Disgusted with Paladins 1.10

[kandrathe]

It's like watching a Wily E Coyote death scene unfolding before your very eyes sometimes.

ROFL. And, don't forget the slow motion backwards moonwalk of death...

It looks like the guy who was working on the patch didn't like to play Paladins. So, I imagine like 3 weeks ago someone said, "Hey, what kind of synergies are you going to put on the Paladin?" And the developer replied, "Oh, crap. I knew I forgot something."

Maybe "Beast" will save him. :)

[Dagni]

Requiring players to spend more than 20 points in any skill to get the full main effect of that skill is wrong imo.

But imo that's exactly why Blizzard is adding synergies: so that it is possible to spend more than 20 in many main skills.

What kind of help is "Shout" to a Berserker ?
What kind of help is Leap to a Leap Attcker ?
What kind of help is Bash to a Stunner ?

And so on...

Look at the synergy that already exists in 1.09.

What kind of help is Spirit Wolves to a Grizzlymancer?
What kind of help is a Grizzly to a Wolf Pack Leader?

That's the point! Because without synergies a Grizzly specialist would NEVER waste points in one of the other summons. But as it is, in certain situations he might use dire wolves instead of a bear, since he put 20 points into it anyway. What are they called, Hunter Druids? In pure form, they wouldn't exist if the Summons couldn't be improved past 20 skill points.

I'm very disappointed that the Vines and Totems didn't get any synergies.

What synergies ARE is a slightly improved way of upping the 20 skill point cap for some skills. Improved because it gives the designer, and in some cases the player, more control over what exactly the later points do. Improved because it can add some tactical options to the player in situations when the main skill isn't as useful.

Given that the Berserker spent 40 points in Berserk, it's kinda nice that when he isn't using Berserk he can still get a benefit from some of those points. He isn't going to use Berserk against a Magic Immune (however rare, I'm sure they exist), so now Shout can be useful, how useful depends on just how good the DR of his equipment happens to be.

Leap is just about as much a help to a Leap Attacker as to any other barb. Any Barb can get Leap Attack at level one for the super range. Leap's advantage is the knockback.

Bash/Stun is an example of a good synergy, imo. Naturally someone that has maxed Stun isn't going to max Bash otherwise. But now that he has, against some monsters he might find Bash more useful. But the main point was to get 40 points into Stun. Since Stun is probably one of the Barb's weaker skills, it is probably good that it can be pumped past 20 points.

Mostly, synergies should be intentionally in non-complimentary skills. Because you shouldn't be able to put even more points in your primary skill while at the same time improving your other main skills. Instead, you get the extra benefit when your primary skill is of less use than normal.

Ideally, each skill you've maxed should have a situation where it is better than the other skill. So if the following sorc Fire skills gave synergies to each other, ideally it should be something like this: Firebolt/Hydra should be the best Sorc/fire skill against single, moving targets. Firewall against one or more stationary targets in a line. Meteor/Fireball against groups. Unfortunately, they left Firebolt completely worse than Fireball, instead.

Although this doesn't completely apply to the Barb, the reason that many skills NEED to have a higher skill cap than 20 is because otherwise the skill will max at clvl 20 - 50, depending on the skill. Therefore, with a direct damage skill, it is guaranteed to either suck in Hell, or be way too good in Normal - or both. It has always been this balancing problem, combined with the skill cap, that has caused almost all damage-dealing level one skills to suck. They aren't supposed to suck, but there was no way around it, without ruining balance in Normal difficulty.

Charged Bolt was able to overcome this because, among other reasons, Lightning Mastery allowed 40 points in the skill. So just right there, that put CB on equal footing with other classes level 18 or 24 direct damage skills. The triple multipling effect of +skills is, of course, what put it ahead.

In any case, even if I'm wrong and raising the skill cap through synergies is a bad thing, I think it's clear that that IS what Blizzard is doing. Given that, it only makes sense to have the synergistic skills not be ones that you would already want to pump together. That's why so many synergies are elemental damage synergies given to other elemental damage skills of the same element. Not because it is themed, though it is that as well.

- Dagni

[WarBlade]

I've seen at least a half dozen suggestions for making the resist auras useful and I think it's pure unwillingness to reprogram things significantly that keeps them from being implemented. For instance, anybody argue that any of these wouldn't be an improvement?:

- Make resist auras add absorb % (and to those fearing broken levels of absorb, think about the limitations of having a single elem absorb type taking up your aura slot)

This is wishful thinking gone mad and the people who continue to suggest it seem to miss the realization that every skill point invested will boost their Resistance while simultaneously squashing their absorb number. ie there would be two conflicting mechanics packed into the one skill. This creates a diminishing returns situation while the absorb also becomes an ad hoc "Increase Maximum Resist", unless the values are high enough to push the percentage past 50%, which I doubt Blizzard would ever do. You may as well stick to Increase Maximum Resistance suggestions.

- Make resist auras lower the resistance of monsters, making for a fun group skill with other casters that would still be variantish, but at least usable

I'm guessing here you've forgotton what "defensive" means, yeah? Or for that matter Conviction has the potential to slam all three elemental auras into the minimum cap just on its own.

- Make them add to max resists. Simple.

Aha! B) And there it is.

- Make them entirely passive. Seperate elemental passives would be fun, since you'd be able to perfect-fit your resists with your gear

. . . :unsure: Hmm no, but there's a kernel of a good idea in there somewhere . . .

- Make them multiply elem damage...such that they'd be good complements to vengeance, holy fire/shock/freeze, a good elem weapon, etc as well as adding resists...essentially turning your pally into a Elemental specialist in a particular type of elem damage. Sort of a thematic approach that boosts both defense and offense.

Thematic approaches are what is screwing over the Paladin synergies already.

[Dagni]

- Make them entirely passive. Seperate elemental passives would be fun, since you'd be able to perfect-fit your resists with your gear

. . . :unsure: Hmm no, but there's a kernel of a good idea in there somewhere . . .

Well, a thought I've had is to simply to make ALL the defensive auras stack with each other, like Prayer does now with Meditation. Actually, probably double the effect of whichever aura you are officially using (or halve all the others, depending on how you look at it). Obviously the entire tree would have to be rebalanced somewhat so that the combination wasn't too good. Otherwise, you'd just put one point in each resist aura, and that would give plenty of enough of a bonus, you wouldn't bother with another point.

I'm not sure what you would do with the resist all aura, it's kinda redundant under this method. Though, with the greater bonus from whichever aura you're actually using, that would make pumping the resist all a little different from pumping each single resist.

- Dagni

[Arutha]

That's a thought I've had a while back.

Every single "aura" skill which affects allies should be made into a "passive" skill (not included would be auras like Redemption or Conviction which don't target allies).

Ie, "Might" should increase damage for the paladin attacks, whatever aura is on.
"Resist Fire" should increase the paladin's fire resistance, whatever aura is on.
Etc...

As you said, it is obvious that each would have to be totally rebalanced. No more +52% resistance for slvl 1. And no +1000% passive damage from pumping might, conc and fanat. (for instance, Might could give +7% damage / slvl and 1% slvl chance of crushing blow, conc could give 5% / slvl chance of uninterruptable attack, 2% / slvl of deadly strike, fanat could give 3% / slvl ias and +5% damage / slvl).
Some would have to be changed (Salvation for instance).

So the paladin himself would beneficiate from every skill point spent on those auras.
But he would choose which aura is on (and thus which bonus he wants to give allies).

But that's just wishful thinking, and I'm not sure it can be implemented in a mere mod. :(

[WarBlade]

Yeah, Salvation would fall apart. To be honest though, shields alone do a better job of maxing resists (and always have) so the Resist Auras to my way of thinking are purely the domain of 2 handed weapon users and players playing up the idea of protecting others. Just adding Resistance percentages won't save those skills.

[Arutha]

As I've said before, it can be advocated as a way of balancing skill progression more smoothly from start to finish.

But it has a cost: character diversificafion.
If you decide that the end game will be balanced for a lvl 60-80 main skill, it means you're forcing players into a few pre-determined builds.
It can work.

BUT diversification is one the goals advertised by Blizzard.
And it should not imo be a casualty of the drive to balance the game.

There are other solutions that Blizzard oddly enough seems not to have approached.

I can remember completing Hell difficulty around lvl 50-55 in CD2.
Things have changed since them. Lvl 50-55 is completing Nightmare now.

So why stick to the 1-6-12-18-24-30 skill groups ?
Why not try something like 1-10-20-30-40-50 ? Or even 1-12-24-36-48-60 ?
No more maxing an end-tree skill by the end of normal mode that way.

Better yet, why not make character level part of the equation?
That way a slvl 20 firebolt could be made more powerful at clvl 60 than clvl 20.

[Dagni]

Well, yeah, forever ago I thought of that, too. But, more recently I'm thinking that maybe it'd be good to keep the Defensive and Offensive Trees completely seperate. So Might would only affect you if you're using an Offensive Aura.

Also, under the principle of not fixing anything that isn't (too badly) broken, mostly only the Resist Auras / Defensive Tree needs the change, nowadays. Holy Shock, and now Holy Fire, along with Fanaticism have already been boosted. Might and Blessed Aim are "merc-only" auras, but at least some fool is using them!

Yeah, it's just wishful thinking, but I'd never have expected Prayer to be done the way it is now, either. In fact, in keeping pretty well with both synergies in general, and Prayer in specific, Blizz could just add some kind of synergy bonus from each resist to the resist all aura. But that's far from ideal.

- Dagni

[WarBlade]

In fact, in keeping pretty well with both synergies in general, and Prayer in specific, Blizz could just add some kind of synergy bonus from each resist to the resist all aura. But that's far from ideal.

In fact if Salvation were upgraded to +1000% Resist All per level I still wouldn't be tempted to waste a point on it. :lol:

[Dagni]

As I've said before, it can be advocated as a way of balancing skill progression more smoothly from start to finish.

But it has a cost: character diversificafion.

Sure, it might be a horrible solution. But, if you ask me, it looks firmly entrenched as the solution, whether we like it or not.

If one keeps that in mind, I think that one can critique synergies better. Rather than saying how a particular synergy is bad because it doesn't fit an entirely different goal.

If you decide that the end game will be balanced for a lvl 60-80 main skill, it means you're forcing players into a few pre-determined builds.
It can work.

BUT diversification is one the goals advertised by Blizzard.

Well, that's where synergies done well CAN promote some diversity. Like using Bone Spirit on single opponents and Bone Spear on groups. It may not be much, but before nobody would ever use both. Also, Blizzard may have meant diversity in different builds as much or more than diversity in skills for one character. Allowing Fire Blast to be pumped every character level creates one more unique build that is (hopefully) viable.

- Dagni

[IlleglWpns]

The whole point of increasing your resistance is to decrease the amount of elemental damage you take. By putting resistance bonuses on an aura you have to sacrifice offense, which means it takes you longer to kill things. Taking longer to kill things means that your exposure to elemental attacks is consequently greater (esp since the paladin is a melee character) and thus the whole bonus is mostly wasted.

[CelticHound]

So, Warblade & co, if you were fixing the Paladin skills and synergies, what would you do? Should they get 4 life/energy now, since they are the one melee class neither a life boosting skill nor permanent pets? Make the Paladin synergies all use total skill level as opposed to base skill level (i.e. include skill adders in synergies)? Make salvation take synergies from the other resist skills and additionally provide just the Paladin himself either extra life or physical resistance?

As I've said before, it can be advocated as a way of balancing skill progression more smoothly from start to finish.

What I think I'll try doing in a mod is changing how quickly you can pump a skill.

For example, now you can add a point to a skill if

clvl >= min-level-for-skill + current-level-of-skill

For level 30 skills, this mean you can add one point at 30, one at 31, etc, and will max the skill at level 49.

If we changed that equation to this, though:

clvl >= min-level-for-skill + (2 * current-level-of-skill)

Then you could put a point in at 30, but couldn't put the second point in until 32, the third at 34, etc, and would be able to max the skill at level 68. It seems to me that would be a smoother progression through the life of the game.

-- CH

[Arutha]

That would be another good solution, one of many such solutions that Blizzard have never evoked.

[IlleglWpns]

1) Makes the resist xxx auras add to max resistance (say 1% per level)
2) Let salvation add to max resistance, but less so (say 1% every other level)
3) Give holy shield more duration to start with and let the starting defense bonus be a little higher (say 50% instead of 25%)
4) Make holy fire more useful
5) Increase holy shock damage a tad (instead of 1-4k with all synergies maxed make it 1-5k)

Changes #1 - 3 are essential, while 4 and 5 are not absolutely necessary. Essentially the paladin's offense is fine, but he needs a little more survivability.

[WarBlade]

So, Warblade & co, if you were fixing the Paladin skills and synergies, what would you do?

I would do this:

Step 1
Make some rules to govern ongoing skill balancing that ensure Synergies remain controlled and balanced.

1.a. Establish what Synergies are supposed to achieve.
1.b. Define the purpose of each skill tree and establish how each will use synergies.

Step 2
Sort out where the Synergies will be and what they will do, before adding in values.

2.a. Apply rough values in keeping with previous rules.
2.b. Attenuate levels to balance.
2.c. Investigate the 'wishful thinking' element for possible further spice.

Note that while Blizzard planning sometimes seems to start at around around Step 2, all these wishful thinking forum posts start at 2.c. which often makes fan suggestions ten times worse as a result.

Oh you want me to actually apply this system too? I spent around 4 hours considering the problem on Sunday, for no better reason than I was irritated enough to see how hard it really was. It's do-able, but I don't think my ideas are quite bulletproof just yet. :P ;)