[Mod 6] PredOborG’s complete PvE guide to godlike tank Oathbound Paladin

predoborg · May 2015

Hello fellow Neverwinter players,
I have finished and published my in-depth guide for Protection OP. You can find it at http://mmominds.com/2015/05/25/mod-6-predoborgs-pve-guide-to-godlike-tank-dps-oathbound-paladin/
It is new players friendly guide to tanking with OP. With detailed comments on all powers, gear, feats, boons and companions used, all 99% personally tested and observed. Some helpful tips for running Tier 1 and Tier 2 dungeons. Stats explanation and some minor theorycrafting.
Apoligies for making it on a external site but it was the best option for such guide.

whoamireally · May 2015

Very interesting read. I really appreciate the level of detail that you put into writing the guide. I really cannot comment on any of your decisions because I have not rolled an OP yet, but I will probably check this out further when I do.

One thing that would be interesting would be if you did a comparison of the AP generation of the various At-will abilities.

hallacatt · May 2015

Overall I like the effort and Im sure soon-to-be OP's will too but I think its important to correct some misinformation present here.

1. Regarding divine touch and shielding strike - Its important to note that those shields provided both of these are not ablative. They do not decay with incoming damage and instead have a set duration and apply to every incoming strike.

As an example:If the shield from 3 stacks of shielding strike is 10k and the shield from divine touch is 8k then all incoming damage is reduced by 18k. This is applied to each and every incoming strike for as long as the duration holds.

This is especially important with regards to your comparison between valorous strike and shielding strike. In order for valorous strike to protect more than 3 stacks of the shielding buff from shielding strike you would need to take 200k damage in a single hit for it to even be equal. On live right now with my fairly mediocre OP, each stack is worth between 3k and 4k shielding so fully stacked mitigates 9k to 12k incoming damage.

Using your own testing regarding divine touch, if it prevents 10k for you then if you even get hit 5 times over that 8 second duration then it prevented 50k damage. Tanking dungeons getting hit 5 times over 8 seconds is a very conservative number. With Divine Protector up, getting hit 10 times in 8 seconds just from redirected damage is commonplace. In that case it would prevent 100k damage.

2. Your understanding of Oath strike is completely wrong. It doesnt make players deal less damage to targets not affected by Oath Strike, it makes a player affected by Oath Strike deal less damage to other players than the source of the Oath Strike. This is basically a strictly PVP inclusion.

3. Lay on Hands CAN be used on yourself.

I wont comment on your feat or gear choices because that would just be my opinions vs yours but the above is all true and you should review it.

query523 · May 2015

I'm fairly ignorant of Pali builds. I can say that having run content with the OP this build works.

hallacatt · May 2015

No doubt! Im certain it works very well. I am just addressing the (very few) things that were not correctly represented. Overall it is an excellent write-up, I just don't want anyone to look at it and believe that Shielding Strike is less damage reduction than Valorous Strike, that Lay on Hands can't self-heal, or that Oath Strike nerfs party DPS - as that would just be absolutely false.

obsidiancran3 · May 2015

Lifesteal works in combat and regeneration does not; for an OP Lifesteal > Regeneration because we have several means of healing ourselves (Sanctuary, Lay on Hands, Cleansing Touch) easily out of combat anyway. Even a small amount of Lifesteal can go a long way in a fight.

Otherwise I agree with your choices given your stated goals with the character, even if I disagree wrt Justice vs Bulwark and tanking.

phoenix1021 · May 2015

Not to be ungreateful, but some things in this guide are more opinion than fact. Especially about bulwark being useless in PvE. And the capstone doesn't work like temp hp at all from my experience. And no lay on hands, no shielding strike... Sorry, but without all purple gear and trancendent enchants this build wouldn't work imo. I've seen this a lot already, people in low gear with protection justice paladins that die within a few seconds.

predoborg · May 2015

whoamireally wrote: »

One thing that would be interesting would be if you did a comparison of the AP generation of the various At-will abilities.

Thanks for reminding me this. I totally forgot it. After some tests I found out Valorous Strike gives 85% per 100 hits. Oath Strike is 78% per 100 hits. Radiant doesn't seem to matter how many foes you hit at same time, hitting 1 or 5 still gives the smallest 40% for 100 hits. I don't have Shielding atm to add it but I will when I have the time.

hallacatt wrote: »

1. Regarding divine touch and shielding strike - Its important to note that those shields provided both of these are not ablative. They do not decay with incoming damage and instead have a set duration and apply to every incoming strike.

As an example:If the shield from 3 stacks of shielding strike is 10k and the shield from divine touch is 8k then all incoming damage is reduced by 18k. This is applied to each and every incoming strike for as long as the duration holds.

2. Your understanding of Oath strike is completely wrong. It doesnt make players deal less damage to targets not affected by Oath Strike, it makes a player affected by Oath Strike deal less damage to other players than the source of the Oath Strike. This is basically a strictly PVP inclusion.

3. Lay on Hands CAN be used on yourself.

I wont comment on your feat or gear choices because that would just be my opinions vs yours but the above is all true and you should review it.

I will start from 3. Yes, you may be right. When I first played I slotted Lay on Hands and was almost sure it didnt heal me. When I respecced 2 times after that I didnt level it to double check.
2. Well, the description is little confusing tbh. As I don't play PvP I always think about PvE first.
1. Actually you are wrong too. After some initial tests I found out the Shield from this encounter works as a dodge. It will totally absorb all incoming damage at the time of the shield. This means it can absorb only 1 attack (similar to HR's Fox's Cunning but only personal) or it can absort multiple if they happen at the same seccond. If timed properly (very hard to do tho as there are a lot of attacks coming most of the time) it can even dodge Binding Oath's explosion. I will try it a little more in dungeons and see if I can make it my 3rd best choice. Currently I am able to survive 1.8 mil damage from Binding Oath. The only times I can die is either taking more than 2 mil damage or if Sanctuary refuses to work (very annoying bug). If I can master the usage of Divine Touch It should make me immortal.

As for the Shielding Strike I have to test if it's simlar dodge effect. If it is then I will agree it's the better At-Will. Otherwise it's worse because it will need to be spammed to have any real effect. And that's hard to do with OP. I prefer hitting 3 times with Valorous and get the 5% DR and focus on the recharging the encounters and spamming them as that's easier with Justice tree. The damage of the At-Wills doesn't matter much too as they make the ~10% from the overall. We are not GWF to be able to hit 10 times in 2 secs to really justify using some At-Will because of the damage. There are other things that make the OP's damage (one is taking more damage with Binding Oath and the other is Aura of Courage)

obsidiancran3 wrote: »

Lifesteal works in combat and regeneration does not; for an OP Lifesteal > Regeneration because we have several means of healing ourselves (Sanctuary, Lay on Hands, Cleansing Touch) easily out of combat anyway.

The best way to heal out-of-combat is to use potions. Eveything else is a waste of too much time which I dislke a lot. And the problem with Life Steal on OP is that we have to sacrifice some more important stats and LS will still be too unrealiable to justify this.

phoenix1021 wrote: »

Not to be ungreateful, but some things in this guide are more opinion than fact. Especially about bulwark being useless in PvE. And the capstone doesn't work like temp hp at all from my experience. And no lay on hands, no shielding strike... Sorry, but without all purple gear and trancendent enchants this build wouldn't work imo. I've seen this a lot already, people in low gear with protection justice paladins that die within a few seconds.

As you can see from my comments on almost everything I checked before writing. I didn't just write "Hey I like the description of this spell, I think this is the best thing ever!". And if you do the math with the stats for T1 and BiS gear that I put you will see the difference between them is ridiculosly little. Also I put the descriptions for the Transcendent Enchants because they are the end goal. I am actually using Perfect enchants at best (tried with Holy Avenger and Terror but they don't seem to be that good for this build) and all enchants are Rank 7. If I have all Rank 12 there will be nothing to kill this build (if using everything properly of course). The guys you saw with Justice probably 1) Don't know how to use it good; 2) Use Relentless Avenger to engage which is a disrespectful sepukku by itself; 3) Don't know how to neglet the Binding Oath's damage (tho Sanctuary is bugged and sometimes doesn't work).

spleekzgaming · May 2015

hallacatt wrote: »

Overall I like the effort and Im sure soon-to-be OP's will too but I think its important to correct some misinformation present here.

1. Regarding divine touch and shielding strike - Its important to note that those shields provided both of these are not ablative. They do not decay with incoming damage and instead have a set duration and apply to every incoming strike.

As an example:If the shield from 3 stacks of shielding strike is 10k and the shield from divine touch is 8k then all incoming damage is reduced by 18k. This is applied to each and every incoming strike for as long as the duration holds.

This is especially important with regards to your comparison between valorous strike and shielding strike. In order for valorous strike to protect more than 3 stacks of the shielding buff from shielding strike you would need to take 200k damage in a single hit for it to even be equal. On live right now with my fairly mediocre OP, each stack is worth between 3k and 4k shielding so fully stacked mitigates 9k to 12k incoming damage.

Using your own testing regarding divine touch, if it prevents 10k for you then if you even get hit 5 times over that 8 second duration then it prevented 50k damage. Tanking dungeons getting hit 5 times over 8 seconds is a very conservative number. With Divine Protector up, getting hit 10 times in 8 seconds just from redirected damage is commonplace. In that case it would prevent 100k damage.

2. Your understanding of Oath strike is completely wrong. It doesnt make players deal less damage to targets not affected by Oath Strike, it makes a player affected by Oath Strike deal less damage to other players than the source of the Oath Strike. This is basically a strictly PVP inclusion.

3. Lay on Hands CAN be used on yourself.

I wont comment on your feat or gear choices because that would just be my opinions vs yours but the above is all true and you should review it.

and atleast on my OP regarding dmg of your atwills, shielding strike hits for quite abit more on my OP than my other atwills

obsidiancran3 · June 2015

The issue is you are choosing a Boon that does nothing in combat over a boon that can help in combat from time to time. Given a choice between lifesteal or regen for an OP, such as in some Boon tiers, always take the Lifesteal. For gear if you have 2 otherwise identical items, again choose lifesteal, otherwise ignore them both.

spleekzgaming that is what I see with the at-wills as well.

twilightwatchman · June 2015

Shielding Strike is my At-Will of choice, alongside Radiant Strike. I've tested all the At-Wills and SS provides noticeably increased durability. It's not necessary to 'spam' it either - since you have Purifying Fire you are going to want to weave 5 At-Will attacks between encounters whenever possible to maximise DPS and this is more than enough to keep SS working for you.

predoborg · June 2015

obsidiancran3 wrote: »

The issue is you are choosing a Boon that does nothing in combat over a boon that can help in combat from time to time. Given a choice between lifesteal or regen for an OP, such as in some Boon tiers, always take the Lifesteal. For gear if you have 2 otherwise identical items, again choose lifesteal, otherwise ignore them both.

spleekzgaming that is what I see with the at-wills as well.

I think you are forgetting Regeneration also gives Increased Healing in combat. Having 2% chance to heal from a random power doesn't seem much better than having constant heal 2% heal from all sources. Most times the 2% chance will trigger from an At-Will.
And there is no gear for OP that gives Life Steal! Or did I miss to find it or see it? There are no good rings, belts, necks or clothes with LS. The only way for now to increase it for our class is to get 4 Mithic artifacts for 4k LS overall which will give 10%; all boons will add 7% more. And even then you will lose damage making the LS not so helpful because all artis with LS are defensive.

twilightwatchman wrote: »

Shielding Strike is my At-Will of choice, alongside Radiant Strike. I've tested all the At-Wills and SS provides noticeably increased durability. It's not necessary to 'spam' it either - since you have Purifying Fire you are going to want to weave 5 At-Will attacks between encounters whenever possible to maximise DPS and this is more than enough to keep SS working for you.

So can you tell me then if SS's Shield is a fixed amount or does it Shield from all damage from 1 or more attacks that happen at the same time? I can't also remember if it had slower or faster attack animation than VS.

hallacatt · June 2015

SS is about as fast as VS and it shields for a fixed amount per stack that scales with power so it gets better once your 10% HP as power kicks in. Incoming damage does not diminish the shield and if you receive multiple attacks rapidly it will reduce them all by the same value times the amount of stacks - up to a maximum of 3 stacks. If incoming damage is less than the absorbs, it will reduce damage to 0.

sixpax2 · June 2015

Tried the Justice tree as a "tanking" Paladin once and quickly bought a respec to go back into Bulwark. Justice is not a better choice for tanking. It's just not. Read the post in my sig and let it sink in.

wentris · June 2015

sixpax2 wrote: »

Tried the Justice tree as a "tanking" Paladin once and quickly bought a respec to go back into Bulwark. Justice is not a better choice for tanking. It's just not. Read the post in my sig and let it sink in.

I liked justice more even when I barely had 2k ilvl, but that could just be my preference. The fact is that justice scales better with your and your party gear, than bulwark. As for your signature remember harder doesnt mean less effective. With Justice you have to manage your encounters better, because you rely on them more than with bulwark, where your feats do job for you.

P.S. I admit I havent played Bulwark since April. Could you tell me how much temp hp you build on t2 bosses with templars wrath?

sixpax2 · June 2015

wentris wrote: »

I liked justice more even when I barely had 2k ilvl, but that could just be my preference. The fact is that justice scales better with your and your party gear, than bulwark. As for your signature remember harder doesnt mean less effective. With Justice you have to manage your encounters better, because you rely on them more than with bulwark, where your feats do job for you.

P.S. I admit I havent played Bulwark since April. Could you tell me how much temp hp you build on t2 bosses with templars wrath?

I'm not on T2 content yet. I'm sure if you send Crush a PM, he'll be happy to answer any question you have about tanking with the Bulwark tree though.

equ4lizer · June 2015

sixpax2 wrote: »

Tried the Justice tree as a "tanking" Paladin once and quickly bought a respec to go back into Bulwark. Justice is not a better choice for tanking. It's just not. Read the post in my sig and let it sink in.

Indeed, thats why I used justice tree for damage not tanking.

phoenix1021 · June 2015

predoborg wrote: »

As you can see from my comments on almost everything I checked before writing. I didn't just write "Hey I like the description of this spell, I think this is the best thing ever!". And if you do the math with the stats for T1 and BiS gear that I put you will see the difference between them is ridiculosly little. Also I put the descriptions for the Transcendent Enchants because they are the end goal. I am actually using Perfect enchants at best (tried with Holy Avenger and Terror but they don't seem to be that good for this build) and all enchants are Rank 7. If I have all Rank 12 there will be nothing to kill this build (if using everything properly of course). The guys you saw with Justice probably 1) Don't know how to use it good; 2) Use Relentless Avenger to engage which is a disrespectful sepukku by itself; 3) Don't know how to neglet the Binding Oath's damage (tho Sanctuary is bugged and sometimes doesn't work).

Except that you didn't even know you could use lay on hands on yourself. And btw I can easily reach 20%+ deflect chance on my halfling paladin.
Seriously, if I had a perfect negation enchant (which costs 10 million ad btw), I wouldn't need bulwark feats either. It's not something that normal players will ever have though.
I'm just

because I thought there's finally a guide for normal paladin tank players, but this is just the same that's already been done 2 times.

twilightwatchman · June 2015

sixpax2 wrote: »

I'm not on T2 content yet. I'm sure if you send Crush a PM, he'll be happy to answer any question you have about tanking with the Bulwark tree though.

Quoting a dev's opinion on gameplay as some kind of ultimate authority is pretty pointless. Have you ever seen the devs playing the game? And in any case GC is not saying what you seem to think he's saying.

I run a Justice build and have no issues tanking the content I'm currently playing, which is all that really matters. Also if you mainly play solo Justice is simply a better choice than Bulwark. There is no hard and fast rule here.

sixpax2 · June 2015

twilightwatchman wrote: »

Quoting a dev's opinion on gameplay as some kind of ultimate authority is pretty pointless. Have you ever seen the devs playing the game?

So basically what you're saying is Crush doesn't know what he's talking about. Got it.

twilightwatchman wrote: »

I run a Justice build and have no issues tanking the content I'm currently playing, which is all that really matters. Also if you mainly play solo Justice is simply a better choice than Bulwark. There is no hard and fast rule here.

To each his own. I play a Paladin to do tanking for group content and Bulwark is the better choice for that.

thefabricant · June 2015

I ran with this guy early on when his build was still developing through epic GWD for a legit clear, at the time he was only just scraping past the 2k ilvl requirement and didn't have the gear he has now. His build was working then, so I am satisfied that he knows what he is doing (My pally is heal and I haven't tried tank yet, so my opinions are based solely on observation)

twilightwatchman · June 2015

sixpax2 wrote: »

So basically what you're saying is Crush doesn't know what he's talking about. Got it.

No. What I'm saying is that Crush is great on theory but not as good on how things work in practice. And that you are in any case, wilfully or otherwise, misinterpreting what he said.

sixpax2 wrote: »

To each his own. I play a Paladin to do tanking for group content and Bulwark is the better choice for that.

It's the EASIER choice. The two things are not the same.

predoborg · June 2015

sixpax2 wrote: »

I'm not on T2 content yet. I'm sure if you send Crush a PM, he'll be happy to answer any question you have about tanking with the Bulwark tree though.

Well, to be honest what else can he say? "Hey, Bulwark is bad, just use Justice. We made Bulwark, because it sounds good, sorry." Very few self aware people who are making profit will tell you something from their products is much worse than the other. It's bad for the business, you know. Bulwark has extremely few feats that are any useful at all. Let's look at the capstone- Holy Barrier. It has max 20 stacks. You gain 20 stacks for 40 sec. With 100k HP you will get 10k Shield from the 20 stacks when using TAB. So you get 10k shield every 50 secs. No matter how I twist this, it's in no way any better than refreshing all encounters for 35% with TAB. But if you think having 100k Temp HP every 2 secs is worse than having 10k shield every 50 secs than your call.

phoenix1021 wrote: »

Except that you didn't even know you could use lay on hands on yourself. And btw I can easily reach 20%+ deflect chance on my halfling paladin.
Seriously, if I had a perfect negation enchant (which costs 10 million ad btw), I wouldn't need bulwark feats either. It's not something that normal players will ever have though.
I'm just because I thought there's finally a guide for normal paladin tank players, but this is just the same that's already been done 2 times.

Lay on Hands doesn't work when you have Temp HP. That's why I first thought it wasn't working on me. Because with Justice I have temp HP almost 90% of the time. And today I am getting more data about Shielding Strike. When I am done I will correct and update the guide.
Did I completely wrote off Deflection? I said I personally don't like it and if you want you can try to stack it.
You are overvaluing enchantments. Yes, they are good boost but Perfect Negation is not mandatority and you will do just fine with a Lesser Soulforged. I stated the only throwback why SF is bad for OP currently. I wrote the best versions for enchants because that will be the end goal. With this build you will do just fine with only T1 set and even Rank 6 enchants. I am currently using only Rank 7 enchants and Greater Negation.

phoenix1021 · June 2015

Holy Barrier does not work like temp HP. It's a damage shield. That's why I see a lot of red 0s popping from my character in fights. And even without the capstone, you basically took no bulwark feats at all. A tank build without any tanking feats, doesn't that sound weird to you? What about Stand Fast, Sanctity, Vigilance? And if you really need those cooldowns reduced Avenger's Presence. The thing is if I want Aura Gifts and these tanking feats, there's just no points left for Justice. Besides, TAB is your hard taunt. That is much better combined with a damage shield than a cooldown reduction imo.
And Lay on Hands does work with Temp HP, just not when your regular HP is at 100%. No heal does. The bar might look like you are missing HP, but it's only the yellow bar that is depleting.

sixpax2 · June 2015

twilightwatchman wrote: »

No. What I'm saying is that Crush is great on theory but not as good on how things work in practice.

Which is just a polite way of saying he doesn't know what he's talking about.

twilightwatchman wrote: »

And that you are in any case, wilfully or otherwise, misinterpreting what he said.

I'm not misinterpreting anything. He said in no uncertain terms that Bulwark is the better tanking choice. Here's his full post from that thread (in case you didn't ready it):

gentlemancrush wrote: »

Paladin tanks by their nature have a short ramp up before they can really get rolling. Leading with a powerful defensive tool (like Circle of Power or Binding Oath) followed by careful timing of activating Exemplar of the Light or Vigilance is an important set of techniques to give you wildly increased durability. While it is possible to tank as a Justice or Light paladin, it is substantially harder, especially on longer fights where Holy Barrier and your other defensive feats get chances to kick in and contribute quite a bit of defensive power. Paladins are going to be very reliant on their power and feat choices to determine their tanking power. I also recommend running defensive Auras (Truth and Protection are solid choices). It is also important to not just spam your dailies as fast as possible. Try to get the most you can out of each cast and roll as many of your feats as possible. All our testing had me tanking the dungeons right around 2200 (I think my actual build was 2256), and we were doing fine but were struggling to hit all the DPS walls . Unless I made some horrible error it was rarely a tank just dropping under fire.

I dunno about you, but that doesn't sound like a guy who is "not as good on how things work in practice".

sixpax2 · June 2015

predoborg wrote: »

Bulwark has extremely few feats that are any useful at all. Let's look at the capstone- Holy Barrier. It has max 20 stacks. You gain 20 stacks for 40 sec. With 100k HP you will get 10k Shield from the 20 stacks when using TAB. So you get 10k shield every 50 secs. No matter how I twist this, it's in no way any better than refreshing all encounters for 35% with TAB. But if you think having 100k Temp HP every 2 secs is worse than having 10k shield every 50 secs than your call.

I notice you only ever talk about Holy Barrier, and I admit it's "meh" by itself, but Bulwark isn't just about Holy Barrier. It's about all of it's Feats working together. Heck, just Martyr's Blood + Vigilance gives you a 35% reduction in incoming damage for 8 seconds. You never seem to mention that.

jondbx · June 2015

sixpax2 wrote: »

So basically what you're saying is Crush doesn't know what he's talking about. Got it.

To each his own. I play a Paladin to do tanking for group content and Bulwark is the better choice for that.

Yes. It is common knowledge the developers don't know how to play their own game. There are bugs that are so obvious and should have been fixed 4 mods ago. If they played the game for more than 10 minutes these would be obvious to them.

Justice is currently the best tanking spec if you know what you are doing.

twilightwatchman · June 2015

sixpax2 wrote: »

Which is just a polite way of saying he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Nope. It's exactly what I said. He is telling you how Paladin's work in theory. In practice is a different thing altogether.

sixpax2 wrote: »

I'm not misinterpreting anything. He said in no uncertain terms that Bulwark is the better tanking choice. Here's his full post from that thread (in case you didn't ready it):

I read it. Maybe you could point out where the word 'better' appears in it?

Take your time...

twilightwatchman · June 2015

sixpax2 wrote: »

I notice you only ever talk about Holy Barrier, and I admit it's "meh" by itself, but Bulwark isn't just about Holy Barrier. It's about all of it's Feats working together. Heck, just Martyr's Blood + Vigilance gives you a 35% reduction in incoming damage for 8 seconds. You never seem to mention that.

Martyr's Blood has a 10% chance to proc on taking damage and only effects the mob that damaged you. Vigilance relies on building 5 stacks as encounter powers come off cooldown. The chances of these two things aligning to give you a full 8 seconds of 35% incoming damage reduction against ALL incoming damage are pretty slim.

OTOH a Justice Paladin will have more Temporary HP refreshed much more often, will kill attacking mobs faster, and will help his party kill attacking mobs much faster. Dead mobs do no DPS at all.

Justice requires a more active tanking style, Bulwark has more passive defences. Both get the job done.

[Mod 6] PredOborG’s complete PvE guide to godlike tank Oathbound Paladin

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