[PvE] Paladin Guide by @greyjay1, @slappdaniel and @Its Viraaal

slappdaniel

Hello everyone,

here you have the Link to our finished Oath of Protection Paladin guide. Enjoy!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19TiuOJBGGfb2SsNEK2aAl9vipvY4qfaDJN69Ytd2E9U/pub

thefabricant

Nice work

rjc9000

Nice guide!

dupeks

Great Guide, thanks for sharing! Make sure to get it posted up in the Citadel Guides section too!

A couple points to add because they are not highlighted in your guide and might seem obvious:

1) For Oath of Protection as well as AoC, temporary sources of HP count (including event and SH food etc.)
2) For the time being, Mirage weapons proc AoC (and EoL) making them viable. Who knows if this is WAI.

swapilot

Very nice, thanks for posting!

rubytrue

Nice guide: quick question....You mentioned that Dark Fire from the Drow Racial trait stacks; does it stack with itself? If it does, do you know if it is procced by Burning Guidance/Healing Warmth? (I know this is a ProtOP guide, but didn't know if you had any data on what all procs it.) Thanks for the hard work!

omgitszeph

thank you kindly for putting together a beauty of a guide. Now I have a part II for my cherished and well worn Sharpedge Paladin Comp. Much appreciated

trzebiat

Really great read.

Tell me if I got it right. The argument of using 3/4 Relic gear with Ward Armor and Jarl or Wraps (for Power/Deflect) instead of Deepknight's Brigandine for 50k HP is that if you run in BiS group that's capable to do those speed runs and melt bosses so fast, you don't have to rely that much on getting hit at start to max out Power from Prot Oath, as there's possibility you won't even have time to get hit? Outside those scenarios running 3/4 Relic Resto with 50k HP armor should be generally better I think?

How important do you find getting 100% crit in regards to using Resto vs Ward head for Power (with that stupid Regen) or getting Recovery slightly higher to around 5-6k with Black Ice instead Brutals (you don't always run with great DCs to rely on Hastening Light for cooldown reduction)? I run something between 80-90% crit (depending on buffs from boons) without potions and use max crit everywhere where it's possible except one Greater Hellig on character and four R11 Black Ice on companion (with two R12 Brutals) for extra Recovery (to be around 6k) and more Power than Brutals can provide. I'm using Perfect Vorpal but what about other enchants like Lightning for trash heavy content like SP? I like to switch to Lightning there while running BL/CoP/TW.

One thing I'm wondering, why 1/3 Impassioned Pleas instead 1/3 or even 3/3 Wrathful Strikes for buffing damage of Shielding Strike even more? Especially when having really low recovery anyway. Does Exemplar's Haste for 6% Recharge Speed is worth it if you run with Aura of Wisdom and getting cooldown reduction from DC's Hastening Light?

nightranger7477

I think the whole reason he is running with the ward armor is for max power sharing for BIS groups, I personally run 3 pieces of vivified relic resto and Deepknight's Brigandine and currently sit at 280,000 hp and 37000 power unbuffed. I am of the belief that stacking HP>power>crit is the way to go but to each his own, I pug a lot and sometimes run with my guild and don't always have BIS guildies to run with and my current set up works quite well, It is a good guide but more geared to BIS Pallys running with BIS groups.

dupeks

trzebiat#2067 said:

Really great read.

Tell me if I got it right. The argument of using 3/4 Relic gear with Ward Armor and Jarl or Wraps (for Power/Deflect) instead of Deepknight's Brigandine for 50k HP is that if you run in BiS group that's capable to do those speed runs and melt bosses so fast, you don't have to rely that much on getting hit at start to max out Power from Prot Oath, as there's possibility you won't even have time to get hit? Outside those scenarios running 3/4 Relic Resto with 50k HP armor should be generally better I think?

How important do you find getting 100% crit in regards to using Resto vs Ward head for Power (with that stupid Regen) or getting Recovery slightly higher to around 5-6k with Black Ice instead Brutals (you don't always run with great DCs to rely on Hastening Light for cooldown reduction)? I run something between 80-90% crit (depending on buffs from boons) without potions and use max crit everywhere where it's possible except one Greater Hellig on character and four R11 Black Ice on companion (with two R12 Brutals) for extra Recovery (to be around 6k) and more Power than Brutals can provide. I'm using Perfect Vorpal but what about other enchants like Lightning for trash heavy content like SP? I like to switch to Lightning there while running BL/CoP/TW.

One thing I'm wondering, why 1/3 Impassioned Pleas instead 1/3 or even 3/3 Wrathful Strikes for buffing damage of Shielding Strike even more? Especially when having really low recovery anyway. Does Exemplar's Haste for 6% Recharge Speed is worth it if you run with Aura of Wisdom and getting cooldown reduction from DC's Hastening Light?

I think it works either way, depends on where you want to go with things: Crit vs. Power.

One thing to consider is that AoC doesn't crit, and that power sharing is something that's pretty unique to OPs (and DCs) vs. having any additional stats on. So you can build towards more personal dps (crit) or party dps (power, HP --> power) and get your dps from AoC.

To share, I'm not nearly BiS but built differently than the OP, and it's definitely viable too (but different). When you give up crit, you give up personal DPS (ostensibly for party utility), and you have to compromise and get your dps elsewhere. The answer is Aura of Courage. On a decent FBI run, >60% of my damage comes from AoC, but my Crit is much lower(~50%). I'm built for as much power sharing as possible, with Crit and Recovery secondary. I'm never top DPS, but I'm comfortably more than 1/5th of top DPS (meaning I seldom lose aggro outside of naughty taunters). Don't mean to detract from this thread, really like the work done here. Just confirming that there are other viable builds (obviously)

veywiil

I retract my original comment.

rubytrue

Conservatively speaking, based upon the recommendations in the guide, you're looking at a build that costs ~107M AD based upon current AH prices. If you look at a conversion rate of 500AD/Zen on the Exchange, that equates to a build that costs $2140--that is either a LOT of money or a LOT of time--for a ProtOP that is dependent upon multiple debuff teammates, comes in 4th in DPS, and still dies multiple times in a fast run.

I liked the guide when I first read it, but when I watched the video and then crunched the numbers, I was like, "meh."

I might be more of a believer if you showed us videos where you weren't so dependent upon party makeup....

greyjay1

trzebiat#2067 said:

Really great read.

Tell me if I got it right. The argument of using 3/4 Relic gear with Ward Armor and Jarl or Wraps (for Power/Deflect) instead of Deepknight's Brigandine for 50k HP is that if you run in BiS group that's capable to do those speed runs and melt bosses so fast, you don't have to rely that much on getting hit at start to max out Power from Prot Oath, as there's possibility you won't even have time to get hit? Outside those scenarios running 3/4 Relic Resto with 50k HP armor should be generally better I think?

How important do you find getting 100% crit in regards to using Resto vs Ward head for Power (with that stupid Regen) or getting Recovery slightly higher to around 5-6k with Black Ice instead Brutals (you don't always run with great DCs to rely on Hastening Light for cooldown reduction)? I run something between 80-90% crit (depending on buffs from boons) without potions and use max crit everywhere where it's possible except one Greater Hellig on character and four R11 Black Ice on companion (with two R12 Brutals) for extra Recovery (to be around 6k) and more Power than Brutals can provide. I'm using Perfect Vorpal but what about other enchants like Lightning for trash heavy content like SP? I like to switch to Lightning there while running BL/CoP/TW.

One thing I'm wondering, why 1/3 Impassioned Pleas instead 1/3 or even 3/3 Wrathful Strikes for buffing damage of Shielding Strike even more? Especially when having really low recovery anyway. Does Exemplar's Haste for 6% Recharge Speed is worth it if you run with Aura of Wisdom and getting cooldown reduction from DC's Hastening Light?

the power that you get from the Deepknight's and the Ward-chest is very similar (because of assassin's covenant), here is a picture that shows the power you reach with both items
http://imgur.com/a/NrHOW
(no companion summoned, the only items that are different in both pictures are the chest-pieces)
I myself use Jarl's Gaze because i got 82% everfrost resi and the the bonus power from Jarl's counts as base power, that way it boosts my buffpotential by a good amount.
I think Draco is useing Deepknight's, i used it myself, it's good, you can combine it with 3 relic resto pieces.
Viral is using the wraps because he ONLY runs with his speedrun-group, that's it.

100% crit is the way to go if you want to maximize your dps. However you want to maximize the power on your char to increase your base-power, aura gifts only shares base-power. That means you can use something else than radiants on your pet, because the power you recieve from your pet does not count as base power and can not be shared, i would only go for black ice/brutals in case you reach the 100% mark, however 80-90% crit is already very good and should yield good results, in that case you should use t.fey.
I don't think that recovery is very important in a justice build, you recharge your encounters fairly quick with the capstone anyways and have aura of wisdom granting 25% recharge speed.

To the feats, you can totally use 1/3 or 3/3 wrathful strikes there, i don't remember from the top of my head how much shielding strike contributes to the overall dps, but it's not thaaat much in most circumstances.

Edit: forgot to mention assassin's covenant

greyjay1

nightranger7477 said:

I think the whole reason he is running with the ward armor is for max power sharing for BIS groups, I personally run 3 pieces of vivified relic resto and Deepknight's Brigandine and currently sit at 280,000 hp and 37000 power unbuffed. I am of the belief that stacking HP>power>crit is the way to go but to each his own, I pug a lot and sometimes run with my guild and don't always have BIS guildies to run with and my current set up works quite well, It is a good guide but more geared to BIS Pallys running with BIS groups.

I linked apicture in the post above, comparing Deepknight and Ward-chest.
I would go for power>HP>crit, however you don't have to choose very often between power and hp, so that is alright
It's super easy to stack crit tho, in this screenshot i got over 50% crit with only radiants slotted and Jarl's gaze + ward-chest (without summoned companion)
http://imgur.com/a/mvX2w

greyjay1

veywiil#8685 said:

Well, I really didn't want to post this, but @rubytrue sort of convinced me into it.

This guide is garbage and here is why. Not even 1% of paladins will ever reach the point of where this matters. This guide is the opinion of 1 person on what a BiS paladin does with a BiS group running content that isn't even remotely challenging. Guides are meant for people who need help and are looking for ways to improve. When you reach 15kIL+ you don't need help improving, you have reached a point in which content is so easy it doesn't matter.

For protection paladins, this guide will in someways be bad, as it is not optimal for lower item levels. But they don't know that, and will try to follow it blindly, as we know they like to do. They won't understand the subtle differences between personal dps and aura sharing and how the formulas work, they don't care. That's why these guides need to be labelled with target IL ranges, and audiences.

In addition Shielding Strike mitigates significant amount of damage, causing you to lose group dps by not maximizing your passive for protection paladins. Likewise the video attached does have DC's doing all the hard work, (go figure). And that is just the start.

Look at the guide, look at the pure worth 1 character has, its thousands of real life dollars, that may have accumulated over time. But when we start talking about individual items worth 20+ million ad for just ONE item, that is a bit overkill. I understand that's a bigger game issue, but to have that as part of the core build is just overkill.

If we are going to call this a guide, at least have it come with a warning. This guide is for endgamers, and endgamers don't need guides. This post may be utterly brutal, but I KNOW people are going to blindly follow this guide, and then be disappointed with the results they are seeing personally. I have seen it happen before.

Hey there,
thanks for the critical feedback.

To begin with, this guide has been created by 3 people, so it's not 1 person's opinion. Fangbreaker Island is not really challenging when you run it with people who are well geared and know all the mechanics very well, true! However it is the most challenging Dungeon that we have right now.

This guids explains protection paladins in the 1. section "General notes" everything they need to know to mitigate damage, 80% damage resistance, templars wrath, that's all you will need... add bane if you want, pop shield of faith and you are good.

Shielding Strike mitigates significant amounts of damage, yes, but that doesn't affect power sharing too much in most circumstances because there have been implemented some changes to how the HP->power mechanic works, you get your power stacked up even when you only take a bunch of small hits.
It's not only the clerics who do the work in the video, it's teamplay, everyone fullfills an important role in there. i might add some act these days, but the burst damage a paladin can deal is important to kill bosses fast and viral is using such a burst rotation in there, we are talking of 30-50m dmg dealt within 2seconds, even more depending on the situation.

This guide shows the BiS-items for this build, it's expensive, any other BiS-build will be equally expensive!
You can simply run r8 radiants, a lesser soul and a t.fey on your char
along with a sellsword with r12 bondings (lower ranks also work, but as for any other class/build: ranking bondings to 12 is the first priority), loyal avenger/ IG-gear with r10 azures.
You don't even have to pick the orcus set when you are on a budget, just go for black ice-belt and you are good.
I myself ran this build with these items and it worked perfectly well.

HOWEVER: a guide that includes gear-recommendations and doesn't mention BiS-gear is not a good guide.
... again: BiS-gear is pretty much equally expensive for any class and any build at a totally maxed out level.
ALSO: most of the time you will not be top-dps as pally with this guide, you will do GOOD dmg which adds to the team and will make dungeons faster/smoother, your main-purpose is buffing which is covered by auras, this combination is what makes this build so powerful! Similar to dps-gf and hr.

If you think this guide and build is garbage then that's cool, it's your opinion.
But i know a lot of people who want to run dungeons with paladins that are exactly build like this.
There are also lots of people asking Draco, Viral and me how we build our characters. that's why this guide has been created.

greyjay1

rubytrue said:

Conservatively speaking, based upon the recommendations in the guide, you're looking at a build that costs ~107M AD based upon current AH prices. If you look at a conversion rate of 500AD/Zen on the Exchange, that equates to a build that costs $2140--that is either a LOT of money or a LOT of time--for a ProtOP that is dependent upon multiple debuff teammates, comes in 4th in DPS, and still dies multiple times in a fast run.

I liked the guide when I first read it, but when I watched the video and then crunched the numbers, I was like, "meh."

I might be more of a believer if you showed us videos where you weren't so dependent upon party makeup....

Like I posted before, you don't need to be BiS, this guide shows the BiS-items.
It's really easy to achieve decent stats, you can see in one of the screenshots that i have >50% crit without even a companion summoned and all radiants, add some bondings and azures (rank10 also works here) to your companion, use t.fey and your damage will be huge.
You don't need to be BiS :P

thefabricant

veywiil#8685 said:

Well, I really didn't want to post this, but @rubytrue sort of convinced me into it.

This guide is garbage and here is why. Not even 1% of paladins will ever reach the point of where this matters. This guide is the opinion of 1 person on what a BiS paladin does with a BiS group running content that isn't even remotely challenging. Guides are meant for people who need help and are looking for ways to improve. When you reach 15kIL+ you don't need help improving, you have reached a point in which content is so easy it doesn't matter.

For protection paladins, this guide will in someways be bad, as it is not optimal for lower item levels. But they don't know that, and will try to follow it blindly, as we know they like to do. They won't understand the subtle differences between personal dps and aura sharing and how the formulas work, they don't care. That's why these guides need to be labelled with target IL ranges, and audiences.

In addition Shielding Strike mitigates significant amount of damage, causing you to lose group dps by not maximizing your passive for protection paladins. Likewise the video attached does have DC's doing all the hard work, (go figure). And that is just the start.

Look at the guide, look at the pure worth 1 character has, its thousands of real life dollars, that may have accumulated over time. But when we start talking about individual items worth 20+ million ad for just ONE item, that is a bit overkill. I understand that's a bigger game issue, but to have that as part of the core build is just overkill.

If we are going to call this a guide, at least have it come with a warning. This guide is for endgamers, and endgamers don't need guides. This post may be utterly brutal, but I KNOW people are going to blindly follow this guide, and then be disappointed with the results they are seeing personally. I have seen it happen before.

Just to add my opinion to this thread, I have been running with these paladins, as well as a few others built similarly, for quite a while and I am 100% convinced this is the way to go in terms of running content. Does Viral die a lot in the video posted? Yes, but they also pulling FBI in a manner not similar 99.9% of groups you going to find. Furthermore, I know at least 1 of the paladins here has soloed fbi with a build like this and another 1 soloed quite a large portion of it. Can paladins built any other way say the same? Sure, if you look at the final gear recommendation, it is expensive, but you don't need all that gear to pull this build off. Grace does not have all that stuff and neither does another OP I know, they both tank fine. Viral is included as an example of flat out BiS, because that is what BiS looks like. If I list flat out BiS for CW, it will probably be as expensive, if not, more so. The same is true of DC.

Furthermore, this build scales incredibly well through all content, from minimum ilvl required, to maximum ilvl, simply because, the more damage you do, the more temp you have and the tankier you become. The tanking mechanic of OP is dealing damage with templar's wrath, this build takes advantage of it best.

I will say that there is 1 piece of content where I am convinced healadins>tankadins and that is in mSP, simply because nothing hits hard enough to justify the potential temp hp reached and bond of virtue flat out negates the rapid rate at which mobs deal damage to you.

shazza53

Thank you very much for sharing the guide.

Can one of you comment on the tanking / aggro aspect of the build? Specifically on the run up the hill in FBI, is the design to share aggro management with the GF, or to keep aggro away from the GF (some Conq-specced GFs don't like aggro ) ?

veywiil

Also retracted.

slappdaniel

First of all, thanks for the great feedback.

veywiil#8685 said:

thefabricant said:

Just to add my opinion to this thread, I have been running with these paladins, as well as a few others built similarly, for quite a while and I am 100% convinced this is the way to go in terms of running content. Does Viral die a lot in the video posted? Yes, but they also pulling FBI in a manner not similar 99.9% of groups you going to find. Furthermore, I know at least 1 of the paladins here has soloed fbi with a build like this and another 1 soloed quite a large portion of it. Can paladins built any other way say the same?

I will address the one thing that concerns me about this. We already have guides on how to be a protection OP, we have plenty of them, from sharpedge's to the mod 8 aura share, to slapdaniel's old one, to you name it. They are all essentially the same, you may differ by putting a few thousand stat points here instead of there, but when you boil it down to what makes all these builds work, it is always the same thing. ArP to 6k, Build HP, Build Power, Build Crit, Build defense. Maximize DPS from AoC, and TW to tank. Everytime. It's not the guides fault that's just the most effective way to play the character. I mean we have more flexibility than the GWF's and their swordmaster builds... But still I feel this guide is just another one along the road of 'another Prot OP guide'. Perhaps I am missing what makes this unique?

I trust @thefabricant, mainly based on his reputation for testing things before speaking that this works for a variety of IL, however I do think that should be reflected in the guide then. If you are going to post JUST the BiS gear, and not give stepping stones, that sort of leaves a large portion of the game up in the air. Unless you are specifically defining what stats to go for in what order while getting to BiS, although I don't recall seeing that (could be wrong).

I am trying to keep an open mind on this, but I don't see any point to the guide that makes it in anyway different then things the community already knows from other guides/posts...

My opinion to this is: If you don't like it, don't read it. I think this guide sums up a lot of important things about the paladin class, which should be very helpful to people that wanna start playing this class or already play this class and need some more meta information. Also i was playing this build while i leveled and geared my paladin when the class first came out. Obviously there were some small changes over the time because of patches. However, the main concept of how this class should be played to be most efficient in group content was always the same. I have a lot more to say to your comments but i don t wanna start an argument in this thread.

rubytrue

I'd be interested in looking at guides (any build guides, regardless of class) that took the approach similar to PC build guides that have populated the internet for ages: guides that look at best bang for the buck at different "price levels." You know, this is the best PC you can build for $500. this is the best PC you can build for $750, this is the best PC you can build for $1500, $3,000, etc.... In a similar manner, we can do guides that point players in a direction at certain item levels or AD expenditures---just a thought. That way, it really is a "guide" to a certain path rather than this is BiS, do it this way or your build kind of sucks.

That said, this build obviously works: You're soloing FBI so I am a lot less skeptical.

Personally, I would like to see more explanation on some of the mechanics, especially Sacred Weapon, because I personally don't understand how it works and would really like to learn more about it.

I mean what is it that Sacred Weapon actually does besides"it gives you a ton of damage?" How much of a damage boost does it give you? Does it work on TW if you there is only one target? Does it boost your damage more than Vow or CoP?

I'm obviously doing something wrong with it, because my experience with it has been underwhelming to say the least.

I'm also really interested in the comment in the guide about Dark Fire stacking: Is Dark Fire procced by AoC, Burning Guidance, and Healing Warmth? I suspect it might, as I run a Drow DevOP, and when my boons really start heating up due to more allies proccing them, things really start to melt *fast.* Dark Fire isn't a mechanic I fully understand, and it is hard to test due to the relatively low proc rate, but if those Features and Boons do proc it, and it stacks, Drow DevOPs might be one of the more capable debuffers around and could probably hit the 200% debuff cap within a team due to the way AoC, BG, and HW proc.

There are some interesting ideas in the guide, I would just like a better understanding of what is making those "ideas" work.

veywiil

One more retraction, ignore me just being silly.

thefabricant

veywiil#8685 said:

slappdaniel said:

My opinion to this is: If you don't like it, don't read it.

Are we not allowed to discuss this with an open mind? If I don't like your guide I won't use it, I know others will though, its not necessarily a bad guide, it just doesn't make sense to me.

slappdaniel said:

The main concept of how this class should be played to be most efficient in group content was always the same.

This is what I was looking for in my earlier posts, why the build was created, this gives me the understanding I'm looking for. If the guide was meant to be optimized to the 10th degree which most people could only dream of having, that is a perfectly valid guide, and great theorycrafting. No qualms with that.

slappdaniel said:

I have a lot more to say to your comments but i don't wanna start an argument in this thread.

This wasn't meant to be antagonizing, I am looking for understanding, if you want to take this personal you can, but that was never how I meant it. I'm just wondering why go through a lot of work creating a new guide when updating the old one was easier, since the builds are close to the same in many aspects. I'll stop posting here since you obviously feel either threatened by me or animosity towards me. My apologies.

@veywiil#8685 I think the idea was that since there is 3 of them working on this build now, they want to make it a separate document rather than continuing on an already existing guide.

slappdaniel

veywiil#8685 said:

slappdaniel said:

My opinion to this is: If you don't like it, don't read it.

Are we not allowed to discuss this with an open mind? If I don't like your guide I won't use it, I know others will though, its not necessarily a bad guide, it just doesn't make sense to me.

slappdaniel said:

The main concept of how this class should be played to be most efficient in group content was always the same.

This is what I was looking for in my earlier posts, why the build was created, this gives me the understanding I'm looking for. If the guide was meant to be optimized to the 10th degree which most people could only dream of having, that is a perfectly valid guide, and great theorycrafting. No qualms with that.

slappdaniel said:

I have a lot more to say to your comments but i don't wanna start an argument in this thread.

This wasn't meant to be antagonizing, I am looking for understanding, if you want to take this personal you can, but that was never how I meant it. I'm just wondering why go through a lot of work creating a new guide when updating the old one was easier, since the builds are close to the same in many aspects. I'll stop posting here since you obviously feel either threatened by me or animosity towards me. My apologies.

Of course you can have your opinion but if you start your argument with "This guide is garbage..." i will not discuss anything with you. A decent guide (in my opinion) is not necessarily there to show you every step of the way. Its rather there to give you a goal to work towards, so you dont waste astral diamonds and time on unnecessary items and things you dont need. I dont think there is a point to explain every step of the way, since every persons gearing process is different.

Did you even read the guide? This two sentences are literally at the beginning of the guide:
This Guide explains how to be most efficient in group-content in mod 11b.
Being most efficient as a paladin means to maximize your buff-potential and your damage-output at the same time.

rjc9000

thefabricant said:

I will say that there is 1 piece of content where I am convinced healadins>tankadins and that is in mSP, simply because nothing hits hard enough to justify the potential temp hp reached and bond of virtue flat out negates the rapid rate at which mobs deal damage to you.

I dunno man, if Healadins add enough lag with Burning Guidance loop + Prism, then you can make a fair point of Tankadin > Healadin in eSP by virtue of not having a laggier experience in the rubberbandiest dungeons in the game.

armadeonx

A couple of questions on feats:

@thefabricant said in his mod 8 guide that Prism doesn't proc Burning Guidance - is this why you didn't put any points in it? Has anyone tested to see if this has changed and if Healing Warmth is the same? I ask this because I'm pretty sure prism is putting out damage for me but as I'm on XBox I don't have ACT and all evidence is anecdotal at best.

Also from his guide, he stated the benefit of points in Impassioned Pleas is too small to be discernible. I used to have 3 points there and now have none, I did notice a difference but it was too small to worry about. That said, this guide has one point in it - is there a reason for putting it here instead of elsewhere? I understand it's a 'spare point' that you need to spend purely to open up the 4th tier. Personally, I placed mine in Wrathful Strikes, which to me kinda counters (a little) having only 1 point in Purifying Fire, but as a second choice I'd be tempted to try out Dominating Presence for a change

Lastly, I've noticed a lot of guides go for 5pts in Swift Flash, so 30% movement for 4 secs out of 10 - in combat. I'm curious as to why this is considered a benefit given that Radiant Strike crosses most distances and using the Orcus set & presumably r12 darks in utility should - to my mind - render this unnecessary. Also, to some classes such as the TR & GWF, sudden bursts of extra movement can mean missing a target due to flying past them unexpectedly. On the other hand, 10% increased stun duration from TW does have some utility.

nightranger7477

This is a good guide but it should be called the whales paladin guide.

rjc9000

shazza53 said:

Thank you very much for sharing the guide.

Can one of you comment on the tanking / aggro aspect of the build? Specifically on the run up the hill in FBI, is the design to share aggro management with the GF, or to keep aggro away from the GF (some Conq-specced GFs don't like aggro ) ?

The hill climb is almost always a chaotic mess unless you pick off groups one by one (which usually only occurs in weaker teams and this guide assumes you're working towards the absolute BiS sweaty tryhard endgame PvE teams). In theory, a typical DPS GF and a Paladin like this guide are supposed to cooperatively defend their party.

In practice, in most of the FBI runs I do with 2 of the guide makers (Grace and Draco), most of the time, they happen to handle the heavy lifting in the aggro/defense duties due to the Paladin's much much better damage soaking capabilities (ability to mitigate 80% of incoming damage while nerfing your offense and speed versus having 10 mil Temp HP while being able to charge around the battlefield and toss out multi-million Smites and Divine Judgements... no contest there).

That, and I'm lazy, I don't feel like constantly marking my targets and micromanaging aggro. I'll let the class with the better tools do it.

slappdaniel

armadeonx said:

A couple of questions on feats:

@thefabricant said in his mod 8 guide that Prism doesn't proc Burning Guidance - is this why you didn't put any points in it? Has anyone tested to see if this has changed and if Healing Warmth is the same? I ask this because I'm pretty sure prism is putting out damage for me but as I'm on XBox I don't have ACT and all evidence is anecdotal at best.

Also from his guide, he stated the benefit of points in Impassioned Pleas is too small to be discernible. I used to have 3 points there and now have none, I did notice a difference but it was too small to worry about. That said, this guide has one point in it - is there a reason for putting it here instead of elsewhere? I understand it's a 'spare point' that you need to spend purely to open up the 4th tier. Personally, I placed mine in Wrathful Strikes, which to me kinda counters (a little) having only 1 point in Purifying Fire, but as a second choice I'd be tempted to try out Dominating Presence for a change

Lastly, I've noticed a lot of guides go for 5pts in Swift Flash, so 30% movement for 4 secs out of 10 - in combat. I'm curious as to why this is considered a benefit given that Radiant Strike crosses most distances and using the Orcus set & presumably r12 darks in utility should - to my mind - render this unnecessary. Also, to some classes such as the TR & GWF, sudden bursts of extra movement can mean missing a target due to flying past them unexpectedly. On the other hand, 10% increased stun duration from TW does have some utility.

first of all, why are you asking an oath of devotion paladin question in a thread about a guide, thats mostly about an oath of protection paladin? i would never even consider taking burning guidance as an oath of protection paladin.

there is no reason to put the point into impassioned pleas. you could also put it in wrathful strikes. both options are pretty insignificant.

swift flash is the only option in my opinion. you dont need the control power in 99% of the time. more movement speed is always good.

armadeonx

slappdaniel said:

armadeonx said:

A couple of questions on feats:

@thefabricant said in his mod 8 guide that Prism doesn't proc Burning Guidance - is this why you didn't put any points in it? Has anyone tested to see if this has changed and if Healing Warmth is the same? I ask this because I'm pretty sure prism is putting out damage for me but as I'm on XBox I don't have ACT and all evidence is anecdotal at best.

Also from his guide, he stated the benefit of points in Impassioned Pleas is too small to be discernible. I used to have 3 points there and now have none, I did notice a difference but it was too small to worry about. That said, this guide has one point in it - is there a reason for putting it here instead of elsewhere? I understand it's a 'spare point' that you need to spend purely to open up the 4th tier. Personally, I placed mine in Wrathful Strikes, which to me kinda counters (a little) having only 1 point in Purifying Fire, but as a second choice I'd be tempted to try out Dominating Presence for a change

Lastly, I've noticed a lot of guides go for 5pts in Swift Flash, so 30% movement for 4 secs out of 10 - in combat. I'm curious as to why this is considered a benefit given that Radiant Strike crosses most distances and using the Orcus set & presumably r12 darks in utility should - to my mind - render this unnecessary. Also, to some classes such as the TR & GWF, sudden bursts of extra movement can mean missing a target due to flying past them unexpectedly. On the other hand, 10% increased stun duration from TW does have some utility.

first of all, why are you asking an oath of devotion paladin question in a thread about a guide, thats mostly about an oath of protection paladin? i would never even consider taking burning guidance as an oath of protection paladin.

there is no reason to put the point into impassioned pleas. you could also put it in wrathful strikes. both options are pretty insignificant.

swift flash is the only option in my opinion. you dont need the control power in 99% of the time. more movement speed is always good.

I'm not asking a healadin question - I run a 3.9k prot path pally and I have 3pts in Prism & 1pt in Beacon of Hope and it has been found that BG/HW are procced by the outgoing heals from these. I believe that in a party with either a DC or Healadin the amount of BG/HW procs I get are significant and although I don't have ACT to properly test the numbers (XBox) I believe these numbers out-perform the extra 4 points in Purifying Fire. I'm not trying to be annoying or question the overall effectiveness of the build (which I believe is very good) but I do believe it's at the very least in your interests to test the effectiveness of 3pts Prism/1pt Beacon + BG/HW whilst receiving heals & with your Daily up. IF you've never tested it, you may be surprised.

Thanks for the answers on the other two points. I still have my doubts about the impact of sudden bursts of 30% extra movement in combat - purely from the perspective of GWFs and TRs as I play both of these as well and have accidentally sailed past targets on occasion, but I guess that could just be my issue.

trzebiat

So I was planning to use combination of Brutal and Black Ice, but it turned out that's not enough to reach 100% crit. Currently using crit everywhere where I can including 5 SKT rings with crit except the shirt (I use Bloodstained instead of Warrior's Gemmed) plus additional two insignias of Skill (to keep CA bonus around 1k) and Relic Resto head. Being Human my ability score roll is lower (15 WIS, 24 CHA with campfire). But with 3 Brutals and 3 Azures on companion I'm at 96% crit without potions, Baphomet's Might and last EE boon put me over 100%. @slappdaniel does it make sense to push further with crit at this point with another Azure instead Brutal or just leave the remaining couple % for boons and potions?