Melee Build Request

[Mikjagger]

I'm trying to come up with a mostly solo melee (manyshot bow is OK) character that I will TR into.

Main Focus: Solo and End-Game Viable
Restriction: No Arti/Monk/FVS or WF
Weapons: I would prefer TWF, but THF if it's really that much better
Other: 36 pt, past lives barb and ranger

All suggestions are welcome.
Basically a self-sufficient melee that can perform in Epics.
It doesn't have to have trap skills but its a plus.

[HastyPudding]

Sounds like a paladin, but they can be tricky to go TWF unless you multiclass. Human 18 Paladin/2 Fighter would go well. You get 3 extra feats from fighter and human, helping you early on with the paladin's lack of feats. The paladin capstone is pretty useless, so there's really no point in going pure paladin. Paladins are better suited to THF, though, because of their dependance on many different stats. THF allows you to dump dex and focus more on con, str, and cha.

Or, you could do 18 paladin and 1 level of rogue and 1 level of fighter; that would give you an extra feat and then ability to do traps, although you would really need to have the best gear possible as you level to trap effectively. I wouldn't recommend it, as there's little synergy between rogues and paladins.

Or you could do a tempest ranger with fighter splash, giving you excellent twf damage, a few extra feats, and good self-healing and buffing. Rangers aren't top tier dps, per say, but only the paladin has more self-sufficiency as a melee class and ranger gives you a ranged option should the need arise and evasion without needing to multiclass into rogue or monk.

On the other hand, Rangers also have fairly good synergy with rogues, due to the ability to gain a bonus to hide, move silently, spot, and search through spells, as well as the 'hiding in plain sight' feat. A 1 rogue/19 ranger tempest is fairly common.

Or ignore self-sufficiency and go with a straight up THF pure 20 fighter. Tons of feats to super specialize in. Self-healing is weak, but you can try to go for a UMD build, although that can be hard without the proper past lives.

[Mikjagger]

Those are some of the options I have considered. I like multiclassing. Do ranger/paladin not mix well together?

Also I have +3 dex, +3 int, +4 con tomes so stats should work out well.

[HastyPudding]

Those are some of the options I have considered. I like multiclassing. Do ranger/paladin not mix well together?

Also I have +3 dex, +3 int, +4 con tomes so stats should work out well.

Tomes definitely help, especially when going for minimum stat requirements for feats.

Rangers have basic wisdom synergy with paladin. But, rangers and paladins are very front-loaded classes; they get a lot of free feats and abilities early on and not so much later in the game, making them great for multiclassing. The only issue you might have with multiclassing is missing out on tiers of PrE's. Which ones you want to take more precedence depicts the amount of multiclassing you're going to do, but I'm sure you knew that.

I'm no expert on twf characters, though, so you might want the advice of somebody else if you want specific build information. Come back to me if you want monk, arcane/divine or AA advice. :P

[Viciouspika]

Have you considered playing a bard or multiclass bard. Bards offer very good CC for soloing, self-healing, buffing, and skills galor.

I played a drow 13rogue/7bard(assasin II/Virtuoso I). Fascinate, bluff, kill. I was able to solo some of the older epics on this toon. The only problem I had was boss, but the epic destinies that was not a problem. For feats, I took extend, maximize, thf X3, skill focuserform, Improved critical: piercing. Max skills in disable device, search, UMD, and Bluff. Half skills in balance, jump, open locks, and a couple of others.

I have also played a dwarven 12ranger/7bard/1rogue(tempest II/Virtuoso I). With this build you could make a ranged toon or mainly twf. I was able to do epic elite traps. I called it my sixth man build. It could do anything that the party needed traps, crowd control, dps.

Another option is to make a cleric with a couple of splashes. One I'm currently playing is 17cleric/2fighter/1wizard. This build gives you base feats of 7, 2 from fighter, 1 from wizard.

As stated above twf pallys are good now with the epic destinies, but the DPS levels off at about level 14. This is because the tier III add very little dps from my experience. I do have a 18pally/2fighter twf with scimitars that is very survivable. The only problem ive had is with large groups of mobs because the lack of AOE damage.

Good luck and hope my suggestions help.

[voodoogroves]

I'd probably go with a bard variant

Bard 16 / Ranger 2 / Rogue 2
Ranger: Bow Strength, Rapid Shot, TWF
Normal: Toughness, ITWF, GTWF, Point Blank, Many Shot, PA, Improved Crit
Epic: Inspire Excellence, Quicken

- Unsure on the leveling order, first level Rogue obviously.
- If you have hearts and/or are ok with swapping out feats, Ranger can wait a bit but you'll want to recover TWF at some point.
- You're a Virtuoso, due mostly to not having the ability to slot on any of the other qualifying feats for the PREs. This is fine though
- If you go human you have another feat. If so I'd put a PRE qualifying feat early, then swap out for Quicken around 15 or so.

Stat-wise - assuming you have some tomes

16 STR 10 points (levels here)
14 DEX 6 points
14 CON 6 points
14 INT 6 points
14 CHA 6 points

2 more build points wherever you want, I'd probably look at INT if you had an odd INT tome.

[voodoogroves]

Since you asked, for a THF version I'd drop ITWF, GTWF for Cleave and Great Cleave, then for the open feat take Overwhelming Critical. I think this one would pretty much have to go human so you can fit in quicken.

[jortann]

Druid16/Ftr2/Rogue2....

Search Fruidonkulous and you will find some build ideas...

[boredman]

The rogue splash is very useful if want to go twf route (gives dps, evasion, umd, trap and other skills that combine very well with the traditional meele classes (fighter, ranger, paladin).

The Ranger 12/rogue 7/fighter 1 splash gives you a lot of versality, some self healing and buffs from ranger, manyshot, IPS, free twf features, trap skills, umd and sneak damage from rogue levels and extra feature from fighter lvl (so you can choose empower healing and/or quicken for better self healing)

Another option with more meele dps and tactics is the Fighter 12/rogue 7/barbarian or ranger 1, but will need good umd skill (39) to be able to use heal scrolls for self healing.(Or a Pure fighter Half elf clr diletante for heal scrolls or Fighter 18/rogue 2 for kensai III, evasion and umd) (With the fighter can also take more easily the THF route with the LD destiny with cleaves and momentum swing)

The paladin Hotd/Dos with rogue splash is also a good combo with good self healing, saves and some sneak damage to help the paladin dps (Paladin 14/rogue 4/fighter 2 can be a good splash to get enough features and some sneak damage)(or a Paladin 18/Fighter 2 if have the Half-elf race with rogue diletante but no evasion and extra skills)

Or the Bard 16/fighter 2/rogue 2 Is also good with buffs like displacement, GH, songs, evasion, umd and posible trap skills, but lack a bit on the saves so I suggest going wit half elf paladin diletante to increase a bit on the saves.

If you want to self heal with your spells I recommend Human race or Half elf because boosts your heal amplification with improved recovery enhancements.

[Apoxia]

Druid16/Ftr2/Rogue2....

Search Fruidonkulous and you will find some build ideas...

This is very good advice.

[DrakHar]

Sounds like a paladin, but they can be tricky to go TWF unless you multiclass. Human 18 Paladin/2 Fighter would go well. You get 3 extra feats from fighter and human, helping you early on with the paladin's lack of feats. The paladin capstone is pretty useless, so there's really no point in going pure paladin. Paladins are better suited to THF, though, because of their dependance on many different stats. THF allows you to dump dex and focus more on con, str, and cha.

Or, you could do 18 paladin and 1 level of rogue and 1 level of fighter; that would give you an extra feat and then ability to do traps, although you would really need to have the best gear possible as you level to trap effectively. I wouldn't recommend it, as there's little synergy between rogues and paladins.

Or you could do a tempest ranger with fighter splash, giving you excellent twf damage, a few extra feats, and good self-healing and buffing. Rangers aren't top tier dps, per say, but only the paladin has more self-sufficiency as a melee class and ranger gives you a ranged option should the need arise and evasion without needing to multiclass into rogue or monk.

On the other hand, Rangers also have fairly good synergy with rogues, due to the ability to gain a bonus to hide, move silently, spot, and search through spells, as well as the 'hiding in plain sight' feat. A 1 rogue/19 ranger tempest is fairly common.

Or ignore self-sufficiency and go with a straight up THF pure 20 fighter. Tons of feats to super specialize in. Self-healing is weak, but you can try to go for a UMD build, although that can be hard without the proper past lives.

Agree with everything you said, except I think Paladins are much better with TWF than THF (ESoS ignored, as always), because of smites and divine sacrifice proccing on both hits. It is hard to fit the feats in, I'll grant you. I recommend human and 2 fighter as you said, since monk is unavailable.

[Kinerd]

The paladin capstone is pretty useless, so there's really no point in going pure paladin. Paladins are better suited to THF, though, because of their dependance on many different stats. THF allows you to dump dex and focus more on con, str, and cha.

Very strongly disagree on the capstone. 3d6 damage against evil outsiders is no joke, good-typed damage for THF is very much no joke.

Also disagree that paladins are better suited to THF. I encourage everyone to see exactly how much more Con, Str, or Cha you get by dumping Dex, especially with a +3 Dex tome. It's really not impressive, especially on a 36 point build.

.

To me the only answer is paladin or ranger (monk ruled out by OP), because they are the only melees with self-sufficiency. Bards are dramatically better group healers and buffers, but they pay for that by being worse melees, and if you're focused on soloing being a group healer/buffer is a meaningless strength.

Keep in mind that any splash past 6 will prevent you from getting CSW as either a paladin or ranger, which is critical for self-sufficiency.

.

Because it sounds to me like you are not terribly enthused by ranging but merely willing to accept it, I recommend pure human paladin as follows...

16 Str (levels here)
15 Dex
16 Con
10 Wis
14 Cha

Feats
EWP: Khopesh and TWF
Power Attack
ITWF
IC: Slash
Shield Mastery
GTWF
Maximize
Toughness
Quicken

Key Enhancements
Defender of Siberys 3
Divine Sacrifice 1 and Exalted Smite 1 (requires Extra Smite 2)
Human Versatility at least 1, preferably more
Improved Recovery and Devotion for staying alive (Devotion 2 also gets you the raise ability Redemption)

Alternatively, if you are really really focused on soloing, take Hunter of the Dead (dropping Shield Mastery and sliding every other feat down a slot). Eventually (level 24 feat) I would migrate back into DoS, though, the most important part of HotD is duplicated in Shadowdancer anyways, and as a DPS you want to be there so that's sewn up.