Bunch of questions

[delsoboss]

[Disclaimer: wall of text-ish]

Hi there, fellow front liners!
I'm planning the future lives of my melee toon and i have a bunch of assorted questions on weapons, feats an other build decisions, so here we go:

1 - THF without THF feats: case in point i'm trying to plan a 36pt paladin life and i'm always short on feats, there's lots of things i want and no way enough feat slots ... so how bad would it be to plan a THF paladin without taking THF feats? Heresy? Too gimp to be true?

2 - THF until which level? At early levels (especially if hard/elite streaking) to-hit can be an issue and the benefits of TWF are not worth the -2 it gives, so i'm planning to use 2-handed weapons early on all my future lives. At which point should i do the switch? wait until GTWF, uhm may be a little late, what about ITWF? At which level are you comfortable enough to put away you big bad axe and pull out your two weapons of choice?

3 - Staggering weapons: the DC doesn't look so good on paper but maybe around levels 6-12 with ITWF and 2 crafted staggering weapons my melee can avoid incoming damage forcing enemies to sit on their butts? (trip and stunning blow are option that i tend to give to all my melee characters but between the cooldowns and the saves in some cases aren't enough)

4 - Paralyzing and Vorpal weapons: i can't craft those, but i can hunt the AH until i find nice ml 10 (or RR ml 8) para and vorp weapons, are they worth the effort? How well do they perform in Lordsmarch Plaza quests or Gianthold?

5 - Build decision: my paladin life is the most tricky one to plan, for the lack of feats,for the mess that enhancements are and for my inability to decide what the goals of the build will be. DPS? I'm hearing bad things about paladin DPS against non evil outsiders; tank? I don' have the equipment to build a meaningfull AC for endgame* and just having HP and some weak form of DR may cause issues paired with Defenders hate generation; Hunter of the Dead? The healing amp and immunities sound good for leveling but then what do i do? No-pre? Heresy! ... or a good way to spend 8 APs on usefull enhancements?

Thanks for the replies!

*Endgame for me means i'll do some raids (shroud, hound, vod) and i'll grind the 20 epic tokens needed to TR from epic quests (house p, fens and the new free pack so far), i know that's not endgame "enough" for someone else.

[Dace]

1) I wouldnt worry about it. Just make sure you farm a Sword of Shadows/Carnifex and use them at appropriate levels.

2) Usually until L9 or above, depends how willing you are to turn off power attack and how often you miss. I often wait until L12.

3) Trip is great, how much you focus on this depends how much CC you are planning of running with in normal groups. I wouldnt make it a massive priority unless you really want to pursue tactics.

4) Both work great. Paralysing would always be my first choice though.

5) If your worried about Paladin functionality pick a L12 pre, and take the rest of the levels in fighter to give yourself some umph. I'd be tempted to take make my pally hotd 12, human, then take 6 fighter lvls and defender, then 2 monk/rogue/extra fighter levels (in no particular order). Don't get locked into the "I'll play pure til 20 even though it'll suck" mindset.

[delsoboss]

Thanks for the reply, looks like i'll see if i can find some good paralyzing weapons.

On the pure/multi point: yeah but i want to get the feel of the class and the capstone by playing pure at least one time, i guess i can level a first lifer to find out how pure paladins are.

The 12/6/2 with rogue levels for umd and evasion seems interesting, thanks for the suggestion.

[GlorifyQuC]

1. Paladins are already the worst dps in the game, not taking the feats would just make it worse. That said, the feats give you likely around 20% dps increase.

2. Switch when you get itwf. It's not the to-hit penalties that matter, it's that the offhand very rarely hits anyways which is just lowering your dps even over an featless thf.

3. No idea on this, never tried it.

4. Paralyzing is amazing for locking down single targets, not a fan of vorpals.

5. Even against evil outsiders paladin dps is subpar.