Paladins suck on this game :(

[phillip]

I really wanting to play a paladin, but wound up rolling a deathling death cleric because I just could not choose b/t the Wayfarers and the Shieldbearers. I'm not sure if I'm disappointed or relieved from the upthread insinuations that Order choice has no impact on the game beyond mechanics. (Oh, and I think there's one Darcozzi dialog option from a prior ctrl+f-ing of the strat-guide PDF.)

[Mungri]

Try a gunner backline behind 2 tanks consisting of the following:

 

Kind Wayfarer paladin with Zealous Accuracy (Flames of Devotion works with ranged weapons for healing the tanks + heal on kill, +6 accuracy and +5% crit aura).

Chanter with that faster gun reload thing.

Priest with +10 accuracy with Arquebus and +5 accuracy buff to his per encounter thing.

Ranged specced Rogue or Ciphe.

 

Pew pew pew pew.

[Jojobobo]

I'm running a Godlike Moon Wayfarer now and it's pretty sweet, being able to tank a lot on top of being able to restore endurance effortlessly to other tanks like Eder. I went for 18 Might, 12 Con, 10 Dex, 10 Per, 12 Int and 16 Res - mainly so I could hit hard and maintain my concentration, plus have a little extra endurance and AoE from the Con and Per (endurance is already high, I honestly wasn't too fussy about investing in it over Might and it seems to be working nicely). Abilities I'm thinking Flame/Lay on Hands/Zealous Endurance/Reviving Exhortation/Who Cares/Hastening Exhortation and for talents The Sword and The Shepherd/Hold the Line/Intense Flames/Strange Mercy/Weapon Focus Soldier/Weapon and Shield Style.

 

I'm hoping hold the line will make me a good psuedo Fighter who in some regards is nicer due to their damn high defenses. I've heard that bash shields and a weapon can activate The Sword and the Shepherd twice so that's what I'll try for, along with a warhammer and Weapon Focus Soldier so I don't suffer from the shield accuracy drop and have a weapon that targets the lower defence hence consitency. It seems pretty sweet so far, far better than the Ranger I was playing hard before that who still kept on getting nobbed on even with extra hired fighters.

 

In regards to the OP, I'll concede that Godlikes of any variety probably make slightly better Paladins - having said that Wood Elves clearly make better Rangers so there isn't too much of an inconsistency here. Plus, yes some of the Orders are definitely far better than the others, but so what? Play with what suits your sensibilities, Lay on Hands still provides them all with healing.

 

Beyond that, the defense definitely does make a difference - try playing any other non-defensive class and it's very easy to see the difference there (with a Ranger, who should be no where near as weak as Rouge or Wizard, your ass still gets handed to you when someone reaches you. Even Eder can't tank so well). In terms of bonuses from following the desired behaviors, it seems to work for me - as far I a can tell it only buffs your Faith and Conviction ability (I'm currently on +6 deflection and +12 the other defenses when I highlight it, compared to the base +5/+10). Maybe you get a debuff if you don't follow the faith, or maybe it just stays at that basal level and that's your punishment - honestly to me receiving bonuses by just RPing a certain way is pretty damn cool.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Jojobobo

[Bayzent]

I actually like how they are played, I would love their habilities to be more powerful but that is something I extend to all classes equally...lay on hands is amazing, although I don't see the aura effects I'm supposed to...

[Mungri]

Ok so now my kind wayfarer paladin does:

 

-3 damage reduction for all party members.

- Huge AoE heal with flames of purity

- Huge party heal when he kills a foe

- +7 all defenses party buff when he kills a foe.

 

I use a heavy hitting Arbalest on him to give him a good chance of killing stuff, and swap to sword & larder door to backup tank if anything reaches my backline.

 

*Flames of devotion I meant.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Mungri

[Volourn]

Eh. Most enemies can't even damage my paladin significantly. He's a betetr tank than the fighter. So much so I let him get aggroged and have 5+ bash him while he laughs.

[Mungri]

No no, make no mistake there's no way they are better at tanking than a fighter.

[Troupial]

I played POTD as a paladin and had good success as a pure tank. Obviously I had Eder as my second frontliner to pick up stragglers if they ran towards the ranged. I feel the biggest weakness paladins have is the limited number of engagements they can deal with. Beyond just being survivable and tanking though I never felt like my paladin contributed much to fulfill that "support" role the game describes them as. It honestly feels like a chanter would fulfill that role just as well as a secondary tank what with providing even better passive buffs to the team along with summons.

[Dongom]

Paladin is a great tank to use in conjunction with a Fighter.  Maybe even 2 tank paladins each with diff buffs/talents running.

 

 

But apart from tanking i'd never bring one.  For DPS/UTIL you are far better off with +1  druid, cipher, wiz, chanter, or rogue.  

 

 

 

The Flames of Devotion nerf was uncalled for. But fortunately this game is amazing in that even the "weak" classes can be used to do PoTD with no issues.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Dongom

[ErlKing]

I kinda like Npc paladin role in team (I know about not optimal stats), she is not as tanky as fighter tank, not best for damage, but:

 

1) Her damage power not as bad as you think - it is great opener with arbalest, before switching to melee for tanking.

2) +5Acc and +5% Crits aura really nice (or Damage Resist one).

3) Revive for "oh crap" situations.

4) Ok resists and ok endurance/health allow her to be mobile off-tank/meatshield for casters.

[Arctic]

chanters and paladins are good at tanking yes, but better than fighters ? no way ... and just for 1 reason.

 

Fighters get + 2 engagement bonus from their defensive stance... +1 per weapon and +1 per talent makes a total of 5

 

paladins and chanters get a max of 3 so ...

[Dongom]

Someone Mod flames back to 100% and the upgrades 50% so that Pally can go back to being awesome like in beta.

[Daemonjax]

Paladins were overly nerfed shortly before release.

 

Hopefully, modders can fix the class issues some day... but the game's engine is rather mod-unfriendly because developers can't redistribute the editor, so they'd have to develop their own mod tools to distribute (see Shadowrun: Hong Kong and their planned level editor/map creation tool).  As far as I know, Obsidian didn't encrypt the game resources, so there's hope in that case...  There's some really talented hackers in the gaming mod scene, so it's only a matter of time provided they really enjoy this type of game.  Hacking this stuff is usually very time-consuming.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Daemonjax

[Arctic]

Someone Mod flames back to 100% and the upgrades 50% so that Pally can go back to being awesome like in beta.

¿? i have it not moded and flames are 100% and the upgrades 50% , dont know what you are talking about.

 

 

 

Paladins were overly nerfed shortly before release.

 

Hopefully, modders can fix the class issues some day... but the game's engine is rather mod-unfriendly because developers can't redistribute the editor, so they'd have to develop their own mod tools to distribute (see Shadowrun: Hong Kong and their planned level editor/map creation tool).  As far as I know, Obsidian didn't encrypt the game resources, so there's hope in that case...  There's some really talented hackers in the gaming mod scene, so it's only a matter of time provided they enjoy this type of game.

 

its not hard but .. what do you want to mod ? flames of devotion uisable more times?, the talent that improves them doing it by 100% ? still i think it already does a lot of damage ...

 

just use the scion of flame talent and a flaming slash weapon ... or if you go with the corrode ones (i think are the black something order ) you can get the 20% corrode talent and that two handed sword The Temaperacl that gives :

 

• x 1.25 damage
• + 4 Accuracy
• Critical hits can knockdown
• + 50 % Corrode damage

Edited April 1, 2015 by Arctic

[Dongom]

 

Someone Mod flames back to 100% and the upgrades 50% so that Pally can go back to being awesome like in beta.

¿? i have it not moded and flames are 100% and the upgrades 50% , dont know what you are talking about.

 

 

When I click the skill box detailed it says 50% and upgrades say 25%, 

[GreyFox]

 

You have to be careful, and I've yet to figure out the byzantine PoE mechanics fully, but for some reason missile weapons seem to miss me completely.

 

 

Nice adjective...describes the mechanics pretty well lol

[Arctic]

 

 

Someone Mod flames back to 100% and the upgrades 50% so that Pally can go back to being awesome like in beta.

¿? i have it not moded and flames are 100% and the upgrades 50% , dont know what you are talking about.

 

 

When I click the skill box detailed it says 50% and upgrades say 25%, 

 

 

 

the tooltip sais 100% , i will look in the game files right now  

 

Edit: yes .. 50% , i will report it as a bug 

 

Thinking that a good lash weapons is better than the skill xDDD

 

PD: the one that aplies a 50% of the fire damage as a debuff does in dead apply 50% of the fire damage done. (goldpack knights)

 

the corrode one is also 25%

 

if you get the corrode weapon the most damage is for the corrode ones .. 50%corrode lash +50% flames +25% improved flames +25% corrode flames +20% of corrode (the lash is every hit not just with flames so .. this one is better)

if not the goldpack does 25%lash +50%flames+25%improved flames  +50% debuff  +20% to all fire

Edited April 1, 2015 by Arctic

[Matt516]

I've not been playing much since I'm abroad, but my paladin is working pretty well (level 3) with a rapier / dagger, dual-wielding and a polearm for 2H hack and slash when needed. He's wearing leather armour.

 

You have to be careful, and I've yet to figure out the byzantine PoE mechanics fully, but for some reason missile weapons seem to miss me completely.

 

I might roll a NPC fighter to meatshield for him but as a main character it doesn't feel gimped. Not as tanky as I'd like but certainly not gimped.

 

You think PoE's mechanics are byzantine? Compared to 2e? Heh. Maybe if you're a veteran of the old D&D rulesets. I challenge you to find someone who *hasn't* played tons of the IE games who finds PoE's mechanics "byzantine" in comparison, though. For goodness' sake.

 

On a (completely un)related note, we talked about Monte Carlo simulations in class today. That was fun.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Matt516

[Striped_Wolf]

I think they are amazing. That Zealous Movement aura more or less negates the Engagement mechanic. Which can be extremely useful.
Heals, Flaming strike... I think they are very decent. Tank/Support with the option to switch to a 2-hander and wreck some bodies.

 

[Daemonjax]

You think PoE's mechanics are byzantine? Compared to 2e? 

 

Ignoring the many lying tooltips/character sheet bugs, the problem with PoEt's (PoE is a different game) game mechanics are that there's a lot of stuff hidden under the hood.  

 

For example: exactly how is damage calculated (multipliers stack multiplcatively or additively?  Which ones?)  How does dexterity affect attack speed bonuses (how you imagine it works probably doesn't take into account the unmentioned global cooldown).   Displayed weapon speed aren't precise enough (War bows are slower than Hunter Bows, even though both are listed as Average speed.  What about all the other weapons?). Stuff like that.  

 

All of that should be ingame or at least in the pdf manual (it isn't).  How hard is it really to keep the manual updated?  It's not like a game based on D&D rules where we can crack open our PHB or DMG see how something is even supposed to work.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Daemonjax

[Arctic]

 

You think PoE's mechanics are byzantine? Compared to 2e? 

 

Ignoring the many lying tooltips/character sheet bugs, the problem with PoEt's (PoE is a different game) game mechanics are that there's a lot of stuff hidden under the hood.  

 

For example: exactly how is damage calculated (multipliers stack multiplcatively or additively?  Which ones?)  How does dexterity affect attack speed bonuses (how you imagine it works probably doesn't take into account the unmentioned global cooldown).   Stuff like that.  All of that should be ingame or at least in the pdf manual (it isn't).

 

 

damage is multiplicative, the attack speed is calculeted by animation frames, but it cant be a fractionary frame, armor affects the recovery between atacks that depends on the tipe of weapon. but if your recovery is 30 frames and you use a heavy armor you get 45 frames. reload time is after that.

 

The mecanics are complex yes, but as every rpg if you want to know it perfectly, d&d are 20 400 pages books ... no one put all those internal thinks in the manual, it will be crazy for new people. It already is a lot of info ...

 

The tooltips bugs are there .. but well .. give it a few weeks and it will be solved.

 

* How much people knows exactly how speedfactor, tac0, casting time ect works in BG2 ? xDDD

Edited April 1, 2015 by Arctic

[Trauma_Hound]

All in all PoE is a game, it's there for your enjoyment! I want to play a Paladin of Magran, the orders be damned, so I force it via the command console. If one must get mods to change the game to your liking then why not simply use the command console to ones own advantage? I do, I roll my stats because I dislike limited point systems, I give my character free talents and abilities because I can ... my paladin can't turn undead, okay so I gave him the ghost and vessel hunter talents, I also gave my paladin the Scion of Flame ability once I felt like he was worthy of it. If you don't want a balanced character then modify him not to be balanced, besides it's also easy to keep yourself relatively balanced even when using the command console. The only "cheating" you're doing is cheating yourself of fun because others might have some righteous opinion on how you should play YOUR game.

 

If you don't want to use the command console then keep in mind resting and food bonuses for stats, also I feel Paladin DPS is highly underrated as Flames of Devotion does some pretty terrifying numbers with a good two handed sword. Try a Fire Godlike and don't focus so much on deflection but go for maximum DR.

 

Just remember that when all is said and done - when it comes to single player games - the player is Ao and you can pass around whatever portfolios and blessings you choose. 

[ISC]

Alright, I think I've found a second good use for paladins besides tanking (and besides going outside the ruleset with the console ).

 

In PotD accuracy is really really important, which I realized while running a fighter tank instead of a paladin with the accuracy aura. However, even with a paladin tank, the aura range is rather small and will often not affect your back row who stay back. Also, the order-related abilities are often centered on getting killing blows´, which the tank paladin is really bad at (average accuracy, will be really slow with dumped dex and heavy armor, will use heavy shield and hatchet etc). For the same reason, the tank paladin is really bad at utilizing flames of devotion.

 

So I figured why not make a dedicated support paladin capable of getting killing blows through spike damage? That way the paladin could potentially make good use of all kinds of talents and not just a limited set. Screw tanking. So I went for a Kind Wayfarer wood elf Paladin with accuracy aura + distant advantage + marksman using a pistol together with flames of devotion. No armor, only clothes. This Paladin not only does decent damage with maxed might, while being in the middle row with his aura, he also AOE heals when firing the flames of devotion AND when getting a killing blow and he is really good at it. The high might makes his heals decent, including lay on hands, and he has a range of other support abilities and can safely focus on maxing mig+dex+int. Sure, obviously he will make somewhat less damage than a rogue, but he is a heal-bot with a very useful aura capable of reviving people. Your other rogue(s) will thank him.

 

The only possible "downside" is that it requires a lot of micromanagement to get consistent killing blows, but thats the way I like it

[Ichthyic]

that sounds like a very fun alternative build.

[kat7ra]

In these kind of games I do not care about having all the classes be as strong as all the other classes, there is no MP so it doesn't really matter.

Some balance is needed true, but come on. I've been playing paladin as MC on hard and I do not feel like it sucks. Maybe it doesn't min/max as well as other classes, but it's in no way unplayable or horrible.