Idea for Sun Paladins, and how to make them more interesting

[Thomas]

Hey guys ^^

I had an idea for SP's. In my opinion they are a bit restricted at the moment. You don't have enough spells to be a caster, or the weapon abilities to wreck with a 2h, you're just a tank, that bashes people with a shield, shoots a bit of light damage, heals a lot, and doesn't die very often. That's about it. Although it's possible to do other things with them, it's not very good. I managed to clear nightmare with a 2h instead of a shield, but it was a) really boring because of the limited amount of skills I could use and b) really, brain-meltingly hard.

Some of the current talents work really well with 2h. Wave of power is great, a long range nuke that scales well with weapon damage and range which increases with Str. Crusade is BIG damage with a 2h. Weapon of Light could be much better if it did more damage while wielding a 2h!

So, my idea is to add a new 2h tree to the class. The first talent could be a pretty generic 1xx% weapon damage, low cd, with a debuff, like stunning blow, but maybe blind instead of stun because you can infuse your hammer (or whatever) with light. One of the talents that I think would make the class MUCH more interesting, involves a weapon quick swap, probably as the last talent at talent lvl 5. Or, maybe, similar to the regen gaining a turn with Fungus, you gain 50(lvl1)-90(lvl5)% of a turn when you swap between your weapon sets. Something to think about. Being able to swap between your 2h and your 1h/shield will add a lot more button pressing, a lot more strategic thinking, and a lot more interest to the class, especially if there are a few more 2h abilities to mess around with. edit: The reasoning behind this is so you can still use all the shield talents, and have the defensive benefits that shields allow you, whilst also being able to whip out a 2h and get some decent damage out.

Maybe that would be too overpowered? Or just too silly. I really think it would help the SP's out. They need a bit of love, in one way or another. And I think it's pretty legit that they can bust around with a 2h. My 2c.

Feel free to shut me down on this one ;D

[HousePet]

Why would you want to switch between two different weapon sets?

[Thomas]

For switching between 2h and 1h/shield so you can make the most of having the extra 2h abilities!!

[Thomas]

Sorry, I wasn't actually very clear in my first post.

The idea was to be able to use both 1h/shield for all the benefits and talents that those bring, and be able to swap quickly to a 2h when you needed to get some big damage out.

[HousePet]

But you can do massive damage fine with sword and shield already.

[Doctornull]

swap quickly to a 2h when you needed to get some big damage out.

Assault is fantastic damage.

[bpat]

A while ago someone suggested that Sun Paladins start with access to the Exotic Weapons Mastery so they can use tridents. I think giving Sun Paladins a new 2-handed weapons tree and access to Exotic Weapons Mastery could make them a much more interesting and powerful class. This would definitely not make them overpowered since Sun Paladins are fairly weak at the moment due to a serious lack of mobility and low damage for melee (really, the only thing they beat Bulwarks in is defense and range). This would help give them comparable offense to other shield classes like Bulwark and Stone Warden and make them a much more interesting and flexible class.

[Thomas]

Assault is fantastic damage.

You're right, it is, but imagine following it up with a 2h Crusade, rather than just waiting for it to come off cd? Maybe you just assaulted some poor soul, only to have a Corruptor spamming your ass with random blight crap. What can you do? Switch to your 2h, rush him, and Crusade his face off.
I just find SP's, as they are, a bit boring. Adding the incentive to switch between weapons to use different skills and to increase your damage output could really improve their whole mechanic. I am a bit biased towards 2h use, sure, but I really think it'd make the class more enjoyable.

[HousePet]

Adding more flexibility to go more melee or more castery would be better.

[Mankeli]

Sun paladin's would be more interesting if positive energy didn't decay over time.

Yeah, you can use autocast but that's like suggesting a person who is hitting his head on to a wall to use a band aid if he bleeds instead of suggesting him to stop hitting his head on to a wall in the first place.

EDIT. I would also like to see pretty much all the needed-for-optimal-play-but-extremely-tedious-to-use-all-the-time mechanics/talents (hello, track, arcane eye, precocgnition) go but that's probably its own thread .

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

If you're casting spells to soften enemies up, you already do a good job of keeping light up over time, making autocast not as big a deal as it is with anorithil. I wouldn't say it needs a huge adjustment, though given that unlike anorithil, it actually USES it's light, maybe a talent that slowed the decay would help.

As for the rest, the midnight addon does a fair bit of modification (inlcuding some new castery stuff) but doesn't jump to 2handers. Losing second life would be a gigantic nerf. And quick swaps are the province of Twardens, not likely to get that on sunpally.

More variety in build type is always good though. If nothing else, this could make an interesting addon.

[tanku]

Or maybe just give Sun Paladins unique ability to wield Two-Handers in one hand. This effect could be connected to Weapon of light skill. This could work well with suggestion that they could start with Exotic Weapon Master and wield Tridents with Shields.

[malboro_urchin]

I would really like to see Sun Paladins get more caster options. It'd be really interesting to be able to wield a 2h weapon in 1 hand, something that currently doesn't exist in ToME, especially with a staff and more holy nukes in the Sun pally's arsenal.

[tanku]

I made an addon for testing some of this ideas: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=40595