Who do you prefer at the moment?
Personally, it’s the priest for me. Why? In short, the skills are better, in my opinion. As a fan of metamorphisizing to get rejuvenating steps, Hallowed Ground is my jam. Holy Lance looks spiffy as well. I haven’t even used it yet because I’ve spent more time playing the paladin—to try and understand how to leverage their skills, since I expected this to be the worse counterpart at the moment.
I’ll outline my beef with paladin talents. Lay on Hands is redundant because Bless+2 mostly outclasses it. And I presume many already invested 2 in to Bless, so why spend 2 or 3 on LoH? Yes, you can stack LoH up to 3 times for major shielding but alternatively, those 1 or 2 charges over a Bless could be used to help finish the boss/champion. LoH also doesn’t give the bless buff which increases accuracy and evasion.
Aura of Protection is nice but again, I tend to defer to Bless; when fighting with a guardian or ghost. You should be avoiding situations where you’re engaging more than one mob at a time and once your companion has the enemy’s attention, you typically don’t need a buff at the same time. You probably have Bless at +2 already and it only costs 1 charge, limiting AoP’s attractiveness.
My main problem with Wall of Light is its cost. It should be buffed to 2. I would opt to use WoL when I can knock a mob down a chasm, but why would I when 2 Sunrays typically do the job for 2 charge? Yes, you can also use the wall to block off an escape but the skill is still very situational—you also can’t control its placement—that I think the charge should be reduced to 2.
And lastly, Smite. I kinda feel like if this was rebalanced to a 1 charge skill, paladin would be much more competitive with the priest. It’s often a 1HKO with heavier weapons, but I find it’s more consistent with Sunrays, or Bless for weaker mobs. Smite shines if you have something like a lucky or projecting weapon, but those are few and far in between.
As a priest, Holy Weapon and Holy Armor are pretty much obsolete, but they’re retained and fairly useful as a paladin. Nevertheless, I’m still squarely team priest, presently.
EDIT: Forgot to mention the challenges I play with, which plays a role in my valuation of different aspects. Hostile champions, badder bosses, on diet, swarm intelligence, forbidden runes.
Lay on Hands is redundant
Lay on Hands is instant cast, half the price, stacks with Bless,
and actually heals allies. It is in no way redundant.I forgot about the insta-cast part, which is useful, but I’m still not convinced it’s a worthwhile investment. Bless also heals your allies and costs the same—only at +3 does Lay on Hands give a bit more than Bless+2.
Ah, yeah, Bless does heal. My bad.
Being able to instantly shield yourself for 60 is really good. Like if you made a mistake and can’t avoid a rockfall or a laser.
I agree that instant cast abilities are versatile and quite helpful particularly in a pinch. I guess my stance is a matter of spartan efficiency; with the challenges and win rate I prefer. Lay on Hands isn’t bad, I just prefer using Bless+2 and am too cheap to spend points on LoH.
Honestly, the priest and cleric in general are very strong in comparison to other classes. Haven’t played paladin, but it looks weaker as you indicate. Bless and prayer is OP same with cleanse
Haven’t tried Cleanse but I’ll take it over Aura of Protection next time. I wanted to try it out since it’s paladin specific but currently Cleanse seems like a better investment.
I agree that there’s not only good defensive talents, but also offensive ones that help the cleric with survivability in the early stages of the game. It’s really the higher number of options to deal with various situations that make it stand out in comparison to other classes.
Definitely depends on what you get. A good weapon with range, speed, or enchantment will give you excellent value out of Holy Weapon and Smite.
But I get it. With Runes on, typically you get best value out of wands and artifacts. I can see why you rate Priest over Pally.
