Revisiting the Sacred Defender for New Players

[elraido]

Both cure serious wounds and death ward are good options. Personally I've been running with cure serious wounds, but then i'm usually in legendary dreadnaught and up until I twisted cacoon I found it more helpful to have two cure spells to alternate between due to the cool downs. When I need death ward I would use the Tangleroot clicky or drink a pot (Eveningstar cleric turn in). However that is a good idea and I may switch back to Deathward as cacoon handles most of my healing needs.

In any event there are two good level 4 spell options after picking up zeal.

You do bring up a very good point. It does matter what ED you are running in. If you have the option to get DW from something else, then yeah, take CSW. I almost always found it easier to just have the spell in case it gets debuffed. But if you are in a more DPS oriented ED, take the healing!!!

[Drathsiddh]

[QUOTE=unbongwah;5286302]Someone PMed me looking for gear suggestions to this build; rather than posting to that thread, though, I figured I'd start a new one.

[*]Tanking: Shield Mastery, Imp Shield Mastery, b.sword or d.axe prof., Imp Shield Bash - these feats boost DPS as well as survivability while S&B



Isnt d.axe and b.sword for dps?

Sorry, but how do you highlight your quote? This is my first post so........

[unbongwah]

Isnt d.axe and b.sword for dps?

D.axe & b.sword benefit from glancing blows if you have a shield, orb, or Runearm in your offhand. [Technically, they'll also benefit if you have nothing in your offhand, but DDO doesn't implement the PnP rules for "hand-and-a-half" weapons; i.e., you won't wield them with two hands, so you might as well switch to a regular 2H sword or greataxe.] As a S&B tank, you need all the DPS you can get - partly to maintain aggro, mostly just to kill mobs faster - and investing in glancing blows is one way of doing so. The drawback is the feat cost; pallies are feat-starved, so spending 4 feats for THF chain + exotic prof. is a significant investment. [Dwarves treat d.axes as martial weapons, so they don't need to take the prof.]

Sorry, but how do you highlight your quote?

You put "[ quote ]" in front of what you're quoting and "[ /quote ]" afterward, minus the quote marks and the spaces in the brackets (only way I could get the forum to display them).

[EllisDee37]

You put "[ quote ]" in front of what you're quoting and "[ /quote ]" afterward, minus the quote marks and the spaces in the brackets (only way I could get the forum to display them).

Use [noparse][/noparse] tags to show codes. For example:

[quote]Put the quoted text here.[/quote]

EDIT: If you quote my post it won't display properly because even though the above quote is noparsed, the reply function thinks it's a quote and so strips it out. The code for the quote line is:

[noparse][quote]Put the quoted text here.[/quote][/noparse]

[unbongwah]

Ah, thanks. In hindsight, should've looked up the BB Codes, but I was in a rush.

[Baldred]

I am a multi-classed Paladin using Dwarven Axes and a shield and need help deciding on a few feats.

I don't have the feat slots in my build to go with the entire Two Handed Fighting Chain. I am wondering if I would average more DPS from taking Improved Shield Bashing or Improved Two Handed Fighting.

Also, I currently have extend, but I am wondering if I would be better off switching to Quicken in higher level content? I have Concentration maxed out and haven't had a problem with my heals getting disrupted yet, but I am only level 18, so haven't started running higher level content yet.

I have to take one of my feats as a metamagic feat because I have one level of Wizard, which I saw Unbongwah recommend in another post a while back. I took this for a variety of reasons and it has worked out well. I Also have Empower heal as one of my feats. I guess as one option, I could drop Extend and empower heal, not worry about Quicken, then take Empower or Maximize and get both Improved and Greater Two Handed Fighting.

I appreciate any advise and thanks in advance for the help!

[Fedora1]

I am a multi-classed Paladin using Dwarven Axes and a shield and need help deciding on a few feats.

I don't have the feat slots in my build to go with the entire Two Handed Fighting Chain. I am wondering if I would average more DPS from taking Improved Shield Bashing or Improved Two Handed Fighting.

Also, I currently have extend, but I am wondering if I would be better off switching to Quicken in higher level content? I have Concentration maxed out and haven't had a problem with my heals getting disrupted yet, but I am only level 18, so haven't started running higher level content yet.

I have to take one of my feats as a metamagic feat because I have one level of Wizard, which I saw Unbongwah recommend in another post a while back. I took this for a variety of reasons and it has worked out well. I Also have Empower heal as one of my feats. I guess as one option, I could drop Extend and empower heal, not worry about Quicken, then take Empower or Maximize and get both Improved and Greater Two Handed Fighting.

I appreciate any advise and thanks in advance for the help!

My advice would be to drop extend, keep emp heal, and quicken is a toss-up.

Before deciding whether to take ISB or ITHF, make sure you have cleave and great cleave. Both are more useful than anything in the THF chain.

[Sokól]

My advice would be to drop extend, keep emp heal, and quicken is a toss-up.

Before deciding whether to take ISB or ITHF, make sure you have cleave and great cleave. Both are more useful than anything in the THF chain.

Good advice but imo quicken is essential esp. if you want to do some ee!

[Fedora1]

Good advice but imo quicken is essential esp. if you want to do some ee!

Yep but really only essential for EE, in EH you can get by with LOH or a high concentrate from my experience. It's nice to have though, but pallys just can't afford everything that's nice.

[unbongwah]

I don't have the feat slots in my build to go with the entire Two Handed Fighting Chain. I am wondering if I would average more DPS from taking Improved Shield Bashing or Improved Two Handed Fighting.

To my mind, the THF feats are all-or-nothing, because GTHF provides the biggest boost to DPS. If you've taken at least ftr 2, I would go ISB and add Shield Striking; this should now be stacking with Shield Bashing property on shields (e.g., Madstone Aegis) for 55% proc chance (20% ISB feat + 15% Shield Striking + 20% Bashing property).

One possibility I've been mulling lately is using Mornh for S&B. While in LD, w/Pulverizer & Imp Crit Blunt, the crit profile goes to 15-20 x3; x5 on 19-20 if you've got Overwhelming Crit & Devastating Crit. Plus Anvil of Thunder procs a free stun on crits and can proc on double-strikes as well. The drawback is you'd lose glancing blows by switching from d.axe to warhammer while S&B; but if you don't have the feats to spare for THF chain anyway, that's not so big a deal. For THF you could use a drow maul or any of the named epic ones.

Also, I currently have extend, but I am wondering if I would be better off switching to Quicken in higher level content?

You can get pretty far with just Concentration, but eventually you'll want Quicken if you hope to get your CSWs while in tougher fights. Don't forget you can cast spells while shield-blocking, which improves your chances.

[Baldred]

Thanks for the advice everyone!

My build is Paladin 15/ Fighter 4/ Wizard 1 (currently I am level 18, so Paladin 14/ Fighter 3/ Wizard 1). My last life I was a level 20 Dwarven S&B Fighter and I really enjoyed that play style, but found myself really lacking in the healing department. So this life I decided to create a Paladin. I originally was going to take more Paladin levels, but I found myself very feat-starved, especially after having just played as a fighter, so through the course of my characters life, I have added some fighter levels and a wizard level, which will add 4 feats when all is said and done. I have to admit that I am thoroughly enjoying my build, more so than the fighter version, even if the DPS is lower. With that said, I am trying to max out the DPS I can get from my last few levels. Here is what I have for feats so far:

H1 Toughness
F1 Power Attack
1 Shield Mastery
W1 Extend (Might switch out to Quicken)
3 Exotic Weapon: Dwarven Axe
6 Improved Shield Mastery
9 Two Handed Fighting
12 IC Slashing
15 Cleave
18 Empower heal
F2 Great Cleave
F4 Improved Two handed fighting or Improved Shield Bash
21 Overwhelming Critical
24 Epic Toughness
ED26 Perfect Two Handed Fighting
27 Blinding Speed or Bulwark of Defense
ED28 Perfect Two Weapon Fighting

It sounds like the majority of you recommend Quicken if I am going to enter EE content, so I am going to highly consider that. Also, I have a tendency to forget to use Divine Might right now. Unlike spells, it doesn't popup with a reminder when it expires. I am thinking that if I don't have extend going, Divine Favor and Zeal will last close to the same amount of time as Divine Might, and I can just refresh all three at once.

Fedora1, I agree with you about Cleave and Great Cleave. I use them often and agree that they are very handy. Also, being that they are prereq's for Overwhelming critical, they were a must have for me:-).

I saw that Ralmeth recommended Stunning Blow. What sort of DC is required to make it work in EE? I am not sure I can get the DC up high enough to make it work for me.

Regarding the THF feats, I understand what you mean Unbongwah. I read on the wiki post that you linked that you get an extra glancing blow on the third attack with GTHF. Looking at my feats, should I substitute another feat and do the whole THF chain? I guess I could take out the toughness feats, but they will be worth almost 100 HP with my stance, which seems like it would be really helpful in EE content. Is there any other feat that you recommend that I get rid of? If I do take Improved Shield Bash, I will need to figure out what to free up for AP, as it would be a shame not to take Shield Strike, as you recommended.

Thanks again for the help everyone!

[EllisDee37]

If I were going to build a sword & board 15/4/1 paladin/fighter/wizard from the ground up, here's the leveling order and feat progression I might consider:

1 Paladin1 - Power Attack, Cleave
2 Paladin2
3 Paladin3 - Exotic Weapon
4 Fighter1 - Great Cleave (requires BAB 4, which is why fighter 1 is taken here)
5 Paladin4
6 Paladin5 - Shield Mastery
7 Paladin6 (ghost touch on all weapons just in time for necro1 and first delera's quest)
8 Fighter2 - Improved Critical (requires BAB 8, so fighter 2 goes here)
9 Paladin7 - Improved Shield Mastery
10 Paladin8
11 Paladin9
12 Paladin10 - Empower Healing Spell (in anticipation of cure moderate next level)
13 Paladin11 (race to paladin 11 to get cure moderate as soon as possible)
14 Wizard1 - Extend (use free feat swap to turn this into quicken when you reach epic levels)
15 Paladin12 - Improved Shield Bash
16 Paladin13
17 Paladin14
18 Paladin15 - Toughness (get both zeal and cure serious by level 18)
19 Fighter3
20 Fighter4 - Improved Sunder
21 - Overwhelming Critical
24 - Epic Toughness
26 - Perfect TWF
27 - Blinding Speed
28 - Perfect THF

I would really, really like to somehow fit in the full THF line, but I couldn't seem to make it work while also getting epic toughness. The natural fit for the THF line would be to swap out the two toughness feats and improved sunder.

[Fedora1]

What about P15/F3/M2 version? That should net an extra feat, correct? Does the W1 give anything other than the metamagic feat? I hate to suggest "splash monk" since it is such a common answer, but even uncentered you get the feat you need and the option of evasion.

EDIT - I am not suggesting you LR, just wanted to put it out there in case someone else was looking at this build.

[unbongwah]

14 Wizard1 - Extend (use free feat swap to turn this into quicken when you reach epic levels)

I might suggest taking the wiz splash sooner, maybe shortly after pal lvl 4 (lvl 1 spells) or 6 (defensive stance). The metamagic doesn't matter so much, but having +130 SPs & Echoes of Power (which is just enough to power an un-meta'ed CSW) early on is nice.

Does the W1 give anything other than the metamagic feat?

Magical Training, which also grants Echoes of Power. I believe in the thread where I recommended it, I also suggested Twisting in Endless Faith, which bumps EoP to 30 SPs. [I think this was on a BF pally, so I needed the extra bump to power Reconstruct SLA while on EoP.] But now that US gets Renewal - and presuming you Twist in Rejuv Cocoon like every other melee - it helps a pally tank too. You can take MT as a chosen feat, but that eats up the extra feat you just gained, so it's a wash. OTOH, Evasion is always nice if you're not planning on hvy armor.

[Ralmeth]

I saw that Ralmeth recommended Stunning Blow. What sort of DC is required to make it work in EE? I am not sure I can get the DC up high enough to make it work for me.

If you're planning on EE then I wouldn't bother with Stunning Blow because you're not going to get your DC high enough. Stunning Blow is very viable for a Paladin on EH and lower, if you build for it.

[EllisDee37]

I might suggest taking the wiz splash sooner, maybe shortly after pal lvl 4 (lvl 1 spells) or 6 (defensive stance). The metamagic doesn't matter so much, but having +130 SPs & Echoes of Power (which is just enough to power an un-meta'ed CSW) early on is nice.

I disagree.

Until you have 11 paladin levels, you only get cure light wounds, which costs a measly 6 spell points to cast. A simple wizardry item gives you tons of uses of it. More than plenty. I say this from the experience of having run a paladin splash build to level 11 in the past week or so. (He's currently level 11 with 9 paladin levels, so still just using cure light @ 6 mana a pop.)

Taking the wizard level before paladin 11 is counterproductive in that it delays getting cure moderate. You list cure serious as a reason, but paladins don't get that until paladin level 14. (Or 15, more likely.)

Also, if you take it before paladin level 6 you delay ghost touch on all weapons until after necro1 and delera's part 1, meaning you need a separate ghost touch weapon. I suppose you could push one of the fighter levels back, but they both bring real value in the form of getting key feats earlier. (Great Cleave @ 4, Improved Critical @ 8.) By contrast, the wizard level only gets you more of what amounts to endless castings of cure light wounds anyway.

Add in the many cure lights you can cast with four lay on hands @ paladin 2 plus unyielding sovereignty @ paladin 6, you have sufficient healing to get to paladin 11 (@ 13) without needing echoes.

[unbongwah]

Shoot, I forgot CMW is a lvl 3 spell, not lvl 2. All right, then, you talked me out of it.

[Ralmeth]

I disagree.

Until you have 11 paladin levels, you only get cure light wounds, which costs a measly 6 spell points to cast. A simple wizardry item gives you tons of uses of it. More than plenty. I say this from the experience of having run a paladin splash build to level 11 in the past week or so. (He's currently level 11 with 9 paladin levels, so still just using cure light @ 6 mana a pop.)

Taking the wizard level before paladin 11 is counterproductive in that it delays getting cure moderate. You list cure serious as a reason, but paladins don't get that until paladin level 14. (Or 15, more likely.)

Also, if you take it before paladin level 6 you delay ghost touch on all weapons until after necro1 and delera's part 1, meaning you need a separate ghost touch weapon. I suppose you could push one of the fighter levels back, but they both bring real value in the form of getting key feats earlier. (Great Cleave @ 4, Improved Critical @ 8.) By contrast, the wizard level only gets you more of what amounts to endless castings of cure light wounds anyway.

Add in the many cure lights you can cast with four lay on hands @ paladin 2 plus unyielding sovereignty @ paladin 6, you have sufficient healing to get to paladin 11 (@ 13) without needing echoes.

I agree with this. At low levels just use cure wands for out of combat healing, and use your spell points to power divine favor and divine sacrifice.

[Baldred]

@ EllisDee37, I agree that your leveling order is more optimal than what I listed and is recommended for the reasons that you outlined. I went with my order to try to acquire some extra feats earlier on. Regarding the THF feats, I ran into the same conundrum of really wanting the whole line, but not being able to fit them all in.

@ Fedora1, you are correct, P15/F3/M2 would net the same number of feats and was very tempting. I decided against it because as nice as evasion would be, I really wanted this guy in heavy armor. Maybe I will consider it for his next life to see how I like it. After all, I could just wear light armor where evasion is needed and then wear heavy armor the rest of the time:-). In regards to Wiz1, you get the metamagic feat, the +130 SPs & Echoes of Power that Unbongwah mentioned, in my case due to my current Intelligence stat another +80 SP for a total of +210 SP, and three level 1 wizard spells. The level 1 spells really ended up being a nice little bonus. I have been using Jump and Expeditious Retreat since early levels and still use them regularly. As a low level character wearing heavy armor and using a shield, it was nice to have a +10 to my jump skill. Also, I have not had a striding item during this life, which has freed up an item slot for other things. Both spells when extended last for 10 minutes per casting, which is really nice.

@ Unbongwah, I believe you are correct, that it was the thread about the Bladeforged paladins that you had mentioned the wizard level. I was trying to figure out ways of getting more feats and you mentioned taking a Wizard level to obtain Quicken on your build. It sounded like a good idea, so I went with it for the feat and other perks listed above:-)

@ Ralmeth, I suspected as much regarding the Stunning Blow DC, thank you for confirming.

[Fedora1]

[QUOTE=Baldred;5307213@ Fedora1, you are correct, P15/F3/M2 would net the same number of feats and was very tempting. I decided against it because as nice as evasion would be, I really wanted this guy in heavy armor. Maybe I will consider it for his next life to see how I like it. After all, I could just wear light armor where evasion is needed and then wear heavy armor the rest of the time:-). In regards to Wiz1, you get the metamagic feat, the +130 SPs & Echoes of Power that Unbongwah mentioned, in my case due to my current Intelligence stat another +80 SP for a total of +210 SP, and three level 1 wizard spells. The level 1 spells really ended up being a nice little bonus. I have been using Jump and Expeditious Retreat since early levels and still use them regularly. As a low level character wearing heavy armor and using a shield, it was nice to have a +10 to my jump skill. Also, I have not had a striding item during this life, which has freed up an item slot for other things. Both spells when extended last for 10 minutes per casting, which is really nice. [/QUOTE]

Okay thanks - I saw unbongwah's reply also explaining that. It makes sense and essentially is a matter of preference. Do you end up with arcane spell failure often due to the heavy armor? That would waste a few spell points, though probably not enough to cancel the extra SP you get from going wiz1. As far as jump goes, those potions are cheap and easy to come by (market vendor), and are only really needed situationally. As for expeditious retreat, I don't think I would use it to save a slot, since what you want now is not a striding item but rather a speed item, to get the extra attack speed with the run bonus.

Still I can see some usefulness to the Wiz1 level, but I am thinking if you're going to go melee, the extra feat from monk would be nice, and evasion is probably more useful than heavy armor, unless it's just a flavor thing. Did you spend any AP in Eldritch Knight?