U51 fighting style changes?

[Kodwraith]

I'm at level 28 on a CHA based 2HF with 36 in Crusader, 13 in fury and 9ish in LD.

Is anyone going shield after the update? I'm having trouble deciding where to stick my other non-crusader 20 odd points. There seems to be a huge inventive to allocate at 11/11/everything.


So far it seems about like before: self-healing is OK but doesn't keep up with incoming pack damage unless you have crowd control or a lot of AC. Consecrate is OK but doesn't seem to fix all my problems. My melee power is lower relative to running in Fury before, my PRR is higher and my saves are a skosh higher.

[Marshal_Lannes]

I think the T5s in crusader is the best choice for Paladin. As for the other two trees...well who knows. LD and Fury are solid choices. But US, Primal, Shadowdancer, and Fatesinger all offer interesting options. Not an easy choice if you're looking balance defense with offense.

[magaiti]

GMoF looks like a solid 11-point splash.

T1 Strike with Poise: +2/4/6 Stunning DCs
T1 Disciple's Studies: +2/4/6 Heal and Diplomacy, +3/6/10 Healing, Repair, and Negative Amp.
T2: A Dance of Flowers (+5% Offhand strike chance, +10% Strikethrough, +3% Doublestrike and Doubleshot)
Core 2: material DR bypass of your choice (crystal is an option even if you have metalline)
Core 3: alignment DR bypass (even if you get good from KotC, evil/lawful/chaotic are still useful in some content)

[Kodwraith]

I've been playing around with the Exalted Angel self healing mantle. With around 170 AC and 230 PRR, it makes me nigh unkillable with high saves + consecrate + LoH. It's crazy it adds a PM style self heal for 13 points. A _real_ tank would probably do even better. It costs 13 odd points, but the main down side is loosing more useful melee cores.

I hadn't considered GMoF as a splash. I'm using Fury right now but only had 9 points left over. (I'm at 54 at cap).

Has anyone gone over to shield with their heart? With the EA splash I could potentially pick up another feat for BSword since you get Magical Training as part of the first core.

[Epicsoul]

Is anyone going shield after the update? I'm having trouble deciding where to stick my other non-crusader 20 odd points. There seems to be a huge inventive to allocate at 11/11/everything.

My main is a pure paladin vanguard with DC and US (shield throw) as EDs. Is it OP? Nope. But it's decent a hella fun.

[SMD]

I've been playing around with the Exalted Angel self healing mantle. With around 170 AC and 230 PRR, it makes me nigh unkillable with high saves + consecrate + LoH. It's crazy it adds a PM style self heal for 13 points. A _real_ tank would probably do even better. It costs 13 odd points, but the main down side is loosing more useful melee cores.

I hadn't considered GMoF as a splash. I'm using Fury right now but only had 9 points left over. (I'm at 54 at cap).

Has anyone gone over to shield with their heart? With the EA splash I could potentially pick up another feat for BSword since you get Magical Training as part of the first core.

I've had really good results with the EA mantle healing as well for 11pt splash, also got the no fail will saves and improved echoes of power and like you I'm thinking about getting BSword since no more need for magical training. I do feel like I lost out in damage for getting that and 5pts in SD for perm nightshield and DDoor. I'm super low on points though since this is my first life. I don't know if I'm going to love the grind to get to 48+ lives but the main reason I didn't ETR so far was getting Karma in off destinies was a complete pain.

Curious if you are liking Fury over Divine Crusader?

[Kodwraith]

Curious if you are liking Fury over Divine Crusader?

I just moved over to LD instead of Fury since I didn't have the points to take striketrhough further up the tree and I don't use the mantle with the good ones in DC and EA already/.

But I haven't experimented too much since the experiments are eating all my plat on this toon. I may burn the +5 heart just for the respec.

Right now I'm sitting at 34 points in DC with the crit range and the Epic Moment at T5. I don't have Embodiment of Law and it's unclear if the ability only works if you have it.

I have 13 in EA and for me that leaves 9 left over in whatever.

Ea seems a great way to spend 13 points. Not having to burn a feat on a CHA paladin for Magical Training is huge. That's actually the main reason to respec.
If I go bsword/shield then I'll almost certainly put more in US for Capt'n America, but I haven't figured out yet if bsword is worth it over longsword since I have a FellBlade.

The rough feat layout if I were to go bsword + shield is something like this on a Dragonborn:

1 : Bsword prof
3 : Shield Mastery
6 : 2HF
9 : Imp Shield Mastery
12: Imp Crit Slash
15: Greater Shield Mastery
18: Imp 2HF

21: OC
24: Precision
27: GTHF
30: Shield Bash?

Then take Perfect Shield Mastery, Perfect THF, Embodiment of Law and probably Arborea? I would not take tower shield because regular large shield makes Summer 7/Winter 4 way more tractable since the large shield is part of the Summer set. Also no more feats. This is Strim's PDK build but with two less feats and using FD instead of PDK racial for CHA hit/dmg.

The upside is you get more. I haven't tried it yet, but I think with 41 AP in Vanguard or KotC, 6 in SD for the 25 PRR aura, 9 in FD, and the rest in KotC or Vanguard, you'd be fairly terrifying and be killing things with doublestrike, shield bashes and stuns AND strikethrough.

The down side is more that you must have at least 1 ED point in EA or something similar for the magical training unless you go strength. Add that won't work until level 20.

You're also still largely constrained by not having enough AP for everything you want since all 3 Pally trees are relevant. And you already have 9ish points locked down in Feywild for CHA based hit/dmg. Going STR based makes you a bit much more tanky since you can fit in a better SD Aura without needing the FD points at the expense of slightly worse saves.

Basically if you roll this way, you are 100% committed to that feat layout and AP allocation exactly. Edit: Also note that you can't take BSword as a favored weapon on a non-Tyr pally until level 25 when the ED tier opens up, so probably you'd spec into this at cap.