Defender of Siberys build questions

[Ecoski]

Right then, I've been playing on my paladin for a bit, and he's sitting on level 10, and he's not died that often. However, throughout playing him I've started coming up with questions that people I've played with haven't been able to answer, or haven't given a reason for their answer. So here's a list of questions, and if any of you good sirs would be willing to answer them, I'd be filled with gratitude

1. Bastard sword or Khopesh?
Right, currently I'm specced for using Bastard Swords, after realising that the cost for a holy burst of pure good bastard sword is a fraction of the price of a khopesh (it cost 4.5k, as opposed to 45k). However, unlike fighters, paladins are feat strapped, so here's my projected list of feats, and why I can see a problem.

1. Toughness (No brainer really)
H. Bastard Sword
3. Two handed fighting
6. Power Attack
9. Improved Critical
12. Improved Two Handed Fighting
15. Greater Two Handed Fighting
18. Improved Shield Bash

Here's my issue. Going like this would make a two handed weapon more viable when I have to pull it out (got SoS on first run ). However, from what I gathered, a Bastard Sword ONLY comes close to a khopesh if all 3 feats are taken. So would it make more sense to take khopesh, and then use those 3 feat slots to make myself into more of a tank, like this?

1. Toughness
H. Khopesh
3. Power Attack
6. Shield Mastery
9. Improved Critical
12. Improved Shield Bash
15.Maximise
18. Quicken

I'm aiming to make a build that is like Junt's Jaerlach build, which is why I would take maximise and quicken. Or should I try to take combat expertise? Is it actually a useful feat?

2. The importance of AC
At level 10 I'm sitting quite comfortably on an AC of 41 without any barkskin etc. However, is AC actually useful later on? I noticed that when farming VoN 3, I had almost no problems at all on normal, the healer didn't bother healing me, I could look after myself. However, on hard, I was getting hit HARD. So should I be looking to boost it to about 50 or so for my level, or am I waaaay behind?

3. Health
Right, I got slightly ridiculed by a barbarian for this, as he claimed he had almost 400 health at this point... I only have 212. I keep the virtue buff up constantly, and I don't have a Minos or a greater false life item slotted yet, but should I have started with a con higher than 14?

4. Saves
None of my saves are below 16, so I'm assuming they're all good for the moment. What should I be aiming for?

5. Armor
What should I really be aiming for? I've flagged myself for VoN, Titan and I'm in the process for flagging for sands. Is there any armor that is a must-have or really advisable for the treck up towards level 20?

Sorry for the wall o' text, any replies to any of the questions would be really welcome, thanks

[FrozenNova]

There is zero reason to make a Defender if you're not going for AC. That's what the whole prestige is about.
If you are going for AC, combat expertise is effectively mandatory (and a preq for the prestige, which your first feat list lacks). 11 int +2 tome will get you there. Your AC is about right for your level, but get used to having it being steadily lowered in relative value unless you can keep up the grind for optimal AC gear as you level.

Bear in mind that AC is very volatile, and if you don't have the right party or players to allow you to maximize it (as you would in most raids), or there is no call for AC regardless, your place is that of dps, which means you're using two handers most of the time. The THF feat line is not crucial to using two handers, but the damage increase is pretty significant if you have time to stand still.

If you're making a 'tank', hitpoints are important. If you assume it's moderately simple to gain enough healing amp such that a divine Heal will fill you completely, higher hitpoints makes you cheaper to heal just as high AC would. 14 con is workable if you put effort into it. For a paladin tank, somewhere in the upper range of 600-650 when tanking is what you want to be seeing at least.

HP breakdown:
200 base
020 heroic durability
100 con (14 base + 6 gear)
030 greater false life
023 toughness feat
020 minos legens
070 7 times toughness enhancements
020 +2 con tome
045 greensteel hitpoint item
010 draconic vitality
020 +2 con guild shrine
020 +2 exceptional con enchantment on a ToD ring
040 defender tier 3 stance
040 essence of desire yugoloth potion
= 658

Come U9 you will need to generate threat to keep agro. As such, improved shield bash is probably important. Shield mastery, however, is less so. If you are tanking with a shield, you should have enough AC to negate almost all physical damage. Otherwise you might as well be a high hitpoint barbarian, they'll hold the agro better and be just as easy to heal. Shield mastery shows its use in quests, where you're less likely to have all of your AC buffs and mastery allows you to reduce incoming damage regardless. Unfortunately, shields are very rarely called for in quests. That damage resistance % isn't nearly as useful as a two hander giving you twice the damage output. Drop Mastery.

Paladins get very potent saves without much effort. All you can do is bump your charisma as much as is reasonable and ensure you leave a spare slot for a +5 resistance enchantment somewhere.

In terms of armor, nothing really stands out as being directly advantageous to AC. Start on your Dragontouched armor early, aiming for a +3 dodge set if you're not aiming for the chattering ring. Ensure you get a greensteel S&B weapon of choice with +4 insight. Even on a paladin I recommend this be min2, since min2 will be outdamaging lit2 on hard or elite, and is less reliant on the erratic lightning strikes.

Choosing khopesh over bastard sword or vice versa for the purpose of cost is moot on a paladin - come 14 you are granted a free +5 holy burst pseudo-metalline version of each, which is generally servicable considering you will primarily be using two handers regardless. While not as expertly versed in the mathematics as some, it would appear that a S&B greensteel bastard sword with the two handed fighting line will be just below the GS S&&B khopesh against trash but just above on most fortified enemies, with most bosses you'll tank at about 50% fortification. Damage against bosses as S&B is massively significant post U9 and you'll want to maximize it, so look into the break points of base damage and fortification wherein the bastard sword surpasses the khopesh in this context. Bear in mind that the eSoS is a beast of a weapon in the hands of a capped paladin as it may act as a DR breaker with a silver augment, so potent damage is available and may be augmented by the THF line.

Edit: Expect barbarians to laugh at you. They will always deal more damage, they will always have more health, though DR they have more defense while DPS'ing and their tanking capacity is available right out of the box at 20 with minimal grind. The difference? They're a little harder to heal. Healers have adapted to barbarians as the role of tanks, and while they may get a pleasant suprise out of a good AC tank, many groups are still perfectly capable of success without one.

[AylinIsAwesome]

HP breakdown:
200 base
020 heroic durability
100 con (14 base + 6 gear)
030 greater false life
023 toughness feat
020 minos legens
070 7 times toughness enhancements
020 +2 con tome
045 greensteel hitpoint item
010 draconic vitality
020 +2 con guild shrine
020 +2 exceptional con enchantment on a ToD ring
040 defender tier 3 stance
040 essence of desire yugoloth potion
= 658

2 more things OP.

Paladins can't fit in 7 Toughness Enhancements. Get 4 of them (2 Racial, 2 Class) and you should be ok.

And try not to rely on Yugo pots for HP; the CON one does give you +40 HP, but at the cost of 5% of your total DPS.

[Cardtrick]

Come U9 you will need to generate threat to keep agro. As such, improved shield bash is probably important. Shield mastery, however, is less so. If you are tanking with a shield, you should have enough AC to negate almost all physical damage. Otherwise you might as well be a high hitpoint barbarian, they'll hold the agro better and be just as easy to heal. Shield mastery shows its use in quests, where you're less likely to have all of your AC buffs and mastery allows you to reduce incoming damage regardless. Unfortunately, shields are very rarely called for in quests. That damage resistance % isn't nearly as useful as a two hander giving you twice the damage output. Drop Mastery.

On the contrary, come U9, shield mastery looks like it's going to be an essential choice for tanks. And the only reason to go Defender of Siberys is to make a tank. In end-game raids, which are the only places a tank is really useful, the damage is coming in so fast that a 15% or 20% reduction in damage taken is a godsend. If you're going to use a shield, you will want shield mastery.

And if you're not going to use a shield, there's no point in going DoS. A monk build can get higher non-shield AC, or a barbarian build can get more HP and much more DPS. So I can't really see any post-U9 DoS builds not taking Shield Mastery.

[AylinIsAwesome]

Right then, I've been playing on my paladin for a bit, and he's sitting on level 10, and he's not died that often. However, throughout playing him I've started coming up with questions that people I've played with haven't been able to answer, or haven't given a reason for their answer. So here's a list of questions, and if any of you good sirs would be willing to answer them, I'd be filled with gratitude

1. Bastard sword or Khopesh?
Right, currently I'm specced for using Bastard Swords, after realising that the cost for a holy burst of pure good bastard sword is a fraction of the price of a khopesh (it cost 4.5k, as opposed to 45k). However, unlike fighters, paladins are feat strapped, so here's my projected list of feats, and why I can see a problem.

1. Toughness (No brainer really)
H. Bastard Sword
3. Two handed fighting
6. Power Attack
9. Improved Critical
12. Improved Two Handed Fighting
15. Greater Two Handed Fighting
18. Improved Shield Bash

Here's my issue. Going like this would make a two handed weapon more viable when I have to pull it out (got SoS on first run ). However, from what I gathered, a Bastard Sword ONLY comes close to a khopesh if all 3 feats are taken. So would it make more sense to take khopesh, and then use those 3 feat slots to make myself into more of a tank, like this?

1. Toughness
H. Khopesh
3. Power Attack
6. Shield Mastery
9. Improved Critical
12. Improved Shield Bash
15.Maximise
18. Quicken

I'm aiming to make a build that is like Junt's Jaerlach build, which is why I would take maximise and quicken. Or should I try to take combat expertise? Is it actually a useful feat?

Bastard Sword becomes better for S&B once you have all the THF feats. However, your first feat list lacks any of the feats required to qualify for DoS (CE will get you this, and yes it is good), and the best feat to drop for it in the first list is GTHF. Your second list is better, but drop Improved Shield Bash for CE.

2. The importance of AC
At level 10 I'm sitting quite comfortably on an AC of 41 without any barkskin etc. However, is AC actually useful later on? I noticed that when farming VoN 3, I had almost no problems at all on normal, the healer didn't bother healing me, I could look after myself. However, on hard, I was getting hit HARD. So should I be looking to boost it to about 50 or so for my level, or am I waaaay behind?

AC has a steep curve as you go up in levels. Try to get it as high as you can whenever you can...a lot of the bonuses will come really late, around level 16 or later.

3. Health
Right, I got slightly ridiculed by a barbarian for this, as he claimed he had almost 400 health at this point... I only have 212. I keep the virtue buff up constantly, and I don't have a Minos or a greater false life item slotted yet, but should I have started with a con higher than 14?

14 is ok to start with; DoS Paladins are very stat-starved. Get a +6 CON item, GFL item, and a Toughness item ASAP though.

4. Saves
None of my saves are below 16, so I'm assuming they're all good for the moment. What should I be aiming for?

Not quite sure off the top of my head, but I want to say somewhere around 30 buffed up.

5. Armor
What should I really be aiming for? I've flagged myself for VoN, Titan and I'm in the process for flagging for sands. Is there any armor that is a must-have or really advisable for the treck up towards level 20?

+5 Mithral Fullplate 'till you can get into DragonTouched fullplate, then use that 'till 20, then get into an Epic Fullplate when you can.

The end game for you should either be the Epic Cavalry Plate or the Epic Red Dragonscale Plate.

Sorry for the wall o' text, any replies to any of the questions would be really welcome, thanks

You're welcome.

[FrozenNova]

Shield mastery reduces only physical damage.
Y'know, the same physical damage that your purpose as an AC tank is to negate.
If you're taking significant amounts of physical damage, your AC is not high enough. That's the problem to address here. If you have a high ac, a 15% reduction in the minimal physical damage you should be taking is not worth a feat.

Aylin, a 590 hp tank is simply insufficient against Horoth beyond normal. These are measures that need to be taken out of necessity. A dps paladin cannot afford all 7 by any means, and will generally avoid essence of desire. Meanwhile, this paladin will not be tanking. What I posted was a combination that allows you to reach a reasonable benchmark. There are alternatives - higher base con, +4 con tome, being used to using madstone boots while tanking - in context, I feel these are more costly alternatives.

[sephiroth1084]

On the contrary, come U9, shield mastery looks like it's going to be an essential choice for tanks. And the only reason to go Defender of Siberys is to make a tank. In end-game raids, which are the only places a tank is really useful, the damage is coming in so fast that a 15% or 20% reduction in damage taken is a godsend. If you're going to use a shield, you will want shield mastery.

And if you're not going to use a shield, there's no point in going DoS. A monk build can get higher non-shield AC, or a barbarian build can get more HP and much more DPS. So I can't really see any post-U9 DoS builds not taking Shield Mastery.

That depends on a lot of things, actually. I typically tank ToD normal on my decked-out DoS using a 2-hander. using a Shield (10) wand, I'm only losing 6 AC in the swap, while gaining quite a bit of DPS. Still, the shield offers other benefits, such as being able to block while stunned, which will be a bigger deal post U9. Well, if anyone has the balls to run ToD without a light monk.

A very good feat, but not a necessity for a DoS.

Shield mastery reduces only physical damage.
Y'know, the same physical damage that your purpose as an AC tank is to negate.
If you're taking significant amounts of physical damage, your AC is not high enough. That's the problem to address here. If you have a high ac, a 15% reduction in the minimal physical damage you should be taking is not worth a feat.

It depends a lot on gear. A newer tank is going to have a harder time getting to the 95% miss chance benchmark vs. bosses, even on normal, and will have a very difficult time doing so far hard and elite. This bridges that gap a bit. Also, Horoth is hitting for around 100 damage a swing on elite, and gets grazing hits on something like a 13+. Those still hurt quite a bit and account for a lot of the damage you take while tanking elite. Ditto for VoD. This cuts down on those.

2 more things OP.

Paladins can't fit in 7 Toughness Enhancements. Get 4 of them (2 Racial, 2 Class) and you should be ok.

And try not to rely on Yugo pots for HP; the CON one does give you +40 HP, but at the cost of 5% of your total DPS.

Aylin, a 590 hp tank is simply insufficient against Horoth beyond normal. These are measures that need to be taken out of necessity. A dps paladin cannot afford all 7 by any means, and will generally avoid essence of desire. Meanwhile, this paladin will not be tanking. What I posted was a combination that allows you to reach a reasonable benchmark. There are alternatives - higher base con, +4 con tome, being used to using madstone boots while tanking - in context, I feel these are more costly alternatives.

Aylin is correct. A DoS simply cannot afford that many AP spent on Toughness. Also, I'm not sure I'd make a ring with +2 Con as my main tanking set-up, but that's going to depend on a lot of other things. In any case, -30 HP from going from 7 toughness enhancements to 4 and -20 HP from dropping +2 exceptional Con brings you to 600, which is not stellar, but is manageable.

Remember, you still need AP spent toward DPS, even as a tank, and Exalted Smite, Divine Sacrifice and Divine Might aren't exactly cheap.

[sephiroth1084]

Right then, I've been playing on my paladin for a bit, and he's sitting on level 10, and he's not died that often. However, throughout playing him I've started coming up with questions that people I've played with haven't been able to answer, or haven't given a reason for their answer. So here's a list of questions, and if any of you good sirs would be willing to answer them, I'd be filled with gratitude

1. Bastard sword or Khopesh?
Right, currently I'm specced for using Bastard Swords, after realising that the cost for a holy burst of pure good bastard sword is a fraction of the price of a khopesh (it cost 4.5k, as opposed to 45k). However, unlike fighters, paladins are feat strapped, so here's my projected list of feats, and why I can see a problem.


1. Toughness (No brainer really)
H. Bastard Sword
3. Two handed fighting
6. Power Attack
9. Improved Critical
12. Improved Two Handed Fighting
15. Greater Two Handed Fighting
18. Improved Shield Bash

Here's my issue. Going like this would make a two handed weapon more viable when I have to pull it out (got SoS on first run ). However, from what I gathered, a Bastard Sword ONLY comes close to a khopesh if all 3 feats are taken. So would it make more sense to take khopesh, and then use those 3 feat slots to make myself into more of a tank, like this?

From the looks of things, the two end up being pretty close to even, except that the BS is requiring 3 additional feats in order to match the khopesh. Admittedly, those extra feats are also increasing your DPS mode (and you can, with enough gear, tank in semi-DPS mode). Personally, I'd go Khopesh over BS on a paladin. If you really want a strong DPS mode, I'd skip the exotic proficiency and pick up either the THF or TWF line and use a good two-hander or scimitars.


1. Toughness
H. Khopesh
3. Power Attack
6. Shield Mastery
9. Improved Critical
12. Improved Shield Bash
15.Maximise
18. Quicken

The self-healing is really amazing, though mostly dependent upon gear: without the extra SP from a Shroud SP item and/or the mana regen from a Torc or Concordant Opposition you're simply going to burn through your SP too fast for the self-healing to be something you can rely on, and it will eat heavily into your mana for rebuffing. If you can acquire some of those items, then it's very much worth having. Not sure if I'd pick up the feats without at least the Torc.

If you don't mind getting a Lesser Reincarnate, I'd say skip Maximize for the time being, and maybe Quicken (Extend might be more useful to you for a while) and pick them up again later.
I'm aiming to make a build that is like Junt's Jaerlach build, which is why I would take maximise and quicken. Or should I try to take combat expertise? Is it actually a useful feat?

2. The importance of AC
At level 10 I'm sitting quite comfortably on an AC of 41 without any barkskin etc. However, is AC actually useful later on? I noticed that when farming VoN 3, I had almost no problems at all on normal, the healer didn't bother healing me, I could look after myself. However, on hard, I was getting hit HARD. So should I be looking to boost it to about 50 or so for my level, or am I waaaay behind? That doesn't look bad. Do you carry Barkskin +3 potions on you? Do you have access to guild ship buffs (up to +3 AC, +4 if you have room for more Dex in your armor). Keep in mind that different sorts of monsters, and even the same monsters in different quests can vary their attack bonus pretty wildly at a given level. You're getting into the range where you want to be trying to maintain a 45+ AC.

3. Health
Right, I got slightly ridiculed by a barbarian for this, as he claimed he had almost 400 health at this point... I only have 212. I keep the virtue buff up constantly, and I don't have a Minos or a greater false life item slotted yet, but should I have started with a con higher than 14? 14 is fine.

That isn't too bad. Make sure you are wearing the best Con item you can get your hands on that brings you to an even number. Use Human Adaptability to even out your Con (order of preference would be Str > Con). See if you can work in an Improved False Life item until you can get your hands on a Greater version. They aren't cheap, but a +1 or +2 Con tome will help. Make sure you pick up some of the Toughness enhancements. I recommend 2 racial and 2 class.

Keep in mind that barbarians are getting 2 more HP than you from their hit die, probably started with somewhere between a 16 and a 20 Con, are getting boosts to Con from Rage, and he may be a TR with extra HP items. I wouldn't worry about that too much yet. If you want to get a better sense of how your HP is stacking up to others, just ask in part chat when you're just entering a quest what everyone's HP is like. Take especial note of the HP on the fighters, monks and other paladins.

4. Saves
None of my saves are below 16, so I'm assuming they're all good for the moment. What should I be aiming for? Your saves will come. You don't really have to aim, but getting to above 30 in all 3 at 20 is kind of the baseline for a paladin. You may well end up with a Will save in the mid- to high-20s. That's generally okay.

5. Armor
What should I really be aiming for? I've flagged myself for VoN, Titan and I'm in the process for flagging for sands. Is there any armor that is a must-have or really advisable for the treck up towards level 20? Depends what you're wearing now and how much Dex you have. Tempest's Spine has some nice armors that drop. The AH likely has some overpriced +4 and +5 mithral full plate.

As far as AC goes, you might as well start working on Titan ASAP, as the Chattering Ring from there is one of only 2 sources for +3 Dodge, and the other source is not convenient or even necessarily any easier to acquire.

Sorry for the wall o' text, any replies to any of the questions would be really welcome, thanks

As for Combat Expertise and Shield Mastery...for one thing, I believe you need CE to qualify for Defender of Siberys (there are other options, but that's a good one). Both feats are going to serve two purposes for you.
1) They will allow you to bridge some of the gap in your AC while you're still trying to acquire gear. There is a lot of stuff to be acquired in order to keep your AC up in a relevant range through all non-epic content, and the two feats make not having all of that gear a little more manageable.

2) They will allow you to eventually tank the hardest raids on hard and elite more effectively. The amount of AC needed to tank elite raid bosses is pretty staggering and CE is a necessary piece of that puzzle. Meanwhile, Shield Mastery will cut down the damage you take on grazing hits, which represent quite a bit of damage all by themselves on elite, and further reduce the damage spikes you take from bosses when they do hit you.

Currently, AC is pretty useful in most content excluding epics. I expect that in the next few updates we'll start seeing some more tankable content and possibly reductions in epic mob to-hit concurrent with the buffs AC threat tanks have received this update.

Your feats for the second breakdown are tight, as you need to fit CE in there some place. That's a tough call really. I'd say that you should probably drop one of: Khopesh, Improved Shield Bash, Shield Mastery in order to fit it in. A scimitar with Improved Shield Bash is pretty close in damage to a khopesh when you're in S&B mode. Shield Mastery has less of an impact if you have enough AC to not get hit much and are sticking to normal raids. Dealing with maintaining a shield that is both good for defense and bashing may be a pain, but it may not be, depending upon how the new crafting works out.

If you find that you're losing aggro, even with Divine Righteousness running, maybe go both Khopesh and Shield Bash. Hard to tell at this point, though, and weapon style is a big choice. Given that, I'd say drop bash now, and if you find that you need some more DPS later while tanking, you can pick that up again in place of something else. Likely Shield Mastery.

All of this assumes that you're keeping Maximize and Quicken. While they're good, as I mentioned (and I believe Junts has a note saying the same in his guide), without the gear to support it, the self-healing with mana and feats is kind of weak simply because you run out of SP too quickly. For the time being at least you could go: PA, CE, Toughness, Khopesh, Bash, Shield Mastery, Extend and Improved Critical then LR or do some feat swap juggling down the line as your gear is getting finalized and you have a better sense of what you need.

[AylinIsAwesome]

Aylin, a 590 hp tank is simply insufficient against Horoth beyond normal. These are measures that need to be taken out of necessity. A dps paladin cannot afford all 7 by any means, and will generally avoid essence of desire. Meanwhile, this paladin will not be tanking. What I posted was a combination that allows you to reach a reasonable benchmark. There are alternatives - higher base con, +4 con tome, being used to using madstone boots while tanking - in context, I feel these are more costly alternatives.

A tank post-U9 will need to hold aggro through hate.

That is directly related to DPS.

As such, DPS enhancements are extremely important.

Paladin Action Points are tight, and a Paladin can't reasonably expect to be able to drop 20 AP into hitpoints. 6 is much more reasonable.

[Ecoski]

Wow, this is really great advice, thanks guys
I think I'll be flipping over to khopesh then, on a fighter I could see Bastard Sword being more useful, but they're drowning in feats, whereas paladin's seem to be slightly parched :/ If I did that I'd have a few more feats to play about with, I was considering extend for the increase to some of my buffs which seem to be ridiculously short, although I might just ask some guildies to help me get the Torc and a Conc Opp item, I don't think paladin's need to really worry about Greensteel weapons do they? The holy sword seems to be almost as good as the MinII, so would it make sense to start on the goggles first?
Of course... Forgot about CE being necessary for DoS... I'm a muppet >_<
New question! I pulled the Gorgon's Armor from the EoS chain, my issue with it is that it offers less AC than my Heavy Mithral, but the stoneskin proc is quite fun, although I guess I could just get that from a wand... I'm guessing it's essential to sacrifice some things for AC then
Right now I think I have 5 or 6 toughness enhancements, but I'll swap some of them out when I find a greater use for the AP's, I'm not that desperate for more turns/divine mights, I'm sitting on 10 as it is, and I don't even use turn undead, so there's nothing really that's jumping out at me for the moment ^^

[sirgog]

Wow, this is really great advice, thanks guys
I think I'll be flipping over to khopesh then, on a fighter I could see Bastard Sword being more useful, but they're drowning in feats, whereas paladin's seem to be slightly parched :/ If I did that I'd have a few more feats to play about with, I was considering extend for the increase to some of my buffs which seem to be ridiculously short, although I might just ask some guildies to help me get the Torc and a Conc Opp item, I don't think paladin's need to really worry about Greensteel weapons do they? The holy sword seems to be almost as good as the MinII, so would it make sense to start on the goggles first?
Of course... Forgot about CE being necessary for DoS... I'm a muppet >_<
New question! I pulled the Gorgon's Armor from the EoS chain, my issue with it is that it offers less AC than my Heavy Mithral, but the stoneskin proc is quite fun, although I guess I could just get that from a wand... I'm guessing it's essential to sacrifice some things for AC then

Holy Sword is basically as good as a Min 2, for pure damage output, yes. However, it's nowhere near as good as a Lit 2 for the 99% of monsters that don't require Holy Silver or Holy Cold Iron DR. Plus, Min 2s and Lit 2s (or any Shroud weapon) can have +4 AC crafted onto them.

[sephiroth1084]

On an AC-focused paladin, you may still want to craft a Min II for the ability to have a DR breaker that comes with +4 Insight to AC on it. Additional options exist for this now, but they're not all that easy to acquire.
-Sovereign rune on Dragontouched armor: not bad if you can get it, but it's not exactly something you're likely to come across and DT armor isn't what you want to be aiming for in terms of your final gear set-up if you don't mind running epics for equipment.

-Epic Siren's set bonus: on a DoS you'd want the Epic Siren's Charm and the Epic Gem of Many Facets to complete the set bonus as the belt offers rather poor bonuses for you and takes up your DoS Belt slot.

-Epic Swashbuckler: the easiest to acquire, but only available while the Crystal Cove event is life, and I have no idea when, or if, that is ever coming back.

You can also get Insight +3 from the 2 piece Levik's set, or Insight +5 from the 3 piece, but again, that requires you to use DT ultimately, and actually results in a new loss of AC as it locks out the Chaosegarde Bracers.Plus, as a pure paladin, you won't have proficiency with the tower shield.

Speaking of crafting, my personal preference is for the following:
-Min II goggles w/ Wizardy VI, +15 HP, +20 HP, +1 Cha skills
-Conc-Opp cloak w/ HP +10, SP +50, SP +100, +5 Cha skills
-Min II weapon w/ Holy, Acid Burst, Insight +4
-Lit II weapon w/ Holy, Shocking Burst, Shocking Blast or Insight +4

The Insight +4 on the Litt II is nice for tanking devil bosses on normal and lets you use that vs. trash fights where you want your AC up (like in Sins of Attrition).

I have the goggles and cloak swapped, and find that it restricts my options, as I could probably make due in ToD without a Coc-Opp item and the SP, but I can't go without the Min II, and there are a couple of cloaks I'd like to be able to use in that situation. Not a big deal, but at the moment, the above set-up probably gives you the most options for ToD. Also, during fights where AC is a non-issue, you can drop 35 HP and equip something like Tharnes Goggles for DPS if you don't have aggro, or Epic Raven's Sight along with the Epic Gem for +4 to-hit vs. high-AC targets. You likely want the SP regen, SP and Wis +6 and Cha skills during those situations whereas the Protection +5 and HP will be a little less necessary, though you would have to find somewhere else to stick your Heavy Fort in those situations.

Remember to keep at least 2 sets of equipment for most gear slots eventually: 1 set for DPS and 1 for AC. For example you could have:

Chaosgardes and Dex gloves that you swap for the Gloves and Bracers of the Claw (even the non-epic version is nice).

[Ecoski]

Thanks Sephiroth, I've already started gathering kit that I'm probably going to end up wearing for quite a while, I've just hit 11, not been playing much, and I'm wearing the following now:

Head: Teraza's Sight (Farming for Minos, not got yet though)
Cloak: Cloak of Protection
Gloves: Maenya's Fist
Wrists: Nightforge armbands (9 runs of Xorian Cipher, not one Chaosgarde)
Ring: Katra's Wit
Ring: Ring of the mire (swapping for the swashbuckler ring next level)
Necklace: Siren's Charm
Boots: Boots of the Mire
Belt: Siren's Belt
Armor: +5 Mithral Full plate
Shield: Reflecting Shield
Sword: +1 Holy Burst Bastard Sword of Pure Good
2H Sword: Sword of Shadow
Trinket: Greater Bold Trinket

It's not perfect, but I've not got that many decent characters to pass items from, so I'm having to feel my way forward slowly. I'm trying to get a raid for Titan's, unfortunately my guild runs far to late (lousy non-GMT people ) for a run of Titan's, and PuG raids are.... interesting learning experiences, and they only tend to run ADQ (not quite flagged yet) and VoN (run it twice now).