The Bulldozer - Ultimate Solo Tank

[obsidianmoon13]

I started this build with the idea of using Half Orcs to take advantage of their bonuses to two-handed weapons on a s&b build using bastard swords. I am almost to level 10 with this character and have been able to solo pretty much anything, mostly on hard/elite difficulty, from korthos island on up. At level 9, and not including any party buffs, I can get my armor class above 50 and still be able to deal nice damage.

Here is the build, I will post some notes below:

Character Plan by DDO Character Planner Version 3.8.0
DDO Character Planner Home Page

The Bulldozer
Level 20 Lawful Good Half-Orc Male
(6 Fighter \ 14 Paladin) 
Hit Points: 364
Spell Points: 191 
BAB: 20\20\25\30\30
Fortitude: 24
Reflex: 16
Will: 15

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
Abilities        Base Stats          Modified Stats
(32 Point)       (Level 1)             (Level 20)
Strength             18                    28
Dexterity            14                    16
Constitution         14                    16
Intelligence          6                     8
Wisdom               12                    14
Charisma             12                    18

Tomes Used
+2 Tome of Strength used at level 7
+2 Tome of Dexterity used at level 7
+2 Tome of Constitution used at level 7
+2 Tome of Intelligence used at level 7
+2 Tome of Wisdom used at level 7
+2 Tome of Charisma used at level 7

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
                 Base Skills         Modified Skills
Skills           (Level 1)            (Level 20)
Balance               2                     3
Bluff                 1                     5
Concentration         2                     7
Diplomacy             1                     5
Disable Device       n/a                   n/a
Haggle                1                     4
Heal                  1                     2
Hide                  2                     3
Intimidate            5                    28
Jump                  4                     9
Listen                1                     2
Move Silently         2                     3
Open Lock             n/a                   n/a
Perform               n/a                   n/a
Repair               -2                    -1
Search               -2                    -1
Spot                  1                     2
Swim                  4                     9
Tumble                n/a                   n/a
Use Magic Device      n/a                   n/a

Level 1 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword
Feat: (Selected) Two Handed Fighting


Level 2 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Weapon Focus: Slashing Weapons


Level 3 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Toughness


Level 4 (Paladin)


Level 5 (Paladin)


Level 6 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Improved Two Handed Fighting


Level 7 (Paladin)


Level 8 (Paladin)


Level 9 (Fighter)
Feat: (Selected) Improved Critical: Slashing Weapons


Level 10 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Weapon Specialization: Slashing Weapons


Level 11 (Fighter)


Level 12 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Greater Two Handed Fighting
Feat: (Selected) Toughness


Level 13 (Paladin)


Level 14 (Paladin)


Level 15 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Power Attack


Level 16 (Paladin)


Level 17 (Paladin)


Level 18 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Dodge


Level 19 (Paladin)


Level 20 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Armor Class Boost I
Enhancement: Fighter Attack Boost I
Enhancement: Fighter Attack Boost II
Enhancement: Follower of the Sovereign Host
Enhancement: Kensei Bastard Sword Mastery I
Enhancement: Fighter Armor Mastery I
Enhancement: Fighter Critical Accuracy I
Enhancement: Fighter Critical Accuracy II
Enhancement: Fighter Kensei I
Enhancement: Fighter Tower Shield Mastery I
Enhancement: Orcish Melee Damage I
Enhancement: Orcish Power Attack I
Enhancement: Orcish Strength I
Enhancement: Orcish Strength II
Enhancement: Orcish Great Weapon Aptitude I
Enhancement: Orcish Great Weapon Aptitude II
Enhancement: Orcish Great Weapon Aptitude III
Enhancement: Paladin Courage of Good I
Enhancement: Paladin Bulwark of Good I
Enhancement: Paladin Bulwark of Good II
Enhancement: Paladin Bulwark of Good III
Enhancement: Paladin Focus of Good I
Enhancement: Paladin Resistance of Good I
Enhancement: Paladin Resistance of Good II
Enhancement: Paladin Extra Lay on Hands I
Enhancement: Paladin Extra Lay on Hands II
Enhancement: Paladin Extra Smite Evil I
Enhancement: Paladin Extra Smite Evil II
Enhancement: Paladin Defender of Siberys I
Enhancement: Paladin Defender of Siberys II
Enhancement: Racial Toughness I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness II
Enhancement: Paladin Charisma I
Enhancement: Paladin Charisma II
Enhancement: Paladin Charisma III
Enhancement: Fighter Strength I
Enhancement: Fighter Strength II
Enhancement: Paladin Toughness I
Enhancement: Paladin Toughness II

Notes:
-------------
- Defender of siberys 2 to help maximize AC.
- Kensei to improve DPS with bastard swords.
- Max Intimidate skill to do what an intimitank does best.
- Orcish Melee Damage does not work with bastard swords. I took the first tier of it for when I want to switch to a two-handed weapon.
- Great Weapon Aptitude does increase glancing blows when using a bastard sword in one hand.
- For best AC, the best equipment you can get is necessary. I use a +5 Mithral full plate and a +5 mithral tower shield.
- Spellcasters are the biggest threat, being about the only way to get hit. Take them out first and fast.
- Use shieldblock often. It adds AC and DR.
- I should add that I plan on TR'ing at level 20, and don't plan to play epic content.

Any constructive comments are welcome. Hope you enjoy playing this character as much as I do.

[Battery]

Made a version of this today. Pretty fun,you're right almost nothing hits you except for the casters. Those glancing blows add up too,screen was full of those floaty numbers lol. I may try to level him up higher since he's so fun.

One question though. Why follower of the sovereign host since that affects longswords? I don't see it as a prereq for anything else either.

Also I went wit brute fighting to help with aggro.

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

This build won't work once the casters start using spells you need to save on. No evasion, means you'll be depending either on saves or pure hps to dampen that delayed blast fireball. And for what I see, you have neither, which will kill you in the mid-to-high level content. I won't even mention raids or epics. Game is made so that most classes can pretty much solo stuff up to a point (with or without hirelings).

I would dump the Wis stat down to 8, since that's all you need to cast level 4 spells, and since you won't be an AC build, Dex can be dropped a bit too.

I started doing your build on the Character Planner, and tried to give it a fix, but the problem is that Half-Orc and One-Handed combat don't mix. If you want this build to continue one-handed, and still have glancing blows, maybe swap out to Dwarf, since they get nice bonuses to Axes (one- and two-handed alike) which allows you more versatility. Dwarven Axe is also better than Bastard Sword in DPS.

This would mean quite a turn on your character, so it's really just a matter of knowing if this a toon your planning on just solo'ing quests when you're bored, or if you plan a higher goal for him.

Even if you do this build, I would suggest something along these lines:

Str: 18, Dex: 10, Con: 16, Int: 6, Wis: 8, Cha: 14

Good Luck!! You'll need it.

[obsidianmoon13]

@ Battery: I chose follower of the sovereign host because it is a prereq for unyielding sovereingty, and it is a good heal in case someone in the party needs one. This could be swapped for something else if wanted.

@ ddo.rsmo.pt: This character is designed as an AC build that can also do decent damage. I also chose half orc and bastard sword because I pretty much have a copy of every bastard sword i'll ever need and prefer them over many weapons. I also mainly plan on playing this in a group most of the time. Half Orc also has added bonuses to increase the glancing blows. I just found him to be excellent at soloing by accident when I couldn't find a good group.

I would consider dropping Wis down to 10 or 11. I'd like to keep the dex up since I wear mithril full plate and the Defender prestige helps add higher dex bonus to tower shields and I take fighter armor mastery. Anything I can for higher AC.

As an update, I have started running this toon through Gianthold and he still seems to be strong. I am up to a 52 unbuffed AC and when shield blocking, even when hit usually takes 0 damage. He still fills his primary role of intimitank better than any other i've played. I am trying to address the spellcaster problem, but until then, I wear the highest spell resistance item I can. I have also considered dropping 2 of the Paladin levels for 2 monk. This would give me evasion and add Wis to up my AC even more.

[Kourier]

Just some orienting questions: Why isn't going up to defender of siberys 3 better? What does Kensai 1 give you regarding offensive and defensive capabilities? Would this build be better with monk/rogue for evasion given the high reflex saves? And, this is a build that uses bastard sword + shield and two-handed weapons, right?

[Shade]

ultimate solo? disagree.
Seems like a rather non-optimal solo build.

Because no matter how well your defense are for solo, someone has to kill the monsters. And with such a build, you will not be very good at that. Sure at the low lvls, any melee build can take things down reasonable well, but your about to hit the levle where monsters HP begin to scale beyond what you can quickly handle, and things will be much much harder. (Desert/Gianthold, especially elite.)

Thing is in DDO: A great offense is always the best defense.

Kill the monsters before they kill you, and they do zero damage.

Try to just outlast them, and they will beat you down eventually. Monsters never tire, humans do.

Tankish builds work decent enough in groups.. But ultimately the best solo chars are heavily offensive focused, with just enough defense/self healing to stay alive.

[Battlehawke]

If you stick with the non monk version and lower the dex and wis to the minimum and pump up either con or str more, Maybe even more cha you can still stick with your original plan somewhat. Go with a two hander in most situations. If you invest your AP into Pally clickie attacks(smites, etc.,) along wit your kensai enhancement your DPS will be very good.... You will be hitting very hard... ...and when you need to tank, you just click defender on and put up a big DR shield and throw out the Basard Sword. Max out intim and balance if you can, but really focus on "hate tanking" from both the orc and pally lines... With the ftr extra feats you will not be shy on feats but focus on toughness, the two hander chain, bastie, kensai, PA, sf intim and bull head... Your self healing will be slow but will be fine with LOH, Uny Sov, Csw pots and csw wands. Ultimately play the toon you want, the way you want.. But remember when in groups people expect you to try to win

[furbyoats]

i bet my WF wizard hits harder with a 2 hander than this build does.

dude, your hp is scary....you get into shroud when im healing it...youre staying down for the fight, youll get a kind suggestion to rethink your defenses because you suck up my sp...and then if the same thin happens again, i wont run with ya...

when they say ANYTHING can solo low level content, they werent joking....my tr wizard melee's until firewall...and then continues to melee until arount level 10...

honestly, its good for a flavor build...but for viable raid contribution or just general party contribution...i dont see it impressing me on any level.

[sigtrent]

i bet my WF wizard hits harder with a 2 hander than this build does.

A bet you would likely loose.

dude, your hp is scary....you get into shroud when im healing it...youre staying down for the fight, youll get a kind suggestion to rethink your defenses because you suck up my sp...and then if the same thin happens again, i wont run with ya...

Seriously? It should run around 550 at cap. If you can't heal that in a shroud you need some to reconsider your healing tactics. Character builder totals don't include any items generally speaking so you can add about 200 to whatever they list to get a geared up total.

honestly, its good for a flavor build...but for viable raid contribution or just general party contribution...i dont see it impressing me on any level.

Even flawed its better than half of the characters you would likely pug with in game, to say it can't contribute reasonably is a great exaggeration of its flaws.

[Therigar]

If you splash for evasion you need to splash rogue and not monk. That is because you are depending on the shield to boost your AC. You won't get the AC boost from monk if you equip a shield.

At that point you might as well be using two-handed weapons as you are no longer S&B.

Keep in mind that you'll always be uncentered with your bastard swords. That makes monk the less effective choice in this particular case.

It is too bad you did not think about the rogue/monk splash earlier as you could have gone rogue at L1.

NOTE:

I disagree with the complaint about casters. Most barbarians, fighters and paladins don't have evasion and they are just fine. Even with a solo oriented build all it means is that you need to have a good plan, high HP and access to big healing.

You're planning 14 paladin and sovereign host. You have that covered.

[t0r012]

<snip>With the right weapons and gear, this build can keep up with the higher offense builds on the kill list,<snip>

I think you are deluding yourself here. Sure you might be king of your pugs up to Gianthold but that isn't hard to do for anyone with half a brain and the slightest bit of skill.
heck I take a bare naked finesse monk with a half decent pair of level 4 damage wraps and still lead kill counts up through Gianthold in pugs and never touch the stun button.
heck a 10 or 12 str wiz will out melee kill 75% of the pug population from what i have experienced.
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doing my server favor dance I had a level 3 barb/wiz run captives on elite with a level 9 pally just to get favor and out killed him 2 or 3 to 1.

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don't get me wrong it isn't that i'm knocking you just trying to put some perspective on your thinking. because keeping up with the "higher offensive builds" isn't what you are doing. Sure your kill counts might be reasonably high compared to the others your grouping with but that doesn't mean a whole lot depending on who your are running with and what builds/gear they are using and what experience they have.

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another example for reference
me and a pair of TRs xp farming delera's part 2 destroying it get joined by a cleric. come to find cleric is turn speced and kills everything with turns. start halfway through a run and winds up out killing the rest of us by the end. long story short his build wasn't so great for much else but he could sure kill some undeads. foot note it was actually awesome, fastest delera's farm I ever had. my monk would run in and agro everything and bring it back to th cleric who would turn them when he caught up.