Paladin is more of a striker?

[MindWanderer]

I was waiting to see the revised version of Divine Challenge before I posted this, but I've been thinking about it for a while.

A paladin can be a defender, sure. They challenge something and stick around to fight it, doing a modest amount of damage.

Or... you can stick the paladin in the back. The revised Divine Challenge requires them to attack, but it doesn't say from where. You challenge a melee monster and hide behind the "real" defender, shooting a bow or something. You don't get to challenge and run away anymore, but you do get to stay out of harm's way. And the monster either sits there doing nothing or takes 8 damage a round... which is only a little lower than the average damage of your encounter powers, and never misses. And that's on top of your bow potshots. If you have a solid Dex, even a ranger or warlock won't do that much damage except with their dailies (and we know paladins get at least one ranged daily, too!).

You can do even more with multiclassing (like the aforementioned warlock/paladin, or a paladin/ranger), but multiclassing breaks role typing anyway.

Granted, it doesn't work if the opponent has ranged attacks, or can fly/teleport to the back, but this is a strategy rather than a build, so you can go back into "defender mode" in those cases.

Agree/disagree?

 

[Dormain1]

The only problem i see is that DivC is 5 burst centered on Pal, which doesn't give it the range of your normal striker, but I'm sure they will give them a chance to increase it's range like they did with the dragonborns breath

I see the Kender...i mean halfling Paladin using a reach weapon standing behind the fighter yelling "Come get me!" while shooting with daggers or sling

 

[Gloombunny]

If you mark the enemy to do damage to it, then the "real" defender can't mark it, which limits their ability to keep it away from you. (Though maybe not by much in the case of a fighter.)

 

[MerricB]

The problem with this tactic - and it's a fine one - is that it doesn't flow into any of the paladin's other abilities that need you to be adjacent to the enemy. Why not stay up in melee and use your big 2[W] and 3[W] attacks to do even *more* damage to the enemy?

So, I feel the paladin is still *more* of a defender, but can do leader/striker tricks on occasion.

Cheers!

 

[MindWanderer]

The problem with this tactic - and it's a fine one - is that it doesn't flow into any of the paladin's other abilities that need you to be adjacent to the enemy. Why not stay up in melee and use your big 2[W] and 3[W] attacks to do even *more* damage to the enemy?

Let's say [W] is 1d10, being generous. And let's give this sample paladin an 18 Str and a 14 Dex. 2[W]+Str comes out to an average of 15 damage. A longbow shot from this guy does an average of 7.5 damage, for a total of 15.5 damage if they take 8 from Divine Challenge. And while the bow shot is a smidge less likely to hit than the melee attack (probably +4 vs. +5 from what we've seen so far), the Divine Challenge damage is automatic. Plus, you can save your encounter power in case you need it later in the fight.

Now, much of this depends on how the damage scales. We have no idea how or if Divine Challenge damage goes up, and our ideas about how weapon power damage increases are foggy. But for several levels at least, this is possibly a party's most potent way of dealing damage.

 

[Iron Sky]

As long as you have the manpower to spare for 2 defenders... Otherwise whatever you are fighting will just pound the strikers down, or come back to the paladin and take him and the leaders/controllers near him on.

 

[Bandreus]

I don't think this is enything wrong with the pally, but rather a dimostration of the range of several possible tactics different classes will have at their disposal with the new mechanics

Now, much of this depends on how the damage scales. We have no idea how or if Divine Challenge damage goes up, and our ideas about how weapon power damage increases are foggy. But for several levels at least, this is possibly a party's most potent way of dealing damage.

As we allready had exemples regarding other powers, odds are Divine Challenge is going to scale up once for tier, or it will be replaced by a similar, more effective, higher level power

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

I'm bet it's not 8 point of damage. It's probably a typo and it's really 1D8.

Common sense also dictate that the idea of challenging someone and then hiding behind someone else to avoid it is preposterous and the official wording will prevent this.

'For a challenge to be valid you must be the closest enemy of the target' or something along these lines.

The idea is to say : ''Over my dead body'''
Not : ''Catch me if you can.''

 

[Ten]

The idea is to say : ''Over my dead body'''
Not : ''Catch me if you can.''

Why not? Catch me if you can sounds like a challenge to me, especially from a halfling paladin worshiping a trickster god/dess.

I think the core issue here is...why? A paladin is much better served defending. They have the HP and the armor and the healing surges to function as a good defender, using them as a striker seems to waste a LOT of their potential. Even assuming your party has another defender, it may be a little much for him to take all of the punishment when you could spread it around.

Also remember that all your melee abilities may not have the pure damage that this does (And they may or may not, we can't say for sure yet) but they DO have a variety of effects that you are sacrificing. I guess to counter that you could say that you multiclass as ranger and swap out some of those now useless powers for now very useful ones...

But then you are a hybrid striker anyway.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Thing is, this trick isn't really "strikery", you're still using your abilities to make it a worse proposition to attack characters which aren't you, and you still don't have any obvious movement based powers. Ranged Defender, sure, which is a bit wierd, but not Striker.

I'm bet it's not 8 point of damage. It's probably a typo and it's really 1D8.

If it was, they would have changed it or said something about it, I'm fairly sure it's supposted to be 5 + wis/chr.