Gromnir

is perhaps not a bug, and the issue existed before the 1.04 beta patch, but there is the continuing issue of no transparency regarding what the elemental talents such as scion of flame modify. scion does not, as far as Gromnir can tell, modify priest seal spells or any burn damage related to melee weapons... although am admitting we have not checked the flamey sword spell for druids. therefore, scion does not modify paladin weapon burn abilities or the fiery lash quality o' durance's staff. scion does work to modify many spells, but as we noted already, it doesn't alter seal spells for priests. also, we cannot tell if the elemental talents are factored into dot spells. feedback as to what the elemental talents do and don't modify would be helpful. HA! Good Fun!

But isn't that what a Priest is supposed to do? And Priest does it better I think.........so why should we bother with a Paladin? Specially when so many people consider Fighter class to be indispensable, specially for main tanking.... So why shouldn't we just get a Fighter (who you are going to get no matter what) and a Priest and get the best of both worlds, why should we bother with Paladin at all (and stay mediocre in both departments; tanking and support).....I mean I am having trouble understanding the design here, in all honesty. asked and answered. is not that priests do better in support but that they do different, and they is far more squishy when doing it. auras are not requiring casting, which in some battles is quite useful. paladin auras also stack different than priest spells, which is a major advantage when paired with a priest. and why not get a priest and a fighter? 1=1 1+1 = 2 paladin occupies one party slot. also, have a fighter and a priest don't make the priest any less squishy. is more than a few folks who like to have a party with two tanks, and a paladin secondary tank who can also add support functionality is a great fit in may parties. etc. paladins is different and they do tend to be boring in our estimation, but that is actually one o' their selling points, which bring us to... that is an opinion. Gromnir likes micromanagement, so priests don't pose a problem for us. nevertheless, one need not have followed these boards overmuch to recognize that a considerable % o' players find poe combat to be overwhelmingly frenetic and that they want far less micromanagement. HA! Good Fun!

oh, so not only your personal opinion, but based on limited anecdotal. how... quaint. doesn't do much for all those folks in tech support with their own opinions and different problems. and again, Gromnir is not advocating taking time away from bug fixing at this point. your are being willful obtuse again. we already noted that respec obviously and mistakenly were not added to poe. we observed that the question o' adding respec to poe were moot. nevertheless, that don't prevent the developers from correcting their lack of foresight by adding respec to the expansion or future games. unlike you, we ain't short sighted. we understand that feedback about poe is useful to the developers more in regards to future projects than for current ones. HA! Good Fun!

You're right, but the Paladin can be replaced in any role and get stomped by any other class in the game. HA! Good fun! is maybe not a fair criticism o' the paladin, but it has enough truth to warrant a response. the paladin is not as good a tank as the fighter, though some folks very vehemently disagree. on the other hand, the paladin kicks the fighter's arse at support functions such as buffing, debuffing and cleansing. the paladin will not be doing melee or ranged damage to eclipse the rogue, even if you build the paladin as pure dps. even so, the striker paladin laughs at rogue party buffs, and is far better from an overall defensive pov. even the limited function retaliation rogue don't have paladin defenses across the board. cc o' wizards and druids? no, the paladin doesn't compare, but see above for rogue and fighter comparisons. the paladin ain't s'posed to compete with the wizard and druid in a cc role. the priest. well, as a big fan o' priests, we will observe that they take a great deal o' micromanagement and they are squishy. so, if we want a less squishy support character that we not need to hand hold or hoard spells til halfway through the game, the paladin makes for a fine alternative. am not a fan of chanters til level 9 or so. chanters can be almost as good in a tanky role as paladins, and their chants and invocations are quite powerful. the thing is, unless you got two chanters in a party, the chants is fading in and out o' application, and battles is over far too frequent for us to make use o' chanter invocations. we find chanters to be big ugly teases. they should be great, and perhaps they are great, but so far we ain't been able to exploit their potential without having two chanters in a party, and we don't want that either. typically, when first reaching defiance bay, we dump the chanter and recruit the paladin. the paladin is a unique class, and it can be effective in any number o' party configurations... and for players such as Gromnir who refuse to wait on prima donna chanters. "But still that doesn't change the fact that most of the player base considers Paladin, an underdog." most o' the player base doesn't want the poe paladin to be a poe paladin-- they want an ie paladin. as we noted above, we suspect that the name is an insurmountable hurdle. change name to champion as infares suggests and a vast majority o' paladin complaints would disappear. however, your confusion about the paladin is not genuine your fault. no, the actual paladin archetype does not require that it be a great crpg striker/dps and have excellent tanky qualities to boot. but crpg conventions, being what they are, does result in certain reasonable expectations regarding classes, and obsidian has done a less than stellar job o' convincing the fan base that crpg preconceptions about paladins don't match the poe version. in fact, the obsidians has incrementally but inexorably caved to the expectations o' the fans rather than making the poe paladin a better POE paladin. HA! Good Fun!

there is no rational reason for punishing players who are attempting to correct or overcome developer error. HA! Good Fun!

the paladin has excellent buffs, debuffs and cleanses, but the paladin is not nearly as versatile as a priest. the paladin is a strong addition to the poe class lineup, but its role is misunderstood.... and it can be boring. the poe paladin is s'posed to play more like a 4e warlord or 3.5 marshal than an ie game paladin. have said it before, but the biggest mistake obsidian made with a few o' the classes were nothing more than their naming conventions. give very different poe classes the same names as ie classes were a mistake, and no matter how many times developers post stating that a poe paladin is not an ie paladin, some folks can't give up the ghost. HA! Good Fun!

oh, the hypocrisy. do you even read your own posts before you hit the "post" button? You're stating an opinion as fact. "I'm finding my Custom party far more satisfying (and much more powerful) than the mis-built NPCs Obsidian has presented to me. Moreover, I'm finding the Adventurer Hall feature to be a fantastic way to work around bugs, while I wait for Obsidian to patch my game." your solution, which is only a solution in a particular instance, is a solution for stun 'cause you believe it to be a solution. and your "more satisfying" and "fantastic way" nonsense is wonderful opinions, yes? thanks for sharing. on the other hand, one need only look at the tech support portion o' these boards for a few minutes to recognize that players other than stun have different opinions. you not needing respec fails to alter the Fact that many players do not share your opinion. and btw, we mean't "doesn't." it is possible that an expansion will add in respec. again, stun misses the point. learn english? funny and hypocritical. HA! Good Fun!

bump as an aside, Gromnir is very much aware that josh favors transparency o' mechanics. not knowing what a talent does would appear to contravene the core design goals o' poe, yes? HA! Good Fun!

uhm. we would say that one o' their main shortcomings is their lack o' versatility... though am admitting to lack o' comprehension regarding "usability." the paladin is a bit more flexible than a chanter we s'pose... maybe. by the end o' the game we would say chanters is more flexible as they will have a goodly number o' chants and invocations and a creative player can build a chanter that will be mighty effective in all situations. but paladins? auras are modal, but for all intents and purposes, they are always active. the paladin's abilities are, for the most part, situationally useful. what we mean is, there will be battles in which you won't feel the need or even a desire to use a few o' your abilities. however, if you happen to have party members knocked out or hobbled, perhaps you have a paladin ability that would make all the difference between success and failure for that encounter. dunno. we wouldn't suggest that the poe paladin is flexible. in fact, they is a bit like a toy robot that you wind up and then set loose. they just kinda keep grinding, seemingly unstoppable, til they run into a wall or some stairs. if you want to make a paladin that hits hard, you better plan out talents and abilities with some scrutiny as their role is as low-maintenance support character with impressive defensive characteristics. you can indeed makes a paladin capable o' delivering the smackdown, but doing so tends to require the sacrifice o' their support abilities or resilience. there is more than a few intriguing builds possible for the paladin. that being said, we kinda feel bad that the beta community were able to discourage the developers from maintaining the core philosophy o' the class. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63968-update-56-paladins-and-wild-orlans/?hl=paladin the improvements sought by the community is not directed to accent the paladin as envisioned by obsidian. instead, players want the poe paladin to be more like paladins from other games, the ie games in particular. example: paladins weren't heavy hitters, so we got a d&d smite ability. *shrug* paladin improvements would be better spent on making the class better in support. make the paladin a better low-maintenance support character with impressive defensive characteristics. there is already dps/striker classes and tank classes amongst the 11 poe offerings. further attempts to make the paladin capable o' filling all roles defeats the whole point o' having eleven unique classes. HA! Good Fun!

Indeed. You want something. But they're not going to give it to you. Perhaps it's time now to stop and realize that they actually DID offer you a reasonable compromise to a respec feature. It's right there in the game and it DOES allow you to work around "broken skills" even if you can't fix them. Try the adventurer creation system. Seriously. In my current playthrough, I got Grieving Mother a little late (she was already 7th level), and she was horribly built. But I really wanted a Cipher. So I just ran up the road to the Inn, bought myself a level 7 adventurer, and built him from scratch, from the ground up, to be a truly optimal Cipher. Problem solved. that is a rather Short sighted (and unsatisfactory) solution. you see the difference between short sighted and long term yet? and yes, once the game is released w/o respec, it is obvious that this game doesn't have respec. again, duh. am not sure if you are being intentional obtuse. is any number o' features that ain't in this game but should be. is a number o' features in this game that should be changed. that is kinda the point o' providing feedback, yes? *zoom* right over stun's head. HA! Good Fun!

eh? am saying the feature shoulda' been in the game already and should be in future games. at this point the issue is largely moot. how short-sighted of you. nevertheless, it were short-sighted to think the console would suffice. it were short-sighted o' you to believe poe wouldn't be any less subject to post release developer rebalancing (which we saw you mewling about in another thread) as a host o' other games. were short-sighted to think poe would be noticeably less frustrating for perfectly reasonable players who had their role-play choices invalidated by developer error. yes, fix for the expansion and future releases is long term thinkig. realizing that the absence o' long term thinking on the part o' the developers means that we need wait for expansions or sequel to finally get a feature that a long term thinker would have added without much debate is proving our point and not yours. am thinking you don't deserve the cookie. HA! Good Fun!

opposite of myopic. am not thinking you know what short-sighted means anymore than you understood strawman. figures pj would like. is taking the long view to realize that poe would have many broken and busted features. is taking long view to add such a feature, a feature that shows up in many games and which you has not shown the man-hour implementation o' such a feature to be particularly egregious. every feature added is subject to cost v. benefit. duh. is taking long view to realize that a limited respec function would/could alleviate much o' the frustration and disappointment a considerable number o' role-players must need have endured because o' the predictable (Gromnir predicted, so am betting the developers were less myopic than stun) developer error. is long view thinking to recognize that a respec bandaid would give the developers more flexibility in fixing post release bugs as respec would at least alleviate (though not eliminate) the unfortunate impact o' developer error on player builds. however, we do applaud you for abandoning the cheater nonsense. that deserves reinforcement. *hands stun a cookie* baby steps, eh? HA! Good Fun!

bump... 'cause it is monday. HA! Good Fun!

am recalling having this happen to us frequent in the beta. is a particular battle in which a foe could hit us with a searing seal spell... an odd spell as it counts as a trap, yes? anywho, after the battle, the blindness icon would remain and on our character record sheet the effect would be greyed as "suppressed." however, immediately 'pon entering combat, the blindness would again become active. is sad to see (no pun intended) that this legacy bug remains. HA! Good Fun!

the keep poses a ridiculous difficult balancing problem for the developers. in a game with abundant copper/gold, making the keep produce copious amounts o' wealth for the player would be inimical to their overall design philosophies. sure, the player wants something for their investment in the keep, but rewarding with gold is bad. the keep could be an effective gold sink, but so far, players appear less than enthusiastic with the results. a gold sink is not a popular feature in single-player crpgs. get a largely cosmetic or illusory benefit from a huge currency investment works in an mmo 'cause conspicuous consumption is an exploitable social failing. what is the point o' such stuff in a single-player game, eh? likewise, the keep should not be providing enormous amounts o' additional xp, but it does via the bounties. am realizing that it sounds a bit silly, but the keep, ideally, should reward you with nothing, and make you happy with your nothingness. HA! Good Fun!

and again, we noted that if you is sacrificing the dps for defensive capability on your striker character, then you is doing something wrong from our way o' thinking. but you like what you found, so good for you. you like moonies too, but Gromnir never seems to have battles last long enough that their racial bonus would make a difference. regardless, you keep using words such as "nothing" or "no" to describe orlan racial bonuses, but you is clearly playing the part o' the sicilian from the princess bride. am just not certain if you is doing for laughs or for serious. am more concerned that you think everybody needs agree with you. as we said, is good that poe has choices that allows us to look at racial bonuses and disagree. clear winners would be problematic. you think there is clear winners. Gromnir doesn't. congratulations? HA! Good Fun!

you do not take a -2 penalty to might. you have a -2 towards potential max might. is no point buy or similar such stuff. we got same pool o' points as every other race, which makes most o' the attribute penalties and bonuses a bit illusory. our ourlan melee combatants can starts with an 18 might. and yes, a bonus that is close to the dps gain from 1 point o' might, which is indeed meaningful for a racial bonus, particularly with certain weapon choices. thanks. HA! Good Fun! If your orlan starts with 18 might, then your max dex is 18. You have 2 points leftover to spend on support or survivability. A human can start with 20 might and 18 dex. That alone is worth more damage than 18 might/18 dex/10% hits to crits. actually, our typical spread is 18/15/15... and sometimes 16/16/16. we get the dps benefit from orlan w/o the commensurate loss to other attributes. is a zero sum game with attributes. the racial benefits are a separate factor. and you don't get free points as a human. again, the pool total is the same. HA! Good Fun!

you do not take a -2 penalty to might. you have a -2 towards potential max might. is no point buy or similar such stuff. we got same pool o' points as every other race, which makes most o' the attribute penalties and bonuses a bit illusory. our ourlan melee combatants can starts with an 18 might. and yes, a bonus that is close to the dps gain from 1 point o' might, which is indeed meaningful for a racial bonus, particularly with certain weapon choices, is a better choice for us than being able to equip a hatchet and shield along with our casters... and then doing negligible dps. thanks. HA! Good Fun!

is our first choice for most tank builds. HA! Good Fun!

is better dps. and the ooh mau mau is doing far less dps with a shield and hatchet in hands, eh? get murdered by, y'know, not dpsing with a hatchet and shield in hands? seems a foolish tactic to us. you like the safety o' the shield. we tend to think that the you is doing something wrong if you need the shield. is nice that poe can make us both happy in different ways. *shrug* HA! Good Fun! clear win for orlan.

As per usual, I understand about half of what you said and think it's all great. part o' the problem, beyond our posting style, is that we were speaking o' events long forgotten. w/o context, our examples is less than illuminating, eh? perhaps it woulda been better if we specific quoted the genesis post. dunno. regardless, we read the silliness 'bout how the mmo era perverted the the eden o' balance free single-player crpg goodness we s'posed enjoyed previous to diablo3 (or some other game) and we couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness o' a fantasy that never were. ... probable made more obscure. HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* an advantage we have no need for? why on earth would we feel the need to switch to hatchet and shield? our striker/dps characters exist to inflict hurt-- do damage as fast as possible, and a hatchet and shield does not aid us at all in achieving that goal. hell, particular with a rogue, Gromnir is actively attacking occupied or partial/complete disabled foes. need for a shield set is minimal. islander adds a +0 to the equation based on our gameplay. we take the orlan hands down with no reservations precisely 'cause it does aid in increasing damage output. is it a huge leap in damage? 'course not, which is why it is balanced. and it is silly to say that orlan racial ability offers no offensive advantage when you already conceded that it does offer an advantage, albeit a small one... which is what it is kinda the point. for gunner builds with weapons that have long reload times, the extra weapon set is fantastic, but it provides us with little additional advantage on most characters. *shrug* we do put hatchet and shields on most casters, but they also do not need a third weapon set. the orlan has an actual offensive advantage and the islander weapon set gains us little save making our the job o' our support characters a bit easier? HA! Good Fun!

what is with the necro post? regardless, amentep got subdual, at least to a limited degree. unfortunately, the feature is tied to the keep, which is kinda funky... and not in a clyde stubblefield good way. HA! Good Fun! edit: too good to pass up the opportunity to add some funky drummer.

I'd do it in a heartbeat and it wouldn't take a million years to decide to do it. paladins have nice and dependable auras as well as situationally useful cleanses, buffs and debuffs. chanters have a handful o' extreme good chants and very powerful invocations, but the need to wait on invocation ripeness is an annoyance to us. is not difficult to make a paladin or chanter a reliable off-tank, particularly after 1.03 when the chanter-specific talents is hardly worth the investment. am a big fan o' priests, but they is tending to be far more squishy than paladins or chanters, and particular at low levels, we is hoarding spells to avoid the need to rest. is benefits and drawbacks to all three. an islander ooh mau mau, shama lama ding dong, gunner paladin who can sit back and take advantage o' inspiring triumph is something we is gonna give a try on our next run. HA! Good Fun!

am disagreeing on melee rogues and weapon sets. is very few situations where we gota switch to a third weapon set in combat with a melee character and given how fog o' war works, we invariably know what kinda foe we is facing before combat starts, so if a pike or estoc is a bad melee weapon choice before battling that forest lurker, we know in advance. for a ranged gunner? sure, but am gonna take the improved threat o' orlan's every single time for a melee rogue... and for a number o' other builds. HA! Good Fun!