20 hours ago, Archbishop Monk said:
The only thing I would add is making sure the elf passive stacks with +spelllevel eq. Also, frenzy for dwarves? I'd give them berserk instead only because it is more fitting for dwarf rp.
Frenzy vs berserk: Frenzy can be cast on other people but berserk heals. Frenzy can be found in other places, but berserk can't be replicated. You can't double up either way. I went with frenzy because of the 'holy wrath' paladin theme rather than the 'I'm pissed' dwarf race theme, but I'd be absolutely fine if people preferred the dwarf theme over the class theme. The balance difference is very small.
Spell level: Up to the cap which is 52 anyways I believe. The staff bonus is just one of convenience and for gearing options as you noticed before. There is very little reason to wield a staff offensively (maaaaybe for a chance at a stronger burst wrath finish or something), so the whole point of the staff spell level is to help your out of combat casting, which brings me to:
14 hours ago, Iznazti said:
I see a problem with the elf Paladin weilding a staff and making beast pets. Then just removing the staff.
If you can get a higher spell level, you can get better charmies (and buffs, healing, etc). That was by design. An elf can get a better squire or regen faster without needing to find spell level gear or dedicating equipment slots (at the cost of cycling out their main weapon awkwardly to cast). The half-elf gets the regen portion for free without cycling weapons (not a coincidence).
One of the main (designed!) paladin issues is trying to get gear for all your possible needs (saves, melee, casting, base stats)...you simply can't cover everything. The elf perk is give them an option out of the gearing issue while adding a new problem (weapon swapping). All paladins can increase their spell level to the same as the elf with a staff with suitable gear anyways.
I don't think elves should go over the normal limit. I do think the staff should be quite good to get the bonus though, so they have to dedicate a rare slot for it in the inventory. I'll edit the post for that.
15 hours ago, Mmm Beer said:
So this paladin could have two charmies if selected? Squire and a Goliath with bash, dirt? Sign me up!
Yes, they can have two charmies. No dirt involved on the charmie side. The only buff to blinding is if you want to choose smite which is like a damaging dirt kick (works when dirt doesn't too!).
16 hours ago, Seravin said:
You mentioned it in the post about keeping Paladins around the same ‘finishing power’ as before. Two minions that can lag and have special abilities seems like a bit much to me, if you add in their ability to keep people in combat. I admittedly do not know that much about class balance, but it seems like a lot of offensive punch for the class.
Remember to start, you lose the old holy word, heroism and goliath. You are starting significantly weaker. Then we add a series of new abilities. Most of them increase your offense in some way and a few increase your finishing power. Unfortunately, none of them offer a whole lot of direct strength and they have an opportunity cost.
Your gains in sacred weapon are lost through losing access to vuln damage. So while they have gained a new skill, they have indirectly lost an old 'tactic'. If you select Fervor you 'gain' (some of) your old wrath finishing power back that current paladins have, but you lose access to the new flamestrike. What did the paladin gain out of the Fervor path over the current paladin? Well, they got some improvement to Tenacity, but this is hardly comparable to a simple straight improvement over the current paladin.
Wanna get your old super movement and charging strength back? You'll lose your squire. The real improvements over the current paladin are actually incremental when examined like this.
You want your lagging minion (Goliath)? You'll give up your best two other lores for a wildcard basher. That is a heavy price for an unreliable lagger that is useful against only a portion of your foes. Still viable though since those happen to be some of your banes. The squire trips...is that even really a notable lagger? Heroism offers more 'finishing power' in my opinion due to spammable charge damage when compared to a (random) trip without a thrashing skill.
Yes, these paladins have more tricks and will perform better overall. The reason for this isn't so much as the sum of the improvements but instead because the selectables cater to a wider range of tactics (and thus players) and so more people will find their paladin 'niche'. There will be an increase in power because there is a marked increase in playability.
Compare to the necro changes. Are the new necros stronger than the old necros? Hard to say. They certainly have a lot of new abilities, but the sum isn't necessarily stronger. The more important thing is that they are much more fun and playable now.
4 hours ago, Seravin said:
If not specifically healing, then maybe adding some of their defensive tools to the current selectables.
The only concern I would have is moving them too much toward DK. DK is more offensively focused, and Paladins more defensively. By forgoing that, we end up with good aligned dk of sorts.
Moving defenses to selectables: What makes a paladin defensive? They have no more base melee defense than a DK and worse than a dedicated melee (plus they way, way less offense). They have no big charmie to interrupt some death scenario like a DK. They don't have spell-turning to allow them to gearing for saves, nor the offense to stop a caster from having all the time in the world to use their tactics. They can't cut melee offense with a quick blind, nor use it to disengage and gain distance/regen.
What they do have is a convenient set of buffs on tap and a hell of a lot of moves. They don't have anything tactical to do in combat, so I guess they can focus on running more than most classes. They have the ability to cure many mals (but no way to stop blasphemy like a cleric's spell-turning). They can also cure critical on tap. So their main 'defensive' advantage is not farming consumables. In most played combat, they are probably notably less defensive than a DK due to how the meta game of current buffs work.
In short, I don't think paladins are quite as defensive as people think they are. That isn't even considering the defensive perk of a strong offense. Opponents have all day to do what they want. There isn't any pressure...this is a losing stance for the same reason defensive monks are a losing stance in this game. Furthermore, choosing 'base' skills that they already have as selectables isn't going to be that exciting or fun. Their exciting signature skills are already reworked into the selectables. That said, we can do things to give them that defensive 'edge' while maintain PK competitiveness in the meta environment.
DK to Paladin play style comparison: DKs are hammers. You hit hard and kill something. You burst damage, mals, weapon procs, lag -- anything to knock someone down. You skirmish a bit against heavier classes, but generally, you want fights to be over as fast as possible, preferably through overwhelming bursts and short chases. They are very direct.
The paladin is very indirect. You can't do damage quickly. Your melee isn't that good. You don't have fast hard-hitting spells. You have no way to mal. Your lag is luck-based at best. However, you can punish your enemies. They want to dance around you? They'll take a heavy toll and find it very hard to do with you. They don't want to dance? Then you'll be back in to charge them and they'll take another toll because you are also hard to lock down. They want to try to wear you out through your weaker melee? You'll take a toll on their regen. Confident in their standard tactics? You'll take a toll by circumventing their immunities and defensive counters. You determine the battlefield and the flow of the battle. You apply the pressure and take it off, but you can only do this through repeated application of your punishers, speed and timing. Lose the initiative and you will lose the battle very badly.
If DKs are about power, then paladins are about mobility. The DK wants to engage as much as possible whereas the paladin wants to re-engage as much as possible. The paladin won't be a mirror the DK, but they will certainly be reflections of each other. They'll have similarities (weapon inflexibility, strong openers, maybe charmies in some builds), but they will play differently. They will have more of the communer skirmish feel than the ranger bursting feel. We don't have a true skirmish playstyle in game now, so they will actually be quite unique.
Some blms have kinda the same feeling with the meditate/twin counter tactic, but whereas blms wait for the opponent to engage then flees, the paladin begins the engagement and tries to make the opponent flee.
Paladins still have all the buffs (basically less consumable farming) and balanced strengths to make them very newbie-friendly to play, but simultaneously they are a very elite class that requires speed for chasing, readjustments and timing -- some of the hardest/rarest skills in PK. Other classes have more damage output or more skills (or both!), but paladins have to keep catching their prey to seal a kill.
A paladin can't just equip a vuln weapon and dirt kick. They will require more effort than most classes. They have to juggle their weapons to maximize output, pop in and out of combat and they don't have time to apply even their limited skill-set. Just gearing is a challenge since stacking isn't as effective as in other more direct classes.
You won't get far by sitting in combat spamming flamestrike, not much farther than you would now. But at least in this proposed paladin, you will have other options of things to do and won't be forced to do it every fight. They will be forgiving to play but hard to master and seal kills with. This is ideal to me, especially for a paladin.
3 hours ago, Wade said:
Oh, I'm not derailing it. Talking about the priority of paladins changes is still within the scope of the topic of paladin changes.
If the scope of the project was narrower then I'd be on board, you could make paladins more interesting as well as all the underperforming classes at the same time with a new ability or two each and some number tweaks.
The topic of the necessity of proposals isn't really a paladin topic. That is a workflow issue. Discussion of that isn't going to offer anything constructive or meaningful to the proposal, so no, it really shouldn't be in this thread.
That said, if you can do a better job with less work, by all means, make a thread and show that brilliance. If true, I'll happily be your strongest supporter. Just don't sabotage my hard work with your meta 'we need to prioritize prioritizing' stuff.
My thread doesn't even broach the topic of a timeline. Maybe the proposal will sit for 4 years or maybe it won't ever be useful. The most important thing is that it is out there. Maybe some or all of it will be useful at some point in the future to someone. That speculation isn't in the scope of what I'm proposing and there isn't much more to be said than that.
Thank you for your input everyone! I put a lot of effort into this so it means so much to me to hear your responses.