Unofficial 2.8 patch changes for paladin skills by Zax

General Discussion
1

Hey, as I am being bored with waiting for season I decided to make list of changes I would like to see for paladin skills in one of future patches.

There are various changes made to better balance skills with synergies, making certain skill viable for active usage and yes I nerfed blessed hammer :). Paladin auras are powerfull skills, thats why everyone love to use them on equip, but Paladin itself often has no reason to actualy invest skill points in many of them. I wanted to change that with adding few passive bonuses to some of them.

I also have note after every change with some reasoning why i did it.

Let me know what you think and if you have maybe some other ideas for better skill balance of paladin.

Btw i actualy modded all these changes into my offline game and I play with all these changes so if anyone would like to play with these, let me know and i can provide files to mod your offline game.

COMBAT SKILLS:

Sacrifice:

  • Always hits
  • Enhanced damage synergy from Fanaticism removed
  • Enhanced synergy from Redemption increased from 15% to 20%
  • New synergy from Sanctuary +2% Magic Damage Per Level

Note: Sacrifice is now getting signficant magic damage bonus from Sanctuary and getting also always hits to compensate for self damage on it and for skill being single target ability.

Vengeance

  • Mana cost decreased to 1 for all skill levels
  • Synergy from Resist auras increased to 15% from 10%
  • Synergy from Salvation aura increased from 2% to 5%
  • Elemental damage per level increased from 6% to 10%

Note: Vengeance is quite unused skill for several reasons so I improved elemental damage increase and synergies and also significantly lowered cost of skill because thats probably biggest turn off when you gain the skill for the first time as its way too expensive to use for skill being single target ability.

Conversion

  • No change

Note: There is no change to Conversion, but thanks to changes to Thorns skill, Conversion works quite well with it as viable fun build.

Holy Bolt

  • New synergy from Sanctuary +20% Magic damage per level

Note: Holy bolt got some improvements in newer versions of game but damage was significantly also nerfed because it lost one synergy. So now synergy is back just not in full power to compesate for Holy Bolt pierce buff to not make skill too op.

Blessed Hammer

  • Damage synergy from Blessed Aim removed
  • New damage synergy from Sanctuary
  • Damage synergies increased to 15%
  • Mana cost at level 1 decreased from 5 to 2
  • Effective damage bonus from Concentration aura halved

Note: Blessed hammer got several changes. Mana cost is decreased for level 1 so skill can be used confortably from lower levels. Synergies were replaced because Blessed aim doesnt really make sense as synergy to Blessed hammer and BH also got nerf by decreasing strength of Concentration aura.

Fist of Heavens

  • Damage synergy from Holy Shock replaced with Salvation
  • Lightning damage synergy increased from 7% to 15%
  • Base mana cost lowered from 25 to 10 and increasing by +0,75 mana every skill level

Note: Lightning damage was slightly increased as its only doing single target damage and only way to kill Animal type monsters for FoH build. Mana cost was significantly decreased for eary levels so skill can be more confortably used. Also Synergy was replaced with Salvation because investement in Holy shock is quite pointless for FoH build.

Smite

  • Mana cost at level 1 decreased from 2 to 0,5
  • Mana cost increasing per skill level by +0,125

Note: Smite is not really strong skill on lower levels so Mana cost was decreased so it can be used more often comfortably. Mana cost will slowly increase with skill level to reflect skill to be stronger later on.

Charge

  • Always hits
  • Mana cost decreased from 9 to 5 and increasing every level by +0,25 mana
  • New synergy from Sanctuary +1% Magic Damage Per Level

Note: Charge got some improvements so it can be used more frequently and with higher chance to actualy hit the target. It also now gains additonal Magic damage synergy from Sanctuary aura.

Holy Shield

  • Basic mana cost lowered from 35 to 20 and increasing by +1 mana every level
  • Holy Shield + Shield damage increased by ± 1/3

Note: Initial mana cost was significantly decreased to give player chance to use skill more frequently as it doesnt last very long on low levels. Damage was also slightly increased as Smite which benefits from Holy Shield is single target skill and doesnt provide that high damage without usage of +damage items like Grief.

OFFENSIVE AURAS:

Might

  • New passive bonus +3 Strength for every invested skill point

Note: Might is kind of left out aura because of lower damage increase. Concentration and Fanaticism increase damage more and on top of it they have special effects like +Attack speed for example. So to give Might something interesting to make it viable option, it now has passive bonus to strength.

Blessed Aim

  • Initian active attack ratting bonus increased from 75% to 100%
  • Active bonus to attack ratting increased from 15% to 25%
  • Passive bonus to attack ratting increased from 5% to 15%
  • New +% enhanced damage bonus +5% at level 1 and +3% every skill level

Note: Blessed aura is used for one thing only, attack ratting and mostly just in form of mercenary instead of investing point in it (unless you are hammerdin but for him is aura completely useless). There are really better auras to use activively with attack skills, so I gave some enhanced damage bonus to it and increased passive effect of aura to make it little bit more desirable skill to invest skill points for some builds.

Holy Fire

  • Holy Fire no longer need skill point in Might
  • Holy Fire gains +20% attack ratting at level 1 and +10% every skill level
  • Holy Fire gains synergy -5% enemy fire resistance per skill point from Salvation

Note: Holy fire is amazing skill for start of game but it starts to seriously struggle at nightmare, mostly because immune and resistant monsters resulting in lower damage output and there is also issue with attack ratting for Holy Fire build as 3 skills for skill investment to increase danage of holy fire dont help with that any aby way. Thats why now holy fire provide attack ratting bonus and - enemy resistance synergyshould significantly improve viability of build on nightmare and hell. Effect of aura can break immunity.

Holy Freeze

  • Holy Freeze no longer need skill point in Holy Fire
  • Holy Freeze gains +20% attack ratting at level 1 and +10% every skill level
  • Holy Freeze gains synergy -5% enemy cold resistance per skill point from Salvation

Note: Holy Freeze face same issues as Holy Fire so reason for changes is identical.

Holy Shock

  • Holy Shock no longer need skill point in Holy Freeze
  • Holy Shock gains +20% attack ratting at level 1 and +10% every skill level
  • Holy Shock gains synergy -5% enemy lightning resistance per skill point from Salvation

Note: Holy Shock face same issues as Holy Fire and Holy Freeze so reason for changes is identical. Decent damage output of Holy Shock last longer than Holy fire and Holy freeze, but eventualy it faces same issues on hell so changes are same as to other holy auras.

Thorns

  • Damage increased from skill levels above 23 and 29
  • New +7% damage synergy from Sacrifice
  • New +23% damage synergy from Conversion

Note: Thorns is quite unused as Active paladin aura. So I decided to actualy make fun interesting build out of it. Aura with two new synergies now provide very decent damage and can be used quite effectively together with skill Conversion which is also highly unused skill.

Sanctuary

  • Damage synergy from Cleansing removed
  • Damage synergy added from Holy Bolt and Fist of Heavens
  • Damage synergies from FoH and Holy Bolt increased from 7% to 12%

Note: some changes to synergies were made to increase damage of aura and also to remove cleansing as it made no sense as synergy to Sanctuary.

DEFENSIVE AURAS:

Salvation

  • Every invested point newly adds +1% passive Fire/Cold/Lightning resistance
  • Description of skill changed to properly match the fact that only Fire, Cold and Lightning resistance is actualy increased by the Salvation skill.

**Note:**Salvation is mostly just one point wonder skill for paladin so I wanted it to provide something for skill investment as other resist auras also have passive effects.

Cleansing

  • New passive bonus +1% Max Poison Resist per invested skill point
  • New passive bonus +2% Poison Resist per invested skill point

Note: another one point wonder skill pretty much so new change will provide decent bonus for investing some skill points in it.

Meditation

  • New passive bonus +5% Mana Recovery Rate per invested skill point

Note: Meditation is amazing aura but its rarely used as active oura outside of group play. So I added small passive bonus to actualy reward investing skill points in it.

EDIT:

  • I am unsure if Holy fire and Holy Freeze need some balance changes in synergies for damage, maybe buff holy freeze in late game slightly and nerf holy fire on low levels?
  • I am aware of Auradin using aura runewords with Holy Fire and Holy Shock getting significant buff with presented changes. My solution to that would be to change Holy auras from equip to not use - enemy res synergy from Salvation.
2 Likes
2

As if paladin needed more buffs

2 Likes
3

Just because class has one or two op builds doesnt mean it doesnt deserve changes to make other skill more viable to give players more options how to play the class instead of going just hammerdin or smitter for ubers.

2 Likes
4

Ahh I love these times before start of the new season, people are so hyped and full of hope. This is Blizzard. Don’t expect major changes, and you won’t be disappointed.

2 Likes
5

Interesting ideas. Got no issue with Sacrifice since I never use it. The issue I have with Vengeance is not so much the Mana cost(although it can be an issue at higher levels) but more so the skill point investment. You have to dump 100 points just to maximize Vengeance, leaving very little for Conviction and other skills. It would be best to simply remove the Resist aura’s from the synergy and greatly bumping Salvation’s bonus to compensate.

For Holy Bolt, the change towards it affecting Demons was the single biggest buff it could receive besides it piercing enemies. I don’t see it needing roughly a 40% damage boost(1000% synergy → 1400% synergy) given that it does quite well on P1-P3 difficulties as it stands right now.

For Blessed Hammer… this is going to be a rather thorny issue. Hammerdins are a broken build, although Mosaic Assassins might have claim to the throne now when you factor in Sunder Charms and pure AoE Elemental damage. For Blessed Hammer synergies, I find that they should be Cleansing Aura(Defensive) and Sanctuary Aura(Offensive) and increased to 25% per point(from 14%). That’d equate to 1000% synergy bonus that would yield a 78% increase in damage. As a consequence though, Blessed Hammer would lose its buff from Concentration aura, dropping Hammer damage by a solid margin(easily in half when Hammerdins do 11k-14k depending on level). Not even factoring in the loss in Physical Damage for A2 Mercenaries either, although the freedom to roll w/e aura would certainly be a breath of fresh air.

As for FoH, it’s composed of two attacks. The first part is a Lightning attack, hence the Holy Shock synergy makes sense. Increasing the Lightning Damage synergy has PvP repercussions given how easy it is to cast(delay reduced to 10 frames from 25 and its virtually unavoidable). I know how much of a pain Animal/Beast is to FoHdins but I find it to be a small price to pay given the AoE benefits of the secondary Holy Bolt component. Plus your Mana changes will impact PvP too since a higher Mana cost = less casts.

For Charge… I don’t think having it always hit is such a good idea. You already have that with Smite and adding Charge is like… massive overkill.

Might aura is an interesting suggestion but a no-go for me. Makes equipping Mercenaries that much easier and does this passive perk apply to anyone under its effects? Meaning I hire a Might Merc and boom I get free Strength? Crushing Blow would have probably been a better option.

Blessed Aim didn’t really need an Attack Rating buff from a % perspective but rather a flat integer bonus would do wonders. If we could get +20 to Attack Rating per level(+400 at level 20) on top of a %Attack Rating increase would do so much for the aura. Granted your point about it being relegated to Mercenary role is simply due to Fanaticism having Skill IAS. %Deadly Strike would do more than %Enhanced Damage in my mind.

Holy Fire/Freeze/Shock ideas are interesting to say the least but I find that when it comes to breaking immunities, I feel it should still be relegated to Conviction + Lower Resist. Doesn’t mean you can’t add -Enemy Resistance to your attacks though.

Salvation suggestion is unclear but I suspect its a flat bonus to our Resistance similar to the Anya quest(hence 20 points = +20 FCL Resistance). Not sure if Salvation really needs that in all honesty. Cleansing suggestion needs tweaking: Maximum Poison Resistance passively increased by 0.5 per hard point, Max Poison Resistance increased by 1 per level while active. Meaning a level 17 Cleansing Aura via Plague runeword = +17 to Poison Resistance cap or can have 92 Poison Resistance. That combined with the Curse/Poison duration reduction would turn Cleansing into a godly aura and would make Cure/Plague that much stronger.

Meditation doesn’t need the passive bonus. I run Meditation alot and if not it’s always on a Mercenary due to how strong it happens to be.

6

I have no time now to describe everything but most of these changes are weire new or unnecessary things.
Like holy fire not requiring might aura, holy shock not a synergy to foh? Why? Its a perfect logic.

7

I will consider that.

I used to love using holy bolt to do pindle run quite comfortably so huge nerf to dmg wasnt something i liked. I dont think it needed the pierce as people use foh as main area dmg dealer anywayso i feel like holy bolt can do more dmg because its still has limited use as it does nothing to animal type of monsters. Difference in dmg with my buff on higher lebel is like +2000 dmg or something like that, i can share exact numbers when i will be home.

Your solution does sound reasonable but issue is that if concentration is not used for hammerdin, it becomes useless as why would you ever use concentration over fanaticism? I think my solution is honestly better, it keep the full combat skill+ aura build intact but lowers the dmg.

Dmg buff after pvp penalition is not really that signifucant. Synergy from holyshock doesnt make sense for me, because its not aura you would use with foh build i think. And mana cost is lower only at low levels of skill, then it goes up.

I dont think so because charge can have pretty long animation cast based on distance and it has complicated use as you cant use it repeatedly on same monster without repositioning. I mean there is readon that nobody use the skill in pvm.

No, its basicly just buff to paladin only, its passive boost like for example passive boost for blessed aim. Merc is not affected by it i belive as he doesnt invest points in skill exactly. But i might be wrong on this. I will have to check. Either way it would be bonus just for him, its not transfered by aura. Only hard point in skill gives that bonus to user. Even if it was provided to mercenary, its just one type and he has strength to use pretty much anything anyway.

Good idea maybe i will replace it with durect attack ratting instead of %. Deadlystrike sound interesting, you would use it as aura effect or passive effect for invested points?

Yes, but you cant use holy auras and conviction at the same time as paladin. Conviction aura is one of the most powerfull skills in game but for paladin itself it quite useless for active usage unless you are foh paladin or avenger nobody plays. I can tell you that holy elemental aura paladins are so fun to play with this change as i made this adjustement some time ago.

Yes, you invest 20 points, you gain +20 fire cold light res forever no matter if you use aura or not. Casters have easier time to avoid elememtal attacks than melee fighters so i think its nice addition to avenger who will fully develop salvation but dont use it as active aura. So he has still some bonus from it and not just damage.

It doesnt, bonuses i suggested are passive effects from investing points in it. Also its 2% per invested point, so max you get from fullydeveloping cleansing is +40% poison resist.

Thats why i gave it passive bonus, its kind of sad that you would rather use item with meditation than actualy developing that skill. Thats i wanted to give it something as its worth investing if you have some skill points to spare on some builds.

Why would you want to invest in might as holy fire paladin? Or to holy freeze as holyshock paladin? Current skill connections kind of doesnt make sebse in most cases. I actuaky forgot to mention this on many other skills, i will edit it later today.

How is that logical? If you play foh paladin, you use conviction, you dont use holyshock. So it doesnt make a lot of sense to use it as synergy to me.

8

Sacrifice changes looks pretty good. I don’t like Always hits. Not sure how that % magic works, if thats Conversion like Berserk or just added bonus.

Vengeance I think the mana should not be so low, but also not as high as it is now. 4-5 mana seems fitting for me. I would like to see Vengeance having AoE on 3rd hit, but thats just me. I would remove Salvation synergy, leave just those 3 specific element ones.

Holy bolt NO. Its good as it is now, no buff no nerf.

Blessed hammer I would not decrease mana. Dmg nerf makes it half like its currently? than its good.

FoH I would not change a thing
Smite I don’t like that it Always hits.
Charge Again I dont like Always hits. Also not fitting to have Magic dmg synergy.
Holy shield seems good.

Might aura I dont get how +3 str would incentivize its primary use. Maybe only helping Act2 might merc equip Colossus Voulge with high str. req. Also this aura is kinda better be left how it is, since its one of the strongest Unique monster mods that can roll.

Blessed aim seems good.

Holy fire/freeze/shock I personally dont like skills like this that kills everything with ease on Normal,Nightmare. I personally think all these Aura pulse dmg should apply -5% resist debuff on monster. And to be slayed primarily by melee hits of Holy fire dmg.

Thorns I think Open wounds synergy would work better to stop healing of monsters. Makes thematic sense to get bleeding from thorns.

Sanctuary this aura is great from Lawbringer/Azurewrath for barb and I won’t touch it there. But for Paladin primary use its hard to make it good since its Undead-only. A synergy to enable it to work against Demons in partial strength could be better in my eyes. Like 2,5% effectiveness / synergy point. So in maxed 20 point synergy it gives 50% Ignore physical res and 50% of enhanced dmg the aura has against undead. 100% physical resistant Demon would be 50% resistant in the end.

Salvation 0,5% seems more fitting.
Cleansing seems good.
Meditation increasing FCR maybe would incentivize more for Holy bolt/FoH paladin.

Overall from the changes you made I have more of a feeling of “change for sake of change”. I like if skills, items builds overall excel at /p3 difficulty and struggle at least a bit at /p8 in the end maxed gear and skills.

Focus should be on skills that are not used and you rarely see in public game someone play a build with the skill. Buffs to those skills are reasonable.
Also focus could be on skills that overperform and you see those builds everywhere. Like hammerdins in paladin case. Also demonstrated by MrLama how it can clear /p16+ settings in his recent ideo. Its stupid. They deserve nerfing.

1 Like
9

Same as berserk.

I had initialy idea to add maba cost on conviction. Maybe 1 is too low as cost, i can raise to 2 but i would not like to go higher honestly.

In a way its better but also worse, i honestly hated dmg drop after changes, thats why i want to improve it back.

I dud countless if character runs and its not fun to play hammerdin early because of mana cost. Thats why everyone is respecing at baalruns. I wanted to improve game of build early.

The issue is that no matter how powerfull smitter is, it is still only single target ability and not having it as always would make skill quite bad.

My point with adding magic synergy to single target attacks like sacrifice and charge was to help melee builds with physical immune monsters when they do playthrough. I have played with this change to charge and its a lot more fun skill to use in pvm. Its not too op because its still single target skill which has quite low dps per second.

Well if you already invested 20 points in might, would you still use fanaticism instead? I guess it depends on build as some can afford it maybe. Do you have some better idea how to make people use it over fanaticism or concentration? Should i add deadly strike % as actuve bonus to it?

I agree that weapon attack should provide main portion of damage, you feel like currently these auras do most damage in area dmg on higher skill levels on hell? They do good damage in close proximity but not so good far away. Not talking about auradin using runewords with auras, i consider that terrible design btw.

You have no idea how fun and effective is thorns build with my change :).

Problem with open wounds is that it does slow weak dmg. And its doesnt stack. Your idea make sense thematicaly but practice use wouldn’t be that good.

I will see if i can do sonething more with that aura.

Inst that too low tho? Just +10% all res for investing 20 points?

1 Like
10

Vengeance. I chugged mana potions left and right. Less so with 5%mana leech ring. Even maxed skill mana cost it was doable. Although annoying. I think mana cost as high as 4 is same as barb Berserk has. And it has similar strength when coupled with Conviction. Thats why I think its solid mana cost.

I was thinking about deadly too. But it would have to be only Aura wearer to get that bonus. Cant imagine Deadly strike might aura monster pack. Also act 2 might merc would be even stronger and meta. Not sure how to make it on par with Fana/Conc, while not messing up monsters, merc.

I didnt mean that as main dmg portion, but to stop monsters from regenerating health, which is quite massive sometimes. The over time dmg is just like bonus, also its independent of skill level, but char lvl.

Ah probably true. I misunderstood that as passive +max resist.

Anyways. Some changes I disagree because they feel way off. I must feel the stable game from it to like it. And I mostly feel like its all a mod when too many radical changes are present. Hope I expressed the feeling right.

1 Like
11

Fanaticism is a top aura for ANY class because it has Skill IAS. Only three skills in the game have it: Burst of Speed(Assassin + new Hustle runeword), Frenzy(Barbarian only) and Fanaticism aura(Paladin + Beast + Faith runewords). Since Skill IAS is so hard to come by, Fanaticism is by default the go-to pick given the circumstances and that’s ignoring the %Enhanced Damage and Attack Rating perks that come with it as a level 30 skill. Having Skill IAS from Fanaticism makes it incredibly easy to hit max attack speed or offsetting any potential debuffs(like Holy Freeze or Decrepify).

Removing Concentration aura from Blessed Hammer wouldn’t be the end of the world for it. It is 50% stronger than Might aura at the same level while yielding an uninterruptible benefit to attacks. If that secondary benefit were increased substantially(perhaps allowing those affected to bypass “Monster Block” or Block of enemy foes), it’d go a long way in boosting the aura’s use beyond Pride/Mist as it is now.

Also my point regarding Might does apply to Mercenaries because Act 2 Merc’s can generate the aura themselves(like with Blessed Aim). Meaning for them specifically, they’d basically be getting free Strength, thereby making them even stronger than they were before. As for the Holy auras, that’s the drawback for Paladins in that they can only have 1 aura active at a time unless its granted via Runeword. You basically have to choose between having a strong Conviction or rolling with Holy Fire/Freeze/Shock and putting Conviction on your Merc to reduce enemy resistance.

1 Like