Are Paladins really that bad?

[Epsilon Rose]

Leaving aside any IE game bagage, because I've never played one, I think designating the paladin a buff class is a bit silly, largely because there are already several classes that can fill that roll better. There's the priest, the Chanter, the  wizard would do an excellent job if a few of his buffs could actually target useful characters.The chanter even does the always on aura buffs better, since they  can just pick a single chant to always keep up and it'll have a bigger range (I think, the paladin's buff doesn't seem to show a range circle for some dev forsaken reason) and larger effects at higher levels. They can even do the tanking thing and have spike damage in the form of their incantations (It's just that their spikes come towards the end of fights and the paladin's come at the beginning).

 

 

...our most recent paladin is a gun build that uses flames o' devotion to guarantee killing blows.  it is very good support build.

Are the on-kill procs for Paladins' affected areas still centered around the Paladin or are they centered around the kill event that procced it? 

I was a little disappointed that The Sword And The Shepherd worked like that, made it hard to maintain 4m from the enemies (for Wood Elf Accuracy boost) and remain within range of my front line so they could benefit properly from the heal.

 

inspiring triumph, at the very least, centers on the paladin.  just checked and killed a far distant skeleton ranger archer with a gun and still got a full party hit.

 

more good news for paladins:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/77493-elemental-talents-bug/

 

at least one obsidian qa guy believes that scion of flame not modifying flames o' devotion is a bug... but you will likely need to wait til 1.05 to see that fixed.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps although liberating exhortation is currently bugged, it has a fast cast time (as opposed to average), 2x the range o' suppress affliction and 4x the duration o' the aforemetioned priest spell and is a per encounter ability as opposed to those archaic quasi-vancian spells that reset per rest.  better?  is different.

 

Really, that would be rather unfortunate for my gun toting bleak walker. That fear burst on kill looked tempting, but if it's going to trigger on my paladin it's not going to hit anything of value.

[eubatham]

Like seriously, if you want a good martial support unit, make a Priest and give him a Sword & Shield along with a Full-Plate. You're durable and you have so much different buffs, debuffs, cleanses and control spells at your fingertips. It's good fun and very, very effective.

Edited April 14, 2015 by eubatham

[Climhazzard]

If liberating exhortation actually did what it says it does in the description that'd be cool, I also think Paladins could use more per/battle uses of flames of devotion so they can actually proc some of their per kill support abilities.

[Gromnir]

the wiki is not much o' a source.

 

again, for the third time...

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63968-update-56-paladins-and-wild-orlans/?hl=paladin

 

 "We also wanted their mechanics to be distinctive from the other classes while reinforcing their role in the world.  Area designer Bobby Null has always liked the marshal class from D&D 3.5, which is conceptually similar to the warlord in 4E: combat leaders who are at their best when they are augmenting their teammates.  This is the approach that I took when developing Project Eternity's paladins.  They have persistent modal auras, strong single-target healing and buff abilities (contrasting the broad AoE effects of clerics), and can passively grant bonuses to teammates in close proximity."

 

you can also look for updates which identify which classes is tanky and front-liners, and the paladin ain't 'mongst those.

 

 http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66380-update-81-the-front-line-fighters-and-barbarians/?hl=front-liners

 

poe paladins is a low-maintenance support class with impressive defensive characteristics. they fill the support role different from chanters and priests, but that is their role.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66195-update-78-the-leaders-of-the-band-chanters-and-priests/

 

euba hates repetition, but he still ain't responded to the essential question: if you honestly don't believe that paladins is equal to priests and chanters in a support role, then how does giving them better dps and tank abilities make 'em better in support?

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited April 14, 2015 by Gromnir

[Mysh]

Well, I think Paladin can make a formidable combination of DPS, tank and support.

 

There are certainly a few things, I don't like with Paladins are:

- Flames of Devotion and Lay on Hands: Neither of them has actually does anything, nor their follow up skills.

 

I am aware people think that FoD+Shielding flames is good, but truth is it has a very small range to actually affect all the party under its umbrella. Wasting two skills for something that is worth half a skill is not so interesting.

 

- Lay on Hands has a very slow casting speed.

 

- Greater Lay on Hands is a joke. I will not even comment on it.

 

- Sword and the shepherd does not heal the Paladin. So wasting two skills just to heal the party a bit does not worth the effort. It should have healed the Paladin by half.

 

- Strange mercy does not heal the Paladin. It should have healed the Paladin by half.

 

So basically, the best way to build the Paladin is to avoid all Paladin talents. They are garbage. Make use of their exceptional level 1 ability. Their DR aura, sworn enemy, revive,and hastening ability are just awesome. Take a combination of tank and DPS skills and you have a strong character.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Mysh

[Elerond]

In my opinion Paladin's as excellent reliable (their auras are constant buffs) care free (their support abilities need only marginal management and they are resilient towards damage) that have best auto attack capacity from support classes. I usually have Paladin in my party to will both secondary support and secondary ranged dps/tank roles. Priest are excellent in full support but they are very poor to second any other role and they need to take their time to cast buffs. Chanter's are bit more flexible in support than paladins, but their support abilities also take some time and they do poorer job in seconding ranged dps than paladins, in secondary tank role they are about as good. 

 

So in my opinion paladins are good class and they constantly have place in my parties, but I could see arguments made that their late game support capacities could be bit higher, as now their auras don't currently have anything that gives them similar boost in their abilities as high level phrases+invocations do for chanters and high level spells do for priests. They don't necessary need such boost if you use them in double secondary role, but it also would not make them overpowered and could give them bit better overall feeling withing players about their capacities.

[Yosharian]

So I'm about level 9 with my party and this is my experience with the Paladin so far, using it in a secondary tanking role:

 

1) Doesn't tank as well as my Fighter.

 

2) Some active abilities aren't useful:

- Lay on Hands doesn't heal enough points

- Fire attack doesn't seem to do much and isn't useful for a tanking role

- Rez ability doesn't seem important - I feel like if an important member of my party drops then I've made a mistake and I hit reload

 

3) Auras are by far the best thing the Paladin has to offer, I've been using the +3 DR one and it is excellent, but the range is very small and limits its use.

 

4) Second best thing about the Paladin is the ability to be resilient to charm/dominate etc.

 

5) The ability which removes debuffs on your allies, this is an interesting ability but it doesn't remove charm/dominate which is pretty much the only reason I took it, if I had the chance I would definitely take something else instead.

 

Overall they are 'ok' but compared to the omg-tanking of the Fighter or the endless-machine-gun-of-pain Cipher, this class just isn't sexy enough.

 

I feel like if I was playing Iron Man or Path of the Damned, I might want that rez ability though.

[eubatham]

The problem with Aura's is that they don't stack with any spells that I'm aware of. For heavy fights, the Priest's spells more than cover the extra +accuracy and +DR. Sure, aura's are up all the time while Priests only have limited spells per rest, but heavy fights are sparse and far between each other in the early game. In the later part of the game Priests are even able to use their 1st and 2nd levels spells per encounter instead of per rest, which cover almost the entire spectrum of Paladin buffs (and give additional benefits and/or are AoE instead of single target).

 

Even during the early game, for short duration fights, the hit aura is easily replacable by a Priest's 1/encounter Holy Radiance, traited to give +5 hit to allies (you can also use it before combat to instantly regain another charge when combat starts).

 

Considering this, along with the heavy cost of 3 out of 5 possible class-trait choices, I wonder if it would be really that overpowered to be able to have all Zealous Aura's active at the same time.

Edited April 14, 2015 by eubatham

[Yosharian]

Lmao.  I didn't realise the DR aura didn't stack with Armor of Faith.  Sigh.  So the Paladin is even more useless than I thought.

[Longknife]

Lmao.  I didn't realise the DR aura didn't stack with Armor of Faith.  Sigh.  So the Paladin is even more useless than I thought.

 

 

Gotta be honest....

 

Monk is a class on the opposite end of the spectrum from Paladin in my opinion. Why? Monk can be TREMENDOUSLY broken and powerful, but achieving this demands that you babysit the monk and micromanage a lot. Every time that Monk gets a wound, you use it. And if the Monk has 10 wounds? Prepare to pause combat every half a second to re-assign another wounded punch, because that's how fast the monk punches. It's tedious perhaps, but the reward payout is tremendous.

 

Paladin seems like the opposite end of the spectrum. You need absolutely minimal micromanagement for the Paladin....but you also get minimal payout. Overall, it's a lazy man's class for if you can't be bothered to buff accuracy and DR with your Priest. The problem is that realistically speaking,  if you can't be bothered with two buffs by your priest, you're gonna get slaughtered anyways. There's also not exactly two alternative priest spells in tier 1 that seem like equally viable alternatives to those two, so it's not like you get more mileage out of your priest because the paladin is there.

[Ruminate]

The problem with Aura's is that they don't stack with any spells that I'm aware of. For heavy fights, the Priest's spells more than cover the extra +accuracy and +DR. Sure, aura's are up all the time while Priests only have limited spells per rest, but heavy fights are sparse and far between each other in the early game. In the later part of the game Priests are even able to use their 1st and 2nd levels spells per encounter instead of per rest, which cover almost the entire spectrum of Paladin buffs (and give additional benefits and/or are AoE instead of single target).

 

Even during the early game, for short duration fights, the hit aura is easily replacable by a Priest's 1/encounter Holy Radiance, traited to give +5 hit to allies (you can also use it before combat to instantly regain another charge when combat starts).

 

Considering this, along with the heavy cost of 3 out of 5 possible class-trait choices, I wonder if it would be really that overpowered to be able to have all Zealous Aura's active at the same time.

 

Zealous Focus isn't replaceable by the Priest's Inspiring Radiance. They stack. You can't use Holy Radiance before combat either.... not unless you're not patched to 1.03 for some reason. And even though Blessing's accuracy modifier doesn't stack with Zealous Focus, its 1.1 damage modifier does. Blessing + Zealous Focus gives you 6 accuracy, 1.1x damage, and 5% hits to crits (this isn't suppressed by Dire Blessing's hits to crits either).

 

The only aura thats questionable is Zealous Endurance because its completely suppressed by Armor of Faith.

[Yosharian]

 

The problem with Aura's is that they don't stack with any spells that I'm aware of. For heavy fights, the Priest's spells more than cover the extra +accuracy and +DR. Sure, aura's are up all the time while Priests only have limited spells per rest, but heavy fights are sparse and far between each other in the early game. In the later part of the game Priests are even able to use their 1st and 2nd levels spells per encounter instead of per rest, which cover almost the entire spectrum of Paladin buffs (and give additional benefits and/or are AoE instead of single target).

 

Even during the early game, for short duration fights, the hit aura is easily replacable by a Priest's 1/encounter Holy Radiance, traited to give +5 hit to allies (you can also use it before combat to instantly regain another charge when combat starts).

 

Considering this, along with the heavy cost of 3 out of 5 possible class-trait choices, I wonder if it would be really that overpowered to be able to have all Zealous Aura's active at the same time.

 

Zealous Focus isn't replaceable by the Priest's Inspiring Radiance. They stack. You can't use Holy Radiance before combat either.... not unless you're not patched to 1.03 for some reason. And even though Blessing's accuracy modifier doesn't stack with Zealous Focus, its 1.1 damage modifier does. Blessing + Zealous Focus gives you 6 accuracy, 1.1x damage, and 5% hits to crits (this isn't suppressed by Dire Blessing's hits to crits either).

 

The only aura thats questionable is Zealous Endurance because its completely suppressed by Armor of Faith.

 

 

So Zealous Focus (which boosts accuracy) stacks with Inspiring Radiance (which boosts accuracy when you use Holy Radiance)?  Why do these two abilities stack when other similar effects don't?

 

I actually don't like using Blessing very often because I prefer to save Level 1 spell uses for Armor of Faith.

 

Anyway at the moment it seems like the game does a very bad job of communicating to the player what stacks and what doesn't stack, which is odd because I would have imagined that this would be a hugely important design goal from the very start.

 

 

Lmao.  I didn't realise the DR aura didn't stack with Armor of Faith.  Sigh.  So the Paladin is even more useless than I thought.

 

 

Gotta be honest....

 

Monk is a class on the opposite end of the spectrum from Paladin in my opinion. Why? Monk can be TREMENDOUSLY broken and powerful, but achieving this demands that you babysit the monk and micromanage a lot. Every time that Monk gets a wound, you use it. And if the Monk has 10 wounds? Prepare to pause combat every half a second to re-assign another wounded punch, because that's how fast the monk punches. It's tedious perhaps, but the reward payout is tremendous.

 

Paladin seems like the opposite end of the spectrum. You need absolutely minimal micromanagement for the Paladin....but you also get minimal payout. Overall, it's a lazy man's class for if you can't be bothered to buff accuracy and DR with your Priest. The problem is that realistically speaking,  if you can't be bothered with two buffs by your priest, you're gonna get slaughtered anyways. There's also not exactly two alternative priest spells in tier 1 that seem like equally viable alternatives to those two, so it's not like you get more mileage out of your priest because the paladin is there.

 

 

I gotta be honest... the way you describe the Monk makes it sound precisely the sort of class I want to play =)  Shame there's no NPC monk...

[ibanix]

 

I gotta be honest... the way you describe the Monk makes it sound precisely the sort of class I want to play =)  Shame there's no NPC monk...

 

 

I thought Durance would have made an interesting Monk, tbh

[Ruminate]

 

 

The problem with Aura's is that they don't stack with any spells that I'm aware of. For heavy fights, the Priest's spells more than cover the extra +accuracy and +DR. Sure, aura's are up all the time while Priests only have limited spells per rest, but heavy fights are sparse and far between each other in the early game. In the later part of the game Priests are even able to use their 1st and 2nd levels spells per encounter instead of per rest, which cover almost the entire spectrum of Paladin buffs (and give additional benefits and/or are AoE instead of single target).

 

Even during the early game, for short duration fights, the hit aura is easily replacable by a Priest's 1/encounter Holy Radiance, traited to give +5 hit to allies (you can also use it before combat to instantly regain another charge when combat starts).

 

Considering this, along with the heavy cost of 3 out of 5 possible class-trait choices, I wonder if it would be really that overpowered to be able to have all Zealous Aura's active at the same time.

 

Zealous Focus isn't replaceable by the Priest's Inspiring Radiance. They stack. You can't use Holy Radiance before combat either.... not unless you're not patched to 1.03 for some reason. And even though Blessing's accuracy modifier doesn't stack with Zealous Focus, its 1.1 damage modifier does. Blessing + Zealous Focus gives you 6 accuracy, 1.1x damage, and 5% hits to crits (this isn't suppressed by Dire Blessing's hits to crits either).

 

The only aura thats questionable is Zealous Endurance because its completely suppressed by Armor of Faith.

 

 

So Zealous Focus (which boosts accuracy) stacks with Inspiring Radiance (which boosts accuracy when you use Holy Radiance)?  Why do these two abilities stack when other similar effects don't?

 

I actually don't like using Blessing very often because I prefer to save Level 1 spell uses for Armor of Faith.

 

Anyway at the moment it seems like the game does a very bad job of communicating to the player what stacks and what doesn't stack, which is odd because I would have imagined that this would be a hugely important design goal from the very start.

 

 

Activated abilities don't stack, but Inspiring Radiance is mechanically not an activated ability. Its a passive talent that triggers from activating Holy Radiance. Its the same reason why Zealous Focus' hit to crit talent upgrade stacks with Dire Blessing.

[Brimsurfer]

 

 

I gotta be honest... the way you describe the Monk makes it sound precisely the sort of class I want to play =)  Shame there's no NPC monk...

 

 

I thought Durance would have made an interesting Monk, tbh

 

 

you can replace durance portrait with another ugly portrait in NPC folder and name it durance and move the actual durance portrait to player portraits folder and create a monk and use durance portrait......that way you can play a monk with durance's face :D

[Brimsurfer]

BTW one thing is for sure, this forum has completely ruined the Paladin class for me. Now I will probably never play a Paladin, unless they bring out a patch that some how bring Paladin class at par with other classes.....

[CriticalFailure]

Your "Durance" doesn't have the real Durance's banter, however, which is the main point of using existing NPCs.

 

Overall, it's a lazy man's class for if you can't be bothered to buff accuracy and DR with your Priest.

Exactly, and that's what I like about it.

 

I'm trying a group with a paladin PC + Pallegina running different auras, for the sake of reducing micromanagement, but I'm not sure how it'll work in practice, due to the tiny range.

[Yosharian]

Activated abilities don't stack, but Inspiring Radiance is mechanically not an activated ability. Its a passive talent that triggers from activating Holy Radiance. Its the same reason why Zealous Focus' hit to crit talent upgrade stacks with Dire Blessing.

 

 

Thanks, that explains a lot.

[Brimsurfer]

Has anyone tried a dual wielding Paladin or a Paladin with Two-Handed weapons? I am guessing will be much better than sword and shield pally....

 

At one point I thought about rolling a high perception paladin specialising in two handed morning stars, my plan was to become the lord of interrupts.....but now with so much negative feedback about overall pally performance, I have kind of given up on it.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Brimsurfer

[ibanix]

Has anyone tried a dual wielding Paladin or a Paladin with Two-Handed weapons? I am guessing will be much better than sword and shield pally....

 

At one point I thought about rolling a high perception paladin specialising in two handed morning stars, my plan was to become the lord of interrupts.....but now with so much negative feedback about overall pally performance, I have kind of given up on it.

Yeah I tried a two-handed Pally... but that shield.... +5 all Defenses on the whole party is just way to good to pass up

[MaxDamage]

Is there any way of preventing death after the reviving power wears out?

[synfrei]

My Main Character is Paladin, Why ? because i was able to go for Per, Int and Res ... I like him very much, Aura, Healing and Resurrection helped a lot so far. For Tanking i have Eder and Damage is avarage. Iam in the middle of the game so far and like how my Paladin rocks )

Edited April 14, 2015 by synfrei

[Akimbo]

I'm actually looking to replace my Paladin now.

 

I have a godlike moon paladin as a tank. She's done well, casually tanks 5+ enemies, but she just doesn't do enough. Thinking of replacing her with an off-tank Fire godlike Fighter. Will technically have two off-tanks and no main tank, but if the enemies are dead, it shouldn't really matter.

[cavemandiary]

I think that theres one important point about the whole paladin vs fighter debate that hasn´t properly been brought up:

 

There comes a point, where, even on POTD, adding more tankyness becomes obsolete. In theory, more tankyness is better, but in reality there comes a point where your tank has barely lost a quater of their health, while your backlines are near dead and have no spells left. You´re already immortal against anything but the two dragons and thaos if you add something like a cipher (painblock). But you still need to rest.

 

Even the best tank, and clever placement, results in your backlines taking some form of damage occasionally. This is where the paladin really shines over the fighter; His tankyness is "just enough" and as an added bonus, is able to support his team with auras and buffs.

 

And let us not forget the awesomeness that is reviving exhortation.

 

As far as I am concerned, the biggest difference between the two classes lies in the engagement limit, but picking the +1 talent, and using a +1 weapon (shatterstar-->sheathed in autumn) brings you to 3 engagements, and I´m not sure that 5 engagements would make it much better.

 

Would I like to see paladin buffs? Sure would. He is already my #1 tank pick currently for potd.

[Brimsurfer]

 

Has anyone tried a dual wielding Paladin or a Paladin with Two-Handed weapons? I am guessing will be much better than sword and shield pally....

 

At one point I thought about rolling a high perception paladin specialising in two handed morning stars, my plan was to become the lord of interrupts.....but now with so much negative feedback about overall pally performance, I have kind of given up on it.

Yeah I tried a two-handed Pally... but that shield.... +5 all Defenses on the whole party is just way to good to pass up

 

Give that shield to your fighter or cleric or chanter or druid?