While @Riley_D noted major changes could happen to these three classes as testing goes on, I see something else. They have created one amazing class!
Please take any criticism as constructive, there’s no salt here, only spice!
The Paladin, who could be balanced, is too strong and too simple/almost boring.
Why is he too strong?
- Big damage, can NUKE by dropping the mic (his hammer) inside a mob.
- Big heals (FULL heal, something like a 10 second cooldown)
- Doesn’t even need AoE to kill several monsters of equal or higher level at once
- Stuns every attack if you are doing it right (never swing hammer, only drop it)
- Competitively the highest mobility class, can teleport up/down certain cliffs without a target(like a warrior charge would) - probably a bug but good mobility regardless.
Why is he too simple?
- Worthless damage without a lightning charge. Fondle your books in between lightning charges
- Reminds me of how it feels to play Musketeer or a fisherman (very slow)
- Swinging is 100% always less efficient/beneficial than dropping/throwing your hammer - unless you are trying to hold on to your full stun for some very rare reason.
- Raising the hammer and touching the ground with the hammer does nothing currently
+++ The rotation of a pally is basically getting 2 charges, dropping the hammer inside the mob, and WAITING for the cooldown for your next charge to go off. Then occasionally using books. This is because without a lightning charge - you hit for like 3 and 4 damage… it’s kind of silly. Sometimes, you might get a free charge.
Overall, the Paladin class has potential on it’s own. However, it needs work to feel like a really complete class without addressing some core issues. I won’t talk about everything here, because I intend to do a separate paladin writeup after beta.
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The Shaman
Has Potential-ish. Too immobile which feels bad man.
Main Problem:
Too immobile, kind of meh. Yes, I know the immobility is obvious. The shaman is supposed to stick near his totems, right? NO. Not completely necessarily. There’s high potential here to have a class that does indeed suffer limited mobility to maximize potential, but can still move around and be efficient.
- Totems are useful
- Immobile
- No weapon aside lobbing balls or “iron manning” (Riley’s words), which are retrieved from a totem. The player is glued to these totems at all times, which kind of is eyy.
Read until the end…
Fireball: Option to remove it (Paladin+Shaman would have a hammer, but this could still be used)
Lightning: Option to remove it (Paladin+Shaman would have a hammer, but this could still be used)
Lava: Keep it
Frost: Keep it
Hex: Keep it
Stun: Change it to AoE then disappear or remove it. Can keep it, since there are diminishing returns anyways…
Shield Totem(not implemented): I see what the goal was here, but possibly remove it. If this shield can BREAK, then possibly it’s more balanced, but it is very strong. However I can also see shamans stacking up multiple anti-ranged totems vs ranged opponents and being 100% immortal. I also wonder how arcane orb would work against this, exploding outside vs touching the shield (etc) or spreading affliction, fire rain, ice lance, and so forth…
Okay. So Paladin and Shaman both have something going for them. What is the merge?
Please factor in that DPS can/would be balanced. Or that maybe not everything here is agreeable, but some of it is eye-to-eye. This doesn’t need to be the exact implementation.
KEEP:
Paladin:
- Paladin’s Hammer
- Paladin’s Hammer Raise AoE (modified)
- Hammer Charges (modified, continue reading)
- Spend a charge (modified)
- MAYBE, keep hammer throw. It’s cool but it generates exploits. And it’s invisible to others players…
Shaman:
- Lava Totem - love it
- Frost Totem - love it
- Hex Totem - ok.
- MAYBE, could live without, Fireball/Lightning but especially the Stun totem
Integrate/modify or remove everything else, like Paladin books, touching the floor with hammer, getting charges from taking dmg, hammer throw.
ADD:
- Healing Totem (imagine the Lava Totem, but pulsed healing instead).
- Strength Totem (imagine the Lava Totem, but pulsed applying the paladin buff instead)
- The ability to hold totems. You can still toss/drop them. That is, as soon as you use the totem it becomes active and you can carry it, moving the effects with you. This also means if you keep the fire/lightning totems, you can tuck away your hammer and lob fireballs as you move. Or you can use a lava totem in your offhand while you swing with your hammer, etc. OR you can carry two AoE effect totems as a walking buff-machine. I would be 100% fine accepting that once a totem is dropped, it can’t be picked up from the floor.
- Raising your hammer has a longer cooldown, the AoE does damage, it gives you charges to your weapon, it buffs your next attack or totem(the final paladin book), and does an AoE slow or stun, much larger radius than it currently has
- The ability to do damage with your hammer normally, not like 3-4 damage.
- The ability to chain-lightning with your hammer. Like warrior charge, pointing your weapon at an enemy while having a weapon charge highlights the enemy. Using the trigger expends a weapon charge to unleash a chain lightning effect first targeting the highlighted enemy, which bounces to up 3 nearby enemies. Holding the trigger will continue to cast this effect and continue expending your charges as long as the target is in-range.
- If you keep hammer throw, throwing your hammer will unleash a lightning AoE around it, hitting creatures very close to the hammer (so you don’t have to hit 100% dead-on).
Now, if you add damage to the hammer without lightning charges or cause the hammer to tiny-AoE(really just a bigger hitbox) while thrown, this makes dropping the hammer do massive damage because it can hit like 10x in a second. So either hammer throw needs to be removed, or this problem needs to be fixed. It is boring not being able to swing or do anything in-between weapon charges though.
Hammer throwing is fun but feels sort of incomplete (the hammer slowly slides/drags on the floor and wobbles in mid air too based on the throw). IT should be a more solid TWHOOMPH after being released, with maybe some script-based spinning rather than the player’s speed/angle when thrown itself(basically taking the players angle for the direction, but correcting itself into a better throw animation after release). The hammer throw has an additional problem, and that is your HP is attached to it. When it’s thrown you can’t see your HP.