Save my drow!

[Titus-Groan]

I have a 1st life TWF drow pally that was intended to be an 18/2 pally rogue build. I think she's about 14 or 15 right now. I was reading the forums after the update and the consensus seemed to be that pallys were now just a splash class. I haven't rebuilt the enhancements yet and now I'm wondering if I should go a different direction.

One suggestion I thought seemed interesting was a 8fighter/9monk/3rog dex build focused on short swords or rapiers. (I tend to like utility/dps builds anyway) Has anyone built anything like this? How would you go about it? Any suggestions or other random comments.

I have considered going wizogue and changing my halfling wizogue to a drunk or something, but the above build sounds kinda interesting, I just don't know how it would play out or how I'd could make sure not to gimp it.

All thoughts welcome.

[Daitengu]

Just try it out yourself. On a 1st life its easy to get to 20. If you like your Pally play epic if not TR.

[Therigar]

I was reading the forums after the update and the consensus seemed to be that pallys were now just a splash class.

The forums are useful provided you remember that what you read here represents only a small percent of the DDO player base. All of us "experts" are just opinionated talking heads with different takes on the game and on what makes a successful character.

Once you get on-line and playing the game you discover that most of the people playing don't give a rat's backside about whatever forum consensus there might be or the opinions of those of us offering advice. To the contrary, the majority of players just build what they want to build and play what they want to play and really couldn't care less about what people posting to the forums think.

The paladin/rogue has been a staple of DDO from the very starting days of the game. It will continue to be a staple of DDO. That is because it is, by its very nature, a very forgiving build. Using drow as the racial choice and focusing on rapiers/short swords the build is a very passable utility character.

Yes, there are better builds that you can have. No, you don't need to have them in order to group with others or to play higher level content.

The secret to groups is to be a competent player who is able to pull their own weight and who doesn't make repeated mistakes. Paladin/rogue is a good class for that since it is highly forgiving and can provide decent support DPS plus various intangibles such as AC and save aura, emergency cure wounds, raise dead and so on.

The secret to higher level content is to be well geared. Everyone has their favorite gear set up and the game has just gone through a major revamp. That revamp introduced a lot of very nice gear boosting combat speed, damage, double strike and more.

Bottom line to this is that you could change direction if you wanted to. Or, you could stay the course with the build as it is. Either choice is "right" in the sense that either one will still let you play a workable character.

[unbongwah]

I was reading the forums after the update and the consensus seemed to be that pallys were now just a splash class.

"Consensus" is a relative term; and as Therigar points out, the most vocal forumites (myself included) represent only a minor subset of the total DDO population. So bear in mind a lot of the advice you see will be skewed towards minmaxing for endgame, not what the average players goes thru.

My view is pallies have always been a "reverse bell curve" class; the Enhancement overhaul enables you to front-load a lot of enhs with only 5 or 6 pally lvls, which exacerbates this power disparity. The main reasons to stay pure or mostly-pure pally are (A) access to higher-lvl spells (esp. Zeal for +10% doublestrike which req's pal 14) and (B) adding higher-tier core enhancements. There are secondary benefits too, like more SPs and LoHs healing more per use etc.

TWF drow pally is still a solid build, IMHO, either pure for the capstone or splashed for Evasion: decent DPS + a lot of survivability. Is it ideal? No, probably not, though it depends on what you think the "ideal" build should be able to do. But you don't need to be ideal in order to play successfully.

[Whitering]

Just eke out this life, you are so close, and then TR if you don't like, might as well get a pally life out of the way. You get 5% heal amp in your next life...so umm, that helps I guess, 105 hp is better than 100. You can pretty easily farm a heart of the wood through the challenge system now. 21 Buying time, or Time is money a few times can get you there even if you are gimp. You shouldn't be though.

Are you wearing chain armor for evasion (it works with tower shields by the way)?

If you have blur, displacement, concealment and a good dodge score, you will be better than a heavy AC tank with none of those things, but noob group leaders won't know that.