Flames of Devotion seems underwhelming

[ArnoldRimmer]

Paladins are my favourite class and I wanted to play another one, so recently I was looking at build videos on youtube to see if I could do something different from what I normally do. One of the things that I found strange is that lots of builds concerning paladins talked about FoD and how it "hits like a truck" (to quote fextralife). I have played over 1600 hours now on PotD Upscaled and that has not been my experience of FoD so I thought I would ask about what others think.

My experience has been so poor with it that I often don't even bother taking FoD as a talent. I would rather take lay on hands on shining beacon

If you compare it to Crippling Strike I really do not consider FoD to to be great. Both cost 1 resource point, FoD adds 20% damage as burn and gives 10 accuracy, CS gives +2 penetration, +25% damage, hobbles, and can interrupt on hit/crit. I often play Paladins with two handed weapons so maybe it is better for dual wielding as it is a full attack, but I really do not remember FoD doing very much damage at all.

Also many enemies are immune or highly resistant to fire damage so often the only benefit from FoD is the accuracy where as CS's penetration and bonus damage affect all attacks and anything higher than a graze will interrupt if the target is not immune/has concentration. Only the hobbled benefit could be negated by resistance to dex afflictions. Maybe it helps to empower FoD? But this could only be done once per fight.

How do you use your Paladins? Do you find FoD to be great? If you do, maybe you can give me some tips on how to use it or suggest what i may be doing wrong.

Edited February 6, 2022 by ArnoldRimmer

[Kaylon]

Yes, FoD itself is bad. However its upgrade, Eternal Devotion is very good. Basically you should start the fight with a big alpha strike (like from an arquebus) to make FoD count and after that you just refresh the buff when needed. With Retribution, Eternal Devotion and Brand Enemy the paladin does respectable single target damage.

[Boeroer]

It used to give a +50% lash (either in beta or at release, don't remember) which was too good compared to PoE where it was limited to 2/encounter. So they nerfed it - and overnerfed it imo.

But as Kaylon said: the upgrades are good and work well with any offensive multiclass. The small lashes even work with spells and so on! So it's an option to even raise a caster's dmg oputput. For example a Wizard/Paladin with Blightheart + Eternal Devotion can get +10% burn and +10% corrosive lash on his damaging spells. Which is nice. 

In case of Kind Wayfarer already the base ability is good obviously bc. of the healing.

Then you can play with the fact that FoD is a burning attack that will get boosted by certain items and abilities:

• in power level with stuff like Magran's Favor and Sun & Moon and Otto Starcat (up to +5)
• in accuracy with Ring of Focused Flames (+10 - on top of the +10 FoD already has)
• in penetration with Scion of Flame (+1)

Since FoD is of PL 1 it scales pretty nicely at later levels (5% base dmg per PL, frctional PEN per PL, ACC per PL and so on) so stacking lots of PLs is nice. 

Bleak Walker's FoD is even tagged as burn AND corrode which makes it possible to get +2 PEN for his FoD strikes with Scion of Flame and Spirit of Decay. Combine with +10 ACC from the Ring and up to +5 power levels: that's suddenly decent. Add the Helm of the White Void which does +10 ACC to attacks that contain an affliction and you get +10 ACC on top (beause Bleak Walker's FoD also sickens).

If you then want to go a little cheesy road and use an SC Bleak Walker with Divine Retribution who has a chanter friend who summons a ton of skeletons etc. you can basically spam those FoD-attacks with good dmg and awesome +30 ACC all day long. Because Divine Retribution also gives you +2 Zeal when a skeleton dies (and Many Lives Pass By skeletons don't scale at all and die extremely quickly) you will often have more Zeal than you can spam. 

Of course this is a very special case. In general the base ability is too weak, I agree. It's not good that you have to know about some obscure tricks to make it relly worthwhile - or pick the right subclass like Kind Wayfarer.   

Edited February 6, 2022 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

48 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

If you then want to go a little cheesy road and use an SC Bleak Walker with Divine Retribution who has a chanter friend who summons a ton of skeletons etc. you can basically spam those FoD-attacks with good dmg and awesome +30 ACC all day long. Because Divine Retribution also gives you +2 Zeal when a skeleton dies (and Many Lives Pass By skeletons don't scale at all and die extremely quickly) you will often have more Zeal than you can spam. 

I would go Kind Wayfarer in this case.

Yup, Bleak Walker extra damages are shiny, but the AoE heal of Kind Wayfarer is so great (doubled with Dual Wield). Paladin is expected to heal a bit. Kind Wayfarer does not even have to stop attacking to heal in an AoE. 

[Boeroer]

Yes, also a good option. I played just that with a dual pistol SC Paladin fully led by AI. +20 ACC easily balances out the Rushed Reload modal - and with Scordeo's Trophy + Rushed Reload + dual wielding you can fire so very quickly (and then dish out healing pulses so quickly) that it was really hard to harm the party as long as the dude fired. Two Troubs with skeletons delivered plenty of food for Zeal.

I just wanted to emphasize the dmg aspect with the Bleak Walker - because he can have extra +10 ACC for his FoD attacks with the Helm of the White Void. Unfortunately a SC Paladin cannot pick Spirit of Decay.