Dwarf & Storm Giant Paladins

We've got alot of undead running around, and alot of people have complained about Paladins in previous posts. Let's see some dwarf and storm giant paladins. Storm giant paladins will be harder to bash-lock, better to stand up against melees, and dwarf paladins will do better against casters. I know people have been talking about these combos since 1.0, but I don't think they would actually be that overpowered. Storm giant anythings rarely seem to stomp the pbase, and dwarves have a considerible, easy to access vuln.

I really don't see dwarf paladins being balanced.  Storm giant paladin though, sounds yummy.  I'll sign up.

Halfling Paladin.

Grins.

Halflings got nerfed into uselessness. They would be terrible paladins IMO, even worse than a storm giant. Dwarf paladin would probably be strong but the RP doesn't seem right. Personally I don't think dwarves should be commuters of any kind from an RP standpoint.

Halfling are useless now.  Every time I roll one and get hit with a massacre from a punch or a slash or stab I quit.  Nothing should have a vuln as similar and as easy to exploit as an ogre without that ogre hp!

30 minutes ago, Manual Labour said:

Personally I don't think dwarves should be commuters of any kind from an RP standpoint.

Uhh.. what?

Dwarves are a very religious and devote race.

24 minutes ago, Dale said:

Halfling are useless now.  Every time I roll one and get hit with a massacre from a punch or a slash or stab I quit.  Nothing should have a vuln as similar and as easy to exploit as an ogre without that ogre hp!

Halflings got dicked over pretty hard because of how great they were as BLMs. Now, you never see halflings. Even with the recent bonus to their sword/dagger damage, its just not enough. Similar to stone giants. +1 dex just isn't enough to compete with the potential of other races. Which really sucks given the RP that could be done with those races.

elf and drow blms are better than halfer blms ever were.

11 minutes ago, Dale said:

elf and drow blms are better than halfer blms ever were.

Haha. Its not that the race itself is superior, its that the recent change that allowed them to never miss a critical strike made them better than any other blademaster race. That's like saying werebeasts now are better than older werebeasts ever were, lol. Well no shit they're better.

No it's all the added bonuses they received, mastered dodge enhanced stats.  What races get enhanced stats for a class?  Humans and elves, and elves get + 2 stats.  Having basically no vuln, nearly impossible to lag lock completely, the increased int, in fact if you make a drow or elf blm and don't have 1000+ hp you might as well delete, because it's entirely too easy to get.  

Compared to all that the only bonus OLD Halfling blms had over the new elf and drow ones is the ability to be neutral.

I agree that thematically Dwarves are very religious. Classically behind human dwarf is the next most common paladin as well.

I dunno, in every game I ever played dwarves were fighters of some kind usually warriors or berserkers, or rune priests.

If you guys know them as devout and paladinesque from other games or lores so be it.

I mean just from a logical standpoint you would think race that could be a cleric or a warrior should also be able to be a paladin, so that would open up dwarves, halflings and storm giants.

Everquest, WoW, classic DnD, and the upcoming Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen (a love letter to classic EQ from Brad McQuaid) all focus on the martial prowess of Dwarves mixed with their faith to make them perfect paladins. Pathfinder and DnD 4e posterboys for paladins were always dwarves (5e has moved to half orc because...raisins). 

That being said the help file for the FL lore for dwarves does state that they are rarely godlike and mostly atheist. So by FL lore I agree with you.

If halfling blademasters were the problem then halfling bladmasters should of been nerfed, it's already been shown that we're willing to buff race/class combos (see elf/drow blm) why not nerf combos?

Halflings were hardly played outside of blademasters anyway, their nerf wasn't warranted just like the undead buff to be immune to all piercing wasn't warranted.

New races won't spice up Paladins - all that does is result in Paladins with different stats who effectively play the same way current Paladins do.  Paladins need to be spiced up as a class by improving their skill set by giving them a sense of growth or a sense of being able to control combat in an active manner to make them more interesting to play.  New races being Paladins doesn't achieve either.

8 hours ago, Aidon said:

....alot of people have complained about Paladins in previous posts.

Lets get something straight - the fact that "a lot of people" (when it's usually the same person complaining over and over) are complaining (whining) about something, doesn't mean that there is something wrong with it. Complaints usually come when someone sees little PK success with a certain combo and PK success is subject to many variables, the most important of which is player skill.

So unless a player is known to be very skilled in the PK department, I wouldn't take a complaint from him very seriously, especially if such player is well known to be very biased.

Few players whose posts I follow with interest are Chesta, Trick, Celerity and Tassin.

Tassin for example very recently played a very very strong paladin, which basically proves that paladins can be strong in the right hands. Not just that, but the sole fact that a player like tassin decides to roll a paladin and play him seriously, speaks a lot on its own. Players like tassin do not invest in weak combos.

So to summarise:

The fact that "a lot of people" are complaining about paladins doesn't mean they are weak or lacking.

The fact that "a lot of people" are complaining about EQ doesn't mean there's something wrong with it.

3 hours ago, Wade said:

Halflings were hardly played outside of blademasters anyway, their nerf wasn't warranted just like the undead buff to be immune to all piercing wasn't warranted.

+1

4 hours ago, Wade said:

If halfling blademasters were the problem then halfling bladmasters should of been nerfed, it's already been shown that we're willing to buff race/class combos (see elf/drow blm) why not nerf combos?

Halflings were hardly played outside of blademasters anyway, their nerf wasn't warranted just like the undead buff to be immune to all piercing wasn't warranted.

I actually agree on the halfling vuln.

Please suggest a better alternative to help undeads along, if you're so against the changes this staff makes. Seems all I'm seeing lately from a select few people is, "That was a stupid change.. and.." then nothing to support or suggest a different idea or suggestion.

You could definitely bring the suggestions to prayer, but a lot of you are so salty about us lately you prefer to just complain about it ;)

Props to all the people suggesting changes, though. Believe it or not, I read them, and do implement them on one basis or another depending on the change.

Regardless of a class's strength, Paladins are just not very engaging to play. You are always reactive and unable to dictate the flow of combat. Compare to classes such as warriors, shamans, blademasters, battlemages, etc, where each class has a variety of tools at their disposal to adjust depending on which class/race they're facing. The Paladin has three abilities to use in combat: wrath, flamestrike, and flee. Naturally, curing is quite powerful in an attrition battle, but the same can be said for nymph hearts/that cure crit stave (if it's still around).

16 minutes ago, Erelei said:

Please suggest a better alternative to help undeads along, if you're so against the changes this staff makes.

In order to suggest a better alternative, one has to believe that undeads need it. I personally do not think that is the case. The recent buffs they received seem enough of a help. But since you have access to more information than me, lets say you know better and they indeed do need something more - this can easily be achieved by just pumping some of their stats, or, just an idea from the top of my head here, make them ignore bash-like lagging attacks with something like 20% chance.

I feel like unique buffs are the most interesting and when I think of undead I think of something that can be maimed and dismembered and still carry on without much hindrance, unfortunately all characters basically behave this way so the suggestion would have to be slightly different but perhaps a similar type of flair to it.

I'd like to see them get something like the following:

When above 75% hp they take 150% damage, when between 25% and 75% hp they take 100% damage and when below 25% they take 50% damage. This would give them a fairly unique playstyle of wanting to stay relatively low on hp. Perhaps lifedrain could follow the same scale but with healing.

Of course the numbers could be altered to make it more of a buff, but a buff like this introduces an interesting and unique playstyle that other races don't have and increases replayability.

If we want to go full revamp, we could remove their vuln and tweak the scales above to reflect that.

Alternatively, instead of damage increase/reduction it could be chance to hit. An undead at 25% hp could be imagined as having 75% of its body mass destroyed, smaller target = harder to hit.