Are Paladins really not that bad?

[eubatham]

DoT stacking or not stacking is irrelevant. You don't use DoTs for the sake of it being a DoT. You use DoTs because it deals damage. Damage removes the opposition. Druids, Wizards, and Ciphers will remove the opposition faster than a Chanter (and at a much earlier level than 9).

Whether you believe it doesn't have an accuracy roll is irrelevant. It does have an accuracy roll. (and because it has an accuracy roll, giving them medium or large shields will also reduce its accuracy.)

 

Yes, Chanter is one of the best solo classes. Solo plays into their niche: long encounters

....but utilizing their niche in a party means the party wasn't very strong to begin with.

 

I'm not saying the Chanter is bad. That isn't my position. I'm just using the same logic some people use on other classes.

If certain people, who use this kind of logic, think someone else using it is irrational or misrepresenting the topic at hand when someone else uses it, then....

(not saying you do, but there are certain people in this thread that can't see their own reflection in the mirror)

 

Thank you for at least agreeing with me that defending aura's because "they're always active, even if they get overwritten" is pointless, because most fights don't take that long (because they aren't though). Like I said before; only for the harder (and longer) fights that are more rare (especially in the early game), buffs are important.

 

I do think you're focusing too much on one aspect of chanters though, while ignoring their excellent off-tank potential while passively keeping up strong buffs (via chants) during short fights. Not to even forget their powerful spells, that not only buff allies, but also paralyze enemies or distract them. While a certain play style might not be suited for every gamestyle, keep in mind that we're trying to gauge the overall potential of a class.

Edited April 22, 2015 by eubatham

[MoxyWoo]

Chanters are also great for scroll use, item casts, and tanking to me.  There's so much potential via item use that realistically can't be used by other classes but chanter.

[Ruminate]

Chanters are also great for scroll use, item casts, and tanking to me.  There's so much potential via item use that realistically can't be used by other classes but chanter.

 

Scrolls scale with might and uses the base accuracy of a class. Best scroll user is a class with max might and starting 30 base accuracy. ....neither of which fit the Chanter.

[MoxyWoo]

 

Chanters are also great for scroll use, item casts, and tanking to me.  There's so much potential via item use that realistically can't be used by other classes but chanter.

 

Scrolls scale with might and uses the base accuracy of a class. Best scroll user is a class with max might and starting 30 base accuracy. ....neither of which fit the Chanter.

 

 

Other classes suffer from action economy.  Chanters before ramping up to an invocation have "realistic" usage of items and tanking ability.   Additionally scroll use on a paladin with zealous focus can be a decent opener since the priest cast realization isnt fast enough to be gained for scroll casts.

[MadDemiurg]

 

 

Well, tbh 80 damage DoT is not too shabby even if you compare it with druid/priest DoT's. Druid can do more burst, yes, but this is pretty good at wearing down/finishing off big crowds and is free (it also does fully stack with druid DoTs unlike paladin auras and priest spells). It also kinda scales with INT (aoe) and I haven't seen it miss tbh, so I think it actually doesn't have an attack roll (Don't have the game to check it atm). The fact that it doesn't scale with might can be seen as a pro since you can dump it an go full tank stats. Chanter is one of the best solo classes because of this. This is going a bit offtopic however.

 

 

DoT stacking or not stacking is irrelevant. You don't use DoTs for the sake of it being a DoT. You use DoTs because it deals damage. Damage removes the opposition. Druids, Wizards, and Ciphers will remove the opposition faster than a Chanter (and at a much earlier level than 9).

Whether you believe it doesn't have an accuracy roll is irrelevant. It does have an accuracy roll. (and because it has an accuracy roll, giving them medium or large shields will also reduce its accuracy.)

 

Yes, Chanter is one of the best solo classes. Solo plays into their niche: long encounters

....but utilizing their niche in a party means the party wasn't very strong to begin with.

 

I'm not saying the Chanter is bad. That isn't my position. I'm just using the same logic some people use on other classes.

If certain people, who use this kind of logic, think someone else using it is irrational or misrepresenting the topic at hand when someone else uses it, then....

(not saying you do, but there are certain people in this thread that can't see their own reflection in the mirror)

 

As I said I wasn't sure if it had an attack roll. Just checked in game and it indeed does, even though there's no roll in the description. Bit misleading (Priest's sparks of the righteous actually has no attack roll and is a similar mechanic for instance). Anyway, chanter easily pulls his own weight by being both tanky and still decent dps, also the +25% fire damage chant works with both weapons and spells, so if you have 4 dps characters and a chanter with it he easily adds as much damage as adding a 5th one would add if you prefer burst, while being tanky and potentially doing other stuff. DoT stacking is also useful since it's a different DoT, you can't stack 2 identical DoTs from 2 druids for instance. So imo chanter is quite good in any party. This isn't the topic of the thread however .

[Ruminate]

 

 

Chanters are also great for scroll use, item casts, and tanking to me.  There's so much potential via item use that realistically can't be used by other classes but chanter.

 

Scrolls scale with might and uses the base accuracy of a class. Best scroll user is a class with max might and starting 30 base accuracy. ....neither of which fit the Chanter.

 

 

Other classes suffer from action economy.  Chanters before ramping up to an invocation have "realistic" usage of items and tanking ability.   Additionally scroll use on a paladin with zealous focus can be a decent opener since the priest cast realization isnt fast enough to be gained for scroll casts.

 

 

Priests have 20 base accuracy, so they're irrelevant.

Monks have spare action economy at the start of a fight, during the time when using a scroll is most advantageous. They are most likely to max might and they start with 30 accuracy.

I'm not saying the Priest, Chanter, or Paladin don't have other kinds of advantages, but anything outside of the "best" is irrelevant, no?

[Kaigen42]

I guess I just don't see why stacking or lack thereof is such a sticking point. Yes, Zealous Endurance and Armor of Faith are redundant, but that just improves the Priest's action economy. Instead of opening with Armor of Faith to minimize damage, I can start off with Blessing or Interdiction or any number of other useful spells, and that's helpful regardless of the length of the fight. Zealous Focus doesn't quite play as nicely, since you likely still want the damage bonus from Blessing, but that just means you don't take that aura if you have a Priest in the party. Much like your Fighter doesn't need Vigorous Defense in you have a Priest because it doesn't stack with Circle of Protection. Party composition informing individual builds is not necessarily a bad thing.

[MoxyWoo]

 

 

 

Chanters are also great for scroll use, item casts, and tanking to me.  There's so much potential via item use that realistically can't be used by other classes but chanter.

 

Scrolls scale with might and uses the base accuracy of a class. Best scroll user is a class with max might and starting 30 base accuracy. ....neither of which fit the Chanter.

 

 

Other classes suffer from action economy.  Chanters before ramping up to an invocation have "realistic" usage of items and tanking ability.   Additionally scroll use on a paladin with zealous focus can be a decent opener since the priest cast realization isnt fast enough to be gained for scroll casts.

 

 

Priests have 20 base accuracy, so they're irrelevant.

Monks have spare action economy at the start of a fight, during the time when using a scroll is most advantageous. They are most likely to max might and they start with 30 accuracy.

I'm not saying the Priest, Chanter, or Paladin don't have other kinds of advantages, but anything outside of the "best" is irrelevant, no?

 

indeed love the monk for the initial item or scroll use.

 

to clarify.. priest casting their accuracy buffs cant effect scroll use while a paladin can for an opener.

 

just looking at that a paladin has 31 accuracy via zealous focus at the start of a fight.

[Gromnir]

 

 

and just like eub, this is the only observation you made that we agree with... though we note that your post does not enumerate your complaints but a few proposed fixes.  your complaints were silly and legion and we already have addressed your complete unwillingness to embrace the poe concept.  am not seeing a need to have to repeat self Again in that regard.

 

 

I don't even know what "and legion" means and what is "embrace the PoE concept" supposed to mean? What about my criticisms suggests I'm not "embracing the PoE concept?"

 

Might help to criticize my criticisms directly instead of making vague ambiguous statements like that.

 

 

*facepalm*

 

To say that your complaints were "legion" in the context above is to say that your complaints were many.  Jeez.  There's nothing ambiguous about saying that one's complaints are legion.

 

As for embracing the PoE concept, you're on your own on that one.  I don't exactly know what the "PoE concept" is, or at least what Gromnir thinks it is.

 

what obsidian stated the paladin role is 'posed to be, not Gromnir.  we keep linking obsidian pov, but few read.  those few who do read tend to either ignore or imagine that the obsidian goals for the the class is irrelevant.

 

...

 

am not gonna link again.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[gkathellar]

the poe paladin is s'posed to be a support class...

What it's supposed to be and what it is are not the same thing, for better or worse.

 

(And frankly, I dunno where the image of a support paladin even comes from. Paladins have always been about smiting evil while providing limited support and having good defenses against magic.)

 

is s'posed to be a low-maintenance support class with admirable defensive qualities and powerful single target heals, debuffs and cleanses. is nothing wrong with that concept.

Yeah, there kinda is something wrong with it. Two things, really.

 

First, there's no reason to pick a frontliner for support duty, and for a support-frontliner to even be viable, they have to be what they are now - an almost totally passive tank.

 

Second, the thing you're describing? That's a priest. Hell, I can make a battle priest that fits the role perfectly. The paladin as you're describing it is redundant.

 

I get that it's Obsidian's view, not yours, but it's a stupid view and it doesn't work in practice, so I don't see why anyone should be interested in it.

Edited April 23, 2015 by gkathellar

[Jimmysdabestcop]

Honestly I feel Priests and Paladin kind of lackluster to DnD at least 2nd through 3.5 editions. Plus compared to the IE cRPG games it feels like the battles are just over really quickly. At least in say BG2 you had several enemy casters with defenses up and you had to take them down before you could generally hurt them in melee or with magic. Granted other difficulties have increased battle length but you have to base everything off of normal mode.

 

Wonder how many spells my Durance even used? I would say less then a dozen heal spells for sure. And probably less then 50 spells the entire game. Most fights didn't require it.

 

and speaking of the Wizard. After level 9 I actually liked the Druid spells better than the Wizard so switched him out. Another strange decision. Every other spell casters gets entire level of spells but Wizards has to pick 2 per level or find them in books but cant find in loot or buy in stores.  That is just strange.

 

The Paladin NPC I didn't even need her. I already had 3 front line characters. And Eder set up as dual weapon saber user. He was able to tank just fine while not even trying. So why would I want the Paladin to come along? Feels like its basically a character with high deflection, no regen, who cant put any damage out at least not as much as Eder can. Granted a PC Paladin would play different.

 

DnD Paladin had the entire undead and cleric spells going for the class. Plus the kits. PoE wants the Paladin as a Knight really. Should have just made the class into a knight or cavalier class. You would figure a PoE Paladin should be all anti soul, anti animancracy, anti vessel at least. But its not. It just gets Auroras.

[Raven Darkholme]

After I beat the game solo with a cipher on PotD and killed everythibg except Adra Dragon I now started a Darcozzi solo. Pretty confident he will perform well.

[Raven Darkholme]

So solo(!) Paladins are definitely more capable than Fighters. This is especially notable in low levels if you pick Darcozzi and their flame shield right at level 2. Its not as strong as regular retaliate but for 2 its pretty awesome.

[gkathellar]

So solo(!) Paladins are definitely more capable than Fighters. This is especially notable in low levels if you pick Darcozzi and their flame shield right at level 2. Its not as strong as regular retaliate but for 2 its pretty awesome.

 

The big downside to Darcozzi on a solo playthrough is that you can't pick up any points in Cruel without taking an F&C penalty.

[Raven Darkholme]

Why would you want to pick up cruel?

With my cipher I never chose the option even though it didn't matter.

[gkathellar]

Normally I avoid it, but it does let you grab Gift from the Machine, among other things.

[MadDemiurg]

Not sure if fire shield pulls paladin ahead given that constant recovery is also quite great low level (and you're missing LoH if you go for shield). Plus, fighter picks Wary Defender at level 4 which puts him ahead in terms of defences at that point, while also having the constant recovery advantage.

[Raven Darkholme]

@gkathellar

Well, there's a talent/ability that makes it unimportant whether you picked a reputation which doesn't fit your order.

@MadDemiurg

I don't think constant recovery is that good if you have moon godlike anyway. LoH is definitely weaker than the shield I tested it out before I decided to go FoD. As to wary defender, can you have it active with cautious attack, since both are defensive modals? If not I don't see how the fighter is better, since the paladin has faith and conviction on top of cautious attack and superior defenses because of that.

[MadDemiurg]

@gkathellar

Well, there's a talent/ability that makes it unimportant whether you picked a reputation which doesn't fit your order.

@MadDemiurg

I don't think constant recovery is that good if you have moon godlike anyway. LoH is definitely weaker than the shield I tested it out before I decided to go FoD. As to wary defender, can you have it active with cautious attack, since both are defensive modals? If not I don't see how the fighter is better, since the paladin has faith and conviction on top of cautious attack and superior defenses because of that.

Paladin has (overall) better permanent defences with Faith & Conviction, fighter has better defences with Vigorous Defence for a short time, albeit bit too short if you dump int. Wary defender doesn't stack with cautious attack, but it is much better, because it's 15 deflect and 10 will/ref/fort (+irrelevant for solo engagement slot modifier). So it's pretty much equivalent to a paladin with Cautious Attack and basic Faith and Conviction (Paladin will pull ahead by getting reputation). Constant recovery is pretty great anyway since it perfectly stacks with moon godlike and allows you tap your health resources even more in tough fights.

[Raven Darkholme]

You only need 1 point in passionate or clever and faith and conviction grants +12 in the sabes and +6 Def. You get this point in front of the black hound, guys who threaten Aloth, which is before level 3

[MadDemiurg]

You only need 1 point in passionate or clever and faith and conviction grants +12 in the sabes and +6 Def. You get this point in front of the black hound, guys who threaten Aloth, which is before level 3

Yeah, I know. Will take a long time to max it out though. As I said, paladin has better perma defenses (which get better as the game progresses), fighter may have better temporary defences + constant recovery.

[Jojobobo]

 

For Reviving Exhortation, I find the key thing is that after the enemy has downed a companion all engagement they have to fear is gone as the enemies have moved on to other team members. In that way, usually after a Reviving Exhortation you can usually consider that companion "safe" for the time being (enemies now elsewhere), allowing them to start DPSing like crazy again. The fact that it's so little cost (per encounter as I mentioned) does make it extremely useful.

 

Despite the way that you explain how you use the ability, it still doesn't overcome my main hurdle, namely that it simply kills off anyone that you try to resurrects after it's short buff has expired, unless he or she has dumped quite a few points into Con and has a high base HP. Which significantly narrows the potential survivors.

To be honest, with something like a Cipher, that's plenty of time to do very serious damage. However your point it valid, I guess it depends who you're looking to bring back (for a tank, granted it's quite useless).

 

 

For the Priest spell, if you're referring to Armor of Faith (the only level 1 spell that does anything to damage thresholds), it actually offers 1 less DR and only lasts 15 seconds rather than a permanent whole battle buff. The radius is better, but honestly when using the Paladin's auras I've not noticed their radius to be that bad in most fights (it usually covers my entire party with a little positioning).

 

Make sure that you're not going off the wiki when it comes to priest spells, it's still quite out of date and uses older beta data. I was mistaken myself too, thinking that it was 5DR. But now that I have access to the game itself again, I can verify that my point still stands (though not 'almost double the DR'). It currently offers 4 DR ingame, vs 3DR from the aura. The duration is also base 30 seconds, compared to the documented 15 from the beta.

 

Also keep in mind that that a Priest is always better to be geared towards a spellcaster, while a Paladin usually isn't (although high Int is sometimes used with Paladins for conversation options), boosting that duration to 42sec at 18 Int. I also double checked to be sure, and the effects do not stack.

Yeah I was checking the wiki, I guess never of our first numbers were correct. Comparing Paladins and Priests though, Paladins are much more tanky which Priests really aren't so good at - which can in some ways make them more consistent at delivery the DR in some ways. It does all depend on party composition, but I still find it difficult to fathom why people think Paladins are completely naff.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Jojobobo

[Jimmysdabestcop]

PC Fighter > NPC/Adventurer Paladin. Since faith and conviction doesn't work.

 

But I would still favor the Fighter as a PC over the Paladin. The Fighter can completely dump Con and Int and have 18 Might, Dex, Res, Per while a Paladin cannot do that. The paladin needs Int for abilities and auroras or they are pointless. And yeah there are several regen items but a fighter has 2 regen talents and a fighter specific regen cape and more might more regen. Fighters don't need Int they have 2 abilities that use it and aren't really needed. And with max might and the those regen talents & items dont need Con.

 

The Fighter just needs defender and wary defender to be more then front line ready. And you don't have to manage that character at all. I had Eder setup like that dual wielding sabres. Act 3 his deflection was over 90 probably closer to 100. And there were enough items and rest boosts that all of his attributes were boosted by at least 2 points. imagine that on your PC fighter with four 18 attributes.

 

A Priest can have just as high deflection as a Paladin however they wont be able to last as long if they are taking damage between rests. Their Endurance might not be far off but overall HP the Paladin will nearly double the Priest.

 

However A Priest can still deal damage out in melee even with the biggest shield. Take the Skaen priest. +10 to stilettos and clubs. If you take the ruffian talent that is +6 and clubs have a natural +5 before enchantments. Thats +21 to accuracy with no spell buffs and no enhantments and there is a superb club in game +12. Total +33 to accuracy in act 3. And then you have all your priestly spells. And there is an open class herald shield just like the Paladin but you dont get it until you take care of the dragon.

 

I rather have the front line fighter that I can set and forget. And if I need a front line support member who I actively have to manage I rather bring the Priest for all the Spells.

[Raven Darkholme]

PC Fighter > NPC/Adventurer Paladin. Since faith and conviction doesn't work.

 

But I would still favor the Fighter as a PC over the Paladin. The Fighter can completely dump Con and Int and have 18 Might, Dex, Res, Per while a Paladin cannot do that. The paladin needs Int for abilities and auroras or they are pointless. And yeah there are several regen items but a fighter has 2 regen talents and a fighter specific regen cape and more might more regen. Fighters don't need Int they have 2 abilities that use it and aren't really needed. And with max might and the those regen talents & items dont need Con.

 

The Fighter just needs defender and wary defender to be more then front line ready. And you don't have to manage that character at all. I had Eder setup like that dual wielding sabres. Act 3 his deflection was over 90 probably closer to 100. And there were enough items and rest boosts that all of his attributes were boosted by at least 2 points. imagine that on your PC fighter with four 18 attributes.

 

A Priest can have just as high deflection as a Paladin however they wont be able to last as long if they are taking damage between rests. Their Endurance might not be far off but overall HP the Paladin will nearly double the Priest.

 

However A Priest can still deal damage out in melee even with the biggest shield. Take the Skaen priest. +10 to stilettos and clubs. If you take the ruffian talent that is +6 and clubs have a natural +5 before enchantments. Thats +21 to accuracy with no spell buffs and no enhantments and there is a superb club in game +12. Total +33 to accuracy in act 3. And then you have all your priestly spells. And there is an open class herald shield just like the Paladin but you dont get it until you take care of the dragon.

 

I rather have the front line fighter that I can set and forget. And if I need a front line support member who I actively have to manage I rather bring the Priest for all the Spells.

My paladin has 100 def at the start of Act 2 and I don't think thats even optimized, since I use a small shield. Also you can easily have +23 on your saves start of Act 2...

You can dump CO and IN too with the pala, but dumping CO isn't even necessary. This is for solo play, in a group you might want more IN, but you can still dump CO and DE...

[Raven Darkholme]

At how many disposition points is a pala maxed out again? 3? Because I'm level 6 now and already at passionate 3 and clever 2.