Slay Undead Poll: Dev requested feedback

[Nyterose]

[riou]

[Dole]

As many others have said above, I think we need some hard numbers before we can make an informed decision.

I would be happy with a stagnation of Slay for a Large boost in live DPS.

As far as adding DPS from spells? I'm against it. In raids and groups I always seem to be casting spells, casting more to do DPS is not what I would be looking for.

On raids our paladins, cure - heal - CC, we have never been DPS unless it's undead, and I don't see DPS as an issue.

In groups I seem to use groups heals, burst heal, root, cycle stuns and cast Charge of Honor on multiple mobs to keep agro. My DPS is reduced just trying to keep agro, plus on most current content I'm using a shield. My DPS sucks, but my job is to be mana efficient for the cleric and keep the group alive not DPS.

Solo is where I want to max out my DPS. I burn lessons in Ilsalln and get about 4aa, which is better than other Paladins in my guild are getting. I have around 3500AA, 5100AC, 30,000Hps when using Industrial Tinkered Drillbore with 6Dmg aug. 4aa for lessons is not that great and Ilsallin is the best zone I've found to burn a lesson. I need to go to content that is 7 expansions old to use lessons and people think that is over-powering?

Give me some AE agro, and be able to keep agro in a group without cycling 2 stuns. Those two changes would increase my DPS and I would be happy.

[Abazzagorath]

There is zero justification for Nodyin's claim of "having" to modify slay in order to raise overall dps.

That is a flat out lie and its unjustified as a statement of balance based policy.

There are plenty of ways to increase overall dps, whether you talk about melee dps or non-melee dps, without resulting in unbalancing undead dps. Claiming he "can't" is a joke. Its "won't" because they are either too attached to whatever idea he has in mind or because they are too lazy to actually put whatever effort would be needed to check what the ultimate impact is.

As a statement of balance based policy, its also a complete and utter joke. We are further behind in dps relative to real dps classes against undead than we have EVER been. That means when slay first was created, when vanquish went in, at any point. Its patently absurd to claim that as our undead dps as a % function of our live dps continues to decrease due to the general entropy of special attacks as they are static relative to other sources of dps, that we are somehow more unbalanced than ever.

I really don't need to see what the trade off is. There is nothing wrong with slay. The reality here is that what Nodyin and company wants to do, is the laziest solution to their "problem" (and that problem is general melee dps for all melee classes relative to spell caster dps). They want to increase weapon ratios and give us more extra swing based aa like triple attack, flurry, etc. Because its flat out the easiest way to get melee dps up to where they want it.

The "OMG slay is holding knights back!" is a joke. Slay is a % based increased to melee dps. Giving knights +5 dmg on a weapon, or giving knights another level of speed of the knight in order to put their live dps where the devs want it has no meaning to slay, except that they flat out want to nerf slay and do not want us to have that special case superiority.

Its just like the discussion about glyph of destruction. Glyph of destruction *purposefully* does not work on backstab and slay undead (as two examples), because the devs claimed it would be imbalanced, which is flat out ignorance when talking about a % function. If we do X% of the dps of Class A, and we both get Y% increase in dps, we are at the exact same relative dps juxtaposition with Class A as we were before. If our live dps is too low, then our undead dps is too low. Period. And any real paladin would be hard pressed to justify saying that statement is false, because both facets are both true right now.

[Cactuszach]

[boukk]

[varutia]

[frocus]

The problem with having a non button mashing form of dps is other classes don't just turn on autoattack and have their dps. Only no mash type dps boost i can see us getting is a pally version of the SK Soul abrasion line. This aa increase the damage from the sk's imbued self lifetap procs. A pally versoin called holy smite can give us the same or similar mods on our Inbued proc lines for a dps boost which isn't influenced by Slay undead at all. Other than that every other dps boost we get will likely be in the way of nukes. Crush's may have helped some but the values for dps on crush's is far to low.


Edit: This is so that we maintain parity with sk's in melee generated dps but our non melee dps can go up. If we ask to increase pure melee dps to far beyond what sk's are capable of they will be able to rightly complain to the devs that we can get our new Y dps without ever casting a spell or interupting our melee while in order for them to get their best numbers they need to time swings to stack up a couple dots while we just turn on autoattack and we have our DPS.

[Imrahil]

[Cactuszach]

Either way, a dps boost is more than needed. Hitting 1100 dps with warcry and auspice is outrageous.

[Bonzz]

Let me clarify what I meant in my alternative suggestion in my long post,

Slay is all ready an AA.

Simply make it an AA that you can create a Hot Button for and remove it as a random proc.

Instead, Paladins can use it like any other AA spell. Click the Hot Button and it makes your next blow into a Slay. You can resuse it every 5 to 10 seconds.

Leave the math for Slay alone. Let it slay for whatever it can slay for, math wise, as is.

This should work to limit the on-paper DPS from slay, like the Dev wants and lets Paladins keep their one cool ability all most fully intact, as it can only be used so many times during a fight with an undead.

My experience (of course I do hang out with a good group), if the reuse time is 10 seconds... I MIGHT get to use it twice.

To me this seems like an easy solution that will allow Slay to be "limited" and our base DPS to be increased.

Happy medium, imo.

[Bonzz]

PS

There is on person who I often raid with and sometimes group with who likes to parse and share the DPS results.

I don't think I have ever been on top of the list... even vs. undead.

[boukk]

[Sigoniax]

I'm going to actually agree with Boukk on this. There is zero reason to touch slay, and it shouldn't even be considered. Every class can out DPS us on our best of luck runs vs undead. This is with Intensity, Tributes, clickies, nukes and glyphs if you do. Every now in a great while we get to even show up on the top DPS on an undead raid mob, and I assure you, it doesn't happen often.

[Occam]

I don't want more spells to cast. Between heals, stuns, nukes, buffs, utility stuff like root and cures, Mark of the Pious/Crusader (maybe I'm the only one who uses those), etc., I have enough to do.

I don't think the SU mechanic needs to be changed, but I find it not hard to understand that a boost to melee would result in an even larger boost to Slay, and I understand why they want to avoid that.

If a 2x bonus to melee turns into a 4x bonus to Slay (obviously made-up numbers, just for example), then I see nothing wrong with a slight nerf to slay to counteract it. It doesn't mean they have to ruin Slay completely. In fact, seeing how even Nodyin admits that our slay dps is only "decent," I don't think the nerf would even have to completely counteract the boost to melee. But if they can boost melee and keep Slay about where it is, I see no problem with that. If they can boost melee and let Slay get a little bit of a boost, that would be even better.

This is why we need numbers from SoE.

[knytul]

typical eq forum style....Dev posts 1 or 2x then disappears...Nodyin...come out come out wherever you are.....

[Brohg]

Hate to say, but your sentiment seems a bit ... off, to me, Knytul. Dude offers to boost paladin dps, a completely out of the blue freebie buff to the class, and the community here not only answers "no", but "no because we don't trust you." If I were him I wouldn't hang around either. "Typical EQ forum style" it may be, but I think that's a two way street. You try to bite his face off, he ain't hangin' out.

[Genadinee]

@ Brogh

How about they decide to increase Shaman Direct Heal but to do so they would take Canni out the game, 99.99% of Shaman would say no leave off. To a Paladin Slay is as Class Defining as Canni is to you.

[Occam]

[Uhaen]

Unfortunately, supplying a similar parse for live mobs is going to be nearly impossible due to the amount of variables that are at hand (versus the fact that we had a control test, as the test dummies are undead); but, here are my values versus the Test Eighty Five npc, swinging from the back the whole time, no spells, nothing but full self-buffs and clickies (including 95% normal haste plus 8% overhaste; +25 atk; Pestilence Shock, a 98 point dd proc with my spell damage total; and, of course, I graphic-glitched my robe, which increased my dps as well). I have Ferocity VII, Cleave VIII, Slay Undead 9, and (most) offensive AAs maxed. The weapon I was using is Intricately Carved Greatsword, with a 7 damage augment; 143 damage plus 2 corruption damage over 33 delay (I can only assume, hasted at 103%, that my delay was 16.26. If my information is correct, *please* let me know Nodyin, I love knowing more about my game!). The following was what I found:

Time: 8878 seconds (2 hours, 27 minutes, 58 seconds)

Uhaen -vs- Test 85: -- DMG: 16685698 -- DPS: 1879 -- Scaled: 1879 -- Slash: 8706335 -- Slay: 7919303 -- DirDmg: 60060 -- Non-crit rate: 85.7% -- crit rate: 14.3% -- Attempts: 13957 -- Hits: 10359 -- Missed: 3598 -- Accuracy: 74.2% -- Avg Hit: 1195 -- Max hit: 23991 -- DMG to PC: 0

I have to say, I was impressed with the percent total with which I slew, in regards to damage: a 90.96% ratio versus my slash damage, or 47.46% of the total damage. Some further speculation, and numbers:

Slash attempts: 13,000
Slay attempts: 513
Slay % versus swings: 3.946%
Mean Slay: 15437.24
Mean slash: 840.46
Normal slash: 5931726
Critical slash: 2774609
% of slash damage from critical: 31.9%
% of total damage from critical: 16.63%
(Oh man, I really wish this thing would record double/triple-attacks, because I can't get a round in more than once a second! Alas, I'm not looking through 2.5 hours to find out that information myself~ the best I can do is state that over 8878 seconds I will have had 5460 rounds and, swinging 13513 times, had an average of 2.475 swings per round.)

This is actually pretty surprising to me; I thought our slay rate would be closer to, and on the other side of, 5%. It might be, and it may just be that my margin of error is on the low end of the spectrum, but someone else can test that for me. But consider: I have one of the very best 2h weapons in the game, but I can not manage to swing often much harder than 840. But, as well, I am not here to convince the devs that our live dps is lower than the most humble of paladins (haha! I knew I could work that joke in somewhere.), but to demonstrate that our undead dps is not as spectacular as we'd all hoped. In straight melee damage, I saw a 91% jump in damage: but think, even if a rogue does only parse 2.5k dps on self-buffs (or was it raid? My parse was self), we are *still* trailing behind on a very large margin; the kings of undead have, unfortunately, stagnated staggeringly.

My argument is thus: I firmly agree that we need a live dps boost. I also firmly believe that we need an undead boost as well, but I'm willing to settle for letting the multiplier do its work if that's your wish. If not, I'm cool with live dps too. In all reality, dps isn't my thing; in fact, it's the one thing I seem to fail at doing. I can heal, tank, crowd control, I can even manage AE agro. But they are all slowly slipping (well, except for tanking); if dps is what you want to give us, please understand that we're low in *every* aspect, and can use a boost everywhere.

And yeah, I agree with Brohg and Occam here. Nodyin was nice enough to come post; I would rather he come in to a welcoming environment, and leave the chastising to his bosses. It's kind of cruel to be getting it everywhere, especially when posting on Samanna is an *exceptional* use of resources for a company to be employing. He didn't have to come here, nor does he have to ask our permission. I post my data at a whim and hope for some kind feedback, but by no means do I expect it.

[Brohg]

What I find left to still remark on is that the same actual thoughts could have been expressed starting from the positive side instead of the negative. "Yes, but - we're really attached to the big numbers and high undead dps - so reassure us", instead of "no, because - we're really attached to the big numbers and high undead dps - so keep your paws off". Some people even said that, but they were quite drowned out. I'm getting it right I hope that the principle of the totally un-fleshed-out adjustment was fine to everyone. Much more than fine, actually, since it's a hell of an offer, but maybe you all are sillier than even I think.

[AbyssalMage]

[Goldax1]

I am gonna start with agreeing with the people that dont want another mash button for dps. No spell dps, absolutely no pet dps. Passive upgrade to dmg is what is needed.

If i go through my logs since SoD came out i think i can find 10 slays. Not counting the one time we hit FC1 for augs. I guess if i was soloing and found doing old content i would have "fun" seeing high slays and semi decent dmg against undeads. The fact atm is that undeads in current content is limited and with the fear of slay we wont be seeing that 75% undead expansion. So either we get it addjusted or we just continue seeing an undead population like in SoD.

Well guess i am in favor of some sort of change, so our live dps gets increased, and i am ok that its at the expense of retuning slays. If it causes such a dilemma to have a percent increase on melee damage to calculate our undead damage and if a change will bring us a fairly increase in overall damage, then why not embrace it.

I will however not accept more spell damage. We got a few in SoD but before that spell damage was not a paladin thing, and dont say flame of light counts cause it dont. Spell damage is just not an option imo. Both due to spell setup and according to our history. And pets makes no sense whatsoever.

One thing we have always had is a proc spell. 2 kinds, one for live and one for undeads. These have stagnated alot, but could be a mean of increasing passive damage. But otherwise we just need a melee upgrade in some way or the other.

It would be nice with some suggested numbers before agreeing to get slay changed, but i understand why we are asked if we would be interested in it at all before the devs spend the time doing numbers. Would seem like a waste of time to crunch all the numbers, come here with the plan and then get the 1-900-MixALot no dont touch Slays attitude, and effectively have to throw out the work.

In conclusion i am positive for changes, but would like to see how to implement the changes before cheering to much.

Goldax

[Arny]

[shiftie]

Lets get a few things straight

1. This thread is not about AE aggro - so lets cut that out and stop de-railing.
2. This thread is not about the # of times we are called upon to do dps (this is so counterproductive to this conversation its not even funny)
3. This thread is not about our ability to tank in relation to the other classes (we are just fine in this department)
4 This thread IS about our current status of DPS and how it relates to Slay.

It is of no matter if you can count on one hand the amount of times you have been called upon to DPS. This isn't about raid dps as we have seen in other threads. In the comparison of classes sk/pally dps should be within a certain % of each other. Currently we are very far behind as recently acknowledge by Nodyin, and further noted for quite sometime by anyone who plays a paladin. The devs have now said hey we realize there is a problem with paladin dps, but in order to fix it we would have to nerf slay. Uhaen has posted proving slay is not exactly pushing out the numbers that people are claiming. Most of us don't want to see a nerf to slay but the options are nerf slay or leave the dps alone. Most of us have outcried there is no reason to nerf slay in order to bring our live dps to a more respectable #. Uhaen's parse proves that. Our live dps needs reworked plain and simple. For those of you who refuse to mash buttons or deal with a pet - then come up with another solution to raise our dps that will not exponentially boost slay, keeping in mind that we would like slay to stay where it is. (admittedly i personally would like to see slay not tied to the RNG - so that when the time comes we could call upon that undead dps instead of "hoping" for it.)

People have listed viable solutions.
1. Vet wrath aa's
2. An aa line like 2nd spire was supposed to be but without the suck
3. Spell damage
4. Pet damage
5. various other ideas

Refusing to mash buttons or freaking out about what was or isn't in line with a paladin since the beginning is counter productive. The crushes were added not 100% to boost dps but as a nice bonus in the event we can't stun a mob. I'm not saying we should be grateful at their low damage, but we shouldn't complain either. Prior to SoD we were stuck blasting the mobs with stuns that did nothing but generate aggro, we now have the ability to add a little dps into that. We could have a separate line of nukes added that have the aggro unattached and allow us to string them together. Or possibly a skill much like arc of arrows without the massive damage revolving around our 2h skill, a spell that appears as a quad slash, with a fairly long refresh... something blah blah blah %t is slashed and burned by a holy blade. It could be like zerker volley but as a cast spell. The point is lets stop hashing out old arguments and recognize what this thread is about.

reconsider the 2 options given
if we don't want to see a nerf to slay then lets meet somewhere in the middle, if it requires button smashing then so be it. This is afterall a game and wanting to just turn on auto attack and then go watch youtube is lame. The only complaint in regards to that is spell gem availability, at which point maybe they could move things like root and aura to an aa.

anyhow lets try to keep this on topic
shiftie

[boukk]

[Grimnar]

[Furiosa-DT]

Personally my vote is, that if slay has to go (or be changed/nerfed) in order for us to get better DPS across the board then so be it.
I'd much rather have the improvement be a smaller but more solid boost to all content every expansion, than hoping and praying that the next expansion will let us make out like bandits cause everything is undead.

There have been some decent suggestions so far, although I wouldn't mind Slay and Holyforge being reworked maybe into some sort of significant burst ability for us, which would limit it somewhat as the devs could control the timer and the new damage rates, which could be adjustable by future AA lines allowing it to be boosted when deemed appropriate, either by more damage or by timer reduction.
An example.....
Holyforge could become (as a rough example), slays replacing crits at a higher multiplier rate than normal crits (greater rates from cleave effects etc, so would fire more than slay does now, but for much less max damage than a slay can do now )for 5 mins, reuseable every 30mins for general day to day fighting.
Slay itself could become a burst DPS Disc (could even be on same timer as the "new" holyforge to prevent both being used at same time), shortish duration (30-60 seconds), massive boost to slay rate (potentially every hit), much larger boost to damage than the changed holyforge proposed above, but a much longer refresh timer (60 mins?).

Timers, damage output etc etc adjusted as seen fit, which to my mind allows us to retain some eye candy and our anti undead flavour, would give us something to use on raid burns and make a sizeable contribution (where undead bosses exist, so they would have to start reappearing in group and raid level content), makes the Devs lives easier as the huge mudflation to slay via weapons and skills boosts is now negated so we can be more adequately assessed on general DPS upgrade requirements to keep our live DPS closer to where it is felt we should be.

Slay has already been the centre of changes in the past, many moons ago I believe the Devs wanted to change it to an activated ability which while switched on would reduce our mitigation in favour of more DPS vs undead (which was thrown out on the basis that we would normally be tanking using it etc), and the follow up to that which was to de link slays from crits because the increasing ability to score more and larger criticals via AAs, foci and some spell/ability lines, was causing a problem that needed to be addressed.

I think at the very least we should see what Nodyin can come up with before throwing it all out and saying no, personally I think it would end up being a much more beneficial change longer term than holding on to slay in its current format.

[knytul]

im sorry brogh, i really havent seen a reason to trust a dev on this one yet. They have been after Slay Undead for years. Its the 1 thing we have left in our arsenal they HAVENT nerfed into oblivion. Look at Tunare line, was supposed to get a minor nerf down to be more reasonable..HA. That spell is so far shot my CLICKIES outheal it....

Until we see some numbers theres no real reason for any paladin to support a change to SU. Show us what we can expect to see not some random thought off the top of your head that u can change ur mind with when it goes to Q/A. If it were one of us taking the kind of proposal that nodyin brought to us up to someone important like management, we wouldnt have even made it in the front door. The secretary would have laffed at us and said "come back when u have more accurate information".

Oh, another good example...if our melee dps is sooo hagrid, why nerf 2nd spire? Why link our Undead Nukes?

[Uhaen]

[Uhaen]

Sometimes parses are my friend. Snatch was a really good movie, and I'm glad I had the time to watch it~

But enough about how much of a life I don't have. Here are my results:

Time: 8877 seconds (2 hours, 27 minutes, 57 seconds)

Uhaen -vs- Test Eighty Five: -- DMG: 9135851 -- DPS: 1029 -- Scaled: 1029 -- Slash: 9079899 -- DirDmg: 55952 -- Non-crit rate: 85.8% -- crit rate: 14.2% -- Attempts: 13946 -- Hits: 10312 -- Missed: 3634 -- Accuracy: 73.9% -- Avg Hit: 655 -- Max hit: 3087 -- DMG to PC: 0

Noteworthy... notes:
I'm close to max offensive, but not quite there. I should've corrected that beforehand; I have Burst of Power5, Combat Fury6; Veteran's Wrath9; Enhanced Aggression15; Spell Casting Fury3; Fury of Magic9; Destructive Fury3; Weapon Affinity6; Fundament of Power9; Knight's Advantage6; Speed of the Knight12.

Both of these parses are from the back of the npc; we are not a dps class but instead a tanking class, so I should add: I am approximately 90% of the time (with the exception of raiding, and only for named/minis anyway because we tank trash) hitting from the front of the mob, making me subject to a decrease in accuracy due to modifiers such as dodge, parry, block, and riposte. The exception to this is that if I riposte, I generate more dps; but I believe I am outweighed by the fact that said riposte is also subject to more dodges, parries, blocks, or ripostes. My dps, 1029, will *not* be the same as if I were tanking the mob instead.

There was no change in gear or (relevant) buffs, and the only change in AA was I put no ranks in Slay Undead.

Now on to the good stuff: numbers!

Slash attempts: 13,513
Mean slash: 671.98
Normal slash: 6307214
Critical slash: 2772685
% of slash damage from critical: 30.5%
% of total damage from critical: 30.35%
This part was *really* funny to me: I still couldn't determine how frequent double/triple attacks were, but I got the exact same number of swing attempts as I did the last parse. This was not intentional, and I did not set an audio trigger for 'you slash/you miss' and count to 13,513. That's just how the parse ended; I did, though, try to end this parse at 8878 seconds, but I cut it just a second short. Oh well, same swings per round, I'm just going to assume I wouldn't have swung throughout that last second. 2.475 swings per round.

Now, first and foremost, let's compare the dps totals: on undead, I landed 1879 dps, but on live I landed 1029. Undead dps minus live dps divded by live dps gives us an 82.60% dps boost from just slay undead. Slay adds, by itself and to me with my near max AA and a 143+2/33 weapon at 103% haste, 850 dps. *Just* pure melee damage. Well, and against 6.3 dps worth of procs. Woo!

Well, that's about it; I'm tired and I wanna go play my monk. Never say I didn't do anything for you, Freezah~

[Gordulek]

I like the idea of increasing paladins' sustained "live" dps with additional crit AAs (since crits have no impact on slay dps at all - neither additively or multiplicatively). If this is deemed a problem b/c it will also increase our undead dps (though not through slays, of course), then the Crit AAs could be new ones that only work on "live" mobs.

If a boost to burst "live" dps is deemed appropriate, a swarm pet AA (could be "Holy Hammers"), a direct damage AA (could be "Call Holy Strike" or whatever), and/or an upgrade to Holyforge disc that doesn't impact slays would all work.

Slay Undead can stagnate as an AA, I guess, if deemed necessary. It doesn't need to be nerfed, imho. Undead DPS will still grow over time (slowly) with (a) weapon ratios, (b) increasing worn Ferocity ranks, (c) DA and TA skills, and (d) extra swing AAs, if they have ranks added. With the dps numbers that paladins are currently putting out on undead versus other classes, it seems that the stagnation of Slay Undead AA over the last few expansions has worked in reining in our undead dps, and our undead dps is in a state where it is appropriate to (a) not nerf it and (b) let it grow a little naturally over time, albeit without any new ranks added.

[Deccado]

Pallys, listen: I've read your arguments and the ones against you and I agree with you. There's no reason you should take any hit whatsoever to Slay Undead when the devs are talking about balancing. They're trying to ninja-nerf you without you knowing it. DO NOT STAND FOR IT! You should get, nay, deserve an across-the-board increase in passive DPS that you don't need to button mash for. Do not stand for this injustice that they're trying to force down your throat!

If we remember to ages past, the warriors staged a successful sit-in and had the will of the devs crumble at their feet. This is what you need now - a Pally Sit In would bring EQ to its knees and give you the tuning you so rightly deserve. I urge all of you to begin organization right this moment to clog the Guild Lobby with so many supine Pallys that Smedley himself comes to grant your wishes.

[boukk]

[Occam]

[Caladel]

Slay is not all that anymore, lots of classes put up bigger crits, tis not unique or anything, and its certainly not great dps.

So, to Nodyin, yes burn slay to the ground, burn holyforge to the ground, and lets rebuild paladin dps to where it should be. Im tired of my class being screwed over in the dps department just because we have slay, and players think its godly damage or some stupid crap when its not. Get rid of the stupid thing...

What i want to know is what devs think our dps should be. Back in original EQ, when verant owned EQ they told us what it should be, paladins = 80%(i cant remember with 100% certainty anymore if it was 80 or 90) of warrior dps and the top class was 140% of warrior, the lowest dps class was suppose to be bards at 60% not counting group contributions. Thats not the game today, not even in the ball park. Bards for instance utterly destroy me with personal damage, let alone group attributed damage.

Base damage without modifiers or discs we really aren't that far off the mark at the moment. The problem is a complete and utter lack of discs that give us no way to boost our melee. There are a plethora of different disc modifiers you could give us that would raise our live dps but NOT our undead dps. Or at least raise both by a static amount rather then a multiplier effect. IE damage bonus, since slay doesn't effect it, but attention would have to be paid to min damage modifiers. Or crit modifiers, again not modified by slays, or crips, etc. Things that WOULD multiply out to undead would be things like extra attacks or base damage modifiers, these would the wrong way to go unless slay itself was changed.

Bottom line, our dps is pathetic these days. We need it fixed. The only place we can start is where SHOULD we fall on the dps tree, how much dps should we do vs a warrior on live, and how much dps should we do on undead. Start without those percentages and do whatever needs to be done to bring us in line.

Without devs stating where we should be dps wise, this whole discussion is futile.

[knytul]

exactly...WRU Numbers...

[Khauruk]

[Maglor]

Ok. I looked over a few things. I have a minor sk that I occasionally play (not yet up to level 20), so I looked over the aa's and such.

Here is what I figured out.

Paladins get a single defensive AA that shadowknights do not. It increases their hp by a little bit.

Shadowknights get a number of aa's that increase their spell casting ability, the damage their pets do, the power of their leach, the power of their harm touch. Each of these are DPS.

Paladins can heal themselves. This was always the big bugaboo that Sony developers had when refusing to improve pally damage abilities. It was also their excuse why paladins had to get more xp than a shadowknight to level or aa. I can understand it, I have solod up from the bottom of Crystal Caverns at level 38 (back in the days when I had an incomplete set of Ry'Gor armor, which in those days was considered to be very very good). I admit, everyone in my guild was shocked that I could and did do it. After all, I did not have the Shadow Knight's ability to Feign Death. I simply rooted, healed myself, and fought the mobs one at a time, even while others were rooted, waiting for me to tear them apart. So, yea, I can understand it.

That said, we have always had the ability to fight the undead. From the beginning, we had spells we could use against the undead, spells nobody else (except clerics) could use. We have had a power over the undead. It is part of our nature, our make up, our way. Against the undead, and only against the undead, we could outdps the other two tank classes, warriors and shadow knights.

But now, our overall dps is severely underpowered when compared to the other two tank classes. Why is this?

Lets look at this critically.

Given the defensives only, using no spells, no buffs, nothing but pure melee, given the same weapons and the same armor, Paladins should (slightly) outsurvive Shadowknights. The extra defensive AA helps in this by giving us a minor hp boost. It would mean we would have a few more hp than the shadoo knight would have. Of course, this would not always be true, the random nature of combat would often find shadowknights outsurviving paladins. The difference, however, used to be enough (at lower levels) for a couple of hits on the average. Nowadays, maybe 1 hit.

Assuming no spells are used by either the paladin or the shadow knight, the dps should be equivalent. Both are knight class dps. using only sword, bash, taunt, and same weapons, with same aa's, no spells, against a living mob, the purely physical dps should be about the same.

The difference comes from the spells and procs.

Paladin spells are defensive in nature. Shadow Knight spells are offensive in nature. This is the big difference. And it is more of a difference than the developers realize, for while shadowknight spells ADD to a shadow knight's dps, paladin spells DETRACT from a paladin's dps.

Assume you are a paladin. You are taking damage. What do you do? Simple. You stop fighting, target yourself, cast a heal, then turn your attention back onto the mob. Of course, the time where you are targeting yourself and healing is time not dpsing. But, that is what happens when you have the ability to heal

Assume you are a shadow knight. You are taking damage. What do you do? You cast a leach. Now, the leach heals you quite handily. But it also harms the enemy. It is a healing spell that harms the enemy quite nicely. You do not have to even have to stop dpsing. You can continue fighting, swinging that sword, all the while you cast that fast leach.

Also, as a shadow knight, you have dots. Again, you do not have to stop dpsing to cast the dot. And, shadow knights have several lines of these spells. They can land several damage over time spells at once, each doing several hundred points of damage per second.

Paladins now have a single spells that simulates a dot. It is a reverse proc spell. When the mob hits you, he damages himself and heals you. But the healing is quit negligible. And the damage done to the mob is also negligible. And yes, now paladins have a few direct damage spells that can do some minor damage to a living mob. And we have that proc spells that we can cast on our weapons that does the same thing, procs a heal of us and damage to the mob. Somewhat decent, at least. This somewhat makes up for the loss of dps spells compared to the shadowknight.

Shadowknights have an area of effect (aoe) line of agro spells. They can get several mobs onto them quite easily. And they have a line of DD spells that can do considerable damage.

Paladins have stuns. True, at higher levels, there are three lines of stuns. ONe of which actually does some damage. But no self-respecting paladin would even think of using that damage dealing stun. Why? Well, it has one very nasty side effect. It knocks the mob back a number of feet. Now, imagine you are fighting a mob. You stun it. It flys back and lands against the wall. You now have to waste time running to it in order to resume your dps, time that allows it to shake off the stun. That said, the other two line of stuns are quite valuable, especially when contesting agro. The paladin stuns are more agro inducing than the shadow kngiht aoe spells. This I know, because I once tried to take agro from a sk who was deliberately trying to keep agro from me. It was a contest between us. We tried it several times, and I won every time.

Both Paladins and Shadow Knights have a line of non-damage agro spells. Paladins it is the challenge for honor line of spells. I do not know the name of the shadowknight line, but it does roughly the same thing. Also, we have disciplines that do the same thing (different names, of course).

When all is said and done, the dps of the shadowknight is very telling, because of the spells. The dots, dds and the leach spells add dps to the shadowknight, enormously without detracting from the purely melee dps. The stuns and the heals detract from the paladin because they not only do no damage, the heals force us to target ourselves (or another npc). Our dds are neglegible when compared to the dds of the shadowknight. Add in the enormous power of the aa leach and the fully powered harm touch, and you got a toon that can take out very powerful mobs with but a few hits, a leach or two, and a harm touch. Paladins can not compete. By design, they could never compete with this.

The only advantage we have is the undead. There, and only there, we shine. And Sony wants to nerf this in order to increase dps. This is rediculous.

The dps concept, on a purely melee basis, (unless sony gave the shadowknight a boost they did not give the paladin) should be equivalent. If they are, leave it alone.

The focus should be, and should remain on, the spells alone.

Paladins have one line of DD spells, and it does not compare to the shadow knight lines of DD spells. Make it equivalent. That will improve paladin dps a bit without making any other changes. Also, the line of paladin stuns that does the damage and the knockback. Remove the knockback. Make the stun line useful to a paladin.

Of course, if the sk has a melee boost that they did not give the paladin, it should be removed from the sk or added to the paladin. The two knight classes, on a purely melee basis should be equivalent.

The focus Sony should be looking at should be on the spells and the aa's. Paladins are defensive in nature. Adding a few paladin only defensive aa's, passive, so we do not receive as much damage, would mean that healers would like us better. Easier to heal, which is what we were in the early days. It should be this way again. And improve the dd spell line, so it either does more damage, has a shorter recast time, or both. Shadowknights have a dd spell, of more power from my understanding. The paladin spell should be equivalent.

Yes, we will still be underpowered. But if we are harder to hit as well, like we used to be, we will get along well enough. We will still not be wanted all the time. But we will not be laughed at either. We will be as we used to be, respected. And that is what I want to see happen.

Oh. One last thing. Improve our root line so it does not break as much. Shadowknights get a snare line that is virtually impossible to break. Paladin roots break way too much, often lasting not even a second. If you want to make our roots stronger by giving us an AA, fine. I will accept that. But a stronger root is almost required. Yes, mobs will hit on us when rooted. We expect that. Course, we are not cowards like shadow kights are. But we do need a more effective root, like it used to be in the early days. Maybe reduce the chance a mob can break it by half. Or reduce the chance by a third. That should do the trick.

[tauaunt]

leave it alone and increase defense ability. I never worry about dps cept on undead.