community? Absolutely. I'm sorry, but the footage and photos we've seen heavily implies white people are being targeted. I see absolutely zero reason to deny this. Sometimes the truth is hard to swallow, but it does not change that it's the truth. From the white people....? I don't live in that community so I don't know how much race plays a role in that community outside of the cops, but I do know that we've yet to get a photo or footage of any white person there acting hatefully towards the community. At most, I've found a video recorded by a guy who wrote a book on....something. Couldn't find much about it, but was about black-on-white crime, so the guy clearly had his biases, but even in his video, he merely filmed the going-ons outside of his apartment and didn't provoke or interact at all. This is all very hard to watch because it will only snowball and get worse. Today it's some drunkards arguing with some angry black guys, tomorrow it's the drunkard's son having a poor opinion of black people, which the rioter's son also shares in regards to white people. I fully believe in the truth. Censoring something or changing the facts of the matter because you're worried people "can't handle it" or won't be objective about it themselves and believe this reflects the actions of an entire race...? You're essentially guilty of the same. You're buying into that exact narrative, condoning yourself as though-and acting as though the actions of a few people do reflect the attitudes of an entire race. I spent a time of my life in Oklahoma. My family wasn't the wealthiest, so I actually lived in "the ghetto." Funny actually, I've never lived in a neighborhood where my race was the majority (though obviously my race is still the majority for each location as a full community). I lived amongst asians in San Francisco and the Berkeley area with my first friends being named Taka and Atsuko and the like, lived amongst black people named Markell and Shawnte, and currently even in Germany I find myself in a turkish neighborhood surrounded by Hülya's and Timur's. But I digress, that's just me realizing that fun fact. I remember two distinct situations in my lifetime there. One involved a black kid playing the race card left and right. It was so stupid, he was always getting into trouble and then claiming it was because of his race. No dude, it's because you're a punk. Take responsibility. Another? Some friends of mine got arrested. Why? This kid that - ask anyone who went to high school with him - was a total racist? He started running his mouth calling them trash and the n-word and all sorts of stuff, just provoking them out of nowhere. Know what happened? They broke his jaw. I thought it was poetic as ****. He ran his mouth, they broke his jaw so he couldn't anymore. Done and done. It became a front-page story for the town about black thugs attacking some poor good kid, and know what happened? Well suddenly people started looking at the "good kid's" facebook, noticing all the confederate flags and white surpremacy pages he had plastered everywhere and liked. It got reported on briefly, but his family quickly deleted his facebook to kill the evidence before it was copied anywhere. His family was also unfortunately fairly wealthy, so two of my friends ended up doing jail time. (for those of you wondering, it is possible to get off in such a scenario if you've been provoked with racial slurs and hate speech and you did nothing to start the provokation). It was kind of disgusting to watch, because anyone from our high school class knew the answer and knew who was guilty of provoking it all without even needing to read the story, just by hearing the names. It was also a thing where if a friend of mine and I wanted to hang out and drive somewhere, my black friends would ask me to drive. Why? We got pulled over less. At first I was a tad skeptical, more in the sense that I doubted it would be THAT noticeable (yknow like maybe we'd get pulled over once as opposed to zero times if I drove in the entirety of our usage of a car) and we could laugh it off, but it quickly became apparent that wasn't the case. Even had one friend end up in the mayor's office because he'd been pulled over like 16 times in one month for driving while big and black (tall dude) and he was ready to take some serious action if someone didn't scream at the police force. Worked though, they never touched him again. My point with this is there are no universal answers. "No ****," am I right? And yet there always seems to be people who cannot disassociate actions from races and think ALL circumstances even remotely involving race must reflect the entirety of the population. You show me a black guy being oppressed, I'll show you racist black guy with no reason to be. You show me some black guy causing all sorts of problems for his community, I'll show you a black valedictorian. Point is that people are different, and trying to define anyone by their race is nonsense. Some more ignorant folks might do this, but unfortunately we seem to have some other ignorant folks who wish to combat the others by blatantly lying and spreading misinformation about the facts. All I'm saying is, let's not lie to ourselves. A lot of the Baltimore videos suggest racism from many of the black rioters. Let's not make derptard statements like "HURRR DATS HOW BLACKS R," but let's also not let fear of such statements popping up prevent us from acknowledging the truth. Let's also try and understand the situation, because I promise you if you do some digging in regards to Baltimore police and the city in general, this is not an overnight issue by any means. Whether Freddie Grey was targeted due to his race of his criminal record I find irrelevant; what's relevant is the symbolism people are perceiving from this case. We have every motivation to review and discuss any issues there may be in Baltimore and the Baltimore police department, but when you let those hooligans run around tearing **** up and try to pretend it's not happening? I don't care HOW unfair they think the Baltimore police have been to them in the past, that does not justify acting like **** and thugs now. I would be 100% behind the police for arresting every single one of those guys who's been going nuts, and if they were to play the race card, I'd have limited sympathy. And if they wish to be taken seriously? This needs to stop. Otherwise, none of the truly potential racist issues within the police force will stop, as they'll feel their racist thoughts were very much warranted. Please name the amount of violent protestors and rioters you know from history who got their way. Now name the peaceful ones who got their way. Guess which group wins? Yeah.... Because it highlights how it's clearly a race issue. I do not take kindly to people who fly the confederate flag. This flag I would only welcome under very certain circumstances. Seeing it during riots where the targets seem to be white people, at a time where the city feels divided by race? No ****ing way I'm happy to see that flag. It would be a double standard to welcome this one while condemning the confederate flag. There are circumstances where you can argue "yes but this one carries less weight and doesn't have an offensive connotation with it," but this is not one of them. This is this flag being flown at a time when the city feels divided by race. You would flip if you saw a white person react to these riots by flying the confederate flag, you should flip when you see this flag too. It will only promote to serve an us vs. them mentality.

Please quote what? The fact of the matter is that lately anyone defending Paladins clings to that Darcozzi skill like it singlehandedly saves the entire class. Or is there some other amazing (Darcozzi definitely not amazing either, I've made one) Paladin order we've yet to hear about or discover? And I'm confused about wtf you're defending or why you're defending it. You're essentially arguing Paladin has better damage output than Fighter for a portion of the game, which is already an abysmally pathetic argument to be made because neither class is considered to be a damage-dealing class so both of their damage outputs are pathetic. (to be fair to Fighter, their damage output can be respectable, it's just they get prioritized for tanking 99% of the time) Who cares? This somehow makes Paladin good or viable? This is akin to me saying Rogue has better status effects than Cipher for a portion of the game (the tutorial). It means nothing. I really think comparing these two on damage is stupid in general, but merely for clarity, Fighter does have talents to help him get more consistent damage and consistent hits, and I believe has access to more accuracy in general. Again though, this hardly happens in practice because Fighters are gonna be spec'ed as tanks 99% of the time.

Then why, in the two videos we were given with Paladin and Fighter both solo'ing the Sky dragon, do they have seemingly identical kill times despite the fact that Fighter had no summon assistance and Paladin did? Can we also talk about how the people defending Paladins are also currently in the process of arguing Darcozzi Paladini, aka 1/5th of all Paladin builds, is perfectly fine and therefore Paladin is fine? Again, there's clearly a problem if this is what the discussion ends up being like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb2HS6zK-u4 This guy knows how to protest.

Of course it's not some organized strategy, I just wanted to point out how stupid it was. As for your interpretation, I struggle to see it. The rioters threw something at the bar people every single time, with one exception of a table rolling out to the rioters (which occurs shortly after another garbage can hits near them and a barrier gets tipped over). There's also black people amongst the bar guys (check the security guy) who aren't treated to this. Likewise, take the first guy as an example: he gets garbage thrown at him and he flips and rushes the guy. Should he have done that? No, he's an idiot, but the other guy did throw the first "punch." The moment he reacts, he gets SWARMED. Shortly after, another bar goer in front shouts "this is not protesting" and is treated to getting garbage thrown on him by another guy who helped swarm (and got the first guy's hoodie, which seems to be his now). I'm sorry but it's very hard to ignore the facts of what we're seeing. Rationally speaking, you cannot let this one clip be demonstrative of the entire riots, but within this singular clip? Yes, it very much looks like race is a big factor here, and it doesn't really look like the bar goers are doing much to deserve that beyond voicing their objections with what's going on. Your source - let's be real here - is also very much suspect to bias. I'm not doubting there were peaceful protests too, but your source also claims "100 or so" people got violent, and the overwhelming amounts of videos I can find to the contrary suggests that no, the violent protestors are not in the minority. They need to be addressed. This is my point, nothing more: that video? That video is very damning. Someone needs to get in front of a camera calmly and explain those people do not represent the majority. If race truly isn't playing a part in who the rioters lash out at, surely someone is willing to say so.Maybe they have already, mind you; I just got here and just started digging on this story. So far I cannot find that, and the only article I've seen to the contrary is yours, which wishes to claim the amount of violent protestors are a severe minority, which seems to be in blatant denial of the reality of the situation. It's fine that there's peaceful protesters, I would expect that much, but let's not ignore the rioters who seem very ignorant, very stupid and potentially prone towards drawing racial lines. And I must say, in contrast to the Ferguson protests? I remember distinctly that when Ferguson had more violent riots, they were brief and sudden, and the very next day, the protests themselves had organizers who would get in front of the cameras ASAP and explain how that's not representative of them, while explaining who they are and what they do. I could be wrong here, but I also think I recall Obama showing some degree of sympathy on the matter (aka saying questions have been raised that should be investigated). Here? As I said I just got involved with this story, but I can find no example of a peaceful protest organizer stepping up in front of cameras, and every video I find is absolutely disgraceful. Obama himself is commenting that there's "no excuse" for this crap. I do not believe the media would show a level-headed approach to Ferguson and then come Baltimore they have some agenda to push and don't want you to know about the peaceful side of things. FFS, I can link you a video of a CNN report where the reporter is by no means damning of the happenings, but during the whole report, there's guys screaming at him, grabbing for the mic, grabbing for the camera and one guy saying "we WILL kill." This hardly seems like a media frame-up to screw over black people. No, this seems like the riots and protests truly are that ****.

Are they throwing garbage at those people cause they're white? ****ing genius strategy right there.

Don't know why you're saying this because I don't know when I implied cheese was something elite players don't use. I call it cheese because it's a universal working tactic that's reliable and effective, but tedious and stupid. I've never heard someone say they enjoy using cheese tactics, have you?

Which doesn't mean much of anything. By now I think it's all but confirmed that solo play relies on very specific builds or tactics that more or less negate much of the class benefits with very few exceptions. (for example I would expect Monk to do better solo cause I myself have had battles on my games where monks have been cut off alone and still managed to bring down a group alone) None of this will mean jack in squad gameplay, where that Cipher is still going to eat the Paladin's spot because he offers better CC and damage.

I scored 10/20. ...I think I need a drink. I did slightly better 11/20. Fun, if somewhat disturbing, game. 12/20 I AM KING for the next five mins til someone gets 13/20. Pro-tip: The SJWs tend to write the shorter stuff or the stuff that doesn't carry that air of trying to appear intelligent. (For example I got "I ****ing hate _____" and knew it was SJW) Don't let that fool you into voting every paragraph as Stormfront though cause wtf TIL a lot of SJWs are quite fond of racial segregation.

It's always like this. Makes you wonder how many people get games and never play them. Also, why the hell do we give a damned about reviews now that we....yknow, own the game and can decide for ourselves if we like it? I see an earlier example that's highlighting Pillars got a higher average review score than New Vegas, does that make it a better game? I'm sorry but if you gave me a choice between never playing New Vegas or never playing Pillars again, I'd throw Pillars under the bus in a heartbeat. Reviews are worthless once you own the game and have your own opinion on the matter. It's also worth noting Pillars dropped several points when the limerick fiasco happened.

Look at those solo vids and see how much cheese is typically going on to accomplish it. But of course if we're speaking literally, of course no class is "vital." What I meant more is that if I'm fighting a battle with 30+ enemies on my screen, then fighting that battle with and without a Wizard will feel as different as night and day. If I'm fighting the Adra dragon with and without a Fighter? Check how many tips involve sending a Fighter off on his own to draw fire and then just res himself if he happens to die. The point was to name a scenario where having a Paladin makes a battle world's easier to the point where it feels as different as night and day, because unfortunately there simply aren't many at all and the one I could think of saw two other classes offering better alternatives.

Paladins are not designed to be the best at either of their roles, tank or support. They can be built viably in both directions, however, and a support specialized Paladin provides a less dramatic, but steadier form of support than Priests (or they would if Priests, as Vancian spellcasters, were allowed to run out of gas in the way the Rest mechanic envisions). Not that comparisons between classes fulfilling the same role are a concern, as I mentioned before, as long as both can perform adequately. And about that. The exact types of support a Paladin provides are determined by its Order, but Kind Wayfarers can for example provide two sources of AoE healing that are incidental to other actions, not the result of actions spent casting. With another Talent, each killing blow can provide a moderate generic Defense buff in a large radius, which lingers for a moderate time (more than enough time to score another killing blow). Multiple support abilities can proc on the same killing blow. As Paladins are consummate team players, not lone wonders, this style encourages other members of the party to help the Paladin trigger his abilities, which is a co-dependent design feature that other classes could take lessons from, not one that should be cut out of Paladin. Besides its on-kill abilities, which are what set Paladin support apart playstylistically from other supports, it also has Exhortations and Auras. Exhortations are well-known to be a mixed bag and pretty situational, though all reactive support is situational. There probably will be some needed tweaks to Exhortations. Among Auras, Zealous Charge in particular is an interesting case because its effect is hard to get from other sources, and where it is available elsewhere, as from Chanter, is lower quality and probably not something a Chanter would want to be burning Phrase time on anyway. Taking stock. Is full support Paladin more difficult to play than tank Paladin? Yes. Is it more difficult to get results with than Priest? Yes. But it can get results. So you can't. You can't name a battle scenario where Paladin is vital. Do you see why Paladin gets benched when almost every other class can name a battle where they're very useful or practically vital to a win, but Paladin can't accomplish this? The player needs motivation to use Paladin, and so far the motivation we've got is pathetic. Likewise, you go on to praise that Paladin has a style that "encourages other members of the party to help the Paladin trigger his abilities." That's exactly the problem. If I need to temporarily disable every enemy on the field, a Wizard can do so just by casting a spell. If I need to cover a teammate whose in danger because a hard-hitting enemy has reached a less-tanky teammate, Cipher can likely paralyze that enemy with one quick cast, as can Fighter with some of his skills. If I need an enemy to go down really quick, a Monk is going to achieve that with just a couple of Torment's Reach casts, which may sound like a lot, but with their attack speed it's a matter of a couple seconds so long as you're willing to pause and assign each cast. All of these classes can very quickly and concisely provide answers to any problems you might have. Paladin needs a very specific setup that's heavily team-reliant. And for what? Some extra endurance or a terrified debuff on the enemy. The benefits themselves are horrendously pathetic. While Wizard gets a whole group of enemies prone, confused, asleep or even petrified at the very end of the game, Paladin can....frighten. And for the endurance boosts? I can say with confidence that Paladin is the only class I know that's got a skill made obsolete by a race. Instead of working hard to set up a kill for that endurance, why not just make the Paladin a Moon Godlike? Exact same effect, but without the weird demand in order to trigger it. Just make him a frontline tank and it'll proc. Do you not see how the amount of effort a Paladin demands is unprecedented? Even if you consider it fun, there's a serious problem when one class has to pull off what's effectively a combo and no other class has to do that. Do you not see how Paladin is unflexible? How the moment something goes wrong and maybe the guy who was supposed to set up a kill for Paladin crits and then it all falls apart? Or how the Paladin might get stunned before the killing blow, in which case you've either wasted unneccesary attention on something that didn't pay off OR you'll leave that guy alive that much longer just to wait for Paladin to be ready to kill the guy? So what's wasteful for Chanter isn't wasteful for Paladin? Can you not see how either: A.) You're grasping at straws and attempting to praise a horrendously mediocre ability that only a fraction of players waste a level on OR B.) If this truly is something fancy amongst the Paladin's line up, it really says something about how awful the Paladin's line up is? I essentially asked you to provide me with an example encounter where Paladin really shined and to give it praise if and when that praise is deserved in a fight scenario. Instead, you both refuse to do that and much of your post actually provides criticism of Paladins existing skills. There is a clear problem.

It's not a competition, contrary to what the prevalent optimization brain-rot on the forums tends to imply. You don't get it. None of us here who are trashing a Paladin's capabilities are saying "min-maxing and optimizing is the only way to play this game." We're saying that the fact of the matter is, people play the things that work decently well. If we were to, for example, look at the Binding of Isaac Rebirth characters, then Azazel is the most popular one because he's considered the strongest, whereas Lazarus is very unpopular and rarely played because his gimmick is so specialized that you rarely get an opportunity to make proper use out of it. There's theories that people will always use the most practical means in a game setting, so to that extent, proper balance is neccesary to make sure every portion of the game is utilized by the general audience. If it's not, then much of that content gets skipped over. That's just how it is. So when you're examining if the class can compete, it has nothing to do with those of us making these arguments being incapable of playing anything but perfectly optimized squads, and everything to do with the fact that the other classes all have grades ranging from A+ to B- and Paladin is chilling out at D. None of us sit here and speculate what the worth of a Barbarian over a Monk or a Rogue over a Monk or the like because those classes are good ENOUGH and close ENOUGH that even if we were to find overwhelming evidence one is typically better than the other, they get the job done within the same degree of reliability. Paladin lags painfully far behind though. I've said this before, but Paladin was my first character. I think Paladin could be the most fun class in the game with proper optimization, thanks to all the further specialized skills they have based on their orders. But I abandoned that first character really quick when the Priest that was my second character was world's easier, and then as I went down the list trying all the different classes, it began to become painfully obvious that Paladins weren't just slightly weaker or "late bloomers" (classes that kick ass in later stages of the game) or a class that only experts of Pillars can appreciate (for example Thief preset in Dark Souls is something only a player experienced in backstabs, dodging and parrying can appreciate, but they'll REALLY appreciate it if they can)....Nope, Paladin just sucks. But since this all has the tone of "Paladin sucks" "no it doesn't" going back and forth, here's my question to you: Name a battle in this game where a Paladin can single-handedly be pivotal in surviving that encounter. Name one where Paladin can make an encounter world's easier and there's no other class alternative that can do the same. Fighters and Monks can do a great job vs. fampyrs, Wizards and Druids do an excellent job vs. any battle that has tons of enemies to deal with, Priests are a godsend in any battle where there's a damage over time spell that needs healing off your team and Chanters do excellent in longer fights. What battle do Paladins excel in....?

They're Pillars. That have existed eternally. They are.... Pillars of Eternity

ur mom hella moderate ooooooooo

Dude again you didn't counter or address most of the points I made. You countered like one. It's painfully ironic you make this post about how I'm not actually arguing rational thought or the like and then your entire post is one giant example of slander with little else to offer. The problem is Deflection is by far the most important defense to have for a front line character, and no, the Paladin does not boost ally defenses for the majority of the game, and no, as discussed even the increased DR aura will have trouble hitting everyone. Will and Reflex defenses for example are largely geared towards avoiding mind-controlling attacks or AOEs. Have you fought the fampyrs in this game? Them and Vithraks, they're like the only enemy type that consistently targets your heavy hitters. I have little need for Will defense on Paladin or Fighter because I can count the number of times I've had either class targeted by a fampyr or Vithrak on one hand. The only enemy type that will consistently try to dominate, confuse or charm your tanks are those spores that just shoot the first guy within range, but since they're immobile you can easily single them out and approach them safely as a group to the point where it doesn't matter who gets hit. Infact you might prefer your Paladin or Fighter be hit instead of your spellcasters. Reflex is an issue in the sense that either the Fighter-Paladin will be targeted by an AOE directly or they won't be targeted at all. But you know which defense consistently gets used? Deflection. Every single fight. It's also worth mentioning that since Fighter is commonly built as a pure tank, you'll likely get the all-class talent to make shield defense also boost reflexes. You could do the same on Paladin, but in doing so you're hurting their offensive capacity, and depending on the type of Paladin you're building, this could be bad. A Bleak Walker for example is definitely not going to want the accuracy penalties from shields and is also going to want to try and land kills when possible. And Righteous Soul? It's yet another example of Paladins half-assing a skill that another class gets. Righteous Soul Clarity of Agony I can hear it now: "Paladin's is a passive and Monk's is two per rest!" Yes, but Monk's is also level 5 and covers more status ailments. In theory I could understand why someone might look at Righteous Soul and think it's a good deal. In practice however, it's simply not all it's cracked up to be. Why? Because again, your damage dealers are the ones targeted by charm and dominated attacks the most and very limited enemies actually use frightened or terrified effects. You know what can be somewhat common? Paralyze, stun and petrify. Anyone who's run through the Endless Paths will tell you some of the later stages are plagued with those effects, and it's clearly broadcasted when a fight will involve them. If I'm fighting Cean Gwlas with a Monk and a Paladin, you know what'll happen? The Paladin will not be terrified, which will mean jack all when they use their AOE paralyze and lo and behold he's paralyzed. The Monk will be Paralyze and Terrified, but both of those effects will be short, and the moment the Monk is free, he puts in work killing those things so that less paralyze is being spammed and thus the entire team is in less danger. Just as a bonus, I happen to know Crush damage (Monk's specialty) does wonders vs. these guys. The Monk's benefit is also going to protect him from any potential stun landed by a nearby phantom or the like. You might be saying that a Paladin's superior defenses are more likely to save the Paladin from being paralyzed at all. This is plausible, but why not just bring a Monk? A Paladin's damage burns out the moment Flames of Devotion is gone, a Monk can spam Torment's Reach like it's going out of style. This enemy type is an issue because it can spam AOE paralyze attacks that hit your whole team and nuke everyone's deflection as they're swarmed with hits. They need to die and they need to die quick. Both Paladin and Monk offer ways to counteract the ailments, but Monk is going to be dropping these like flies. Once again, another class is doing the job better. To be fair, this is a rare fight scenario where Paladin can do decent, because it's actually a fight where Liberating Exhortation can come into play and help kill these things faster. I only make the "why not just bring a monk" argument because I know how people think: Do I want to bring a Paladin who, IF he gets a saving roll from the paralyze effect, can liberate my Cipher and Wizard (with a bit of time between each cast of Exhortation) to help clean the floor, or do I want to bring two monks instead of one who already have pretty respectable defense against the Paralyze themselves and are fully capable of reliably lowering the potential paralyze duration to nothing while dealing heavy amounts of damage the moment they break free? This is part of what hurts Paladin so bad: they're consistently situational, to the point where you catch yourself saying "well IF I dodge the Paralyze and use Liberating Exhortation and IF I land my Flames of Devotion hits then it'll have been worth it to bring the Paladin along in one of the hundreds of battles we've fought!" It falls flat when the Monk undeniably pulls his weight in every single encounter. Again, this is yet another story of "looks good on paper, suffers in practice." Could things like Righteous Soul be good? Yes, the problem being that the game provides you with next to no battle setups where Righteous Soul is noticeable or pivotal. As stated, the charm and domination bonuses are effectively moot because enemies that have these types of attacks go for the wizards, the priests and the ciphers. The frightened and terrified bonuses...? What enemies use these ailments aside from the above-mentioned enemy type? In the end, it's functionally a fortitude bonus, which while good, is nothing to write home about and ffs you could debate just snatching Bear's fortitude instead. (that's sad) What needs to happen is that Paladin either needs respecs OR the game itself needs to offer battle scenarios where some of the Paladin talents are likely to come into play. I made the very same point when another thread had people saying that offense characters are Might-Dex-Int and Defense ones are Con-Per-Res and there's no need to play them any different. Currently yes there's a truth to that, but proper encounter variance could change that. Paladin either needs tweaking or encounter types that validate them. And no actually, I immediately traded someone out for Pallegina and she was with me my first playthrough, the very same Trial of Iron one where Eder saved the squad twice. I like her character, but that doesn't mean I wasn't disappointed with her performance. I find it very telling that when I was fighting the final boss of the game and there were those two big guys I needed to keep busy? It was actually Eder and Aloth who kept each one busy, not Eder and Pallegina. Even when I needed someone to grab the one Aloth was on for just a moment so he could get away or reposition, it was my PC Barb that stepped in, and my Barb was the one who initially held one of those giants as Eder kept Thaos busy. I tried holding one off with her initially but she was just getting her ass kicked so I needed her to take on a more supportive role to be useful, which mostly involved using her for heal casts she happened to have thanks to a ring I equipped her with. :/ I might have to load the file up and look if her defenses surpass my barb's or not. Regardless, his insane amounts of endurance are a defense of their own (same can be said for Monks). And to anyone arguing Paladins need a niche of their own, I've said this before: I have nothing against that and think it's a fine idea, but the realist in me also knows that at this stage of development (aka, NOT development anymore), Obsidian is far more likely to tweak the numbers on existing skills, not actually revamp the entire class. If a Paladin isn't tanking then what exactly is it doing? Paladin is such a confused mess of responsibilities that if it even drops one of them, it lags behind. As a comparison, this is akin to you fully ignoring a Ranger's pet and just using the Ranger. If you do that, you've hit a point where it's a question of "why not just use a Rogue?" Without tanking, you quickly hit a question of "Why not just use a ______" for the Paladin.

I don't feel like taking the bait, your strawman. How the HELL can I strawman you when my post was "you did not address any of the points I just made?" It boggles my mind. Really it does. The way I see it, we have eleven classes in this game. If one of those classes is painfully inferior to the other 10, then it means 1/11th of our game is effectively moot and not being utilized properly. I don't like wasted potential, nor do I think anyone does. I've also complained about the plaetorea of useless all-class talents you're offered that are effectively "non-existent" in the sense that no one in their right mind would take them and thus their potential isn't utilized, but nobody freaks out over that. If it were Ciphers who I felt were a sucky class, I'd voice criticisms as to why exactly as I do now. Never ceases to amaze me the kind of stuff people will attach themselves to and fight passionately to defend, especially since it's a matter of....if things went my way, the class they love so dearly would get even better, whereas if things went their way, it'd stay as is. Also a bit of a tangent and just a fun fact people might be interested in: Ever wonder why people can be such fanatics about a thing that they'll illogically attack you tooth and nail for not showing the same degree of loyalty they do? For example, ever wonder why perhaps you could be a fan of Nintendo and the Wii U, but when you acknowledge that you also think it's kind of a lackluster system, another fan might flip out on you? I'd long suspected it was this and a study on the matter only confirmed my suspicions: the things you like become an extension of your ego that you use to validate yourself, AKA if you like a company, product, story character, TV show or whatever and then that thing fails in some way, some people take that as a personal attack on their own judgement. It's potentially subconciously viewed as an indicator that you yourself are unintelligent, have poor taste or in some way have failed aswell for believing in that thing. Following that, don't be surprised to, for example, see a kickstarter backer of Pillars of Eternity adamantly defend the game against anyone who voices disappointment, and not so much because they themselves don't understand the disappointment, but because they're inserting their ego into the matter and take an attack on Pillars of Eternity as an attack on themselves. Interesting stuff, imo. Pretty sure deflection is the category Fighters beat Paladins out on dude. It's the other defenses that Paladin excels in. I'm assuming you're arguing the deflection skill Paladins get at level freaking 9 is what makes Paladins better at deflection, but you fail to account for the fact that it's 20 seconds long, so Vigorous Defender competes with it and again makes Fighters defenses (ALL of them) superior, by your own logic. If you really wanna argue that Paladins have superior deflection because there's a 5 second window where they do, then lulz. Likewise, I keep saying people are underestimating Constant Recovery on Fighter. If you've got a Fighter with good armor to the point where a lot of the stuff on him is dealing minimal damage (when it hits, thanks to high deflection), then that minimal damage can be cancelled out by Constant Recovery, effectively meaning one less person is on the fighter, so to speak. It's also a case where some have argued Lay On Hands is superior, but again if we're talking about a fight involving Petrify, Stun or Paralyze, then no, it's not. Constant Recovery is universally applicable, Lay On Hands is not. That problem aptly sums up Paladin's problem in general: their skills are consistently more specialized than the alternative classes and thus only see proper application a minority of the time compared to what the other classes get out of their skills. Fighters can also be built offensively and do quite a bit of damage. There's actually not a whole lot stopping you from playing a Fighter like a Ranger or a Rogue lacking Sneak Attack and other free non-crit damage amps in exchange for superior defenses. As I've said before, the only reason people don't realize Fighter's offensive potential is because Fighter is simultaneously the best tank in the game while his damage potential is going to be somewhere in the middle of all the classes. I'd expect a Fighter to outdamage Priest, Chanter, Paladin, and to a lesser extent, Wizard and Druid in certain circumstances and scenarios to the point where Fighter can keep up with their damage output by providing superior damage on average while easily losing out when those three are in their comfort zones; what Fighters provide is solid stats whereas other classes are more skill-reliant. It's tough to pin down where they'd rank since much of Fighter's advantages are that they CAN afford some of the better all-class talents without it being such an inconvenience (when built for damage), but you get the point. You assign the classes to what they're best at, so that means Fighters rarely get used for damage. And while brief, all of the Fighter's per encounter skills can be a large help to a battle. When I first got the game and I was derp as hell at it, I beat Maerwald and similar "boss" characters by learning that the knockdown a Fighter provides is a large enough window to prevent my team from being hit and then kill that squishy enemy before they even get back up. Lastly, I don't think many people have ever spoken about how thrilling and fun Fighters are to play. It's more a matter of respect. This is a class that, if your entire squad wipes and Fighter is the last one standing....? Most classes, when they're the last person left, I expect the fight to be over and done and there's nothing I can do. The only two that consistently seem to pull off miracles are Chanter and Fighter. While Chanter is more invocation dependent, Fighter is one that just may or may not survive off his stats alone with absolute minimal micromanagement from you. My Trial of Iron run and my first playthrough? It survived because Eder was the last one standing against the final boss in his final phase, and he pulled that off alone. So yeah, you better believe I have respect for Fighters when twice in that playthrough, Eder was the difference between the file being deleted and me being able to complete the game. I've said this before, but I truly believe this is the result of the "no bad builds" philosophy. I think somewhere in development, they realized intelligence did very little for Paladins, and unfortunately the solution was to practically make intelligence a requirement if you want to use auras effectively. In this case, I think the devs need to cut their losses on the "no bad builds" mantra, set the auras to a much larger range and thereby make int much less critical, and just leave it at that. Paladins would benefit from this as they ALREADY need practically every stat save for Dexterity. The stat demand is far too high for Paladin and just leads to either complete abandonment of half of their abilities, or you end up lackluster in everything.

...Which is a thing I should care about because...? This makes it pretty clear you've got no interest in what I'm trying to say, so nevermind, I won't even bother trying to explain it.

You should've spoken up sooner about that stuff dude. Everything is relevant. I wonder if the Obsidian limerick fiasco could be called the turning point or if it's just something we notice more cause we visit these boards. Cause yeah, I've been jaded since then too. I was the one who took Firedorn's post and ran it down to KiA to get people to chill out. Moment it was added to the sticky, it wasn't met with people calming down and considering options, but rather just thinking up new ways to be mad at Obsidian as my stuff got spammed with downvotes. Even had one guy going through downvoting every one of my reddit posts (admitted to it openly). It's hardly the majority of course, but it doesn't really matter cause it's still ENOUGH people to do damage. I feel like that was a turning point of sorts simply because before, there'd been discussion about how to approach developers. The only developers who'd gotten calls of boycotting were those who blatantly talked trash and showed disrespect towards GG and/or gamers. It was always talks of how GG can't just boycott those who disagree because then it's no better than what the SJWs do, and then here the plan was to do that with Obsidian, but with no discussion as to why or if there were better alternatives. Felt like people were just getting restless and acting before thinking.

Well the problem with hate groups is that sooner or later everybody becomes a target : ] The bitter irony being that in making this statement, you are guilty of the exact thing I'm criticizing. I do not make those posts as a way to say "all GamerGate supporters are like this," but rather to highlight a growing number of supporters that are that way and how I think it could "poison the well." Those people? I'm criticizing them because they blindly view anyone who's not in-group as being bad or wrong or someone to be opposed, making no attempt to understand or speak with them. And in your statement, you're implying anyone who's a part of GG is a member of a hate group, viewing them as being bad or wrong or people to be opposed, making no attempt to understand or speak with them. And mind you, of course you've spoken with us before, I'm not trying to say you haven't. But why label it as such? Do you consider me or anyone in this thread a hateful person...? If not, then why make that statement? The fact of the matter is that those who've stood against GG would hold some manner of responsibility in this. Not directly as in it's their fault GGers are getting aggressive, but rather there's a "war" going on and both sides are perfectly capable of abolishing certain tactics. Any characteristic you can find within one side? You'll find on the opposing side aswell. That this kind of blind hatred for the other side is something that's growing rather than shrinking? I think that speaks volumes about the quarrel in general. It's been going on too long now, this is the result. People act exactly as they're treated. So spare me those comments please, because for as hard as I facepalm when I read KiA threads saying Pakman is "dead to us now," I facepalmed equally as hard reading your post.

This is blatantly Skyrim's "a mile wide, an inch deep" little tagline, and I think it really highlights how ridiculous this is both in that you're trying to claim this is some huge game and in that the content it does contain is that short and shallow. It's neither. Dude don't even bother answering him, his statement and implied argument itself are just flawed. Even if you did like some post-2006 RPG, it wouldn't prove a thing. Besides, as I've stated, I'm still down for debating with anyone why New Vegas is a superior RPG to the original Fallouts. I'd love to have that convo if one of these pretentious little dudes is up for it.

Are you aware absolutely nothing you said was in response to the points I made? ....Nor did you even really manage to make any coherent points at all?

Thats a good point. No it's not! Read what he wrote. There's nothing logical about it, only emotional. The reason you boost the casters is because a 50% damage increase on a shot that does 60 damage is superior to a 50% damage increase on a hit that does 15 damage. The squad functions more efficiently when everyone focuses on what they're best at. I will get more use out of taking my Priest's +20 accuracy buff and sticking it on the wizard and cipher in the back instead of putting it on the tank-focused Fighter in hopes his damage output will become decent. That's why you try and get one tank to hold the line and hold off as many people as possible and that's why you make the guys in the back hit as hard as possible. And this is where the problem with Paladins arises. Paladins are so confused as to what they do that in order to get the maximum use out of a Paladin, they belong on the front lines. But the moment you do so, their aura doesn't hit the guys in the back, and particularly in the case of Zealous Focus and it's accuracy + crit increases, those are the exact people you want to have the aura. It's a class that cannot make use of all the tools it's provided with simultaneously, and what's more, those tools are pretty mediocre to begin with... This is basic math dude.

Well, I'm not among them, and I've never heard of this. You really can't imagine yourself not being attracted to a physically attractive woman because of her personality or something else like that? :U

Why would casters not "deserve" Paladin aura?