What a Paladin to do?

[JustAGuy]

A-hah! I've played my Paladin up to level 12 now, and he's quite powerful. Moreso than before, actually.

I'm going to have to take back what I said about it being a nerf, and reserve judgement at this time. So far, they've actually improved him; it was a give a little take a little situation before. Crusader Strike is now critical to a Paladin's success, and I think the dev. team knows it.

Crusader Strike before was pretty useless, it was considered by the engine to be an attack, so you either did Holy Strike, Regular Attack or Crusader Strike. With a slow weapon, it was practically useless. By the time you hit enough times for it to be moderately useful, the creature was already dead. Either that, or you'd be fighting something where the added damage from Crusader Strike was necessary to kill the beast, and when it comes time to Holy Strike him, you'd miss because of level dispairity. You'd miss, or you'd have missed many crusader strikes, leaving your Holy Strike doing less than optimal damage. Or, you'd just die because you were focusing on Crusader Strikes instead of Holy Strikes, and by that time, the higher mob just slapped you up into oblivion. The slower the weapon, the more frustrating a miss was with Crusader Strike.

Crusader Strike now is an instant cast attack. Even with massive mallets and two-handed swords, he swings right away. This is extremely important. It allows a Paladin to sacrifice a quick sword/mace & shield combo for a huge damage two hander, and partially ignore the damage per second/slow swinging aspect of the weapon. The bigger the damage the weapon does, the better. The Paladin can throw in quick Crusader Strikes in between the attack cooldown period. Granted, the damage Crusader Strike does by itself is negligable, but the number of attacks is impressive. You can throw in about three Crusader Strikes, each at about 8 damage, before your regular attack kicks in. That's 24 damage inbetween the regular attacks. Considering I do about 30-35 damage with my big mallet, that's a nice "free" bit of damage Crusader Strike affords. Add to it the 30 damage at max Crusader Strike gives, when Holy Strike connects, I'm looking at over 65 damage (at level 12, not bad says me).

The duration of Crusader Strike has been increased as well, so it's likely the mob would be affected for the duration of the battle.

The current strategy I'm employing has me taking on and taking out two or three mobs (three lower levels, two even level); crusader strike to start, and keep doing it until mana is about half, or the added damage is up to 30, then holy strike, then stun, then holy strike. That combination usually kills most even level mobs. Using the stun and seal of protection and divine favour, along with holy light, makes my Paladin extremely survivable and tankable. The only problem right now is mana. At level 12, he sucks mana down like there's no tomorrow. Since Crusader Strike is instant cast, throwing down 4 or 5 in a row can leave you with very little means to heal yourself or actually execute that Holy Strike.

Holy Damage and de-buffs now work on those Mechanical Watchers; thank god, since my level 12 Paladin wouldn't be able to kill many of them without Crusader Strike adding so much damage.

So in the patch, the Paladin lost buffs, lost hit points, mana and defense, but in turn got a very strong ability in the Crusader Strike/Holy Strike combo. He also got Seal of Protection earlier, effectively giving him two escape methods from any battle (divine favour is the other). I like playing this 'din more than the others I played!