Top Ten List for Paladins

[Riludan]

Top Ten List for Paladins
I'm sure most of you are aware of this, but just for any who aren't, there is a "Top Ten" list maintained by Sony for the major issues of concern to each class. The Paladin Top Ten list is copied below. Please note that although I am the Class Correspondent and therefore responsible for submitting this list to Sony, it is not MY list. It is compiled, approximately monthly, after taking into account the issues raised on the SoE boards. A link to the Paladin boards is HERE .

Please feel free to contribute to the discussion if you are so inclined, but PLEASE, keep the discussion on the SoE boards. I prefer to be flamed in one place rather than two, if at all possible. Maybe a friendly moderator could sticky and lock this post.

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1. Aggro - Currently being evaluated

Currently, stun aggro is proportional to the maximum HP of the target creature, subject to an overall cap. Aggro generation for both the other tank classes - and for many DPS classes - is on a completely different model which scales reasonably as player power and level increases. There are obvious potential issues with this clash of models, and we're now hitting a point in the game where these issues are really starting to hurt. Basically a high-end Paladin simply cannot generate aggro at anything approaching the same rate as a Warrior or a Shadowknight, and it's far from uncommon for a chain-stunning Paladin to lose aggro even to non-discing DPS classes at the very high end. This situation is analogous to the aggro generation issues that Warriors, for example, had during early PoP - that had to be (and was) fixed, and now we need fixing. A real and related problem is the fact that Paladins are for some reason the only tank class not to get a genuine AE aggro ability.

There are many possible solutions. The most natural and easily maintainable would probably be to give each stun spell an explicit, fixed amount of aggro, regardless of the target mob, at a level appropriate to the level of the stun. A "dirtier" fix may be to add aggro bonuses to high-end stuns, or to increase the aggro cap for high end stuns, however either of these fixes would just delay the time when similar problems were to arise.

This is without doubt the number one issue facing the Paladin class today. If nothing else is actioned on this list, please, please do something about aggro. Numbers 2-10 on this list are in alphabetical order with no implication of relative importance, but aggro is number one both alphabetically and in importance!


2. Disappearing spell lines - Currently being discussed

Please consider providing upgrades to spell lines that we get early on in our careers, but which disappear before the endgame. Examples would be the Lull, Fear Undead and Yaulp lines.


3. Disciplines (Holy Forge) - Currently being discussed

No Paladin on any of the Forums believes that Holy Forge is currently working as intended. Extensive anecdotal evidence, along with long parses by a member of the community, indicate that the level of DPS inrease is far below what would be expected, and indeed far below the boost (in proportionate terms) when Holy Forge was first introduced. Please can the developers investigate Holy Forge and indicate whether the small DPS increases provided are really “working as intended”. Please read this point in conjunction with point 10 below (Undead).


4. Disciplines (other than Holy Forge) - Currently being discussed

The original Paladin disciplines are effectively of no use. Fearless is superseded by the AA of the same name, and even for players without that AA the number of fearing mobs in the game has been drastically reduced. Sanctification is of far too short a duration to be of any use, and does not block all incoming spells anyway. Resistant was of some use when introduced, but the extension of resist ranges renders it irrelevant now. Is there any reason we couldn't have updated versions of each of these disciplines introduced, at levels of power more in line with higher level players of today.


5. Heal-over-time recast timer - NEW

The recast time on Paladin HoTs is 30 seconds, which is longer than the duration of the HoT. This basically means that the HoT is reduced to being a self-only spell in most situations. Other classes with HoTs do not suffer from this limitation, and are able to use their HoTs in a meaningful way to spot heal other characters. In addition, the Paladin HoT spells also grey out the entire spell bar for far longer than other spells; again, something which does not affect Cleric or Shaman HoT spells. Please consider lowering the recast time and the spell bar recovery time to give these spells a new lease of life – currently many Paladins completely ignore this entire spell line.


6. Lay on Hands - Currently being evaluated

Lay on Hands frequently "fires" only for the target to be dead before it lands due to latency, lag or whatever. Is it possible please to introduce a post-cast check, whereby if LoH did not land for whatever reason, the ability is un-greyed-out and ready for reuse.


7. Paladin Epic 1.0 - Dragon books - NEW

Many Paladins are extremely frustrated that the Dragon books for Epic 1.0 are effectively impossible to obtain on many servers, as the Kunark Dragons have a long respawn time and are usually killed by solo farmers within minutes of spawning. The books are also a rare-ish drop, meaning that even when a Dragon can be found up it’s unlikely that the drop will be obtained. We realise and acknowledge that Epics, even Epic 1.0s, should be a challenge; however the challenge is not the reasonable one of assembling a raid to kill a mob, it’s the unreasonable and unforeseen one of having to fight against solo players who can keep the Dragons permanently dead in order to farm twink haste items without even breaking a sweat.

Please consider implementing triggered versions of two of the Kunark Dragons (one for the Frost book, one for the Burnt book), maybe in much the same way as Ragefire was implemented for Clerics some years ago, in order to give Paladins today a realistic chance of obtaining the books. With the books being no drop, Paladins are arguably in the worst situation of any class at the moment in terms of the ability to obtain their Epic 1.0, and a fix would be much appreciated.


8. Stun mitigation - NEW

One of the factors that has been quoted in the past as reasons why some of our other requests have not been granted is that we have such a large benefit over the other tank classes in terms of stun mitigation of incoming damage. At the high end, where many of our other issues are most acute (such as aggro generation), stun mitigation is meaningless, as no mob we're ever likely to fight is of a level where we can stun it. Given the lack of mitigation at the high end, there should be less of a reason for SoE to use such mitigation as a reason not to improve other areas of our gameplay. If SoE on the other hand believe that we should be able to stun-mitigate, then please give players at the higher end the means to do so against appropriate content.


9. Two handed weapons (including Epics) - NEW

Two handed weapons are too far behind equivalent level one handers and shields in terms of stats. Everyone agrees that there should be a stat penalty to going two-handed, due to the DPS improvement, but the difference is currently too great. Remember that not only do we lose out in terms of the regular stats being lower on a two hander than on a one hander plus shield, we also lose the potential of a second set of focus effects and a second augment (a very big deal given the quality of augments available these days). There was some suggestion at the Summit of giving two handers a second augment slot, for example, to narrow the gap somewhat - can this be implemented?


10. Undead - Currently being discussed, this will most likely be evaluated as part of the class Re-Envision process.

There is a widespread feeling that Undead mobs are too rare in most content, and Paladin performance against Undead is sub-par. A Paladin against Undead gets occasional eye-candy (if they have Slay Undead), but in terms of genuine DPS increases it's barely measurable. We believe that, against Undead content, Paladin DPS should be genuinely meaningful - say up to Shadowknight levels against live mobs. Even with SU, it simply isn't even close to that at the moment. For the short amount of time we're under Holy Forge, the DPS of a Paladin with SU3 should be up there with the genuine DPS classes (only under Holy Forge, however). See the Holy Forge item above - currently it seems to be not working as intended, but even when it was the DPS boost was far, far smaller than we believe would be appropriate. Holy Forge is available for five minutes out of each 72 - making us genuine DPS classes against a small subset of mobs for less than 7% of the time would not be game-breaking. Oh, and please put some Undead mobs in the zones which are designed to be the main XP zones in each future expansion.
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Amanensia
70 Paladin
Caer Cadarn of Maelin Starpyre
Paladin Class Correspondent

[Brohg]

[Caeelar]

[Amanensia]

[Stephen51]

[Samanna]

[Stephen51]

[Samanna]

I don't know how to convince everyone that the devs enjoy playing the game, want it to be fun, and want to have the classes be more or less balanced in terms of fun, contributions, and desirability in groups. They're not the enemy.

It's just that any answers they give tend to be misquoted and taken out of context to prove eight different viewpoints on totally unrelated issues, so they are hesitant to make statements other than very specific answers to very specific questions... and even then, there may be something they're working on that they don't know if or when it'll come to fruition. They seem to prefer to make few comments, and let people be happy when a fix or improvement shows up, as opposed to saying "we're working on resolving X", and then get blasted every week when nothing materializes.

[Stephen51]

[Ughbash]

[Brohg]

[Samanna]

Both the top ten and the weekly questions are projects of the community team... aka the halflings. Mostly Kytherea nowadays, at least in communications. I think Ashlanne has a broader role now.