Full Pali Smite Build

[PrimalExile]

I decided I am here for the long haul and would like to know if anyone could recommend a guild Full Paladin Smite build for a human Paladin.

I have been searching the forums but unable to really find anything for humans, a lot of Drow for sure.. I noticed a lot of people do not mention enhancements do these not matter for a build?

Thanks in advanced and apologies if I missed a thread that already covered it I know a lot has changed since the F2P release.

[William_the_Bat]

There are a lot of good human paladin builds, as humans get an extra feat which makes making a TWF or THF pally that much more useful.

Probably the most common is the TWF khopesh pally, which, if done right, can do some tremendous damage with divine might, exalted smite, divine sacrifice, knight of the chalice, divine favor, and eventually the capstone all doing twice the damage with two weapons instead of one (even a two-hander).

The main problem is they are so stat-intensive, that you very nearly need 32 point builds to make them work. For instance, you need 17 dex to take improved and greater two weapon fighting. Tomes count, as do level up points, but enhancements or items do not. Most people on creation drop that down to 16 or 15, and plan on a +1 or +2 tome to make up the difference. You'll also want lots of charisma, up to 16 if you can for an eventual divine might 4 (assuming a +4 tome at end game) You'll also need a decent strength, most people don't like to drop that below 16 on a strength based character, even with all level up points and hopefully a tome going into it eventually. 15 is doable to save the stat points.

Wisdom is often skimped on, as you can start with 8 wisdom and use a +6 item at end game to cast your level 4 spells. But this does make it very difficult to get enough wisdom to cast your level 1 and 2 spells when you get them at level 4 and 8. So I hate skimping on wisdom. More wisdom also means more spell points, which means maintaining your buffs for longer. This is especially important since your really important buffs (divine favor, zeal, and probably angelskin) are short in duration.

And then there's constitution, which means more hit points. I hate to say it, but with all the other places you have to put points, you are probably going to end up without much con.

So, a 28 point human who is assuming a +1 tome for dex can start out with 16 dex, 16 cha, 15 str, and 8s in con, int, and wis. OUCH! The 32 point version can splurge with a con and wis of 10 each, making it a lot more playable. The drow, on the other hand, gets to have 16 str, dex, and cha, and 10 con, int, and wis.

Just to make that clear, due to the drow's bonus points in cha and dex, they actually end up with 2 extra attribute points (not counting the 2 in int) than the 32 point human. They do lose the extra feat, which, given how many other feats you really need to make this work, probably means no khopesh.

Feats you need: two weapon fighting (TWF), toughness, improved TWF, improved critical (type depending on weapon choice), greater TWF, power attack, and one more at level 18 (extend spell, in my opinion!)

Enhancements you want: darn near everything! but you can't afford them all, you'll have to pick and chose. If you are going knight of the chalice, you'll need courage of good 1, energy of the templar 1, extra smite evil II, and divine might I before you can take the first tier, courage of good II and energy of the templar II to take the second tier, and a second tier faith line to take the third tier knight of the chalice. You'll definitely want all the extra smiting and exalted smiting you can get (you did say you wanted a smite paladin), and divine sacrifice, and divine might, and almost certainly paladin and racial toughness, extra lay on hands, possibly AC and resistance aura enhancements, possibly paladin redemption (which requires devotion II or heal II) but you are really running out of points to spend with all that.

Skills you want: use magic device, and probably intimidate. There are a lot of other useful skills, notably balance and concentration (you'll be rebuffing yourself in combat a lot), but it's very hard to understate the usefulness of UMD and intimidate.

This is a fairly standard build, there's unfortunately not a lot of room to play around with the stats due to the heavy requirements of divine might and improved two weapon fighting. Make sure you put all your level up points into strength, unless you think you won't be able to get a +1 dex tome before level 6.

Oh, some people will recommend a fighter or rogue or monk splash for better skills, feats, and possibly evasion. I gave you the pure build because smite damage increases with paladin level, and the capstone is pretty sweet. If what you have in mind requires more feats, or evasion, or higher UMD or intimidate, then you might want to splash, but your smites and lay on hands will be weaker, and you will miss out on the weapons of good capstone, which adds to your damage.

[PrimalExile]

Thank You! very much William.

I really appreciate all the care and time you put into your response. It is greatly appreciated.

If need be I will be able to snag a tome off the turbine store as a last resort. I do not plan on splashing the character at all but I see why some people are going Drow now. I messed up on the feat creation of my first Paladin so I will be re rolling him to follow this guideline as he is only level 3 it is no big deal. Thank god for shared banking.

When it comes to Tome do you recommend I purchase only a +1 or should I be going for higher ones? Turbine Points are not hard for me to get through the game or to purchase so that is not really a barrier for me.

Thanks again mate.

[William_the_Bat]

I think only +1 tomes are available from the turbine store.

+2 tomes can be purchased for platinum in the auction house, but they are really, really, really expensive.

One piece of advice, even though you'll have two-weapon fighting feats, carry around a good shield, and if you seem to be getting beat up too much, wear it instead of an offhand weapon. You won't do as much damage, but your armor class will rise a whole lot, making you get hit less often. Note that if you are fighting a particularly tough opponent, this won't help as much, because they'll still hit you almost every time even with the shield. In the early levels in particular this tactic works great, in the later levels, not so much unless you have exceptionally good armor class raising equipment and buffs.

[cyadra]

If you dont want to go pure paladin, but still want to remain human with 2WF a great build is a Fight2/Rang6/Pally12 build. The two levels of fighter will get you bonus feats (especially if you take it at 1st level), and a +1 to str. So you could get kopesh, dodge and mobility all in the first level. The 6 rang gives you the free 2WF, and tempest 1, with the ability to go ranged, and ranger spells. The 12 pally gives you a lot of good pally stuff, not the greatest but a lot. The ranger splash also by passes the 17 dex requirement and drops that down to 13. A build I did went 16/13/14/8/9/16 and I havent used a tome yet. The wis score is low for casting, but the +wis items count for your spell points. Just something to consider if you dont want to go pure pally.

[PrimalExile]

thanks again.

I am trying to look at an end game build with a human Paladin if it would suit the end game better to make a splash build I would be willing to do so. As I said I am in the game for the long haul now and would love to be the best end game Paladin I can.

[William_the_Bat]

The supreme ability tome might be worth it if you are considering buying several +1 tomes with turbine points.

Really, the only must-have there is the dex tome, but the others will still help out.

[cyadra]

thanks again.

I am trying to look at an end game build with a human Paladin if it would suit the end game better to make a splash build I would be willing to do so. As I said I am in the game for the long haul now and would love to be the best end game Paladin I can.

thats the problem, at end game what is the best end game paladin? someone who can intimi-tank, dps, heal and keep the group alive, 2Handed smash? the choice is yours since there is no best in end game...someone will always be better than you.

Just remember that the three most important stats are probably str, cha, and con/wis depending on the role you want to go.

:)

[William_the_Bat]

Splashing your paladin more than 6 levels means you will never get your level 4 pally spell at paladin 14, and you probably want to be able to cast Zeal.

Like I said, it really depends on what you want to do. A paladin 20 can be an awesome character at end game with the capstone increasing your damage across the board, but there is a lot to be said for splashing 2 levels of rogue for evasion and full ranks of intimidate and UMD, or splashing fighter or monk for feats (monks also get evasion at level 2, but the fighter splash will allow you to take a strength enhancement and full base attack bonus)

[spoot]

Splashing your paladin more than 6 levels means you will never get your level 4 pally spell at paladin 14, and you probably want to be able to cast Zeal.


If he's getting all the TWF feats from ranger, that should free up some slots so maybe fighter levels aren't necessary? 14 paladin/6 ranger sounds solid to me.

[PrimalExile]

Maybe the ranger splash could be the way to go to free up the feats I would put in TWF and still get Zeal. I am in the process of creating the Paladin right now so I will be keeping an eye on this thread. If I go for the splash then I can free up a feat right from creation. I was also looking at the Bastion of Light build which seemed interesting but as Spoot said if I go Pali/Ranger I can open up that starter feat instead of assigning two weapon fighting.

[William_the_Bat]

Tempest ranger frees up the TWF and ITWF feats, but costs dodge, mobility, and spring attack, so a net loss of one feat.

You get a 10% increase in two-weapon fighting speed, and I'm pretty sure it stacks with zeal (another 10%), but it's very feat-intensive, and you will have to wait for level 20 to start casting zeal, and you won't get knight of the chalice 3 or the weapons of good capstone. Your smites and lay on hands will be less powerful. On the other hand, you will get ram's might, two favored enemies, and bow strength for when you need to range. I do not think it will let you skimp on dex, as greater two-weapon fighting also requires 17 dex, and you will not get it for free unless you take ranger to level 12.

There are a million cool ways to build paladins, from the full-on pally I described above, to the whatever class with a splash of paladin for wand use and savings throw bonus.

Oh yes, if you are splashing another class, you won't need 16 cha, as divine might 4 is a level 20 pally enhancement. In fact, divine might 3 is a level 15 pally enhancement, so if you are taking 6 levels of ranger, you will want just enough CHA to start giving your savings throws a bonus and pick up divine might 2, maybe 14 and expect a +2 tome at some point.

I know this might be more confusing than helpful, if you are looking for an ultimate "stop reading here and use this build" pally, you aren't going to find one. They all have strengths and weaknesses. About the only thing you can do is find the "doorstop paladin" thread and get a laugh.

[PrimalExile]

Thanks for all of the help everyone I am going to go with my orig plan and follow a full pali smite build following Williams advice if later I decide I do not like it I can always roll a new character.

Thanks again to everyone who commented you guys gave me some great insight on the Paladin.

Just out of curiosity what do you think of The Bastion of Light build found http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=1718366&postcount=10

It was what I was looking at before making this thread.

[Dracous]

Thanks for all of the help everyone I am going to go with my orig plan and follow a full pali smite build following Williams advice if later I decide I do not like it I can always roll a new character.

Thanks again to everyone who commented you guys gave me some great insight on the Paladin.

Just out of curiosity what do you think of The Bastion of Light build found http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=1718366&postcount=10

It was what I was looking at before making this thread.

Interesting build - that's about what I wanted to shoot for before I took a break ~2 years ago.

[William_the_Bat]

It's a decent build, able to switch between sword & board and two-handed weapons.

The benefit is it does not require dex for two-weapon fighting, so it frees up a whole lot of attribute points.

The downside is that two-handed fighting gains literally half the benefit from divine favor, divine might, knight of the chalice, smite evil, divine sacrifice, and weapons of good.

What I mean by that is that all of those bonuses apply to BOTH weapons when two weapon fighting, even Smite Evil gives you smites on both main and off-hand attacks.

It's still good, and fun to play. Maybe a little less min-maxish, if that's even a word. It'll get the job done... but the damage output is just going to be lower, especially on smite evil and divine sacrifice.

Specifically, since the update yesterday, greater two-weapon fighting gets 4 main hand attacks and -5- offhand attacks per cycle, and two-handed fighting gets 4 big swings, with some glancing blows to anything in front of you. I don't know if anyone has tested whether or not the smite evil applies to -both- offhand attacks if used on the fourth animation (where two offhand attacks are applied once you have greater two-weapon fighting), it would be sick and wrong (and fun!) if it did.

As for the glancing blows, (not to be confused with grazing hits, where you miss but do a little bit of damage anyway, glancing blows are extra damage applied to any enemy (sometimes all enemies) in front of you when swinging a two-hander) I'm not certain which, if any, of the paladin buffs and effects are or can be applied. I do know they've changed it so that you have some chance of applying things like holy, or stat damage, or paralyzing, or whatever, but I don't know how big of a chance it is, or if some or any of the paladin buffs or effects are included in that. I do know they do straight up a lot less damage than a normal hit, even with an offhand weapon.

So yes, a two-handed build is useful, and still does damage, but not as much damage, and that "not as much" is made worse by a paladin's special abilities and buffs that apply at full value to the offhand attacks.

The math: (sorry, you can skip this if you want)
Assume you are at level 20, have really good stuff, using holy sword generated weapons (+5 holy burst, bypasses devil or demon damage reduction), with all the enhancements including the capstone and divine might 4 and knight of the chalice 3, and a strength of 30, and divine favor running, and you are attacking a devil boss.

two-handed greatsword: 2d6 (base) + 5 (enchantment) + 2d6 (holy burst non crit) + 15 (strength bonus * 1.5 for two-hander) + 10 (power attack) +8 (divine might 4) +3 (divine favor) + 3d6 (knight of the chalice 3) + 3d6 (weapons of good)

Grand total: 41 + 10d6 or about 76 damage per swing, or 304 damage per attack cycle, crits add 41 + 3d6 more (about 51.5) 20% of the time, * 4 swings = 41.2 per cycle = *345.2* damage per full attack cycle.

rapier: 1d6 (base) + 5 (enchantment) + 2d6 (holy burst non-crit) + 10 (strength) + 5 (power attack) +8 ( divine might) + 3 (divine favor) + 3d6 (knight of the chalice) + 3d6 (weapons of good)

= 31 + 9d6 or about 62.5 per swing or 250 damage per attack cycle, crits add 31 + 3d6 more (about 41.5) 30% of the time, * 4 swings = 49.8 per cycle = *299.8* main hand damage per attack cycle, PLUS

offhand shortsword: 1d6 (base) + 5 (enchantment) + 2d6 (holy burst non-crit) + 5 (strength / 2) + 5 (power attack) + 8 (divine might) + 3 (divine favor) + 3d6 (knight of the chalice) + 3d6 (weapons of good)

= 26 + 9d6 or about 57.5 per swing or 287.5 damage per attack cycle (5 offhand attacks!) plus crit damage of 26 + 3d6 or 36.5 20% of the time * 5 attacks = 36.5 per cycle grand total of *324* points of damage per cycle offhand damage.

Full two-weapon fighting damage: 623.8
Partial two-handed fighting damage: 345.2

Now I didn't factor in glancing blows, because, frankly, I don't know the numbers. My acrobat staffer gets about 20 points on a good glancing blow with full raid buffs, but I have no way to calculate how many paladin bonuses get included and how often the holy and other extra dice will be included. I can guestimate 4 glancing blows for 30ish each assuming some portion of the extras are included, but that's a wild guess. It still only brings us up to 465.2 damage.

Oh yes, there are some other factors. Bard song and other party/raid buffs will add more to TWF than THF. Khopesh, if you can spare the feat, will also add a bunch more to TWF. Drow melee enhancements will add to rapier and short sword damage alike.

(end long math section)

long math section in a nutshell: two handed fighting does at best 75% of the damage of two weapon fighting for a fully buffed end-game pally, *before* including smites and divine sacrifice.

[asmoudeus]

I am currently running the The Bastion of Light build and love it its solid imo. for a 28 point build i highly recommend it

i can solo good and can tank and dish out damage in a grp

william has the math and is correct but for a starter build and if drow is not yet unlocked

j