As a long time era player, I decided to start leveling a paladin on sod and quit within a few hours. Here are my thoughts.
At about level 13 I started doing the defias quests, now normally fighting these mobs can be a little tense, some have spells and nets and kicks, and they run when low hp. At level 13 your character is missing many important tools and your mana normally is quite bad, making it hard to fight multiple.
In sod I was basically 2 shotting every mob. While also staying at nearly full mana with crusader strike.
I would argue that this actually makes the game way less fun. Because before you have to manage your resources and be careful not to pull additional mobs, on sod you just mindlessly run from mob to mob deleting them. Itâs not even about the additional buttons, itâs about removing any tension from the game.
The only thing I will say, is it did feel nice to have an offensive button to press as a paladin, but it just shouldnât effectively give you infinite mana, which literally breaks the games normal rules. And if my damage output is effectly doubled from a single button, mobs should be twice as powerful to retain that tension.
The other runes I had added nothing of value to the game
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I think this less about your thoughts on SoD and more about your thoughts on your experience with Paladin. And frankly a poor perspective.
You know whatâs less fun? Drinking every few mobs. Thereâs no real âresourceâ management in the scope of Vanillas framework other than mana. And Paladins had no real mana management other than BoW or MP5. Ret and Prot arenât running either of those.
Having played a majority of classes, they did well to cover some of the classes weaknesses and, while some were performing better than others, I think generally they did a good job with the Runes helping with that and adding more class flavor to them.
Probably the only real W they get to claim. Now, how to acquire some of these runes is another conversation entirely.
11 Likes
Respectfully, to each their own. I left retail because there is âtoo muchâ going on for my personal taste. Classic is not enough/too slow. SoD has been the goldilocks sweet spot for me and Iâm glad there are plenty of flavors for everyone 
14 Likes
Itâs not about drinking every few mobs, itâs about the actually experience of fighting mobs. If you are smart about mana management you really only need to drink after a multi pull on basically every class.
On era you have to make decisions, do I use judgement and put myself on the 5 second rule, or do I need to regen mana to holy light. On sod I was literally judgement crusader striking every mob and it died and I had full mana and hp.
Also health is a resource. Warrior will often hamstring kite and wait for swing timer, reducing their overall rage (and chance for parry haste) in exchange for taking less damage. Rogue will often gouge/crippling kite, to pool energy, increasing fight duration in exchange for taking less damage
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I enjoyed SoD until they started subtracting what I earned. If your going to give something in runes that take a lot of effort to get dont make it useless in the late game would be my advice it just pisses people off.
I just decided to try SOD also coming from Era. I expect broken and unbalanced. Since SoD is a project. It was either tedious grinding a new alt especially endgame or have fun here. Glad I tried this. Itâs alt and casual friendly.
If I get tired and mad like most, my simple Era toon is always active.
3 Likes
Going to guess you had 1 or more world buffs. Not a SoD thing. That also happens in classic.
The low level runes arenât that strong. Leveling a Warrior in P1 SoD was harder than classic. Mobs had more health than the runes added damage.
sorry dude but people dont really believe u sod isnt that great
Itâs not GREAT but not BAD. Itâs certainly not $90 cash mount bad.
3 Likes
You canât have an objective view of SoD if you stop at lvl 13.
You have a lot of runes available on the starting zone and they all greatly impact your gameplay. I, for one was real happy about it, especially for casters cause I am still traumatized by my priest wand spec leveling. It was so boring, same for paladin. There was no more tension that there is on SoD tbh. Things were just slower.
Now, when you get around lvl 30/40 you start getting that tension back. Your runes are usually not enough to carry you and mobs have a lot more HP since they were based to be faced by characters having the best gear of P1 or P2. When you level in green gear and donât take the time to run BFD or Gnomer to access those gears, it can be pretty difficult.
I have a warrior lvl 34 and I sometimes struggle to kill a bear type mob of my level.
But from what you describe HC SSF would probably be more suited for your taste.
2 Likes
It seems like you enjoy the levling process so why not just stick with Era? You have already tried SoD before so this doesnt make sense
While sod is poopy, itâs still better than era. With era you spend the majority of your time and gameplay sitting on your calves drinking
1 Like
Once you go SOD you cant go back
Too many awesome quality of life improvements and character development.
For example, rogues have a rune called cutthroat that lets them backstab from the front. Once you get use to that, you cant simply go back to regular old backstab in Era
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If you want that experience go fight higher level mobs. This ainât rocket science lol.
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Agreed. They were especially thoughtless about mana. Apparently the devs hate mana like retail players do.
When I played my druid they gave us access to a free (no mana) wrath very early. And you could just spam it in every encounter with 0 thought. Very boring.
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Do we play the same game?
Paladins definitely had resource management. Every class has a mana saving rotation.
If youâre drinking after every few mobs itâs because youâre bad at the gameâŚ
1 Like
You can frame it however which way you want, but mana management is the only resource management in the game and only a few classes did it well.
Thatâs why thereâs things like âoomkinâ. Pull your head out and you might remember how the game was and not how you imagined it to be.
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Thatâs why thereâs things like âoomkinâ.
This is such a late game andy take.
Good players donât have issues with mana in vanilla.
- They manage their 5s rule
- They walk drink
- They donât cast unnecessary spells and gear properly
Removing mana management just makes life easier for noobs by reducing the overall skill cap. You lose the top % of players since the game just became way more boring.
Managing resources and playing optimally is basically the game in pve and leveling - then you play SoD and from lvl 5 paladins are basically killings mobs with zero danger, a zero mana cost yellow attack that RESTORES MANA!!!, and every other class got broken stuff as well.
Buffing classes without buffing enemies ruined SoD from the very start.
4 Likes