Extensive Paladin Changes, Part I

Now, if by some miracle I got to go nuts with paladin design, this is what I'd do. This is pretty crazy wishlist stuff, and is only somewhat balanced, so don't take the numbers for granted when complaining it's overpowered.

1. Remove Flash of Light
2. Change Seal of Light to heal all party members when it procs and add a +heal coefficient.
3. Reduce the effect of +heal on lower ranks of spells.

See here for reasons.

4. Remove Blessing of Salvation and Tranquil Air Totem.

Seriously, how is Salvation balanced? Do paladins suck so much that allowing Alliance dps classes 20-40% higher damage is acceptable?

5. Remove Blessing of Light. Increase the amount Holy Light heals by 200.

This is a silly, pointless, make-work blessing. Since I've already killed Flash of Light, its usefulness is even lower.

6. Make Blessing of Kings and Blessing of Sanctuary trainable.

I've already killed two Blessings, so let's bring down two replacements. Now we have four base Blessings (Blessing of Sanctuary, Kings, Might, Wisdom). As a general theme, I'm going to try for four of everything. I like symmetry.

7. Increase Blessing duration to 15 minutes. Increase Greater Blessing Duration to 1 hour. Double mana costs.

Constantly recasting Blessings every five minutes is just lame. There is no meaningful choice to be made.

8. Reclassify the short term Blessings as "Invocations" (Invocation of Protection, Freedom, Sacrifice). Invocations are tactical buffs, and do not overwrite Blessings or other Invocations.

The biggest downside to using the short term Blessings is that they overwrite the longer Blessings. The longer Blessings are seen as more important, and so short Blessings are only used in very specific situations. Making them Invocations makes them much more usable, and gives the paladin some much needed flexibility.

9. Add a new Invocation, Invocation of Knowledge. 5 minute cooldown. "Whenever target party member casts a spell, the mana cost is deducted from the paladin's mana instead. If the paladin has no mana, cost will be deducted from party member's mana. Lasts 15s."

Why? I need a fourth Invocation, and this seems like a somewhat cool ability. In the same way that Sacrifice shares health, Knowledge shares mana. The actual way it'll probably end up working is something like Illumination, where you get a refund of the mana you spend, and the mana is then deducted from the paladin.

10. Remove Seal of the Crusader as a base Seal.

I'm going to do something with this once I get to talent trees. Plus it leaves me with four base Seals (Seal of Justice, Righteousness, Light, Wisdom).

11. Have Seal of Light and Wisdom's effect be based on weapon damage, like Seal of Command.

We're a melee hybrid, and so our melee skills need to make a difference, even if it is not dps-wise.

12. Change Reckoning as described in this post.

I'm pretty sure my dislike of Reckoning is well known. :)

13. Implement Guard.

I like Guard. Kind of unique tanking mechanism, and fits nicely with our image of protecting the weak.

14. Change Sense Undead to Sense Evil, and allow it to detect demons and undead. Change the warlock's Sense Demon to Sense Outsider, and allow them to detect elementals and demons.

Why not? We can Exorcise things and they can Enslave them. Seems fair enough to me.

Hmm. Okay, 4 Blessings, 4 Seals, 4 Invocations, Reckoning and Guard. Seems like a good start.