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1.10 Healer Paladin - Cougar - 08-10-2003
I've always thought a Healer Paladin would be fun, as in a Paladin who doesn't use any offensive moves himself, but relies primarily on Prayer and Holy Bolt to keep party members alive. I never got a chance to try one, but now with the synergy bonus Holy Bolt gets from Prayer, this could potentially be a great addition to a party of melee fighters.
I have a few concerns, however. One, what other skills should I get? First I thought maybe a Smite/Holy Shield mix would be good, since it would be generally non-lethal but still keep teammates alive longer, but I think I heard somewhere that Smite relies more on attack rating now, which I don't feel like messing with. Since this character will be more mana intensive, though, I was thinkin I could flash Meditation and Redemption every now and then too.
Secondly, I'm almost more worried about whether or not I'd be able to level much. Since I won't be getting much direct experience (I'll be using a Holy Freeze merc, and pump him with Holy Bolts if we wind up going duo) will I get enough if I'm working alongside others?
That's all I can think of for now. Any input would be great, and I also hope I'm not asking questions about something previously talked about. :unsure:
1.10 Healer Paladin - adeyke - 08-10-2003
From what I've read, the synergies on cleansing and meditation are that you effectively have the healing effect of prayer in addition to the normal effects of those auras. If I did understand this correctly, those auras would be good skills to use as primary if you're putting points in prayer.
As long as you're within two screens of the the monsters your party members kill, you should get your share of experience and level up normally.
1.10 Healer Paladin - DarkCrown - 08-10-2003
I'm making a very similar character. I'm using Blessed Hammer and Fist of the Heavens in addtion to Holy Bolt.
Meditation (and Cleansing for that matter ) both do life healing at the same rate as Prayer, so there is no reason not to use them instead of Prayer.
So far (Act 3 Norm) the character is actually pretty viable solo. Act 2 Sewer runs are fun. :)
-DarkCrown
1.10 Healer Paladin - LucianDK - 08-10-2003
Ive tried one too because i was impressed by the potential massive damage on holy bolth. Maxed it can take out a zombie in the blood moor in hell on players 8 with about 5-6 shots. And thats each shot doing around 4500 damage.
But generally the concentrations of undead is far and few between. Imo its really not worth it to pump the holy bolt synergies for extra damage. You are much better of with just pumping prayer and holy bolt. Then spend your remaining skills on better offensive powers. And i wouldnt advocate using the prayer aura, it regens miniscule health. Imo you are better served with just holy bolt alone and on your right mouse button for ease of targetting. You can heal around 300-400 damage per shot with high level holy bolt and maxed prayer. Much faster and much better healing provided than with prayer aura alone.
If you doesnt have any other offensive powers, if you are focusing on healing your merc and relying on him doing damage, it quickly becomes a boring affair. All the major bosses is demons, which you are unable to make a dent in with holy bolt. I would suggest using fist of heaven and holy shock aura synergy as alternate skills. That would give you more decent damage output, and you would still have nice healing provess to support your merc or partymembers. Imo blizzard goofed up with making such fringe skills with limited applications. Or in some cases skills with too wide applications, thustly leaving room for nothing else. Like the necromancer's amplify damage or lower resists. And since you cant stack curses, you have no room for anything else, beside the curse that supports your main choice of attack. Same counts for the paladin, very hard to get around the fanatism or conviction auras. Damage is king, and those two are simply too good, reducing all other auras to just temp flashing status. Especially those of the defensive tree.
1.10 Healer Paladin - Obi2Kenobi - 08-10-2003
Flashing no longer works... So that isn't that good for Meditation (unless you are going to turn it on until you get enough mana). Redemtion, however would work fairly well from what I have heard, but it wouldn't help party members.
1.10 Healer Paladin - Cougar - 08-10-2003
I'm not quite sure that Meditation would be as adept at healing people. Battle.net says this:
Bonuses To Meditation
Prayer: +2 Life Healed Every 2 Seconds
For all the other synergy bonus listings I've seen, it lists them as "+7% damage per level" or something like that, but this one seems to suggest that no matter how high a level Prayer you have, you will still only gain one health point per second. Unless I'm misreading this, Prayer would still be more useful for a player devoted to healing, as maxed Prayer, with no '+ to skills' equipment, is around +25 life.
Please tell me I'm wrong, because if I could max both Prayer and Meditation, using the latter as my primary skill, and still have the full bonuses of Prayer, that would be so insanely great. :)
I don't think it would be too boring. I hardly plan on playing solo--he is designed to be a party character, like a corpsman trying to keep the Marines alive and fighting. I think there could be a decent amount of strategy involved, figuring out who needs help most and where, or whose minions need a little health boosting and so on. Besides, if you've ever played with a Healer Paladin, you know what a great lifesaver he can be, and he's always a party favorite. That being the case, let me also add what a praise-whore I am. ;)
1.10 Healer Paladin - DarkCrown - 08-10-2003
My pally's Meditation currently heals +7 every 2 seconds - which exactly matches the healing of my level 7 Prayer.
-DarkCrown
1.10 Healer Paladin - LucianDK - 08-10-2003
Perhaps, but ive noticed an irritating bug. If you have holy bolt on one mousebutton, and normal attack on the other. Then you can accidentally target and attack your merc, and team mates and allied minions. He will take the swing, but not actually doing damage. A minor irritation, but it could be potentially fatal in a pressed situation.
1.10 Healer Paladin - Obi2Kenobi - 08-10-2003
Could you stack meditation and prayer and have them both healing you at the same time?
1.10 Healer Paladin - Artega - 08-10-2003
Generally, the build's called either the Cleric or the Medic; whichever you like more ;)
I haven't played D2X in several months, and I haven't been keeping up with all of the v110 Beta mess, so I don't know how/if Prayer was improved (I know how effective it is in SevenLances, but I haven't heard much about the D2X v110 version), but Prayer is generally the primary aura for the Cleric.
Obi: If Med's new synergistic healing abilities act like Prayer's, then you probably could stack them. As you may already know, multiple Prayer auras stack, so I don't see why Meditation and Prayer's healing abilities wouldn't stack. This would require testing, of course.
1.10 Healer Paladin - protoshoggoth - 08-11-2003
You may want to consider that HF merc pretty carefully. HF can stir up monsters 'before their time' and can cause a bit of grief in certain situations. Reference. Of course since you'll probably be hanging back a bit it may not be too much of a problem for you.
1.10 Healer Paladin - Obi2Kenobi - 08-11-2003
I know you could stack up to three prayer aura's as of .09 (as long as they are activated at different times) and you can do I have no idea how many in 1.10, but I was wondering if you could have a prayer and meditation pulse at the same time.
1.10 Healer Paladin - Cougar - 08-11-2003
Wow, Prayer auras stack? Jeez, shows how often I've played with Paladins. ;)
If Prayer would also stack with Meditation, and Meditation would also heal just as well as Prayer, only with out the mana drainage, then buying a Prayer merc would definitely be the way to go. I thought it might be handy having monsters slower, thereby hurting party members less, but simply healing them faster might be mighty useful too.
BTW, I think I like the name Corpsman best. Cleric's okay, but it sounds kinda fruity. Medic's okay, but sounds so... Army. Frankly, I'd trust a group of Marines to take on the minions of Hell more than some Army pukes. Therefore, send in the Corpsmen! ;)
1.10 Healer Paladin - Refrigerator - 08-11-2003
Get Prayer up fairly high, and then just use Meditation as your main aura. Or cleansing, I guess. I'm not sure, but I don't think they take away from your mana, so energy wouldn't be a problem. I've been thinking about this a bit lately and so far I think I like charge as the main attack skill. Reasons: It doesn't have many pre-reqs, and is fairly effective at a low level, as long as you have a good weapon. And since you'll probably be staying behind your party most of the time, healing, you shouldn't have any problem with minimum range. Leveling will probably be slow ;) but it could be fun.
I'm waiting until the patch comes out on B.net to actually test out the cleric idea though. I want all the 1.10 synergies and people to help me gain xp too! Definitely a party player though. Greedy, ain't I :D ?
EDIT: LucianDK: Why not have Holy bolt on left and Meditation on right? That way it might be a little bit harder to target, but you're gaining life and mana (GAH! Keep on wanting to say TP!) every... few seconds or so anyways.
Greetings,
Refrigerator
1.10 Healer Paladin - LucianDK - 08-11-2003
I tried having it on left with aura on right, but that simply doesnt agree well with me. Shift left clicking is so awkward, and personally i find they should have added auras on the left button so you had free attack with the right.
1.10 Healer Paladin - Cougar - 08-12-2003
I shift/left button all the time. Oh well, if you're aiming for a melee character, he'll probably be standing long enough hacking away for you to get a few bright blue shots at him.
After checking out the Arreat Summit, I noticed that it still says Smite disregards AR, and always hits. Did I misread something that said Smite does indeed factor in AR now, or did Arreat simply not update that skill yet on the website?
If Smite would actually be plausible for someone planning on a bare minimum of dex points, that'd be great. I'd feel less guilty about creating a character who will not (directly) speed up the progress of battle. :)