Lightning Paladin through 0.83 Story Feedback

[gatinyo]

I ran from Chapter 4 through end of Chapter 9 on a Paladin today, speccing into lightning Javelin. Some of my general impressions:

• New enemy types and boss fights: YES, I love seeing so many cool new enemies. An ARPG could never have enough enemies. If you expand the game for years to come, please keep people hired to design new enemies along the way. Yes yes yes!

• The illumination of enemies makes them stand out better than before, without making them comic-y like Diablo 3. I think this game currently has the best clarity in environment, enemy, skill telegraphs and overall combined immersion fantasy of D3, GD, POE, Wolcen.

• I’m loving the story.

• I appreciated the detailed patch notes and philosophy.

• Controller support: I like the strides here. I sense multiplayer controller support and targeting allies is a sticking point as of now – example, Rip Blood modified to cast on minions only is still a mess.

Sentinel Paladin LightningJava Fantasy
I’m speaking to getting TO endgame and some impressions of how fun it may be in echos and arenas.

• Love the overall javelin fantasy and the lightning conversions.

• Hitbox of javelin feels laughably small as baseline considering it’s such an intimidating animation.

• It feels like there are big lulls in the middle and late Paladin passive tree for impactful DPS for lightning. Feels different than the other classes I’ve played like Sorceror, Necromancer.

• I started off with Throwing Damage and Mana Reduction affixes, and beelined for Divine fury for those sweet chaining javelins. Wow the mana cost is punishing especially if you invest extra points!! Brutal. I think this will feel even worse on arena wave clear compared to other uncapped classes. Basically… I feel like I’m speccing into a mode that is weaker in sustain for single target, or not able to wave clear enemies. Compared to more robust skills available to other classes, this feels awkward.

• Synergizing other abilities with Javelin feels clunky. Sigils of Hope has juicy benefits, but no matter how I tried to spec it, I felt it was clunky to cast, or too mana-expensive (very punishing to javelin customization). I wish I had a movement ability that didn’t depend on an enemy (Volatile Reversal doesn’t count), that way I could stay at range easier sometimes. I hate how Smite is tempting in being useful but is a spell and scales with Attunement. Holy Aura is just right, though – fair? mana expenditure and insta-cast.

• I felt like I deserved a PhD finally understanding how to build damage for javelin.

[gatinyo]

Additional raw feedback/opinions as I’ve progressed in echos:

• Controller with javelin doesn’t feel great. Doesn’t aim well at long range. Lunge likes to hit breakables instead of enemies. Slower hitting ranged skills in general seem to be less fun with controllers at the moment. Controller target doesn’t pick up a ranged enemy at the edge that would make a juicy tactical target? Mana gone, wait just one second to try again! Probably will miss again unless you get closer, though. I don’t have much luck utilizing the Forceful Hurl stand-still skill node.
• Stand by my clunky synergies comments… after experimenting on my own, I used build guides to find things that “work” but it just feels like pieces do not fit together smoothly. I recognize this is subjective but hey it’s feedback!
• Trying out different versions of Javelin to use was not fun for me during the story and on the way to level 20 in the skills. Respeccing a few points could sometimes not even give me an exp boost to get back to where I was! Experimenter’s remorse?
• Paladin tankiness feels way better than my sorc and necro, with EHP and regen and benefits like status effects cleanse-- not trying to overlook that in balance.

Things I wish I had an indicator for (would affect my tactical decision-making):

• Stacks of Forceful Hurl
• Icon for Holy Aura’s active (the visual on my character gets lost in the shuffle)
• Smite’s buffs (whatever I picked) being in effect

P.S. I’m having lots of fun trying to explore my own way of having fun with this version of Paladin!