The Official Purple Dragon Knight Iconic Discussion Thread!

[SqueakofDoom]

Please use this thread to discuss the Purple Dragon Knight Iconic.

The Purple Dragon Knight Iconic's Enhancements are also being discussed here.

[Delacroix21]

While the bladeforged and shadar Kai seem somewhat unique, PDKs racial tree is almost a copy and paste of human tree, aside from the charisma to hit and damage.


The good:
1. Charisma to hit and damage at low level tier
2. That's it, rest is a copy of human or requires low health etc. boosts that aren't desirable


About the charisma bonus to hit and damage:
1. Aside from bards splashing PDK as 1st level, why the charisma focus?
2. Why don't bards get a option for to-hit and damage based off charisma? They have been asking for it for years and could use some love.
3. PDKs are a bard splash class, nothing more. Even paladins need not splash for the charisma bonus to strength level 2 enhancement.
4. Where are the PDK spell like abilities?

[CoasterHops]

While the bladeforged and shadar Kai seem somewhat unique, PDKs racial tree is almost a copy and paste of human tree, aside from the charisma to hit and damage.


The good:
1. Charisma to hit and damage at low level tier
2. That's it, rest is a copy of human or requires low health etc. boosts that aren't desirable


About the charisma bonus to hit and damage:
1. Aside from bards splashing PDK as 1st level, why the charisma focus?
2. Why don't bards get a option for to-hit and damage based off charisma? They have been asking for it for years and could use some love.
3. PDKs are a bard splash class, nothing more. Even paladins need not splash for the charisma bonus to strength level 2 enhancement.
4. Where are the PDK spell like abilities?

Heres a Non Bard buld for yah:

PDK Iconic
17Fvs,2pali,1fighter Full Charisma Specced.
Specced either as a TWF using Bastard Swords, Longswords or Shortswords.
Or:
Sword and Board Bastard Swords with both Shield Masteries.
Or:
THF with Greatswords (Though maybe no 1.5 damage with THFighting)

-Basically Full Heal Specced with Quicken and Empower Heal, no need for the overly restrictive long casting Mass Heal.
-Monster, I mean absolutely Monster saves!
-Wings
-Specced into Draconic ED with Cha based Elemental Damage- Probably Fire as I believe can still buff this element in FVS Enhancement Tree.
-Fully Charisma based nets Saves, SP, (to make up for splash) to hit and damage.

Just thought I would throw a build out there that doesn't require Bard as a base class.....

[Delacroix21]

You lost me when you pick draconic as your ED spec, if you plan on meele then LD or FoW, or tree form primal avatar.


Ok so the class is a bard/fvs splash. Your not helping the reasoning of it being pure.

[CoasterHops]

You lost me when you pick draconic as your ED spec, if you plan on meele then LD or FoW, or tree form primal avatar.


Ok so the class is a bard/fvs splash. Your not helping the reasoning of it being pure.

As with the other iconics (other than Assassin) pure isn't necessarily the best option.

As for Draconic, just threw that in there as an option, sure you can run it in one of the other destinies if you like, was just offering an option for a full Charisma build.

The thing with Iconics is you can design yourself a build to suit what you want, like that Full Charisma Specced FVS build I posted and if they don't work you haven't really invested that much time into it. That FVS build is what I am going to build for my PDK Iconic, I can also see people building 18Bard/1fighter/1wizard or the standard 16 Bard/2rog/2fighter builds.

As a pure fighter I don't see it as an option but that can be said for Bladeforged and Paladins, and Sun Elf and Clerics to a degree.

[Diyon]

I made a PDK 18monk/1rogue/1fighter and have none of the PDK abilities.

[gflash]

It's strange that I can improve my PDK Aura without having to take the aura enhancement first.

[CE2JRH123]

I haven't got onto LAmma yet (Downloading Client) but I was thinking pure charisma Cleric 17/Paladin2/Iconic PDK Fighter 1: High Charisma and burst spam, a bit of wisdom and a bit of strength for pre-requisites and as much con as possible --- huge saves, go for power attack/cleave/great cleave/improved critical plus max/emp heal/emp/quicken and go battle cleric from there. Lower mana pool offset by having a lot of bursts +aura and hopefully the ability to stand in the crowd while using them, though I haven't made it yet.

[Death_Mystic]

I made a PDK. I saw nothing stand outish. They look like Human with no stat bonuses. Saw no special feats. The human Xtra feat they do not get. They also seem to not receive the Xtra skills. So other than the new Enhancements in the racial tree (human tree with the marks line taken out and PDK stuff put in to replace) they seem to only be good to get a fighter starting at 15 though lacking compared to a Human (non-iconic) Fighter of same level.

As far as the CHA focusing, I do not mind this. I am thinkng of building a CHA focused Sword and Board Intimitank. Extra CHA = Extra Intim.

[Malgin]

has anyone set up a recommended build yet?

[Miasmark]

I made a PDK. I saw nothing stand outish. They look like Human with no stat bonuses. Saw no special feats. The human Xtra feat they do not get. They also seem to not receive the Xtra skills. So other than the new Enhancements in the racial tree (human tree with the marks line taken out and PDK stuff put in to replace) they seem to only be good to get a fighter starting at 15 though lacking compared to a Human (non-iconic) Fighter of same level.

As far as the CHA focusing, I do not mind this. I am thinkng of building a CHA focused Sword and Board Intimitank. Extra CHA = Extra Intim.

paladin. battle sorcerer. etc. I dont really see fighter as a good class for this whole thing, think outside the fighter.

[hi_sa1nt]

I made a pretty nice tank with the points dumped into Con/Cha evenly... I think it was 18/18 iirc. Anyway, it ended up being in the end 1 ftr/2 paly/ and 17 fvs... I know when you start it's only 12 fvs, but it's not that hard to level up.

The charisma based to-hit was nice, lacked a few things like power attack etc (for lack of 13 str), but in the end, the S&B method and very reliable self heal made things easy. Feats I took were Shield Mastery, Improved Shield mastery, quicken, extend, empower heal... not necessarily in that order, and I think I'm missing a couple. I'll try putting a few points into str and int (to be able to use certain feats as well as have more skill points) in order to raise my Intimidate and other skills needed.

Next build I tried was a 2 fighter/13 bard. Again con/cha based. Seemed to work alright, didn't put much time in soloing with it though, but again, may put a couple points into str/int for feats/skill points. I'll have to play around with it later.

[BinyaminTsadik]

While the bladeforged and shadar Kai seem somewhat unique, PDKs racial tree is almost a copy and paste of human tree, aside from the charisma to hit and damage.


The good:
1. Charisma to hit and damage at low level tier
2. That's it, rest is a copy of human or requires low health etc. boosts that aren't desirable


About the charisma bonus to hit and damage:
1. Aside from bards splashing PDK as 1st level, why the charisma focus?
2. Why don't bards get a option for to-hit and damage based off charisma? They have been asking for it for years and could use some love.
3. PDKs are a bard splash class, nothing more. Even paladins need not splash for the charisma bonus to strength level 2 enhancement.
4. Where are the PDK spell like abilities?

There are a few items out there that allow you to use charisma for to hit and damage including the Elyd Edge and the Falcata.

Yes, a full intimidate is a very nice perk from this iconic, but trip and sunder would be nice to work from charisma also.

No matter, there are still very many options for this build.

18fighter/2paladin (fighter with high saves)
12monk/6fighter/2paladin (huge save bonus for any monk)
2fighter/18 paladin (allows for the current paly tanks to max/min a bit better)

fighter/bard warchanter mix will have a higher UMD than normal and possibly some nice DCs on discoballs and fascinate

the 1fighter/2paladin/17fvs mentioned earlier sounds like a great mix, however you will miss out on your lvl 9 spells

1fighter/2paladin/17 cleric might be a bit better to go with

[Nascoe]

paladin. battle sorcerer. etc. I dont really see fighter as a good class for this whole thing, think outside the fighter.

I pretty much agree. They have fighter as default, but really what they are, looks more like pointing towards a paladin (spiritual night?). But as we already have the Bladeforged as Paladin that would not work, right (oh, and Paladin not being a great class to go as main build)?

So Bladeforged works better as either a Pal/Sorcerer or a Pal/fighter, and now the PDK is a fighter, but feels a bit pointless that way. As a Fighter the PDK really would not need any of the CHA bonusses (why not just take strenght focus). I made one yesterday, and found I just did not bother with the PDK "extras".

Maybe it could become a good FvS (that actually fits well - a great warrior focussed on divine as well?) or maybe used with Bard because of their damage to CHA - only the idea of a Bard as a warrior in the Kings army does not fit thematically.

Oh, and I also felt that the standard equipment you get really does not feel all that worthwhile to keep (would be enough with the cosmetic armor), a S&B going fighter really is not all that good an idea, unless its meant to max out the stalward defender line? Instead I quickly looked at getting myself a good Greataxe/Falchion. The equipment on the Bladeforged was better (not great, but better), I think this PDK gear should be upped too to make us want to keep some of it on.

Sorry for the negative tone. But I really did not feel it made any sense over a normal character, apart from getting 15 lvls of XP and starting out in the FR area. Not the experience it should be.

Oh, and I strongly recommend including something like a help tool/instruction video/tutorial to get the enhancements in, because it still feels confusing with all the choices. I saw the new UI in action for the first time, and at first I felt even more confused than with the current one.
Maybe part of the trouble is that there is no pre-defined path for the PDK yet (if you make one to help new players get along, it would be important to give them a help/pre-select or highlighted path for the enhancements too, because its really hard to know what to pick when you do not know the game)?

[Texlaw1992]

The developer chat from last month mentioned something about a "special quest" PDK iconics can take to "restore their honor."

Is there such a special quest? If so, I may create a PDK iconic just to run it.

[Nascoe]

The developer chat from last month mentioned something about a "special quest" PDK iconics can take to "restore their honor."

Is there such a special quest? If so, I may create a PDK iconic just to run it.

The quest mentioned is the Wheloon prison chain.

[HatsuharuZ]

It would be nice if there was a PDK-ish class tree for fighters. Something that rewards an investment in charisma, some tactical feat-enhancing abilities, extra action boosts, etc. Without something like that, I don't see much point making the PDK iconic a pure fighter.

[Mister_Shevek]

I made a 12 bard/6 fighter/2 rogue (not for trap skills, just for evasion) that seemed pretty effective.Fate singer ED with Rejuvv Cacoon/Lay Waste/Momentum Swing twisted in. I had plenty of SP for random buffs + cacoon, plenty of bard song uses/duration and very respectable melee prowess. I did have to eat a +4 str tome to make it happen. Mostly a melee with some nice support. Mostly invested in Spell singer tree since skaldic rage didn't much benefit a cha build (did go into the warchanter tree for extra songs uses and sprint boost but that's it). Got haste boost + extra boosts from kensai tree (along with some passive dmg). From pdk tree, i took damage and skillboosts, cha to dmg, cha skill focus, and improved healing. So long as I kept displacement up and I diplo often, I felt comfortable in the front lines with my greatsword. Much more fun than standard melee build.

13 str, 16 con, 12 int, 17 cha if I remember right (all future points in cha). For feats... I remember power attack, cleave, great cleave, thf, ithf, gthf, wf:slash, WS: slash, empower heals, force of personality and some others.

[Salmagnus]

I created a 2/18 Ftr/FvS melee focused which seemed to work well. My only issue is that I wanted to use two handed swords but was trapped by deity to use one handed swords. Over all some interesting interactions with charisma based hit/damage toon with bards, Socs, FvS, and to some extent, paladins. Also, being human based and having the extra skill (and feat when bug fixed according to devs) adds to their appeal. With skills boosting your spell power and other things intelligence is more useful for extra skill points.

[Scrag]

If you go 2 pal/2 fight/16 cleric (plus 21-28 cleric), how would that be? Reasonable? I am looking at it from a bonus feat point of view.