Building PC paladin and Poll: Skill choice

[Gromnir]

 

rogues is most effective when using sneak attacks, we must needs always be aware o' what enemies is debuffed enough to make them attractive targets o' opportunity.  move 'round the battlefield to get the right target takes some consideration.

 

"paladins is most effective when using killing blows, we must needs always be aware o' what enemies is unhealthy enough to make them attractive targets o' opportunity.  move 'round the battlefield to get the right target takes some consideration."

 

All non-caster classes have few active abilities, of which this few a significant portion is situational. Those abilities also tend to be usable more frequently, on an encounter-by-encounter basis, than the per-rest spells of versatile casters. At least, that was the presumed intention behind limiting spells to per rest. Is a quirk of poor implementation that caster spells are effectively per encounter, if the user is so inclined.

 

There do exist certain snowflake classes which possess alternative methods o' action economy, but they is in the distinct minority.

 

not actual true.  most non casters have per encounter or per-rest abilities that are useful in pretty much every encounter.  things such as rogue blind strike and fighter knockdown is gonna be situational more or less useful in a given battle, but they is always useful.  the true situational use abilities is the exception rather than the rule... which is perfectly understandable.  make abilities that you don't get regular or frequent use o' is a peculiar design approach. paladins, on the other hand, is a support class that will frequently have no useful abilities to apply in a battle.  is a support class that is potential doing very little to support.  the mere presence o' the paladin can be important to the party, and in some limited situations the paladin can be a game changer, but frequently the paladin is reduced to pew-pew.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[mazeltov]

If battles frequently don't involve the need for healing, cleansing, reviving, Defenses, or Accuracy, then Paladin support abilities will not have much to contribute to most battles. Because those are the effects Paladin support abilities, both passive and active, provide. However, we found those benefits to be worth our Paladin's company.

 

We also observed during the course of our gameplay that Durance, with his plethora of versatile support spells, frequently had no cause to use them.

[MoxyWoo]

My vote is for Dracozzi. Mainly for synergy. PC paladins are all over the place for their abilities and make ok off tanks with the faith and conviction bonus to defenses. With the earliest retaliation via Fires of Dracozzi Palace that targets reflex they are good for all of act 1 as a tank.

 

After that.

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Meh.

[Gromnir]

many battles do not require the very limited  or specific cleanses the paladin can offer.

 

many battles do not require a revive.

 

many battles do not require a large, single-target heal.

 

etc.

 

are the auras useful ubiquitous?  hell yeah.  the auras is more useful than many folks suggest, but as a paladin, the auras is modal and is gonna be left active all the time.  is paladin defenses great?  sure, but they is also passive.  

 

*shrug*

 

am thinking you are working way too hard to try and deny that the paladin is a low-maintenance class... one that is bordering on approaching auto-pilot for many battles.   that were a selling point o' the class, btw.  developers made no attempt to hide or deny that paladins were low-maintenance. is there a few per-kill abilities that require attention?  sure, but with our typical high int builds, we get one such opportunity every 15 seconds, which for most battles means we need only pay attention to dying mooks 1 or 2 times. huzzah.

 

btw, fighters were more low maintenance in earlier builds than they currently is.  people complained.  beta backers complained that fighters were dull. abilities were added.  sadly, we think that a few o' the fighter changes were not for the better, but folks did complain, and fighters, in spite o' being primarily a tank class, have more universal useful options than does paladins.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[mazeltov]

Paladins can be played as a low-maintenance class, and be very effective when played that way. That point was never in dispute. What was disputed was an erroneous attempt to portray them as only effective as low maintenance auto attackers and part-time buffbots, with support abilities that rarely come into play. Such is not the case. We is of the opinion that on-kill abilities were dismissed out of hand by a sizable percentage o' the gaming population, on account o' being "too hard," "too microintensive," "out of our control," "taking 15 seconds," or other dubious assumptions, many on display in the current thread.

 

Moreover, in our experience every class "borders on approaching auto-pilot for many battles," which is a problem with the game in an overall sense, not with Paladin as such. We struggle to search our mind for a class more passive, boring, and low-maintenance than the stereotypical PoE Fighter tank. Paladin support, especially when actively engaged and off autopilot, seems to us a veritable whirl of activity in comparison.

[Gromnir]

 

 

Moreover, in our experience every class "borders on approaching auto-pilot for many battles,"

nonsense.  again, you are trying far too hard to prove a point and you are going to absurd lengths to do so.  

 

*shrug*

 

you list all the things a paladin can do?  wonderful, but those ain't the things a paladin does do.  you gotta pick and choose from your optimistic list o' cleanses and buffs and defenses.  as we noted earlier, by levels 6-8, halfway through the game, you are lucky if you got three abilities and chances are that at least one or two such abilities is gonna be o' situational use.  not blind strike situational or knockdown situational, but liberating or reviving exhortation usefulness. 

 

be reasonable.

 

so, you distinguish paladins from low-maintenance options 'cause with particular builds you needs watch health o' mooks so that you might be able to activate a defensive or heal ability if you score a kill every 15 seconds or so? great.  

 

 

we already noted that the issue o' being boring is subjective, but your efforts are making the question seem far less subjective than we suggested.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[mazeltov]

It truly did seem to us that a majority of encounters, which is an even higher standard than "many battles," required little input from our side at all as far as selectin' and targetin' the abilities o' the various classes, many o' which we continued to use not by necessity, but by ingrained habit formed over time. We used Hobbling Strike (one of the two non-situational activated abilities available to our Rogue), we used Knockdown on an engaged foe, we caused an opponent to stand still, but for the most part such actions were not found to be over impactful to the ultimate outcome o' the encounters. Were exceptions.

 

Much is made o' the fact that some Paladin support options are situational. Such is typical the nature o' support, to be a salvation in times of dire need, though some types of buffs are more universal in constant desirability than others. Accuracy and Defenses, for example, which a Paladin may increase either as part of an activated ability (the likes o' "Lay on Hands"), or as part o' a concerted effort to provide such buffs through killing blows. One type o' Paladin can even Frighten foes upon a killing blow, which affliction is almost always beneficial to apply when possible. Such cannot be achieved when playing on autopilot, though. Or rather it can be achieved, but not with the consistency most o' the gaming community would expect and demand. We further continue to be skeptic o' the 15 seconds figure as a useful rhetorical device. Does not align with our experience.

 

To reiter... to say again, we don't compare the boringness o' playing another low-maintenance class to a low-maintenance Paladin. We compare it to playing a Paladin controlled with an eye toward micromanagement and attentive use o' the full range o' personal and party resources at his or her disposal.

[Odd Hermit]

Darcozzi's +Accuracy to Lib. Exhort is the only one I found worth taking.