I played this game long ago and stopped really early until now and I've decided to roll a Paladin as it has always been my favorite class in every game. I'm at a point where I do not know if making him a Tank or a Healer and I wanted to know which of the 2 is the more rewarding and also wanted in groups (since I'll be playing solo most of the times and will have to join pugs).
I played this game long ago and stopped really early until now and I've decided to roll a Paladin as it has always been my favorite class in every game. I'm at a point where I do not know if making him a Tank or a Healer and I wanted to know which of the 2 is the more rewarding and also wanted in groups (since I'll be playing solo most of the times and will have to join pugs).
I played this game long ago and stopped really early until now and I've decided to roll a Paladin as it has always been my favorite class in every game. I'm at a point where I do not know if making him a Tank or a Healer and I wanted to know which of the 2 is the more rewarding and also wanted in groups (since I'll be playing solo most of the times and will have to join pugs).
Thanks in advanace for the feedback.
When Mod 11.5 hits, it will be possible to have both a Tankadin (Oath of Protection) build and Healadin (Oath of Devotion) build on the same Paladin via Loadouts. Thankfully, the Paladin gear is rather similar regardless of tankadin or healadin, so you're mostly just swapping your feats and powers at that point.
Until 11.5 hits, you're committed to one build (unless you have a lot of respec tokens to burn through). I would pick Tankadin, as they generally have the benefit of being wanted for most runs (if you go into LFG channels, you'll notice people will say "LF Tank for [x]", but will also say "LF DC for [x]" rather than "LF healer for [x]). Healadins, while good at their role, tend to get looked down upon because they're not DCs.
Which is...? I'm still not used to this game terminology and a link might help (unless you were talking about this one xD).
A Stealadin is a DevOP with High Life Steal. It is based upon the idea that with high lifesteal and prism, you can (more or less) constantly proc Burning Guidance and Healing Warmth, which historically (even on a regular Healadin) is where a very large sum of your damage comes from. (On a Healadin/Stealadin, roughly 70% of your damage comes from Aura of Courage, Burning Guidance, and Healing Warmth.)
I played this game long ago and stopped really early until now and I've decided to roll a Paladin as it has always been my favorite class in every game. I'm at a point where I do not know if making him a Tank or a Healer and I wanted to know which of the 2 is the more rewarding and also wanted in groups (since I'll be playing solo most of the times and will have to join pugs).
Thanks in advanace for the feedback.
When Mod 11.5 hits, it will be possible to have both a Tankadin (Oath of Protection) build and Healadin (Oath of Devotion) build on the same Paladin via Loadouts. Thankfully, the Paladin gear is rather similar regardless of tankadin or healadin, so you're mostly just swapping your feats and powers at that point.
For real? This is just amazing! I thought it'll only be feats and boons plus obviously powers, didn't expect you could change the whole oath. Looks like my Dev alt will just run Cloak Tower like others. Definitely switching to Dev for things like Tiamat.
> @rjc9000 said: > Sorry if I am a bit offtopic... > > > > I played this game long ago and stopped really early until now and I've decided to roll a Paladin as it has always been my favorite class in every game. I'm at a point where I do not know if making him a Tank or a Healer and I wanted to know which of the 2 is the more rewarding and also wanted in groups (since I'll be playing solo most of the times and will have to join pugs). > > > > Thanks in advanace for the feedback. > > When Mod 11.5 hits, it will be possible to have both a Tankadin (Oath of Protection) build and Healadin (Oath of Devotion) build on the same Paladin via Loadouts. Thankfully, the Paladin gear is rather similar regardless of tankadin or healadin, so you're mostly just swapping your feats and powers at that point. > > Until 11.5 hits, you're committed to one build (unless you have a lot of respec tokens to burn through). I would pick Tankadin, as they generally have the benefit of being wanted for most runs (if you go into LFG channels, you'll notice people will say "LF Tank for [x]", but will also say "LF DC for [x]" rather than "LF healer for [x]). Healadins, while good at their role, tend to get looked down upon because they're not DCs.
Thanks for the suggestions, I was unconsciously going for the tnaking build seeing how I was setting skills and stats so I'm happy to hear that and about double specs ^^.
Have a couple of questions: Currently building tankadin. I want pure tank so thinking going Bulwark, but some ppl say I better pick Justice because I will hit max DR soon enough with pally as it is. But me thinks I will still need more survivability before I gear up. So which would be better: Bulwark or Justice as final choice?
Also, which stat is more important for tankadin, WIS or CHA and why?
Justice is the better path for tanking because the prot pally survives by generating high amounts of temp health. The bulwark path wasn't clearly thought through with regards to this.
If you choose the Heroic Feat Force of Will which gives you crit for points in CHA then there is literally no reason for points in WIS. CC resist is done via your shield and you don't focus on heals or stuns.
CHA gives you AP Gain, Combat Advantage (boosts temp health and aggro) and stamina gen (for that CC) so adding crit you get the whole bag of tricks.
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Justice is the better path for tanking because the prot pally survives by generating high amounts of temp health. The bulwark path wasn't clearly thought through with regards to this.
If you choose the Heroic Feat Force of Will which gives you crit for points in CHA then there is literally no reason for points in WIS. CC resist is done via your shield and you don't focus on heals or stuns.
CHA gives you AP Gain, Combat Advantage (boosts temp health and aggro) and stamina gen (for that CC) so adding crit you get the whole bag of tricks.
That's interesting. I heard crit is essential mostly for healadins, now I'm pretty confused. If there are any current justice tankadin builds, could you give me a pointer or just give link to calc with skills and feats you think are most appropriate? I was planning mainly on Bulwark all this time so now I have very little idea on how to build by Justice tree...
Bear in mind I'm human but nwcalc doesn't hold that info properly so you need to add 3 extra points into Force of Will.
The purpose of having high crit is that when you crit on Templars Wrath your temp health jumps by the value of your Crit Strike. With the default of 75% that is of course an extra 75% temp health. Crit also makes you hit harder so it's easier for you to maintain threat.
You want to get around 60-65% Damage Reduction (Divine Call & CoP will then jump you to 90-95% DR which is your goal), aim for very high HP - so a Deepknight's Brigandine chest piece, an Energon companion (or harper bard if you're rich) and all radiants in your defence slots (You can start off with azures and swap them out once you're getting more DR from artifacts etc).
You need your Resistance Ignored to sit at 50%. You'll get another 5% from radiant strike and your companion can fill in the last bit. RI means you hit for full impact because if enemy defence negates any of your attack strength it costs you temp health and threat.
Your attribute points should be all in CON and CHA.
Some aim for debuff companions but I personally like 3 archons and a siege master for straight DPS.
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Bear in mind I'm human but nwcalc doesn't hold that info properly so you need to add 3 extra points into Force of Will.
The purpose of having high crit is that when you crit on Templars Wrath your temp health jumps by the value of your Crit Strike. With the default of 75% that is of course an extra 75% temp health. Crit also makes you hit harder so it's easier for you to maintain threat.
You want to get around 60-65% Damage Reduction (Divine Call & CoP will then jump you to 90-95% DR which is your goal), aim for very high HP - so a Deepknight's Brigandine chest piece, an Energon companion (or harper bard if you're rich) and all radiants in your defence slots (You can start off with azures and swap them out once you're getting more DR from artifacts etc).
You need your Resistance Ignored to sit at 50%. You'll get another 5% from radiant strike and your companion can fill in the last bit. RI means you hit for full impact because if enemy defence negates any of your attack strength it costs you temp health and threat.
Your attribute points should be all in CON and CHA.
Some aim for debuff companions but I personally like 3 archons and a siege master for straight DPS.
Thank you very much for sharing build, it's curious. Thinking now what may I sacrifice to get 3/3 Force of Will though, cause I'm not human... Also would be interesting to hear your input on at-wills/encounters/dailies and especially auras.
I'm currently running for solo PVE: At-Wills: Oath Strike/Radiant Strike Encounters: Templar's Wrath/Smite/Circle of Power (swapping Smite with Binding Oath in group or harder content) Dailies: Divine Judgement/Lay on Hands (thinking to swap DJ with Heroism later on. Shield dailies got nerfed from what I know and LoN had saved me and teammates more times than I can count) Auras: Aura of Courage/Aura of Radiance
What I generally don't understand about tankadin is how exactly my dmg affects aggro building and holding. By my logic you can have decent DPS on pally only when you're overgeared, but skills like Oath Strike, Binding Oath, Divine Call and Radiant Aura pretty much force mobs to attack you despite your damage and when timed right, you can hold this aggro almost infinitely. Because to think about it, you will always be heavily outdpsed by classes like HR/CW and etc. Also some ppl in my guild claim they capped DR but still get one-shot killed with dmg about 500k (in case of DC class iirc), so I was aiming at Bulwark because it makes pally, even without hitting high ilvl pretty much unkillable almost anywhere, and that was my main concern, cause what I listed above seemed like enough to manage aggro and keep mobs away from the party.
Also, does Bound By Light feat anyhow affect aggro capabilities?
I recently realized that I had way too much defense on my pally so I switched from the Lion to the Con Artist. Since then I now use Shielding Strike for a little extra defense. I also use BO in groups most the time for threat and the shield. I have settled into a pretty uniform choice of powers.
At-Will- Shielding Strike and Radiant Strike Encounter- CoP, and TW always. Smite solo. BO in group. Sometimes Bane on a boss. Daily- Shield of Faith and Divine Judgment. Aura- Courage and Wisdom.
Pallies are one of the few classes that have heroic feats that are actually mostly useful and add quite a bit to their effectiveness so deciding between a variety of things that are all useful can be difficult. I actually started out as a dwarf for the +2 CON & WIS but rerolled when I realised FoW was more effective.
Weighing everything up I'd probably lose 1 point from Wrathful Strikes and 2 points from Weapon Mastery as FoW nets you more crit.
You have a x5 threat multiplier so you only need to do a percentage of the dps of the hardest hitter in your group. Achieving 35% of their dps should ensure you hold aggro effectively.
At wills - I used Shielding Strike for a very long time until I realised that: a. it hits twice as hard but with half the strike rate of Oath and Valorous, b. Echoes of Light has a 5% chance on At Will use, so the faster your At Will strike rate, the greater your chance of activating it and having all of your encounters instantly recharge.
You can use Valorous if your DR still needs a bit of a bump, otherwise use Oath and it'll also help keep aggro - especially on bosses (single target). Radiant Strike is an absolute must and should always be your lead skill as the armor pen and dmg boost helps with everything.
Dailies: I use Divine Judgement when soloing and Shield of Faith in dungeon groups. Class Features: the ubiquitous Courage and Wisdom - I'll switch Courage for Protection in ultra-squishy pugs. Encounters: Solo it's TW/Smite/Relentless. The combination of Relentless and Radiant Strike means you have really good mobility to handle enemies that are spread out. In groups I'll switch Relentless for Blinding Light for mobs and switch to Bane/CoP for bosses. Note, I'll also switch BL for CoP for squishy groups.
In terms of protecting your party, you need to break it down; 1st - protect yourself. Dead tank means a dead party. By that I mean prioritise getting your temp health and use the skills you need to keep yourself on your feet - and unless your AP gain is good, time your SoF use so it fires when the big hits are coming (boss aoe red zones etc). Only spam it when your AP gain is high enough to keep it continuously up.
Secondly, your team should know about positioning. That means: They let you go in first and get the aggro They do not stand next to you - they need to be on the opposite side of enemies otherwise they'll take the same damage as you and they will die. Being on the opposite side means most hits won't touch them and everyone will have the added benefit of Combat Advantage. Melee dps will still benefit from your CoP as it's wide enough. They still need to get out of red zones even if they are in CoP unless they know they can take it.
Lastly, group protection skills - as I said before, you should only swap out Courage for Protection or Truth if your group is really squishy. The loss of DPS from Courage slows down the run and also reduces your temp health gain. Binding Oath - I never use it these days because in pre-boss mobs I don't need it and in boss fights it's just too risky and bane/CoP do a more reliable job.
On your point about damage and high IL - the biggest mistake I usually see on newer pallies is with regards to Resistance Ignored. Low RI is the number one factor in poor dps (and therefore poor temp health gain). You need to prioritise getting it to 50% then suddenly everything becomes easier. The extra 5% from Radiant Strike puts you at 55% which covers 99% of everything in the game and using a striker companion will top you up for that other 1% (e.g. Tiamat).
The amount of times I've seen a mid 2k Pally with 1k armor pen, meaning that even with Radiant they are only hitting ~15% RI. Enemies that have 50% DR will negate ~35% of the pallys damage - meaning no threat and poor temp health.
Focusing on HP, the more HP you have, the more damage you deal. This is because Aura of Courage is based on your HP and also because incoming damage boosts your power by up to 10% of your HP - so more HP means more power. Farm Thrones for a Deepknight's Brigandine (50k HP) and buy an Energon companion (Boosts HP by 5%). Even with no Radiants in defence slots, these two things will boost you to over 170k HP.
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Hm, thanks. Pretty surprising that I haven't see such info in any guides I checked, they give very different view on this. One thing still not clear enough for me is why Aura of Wisdom? With Justice and all other gimmicks I get, encounter recharge would be pretty fast already along with instant recharges, topping it off for TW doesn't seem so necessary. Protection for better survival or Radiance for better aggro holding feels more useful. What am I missing here?
The most important thing is the Justice capstone Vengeful Judge which increases your damage and encounter cooldowns. damage means more temp health and threat, encounter cooldowns increase survivability by increasing the amount of times you can use them.
On bosses such as Orcus, they will hit you for about 800k damage and even with your DR maxed and x3 Bane applied, 14% of that damage still gets through - that's 112k per hit - every 2-3 seconds. Because the Justice path boosts your damage and cooldowns this means you can not only get high temp health but that temp health is refreshed quickly.
Echoes of Light is another useful feat as it means your At Wills can also recharge your encounters and as Judge can also recharge your Divine Call this creates a positive cycle where your abilities are constantly helping each other to charge up faster.
This doesn't exist within the Bulwark/Prot path. But lets have a quick look at what the Prot feats give you:
* Stamina regen - not needed as your shield is only used for CC. * CC Resist - not needed as you have your shield * allies between 30-150' run 15% faster - that means GWFs will run ahead and die even more, there's no upside. * When you're not moving you gain 5% DR and deflect - yeah thanks, my DR is already maxed and unless you stack deflect, 5% is pointless. You shouldn't be stacking deflect because all defensive stats should be DR and HP. Not to mention I rarely stand still anyway. * Getting healed increases DR, Def & regen. See above for DR & Def and Regen doesn't work in combat * 10% chance of enemies dealing 10% less damage - ok that's useful. * Daily Powers give you a shield worth 1500% of your weapon damage - so that's about 30k or 25% of one of Orcus's debuffed hits - yeah, not really worth 5 points tbh. * When your encounter powers come off cooldown you gain a stack of Vigilant. When Vigilant reaches 5 stacks you may consume them by activating your Divine Call. Consuming stack of Vigilant grants you a shield for 8 seconds that absorbs 5/10/15/2025% of all incoming damage - ok this one's good. * When an ally is damaged by a foe you have a chance to gain “Avenger” for 6 seconds. “Avenger” causes your At Will attacks to reduce the cooldown on your currently cooling down encounter powers by .5/1/1.5/2/2.5%. - 2.5%? Seriously? It should be 25%. Someone put the decimal point in the wrong place. * Holy Barrier - the capstone. taking damage gives you stacks worth .5% of your HP and the stacks are consumed when you hit Divine Call. You expect to use this every 10 seconds as that's the ideal spacing for DC and also the refresh timer for Holy Barrier. Now lets say a boss hits you every 2 seconds, that means 5 stacks. Assuming you have a nice HP of 200k (which you won't for a long time) that means you gain a barrier that will absorb a whopping 5k of incoming damage once every 10 seconds. That's seriously the capstone? Again, the decimal point is in the wrong place, 5% per hit is more appropriate but to make the path attractive it should be 10%. That'd be the equivalent of using Absolution once every 10 seconds.
The other thing is - Bulwark doesn't give you any damage increase, as such you will spend most of your time running around trying to get aggro while your team dies because everything is ignoring you and hitting them.
The Bulwark path can be called "last man standing" because in every serious fight that's what you'll be.
Edit - correction as for some reason I was calling Bulwark 'Protection'. I must've been thinking of Protector which is the GF middle path (which is almost as bad)
Post edited by armadeonx on
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On the subject of Wisdom you need to bear in mind that this aura doesn't just affect you, it reduces the cooldowns of your entire team. That means your DPS player do more damage and Clerics & Healadins do more debuffing and healing.
The other thing is, you probably haven't experienced any long battles yet where you're at serious risk. Boss fights in T2/T3 dungeons are longer and they hit harder, to the point where it's quite easy to run out of Divine Call (especially if you don't have the Justice Capstone).
On the guides thing, I've read a lot of them and some are useful but the Prot Pally has had so many changes that if the guide wasn't written in Mod 10.5 it's out of date. If you want to keep up with the build advice then this forum section is the place to go as we have a number of very experienced contributors. There's still some debating going on with regard to stat allocations etc but that's a good thing as it keeps us all thinking.
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Yes, definitely it all makes perfect sense now. What was driving me off from Wisdom is that basically no build I've seen suggested to get Dominating Presence feat. That means during boss fights the only players affected by my auras should be close enough, but such classes as CW, HR or even DC are rather stay away and on opposite side of the boss, which means in groups of 5 or so, maybe 2-3 more players will benefit from this aura, when prot aura seem more useful as everyone would benefit from prot buff who stands close to boss, or Radiance which tops off aggro pulling.
Any dps who understands pally auras should know they need to stand in range to benefit - not just from Wisdom or Prot, but also from Courage and Aura Gifts which are our two main DPS buffs.
In most cases, the pally is face tanking the boss so DPS can safely stand within range but on the opposite side. If they don't then they are missing out on a serious amount of extra damage.
I would put 5 points in Dominating Presence but they are just too valuable elsewhere.
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There are some things that are "must have" for any Pally (both Dev and Prot) if you want to not be worthless in end-game. Such as:
Roll for CON and CHA, stack HP and Power.
Spec for Justice capstone and Aura Gifts. Seriously, this is the only viable way for PvE, any build that doesn't include one of those is simply bad. Aura Gifts is the best buff OP has and one of the reasons why people value having an OP in group.
You should always run Aura of Courage and Wisdom unless you're running with second OP so you can have access to 4 auras, or you're really forced to use Truth (instead of Courage) to debuff hard hitting boss to survive on Prot, or on Dev when you're in 10+ player content such as Tiamat or big HEs so you take Life instead of Wisdom because it saves a lot of time when someone goes down or everyone wipes on blue/red Tiamat head. Pally has literally 4 auras worth using and 2 that should be used all the time.
The amount of heroic points and what these feats are worth in stats plus their usefulness results in literally only one way to distribute them: 3005/3300/3103 if Human, 3002/3300/3103 if non-Human. No matter if you plan to stack crit or not. The only alternative is 1/3 Impassioned Pleas instead of Wrathful Strike, but it was tested recently and the amount of Divine Call gained with the feat at 3/3 is so low it's not worth it. Increased auras' range is simply bad because there are many other things that work in 30' range it won't affect, plus it's easier for others to see if they're in range of all your buffs just by seeing the icon on the bar.
On your point about damage and high IL - the biggest mistake I usually see on newer pallies is with regards to Resistance Ignored. Low RI is the number one factor in poor dps (and therefore poor temp health gain). You need to prioritise getting it to 50% then suddenly everything becomes easier. The extra 5% from Radiant Strike puts you at 55% which covers 99% of everything in the game and using a striker companion will top you up for that other 1% (e.g. Tiamat).
The amount of times I've seen a mid 2k Pally with 1k armor pen, meaning that even with Radiant they are only hitting ~15% RI. Enemies that have 50% DR will negate ~35% of the pallys damage - meaning no threat and poor temp health.
I actually found this to be one of the initial issues with OP, and a harder than usual stat to raise. Having also levelled a GWF, HR, TR, and CW to 70, I've found that dps gear almost always have ArP on it. Tank gear? Not so much!
So outside of a nice mount bonus, or bondings and some nice Loyal Avenger gear to easily get you to 6+k, it can be a bit of a challenge. Levelling JC to 25 for personalized adamant rings of penetration helped (you can later switch to recovery rings), although most people will go for the Underdark or SOMI rings here. Artifacts also help a bit here - lantern, lostmauth horn, GWF sigil, and a few others can definitely help out.
But yeah, I can't stress this point enough. It definitely sucks on an OP getting that ArP to 6+k, but it really does make a big difference in damage output. And damage = aggro (plus more temp health with TW).
As a side note, someone else had mentioned Force of Will. This is perhaps the best feat out there for any of the classes. Seriously. I'm sitting at about a 23 CHA, so that's a free 23% crit for 3 feat points. Yes, please. Throw in a heavy howler (2k crit, so that's another +5%), and that's a 28% chance of critting even if you're naked. Not a bad deal. With some buffs and a bit of gear, you should *easily* be able to hit 40-50% crit without really trying, which is pretty awesome. GFs would kill for that, so take advantage of it.
As a side note, someone else had mentioned Force of Will. This is perhaps the best feat out there for any of the classes. Seriously. I'm sitting at about a 23 CHA, so that's a free 23% crit for 3 feat points. Yes, please. Throw in a heavy howler (2k crit, so that's another +5%), and that's a 28% chance of critting even if you're naked. Not a bad deal. With some buffs and a bit of gear, you should *easily* be able to hit 40-50% crit without really trying, which is pretty awesome. GFs would kill for that, so take advantage of it.
I thought I would just throw this out there... I haven't done the math yet (working on preview right now though...) But last I checked Owlbear is still a valid option besides crit, and having Force of Will would sure throw that out the window real quick. You'll probably see a posting in the next month with Owlbear along with other interactions spring up in a massive wall of text by me.
I'm a theorycrafter, that means I can answer fairly deep questions with scientific theory, mathematical proof, and some guessing. Ask me stuff!
That's actually a bit of a dilemma right here. Since pally has pretty huge hp pool by default and basically you try increase it by any means since it's both your survivability and damage buff across the board, so having 2.5% from Steadfast feels way more appealing than 1% from Force of Will, for non-human that's a big problem. In theory from bigger hp you get flat damage and health increase when crit is still just a chance and probably you can try to increase it by other means, but from my point of view it doesn't really look that necessary in comparison. Would you guys still suggest to sacrifice Steadfast for Force of Will?
As a side note, someone else had mentioned Force of Will. This is perhaps the best feat out there for any of the classes. Seriously. I'm sitting at about a 23 CHA, so that's a free 23% crit for 3 feat points. Yes, please. Throw in a heavy howler (2k crit, so that's another +5%), and that's a 28% chance of critting even if you're naked. Not a bad deal. With some buffs and a bit of gear, you should *easily* be able to hit 40-50% crit without really trying, which is pretty awesome. GFs would kill for that, so take advantage of it.
I thought I would just throw this out there... I haven't done the math yet (working on preview right now though...) But last I checked Owlbear is still a valid option besides crit, and having Force of Will would sure throw that out the window real quick. You'll probably see a posting in the next month with Owlbear along with other interactions spring up in a massive wall of text by me.
Owlbear cub does about 1% total dmg on my Devo pally in dung runs, because of BG/HW/AoC. I use it only when solo. For Protection pallies can be still good because of theirs bigger power.
Svatá Prdelka game - Human/real life - ??? OP 18k+ Devotion/Justice - Light
Owlbear damage doesn't build temp HP, a TW Crit does. I have a 50% Crit rate with bonding up and I still use the owlbear. Win/Win. If I Crit I get Crit severity, if I don't I get Owlbear damage.
Owlbear damage doesn't build temp HP, a TW Crit does. I have a 50% Crit rate with bonding up and I still use the owlbear. Win/Win. If I Crit I get Crit severity, if I don't I get Owlbear damage.
True. But Owlbears glory fades away with its Burning Light nerf.
Svatá Prdelka game - Human/real life - ??? OP 18k+ Devotion/Justice - Light
That's actually a bit of a dilemma right here. Since pally has pretty huge hp pool by default and basically you try increase it by any means since it's both your survivability and damage buff across the board, so having 2.5% from Steadfast feels way more appealing than 1% from Force of Will, for non-human that's a big problem. In theory from bigger hp you get flat damage and health increase when crit is still just a chance and probably you can try to increase it by other means, but from my point of view it doesn't really look that necessary in comparison. Would you guys still suggest to sacrifice Steadfast for Force of Will?
This is why you need to do a class reroll to human - that way you can have both.
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That's actually a bit of a dilemma right here. Since pally has pretty huge hp pool by default and basically you try increase it by any means since it's both your survivability and damage buff across the board, so having 2.5% from Steadfast feels way more appealing than 1% from Force of Will, for non-human that's a big problem. In theory from bigger hp you get flat damage and health increase when crit is still just a chance and probably you can try to increase it by other means, but from my point of view it doesn't really look that necessary in comparison. Would you guys still suggest to sacrifice Steadfast for Force of Will?
This is why you need to do a class reroll to human - that way you can have both.
That's the response I was very afraid of... Do devs actually have any comment on this? Because even for my SW, human feels vastly superior than any other race, that's so frustrating...
That's actually a bit of a dilemma right here. Since pally has pretty huge hp pool by default and basically you try increase it by any means since it's both your survivability and damage buff across the board, so having 2.5% from Steadfast feels way more appealing than 1% from Force of Will, for non-human that's a big problem. In theory from bigger hp you get flat damage and health increase when crit is still just a chance and probably you can try to increase it by other means, but from my point of view it doesn't really look that necessary in comparison. Would you guys still suggest to sacrifice Steadfast for Force of Will?
This is why you need to do a class reroll to human - that way you can have both.
That's the response I was very afraid of... Do devs actually have any comment on this? Because even for my SW, human feels vastly superior than any other race, that's so frustrating...
Some classes have good feats in last column, some don't. OP is one of those who does.
Comments
I played this game long ago and stopped really early until now and I've decided to roll a Paladin as it has always been my favorite class in every game. I'm at a point where I do not know if making him a Tank or a Healer and I wanted to know which of the 2 is the more rewarding and also wanted in groups (since I'll be playing solo most of the times and will have to join pugs).
Thanks in advanace for the feedback.
> With a Stealadin build, you can do both.
Which is...? I'm still not used to this game terminology and a link might help (unless you were talking about this one xD).
Until 11.5 hits, you're committed to one build (unless you have a lot of respec tokens to burn through). I would pick Tankadin, as they generally have the benefit of being wanted for most runs (if you go into LFG channels, you'll notice people will say "LF Tank for [x]", but will also say "LF DC for [x]" rather than "LF healer for [x]). Healadins, while good at their role, tend to get looked down upon because they're not DCs.
> Sorry if I am a bit offtopic...
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> I played this game long ago and stopped really early until now and I've decided to roll a Paladin as it has always been my favorite class in every game. I'm at a point where I do not know if making him a Tank or a Healer and I wanted to know which of the 2 is the more rewarding and also wanted in groups (since I'll be playing solo most of the times and will have to join pugs).
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> Thanks in advanace for the feedback.
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> When Mod 11.5 hits, it will be possible to have both a Tankadin (Oath of Protection) build and Healadin (Oath of Devotion) build on the same Paladin via Loadouts. Thankfully, the Paladin gear is rather similar regardless of tankadin or healadin, so you're mostly just swapping your feats and powers at that point.
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> Until 11.5 hits, you're committed to one build (unless you have a lot of respec tokens to burn through). I would pick Tankadin, as they generally have the benefit of being wanted for most runs (if you go into LFG channels, you'll notice people will say "LF Tank for [x]", but will also say "LF DC for [x]" rather than "LF healer for [x]). Healadins, while good at their role, tend to get looked down upon because they're not DCs.
Thanks for the suggestions, I was unconsciously going for the tnaking build seeing how I was setting skills and stats so I'm happy to hear that and about double specs ^^.
Currently building tankadin. I want pure tank so thinking going Bulwark, but some ppl say I better pick Justice because I will hit max DR soon enough with pally as it is. But me thinks I will still need more survivability before I gear up. So which would be better: Bulwark or Justice as final choice?
Also, which stat is more important for tankadin, WIS or CHA and why?
If you choose the Heroic Feat Force of Will which gives you crit for points in CHA then there is literally no reason for points in WIS. CC resist is done via your shield and you don't focus on heals or stuns.
CHA gives you AP Gain, Combat Advantage (boosts temp health and aggro) and stamina gen (for that CC) so adding crit you get the whole bag of tricks.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
nwcalc
Bear in mind I'm human but nwcalc doesn't hold that info properly so you need to add 3 extra points into Force of Will.
The purpose of having high crit is that when you crit on Templars Wrath your temp health jumps by the value of your Crit Strike. With the default of 75% that is of course an extra 75% temp health. Crit also makes you hit harder so it's easier for you to maintain threat.
You want to get around 60-65% Damage Reduction (Divine Call & CoP will then jump you to 90-95% DR which is your goal), aim for very high HP - so a Deepknight's Brigandine chest piece, an Energon companion (or harper bard if you're rich) and all radiants in your defence slots (You can start off with azures and swap them out once you're getting more DR from artifacts etc).
You need your Resistance Ignored to sit at 50%. You'll get another 5% from radiant strike and your companion can fill in the last bit. RI means you hit for full impact because if enemy defence negates any of your attack strength it costs you temp health and threat.
Your attribute points should be all in CON and CHA.
Some aim for debuff companions but I personally like 3 archons and a siege master for straight DPS.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
I'm currently running for solo PVE:
At-Wills: Oath Strike/Radiant Strike
Encounters: Templar's Wrath/Smite/Circle of Power (swapping Smite with Binding Oath in group or harder content)
Dailies: Divine Judgement/Lay on Hands (thinking to swap DJ with Heroism later on. Shield dailies got nerfed from what I know and LoN had saved me and teammates more times than I can count)
Auras: Aura of Courage/Aura of Radiance
What I generally don't understand about tankadin is how exactly my dmg affects aggro building and holding. By my logic you can have decent DPS on pally only when you're overgeared, but skills like Oath Strike, Binding Oath, Divine Call and Radiant Aura pretty much force mobs to attack you despite your damage and when timed right, you can hold this aggro almost infinitely. Because to think about it, you will always be heavily outdpsed by classes like HR/CW and etc. Also some ppl in my guild claim they capped DR but still get one-shot killed with dmg about 500k (in case of DC class iirc), so I was aiming at Bulwark because it makes pally, even without hitting high ilvl pretty much unkillable almost anywhere, and that was my main concern, cause what I listed above seemed like enough to manage aggro and keep mobs away from the party.
Also, does Bound By Light feat anyhow affect aggro capabilities?
At-Will- Shielding Strike and Radiant Strike
Encounter- CoP, and TW always. Smite solo. BO in group. Sometimes Bane on a boss.
Daily- Shield of Faith and Divine Judgment.
Aura- Courage and Wisdom.
Weighing everything up I'd probably lose 1 point from Wrathful Strikes and 2 points from Weapon Mastery as FoW nets you more crit.
You have a x5 threat multiplier so you only need to do a percentage of the dps of the hardest hitter in your group. Achieving 35% of their dps should ensure you hold aggro effectively.
At wills - I used Shielding Strike for a very long time until I realised that:
a. it hits twice as hard but with half the strike rate of Oath and Valorous,
b. Echoes of Light has a 5% chance on At Will use, so the faster your At Will strike rate, the greater your chance of activating it and having all of your encounters instantly recharge.
You can use Valorous if your DR still needs a bit of a bump, otherwise use Oath and it'll also help keep aggro - especially on bosses (single target). Radiant Strike is an absolute must and should always be your lead skill as the armor pen and dmg boost helps with everything.
Dailies: I use Divine Judgement when soloing and Shield of Faith in dungeon groups.
Class Features: the ubiquitous Courage and Wisdom - I'll switch Courage for Protection in ultra-squishy pugs.
Encounters: Solo it's TW/Smite/Relentless. The combination of Relentless and Radiant Strike means you have really good mobility to handle enemies that are spread out. In groups I'll switch Relentless for Blinding Light for mobs and switch to Bane/CoP for bosses. Note, I'll also switch BL for CoP for squishy groups.
In terms of protecting your party, you need to break it down;
1st - protect yourself. Dead tank means a dead party. By that I mean prioritise getting your temp health and use the skills you need to keep yourself on your feet - and unless your AP gain is good, time your SoF use so it fires when the big hits are coming (boss aoe red zones etc). Only spam it when your AP gain is high enough to keep it continuously up.
Secondly, your team should know about positioning. That means:
They let you go in first and get the aggro
They do not stand next to you - they need to be on the opposite side of enemies otherwise they'll take the same damage as you and they will die. Being on the opposite side means most hits won't touch them and everyone will have the added benefit of Combat Advantage. Melee dps will still benefit from your CoP as it's wide enough.
They still need to get out of red zones even if they are in CoP unless they know they can take it.
Lastly, group protection skills - as I said before, you should only swap out Courage for Protection or Truth if your group is really squishy. The loss of DPS from Courage slows down the run and also reduces your temp health gain. Binding Oath - I never use it these days because in pre-boss mobs I don't need it and in boss fights it's just too risky and bane/CoP do a more reliable job.
On your point about damage and high IL - the biggest mistake I usually see on newer pallies is with regards to Resistance Ignored. Low RI is the number one factor in poor dps (and therefore poor temp health gain). You need to prioritise getting it to 50% then suddenly everything becomes easier. The extra 5% from Radiant Strike puts you at 55% which covers 99% of everything in the game and using a striker companion will top you up for that other 1% (e.g. Tiamat).
The amount of times I've seen a mid 2k Pally with 1k armor pen, meaning that even with Radiant they are only hitting ~15% RI. Enemies that have 50% DR will negate ~35% of the pallys damage - meaning no threat and poor temp health.
Focusing on HP, the more HP you have, the more damage you deal. This is because Aura of Courage is based on your HP and also because incoming damage boosts your power by up to 10% of your HP - so more HP means more power. Farm Thrones for a Deepknight's Brigandine (50k HP) and buy an Energon companion (Boosts HP by 5%). Even with no Radiants in defence slots, these two things will boost you to over 170k HP.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
On bosses such as Orcus, they will hit you for about 800k damage and even with your DR maxed and x3 Bane applied, 14% of that damage still gets through - that's 112k per hit - every 2-3 seconds. Because the Justice path boosts your damage and cooldowns this means you can not only get high temp health but that temp health is refreshed quickly.
Echoes of Light is another useful feat as it means your At Wills can also recharge your encounters and as Judge can also recharge your Divine Call this creates a positive cycle where your abilities are constantly helping each other to charge up faster.
This doesn't exist within the Bulwark/Prot path. But lets have a quick look at what the Prot feats give you:
* Stamina regen - not needed as your shield is only used for CC.
* CC Resist - not needed as you have your shield
* allies between 30-150' run 15% faster - that means GWFs will run ahead and die even more, there's no upside.
* When you're not moving you gain 5% DR and deflect - yeah thanks, my DR is already maxed and unless you stack deflect, 5% is pointless. You shouldn't be stacking deflect because all defensive stats should be DR and HP. Not to mention I rarely stand still anyway.
* Getting healed increases DR, Def & regen. See above for DR & Def and Regen doesn't work in combat
* 10% chance of enemies dealing 10% less damage - ok that's useful.
* Daily Powers give you a shield worth 1500% of your weapon damage - so that's about 30k or 25% of one of Orcus's debuffed hits - yeah, not really worth 5 points tbh.
* When your encounter powers come off cooldown you gain a stack of Vigilant. When Vigilant reaches 5 stacks you may consume them by activating your Divine Call. Consuming stack of Vigilant grants you a shield for 8 seconds that absorbs 5/10/15/2025% of all incoming damage - ok this one's good.
* When an ally is damaged by a foe you have a chance to gain “Avenger” for 6 seconds. “Avenger” causes your At Will attacks to reduce the cooldown on your currently cooling down encounter powers by .5/1/1.5/2/2.5%. - 2.5%? Seriously? It should be 25%. Someone put the decimal point in the wrong place.
* Holy Barrier - the capstone. taking damage gives you stacks worth .5% of your HP and the stacks are consumed when you hit Divine Call. You expect to use this every 10 seconds as that's the ideal spacing for DC and also the refresh timer for Holy Barrier. Now lets say a boss hits you every 2 seconds, that means 5 stacks. Assuming you have a nice HP of 200k (which you won't for a long time) that means you gain a barrier that will absorb a whopping 5k of incoming damage once every 10 seconds. That's seriously the capstone? Again, the decimal point is in the wrong place, 5% per hit is more appropriate but to make the path attractive it should be 10%. That'd be the equivalent of using Absolution once every 10 seconds.
The other thing is - Bulwark doesn't give you any damage increase, as such you will spend most of your time running around trying to get aggro while your team dies because everything is ignoring you and hitting them.
The Bulwark path can be called "last man standing" because in every serious fight that's what you'll be.
Edit - correction as for some reason I was calling Bulwark 'Protection'. I must've been thinking of Protector which is the GF middle path (which is almost as bad)
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
The other thing is, you probably haven't experienced any long battles yet where you're at serious risk. Boss fights in T2/T3 dungeons are longer and they hit harder, to the point where it's quite easy to run out of Divine Call (especially if you don't have the Justice Capstone).
On the guides thing, I've read a lot of them and some are useful but the Prot Pally has had so many changes that if the guide wasn't written in Mod 10.5 it's out of date. If you want to keep up with the build advice then this forum section is the place to go as we have a number of very experienced contributors. There's still some debating going on with regard to stat allocations etc but that's a good thing as it keeps us all thinking.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
What was driving me off from Wisdom is that basically no build I've seen suggested to get Dominating Presence feat. That means during boss fights the only players affected by my auras should be close enough, but such classes as CW, HR or even DC are rather stay away and on opposite side of the boss, which means in groups of 5 or so, maybe 2-3 more players will benefit from this aura, when prot aura seem more useful as everyone would benefit from prot buff who stands close to boss, or Radiance which tops off aggro pulling.
In most cases, the pally is face tanking the boss so DPS can safely stand within range but on the opposite side. If they don't then they are missing out on a serious amount of extra damage.
I would put 5 points in Dominating Presence but they are just too valuable elsewhere.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Roll for CON and CHA, stack HP and Power.
Spec for Justice capstone and Aura Gifts. Seriously, this is the only viable way for PvE, any build that doesn't include one of those is simply bad. Aura Gifts is the best buff OP has and one of the reasons why people value having an OP in group.
You should always run Aura of Courage and Wisdom unless you're running with second OP so you can have access to 4 auras, or you're really forced to use Truth (instead of Courage) to debuff hard hitting boss to survive on Prot, or on Dev when you're in 10+ player content such as Tiamat or big HEs so you take Life instead of Wisdom because it saves a lot of time when someone goes down or everyone wipes on blue/red Tiamat head. Pally has literally 4 auras worth using and 2 that should be used all the time.
The amount of heroic points and what these feats are worth in stats plus their usefulness results in literally only one way to distribute them: 3005/3300/3103 if Human, 3002/3300/3103 if non-Human. No matter if you plan to stack crit or not. The only alternative is 1/3 Impassioned Pleas instead of Wrathful Strike, but it was tested recently and the amount of Divine Call gained with the feat at 3/3 is so low it's not worth it. Increased auras' range is simply bad because there are many other things that work in 30' range it won't affect, plus it's easier for others to see if they're in range of all your buffs just by seeing the icon on the bar.
Having also levelled a GWF, HR, TR, and CW to 70, I've found that dps gear almost always have ArP on it. Tank gear? Not so much!
So outside of a nice mount bonus, or bondings and some nice Loyal Avenger gear to easily get you to 6+k, it can be a bit of a challenge.
Levelling JC to 25 for personalized adamant rings of penetration helped (you can later switch to recovery rings), although most people will go for the Underdark or SOMI rings here.
Artifacts also help a bit here - lantern, lostmauth horn, GWF sigil, and a few others can definitely help out.
But yeah, I can't stress this point enough. It definitely sucks on an OP getting that ArP to 6+k, but it really does make a big difference in damage output. And damage = aggro (plus more temp health with TW).
As a side note, someone else had mentioned Force of Will.
This is perhaps the best feat out there for any of the classes. Seriously.
I'm sitting at about a 23 CHA, so that's a free 23% crit for 3 feat points. Yes, please. Throw in a heavy howler (2k crit, so that's another +5%), and that's a 28% chance of critting even if you're naked. Not a bad deal. With some buffs and a bit of gear, you should *easily* be able to hit 40-50% crit without really trying, which is pretty awesome. GFs would kill for that, so take advantage of it.
game - Human/real life - ???
OP 18k+ Devotion/Justice - Light
game - Human/real life - ???
OP 18k+ Devotion/Justice - Light
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox