Pure Pally, Bardadin, or another variant?

[liver and bones]

Sorry for making another thread! Just super interested in build dynamics.

With the recent changes to paladin, how do true paladins (more pally levels than any other) fair? Arguably their biggest change is Bless Weapon getting up to a +5 enhancement, but it requires a steep investment in pally levels. Is that worth a try? Should one focus on maybe only getting +4? 21 pally levels do seem good enough - +3 CL and +3 base WIS.

Also, is the 2H build worth a shot? With Aura lasting hours/level, keeping a good AC seems more reliable with divine shield, and also added WIS allows a pally to start with more STR. Which 2H seems best, if you went this route?

[Wytchee]

The changes are nice but I am still deterred from playing paladin for the reasons that 1) they require so much bonus spell slot gear (you're not going to get far on 3-4 Divine Favors), and 2) I'm not a huge fan of having to spend three rounds buffing before every fight.

Deafening Clang still lasts rounds, so despite the change it's not worth the spellslot when you can stick another Divine Favor in there instead. Holy Sword is great now, but you really need Abjuration foci to get the most out of it, and Paladins are already quite feat starved (divine might/shield, power attack, weapon focus, knockdown, and blindfight are all mandatory, and some would say craft wand is, too). The bonus wisdom is nice and lets you invest more into Charisma or Strength, but it's not a real gamechanger. At least not for me.

Considering how substantially buffed Barbarians were, this one feels more like a prelude to more pally buffs than anything else.

[liver and bones]

Hopefully it is a prelude to more buffs. Paladins do significantly suffer off having to buff constantly, whereas another class could do the same and have more damage.

[Cortex]

... well, actually.

We had a few minor things we didn't add in fear of paladins becoming too strong. We think they are in the right place now. If we learn they still need more, they might just get more.

[Baron Saturday]

Bless weapon is now one of the best weapon buffs around, on par with blade thirst (no vamp regen, but the damage bonuses and longer duration make up for that). Aura of glory as an hour/level spell means that paladins barely need to gear into CHA. Could do eagles+aura+Templar armor and be at the +12 cap. The hard WIS bonus means that they only need a starting wisdom of 12 to be able to cast 4th level spells asap. Put together, this should allow paladins a lot more flexibility with their gear. I haven't crunched the numbers, but paladins should be able to get a very decent AB even without dropping a Divine favor every fight, making it something that they can save for the tough throwdowns.

I wouldn't dismiss this update too quickly.

Definitely still do bardadin, though, for the tumble AC if nothing else.

[liver and bones]

... well, actually.

We had a few minor things we didn't add in fear of paladins becoming too strong. We think they are in the right place now. If we learn they still need more, they might just get more.

Where do you see paladins in the metagame? Great tanks who can debuff well, so more PvP oriented?

And any hints as to what those (possibly) future buffs are?

@Baron: "Bardadin" as in majority bard, or pally + 3 bard levels?

[Cortex]

Multiple ways of building paladins, but generally speaking they're similar to a battle cleric with less wind up time.

As for hints? NO HINTS. No building up hype. Because they might not come at all.

[Baron Saturday]

... well, actually.

We had a few minor things we didn't add in fear of paladins becoming too strong. We think they are in the right place now. If we learn they still need more, they might just get more.

Where do you see paladins in the metagame? Great tanks who can debuff well, so more PvP oriented?

And any hints as to what those (possibly) future buffs are?

@Baron: "Bardadin" as in majority bard, or pally + 3 bard levels?

I'd probably just do 3 or 4 bard, yeah. The benefits of going paladin-heavy are pretty nice at this point. Could possibly do pally 23/fighter 4/bard 3 for EWS? Tradeoff being dropping to 26 CL.

[Cortex]

I'd rather rogue for evasion.

[liver and bones]

Yeah, I think that's a fair trade off. 26 CL is still more significant than any other melee class that I can think of. I was thinking fighter also to take advantage of the higher STR you can juice up. Double-down on the changes.

Not sure on a specific build path yet, though.

EDIT: How good is evasion for a low reflex class?

[Baron Saturday]

I always forget that pally gets its Cha to saves. With that in mind, it's reflex probably wouldn't be that low.

[Astral]

I hate to say this but I feel like 23 fighter 4 pally 3 umd is superior to builds with 21 pally lvls for reasons:

24CL is not that amazing against dispels.
with 23 fighter lvls and a high end item you can get +5 weapon permanently.
As said above, paladins who cast divine favor/shield/might and holy sword will take too long to buff.
Not enough spellslots for pve.

I think there could be interesting combinations for 26 pally builds though. 4 spellsword for example and get that massive damage imbue while also gaining access to both divine and arcane magic items.

Bardadins got a buff. namely divine might for greatsword bardadins. But they are still dead to me, since the death of greensteel armors.

What about paladin monk something? Any way that ever works?

[Ork]

Bardadins remain in the top tier. 23/4/3 or 21/6/3 paladins are now near brycer/barbarian/wm tier. Smiters now have a 10-min almost full resto. All paladins with access to aura of glory suddenly become less MAD. All around a great change that will see people building deeper into paladin instead of the 4 level dip.

When as a 23/4/3 you hit 52 AB & 50-60 average damage, you're not in bad shape.

[Hunter548]

It's worth noting that the paladin buff dance is around three-four rounds: Haste potion, Divine Shield, Divine Might, Divine Favor, Holy Sword, II wand or deafening clang as the need may be. That's not much worse than your average WM has as far as pre-fight buffs go, and unlike the WM you have an extra source of healing to help with taking these sorts of steps. You also don't need divine favor every fight.

[Scurvy Cur]

And 2h bardadin remains a bad move. Stop being bad please.

[liver and bones]

And 2h bardadin remains a bad move. Stop being bad please.

With that +4 enhancement and inherent 2H +2AB (assuming they stack), you can just run around with expertise on and be almost equal in AC to the pre-patch pally. very op

[Scurvy Cur]

That's the strength of base bardadin, not the 2h option, and comes out 3 AB lower than the 1h bardadin with no compensatory expertise. Bardadin still wants very badly to use a tower, and using a 2h weapon throws away the strength of the class.

Saying that they get benefits of 2h weapons and that this makes them good is like saying that 2h PM builds are good because they get a bit more damage and AB; when AC has increasing marginal returns on investment, throwing away 6 points on a build that can reach mid 70s AC is categorically bad.

[High Primate]

Hopefully it is a prelude to more buffs. Paladins do significantly suffer off having to buff constantly, whereas another class could do the same and have more damage.

I mean, so do a lot of clerics, Bards, Cha Blackguards, and lots of other classes and build types. That's not the sort of thing that justifies a buff, to my mind. The perks of activating these classes' abilities more than justifies the wind-up time.

23/4/3 or 21/6/3 paladins are now near brycer/barbarian/wm tier.

A bit off topic, but why are you including WM in there? The standard 21/4/3 (edit: 20/7/3) scimitar build is most certainly S-tier, and a Bardadin has good reason to fear it.

And 2h bardadin remains a bad move. Stop being bad please.

With that +4 enhancement and inherent 2H +2AB (assuming they stack), you can just run around with expertise on and be almost equal in AC to the pre-patch pally. very op

Going 2H on a Bardadin is a bad idea and not OP. One of the Bardadin's signature gimmicks is being able to buff its AC to very high levels. You don't have that AC with a two-handed weapon, so now you're forced to run around in improved expertise, which stills gives you anti-climactic AC and a -10 attack bonus. All of this requires you to buff first, of course, to less than stellar results.

[Ork]

23/4/3 or 21/6/3 paladins are now near brycer/barbarian/wm tier.

A bit off topic, but why are you including WM in there? The standard 21/4/3 scimitar build is most certainly S-tier, and a Bardadin has good reason to fear it.

Little confused about what you're asking. What 21/4/3 build? That's 2 levels short of 30.

[High Primate]

Oops, I mean 20/7/3. Brain fart.

[Ork]

Oops, I mean 21/7/3. Brain fart.

Paladin 21? It's good, but it's not gonna hit 70+ ac bardadin.

[High Primate]

20/7/3 FTR/WM/Rogue scimitar wielder. Sorry, I forgot to more thoroughly edit that post.