The short & sweet Paladin rework

Why is there no balancing/rework prefix?? deus can you ask plz most suggestions here are balancing/reworking things

Welcome readers to the short and sweet paladin rework, where i propose paladin changes that would make the class more fun, more enjoyable, more towards what it advertises and also mentioning things that are currently broken (in a bad, bad way) about paladin.

First off, ever since 2.1 , paladin provoke (and by extension +taunt) doesn't work on most mobs (as they just ignore it and go after another player) or bosses (i can't taunt the boss as a tank class, sadge), mythril skin... doesn't provide knockback immunity, because most mobs ignore that, and sacred surge can be activated during spells, wasting the charge. mentioned in a feedback post.

Now for actual changes:

• Mantle of the Bovemist (MoB):
  Mantle has a long cooldown, so to make it feel consistent without just making the cooldown shorter (which should be done if you want quick fix), MoB regenerates mantles every 3 seconds, so you would be able to tank more hits as long as you dodge some so you don't lose all mantles (also the wording with the charges kinda suck, also its still called shield by Wynncraft.
  
  
• Provoke: Make provoke into +taunt and give it warscream mana cost red... everyone says that provoke sucks bc its outclassed by a necklace. as for items with taunt, make them increase the new provoke's range to double.
  
  
• Sacred Surge (SS): This one is wow. Thunder conversion on Paladin is berry weird, and with a cherry on top. SS and all other abilities that had thunder conversions have fire conversions. Now, SS should be casted on main attack with a cooldown, and if we want to reward the paladin for tanking hits, you should get more SS % per hit taken (1%). makes
  
  
• Shield Strike (SS2): This is one of the thunder dmg ones. Also, since you can probably get 16 mantles at max, you would think that 1600% damage is a lot, but its hard to achieve and paladins don't have many big damage tools, and sparkling hope is better for consistent damage, speaking of...
  
  
• Sparkling Hope (SH): Its another one of those thunder conversions, to fire. Its fine in general, but you basically want this over SS2 because of SS charging with healing now. So apart from the damage it gives make it deal a big burst every 100% of you hp you healed, the percent can be 200%, not too much of a bust, but makes it more sparkly
  
  
• Second Chance (SC): First off, rename this to Holy Tether (HT) because dungeons have a second chance. Now this HT is an upgraded version of SC, Because you can shift + uppercut to apply to the player closest to you / in front of you a holy tether, that lasts as for 1 minute, until one of the 2 players is dead and for casting it on another player), but has no cooldown and can be applied any time you shift + uppercut.
  
  This HT gives you and the tethered target benefits, such as: The paladin receives 20% of the damage you would take, any buffs the paladin casts and applies to self is also applied to the ally (courage, Ragnarök, Radiance), but also gives them mantles that can't regen (if the target is a paladin you can stack them, but up to 10 mantles per person at the same time... otherwise would be impractical but funny 80 mantles).
  
  Now the important part: Holy tether makes both the user and the target to use second chance revive ability. This was, paladin can finally become the bodyguard.
  
  
• Martyr: This one's cool, but should be activated when anyone in you party dies. not just you

The comment section exists, so write there what you think its good/ Bad

also i lied, this was not short

 

game mechanics

report these as bugs

im confused
does this require casting war scream
does this require at least one mantle active
is there a max duration
also please tell me how this isn't overpowered

an MID having the same niche as an ability (that doesn't work well) makes no sense, yes

mantle kinda does this already because +1% for shield broken, but i could see that.
main attack COULD be a trigger, but it should stay on bash and upppercut
also fire conversions make sense yes

wait how do you get 16 mantles? aspect?
also you just mentioned a problem and did not give me an answer thumbs down

i don't know much about this one since i never used it (palamonk moment)

yes
but
it needs another player (main weakness)
i don't like the second chance part with the revive, though. (second weakness)
also martyr may or may not be possible.

 

they are either already rreported or ct already knows about the issues

Its as long as you have 1 mantle and as long as you didn't get hit for 3 seconds, so you still have to dodge. and with this you can get a maximum of 16 mantles (t3 paladin mythic + 25 seconds of mantle regen after breaking 7 in a second). and the max duration still stays the same

^^

Well, that's the neat part. Paladin is a tank class, it supposed to tank (aka take hits) for others, and that others are teammates. If paladins in lootruns make little sense (since why use the class that tanks and is slow in the lootrun activity), so having paladin be... useable in the other modes. Having a way to help a low ehp teammate is very nice, since they usually die by a one shot. Also the mantles fact is important, since along with the 20% redirection base + guardian, anyone can stay alive (as long as they don't get hit too many times).
also second chance is that one of many nodes that does... smth not useful for paladin (keeping it alive when their allies are dying) so sharing it would be good :)
And also if you don't have other teammates, don't play pure paladin... you can and should always crosspath.

As in? its simple, if a party member recieves a killing blow, characters in the 12 blocks radius get invulnerability for 3 seconds. its just that simple, yet is good to not make everyone die at the same time from a big attack.

Also thanks for the feedback :D

 

just making you aware that no ability in the game interacts with your party so it may or may not be possible

okay maybe

see this is where i disagree
archetypes should be able to completely function solo, even if (like Lightbender) having allies enhances their strengths.

 

I believe paladin solo will be strong enough, as they'll get an overall dmg boost from the fire confersion changes, and in lootruns, paladins can ignore defensive boons. Also if you like damage as paladin, cross path with the other archetypes.

And its called an mmo :)

 

i mean, i'm confident it would be viable, BUT: an archetypes mechanics SHOULD NOT rely on other players in general. I'm fine if they perform better with others (Lightbender), but there shouldn't be any gimmicks that literally require other players.
The singular tank archetype should not be reliant on other players when the two HEALER archetypes are completely self-sufficient in gameplay and game design

 

why should a character that relies on buffing other players NOT have a mechanix that buffs other players? you would still have the basic second chance solo, and have the ability to help teamates if you want.

 

I think that your Holy Tether idea for multiple players is cool, but still a little too basic in solo.

It’s just a revive for an archetype that is already tanky enough to survive practically anything.

I think you should get some sort of buff upon getting revived yourself. Like, maybe getting the buff from Radiance for 5 minutes instead of like 2 seconds.

 

first off, radiance lasts 8 seconds, and with t2 empowering fantasy aspect its 11.5 seconds, quite a lot...
secondly, where do you have this? We don't want holy tether to have yugioh card text (+it would make holy tether require radiance, making ut harder to have early), im not replacing martyr, the other 2 nodes above second chance are also shared to fallen...

I could see this as a t3 paladin mythic, but that would mean that other mythics need a similar end game effect, and im not capable of doing that for the other classes.

And as for other buffs, what kind of buff could paladin get after reviving? the only noteworthy buff is like, radiance, so youd have to create a new buff instead.
Actually scrap that, ignore the martyr suggestion of applying to all allies, instead it applies to only yourself recieving a death blow, and it also gives the radiance buff for however long ct wants.

I realized martyr triggering on party members is... op for wars. and war paladins already have radiance soooo good idea haha :)

 

it can buff other players, it just should be able to function solo (fortitude, the acolyte totem buff, ragnorakkr, and radiance are all examples)

 

So the only buff i see is that you can apply 5/7/8 mantles to yourself to stack up to 10/14/16? the others are damage redirection, buff apply from any distance and a second life that still exists.

Also to edit: the applied mantles will only be applied once you cast warscream with the mantles, since the way i worded it you can apply mantles infinitely...

 

What if Strobelight/Signal Flare allowed all classes to inflict a lower-priority taunt on their 4th-spell casts (if a mage and a warrior with Provoke both used their 4th spells, the Provoke would always override the other class' 4th)?
The 4th spell on non-warrior classes have or can have functionality that would benefit from gaining mobs' attention or reduce the problem of gaining aggro (from traps and smoke to slows and absorption) more than other spells; thus letting all classes gain a taunt if they want one.
As for itemisation you can always swap a Strobelight for a Constrict Collar or a Signal Flare for Burnout or Ex Nihilo so it's not like you're forced into that item and that role if you don't need it.
This is on top of the range boost for Provoke on warrior.

Instead of Sparkling Hope it could be named Flaring Hope to better fit the new flavour.

Part of what I think another problem with Paladin is is that its skills are geared very much towards dealing damage (Deal damage and gain reduction. When your reduction breaks, deal damage. Whenever any ability of yours activates, gain energy that can only be used to deal damage. When you regenerate health, deal damage. When you case bash, increase your identifications to deal more damage. There was even initially a node that was "For your health bonus identification, increase fire damage". And adjacent in the AT layout there's the node "when you dodge damage, deal damage."). What this produces is a confusing archetype that is supposed to be good at taking damage, and does really well, but has half a dozen ways to deal damage and only three to mitigate it. It would be nice if there was instead something that rewarded your inability to take damage or your proactivity in preventing it.
Offshoot pseudosuggestion: Make Sacred Surge the first red node and build all of Paladin's abilities off of that instead of having these disjointed passives instead...
Sacred Surge: Activating abilties and taking damage increases your Holy Power (HP) bar which caps at 100, spend 15 on bash/upper to add neutral, fire damage (teaches how surge works)
Manachism is unchanged.
Provoke is unchanged.
Cleansing Breeze: Purge all debuffs/fire from yourself/allies. Gain 10 HP per debuff cleansed (huge resource gen)
MotB: Casting War scream will spend all your HP and grant one charge per 30 spent, each mantle does its reduction thing. 2nd red node. Won't activate on hits under 5% your max hp.
Stronger Mantle reduces charges cost to 20 HP per mantle (and mythic aspect reduces it further to 12 HP per mantle)
Shield Strike: On uppercut smite nearby enemies based on the number of mantles lost since last uppercut (max. 16) (gives better control over when it happens) (Holy Power smites)
Stronger Surge is unchanged.
Rejuvenating Skin: Heal for 30% the damage taken over 15s, generate 0.25 HP per heal tick (small resource gen, even if the hit isn't big going for intercepting damage when possible will give you more resource to work with)
Radiance: Spend 35 surge on Bash (adds to smite, applies first) to increase your ids and current/max hp (not HP) by 20%. Lose any hp over usual max when effect expires (you can time radiance for bigger hits/self healing)
Holy Tether as you did above, sounds great and good for tanking.
Martyr addition also sounds really good
This means 3 abilities for damage (Surge, Shield Strike, Radiance), 7 for tank duties (Provoke, Cleansing, MotB, Rejuvenating, Radiance, Tether, Martyr), and 3 for support (Cleansing, Tether, Martyr); and 7 that work with Holy Power instead of 1.
Sparkling Hope is really strange...
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This looks like a good paladin rework suggestion

And the idea of making sacred surge the first red node instead of mantle also looks cool, although it may enable more bmonk paladin usage. One problem with the new mantle is that i would want to skip it, since getting 3.5 seconds of damage reduction wouldnt do me great compared to the loss of sacred surge %
well, since you can stil give mantles to the tether target it makes its useable for its role
You should make your own thread instead actually

 

from what i'm seeing, the second chance node will still grant the caster their revive. this addition just adds a bit more team-functionality. this version of second chance will continue to be just as useful in solo play as it currently is.

ugh paladin. so much promise such muddied execution. and barely even with paladin itself, lmao. the issue with tank characters is that wynn is not designed for team play, not even in raids. i can't only call it a wynn issue; a lot of mmos as of late seem chronically allergic to the idea of being multiplayer games.

OP: excellent suggestion +1. but. paladin was in its best historical state when 2.0 dropped. it's been little but downhill from there, and paladin will not be good until wynn gets serious about this whole 'archetype' thing.

--

ok i know you said 'make your own thread' but this is yet another offshoot pseudo-suggestion mixed in with feedback on yours. an actual offshoot. i don't know that it'd make sense as its own topic, seeing how much it builds off of this.

the issue with mantle is that wynn characters don't have enough abilities, tbh.

in my experience the way that mmos usually handle tank damage reduction is by having multiple shield options on cooldown, maybe with slightly different use cases/effects. the tank is then tasked with staggering their casts in such a way that they have a general uptime of damage reduction, as well as the ability to take a risk and go hypertank if, say, a massive attack hits the field. but watch out, because you're vulnerable after that!

ofc this can't happen so easily with paladin. but the underlying reasoning for games doing the above is that it introduces choice and agency and whatnot to tanking. your mantle change also does this (good!) but it does so by making the choice "either do your job or run away and stop tanking for a bit" (bad!) This is the soul points issue again, albeit at a much smaller scale. Maybe if wynn did smth like an on-tank off-tank rotation in parties, but party size is four, so no.

you're right on the shorter cooldown being a quick fix, you're also right that it's a bad idea since it introduces more casts for no reason when it could just be a single sustained cast. hence. the psuedo-suggestion:

go insane with it. apotheosis had the right idea. make mantle have a madly short duration, some 2 seconds. make its damage reduction constant over this period, as opposed to per-hit, as a small counter for its massively reduced duration. for Stronger Mantle: double its duration, reduce the cooldown to 20, and increase the damage reduction to 85%. shield strike becomes an auto-cast once Mantle runs out. 300% damage as a lag after war scream is already an okay amt. of consistent damage by itself, but you know what would be cooler? scaling it up to a cap of 1600% depending on how much damage the shield took while it was active >:) reflection dps hours. (hypothetical replacement paragon: shield strike always bursts at at least 900% >:)

next, instead of keeping it passive, give Rejuvenating Skin an uppercut toggle. make it 5 seconds worth of a passive regeneration effect for you and any nearby allies, a similar radius and mechanic to heal. nothing as strong as heal, ofc, paladin should not be anywhere as effective as a dedicated healer, but still something fairly hefty. give it a 20s cooldown, same as the Stronger Mantle. later down the line, you can even bring in another use of the holy tether, spending your second chance to revive anyone who dies while under the effects of your rejuvenation. you can also tie it in with your Sparkling Hope's DPS burst - have any healing/regen that you've given allies also count for its damage pulses.

finally, bring Radiance in line with the new rejuvenating skin - 5 second duration, 20s cooldown. that alone is just a straight nerf, though, so increase the ID boost to 25% base and add a 25% damage reduction to yourself on top of that. swap the Cheaper Bash on its right with Mythril Skin, make the latter's base defense bonus go from 5% > 10% while Radiance is up.

gods above and below, look at what we've done. paladin now has a delicate and intricate spell rotation - a pure self-defense buff, a party ID buff, and a healing buff, fired off in a loop. played right, it's 14 seconds worth of uptime, with another 6 seconds to keep track of for the best staggered uptime. you also need to keep strict track of the spells and melee attacks that you're using, since you don't want to spend an ability early. or you can burst them all at once ig. you do you.

even in solo play, this would still be useful - it's a bunch of defense buffs that you can use actively, still in the same rotation that you're using in all content. and despite your defensive buff uptime being worse and more finicky, stuff like the potentially massive Shield Strike means that you're doing a lot more DPS in compensation. and let's be honest, you didn't even need the compensation, current paladin is unkillable.

i've already brought it up, but it helps to repeat that taunting in this game is broken on a level beyond paladin's ability to do so. you've gotta design group encounters around aggro, and wynn just doesn't do that. so idk how useful this could be.

real. Sacred Surge is p cool, and any good paladin's offensive bread and butter. being rewarded for taking hits. your vision. extraordinary. healing given from the Rejuvenating Skin i proposed above could also add to the SS pool, and with how quickly it goes up in active play i can easily see other abilities that it can be used to boost. have shield strike be also eligible down the line, maybe.

idk how useful SS would be on a melee cast. maybe if you build the bar up to 100% you could use it for a super-charged melee attack or spell or smth along those lines, but people are using melee attakcs constantly, for powder specials if nothing else. ig i can see the vision, though. hmm i've distracted myself with the super-charge idea. maybe have SS start at, say, a 120% bonus for 20% of its meter and then scale up. 100% sacred surge for 200% damage. it's nearly the same as the current one, but adds a small bit of reward if you manage to time it properly. which adds more challenge and active play as you attempt to hit the optimal percentage :D

i'll echo the above martyr comments about the dubious feasibility of party-only mechanics, but i covered this in the whole rejuvenating skin section. as for Holy Tether proper. yeah. it's just cool. two thumbs up, no notes.

if you want to circumvent the party limit thing evil-style, you could add a new one-point node below Holy Tether that lets you have a maximum of three connections at a time; albeit getting weaker (say, 25% > 20% > 15% damage transfer, 100% > 60% > 30% buff transfer), though idk how technically feasible "a discrete number of player targets" is in the code either.

reduce Martyr to a single ability point as well and have it confer its invincibility to everyone in the tether when anyone takes a fatal blow, and you've got yourself a nice modular capstone setup at the end of the Paladin tree.

 

As of making this reply, paladin was changed during the octo 25 patch
its cooler now, some issues were fixed

No worries, its just so the number of posts that are about paladin increase

apotheosis is the faker in paladin spears, because even though it mentions paladin, its better for bmonk. still bad overall
as for making mantle stronger with apotheosis, that's a major id change, and I'm more interested in paladin being useable rather than a mid being useable ( i hate apotheosis)

While giving rejuvenating skin more of an active than passive sounds cool, ive already been enlightened with lenxt paladin idea (https://discord.com/channels/143852930036924417/1265241987771006976/1266582443704586250 everyone should check it as its relevant), so it would be making rejuv skin a passive tankiness upgrade, while leaving the red node for something better.

As for radiance, i don't like it. you would never have full uptime in radiance without 4 paladins, which is not viable, and no matter how strong it is, having consistent uptime should be enough (basically i don't like it because wars like it this way)

For this idea i changed what i thought, and will simply rewrite it:
SSS (stronger sacred surge): converted to yellow node, While having 60% or more ssurge, your attacks become amplified, by doing 160% main attack damage, increasing its angle and smiting enemies with light, which will slow them with stacks (up to 60%).
this would make paladins attacks much easier to land, on groups, and would be another cc tool for paladin. this would act like pyrokinesis, and xavier likes these types of amplified attacks, so im all for it

that would be extremely complicated to do. they tried to do this to grootslang, by making the grootslang head take damage instead of the body parts, but they couldn't do it
and as for buff transfer, as i said earlier the idea from lenxt seems better (which is: Leadership: Allies within 20 blocks are granted most of your passive abilities. If an ally activates an ability, gain Holy Power as if you activated it.). still keeping the tether idea tho!