Paladin DPS

[Severien]

Lets take a look at another prime example of a guild doing EXTREMELY well w/o a paladin. Numinous. They sure have been struggling to progress w/o a paladin.

Lets look at what both these guilds have in common. Wow, whats that... hmm.. Finster and Gankuag.. two good sks.

I think you are wrong here and have provided some quite irrefutable examples.

Well, we basically did tiers 4-8 with no shadowknight. If a specific encounter demanded one, I would box Zeroth. Numinous having no Paladin is a fairly recent issue, and I would say that it hurts us more than not having a shadowknight did. That isn't to say that things have suddenly become impossible for us, but many more encounters demand a paladin than an SK.

I agree with stope that paladins are in no way Needed on raids. and the need goes down as the tiers go up for a few main reasons.

I strongly disagree.

 

[Kirin Folken]

I argee with Miffy/Notpit on this, The Impact a paladin has a on a raid does diminish as your progress throw the raids. The Shadow Knights hate generation and tanking abilites keep the SK a better choice for Raids at the higher tiers over a paladin.

Before the /s 4 nerf Paladins was steping on the toes of SK, after it, paladins have not only become the worst Raid tank (due to mitigation/avoidance and Hate generation) but as parses have been showing fall behind on DPS. Something that Wiz set down during the paladin revamp that we were suppose to be the best at out of the 3 tanks.

Paladins Group Xp wise, yes are doing fine at least in zones were you would be pulling mulitples. Ghot and AoE aggro are the 2 keys to why Paladins do so well in xp groups.

I'm no tier 8+ paladin (we have broken into Tier 7) but even I have noticed as we progress these abilites that paladins always get harped on about, have less and less impact on the Raid.

Some things I would love to see for paladins.

Decrease the stamina drain on guarding Blade.
- /s 3 really doesn't cut it, as we lose aggro generation (due to -haste), and other then single target blind paladins are limited on thier single target aggro generation. With /s 4 crapping out after 30ish seconds it can get dicy holding aggro during raid encounters.

Increase Paladins Melee DPS.
- Paladins only have 3 spells (other then stuns) that cause damage. 2 of Undead Only, the last is a more of a joke spell. It would be to hard to revamp thier spells to give them spell DPS not to mention then you start steping on other Hybird types of DPS. So easyest solution is jsut a bump up in melee DPS.

Revamp /s 7
- Revamp it to... well do something. In its 30 secs stance your lucky to see a proc, and when it does proc it doesn't seem to do much if anything. Turning this stance into a longer lasting stance would help along with increaseing the chance to proc/effect of proc. Some may considered that to much since paladins already have AoE options for aggro control. But remember if the paladin is useing /s 7 to keep aggro on more mobs, thier also NOT useing a tanking stance so will be suffereing more inc DPS. Its a trade off.

Revamp /s 8
- I have never meet any Paladin that ever uses this stance for anything more then a joke here and thier for fun. Damage is capped, and limited in who it targets, as mobs contiune to scale up in power this stance gets even less and less useful.
Turning /s 8 into a DPS stance might be the way to go (keeping the fatigue and huge stamina drain) This would give paladins a general DPS stance /s 5, and a burn stance /s 8.
*note /s 5 I know has been debated on weather it really increase the Paladins DPS all that much, especialy compared to /s 2, so would need looking into.

Don't get me wrong, I think Shadowknights need to have some of thier abilites over hauled as well. But this is a thread about Paladin DPS, not Shadowknight utility.

I would also point out that many shadowknights do not use all the tools thier class has been given (due to public opionion or just miss information). This is something that definitely makes the difference between a ok SK, and a Good Sk.

 

[Severien]

To ignore how many paladin-centric encounters there are in comparison to the 3 or 4 that are specific to shadowknights is either willfully ignorant or simply shows a lack of experience.

 

[Ikaa|LoveYums]

It is important to point out that the quote made by Wiz about pally dps is not gospel, nor did it ever go in, but there was 2 parts to its intent, not just increasing DPS.

 

[Salarus]

Shadowknights can PULL, enough said.

 

[Notpit]

It is important to point out that the quote made by Wiz about pally dps is not gospel, nor did it ever go in, but there was 2 parts to its intent, not just increasing DPS.

Are you talking about SK aggro? As in:

I am going to look into ways to create more need for tanks in general, and look over SK aggro, but Paladins are SUPPOSED to deal more damage than Shadowknights and Warriors now - deal with it.

Or am I way off?

 

[Kirin Folken]

To ignore how many paladin-centric encounters there are in comparison to the 3 or 4 that are specific to shadowknights is either willfully ignorant or simply shows a lack of experience.

Without putting spoilers in can you give examples of all these paladin Centric encounters vs the Shadow Knight ones.


Edit:

 

[Miffy]

I strongly disagree.

Thats nice but with no evidence this is only your opinion nothing else, please explain why you disagree.

It is important to point out that the quote made by Wiz about pally dps is not gospel, nor did it ever go in, but there was 2 parts to its intent, not just increasing DPS.

What was the other part, decreasing tanking ability? because that just went in. Or do you mean increasing the supporting/healing direction of paladins?

And regardless of what Wiz had in mind for the exact roles of the three tanks the current problem in regards to raid roles is that warriors are now clearly the king of mitigation (the main tank) as well as the most dps, shadow knights are the king of grabbing agro (and dropping it if they wanted), paladins are the king of....?

The problem is no other class is going to out tank a warrior, out add manage a shadow knight but there are classes that do everything a paladin can do better barring a few encounters where agroing many low resist mobs is needed. And, as I previously said encounters where there are multiple adds at higher tiers a paladin is often useless because of resists.

Now, there are other classes that have the same plight as paladins by which I mean not being the best at a straightforward role such as tanking or dps, specifically noted by Wiz were the monk/ranger. These two classes can tank moderately well, especially adds, and really have little problem with single target agro because of their dps. They both also always add something in general to a raid because of their substantial dps. I am not saying that rangers/monks tank as well as a paladin but they are pretty close, much closer in tanking to a paladin than a paladin is to their dps. In other words (from what I have seen) a monk/ranger/bard can tank adds and probably be around 20% behind in terms of mitigation/avoidance. But a paladin while out tanking these other classes is always dealing 300-400%+ Less dps. And think about this for a minute, the faster something dies the less heals (mana) are needed. So, as long as your ranger/monk/bard are not splatting very quickly they are much more desirable even on fights that involve adds. And if their are no adds why is a paladin even thought to be Needed so badly? Any class can aux tank, might as well pick the one with the most dps, and there are many superior options for group healing than pally ghots.

 

[Severien]

Thats nice but with no evidence this is only your opinion nothing else, please explain why you disagree.



What was the other part, decreasing tanking ability? because that just went in. Or do you mean increasing the supporting/healing direction of paladins?

And regardless of what Wiz had in mind for the exact roles of the three tanks the current problem in regards to raid roles is that warriors are now clearly the king of mitigation (the main tank) as well as the most dps, shadow knights are the king of grabbing agro (and dropping it if they wanted), paladins are the king of....?

The problem is no other class is going to out tank a warrior, out add manage a shadow knight but there are classes that do everything a paladin can do better barring a few encounters where agroing many low resist mobs is needed. And, as I previously said encounters where there are multiple adds at higher tiers a paladin is often useless because of resists.

Now, there are other classes that have the same plight as paladins by which I mean not being the best at a straightforward role such as tanking or dps, specifically noted by Wiz were the monk/ranger. These two classes can tank moderately well, especially adds, and really have little problem with single target agro because of their dps. They both also always add something in general to a raid because of their substantial dps. I am not saying that rangers/monks tank as well as a paladin but they are pretty close, much closer in tanking to a paladin than a paladin is to their dps. In other words (from what I have seen) a monk/ranger/bard can tank adds and probably be around 20% behind in terms of mitigation/avoidance. But a paladin while out tanking these other classes is always dealing 300-400%+ Less dps. And think about this for a minute, the faster something dies the less heals (mana) are needed. So, as long as your ranger/monk/bard are not splatting very quickly they are much more desirable even on fights that involve adds. And if their are no adds why is a paladin even thought to be Needed so badly? Any class can aux tank, might as well pick the one with the most dps, and there are many superior options for group healing than pally ghots.

I'm not going to go into which encounters are best with which tanks because to do so would spoon-feed part of the strategy to anyone with a little bit of brains.

Paladins are still the masters of AE aggro, which has been their basic role for quite some time. There are not enough highly resistant multi-spawns of adds in the game to make this suddenly less true. You have a very well-defined role in raiding and in grouping in this game (possibly more well-defined than shadowknights), and just because your overpowered stance got a large nerf does not mean you are owed a buff to your class by the staff.

 

[Kirin Folken]

I'm not going to go into which encounters are best with which tanks because to do so would spoon-feed part of the strategy to anyone with a little bit of brains.

Paladins are still the masters of AE aggro, which has been their basic role for quite some time. There are not enough highly resistant multi-spawns of adds in the game to make this suddenly less true. You have a very well-defined role in raiding and in grouping in this game (possibly more well-defined than shadowknights), and just because your overpowered stance got a large nerf does not mean you are owed a buff to your class by the staff.

Could you provide examples and proof? instead of throwing insults.

 

[Gregor]

Without putting spoilers in can you give examples of all these paladin Centric encounters vs the Shadow Knight ones.

There are multiple fights in Thaz, TOT, and IP that almost require you to use either a pally or an sk in some form during the fight. If you don't have the right knight there you can and will wipe to high heaven. Expecially if your gear is right at the intended level. Even some of those fights can be difficult if you try and head butt it w/o the right knight.

No need to name any of them just know those fights are out there. Peeps who have progressed past them or are doing them now know exactly what Ardenn is talking about.

 

[Salarus]

Let's see here. From my own raid experieince, I can think of two, and in both situations you still don't even need a paladin, it's do able with other classes.

Also, the start of this thread was in regard to a post wiz made, about paladin dps. People have backed this up with parses, and then stated conclusions based on the evidence. Re-read what you wrote Ardenn.

You sir, are guilty of a straw man.

 

[Kirin Folken]

I'll take your word on it Gregor

When you say the "right Knight" do you mean the right player, or really a paladin in some vs a Shadow knight? and Vice versa

Edit:
Magina is correct, this thread is not supppose to be about compareing Pals to SK (like it always seems to get turned into anytime a Tank issue is brought up. Hell even in the warrior thread it ended up for a bit as a Pal vs Sk.)

 

[Miffy]

I'm not going to go into which encounters are best with which tanks because to do so would spoon-feed part of the strategy to anyone with a little bit of brains.

Paladins are still the masters of AE agro, which has been their basic role for quite some time. There are not enough highly resistant multi-spawns of adds in the game to make this suddenly less true.

I am not arguing against this, I am just saying that as you go up in tiers, there are less and less. In fact there are only two fights in my current tier and the 4 or so below (that I can remember doing) where a paladin is hands down the best choice because of AE agro. At the first tiers I think there are a few more fights were a bunch of little wiennies spawn and a paladin is good for rounding them up. What you are failing to see though is that I am sure there are fights where you use a paladin's AE agro to grab mobs where a shadow knight or even a warrior/monk/ranger etc could do so almost or just as easily. Where on the other hand at my current tier and in just one zone there are two fights where it is impossible for me to get agro because of resists making a warrior or SK infinitely better than me on these fights. The difference is that before they could fill my role with a little extra effort and now I can never fill their role, this is the problem.

 

[Severien]

Could you provide examples and proof? instead of throwing insults.

Absolutely not, because the staff does not want spoilers to raid encounters posted on the forums.

I am not arguing against this, I am just saying that as you go up in tiers, there are less and less. In fact there are only two fights in my current tier and the 4 or so below (that I can remember doing) where a paladin is hands down the best choice because of AE agro. At the first tiers I think there are a few more fights were a bunch of little wiennies spawn and a paladin is good for rounding them up. What you are failing to see though is that I am sure there are fights where you use a paladin's AE agro to grab mobs where a shadow knight or even a warrior/monk/ranger etc could do so almost or just as easily. Where on the other hand at my current tier and in just one zone there are two fights where it is impossible for me to get agro because of resists making a warrior or SK infinitely better than me on these fights. The difference is that before they could fill my role with a little extra effort and now I can never fill their role, this is the problem.

My current tier = your current tier, and we are currently dealing with the issue of not having an active paladin. I can assure you that it does indeed make life more difficult. If the number of encounters that require a paladin go down over the tiering, its only because there are less fights per tier as you move up.

 

[Notpit]

Gregor, would you say that there are fights that practically require a paladin and NOT a Shadow Knight and that the ratio of SK encounters versus Paladin encounters is slanted heavily toward Paladins?

Not asking for strats. Just interested if this is the case.

Thanks.

 

[Gregor]

On certain encounters a Sk or Pally makes a world of difference. Yeah some you can head butt expecially if your above the intended gear level. However if your right there at the right level some of those fights are pretty much impossible to win w/o the right knight.

And yeah giving out the names pretty much kills part of the learning process. Never fear once you get there you'll see whats happening and figure out why you need the right knight on your next try.

EDIT

I would say honestly there are more fights geared for needing an SK. As in NEEDING one to be there. If you cant swing, and all magic gets resisted, and it's not undead you need the sk for the unresistable hate.

Don't get me wrong here there are many many MANY situations where a Pally saves the asses of healers and casters on raids. They are still by far the absolute king of insta agro control on most fights. When I think of a pally I think of a tank who if beefy enough to take those hits when they grab agro on a bunch of adds at once. I don't think of them as DPS machines. I actually dont think of any tank as a DPS. Thier roles are pretty clear on what they bring to a group or raid.

 

[Kirin Folken]

/sigh ... ok Severin


As Notpit hinted it.. prehaps the issue is not Pal vs Sk but really Pal vs Raid, and Sk vs Raid and Pal vs Enviroment, Sk vs Enviroment.

Edit: dam people are posting rapidly LOL

Gregor: Then your saying any guild that trys to progress throw those tiers without a Paladin and Shadowknight is doomed to failure until they over gear on lesser targets?

 

[Severien]

I disagree with Gregor, I would say that there are more fights that require a paladin than ones that require a Shadowknight. I can only think of 1 fight (tier 6+) in which an SK is absolutely necessary, with 2 others where having one makes the fight several orders of magnitude easier. While I can't think of any fights where having a paladin is *absolutely* dead necessary, there is quite a pile where the fight might as well be in the next tier of difficulty higher if you don't have one.

 

[Kirin Folken]

Well, considering Tiers are a arbitary number that players asign to raid encounters. That line of reasoning doens't really hold much water.

*Staff/Dev may use them a bit losely when designing encounters of roughly equal diff but thier certainly not set in stone.