Sharpedge's PVE Paladin Compendium: (M8 Dev+Prot)

zachwho

I play both, and my GF is my main, there's really no comparison between the two. The OP pally beats him hands down.

Granted my GF is prot spec, turtle reflect, build and my paladin is justice bubble spec. But from my play styles, there's just no comparison.

thefabricant

zachwho said:

I play both, and my GF is my main, there's really no comparison between the two. The OP pally beats him hands down.



Granted my GF is prot spec, turtle reflect, build and my paladin is justice bubble spec. But from my play styles, there's just no comparison.

A SM Conq GF specced purely for damage does more damage then an OP, but very few GF's do that and you cannot really count that as a tank.

mamalion1234

thefabricant said:

2.4: Companions:

For your active companion, you want the one that provides you with the most stats. If you have a lot of currency and can afford rank 10 bondings or higher and a legendary companion, that companion would be an active companion with bonding runestones and a fast attack speed. In this category, I would recommend the lightfoot thief, which is absolutely the best. Second place is shadow demon. However, if you cannot afford what is listed above, then you want an augment for your active companion, the cat and the ioun stone of alure being 2 of the cheaper ones. The gear that you put on your augment should be gear that provides you with stats that you are lacking in, so for paladin, it is probably gear with arp however, with the stronghold boon it is no longer an absolute requirement.

For the companions that are just there for active bonuses, I would recommend poison dot companions for devotion (death slaad is a must have), or the archons. For protection, the yeti and other on damage taken companions are all excellent choices. The archons are also a good choice.

2.5: A Note on Gear Choices:

This goes for both dev and prot and it relates to the stats you stack heavier. There are 2 routes, to stack offensively and take gear that stacks power, recovery, arp and crit, or to stack defensively and take gear that stacks defense, recovery and hitpoints. Although route 1 is more optimal in any premade group, route 2 allows you to do things like tank eCC and to play even more recklessly then you do already. As of such, I went route 2 rather then route 1, however, I do strongly recommend going route 1 unless you, like me, prefer to play incredibly recklessly. (I don't blame you, its fun )

2.6: Comparisons Between dev and prot:

This is the question that most people are probably interested in, how does devotion compare to protection and honestly, my answer is...They both overpowered. Devotion is ridiculous because of how well it synergises with itself, being able to do ridiculous amounts of damage while stacking high survivability and healing when multiple dev pallies are working together. On its own, its able to tank, heal and dps fairly reliably as well, however it cannot make a party invulnerable in the same manner a prot OP can. A prot OP can make parties invulnerable, however, it cannot match the damage output of a dev OP and it does not synergise in the same manner that a dev OP does. The dev OP is the creature of the party, where as the prot OP is the creature the party leaches off of. At the end of the day, I would say pick one off your personal preference. You will have smoother runs with a prot pally then a dev pally, but dev pally seems to be (from personal experience) a whole lot more fun to play.

2.7: Why I consider Justice the best path:

I consider Justice to be the best path because of Vengeful Judge, Echoes of Light and Prism.
Judge Reduces your cooldowns by 35% each time you active it, which is worth:
0.65*CD/(1+Recharge Speed) = CD/(1+New Recharge Speed)
= (1+New Recharge Speed) = (1+Recharge Speed)/0.65
= New Recharge Speed = (1+Recharge Speed)/0.65-1
Which means in the absolute worst case scenario (assuming that you had no recharge speed before) judge is worth:
New Recharge Speed = (1+0)/0.65-1 = 0.53846153846, or 53.846153846% recharge speed increase, which is 10769.2307692 ~ 10800 Recovery.
Therefor, to make up for the lack of judge, you need an additional 10800 recovery, which light cannot provide.

Prism is also irreplaceable because unlike most heals in the game, its preventative (always trying to heal allies) rather then reactive (only trying to heal allies when they take damage). This means that the very moment an ally takes damage, they back to full life and it also means that light will never be better at healing then Justice because it can only react to damage, it cannot prevent it.

Finally, Echoes of light has a chance to fully reset your cooldowns when you deal damage with an at will. Now, Bear in mind that Aura of Vengeance is Classified by the game as an at will and so it will activate Echoes of Light. This makes Echoes of Light a reliable way to have no cooldowns, which allows you to spam encounters faster, which allows you to generate AP faster, which allows you to spam dailies, which means you can keep prism up.

aura of vengeance is an error not even says that has a connection with att wills. When you or allies within 30' of you take damage, they deal 15% of your weapon damage to their attacker as Radiant damage.
even if ally use att will the tooltip from echoes of light cannot excuse it : Your At-Will powers have a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to trigger Echo on you. Echo makes your next encounter power instantly recharge all of your encounter powers.
IT says about paladin att wills.

so it need fix. aura of wisdom is a normal and better alternative helps to recharge your encounters faster and for your allies.

thefabricant

mamalion1234 said:

thefabricant said:

2.4: Companions:

For your active companion, you want the one that provides you with the most stats. If you have a lot of currency and can afford rank 10 bondings or higher and a legendary companion, that companion would be an active companion with bonding runestones and a fast attack speed. In this category, I would recommend the lightfoot thief, which is absolutely the best. Second place is shadow demon. However, if you cannot afford what is listed above, then you want an augment for your active companion, the cat and the ioun stone of alure being 2 of the cheaper ones. The gear that you put on your augment should be gear that provides you with stats that you are lacking in, so for paladin, it is probably gear with arp however, with the stronghold boon it is no longer an absolute requirement.

For the companions that are just there for active bonuses, I would recommend poison dot companions for devotion (death slaad is a must have), or the archons. For protection, the yeti and other on damage taken companions are all excellent choices. The archons are also a good choice.

2.5: A Note on Gear Choices:

This goes for both dev and prot and it relates to the stats you stack heavier. There are 2 routes, to stack offensively and take gear that stacks power, recovery, arp and crit, or to stack defensively and take gear that stacks defense, recovery and hitpoints. Although route 1 is more optimal in any premade group, route 2 allows you to do things like tank eCC and to play even more recklessly then you do already. As of such, I went route 2 rather then route 1, however, I do strongly recommend going route 1 unless you, like me, prefer to play incredibly recklessly. (I don't blame you, its fun )

2.6: Comparisons Between dev and prot:

This is the question that most people are probably interested in, how does devotion compare to protection and honestly, my answer is...They both overpowered. Devotion is ridiculous because of how well it synergises with itself, being able to do ridiculous amounts of damage while stacking high survivability and healing when multiple dev pallies are working together. On its own, its able to tank, heal and dps fairly reliably as well, however it cannot make a party invulnerable in the same manner a prot OP can. A prot OP can make parties invulnerable, however, it cannot match the damage output of a dev OP and it does not synergise in the same manner that a dev OP does. The dev OP is the creature of the party, where as the prot OP is the creature the party leaches off of. At the end of the day, I would say pick one off your personal preference. You will have smoother runs with a prot pally then a dev pally, but dev pally seems to be (from personal experience) a whole lot more fun to play.

2.7: Why I consider Justice the best path:

I consider Justice to be the best path because of Vengeful Judge, Echoes of Light and Prism.
Judge Reduces your cooldowns by 35% each time you active it, which is worth:
0.65*CD/(1+Recharge Speed) = CD/(1+New Recharge Speed)
= (1+New Recharge Speed) = (1+Recharge Speed)/0.65
= New Recharge Speed = (1+Recharge Speed)/0.65-1
Which means in the absolute worst case scenario (assuming that you had no recharge speed before) judge is worth:
New Recharge Speed = (1+0)/0.65-1 = 0.53846153846, or 53.846153846% recharge speed increase, which is 10769.2307692 ~ 10800 Recovery.
Therefor, to make up for the lack of judge, you need an additional 10800 recovery, which light cannot provide.

Prism is also irreplaceable because unlike most heals in the game, its preventative (always trying to heal allies) rather then reactive (only trying to heal allies when they take damage). This means that the very moment an ally takes damage, they back to full life and it also means that light will never be better at healing then Justice because it can only react to damage, it cannot prevent it.

Finally, Echoes of light has a chance to fully reset your cooldowns when you deal damage with an at will. Now, Bear in mind that Aura of Vengeance is Classified by the game as an at will and so it will activate Echoes of Light. This makes Echoes of Light a reliable way to have no cooldowns, which allows you to spam encounters faster, which allows you to generate AP faster, which allows you to spam dailies, which means you can keep prism up.

aura of vengeance is an error not even says that has a connection with att wills. When you or allies within 30' of you take damage, they deal 15% of your weapon damage to their attacker as Radiant damage.
even if ally use att will the tooltip from echoes of light cannot excuse it : Your At-Will powers have a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to trigger Echo on you. Echo makes your next encounter power instantly recharge all of your encounter powers.
IT says about paladin att wills.

so it need fix. aura of wisdom is a normal and better alternative helps to recharge your encounters faster and for your allies.

Whether it is or isn't supposed to proc the feat isn't really relevant to my guide. My guide is supposed to be as complete as I can make it and if I didn't include little details like that, it would not be. Until it is fixed, I will include that detail.

mamalion1234

thefabricant said:

mamalion1234 said:

thefabricant said:

2.4: Companions:

For your active companion, you want the one that provides you with the most stats. If you have a lot of currency and can afford rank 10 bondings or higher and a legendary companion, that companion would be an active companion with bonding runestones and a fast attack speed. In this category, I would recommend the lightfoot thief, which is absolutely the best. Second place is shadow demon. However, if you cannot afford what is listed above, then you want an augment for your active companion, the cat and the ioun stone of alure being 2 of the cheaper ones. The gear that you put on your augment should be gear that provides you with stats that you are lacking in, so for paladin, it is probably gear with arp however, with the stronghold boon it is no longer an absolute requirement.

For the companions that are just there for active bonuses, I would recommend poison dot companions for devotion (death slaad is a must have), or the archons. For protection, the yeti and other on damage taken companions are all excellent choices. The archons are also a good choice.

2.5: A Note on Gear Choices:

This goes for both dev and prot and it relates to the stats you stack heavier. There are 2 routes, to stack offensively and take gear that stacks power, recovery, arp and crit, or to stack defensively and take gear that stacks defense, recovery and hitpoints. Although route 1 is more optimal in any premade group, route 2 allows you to do things like tank eCC and to play even more recklessly then you do already. As of such, I went route 2 rather then route 1, however, I do strongly recommend going route 1 unless you, like me, prefer to play incredibly recklessly. (I don't blame you, its fun )

2.6: Comparisons Between dev and prot:

This is the question that most people are probably interested in, how does devotion compare to protection and honestly, my answer is...They both overpowered. Devotion is ridiculous because of how well it synergises with itself, being able to do ridiculous amounts of damage while stacking high survivability and healing when multiple dev pallies are working together. On its own, its able to tank, heal and dps fairly reliably as well, however it cannot make a party invulnerable in the same manner a prot OP can. A prot OP can make parties invulnerable, however, it cannot match the damage output of a dev OP and it does not synergise in the same manner that a dev OP does. The dev OP is the creature of the party, where as the prot OP is the creature the party leaches off of. At the end of the day, I would say pick one off your personal preference. You will have smoother runs with a prot pally then a dev pally, but dev pally seems to be (from personal experience) a whole lot more fun to play.

2.7: Why I consider Justice the best path:

I consider Justice to be the best path because of Vengeful Judge, Echoes of Light and Prism.
Judge Reduces your cooldowns by 35% each time you active it, which is worth:
0.65*CD/(1+Recharge Speed) = CD/(1+New Recharge Speed)
= (1+New Recharge Speed) = (1+Recharge Speed)/0.65
= New Recharge Speed = (1+Recharge Speed)/0.65-1
Which means in the absolute worst case scenario (assuming that you had no recharge speed before) judge is worth:
New Recharge Speed = (1+0)/0.65-1 = 0.53846153846, or 53.846153846% recharge speed increase, which is 10769.2307692 ~ 10800 Recovery.
Therefor, to make up for the lack of judge, you need an additional 10800 recovery, which light cannot provide.

Prism is also irreplaceable because unlike most heals in the game, its preventative (always trying to heal allies) rather then reactive (only trying to heal allies when they take damage). This means that the very moment an ally takes damage, they back to full life and it also means that light will never be better at healing then Justice because it can only react to damage, it cannot prevent it.

Finally, Echoes of light has a chance to fully reset your cooldowns when you deal damage with an at will. Now, Bear in mind that Aura of Vengeance is Classified by the game as an at will and so it will activate Echoes of Light. This makes Echoes of Light a reliable way to have no cooldowns, which allows you to spam encounters faster, which allows you to generate AP faster, which allows you to spam dailies, which means you can keep prism up.

aura of vengeance is an error not even says that has a connection with att wills. When you or allies within 30' of you take damage, they deal 15% of your weapon damage to their attacker as Radiant damage.
even if ally use att will the tooltip from echoes of light cannot excuse it : Your At-Will powers have a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to trigger Echo on you. Echo makes your next encounter power instantly recharge all of your encounter powers.
IT says about paladin att wills.

so it need fix. aura of wisdom is a normal and better alternative helps to recharge your encounters faster and for your allies.

Whether it is or isn't supposed to proc the feat isn't really relevant to my guide. My guide is supposed to be as complete as I can make it and if I didn't include little details like that, it would not be. Until it is fixed, I will include that detail.

so if i create a guide for a class under the protection of the guide i can name everything can be abused ? ( dont take it personal wondering if is against the rules). but IS already too late 50% paladins run with vengeance and 50% with wisdom .

jaegernl

mamalion1234 said:

so if i create a guide for a class under the protection of the guide i can name everything can be abused ? ( dont take it personal wondering if is against the rules). but IS already too late 50% paladins run with vengeance and 50% with wisdom .

It has to do with credibility. If you do rigorous testing of a class, you name the negative and positive - albeit in this case dubious 'positive' - interactions between different powers. It's then up to the Dev's - and believe me, this has been reported over and over - or the player to decide if they do or do not wish to use it.

You write a guide to be as complete as possible. You write it with as much information as possible. You wouldn't write a chemistry manual where you leave out the explosive reactions, would you?

xiviriana

Omg I do love this info. I'll have to read it a few times through, however. But thanks for posting. (:

thefabricant

Until Cryptic significantly re-balances paladin, this build remains viable and I will not be updating it.

mamalion1234

You forgot to mention that burning light generate good amount of action points when hit many targets. I give that info because i bored to see paladins use relentless avenger vs trash mobs prevent pt to deal damage.

taitinhakkaaja

What if there are many OP's in party and everyone has aura gifts, are all auras active -> big power boost. Or just one.

rodrant64

I'm curious how much of the recommendations will change with the Divine Protection and Shield of Faith nerfs, and the potential* death of perma bubble.

But as someone who just made an OP tank, I really appreciate this guide even as some big "changes" are coming to the class.

*Relentless Avenger is gonna become a mandatory group power, and might be enough to help an OP keep DP up at least most of the time. Speculating.

thefabricant

@ironzerg79 please close this thread, its going to be out of date come the upcoming patches and I don't have the time to work on updating both this and my CW guide and I would rather focus on that one. I still have a copy on a text document, should I decide to update it, I just do not want people to accidently spec into an obsolete build based on no longer functioning mechanics.

ironzerg79

Done. It'll be remembered fondly in the hall of heroes.