Advice Needed - Paladin THF-DPS/Hate/Self-Healing Build

[Arlathen]

I've long been put off building pure class characters for a long time, finding them a little stale in options and possibilities. But **** do I keep looking at the paladin capstone and thinking 'hell thats a bit nice' ... and now that I have several lvl 20 characters with Greensteel, I'm seriously contemplating building a Pure Paladin to 20 for Capstone and an Epic Sword of Shadows.

It seems to me, in my head atleast, to be the ultimate holy badass.

But I'd like to cram a little more flexibility into the build and exploit some of the limited options that the Paladin Class has.

Generally I'd like three specific areas of focus on the build:

1. THF DPS - Epic SoS for the long term gear plan, but I like THF and it eases up on the MAD Paladins suffer from.

2. Hate Aggro Tanking - I'd like to be able to Hate tank effectively - Plenty of DPS/Hate Generation with enough HP/Saves/Immunities to keep me on my feat by the Raid healer. Think Horoth main tank. This is one area I'm not overly familiar with, but it would be cool if I could take heat off the party by swining away. The alternative is Half-Elf and Intimidate for Trash Mob pulling, but I don't see intimidate-tanking as very fun for Raiding and not looking for the old shield-block/spam intimidate method of play.

3. Self Healing - Utilising the Paladins Cure Serious Wounds spell with Quicken & Maximise ideally. I'd really like to cram on some Healing amplification into the build through enhancements and gear, to make a rather powerful healing spell available for myself in party questing or even in emergency Raid situations.

So I'm looking for build advice around:

1. Possible feats list:
THF
ITHF
GTHF
Power Attack
Improved Critical
Toughness
Maximise
Human - Quicken
Half-Elf - Rogue/Monk/Wizard Dilletante

2. THF DPS - Are the 3 THF feats necessary? Power Attack and Improved Critical are an absolute given, but are they really key to my single target DPS? Adding +10% Glancing Blow damage per feat seems like a nice 'perk' but hardly critical in the same way that the three feats for TWF are. I'm tempted to replace them with 2x Toughness and an optional utility feat such as Extend/Quicken/Stunning Blow.

3. Race Choice - Everything else that goes wrong or doesnt work on the build can be ironed out through respec, but the Race choice is extremely important as can't be changed unless I TR the character (unlikely, I have other candidates for TRing atm). I've tried to 'in a nutshell' the race options, but having real difficulty deciding...

Warforged - Brute Fighting, Easy High HP, Immunities, Power attack enhancement, Low Heal Amp, Charisma penalty

Half-Orc - Brute fighting, High Strength, Strength Enhancement, THF damage enhancement, Orc Fury strength enhancement, 1 skill point, Charisma penalty, base 100% heal amp, low racial toughness enhancement

Human - Bonus Feat (Pretty huge), Heal Amplification, decent hit points available. Possible 3 skills in build (Balance, Jump, UMD).

Half-Elf - Bonus Dill Feat (Bit meh, maybe extra DPS in Rogue), Heal Amplification, decent hit points available, dual intimidate timers.

I'm not really considering a Dwarf or Elf/Drow build for this, have plenty of Elves already thanks and I'm looking at a future Dwarf TWF with Dwarf Axes kind of build.

4. Knight of the Chalice or Defender of Siberys?
KotC3 adds serious DPS (+7D6 with TOD Set) for raiding Shroud/ToD, as well as amrath quests and vale quest, but DoS seems to have more usability outside of devils for Hate Tanking and even gives me a rather handy DR/20 Epic ability. Again I'm not too clued in on DoS tanking, but would like to main the THF-Hate approach and not cowering behind some flimsy shield (Shield option would be kept in reserve for truly hide-and-hope situations).

Thats enough to get started with, I could go on all day long Advice welcome!

[Irongutz2000]

I used to have a human build similar, but now is a horc, for more dps.

The human build= more hp had 599 unbuffed hp, an 20% more healing amp ( due to 1 more toughness from free feat, an extra human toughness due to taking human adp con) IMO human is the way to go for hate tanking, more surviable imo. But had 34 str with +2 tome

The Horc build= 564 HP an 38 str with +2 tome...an gained 6 pionts of damage per swing an +2 to hit...just capped still testing.

as far as the self healing u will NEED, an when i say need, I mean NEED a torque an a con opp for u to have enough sp to use heals like u want, but this build is very effective.


Using the divine rightiness an kotc no build in the game besides another similar build with better gear will pull aggro from u.


GTHF is it needed? Glancing blows will go from about 10-15 per hit to about 30-50 depending onn buffs...so if ur looking for dps, an not *twiching* all the time then yes!

[Polarkin]

From a self healing/sustainability standpoint I'd suggest Human all the way. Enhancement points are very tight on paladin builds but you can do 2x human healing amp, 2x pally devotion pretty easily. Throw in Maximize and Quicken and drink a Superior Ardor IV pot and you are self healing for 180-200 for 60sp. Add a Torc and a ConOp (wiz6, 150sp, 5cha skills for the UMD) and your spell points go a long way.

I'm doing almost the exact same thing converting my intimmy pally to a THF eSoS hate tanker. Changing from DoS to KotC for the dps. I also considered the validity of taking all 3 THF feats vs. Stunning Blow and more Toughness. At the end of the day I decided against going the Stunning Blow route simply because a) I won't have the super high str to have a useful DC in epics while wielding the eSoS. b) I would have to have a Stunning +10 weapon equipped to make my DC's viable and I won't have room for Quick Draw to even contemplate swapping from maul to eSoS. and c) There are lots of good builds out there that can perform stunning(holding) better than I so my focus should be on enhancing their stuns (or holds) with my dps.

[Arlathen]

Thanks for the replies. Really useful stuff with your own experiences and not just theory-building

Here's the basic build I'm thinking of..

Race: Human

Str: 16 +3 Tome +6 Item +1 Racial +5 Levels +3 Exceptional = 34 Str
Dex: 8 +3 Tome +5 Item = 16 Dex
Con: 16 +2 Tome +6 Item +1 Racial +3 Exceptional = 28 Con
Int: 10 +2 Tome = 12 Int
Wis: 8 +2 Tome +6 Item = 16 Wis
Cha: 16 +3 Tome +6 Item +1 Exceptional = 26 Cha

Feats:
1. THF
1. Toughness
3. Power Attack
6. ITHF
9. IC: Slash
12. GTHF
15. Quicken
18. Maximise

HP:
Base: 20
Class: 200
Con: 180
Toughness: 22
Racial Toughness: 30
Class Toughness: 30
Minos: 20
Argonessen: 10
Greensteel: 45
Greater False Life: 30
= 587 HP Base

Enhancements
6: Human Adapatability 2

8: Knight of the Chalice 3
3: Energy of the Zealot 2
3: Courage of Good 2
6: Unyielding Sovreignty
3: Divine Sacrifice 2

2: Paladin Weapons of Good
10: Extra Smite 4
6: Exalted Smite 3
6: Divine Might 3
1: Divine Righteousness
1: Paladin Extra Turning 1

6: Human Improved Recovery 2
6: Paladin Toughness 3
6: Racial Toughness 3
6: Paladin Devotion 3
1: Extra Lay on Hands 1
=80 AP total

Enhancements can be played with for Divine Might 4 if i pull a +4 tome..