Are Paladins really not that bad?

[Ceranai]

Paladins make for the best 100% pure damage-sink tanks, due to their strong Defenses.

Anything else, bring a monk.

Not true, they have similar base stats and fighters have pure defensive skills and cc that are probably better

[Ruminate]

 

Paladins make for the best 100% pure damage-sink tanks, due to their strong Defenses.

Anything else, bring a monk.

Not true, they have similar base stats and fighters have pure defensive skills and cc that are probably better

 

 

Defender doesn't stack with deflection buffs, like Shields of the Faithful.

Virtuous Defense doesn't stack with all defense buffs, like Circle of Protection.

[Ceranai]

 

 

Paladins make for the best 100% pure damage-sink tanks, due to their strong Defenses.

Anything else, bring a monk.

 

Not true, they have similar base stats and fighters have pure defensive skills and cc that are probably better

 

Defender doesn't stack with deflection buffs, like Shields of the Faithful.

Virtuous Defense doesn't stack with all defense buffs, like Circle of Protection.

Fair nough, still think the cc is worth it

[AncientToaster]

Paladins make for the best 100% pure damage-sink tanks, due to their strong Defenses.

 

Anything else, bring a monk.

 

I'm fairly certain Fighter is better in every way

[dukefx]

Sorry for the bad quality, I have no patience to spend half a day uploading a video. Here's my response. Fighter vs Sky Dragon on PotD. Solo, no summoned crap, no traps, no potions, no scrolls, not even pausing and on top of that terrible rolls, i.e. worst case scenario.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1dC3Linvno

 

Edit: it's still processing, if you want higher resolution, you gotta wait.

Edited April 18, 2015 by dukefx

[gkathellar]

 

Paladins make for the best 100% pure damage-sink tanks, due to their strong Defenses.

 

Anything else, bring a monk.

 

I'm fairly certain Fighter is better in every way

 

 

A fighter with Wary Defender has +15/+10/+10/+10 Defenses (one talent, one ability).

 

A paladin with Cautious Attack and maxed F&C has +21/+22/+22/+22 defenses (one talent). With Deep Faith, that's +23/+27/+27/+27 (two talents).

 

Fighters are grand. They have great CC and recover quickly from all kinds of crap.

 

Paladins are a poorly-designed, discordant mess. Their abilities do not make sense. Many are useless. Paladins deserve a serious fix, and I hope they get it in 1.05.

 

They still make for the best 100% pure damage-sink tanks, however, due to their strong defenses.

Edited April 18, 2015 by gkathellar

[darqleo]

love my Wayfarer Paladin. 

[eubatham]

 

A fighter with Wary Defender has +15/+10/+10/+10 Defenses (one talent, one ability).

 

A paladin with Cautious Attack and maxed F&C has +21/+22/+22/+22 defenses (one talent). With Deep Faith, that's +23/+27/+27/+27 (two talents).

 

Fighters are grand. They have great CC and recover quickly from all kinds of crap.

 

Paladins are a poorly-designed, discordant mess. Their abilities do not make sense. Many are useless. Paladins deserve a serious fix, and I hope they get it in 1.05.

 

They still make for the best 100% pure damage-sink tanks, however, due to their strong defenses.

 

 

I wouldn't say Paladins are better tanks, keep in mind that Fighters can use Vigorous Defense (turning their defenses to +35/+30/+30/+30 for 15 sec) once per encounter, but more importantly is that Fighters have Critical Defense (turning 20% of incoming crits into hits and 10% of hits into grazes) which is a ridiculously powerful talent.

 

Anyway, I'm willing to concede the point only for the fact that some of the most staunch defenders of the Paladins class, calling the Paladin "A great class that simply plays different from other classes and that people are playing them wrong", have brought up your exact quote about Paladin tanks as "proof" to back their claims. That you're disagreeing with them yourself is simply amusing to see.

Edited April 19, 2015 by eubatham

[Longknife]

Sorry for the bad quality, I have no patience to spend half a day uploading a video. Here's my response. Fighter vs Sky Dragon on PotD. Solo, no summoned crap, no traps, no potions, no scrolls, not even pausing and on top of that terrible rolls, i.e. worst case scenario.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1dC3Linvno

 

Edit: it's still processing, if you want higher resolution, you gotta wait.

 

 

Well....that's embarassing.

 

Back to the drawing board for Paladins. :/

[gochargers2156]

While I will concede that duke's video proves a fighter is mostly superior to a paladin, I disagree that it proves that the fault is with paladins.  The main thing I gather from the video is that if anything, fighters are far too powerful.  After maybe the first 30 seconds of the fight or whatever, it is entirely possible that the person playing the fighter could have afk'd for the rest of the fight, with it bearing no relevance to the eventual outcome.  To me, there is a massive problem with that, and this is not directly tied to something simply being an auto-attack class.  The breath attacks are avoidable for a reason, and in my video had I not tried to avoid them, and use summons to eat the knock down attacks, I would have died very quickly.  This is adherence to the mechanics of the fight, and I think that is the right way a person should have to beat the encounter.  How is it that people can watch someone do the fight with a class that can ignore all the mechanics, even the avoidable ones, and basically afk, and then fault the class that had to adhere to them as being the issue?  Having only done solo playthroughs I didn't have a chance to experience it, but the wide regard seems to be that with a party the game is entirely too easy on Path of the Damned.  If a fighter can trivialize what is supposed to be one of the harder encounters in the game, I would think it isn't much of a stretch to say that a party built around a fighter tank could trivialize most if not all of the fights in the game.

[ICN]

 

 

A fighter with Wary Defender has +15/+10/+10/+10 Defenses (one talent, one ability).

 

A paladin with Cautious Attack and maxed F&C has +21/+22/+22/+22 defenses (one talent). With Deep Faith, that's +23/+27/+27/+27 (two talents).

 

Fighters are grand. They have great CC and recover quickly from all kinds of crap.

 

Paladins are a poorly-designed, discordant mess. Their abilities do not make sense. Many are useless. Paladins deserve a serious fix, and I hope they get it in 1.05.

 

They still make for the best 100% pure damage-sink tanks, however, due to their strong defenses.

 

 

I wouldn't say Paladins are better tanks, keep in mind that Fighters can use Vigorous Defense (turning their defenses to +35/+30/+30/+30 for 15 sec) once per encounter, but more importantly is that Fighters have Critical Defense (turning 20% of incoming crits into hits and 10% of hits into grazes) which is a ridiculously powerful talent.

 

Anyway, I'm willing to concede the point only for the fact that some of the most staunch defenders of the Paladins class, calling the Paladin "A great class that simply plays different from other classes and that people are playing them wrong", have brought up your exact quote about Paladin tanks as "proof" to back their claims. That you're disagreeing with them yourself is simply amusing to see.

 

 

I don't think Critical Defense is that good myself. My fighters are already stacking defense, so critical hits are either unlikely or impossible. It also means the hits-to-grazes effect is less useful. If I'm hit on a roll of 50 or higher, Critical Defense effectively transforms that into a roll of 55 or higher. But if I'm only hit on a roll of 70 or higher, Critical Defense effectively transforms it to 73 or higher. It's a talent that gets less useful the better my fighter is at his primary role.

[Longknife]

How is it that people can watch someone do the fight with a class that can ignore all the mechanics, even the avoidable ones, and basically afk, and then fault the class that had to adhere to them as being the issue?

 

 

Because the issue at hand is that Fighters and Paladins are both tanks. Fighter is such an effective tank it can AFK on a boss and still survive, Paladin could NEVER dream of this. Furthermore I'd hesitate to name Fighters as OP. Many of us have probably seen a fight where Fighter was the last one standing, and we know the class can both live or die in such a scenario. In the clip shown for example, the Fighter's late game ability to res itself ASAP was critical to that even being possible.

 

Usually tank classes suffer from being very lackluster and not self-sufficient in such games. Why? Because damage is easier to balance. It's easier to make a high damage glass cannon that'll die in two hits and have that be your balance; carefully monitoring the stats of a tank to ensure it neither wins unanimously or loses terribly on the other hand is very difficult, and usually leads to a lot of boring, lackluster tank classes. I for one welcome the face of Fighter we see now, because while it's fighting style may not be the most exciting, it's very impressive to see what Fighters can sometimes pull off with raw stats alone. My first Trial of Iron character saw Eder saving the group at both Raedric and the final battle, but this does not mean the Fighter is the do-all end-all, since they kill painfully slow and I've had Chanters rescue far more battles in total.

 

 

But yeah, tl;dr that's the class that competes with Paladin as tank. That the victory is that crystal clear and unanimous highlights just how severely Paladin is being beaten on the tank aspect of the class.

[Ruminate]

While I will concede that duke's video proves a fighter is mostly superior to a paladin, I disagree that it proves that the fault is with paladins.  The main thing I gather from the video is that if anything, fighters are far too powerful.  After maybe the first 30 seconds of the fight or whatever, it is entirely possible that the person playing the fighter could have afk'd for the rest of the fight, with it bearing no relevance to the eventual outcome.  To me, there is a massive problem with that, and this is not directly tied to something simply being an auto-attack class.  The breath attacks are avoidable for a reason, and in my video had I not tried to avoid them, and use summons to eat the knock down attacks, I would have died very quickly.  This is adherence to the mechanics of the fight, and I think that is the right way a person should have to beat the encounter.  How is it that people can watch someone do the fight with a class that can ignore all the mechanics, even the avoidable ones, and basically afk, and then fault the class that had to adhere to them as being the issue?  Having only done solo playthroughs I didn't have a chance to experience it, but the wide regard seems to be that with a party the game is entirely too easy on Path of the Damned.  If a fighter can trivialize what is supposed to be one of the harder encounters in the game, I would think it isn't much of a stretch to say that a party built around a fighter tank could trivialize most if not all of the fights in the game.

 

What equipment were you using? What equipment was dukefx using?

What level were you? Was level was dukefx?

How did you build your character? How did dukefx build his character?

 

Too many knee-jerk reactions.

[KDubya]

 

 

 

A fighter with Wary Defender has +15/+10/+10/+10 Defenses (one talent, one ability).

 

A paladin with Cautious Attack and maxed F&C has +21/+22/+22/+22 defenses (one talent). With Deep Faith, that's +23/+27/+27/+27 (two talents).

 

Fighters are grand. They have great CC and recover quickly from all kinds of crap.

 

Paladins are a poorly-designed, discordant mess. Their abilities do not make sense. Many are useless. Paladins deserve a serious fix, and I hope they get it in 1.05.

 

They still make for the best 100% pure damage-sink tanks, however, due to their strong defenses.

 

 

I wouldn't say Paladins are better tanks, keep in mind that Fighters can use Vigorous Defense (turning their defenses to +35/+30/+30/+30 for 15 sec) once per encounter, but more importantly is that Fighters have Critical Defense (turning 20% of incoming crits into hits and 10% of hits into grazes) which is a ridiculously powerful talent.

 

Anyway, I'm willing to concede the point only for the fact that some of the most staunch defenders of the Paladins class, calling the Paladin "A great class that simply plays different from other classes and that people are playing them wrong", have brought up your exact quote about Paladin tanks as "proof" to back their claims. That you're disagreeing with them yourself is simply amusing to see.

 

 

I don't think Critical Defense is that good myself. My fighters are already stacking defense, so critical hits are either unlikely or impossible. It also means the hits-to-grazes effect is less useful. If I'm hit on a roll of 50 or higher, Critical Defense effectively transforms that into a roll of 55 or higher. But if I'm only hit on a roll of 70 or higher, Critical Defense effectively transforms it to 73 or higher. It's a talent that gets less useful the better my fighter is at his primary role.

 

 

If your fighter is a sword and shield, high per/res deflection tank, I agree that the Critical Defense ability would not see much use as you are not getting hit in the first place. This is tanking forever.

 

If you go for a damage spec'd tank with two handers or dual wield, with deflection in the 70-105 range, then the ability comes into its own. At that deflection range you will get hit and the ability will block the worst of them. This is tanking "good enough for long enough"

 

On my hard play through I ran into some chain stunning, paralyzing, teleporting enemies around level 13 or 14. As I blundered into them without advance knowledge, my team quickly started to suffer. Aloth, Durance and Grieving went don early leaving PC two hander fighter, Eder, and a fighter hireling with dual flails. Their DR, deflection, endurance regen and hit point pools allowed them to take the beatings while paralyzed, the self rez brought each of the three back into the fight, eventually Eder was the sole surviver who had to kill the last three alone. 

[gkathellar]

 

 

 

 

A fighter with Wary Defender has +15/+10/+10/+10 Defenses (one talent, one ability).

 

A paladin with Cautious Attack and maxed F&C has +21/+22/+22/+22 defenses (one talent). With Deep Faith, that's +23/+27/+27/+27 (two talents).

 

Fighters are grand. They have great CC and recover quickly from all kinds of crap.

 

Paladins are a poorly-designed, discordant mess. Their abilities do not make sense. Many are useless. Paladins deserve a serious fix, and I hope they get it in 1.05.

 

They still make for the best 100% pure damage-sink tanks, however, due to their strong defenses.

 

 

I wouldn't say Paladins are better tanks, keep in mind that Fighters can use Vigorous Defense (turning their defenses to +35/+30/+30/+30 for 15 sec) once per encounter, but more importantly is that Fighters have Critical Defense (turning 20% of incoming crits into hits and 10% of hits into grazes) which is a ridiculously powerful talent.

 

Anyway, I'm willing to concede the point only for the fact that some of the most staunch defenders of the Paladins class, calling the Paladin "A great class that simply plays different from other classes and that people are playing them wrong", have brought up your exact quote about Paladin tanks as "proof" to back their claims. That you're disagreeing with them yourself is simply amusing to see.

 

 

I don't think Critical Defense is that good myself. My fighters are already stacking defense, so critical hits are either unlikely or impossible. It also means the hits-to-grazes effect is less useful. If I'm hit on a roll of 50 or higher, Critical Defense effectively transforms that into a roll of 55 or higher. But if I'm only hit on a roll of 70 or higher, Critical Defense effectively transforms it to 73 or higher. It's a talent that gets less useful the better my fighter is at his primary role.

 

 

If your fighter is a sword and shield, high per/res deflection tank, I agree that the Critical Defense ability would not see much use as you are not getting hit in the first place. This is tanking forever.

 

If you go for a damage spec'd tank with two handers or dual wield, with deflection in the 70-105 range, then the ability comes into its own. At that deflection range you will get hit and the ability will block the worst of them. This is tanking "good enough for long enough"

 

Right, and this is actually what most of a fighter's tanking abilities are geared around. Recovering Endurance and shaking things off is of limited utility to a pure tank. An off-tank, though, gets way more mileage out of it.

[Jimmysdabestcop]

I think the Paladin problem is as an NPC or an adventurer they aren't as good as a PC Paladin. This is the only class that has this problem.

[Voltron]

Fighters are just superior. Paladins more fun to play, since there is more in it than just auto-attack and passives.

 

But I agree. Paladins fail to be between fighter and priest class, and brings nothing really from both worlds. They should have more self defense/buff/protect powers that are usefull.

 

I'd still take Paladin for more challange and less "yawn" during combat. Class is still weak though.

[gochargers2156]

The focus should be less on paladins and more on the fighter vs dragon example provided.  The video shows a fighter eating all attacks of the dragon, even the meant to be avoided, high damage breaths, and coming out on top with room to spare.  Now this is as seen, and as stated with no consumables, potions, pausing, changing of position, etc.  He also stated that the rolls were terrible and this was likely a worst-case scenario.  That is a problem.  There are far too many topics complaining about Path of the Damned being too easy for it not to be a problem.  All it takes is imagining a party supporting that fighter, and then the fight becomes a total landslide victory in favor of the party.  This against one of the hardest hitting creatures in the game, outside of the Adra Dragon.  How is buffing any class going to make this game more difficult?  If the problem is with the game being too easy then the result is that some classes are overtuned rather than some being undertuned.

[gkathellar]

Fighters are just superior. Paladins more fun to play, since there is more in it than just auto-attack and passives.

 

I would say that just the opposite is true. Paladins are mostly a stack of passive defenses, with a few active support abilities that their passives prevent from coming into play.

[eubatham]

The focus should be less on paladins and more on the fighter vs dragon example provided.  The video shows a fighter eating all attacks of the dragon, even the meant to be avoided, high damage breaths, and coming out on top with room to spare.  Now this is as seen, and as stated with no consumables, potions, pausing, changing of position, etc.  He also stated that the rolls were terrible and this was likely a worst-case scenario.  That is a problem.  There are far too many topics complaining about Path of the Damned being too easy for it not to be a problem.  All it takes is imagining a party supporting that fighter, and then the fight becomes a total landslide victory in favor of the party.  This against one of the hardest hitting creatures in the game, outside of the Adra Dragon.  How is buffing any class going to make this game more difficult?  If the problem is with the game being too easy then the result is that some classes are overtuned rather than some being undertuned.

 

Stop focusing so much on the fighter, other classes get equally powerful abilities and for most other class PoTD is an equally easy cakewalk.

 

One of the first complete PoTD Paladin walkthroughs posted on this forum was specifically done by the poster as a Paladin because it would the hardest of all classes to get through PoTD. It was concluded that if they could finish it as a Paladin they could do it on any class (or at least melee).

 

So again, concluding that Fighters are too powerful after that video is the wrong conclusion to make. If you'd check other PoTD walkthroughs, you'll notice that Paladins are simply that far behind on most other classes. Paladins get an early advantage over most classes, but from Act 2 most of that is rendered pointless because items provide more than enough defenses needed for PoTD.

Edited April 20, 2015 by eubatham

[The Josip]

 

but this is probably the worst defense of a class I've seen. Fighters barely take any microing in the first place for one thing but evaluating how good different classes are based on what happens when you just click attack and leave them at it is a terrible way to talk about the class' potential

 

 

Actually it's a perfectly valid way to talk about class potential because Time is a resource like any other. If class X takes 3x longer to finish the game than class Y then it's clearly 3x worse in performance. If a class A requires a lot of micromanagement to be 5% better than class B then it's clearly worse in performance (unless that 5% results in a fail).

 

This is why I'm enjoying my group of 6 monks. I can micromanage Torment's Reach and pause every second, but most of the time I don't need to - melee autoattacks alone decimate most enemy groups in seconds. I've cleared first several levels so much faster than with a balanced group.

 

Of course that micromanagement is needed. Most classes are pointless without it. But it's a resource like any other.

 

I've also seen games where 2 classes would be "balanced" but in a way that they're only equally strong when second class is mastered, and played with full focus to the best of the ability each and every time. While with the first class every beginner can get to that level of strength in 10min of learning, and playing with one hand. That's not balance.

 

On a related note, I find classes that don't require any micromanagement extremely boring. Fighters, Paladins, Rangers. Terrible. Skill selection is awful or non-existent. And no, I'm not saying that knockdown isn't useful but that's all you got as a Fighter, and my monk has FoA which does the same thing 3x better, unlimited amount of times per combat, and in a more fun way. Ranger is just terrible - they take one of the archetypes and make it into such a boring and bad class, it's a crime. You could make so many skills for a ranger, easily, and what does he have? Nothing. It's the most boring ranger I've ever played in any game. Even pets look like poodles.

 

 

 

Every time I try to use a Chanter tank, I get to Caed Nua and they get ripped to shreds by Phantoms. One of these days I need to just grit my teeth and bear with it so I can see how they are once they hit their stride.

 

Caed Nua with a chanter? Use speed boost chant. Run back and forth with bows until you can summon phantasms. gg

[Walsingham]

I rate being a Paladin higher than a fighter because of the roleplaying element. I especially like that I don't have to JUST do things in line with my order. But if I go contrary then I have tow ork even harder to compensate.

[Razorchain]

I think the problem with paladins is that their abilities are just boring and not that good. I'm playing a Paladin tank with a custom party, and yes a fine tank indeed.  But when I have to choose ability, there is nothing special to choose.  Lay on hands? The priest has healing spells.  If I could take the upgrades for Flames of Devotion, Lay on hands and Faith and Conviction as abilites instead of talents I would be happier about the Paladin.

 

Ok, I'm playing as a Paladin of The Shieldbearers of St. Elgca.  Why on earth should I waste talent on deflection bonus on ally from lay on hands, how situational is that? If you are playing a shieldbearer then either it's for RP purposes or your aiming for a mean tank build.  I thought I could use an ability to increase Faith and Conviction...my fault I know but most of the Paladin abilities are just so lackluster, if Liberating Exhortation was AoE then it might be worth taking, but using a talent on an accuracy bonus for LE??? You would have to be mad to spend it on an ability you rarely use.  

 

I wanted to try out a custom made Paladin, yes a great tank, and a decent support for my fighter who is going one handed style, tanking, crit build.  I just wished hold the line would add +2 engaged instead of one, it kinds of forces my weapon choice for my paladin.

[iKrivetko]

What don't really like about paladins is the way orders are implemented. There is no immediate bonus to choosing one, and if we are honest, the talents are generally quite underwhelming anyway.

 

The only reason why you would want to choose, say, Remember Rakhan Field is the badass visual and RP flavour, because getting 25% bonus damage for two attacks per encounter isn't worth a talent. In my opinion, order-specific talents should be passively given at the very beginning and should affect every Paladin ability in some way. Say, Critical Focus could be by default present on Bleak Walkers with Zealous Focus, while, say, Shieldbearers could get a graze to hit bonus with Zealous Focus active. 

 

 

Fighters are just superior. Paladins more fun to play, since there is more in it than just auto-attack and passives.

Last time I checked, Knock Down, Into the Fray, Vigorous Defence, Unbending and Clear Out were active abilities. More than that, active abilities with actual utility, unlike the lame stuff that Paladins have to offer.

Edited April 20, 2015 by iKrivetko

[gkathellar]

I wanted to try out a custom made Paladin, yes a great tank, and a decent support for my fighter who is going one handed style, tanking, crit build.  I just wished hold the line would add +2 engaged instead of one, it kinds of forces my weapon choice for my paladin.

 

Engagement doesn't really affect tanking ability in any meaningful way, so you should feel free to skip Hold the Line entirely.

 

In my opinion, order-specific talents should be passively given at the very beginning and should affect every Paladin ability in some way. Say, Critical Focus could be by default present on Bleak Walkers with Zealous Focus, while, say, Shieldbearers could get a graze to hit bonus with Zealous Focus active.

 

That sounds like a really excellent start to fixing the problems with paladins, yes.