Latest News on the Paladin Combat Changes

[Lawman]

Sure is lookin interesting.  Glad Im month to month with this silly [Removed for Content]

 

[Rochir]

Something very interesting.    The Manastone now cons white at level 40 (probably at all levels).   It now has the following stats:

 

Increases Power by 150

Does 293 damage to caster

 

 

I guess we get to keep using our manastones.

 

Another observation:

 

PALADIN POWER EFFICIENCY HAS DRAMATICALLY IMPROVED.  I have yet to run out of power in any solo encounter and that is without my attributes and racial traits being chosen.

[Fellgaze]

I was pretty sure SOE would get it close to right before launch. They may still need to tweak things afterwards, but overall I'd say they're gonna nail it.

Like I said....foolish optimist. :smileyhappy:

[Rochir]

---

Fellgaze wrote:

I was pretty sure SOE would get it close to right before launch. They may still need to tweak things afterwards, but overall I'd say they're gonna nail it.

Like I said....foolish optimist. :smileyhappy:

---

We shall see.   I will check again tomorrow and give my impressions.   My character is a semi-twinked level 40 high elf Paladin with all Adept III spells and CAs and full pristine normal armor and jewlery along with crafted ebon weapons and a cedar kite shield.   He would be somewhere inbetween the average Paladin and the Uber/Fabled RAID Paladin.

[uzhiel feathered serpe]

yeah, it just keeps getting better too..guards just got another boost to their STA buff while we lost ours.  Super. I dont want to be on the bottom of the tanking pecking order. I dont want people to think of palys as they thought of monks or bruisers.

"Well, we got no one else...just grab the bruiser." That doesnt give me a warm and fuzzy.  bah, im competing for a healer spot in a raid. Meh.

Message Edited by uzhiel feathered serpent on 09-10-2005 05:45 PM

[GidionSWE]

i agree... We're supposed to be fairly equal to guardians yet we fall so far behind its not funny. Their natural unbuffed HP is geater then ours and once coupled with their buffs (hp, mit, defense, aggro when hit buff) that they can have up at all times we become so lame in comparison i just dont know what to say.

Besides all this tough i had fun when i logged on to beta today (got my chars copied today). That may ofcours change if it turns out we're never gonna be let in a group much less a raid cause we got nothing to offer that noone else doesnt already do a hell of alot better.

[Lifeswor]

---

Rochir wrote:

---

uzhiel feathered serpent wrote:

with less hit points, less mitigation, MUCH less avoidance, 10% block and parry.....what makes you think we tank as well as a bruiser or a guard? Specially when fighting multiples mobs...if our tanking depends on healing and warding ourselves, how many times will those heals and wards be interrupted? specially during a raid?

---

Another issue is that our heal and ward are much less effective in the combat changes than they are now.    Dont expect your heal and ward to keep you alive against tough mobs.

---

Yeah relying on heals and wards to keep us alive fighting tough mobs isn't to be expected, but that's only because of the interrupts/fizzles. Our ward is FAR more efficient than it was. I use it nearly every fight. Our heals are still reasonable too. With solo mobs interrupts can be avoided by using knockdown before casting the ward. Encounters with three mobs are still quite doable, despite the odd interrupt, Anything over that though and its too tough. This is also a problem with taunting - especially since a lot of mobs stuns come at the beginning of a fight - when cementing ones spot in the agro list is vital. As far as soloing as well as bruisers and guardians all I can say is I've seen a lot of warriors and brawlers complaining on beta they can't even do blue solo mobs! I've yet to see a Paladin complain about the same thing. As far as grouping and raiding goes though, yes once again because of interrupts our wards will suffer.

[Rochir]

---

Lifesworde wrote:

---

Rochir wrote:

---

uzhiel feathered serpent wrote:

with less hit points, less mitigation, MUCH less avoidance, 10% block and parry.....what makes you think we tank as well as a bruiser or a guard? Specially when fighting multiples mobs...if our tanking depends on healing and warding ourselves, how many times will those heals and wards be interrupted? specially during a raid?

---

Another issue is that our heal and ward are much less effective in the combat changes than they are now.    Dont expect your heal and ward to keep you alive against tough mobs.

---

Yeah relying on heals and wards to keep us alive fighting tough mobs isn't to be expected, but that's only because of the interrupts/fizzles. Our ward is FAR more efficient than it was. I use it nearly every fight. Our heals are still reasonable too. With solo mobs interrupts can be avoided by using knockdown before casting the ward. Encounters with three mobs are still quite doable, despite the odd interrupt, Anything over that though and its too tough. This is also a problem with taunting - especially since a lot of mobs stuns come at the beginning of a fight - when cementing ones spot in the agro list is vital.

As far as soloing as well as bruisers and guardians all I can say is I've seen a lot of warriors and brawlers complaining on beta they can't even do blue solo mobs! I've yet to see a Paladin complain about the same thing. As far as grouping and raiding goes though, yes once again because of interrupts our wards will suffer.

---

The melee damage on all of our CAs has been converted to divine damage.     However overall damage is unchanged or reduced.    Increased int does buff our spellcasting damage but not the divine damage on our CAs.     DPS seeems unchanged or reduced.   The divine debuff from smite prayer does not seem to be working.   Soloing normal blue mobs was not a problem.   I tried to solo 4 lvl 37 heroic^ lizardmen at 40 and got my butt kicked while using the offensive stance.    Basically, they out-healed me.   I got one of them but lost too much hp in the process. 

 When I died I and tried to revive, got kicked to the character select screen then I could not log on for a while.   Then when I logged back in I had not lost my shard or taken any equipment damage or even aqcuired any experience debt.    This patch is too buggy to deploy.   I am going to make a post in the test server forum.

[Lifeswor]

---

Rochir wrote:

The melee damage on all of our CAs has been converted to divine damage.     However overall damage is unchanged or reduced.    Increased int does buff our spellcasting damage but not the divine damage on our CAs.     DPS seeems unchanged or reduced.   The divine debuff from smite prayer does not seem to be working.   Soloing normal blue mobs was not a problem.   I tried to solo 4 lvl 37 heroic^ lizardmen at 40 and got my butt kicked while using the offensive stance.    Basically, they out-healed me.   I got one of them but lost too much hp in the process. 

 When I died I and tried to revive, got kicked to the character select screen then I could not log on for a while.   Then when I logged back in I had not lost my shard or taken any equipment damage or even aqcuired any experience debt.    This patch is too buggy to deploy.   I am going to make a post in the test server forum.

---

I think the problem is you were trying to take on a heroic encounter. Note, with combat changes do not expect to be able to take on heroic encounters (even green might be iffy). I was able to solo a group of 4 mobs two levels higher than me (including a caster and healer mob).. The difference is they were down arrow three. I can barely solo a mob three levels higher than me one up. I can solo a mob six levels higher than me one arrow down with ease. As you will see, the new con system matters -  arrows actually mean something nowadays. One ups are going to be a lot tougher than two downs. Four one ups is definitely going to be tough. Note that I wear mostly legendary/treasured, although still wearing feysteel at lvl 45 (one tier below), and use pristine imbued ebon longsword and SBS. Spells/abilities are mostly adept 1. Oh and on the dps side of things, with Offensive Stance (for most soloing I find offensive stance is best actually apart from the odd tough encounter, defensive tends to draw out the fights longer) I can kill most mobs at least as quick if not quicker than on live. So I don't think our dps is lacking. Combat arts not landing can be a problem, but mainly when our defensive stance is being used (understandable).

Message Edited by Lifesworde on 09-11-2005 08:30 AM

[Rochir]

---

Lifesworde wrote:

I think the problem is you were trying to take on a heroic encounter. Note, with combat changes do not expect to be able to take on heroic encounters (even green might be iffy). I was able to solo a group of 4 mobs two levels higher than me (including a caster and healer mob).. The difference is they were down arrow three. I can barely solo a mob three levels higher than me one up. I can solo a mob six levels higher than me one arrow down with ease. As you will see, the new con system matters -  arrows actually mean something nowadays. One ups are going to be a lot tougher than two downs. Four one ups is definitely going to be tough.

Note that I wear mostly legendary/treasured, although still wearing feysteel at lvl 45 (one tier below), and use pristine imbued ebon longsword and SBS. Spells/abilities are mostly adept 1.

Oh and on the dps side of things, with Offensive Stance (for most soloing I find offensive stance is best actually apart from the odd tough encounter, defensive tends to draw out the fights longer) I can kill most mobs at least as quick if not quicker than on live. So I don't think our dps is lacking. Combat arts not landing can be a problem, but mainly when our defensive stance is being used (understandable).

Message Edited by Lifesworde on 09-11-2005 08:30 AM

---

I was told that all of our melee damage had been converted to divine in our CAs.   I was also told "you got your damage back" by someone in beta.   This is not the case.   The conversion of our melee damage to divine damage makes no, zero, nada difference in our single hit damage or dps and in fact may actually have lowered our damage.   Our divine resist debuff does not appear to be working or if it is, not having any significant effect.   There is no point in converting our CAs to divine damage unless our divine debuff does what it is supposed to.  The no death penalty/kicked to character select bug is a game breaker.   The combat changes should not be deployed until it is fixed.   It happened to me twice and I saw test server regulars saying in chat that it was happening to them.

I think a semi-twinked Paladin should be able to take on 4 heroic^ mobs 3 levels lower than him and have a chance of winning.    If our Adept III heals are not stronger than heroic mobs 3 levels lower than us, with the exception of epics, we have got a serious problem.   All my heals, buffs and wards are Adept III and those level 37s out-warded and out-healed me.    Not a good sign for the Paladin who is now more dependent on wards and heals to survive.    They were also able to repeatedly and easily interrupt me, that is because I have much lower avoidance now and am getting hit more often.

[Excalibre33]

---

Rochir wrote:

---

Lifesworde wrote:

I think the problem is you were trying to take on a heroic encounter. Note, with combat changes do not expect to be able to take on heroic encounters (even green might be iffy). I was able to solo a group of 4 mobs two levels higher than me (including a caster and healer mob).. The difference is they were down arrow three. I can barely solo a mob three levels higher than me one up. I can solo a mob six levels higher than me one arrow down with ease. As you will see, the new con system matters -  arrows actually mean something nowadays. One ups are going to be a lot tougher than two downs. Four one ups is definitely going to be tough.Note that I wear mostly legendary/treasured, although still wearing feysteel at lvl 45 (one tier below), and use pristine imbued ebon longsword and SBS. Spells/abilities are mostly adept 1.Oh and on the dps side of things, with Offensive Stance (for most soloing I find offensive stance is best actually apart from the odd tough encounter, defensive tends to draw out the fights longer) I can kill most mobs at least as quick if not quicker than on live. So I don't think our dps is lacking. Combat arts not landing can be a problem, but mainly when our defensive stance is being used (understandable).

Message Edited by Lifesworde on 09-11-2005 08:30 AM

---

I was told that all of our melee damage had been converted to divine in our CAs.   I was also told "you got your damage back" by someone in beta.   This is not the case.   The conversion of our melee damage to divine damage makes no, zero, nada difference in our single hit damage or dps and in fact may actually have lowered our damage.   Our divine resist debuff does not appear to be working or if it is, not having any significant effect.   There is no point in converting our CAs to divine damage unless our divine debuff does what it is supposed to.  The no death penalty/kicked to character select bug is a game breaker.   The combat changes should not be deployed until it is fixed.   It happened to me twice and I saw test server regulars saying in chat that it was happening to them.

I think a semi-twinked Paladin should be able to take on 4 heroic^ mobs 3 levels lower than him and have a chance of winning.    If our Adept III heals are not stronger than heroic mobs 3 levels lower than us, with the exception of epics, we have got a serious problem.   All my heals, buffs and wards are Adept III and those level 37s out-warded and out-healed me.    Not a good sign for the Paladin who is now more dependent on wards and heals to survive.    They were also able to repeatedly and easily interrupt me, that is because I have much lower avoidance now and am getting hit more often.

---

So are you saying that you expect a semi-twinked level 40 to be able to take out a group of level 37 players?... Heroics are theoreticaly coned to groups not individules. I beleive this is actualy a fix to game mechanics as apposed to a nerf to our class. Most classes can not even take a green heroic mob, single handedly. I'm willing to accept that palis have just been blessed up until now. No offence Rochir. I'm appreciative for all of your great insite thus far but in this, I just simply disagree.

[Rochir]

---

Excalibre3377 wrote:


So are you saying that you expect a semi-twinked level 40 to be able to take out a group of level 37 players?... Heroics are theoreticaly coned to groups not individules. I beleive this is actualy a fix to game mechanics as apposed to a nerf to our class. Most classes can not even take a green heroic mob, single handedly. I'm willing to accept that palis have just been blessed up until now.

No offence Rochir. I'm appreciative for all of your great insite thus far but in this, I just simply disagree.

---

None taken.  The problem is that our new divine damage CAs werent working because these mobs were resisting it even when I used my Adept III  Taunt/Divine Debuff Smite Prayer.    Maybe there are certain heroic mobs that are healers who have natural divine resistance but then that defeats the whole purpose of the Crusader/Paladins divine damage/debuff.   There are a lot of grouped heroics that have one or two healers in the group.   Give us a debuff that works and hopefully that will fix at least part of this problem.   Either that or you can look forward to being owned by both healer mobs and healer characters in PvP who are many levels below you.

 

We have another problem in our low avoidance.    40% avoidance means that 60% of the attacks hit.   That means we are being interrupted much more often and taking much more damage than before.  I had great difficulty using my ward and heal because of constantly being interrupted.   The mobs on the other hand had no problem using theirs.   Even with the casting timers being removed on many spells and CAs, my repeated attempts to interrupt them did not seem to be working very well.  

Message Edited by Rochir on 09-11-2005 03:02 PM

[Lifeswor]

A level 37 cleric would be able to out heal you so there is no reason why a level 37 mob shouldn't either. As Excalibre said, its not a nerf, its a fix in game mechanics. And yes, it probably will be annoying to learn the new con system to begin with. Chance SOE is taking I guess. And yes healer mobs due to having high WIS would I think also have high resists. And yes interrupts are a problem for wards, something that I continue to feedback to SOE about. And yes we do need our divine debuff to actually work.

[Rochir]

---

Lifesworde wrote:
A level 37 cleric would be able to out heal you so there is no reason why a level 37 mob shouldn't either. As Excalibre said, its not a nerf, its a fix in game mechanics. And yes, it probably will be annoying to learn the new con system to begin with. Chance SOE is taking I guess.

And yes healer mobs due to having high WIS would I think also have high resists. And yes interrupts are a problem for wards, something that I continue to feedback to SOE about. And yes we do need our divine debuff to actually work.

---

I just logged onto test for a few minutes.   Our new heavy-hitting CA is Shatter will.   It is configured more like a proc on a weapon than a CA but it does a sizable amount of damage.   Use it in place of Oath Strike or Sworn Strike.

I have been repeatedly taunting with Smite Prayer, then hitting with our divine damage CAs.   I cannot see any damage boost from the divine debuff at all or it is so small that it doesnt matter.   I think the effect of the debuff should be in some cases for the CA to do more damage than the description of the CA (or maximum damage) but that is not happening.   I have tried it on all sorts of mobs, I cant see any damage boost from the divine debuff.      Adding more int to the offensive stance made a big difference.

I just tried Smite Prayer Adept III (reduces divine mitigation of target by 504) and Blinding Bash which lists 46-76 divine damage for the Adept III version.   The CA did a whopping 77 damage.   So, the debuff added +1 divine damage.     That was the only CA that I could find that benefited from the divine debuff at all.    That just does not cut it.    Look at this SOE, this needs to be fixed before the combat changes go live. 

Message Edited by Rochir on 09-11-2005 09:54 PM

[xIC]

Rochir,

 

Shouldnt you spend the time taking these concerns to the devs and in the testing forums.  It seems those get checked more as opposed to coming here and talking about it?  Just seems the complaints about the broken spells should be taken there so they are seen a bit quicker than when a random dev happens to wander into our forums.

 

Demonslayor

[Rochir]

---

xICEx wrote:

Rochir,

 

Shouldnt you spend the time taking these concerns to the devs and in the testing forums.  It seems those get checked more as opposed to coming here and talking about it?  Just seems the complaints about the broken spells should be taken there so they are seen a bit quicker than when a random dev happens to wander into our forums.

 

Demonslayor

---

I dont think it makes any difference.   The devs read this forum too.    If I post it there, no other paladins will know about it or check it.   They dont post there.

[Yanci]

Does anyone else think that it is absurd for the Knight's Stance/Shining Beacon line to take 3 concentration slots?  Before we get nerfed it seems that it should be a 2 slot.  After the changes it seems that it is more appropriate to take up only 1 slot.

[WAPCE]

---

Yancius wrote:Does anyone else think that it is absurd for the Knight's Stance/Shining Beacon line to take 3 concentration slots? Before we get nerfed it seems that it should be a 2 slot. After the changes it seems that it is more appropriate to take up only 1 slot.

---

How about if it took no concentration slots? I have some pull with the devs, I might be able to swing this if I try really hard.

[Lifeswor]

---

WAPCE wrote:

---

Yancius wrote:Does anyone else think that it is absurd for the Knight's Stance/Shining Beacon line to take 3 concentration slots? Before we get nerfed it seems that it should be a 2 slot. After the changes it seems that it is more appropriate to take up only 1 slot.

---

How about if it took no concentration slots? I have some pull with the devs, I might be able to swing this if I try really hard.

---

ROFL :smileyvery-happy: Don't let him fool you Yancius, both our stances (we now have an offensive and a defensive stance) are no concentration. :smileytongue:

[Rochir]

Something I did not mention before, we do a LOT MORE AUTOATTACK DAMAGE than before.   The amount is determined by strength.   Our autoattack damage is often higher than the damage from our CAs.

[Rochir]

I just logged onto test.   You have got to see this:

 

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a290/blackweb1/EQ2_000031.jpg

 

It is not a bug, it is called cutemode, type /cutemode to toggle it off.

 

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a290/blackweb1/EQ2_000032.jpg

 

I thought it was pretty funny.   Those EQ2 programmers must be getting bored...

[Rochir]

Sorry about the self-bumping here.   I just learned that strength increases not only autoattack damage for Paladins but the divine damage for our combat arts.   A strength buff of 11.9 from an imbued str ring added +3 divine damage.   You may be tempted to try to stack that one but remember int buffs spellcasting damage, not str.

 

I also noticed that our reactive damage from imbues no longer out-damages our CAs. 

Message Edited by Rochir on 09-12-2005 07:51 PM

[Tur]

A couple questions about the /respec

I gather from the Producers Letter that we all face a /respec when we log in. Is that correct?

I've been L50 for a while and I don't remember exactally, but don't you have to choose traits before you can level or receive quest rewards?

Any advice on this? I'd prefer to wait a bit before /respec'ing in order to see how things work for myself, but if I'm forced to do it in order to advance, I'd rather not accidentally [Removed for Content] myself.

[WAPCE]

---

Turii wrote:

A couple questions about the /respec

I gather from the Producers Letter that we all face a /respec when we log in. Is that correct?

I've been L50 for a while and I don't remember exactally, but don't you have to choose traits before you can level or receive quest rewards?

Any advice on this? I'd prefer to wait a bit before /respec'ing in order to see how things work for myself, but if I'm forced to do it in order to advance, I'd rather not accidentally [Removed for Content] myself.

---

The restriction on using all of your green "+" choices before receiving quest rewards was removed a little while ago. Also, I've read from a mod or dev that we'll "probably" get an additional /respec after the forced /respec today. Either way, the new choices are very descriptive, which is nice.

Edit: Here it is.

Message Edited by WAPCE on 09-13-2005 11:46 AM

[Majorminor]

Edited out untill I can confirm my thoughts.  Don't want to give out wrong info on this big of a thing.

Message Edited by Majorminor on 09-13-200510:00 AM

Message Edited by Majorminor on 09-13-2005 10:03 AM