shouldn't paladin also have a +engagement passive?

[Nemesis7884]

Since paladins are basically "THE" tank - yeah their is shieldbearer but requires you to take a shield and basically need a whole subclass for it...barbarian, rogue, warrior...basically all martial classes have such a passive

[Crucis]

IMO, this is one of the flaws in PoE, both 1 and 2.  Fighters are designed to essentially be the masters of melee combat.  Though technically, nothing stops you from playing a ranged fighter, they're really not optimized to be fully balanced between melee and ranged. 

 

And then you have Paladins who aren't really optimized for melee or ranged.  OTOH, they do seem optimized around using all those active pally abilities, while giving up an awful lot of physical combat abilities that seem like they'd make logical sense. 

 

And frankly, the same can be said for rangers too.  Ignoring any issues surrounding their pets, rangers are rather optimized for ranged combat and supporting their pets, with barely a wink towards Melee rangers. 

 

Now, in truth, you could just multiclass a fighter and paladin, or a fighter and a ranger to deal with these supposed weaknesses, though it'd be nice if paladins and rangers had more of the fighter passives.  But arguably, I suppose that that's why one should go for a Ftr/Pal or Ftr/Rngr MC.  I don't remember all of the level 8 and 9 abilities for those 3 classes off the top of my head, but to the best of my recollection, there aren't that many of them for those 3 classes that are must-have show stoppers (except perhaps for twin arrows for ranger at level 8, if you're a ranged combatant).    I'm currently playing a party that's made up of 100% pure class characters (except for Ydwin and she's only a reserve for me).  I currently have a pure Black Jacket fighter PC, a pure paladin Pallegina, and a pure ranger Maia, and from what I've experienced to date is that I just don't see that any of these 3 would have really been hurt by multiclassing, because the 2 highest level active abilities don't seem all that great.  The level 9 prestige passive might be a bit of a loss, though perhaps that is offset by the greater flexibility that would have come from multiclassing.

[evilcat]

They probably could get such talent, and it will not break anything. Such talent could be neutral for many classes.

 

BUt it is not like Paladins are scripted to be tanks more than fighters and barbarians.

Even Wael Priest or rogue Trickster could do some tanking.

[Crucis]

They probably could get such talent, and it will not break anything. Such talent could be neutral for many classes.

 

BUt it is not like Paladins are scripted to be tanks more than fighters and barbarians.

Even Wael Priest or rogue Trickster could do some tanking.

 

evilcat, I'm not sure that barbarians are truly designed to be tanks, assuming you define "tank" as a character who can hold a lot of enemies on the front line with a good number of engagements while taking or resisting lots of damage.  Barbarians are much more offensively oriented than fighters or paladins.

 

But I do agree that pallies really aren't particularly meant to be tanks more so than fighters.  The two classes just approach tanking slightly differently, even if they can end up in essentially the same spot (i.e. tanking).

[Crumbleton]

you dont have to play a bleak walker... The Shieldbearers of St. Elcga get a +1 engagement.  Paladins have unsurpassed support abilities that fighters don't get and they cal always use weapons to add engagements.  I think they're fine as they are honestly

[Climhazzard]

Been using hired adventurer Heralds for my tank, Shieldbearer does the job.  I generally pick up reckless brigandine pretty early, then a couple other things later.  Would be nice if they got one more natural slot but by about midway through the game it seems fine.  Palegina is unsuitable in various ways though especially since she's no shieldbearer. 

 

What I find funny is monk, they have a passive that gives them wounds when targets disengage with them, but no passive that gives them an engagement slot, lol.

[Lokithecat]

Fighter is more (MMO terms) an Off tank, designed to hold swarms of meh enemies, while Paladin is more a Main tank, less about the crowd and better(ish?) against a big boss.  Given the amount of support spells (Cipher, Druid) you can easily buff even a Barbarian to be a great Offtank.  Mages make better Main then they do Offs.

[Haplok]

 

They probably could get such talent, and it will not break anything. Such talent could be neutral for many classes.

 

BUt it is not like Paladins are scripted to be tanks more than fighters and barbarians.

Even Wael Priest or rogue Trickster could do some tanking.

 

evilcat, I'm not sure that barbarians are truly designed to be tanks, assuming you define "tank" as a character who can hold a lot of enemies on the front line with a good number of engagements while taking or resisting lots of damage.  Barbarians are much more offensively oriented than fighters or paladins.

 

Barbarians tend to have poor Deflection (at least if they use Frenzy), but particularly Berserkers can soak a lot of damage. They get +3 Armor Rating (+2 Frenzy, +1 Thick Skinned) and that helps a lot.

[evilcat]

There could be different types of tanking, one is deflection, other could be with Armour Rating, or gargantual health pool.

Potencially Corpse Eater could tank with out-eating dmg. (but Corpse Eater is not good enought for what he is loosing).

[Nemesis7884]

you dont have to play a bleak walker... The Shieldbearers of St. Elcga get a +1 engagement. Paladins have unsurpassed support abilities that fighters don't get and they cal always use weapons to add engagements. I think they're fine as they are honestly

Only when wearing a shield tough which is very restrictive

[Lokithecat]

Tanking is normally balancing two things.  1)  Holding Aggro; whether its a matter of positioning, threat, or engage, being the person targeted consistently in a fight is what it boils down too.  2)  Surviving; whether you soak through armor mitigating the damage, have a high armor to avoid the damage, or outhealing (or being flat out unkillable).

 

With intelligent party build, you could still get by easily with a Paladin tank that only 'innately' has 1 engage.  Shields, Weapons, Gear and stances can push that number high enough to lock down the majority of any encounter, the rest of the party should be able to mop up any that exceed that.  With intelligent positioning many melee enemies will choose to stand and beat on the first target available, even if that character can't 'lock' them in with engagement.  Also, engagement isn't some sort of magical taunt effect, its just a penalty of a free hit if you leave, to encourage people to stay and fight.

[Thormind]

Since paladins are basically "THE" tank - yeah their is shieldbearer but requires you to take a shield and basically need a whole subclass for it...barbarian, rogue, warrior...basically all martial classes have such a passive

100% agree. This is the one thing that prevent me making a paladin/stalker tank

[Enoch]

The original concept of Paladins in this series was as a front-lines support class.  If that means they're not the best at pinning down a particular opponent, I can work around that.  It's not like the class is underpowered as it is! 

 

That said, I was trying to get by with Herald Pallegina on point, and, yeah, that was pretty tough when I tried it with no shield (and no Engagement slots).  Getting the "Silver Knights' Shields" Phrase was a big boost. 

[Nemesis7884]

My argument is - why should even a rogue have +enc when the pally doesn't

[Lokithecat]

Lots of +Engage for a paladin, without having to waste talents on it.  Gear, Weapons, Shields, Modals, not to mention all the Multi / buffs from other classes.  Whats the desire to have a junk talent that isn't worth taking...