The paladins modal auras are great but compared to the priest equivalent (Holy Radiance) Lay on Hands seems hardly worth taking the time to use (yes priests are supposed to be better casters but that's why they get spells). Liberating Exhortation also seems very weak given that it just delays the effect and these are the only two active abilities we have on level 5.

 

Inspiring Triump is just kind of random given that you have little control over who delivers the final blow on foe you're ganging up on, a smaller (halved?) bonus that triggers whenever the paladin or anyone other ally within the radius downs a foe would feel more solid.

Ya I have felt similarly.

Huh, I disagree. I played a couple of paladin builds and thought they rocked. Pallys are better front-liners than priests because they don't cast and so don't suffer from the armor recovery penalties so much, and the auras were highly useful while interfering with combat less. I thought it's a great take on a melee front-liner.

Not saying paladins are bad overall, as I said auras are geat, just the non-aura abilities seem weak.

 just the non-aura abilities seem weak.

I disagree. Holy Radiance is definitely better than Lay on Hands in a large scale AoE fight, where you need the entire party healed, but Lay on Hands has it's place as a single target heal for when the Front Liners have taken a lot of damage. It allows you to save your Priest spells for later encounters, meaning you can progress further before needing to rest for spells.

 

Liberating Exhortation is good for the same thing - If a Front Liner gets stuck with poison or a similar DoT effect, it can be used to delay the damage until the end of the fight without wasting any Priest spells. It can also be used to temporarily remove crippling effects which will be extremely useful in certain fights.

 

I've really enjoyed playing Paladin and I've found all their abilities to be quite useful.

Edited August 22, 201411 yr by Sylvanpyxie