Sam - Human 12FVS/6Monk/2Pal

[Loriac]

"His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god." Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny

So I've been looking at stick builds over the last few days, trying to find something that works well as a melee fighter but also allows me to take the divine crusader epic destiny and use it well (I don't want to play in LD or FotW for this character). I'm currently levelling up a more melee based stick build (was going to be 13Rog/4Pal/3Ranger, but will now end up as 6/6/6 at level 18 with the final two levels in paladin for the PL feat before TR'ing immediately) but I am finding that the self healing is problematic in the early teens and I'm having to trade dps for self sufficiency by using the bloody staff of shadow to keep myself up in tough fights (rather than using a higher dps staff instead). So I figured it might be better to switch to a build that had better self healing from class features, along with a better synergy with divine crusader.

The following is where I've got to in my deliberations, and I would appreciate any comments or criticisms in case I've overlooked anything.

Basic build objectives: Strong melee capability, self-healing, ability to apply ranged damage if needed, good defence.

FVS 12 - for AoV to get the laser parrot, and to increase light damage capabilities
Monk 6 - for Henshin Mystic stick fighting, Shadow veil
Pal 2 - for divine grace

Stats - 36 pt build

Str 16 (2 level ups + 5 tome to allow Overwhelming critical)
Dex 13
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 8
Cha 17 (all except 2 level ups here)

The reason for level ups in Cha rather than Str is that divine might allows cha to be converted to str somewhat, and also that any epic destiny abilities that are driven from cha will benefit from higher DCs under this approach. Additionally, you get higher saves and more spell points (although these might be less important overall as the build will already have extremely high saves, and just reward in the AoV tree on its own is likely to allow for a lot of sustained light based nuking without an undue drain on sp).

10 Int is to allow heal, spellcraft, concentration and UMD to be put relatively high, along with high spot, 5 or so in balance and 1 pt in tumble (Int can be lowered to raise other stats if skills are not considered important)

Feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Imp. Crit: Bludgeon, Overwhelming Critical, THF, ITHF, GTHF, Empower Healing, Quicken spell, Maximise, Master of forms, GM of forms, 1 additional monk feat (probably either deflect arrows or precision)

Levelling order - in order to fit the feats in, you can't take monk at level 1 (as you can only choose from PA, Cleave, THF, Empower Heal, Quicken, and Maximise at level 1, meaning that if you choose monk you'd have to take PA, Cleave, THF at level 1 with 2 of the three as your 'human' feats rather than one of PA or THF being taken at Monk 2). Beyond this, the idea would be to get 6 monk levels, 4 fvs levels, and 2 pal levels by character level 12 when stick specialisation is opened.

Enhancements
Henshin Mystic - 34 points including staff specialisation, sounding staff (to treat all staves as implements), quickstrike, lighting the candle and every light casts a shadow (harmonious path preferred as it gives buffs like aligning the heavens, and fvs levels plus divine crusader already give mass cure wounds capabilities)
Ninja spy - 11 points to get shadow veil, 2d6 SA, +2 to dodge, +2 to reflex saves
AoV - 23 points to get the laser parrot, smiting for +8% crit chance with light/fire spells)
War Priest - 9 points to get DMIII, DR 5/-, and PRR 10
Human - 3 points to get damage boost and human improved recovery


Note that whilst levelling, taking ameliorating strike from the WP tree is likely a better use of ap to get you a solid source of healing before you get higher fvs levels to open up mass clw and heal.

Ranged damage comes from nimbus, searing light, and divine punishment (unmeta'd except for boss fights).

Later, at epic levels, you'd take the usual abilities from divine crusader for increased light spell power and crits. Avenging light might be a good tier 1 twist (to replace cocoon that would normally be required on a self-healing melee) along with lay waste and momentum swing.


Other comments: the key question with a stick build is whether or not to include rogue levels. My thoughts with this build are that rogue adds perhaps 15% dps with the staff and staff vault which is a very nice ability to have. However, to get that you have to either drop paladin, in which case your saves may not be good enough, or monk in which case you lose major defensive capabilities (shadow veil, GM ocean stance when needed, dodge etc). In the end, and bearing in mind that with divine crusader you're getting a lot of dps from light and fire damage, henshin mystic overall offers enough I think to warrant not having rogue levels. You also get additional benefits such as aligning the heavens which in theory could help you sustain spell point based dps for far longer than not including monk in the mix.



So any thoughts or comments on factors I may have overlooked?



Edit: Divine Crusader abilities, emphasizing the melee nature of this build:

T6: Strike Down (2pts)
T5: Celestial Champion, Castigation, Heavenly Presence (6pts)
T4: No Regret, Crusade (4pts)
T3: Sacred Ground, Empyrean Magic (2pts)
T2: Consecration III (3pts)
T1: Interrogation, Purge the Wicked (2pts)

The other points are flexible, and will either be spent on +Cha or possibly on spec'ing in confront any foe (assuming the light damage scales with spellpower).

Melee Twist focus: Lay Waste, Momentum Swing, Dance of Flowers
SLA type twist focus: Energy burst (fire), Avenging Light, possibly soundburst or alternatively keep dance of flowers for melee damage

The SLA type twist focus is particularly attractive if taking the Precision feat at monk level 6, as Lay Waste/Momentum swing cannot be used in that stance. The GM of forms feat could also be swapped out and replaced with Ruin if going down the SLA / spellcasting route.

Whilst the Melee focus might bring into question the focus on Cha over Str, swapping twists is much easier than changing stat points. Additionally, as noted below by Cardtrick, the base build can easily function well in Exalted Angel instead of Divine Crusader, and that would certainly be better served by having max'd Cha rather than Str.


Edited to update the stat block - wis is now dumped fully, and the 3 points put back into Cha to get that to 17. Arguably I could also drop Dex to 11 and Con to 13 to get Cha to 18, but on balance starting at 13 dex means +1 to reflex saves and also makes early levels far easier to juggle, as you meet dodge / precision stat requirements immediately.

I'm also thinking of swapping out the THF feat line entirely, based on the discussion in this thread https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...forged-project as it forced me to rethink the exact benefit a staff user gets from that line. If I do swap this out, I'll replace with the feats empower spell, dodge, and probably epic reflexes. The latter two are based on some of the comments from Cardtrick later on in this thread, whilst empower spell would add a lot of power to using the exalted angel destiny instead of divine crusader (quickened, empowered, maximised, empowered healing Mass CMW for 35sp sounds particularly nice for any group healing requirements in that destiny!)

[Cardtrick]

So any thoughts or comments on factors I may have overlooked?

Wow. This is almost exactly the build I currently have sitting open in my character planner, to use as the next life on my quarterstaff TR project (after finishing his paladin one and a martial past life, which will take a while).

I've been cycling through heroic/epic TR combinations, going with staff builds the whole time. After trying Divine Crusader on my favored soul, I knew I wanted to play with it on my staff guy as well to get a divine epic past life, and this build definitely seems like the best approach.

I ordinarily prefer getting 2 rogue levels on all my staff builds, because losing Thief Acrobatics and the better version of Quick Strike is a major DPS drop. It's a bit more than the 15% reduction you mentioned -- there's that much lost just from the stacking attack speed in Thief Acrobatics. The 25% doublestrike from Quick Strike goes from 83% uptime to 50%, which would be about an additional 7.5% loss if you were perfect at keeping the strikes running and rarely/never cleaved. In reality, probably more like a 5% loss. You also lose Haste Boost, which is a major blow but harder to quantify. Again -- maybe a 5 to 10% loss. And you lose a bit of sneak attack and stacking staff training enhancements. All in all, I'm guessing the staff DPS reduction is around 30-35% rather than 15%.

But in this case, I made the same choice you did -- when going near-max CHA like this (to get a workable DC on Soundburst and Energy Burst in epics), it is worth losing some quarterstaff damage for much higher saves.

My initial stat allocation is a bit different from yours, probably mostly because I only have +4 tomes. I don't have it perfectly nailed down, but I'm currently looking at 18 STR, 10 DEX, 14 CON, 10 INT, 8 WIS, 16 CHA. Also strongly considering going with 9 DEX, 12 CON, and 17 CHA . . .but it would mean having to delay my 6th monk level until level 15, since I want to use the bonus feat for either Dodge or Precision. Feels weird to even think about going with only 12 CON and no Toughness, but I don't think it's really a problem these days.

I'm planning to take Epic Reflexes at 27 -- it looks like you're planning on Grandmaster of Forms there? I'm mostly going to run in earth stance for the critical multiplier, so I'm okay with only taking Master.

I think my level order is going to be a bit different from yours in any case. I want 5 monk levels at 12 for staff specialization, but beyond that I'm planning to prioritize favored soul levels. I don't think I'll take my paladin levels till 19 and 20. I don't really feel like Divine Grace is necessary in heroics, but I really want a 6th level spell for the 18-20 grind. (I'm probably going to take Blade Barrier rather than Heal for heroic zerging, and then swap it out later.)

[Loriac]

Its reassuring that I'm not the only one thinking that this build could work lol.

The reason I ended up guessing at rogue being about a 15% net gain on dps is that you have to account for the additional dps from monk too.

I.e. going earth stance is an additional 10% more or less that the rogue doesn't get; alternatively, going air stance gets you 10% extra doublestrike, which again is about 10%. Additionally, the henshin will have +1d8fire damage per hit, and +16.5force per crit which on a sireth will be an 11-20 profile if the divine crusader stacks before IC:B. I.e. an additional flat 12 damage per hit on average.

Finally the haste boost is very nice, but ultimately is only 2mins or so between shrines. Therefore I don't think its fair to count it in the dps calc, particularly as you may have more advantage not shrining as a monk to retain flexibility on using finishing move buffs.

And for this build, I think it does end up being either / or when it comes to monk and rogue. The ap doesn't work otherwise -

21ap for AoV is necessary for the parrot (and 23ap for the final +2% smiting is also highly desirable); 11ap is highly desirable in ninja spy if taking that route for shadow veil; 9ap in war priest is highly desirable (4ap for DMIII is the absolute minimum spend, but the extra 5ap gets you dr 5/- and PRR 10, which is a bargain). Thats 43ap just on its own. To get a henshin mystic/rogue combo that includes haste boost, staff specialisation, and the rogue attack speed comes to a minimum of 32ap + 17ap = 49ap. So if you did this, you'd perhaps be able to get AoV and war priest enhancements in there (If you did this, you'd have to discount the human damage boost from the dps calc too of course). But, if you're dropping the ninja spy shadow veil, then I really don't see the point of taking monk at all, and would switch instead to 13FVS/5Rog/2Pal. This combination gets you the rogue stick abilities, but you lose out on the stances and shadow veil. This I think is a huge loss when you factor in things like aligning the heavens as well as the more obvious flexibility of being able to run with extra PRR/better saves/effective haste speed on melee attacks depending on the stance you use.

I'm also hugely open to the idea that my stat allocation is not optimal - its my first take on things, and I have a personal bias against going for 18s (particularly on a build that has as much attribute dependency as this one) unless its clearly the best way of doing things (e.g. pure DC builds). However, I could certainly agree that raising wisdom is unnecessary. Int is debatable and comes down to calculating the precise skills you want - I think I calculated I'd get about 20 ranks in each of heal, spellcraft, concentration and umd (therefore umd would be at 10 due to half ranks) along with about 15 in spot, 5 in balance, and 1 in tumble. If you're willing to lose 20-30 ranks in total across these skills, or you e.g. don't bother with spot, then dropping int to 8 would be perfectly fine too. Dex too in theory could be dumped, but I'm wary of doing that considering that earth stance could be a natural default for the build, which brings a further -2 dex to the table. Having said that, from pure min/max, reflex saves will be high enough because cha is being levelled up rather than str.

So min max, I guess that leaves:

Str 18
Dex 8
Con 12
Int 8
Wis 8
Cha 18

I have to say that that stat block is a bit too min/max even for my liking however lol. I think your stat block may be a good compromise between my initial suggestion and the monstrosity above.

The reason for Grandmaster of forms was really because it is helpful if you ever see yourself running in either wind or ocean stances. If you'll only ever be in earth, then I'd drop it. My original feat list actually had empower instead of GM of forms, but reviewing the spells and abilities, I don't see empower being used very often (nor maximise in all honesty). Your suggestion for epic reflexes makes a lot of sense, as I don't really see this build ever failing its reflex saves except by default on a 1.

Re: heroic levelling, the paladin levels do add a huge fun factor early on as you can literally ignore every single trap you come across once you get divine grace. However, I can see the benefit of getting heal at character level 18, but conversely the 18-20 grind is hopefully nowhere near the struggle it used to be. I suspect that even cure serious wounds and cure critical wounds will supply more than enough healing, and spec'ing for ameliorating strike and throwing fists of lights around will keep the build going even during tough fights.

[Cardtrick]

Its reassuring that I'm not the only one thinking that this build could work lol.

The reason I ended up guessing at rogue being about a 15% net gain on dps is that you have to account for the additional dps from monk too.

Ah, I see. We were coming at it from different directions -- I assumed the monk as given (henshin and divine crusader just play so nicely together), so my choice was between 12 FvS / 6 monk / 2 paladin or 12 FvS / 6 monk / 2 rogue.

There are still tradeoffs, obviously -- getting haste boost, thief acrobatics, and the improved quick strike from thief acrobat on top of staff specialization from henshin greatly reduces what you have available to spend in the other trees.

But I saw the choice as primarily between survivability (paladin) and dps (rogue).

Finally the haste boost is very nice, but ultimately is only 2mins or so between shrines. Therefore I don't think its fair to count it in the dps calc, particularly as you may have more advantage not shrining as a monk to retain flexibility on using finishing move buffs.

I disagree strongly -- you have to consider haste boost at some level. It's a major advantage that shouldn't be ignored. And what's more, it's a multiplicative advantage, that improves more as the rest of the build's damage gets better.

You can't consider it a straight up 30% increase to damage, since of course you're right that it has limited uses. But it will be used for some fraction of the time, so it only makes sense to assign it some fractional value.

21ap for AoV is necessary for the parrot (and 23ap for the final +2% smiting is also highly desirable); 11ap is highly desirable in ninja spy if taking that route for shadow veil; 9ap in war priest is highly desirable (4ap for DMIII is the absolute minimum spend, but the extra 5ap gets you dr 5/- and PRR 10, which is a bargain). Thats 43ap just on its own. To get a henshin mystic/rogue combo that includes haste boost, staff specialisation, and the rogue attack speed comes to a minimum of 32ap + 17ap = 49ap. So if you did this, you'd perhaps be able to get AoV and war priest enhancements in there (If you did this, you'd have to discount the human damage boost from the dps calc too of course). But, if you're dropping the ninja spy shadow veil, then I really don't see the point of taking monk at all, and would switch instead to 13FVS/5Rog/2Pal. This combination gets you the rogue stick abilities, but you lose out on the stances and shadow veil. This I think is a huge loss when you factor in things like aligning the heavens as well as the more obvious flexibility of being able to run with extra PRR/better saves/effective haste speed on melee attacks depending on the stance you use.

Yup, I agree that the way the APs work out make this split the best option. I just don't want to to sugarcoat the fact that this will take a significant hit to its DPS in favor of greatly increased survivability.

So min max, I guess that leaves:

Str 18
Dex 8
Con 12
Int 8
Wis 8
Cha 18

Yeah, I just couldn't justify getting 18s in both STR and CHA. In fact, if I had +5 tomes, I'd drop a point from one or both of those in favor of more INT and CON.

The biggest problem with this allocation is actually DEX -- it leaves you having to pick something nonideal with your last monk feat, since 13 dex is required for both precision and dodge, which are the two feats I'm considering. I guess you could drop CON even further and bump up DEX to 9 or 10, but even 12 CON is less than I'm really comfortable with.

The reason for Grandmaster of forms was really because it is helpful if you ever see yourself running in either wind or ocean stances. If you'll only ever be in earth, then I'd drop it. My original feat list actually had empower instead of GM of forms, but reviewing the spells and abilities, I don't see empower being used very often (nor maximise in all honesty). Your suggestion for epic reflexes makes a lot of sense, as I don't really see this build ever failing its reflex saves except by default on a 1.

GMoF definitely isn't a bad feat, but it's an incremental upgrade over MoF -- it's not like with Master of Forms, where it takes earth stance from mediocre to awesome by adding the critical multiplier improvement.

Part of why I wanted Epic Reflexes is that I'm not sure my stat split with the reduced DEX would only be failing reflex saves on a 1, so I think the benefit to saves is also worthwhile. This is especially true because I don't see being able to fit a twist for Unearthly Reactions or Brace for Impact.

Re: heroic levelling, the paladin levels do add a huge fun factor early on as you can literally ignore every single trap you come across once you get divine grace. However, I can see the benefit of getting heal at character level 18, but conversely the 18-20 grind is hopefully nowhere near the struggle it used to be. I suspect that even cure serious wounds and cure critical wounds will supply more than enough healing, and spec'ing for ameliorating strike and throwing fists of lights around will keep the build going even during tough fights.

My actual plan is not to take Heal until epics -- instead, rely on Cure Serious / Cure Critical and use my level 6 spell for Blade Barrier. A maximized BB is a lot of fun at those levels, even on a wis-dumped character like this.

[Loriac]

I don't want to flog a dead horse as I think we're basically in agreement that the rogue splash is not as good for this build. In order to satisfy myself fully on this, I spent a bit of time reviewing ap spend.

The best I could come up with for the 12FVS/6Monk/2Rog ap wise was:

AoV 21ap (lose 2% on spell critical chance vs. Sam)
HnM 32ap (lose every light casts a shadow vs. Sam)
TA 11 ap (gain 15% attack speed and haste boost, keep the monk quickstrike to save 6ap. Note that you can't afford any +'s to staff damage on this spend level, and going to 12 points spend means you lose human damage boost)
WarPriest 4ap (loses 10PRR, 5/- DR vs. Sam)
NiS 11 ap (identical to Sam)
Human 1ap (keeps damage boost, but loses human improved recovery vs. Sam)

Doing this, the dps difference is the fixed 15% attack speed, and whatever additional amount you attribute to haste boost. I'm actually a bit surprised at this, I didn't think I could fit in the shadow veil on a rogue splash and still keep most of the damage enhancements. I can't see any way to optimise this spend further and still retain divine might, shadow veil, and the parrot. If you're a bit more flexible on the shadow veil requirement, you can drop it and put 5ap into warpriest and 6 into TA to gain the PRR and DR, and rogue quickstrike respectively, but at that point I think your playstyle would change enough to render a straight up dps calculation misleading (i.e. you'd spend longer not being able to dps, whereas Sam would be able to stay in melee longer due to being missed by 1 hit for every 4 that would otherwise hit).

The losses are marginal because of the build's inherent self-healing capability. 5DR at epic level is trivial, and whilst 10PRR is nice, the final 10 are marginal considering the build will probably end up with about 70-90 total PRR as a rough guess. Similarly, the loss of 10% heal amp won't really slow the build down.

So ultimately, the trade-off is the constant 15% attack speed and 5-8 haste boosts per shrine vs. paladin saves. Theoretically you could twist in haste boost from LD, on the rationale that the rogue variant would almost certainly have to shore up its reflex saves using a twist instead.

So I think it does end up as Sam loses 15% damage due to the attack speed difference, and this loss cannot be mitigated. The overall package is much better survivability, and at least now I'm satisfied that the dps loss caps at 15%.

[Cardtrick]

We're definitely in agreement that this is the correct split. But when I was thinking about the rogue splash, my AP allocation was going to be a bit different than what you've laid out here. Specifically, I was going to back some points out of AoV and lose the lantern archon.

Don't get me wrong, I like the little archon, and I think it's a great ability. But its DPS is fairly low compared to someone using Sireth with staff specialization. I think the haste boost, attack speed, and increased uptime on doublestrike greatly outweigh the damage done by the archon.

Even going with the paladin splash -- which I definitely am planning -- I'm very tempted to remove most of the points from AoV and instead put enough into Ninja Spy to get tier 3 No Mercy (26 total). It's going to depend a lot on how effective a twisted Soundburst SLA is on this build. If I can regularly get AOE stuns going with soundburst, then I think 30% additional helpless damage is a better use of APs than the archon and the higher tiers of the Smiting line. I'm envisioning walking into a room, drawing aggro, laying down Consecrated Ground, casting Soundburst on the group, then following it up with Energy Burst, Celestial Bombardment, Great Cleave, and Cleave. I think the 6 seconds helplessness from Soundburst will be enough.

All of this is just meant as discussion, by the way -- I hope you don't take it as criticism. I really like your build and I do think it's probably just about ideal for a quarterstaff divine crusader.

[Loriac]

I absolutely enjoy the discussion as it allows me to test my assumptions about the build because the fvs aspects of it in particular are 'theory crafting' for me - FVS is one of the classes I've never even touched during the 8 years I've been playing DDO on and off, so my expectation is that I'm missing various key elements in my thinking for this build. One example would be the blade barrier usage in heroics, although my bias against that comes from taking an arty to cap in a couple of lives, where I found blade barrier extremely disappointing compared to the hype on the forums.

On that note, perhaps to explain my reasoning on the parrot -

As I understand it, its laser beams count as your light spells when it comes to proc'ing effects such as just reward and empyrean magic. If this is the case, it functions as an automatic ability that takes care of maximising the spellpower of your build without you having to do too much active management. For a character looking to melee heavily, this seems ideal to me, as you don't have to watch your spells etc to make sure you're keeping various effects stacked. The actual damage it puts out is purely nice to have in that sense. The just reward proc in particular appears to offer very sustainable sp management, and could even be paired up with endless faith for pretty much endless melee capability interspersed with consecrates whenever off cooldown.

The thing that stops me building for the soundburst sla is that from what I've read, the DC ignores past lives, feats, and other adjustments normally applicable to evocation dc's. As a fort save, this means its usage is likely to be restricted to EH if you're going for reliability for stunning. I would in that case prefer the lay waste / momentum swing combination instead, as even though you don't stun with that it should be quite reliable and gets boosted by the full THF line along with almost maximised strength (you also have strike down which could be chained into lay waste / momentum swing / strike down / great cleave / cleave, rinse and repeat based on the best ability in the chain you're able to hit based on cooldowns) . I didn't mention it in the OP, but my plan would be to take perfect two handed fighting, to get glancing blows up to 60% damage, and somewhere around 19% glancing blows chance (I'd love to take more from the human tree, but can't justify the additional 5ap that would require in total as I can't see where I'd take that 5ap from - the logical choice would be to drop war priest to 4ap, but I suspect that an extra 6% glancing blow proc is worth far less than 10PRR).

In many ways, when I plan this build, the biggest constraint I keep running into is the ap spend. Depending on your priorities, you can end up with many different flavours of the underlying concept, and perhaps the only way to determine which one works best is to actually play them out and see - something that I am looking forward to once I get my current life back to 20 lol.

[Cardtrick]

As I understand it, its laser beams count as your light spells when it comes to proc'ing effects such as just reward and empyrean magic. If this is the case, it functions as an automatic ability that takes care of maximising the spellpower of your build without you having to do too much active management.

That's a really good point. I have an melee warforged favored soul who is currently running around in Divine Crusader. He relatively rarely casts spells (besides Divine Punishment on bosses, of course), but the archon does a good job of keeping Empyrean Magic stacked up. I'm not sure about Just Rewards -- it's actually a bit hard to tell when that's proccing because of the display bugs with the temp SP -- but if so, then that's another minor benefit.

As a fort save, this means its usage is likely to be restricted to EH if you're going for reliability for stunning.

I'm afraid you might be right, but I still want to try it and see. I definitely can't see it getting high enough to be reliable in EE Stormhorns, but I'm hopeful that it can be useful below that point. Although, in truth, I will probably be running in EH quite a lot of the time anyway, since I'm just going for a single divine past life and then eTRing/TRing again.

In many ways, when I plan this build, the biggest constraint I keep running into is the ap spend. Depending on your priorities, you can end up with many different flavours of the underlying concept, and perhaps the only way to determine which one works best is to actually play them out and see - something that I am looking forward to once I get my current life back to 20 lol.

I actually really like the flexibility, though. A few realignments to enhancements and epic destinies / twists and you can have a significantly different playstyle. The same base build should actually work pretty well as a light nuker in Exalted Angel. And of course it would do really well in Legendary Dreadnaught or even Grandmaster of Flowers. It would actually be a pretty nice build for someone to use to level up destinies.

[serthcore]

Hey, i'm currently playing a build similar to this one that uses longswords instead of sticks but also shares the idea of adding casting and maxing charisma(build in my sig).
Definatelly I wouldn't drop the archon. The extra and almost permanent +50 spellpower it adds, plus just reward procs and the damage itself (it procs lantern ring!) is very good.
Soundburst: i used it at first, but even with maxed(ish) charisma your dc will be in the low 60s, not really worth it for endgame content (for leveling is fine).

Build looks good, i wouldnt change much of it(if anything!)

[Loriac]

Hey, i'm currently playing a build similar to this one that uses longswords instead of sticks but also shares the idea of adding casting and maxing charisma(build in my sig).
Definatelly I wouldn't drop the archon. The extra and almost permanent +50 spellpower it adds, plus just reward procs and the damage itself (it procs lantern ring!) is very good.
Soundburst: i used it at first, but even with maxed(ish) charisma your dc will be in the low 60s, not really worth it for endgame content (for leveling is fine).

Build looks good, i wouldnt change much of it(if anything!)

Much of the inspiration for this build comes from yours to be honest - I had originally planned on using the divine crusader destiny with my 13Rog/4Pal/3Ranger stick fighter as I didn't want to use LD / FotW unless absolutely necessary, and reading your thread made me realise that it would be worthwhile to strengthen the light spells side of things. However, I still wanted a build that was primarily melee with strong supporting fire/light damage rather than the other way round (which is how I interpret your build), and so it made sense to switch to top end dps weapons (which would imo be either eSoS which I don't have, or sireth + staff specialisation).

Sounds like that lantern ring is something to try and get hold of asap for this build; in all honesty, I haven't even considered itemisation yet (and not having played any light based toons, I suspect I don't have much from past lives to help out on this lol). I expect I'll be 'borrowing' ideas from your thread on that score.

Good to know the build is basically sound, and I think that the finer points will have to be threshed out in actual EE play.

[BigErkyKid]

Hi guys!

After seth pointed me out in game to his build, I have been meaning to do a magic + physical damage build. Unfortunately, EK isn't any good (or is it? surprise me) so builds with synergies seem to be either a PM monk or a FVS with some deep splash.

I have a taste for the qstaff (basically I have a taste for anything that isn't too mainstream...staff, shielder, bard...) so I decided to try to build something inspired in Shoikan. This thread is a nice discovery.

So far, I have been inclided to take 13 FVS, 6 monk, 1 rogue. Since the build is a bit more melee oriented than Shoikan (qstaff does not allow for as strong synergy with magic, I think, since it lacks slot to add spell power and it is not an implement), I decided to get the 6th monk level for shadow veil. 1 rogue is to get the increased attack spead that, AFAIK, stacks with other sources of melee speed inceases and hence it is a pure permanent 15% dps increase. 2 rogue would be even better, but this build is very tight on APs, so I am not sure one could fit haste boost without killing the casting part.

As you guys noted, the rogue split is far more offensive oriented, since your saves suffer a great deal. Also, with a qstaff build, you lose on a good amount of spell power, since you cannot dip in warpriest very much. That is also why I chose not to get OC and get metamagics instead and pump charisma. Current ability distribution, with +3 tomes, is

14 STR
9 DEX
17 CON
11 INT
8 WIS
17 CHA all level ups

Finally, I think this relies enormously on having a sireth. I am lvl 21 using stout oak and aside from the fact that it breaks down in long quests (currently working on getting it adamantine rituals), the damage is not that great.

Overall I would say this this build relies a good deal on gear to be end game effective.

[Loriac]

I've now levelled up the build to 25. I changed the final stat block slightly, and went with:

Str 17, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 17. I stuck with OC, and I think dropping that is a mistake if you're looking to keep melee dps as high as possible. +5 stat tomes really are much better on this build, but +4 is still ok I think. I'd be wary of trying to use this build with only +3 tomes or lower in all honesty.

I still think that dropping the paladin levels would have been a huge mistake; the loss in saves is simply too great a cost for the additional 15% or so melee damage. Whilst 15% damage loss sounds like (and is) a significant loss, one should put this into perspective: on any build with 12+ FVS levels, the Rogue/Monk combo is the absolute highest dps possible (on paper) in the current game. Versions that drop either the monk or the rogue levels to retain paladin end up being broadly comparable dps wise (to each other), and still higher dps than any other weapon choice on the 12+ FVS build in the current game.

I'm unsure what is meant by staves can't get implement spellpower easily: the 3rd henshin mystic core makes all staves an implement for the wielder, and is one of the benefits going staff on the monk PRE rather than the thief acrobat PRE.

My experience levelling has been as follows: up to level 12, the build was ok but nothing special. Having access to a decent staff (aryln's staff at level 6, then theurgic stave from 8 onwards) is essential. Once you hit level 12, the build will comfortably outdps almost anything else for a few levels (this is purely down to the 15-20x3 profile you enjoy with the theurgic stave), and the healing is leaps and bounds better on the fvs centric version vs. non-bladeforged staff builds. Immediately prior to running this build, I had a 13Rogue/4Pal/3Rgr stick build that I was levelling up, the and difference in survivability in the early teens between the two builds was night and day. The build probably runs into its low point around levels 16-18; at this point, other melee dps builds have most likely achieved their full heroic potential, whilst on my version I had 10fvs/6monk/2pal @ 18 which meant I was missing heal for ultimate survivability. Having said that, short of extreme situations the build will almost never die in quests due to the paladin saves and still good self-healing.

Levels 20-22 gain from access to stout walking stick (though I agree its durability is horrible), and I was finding it to be good dps, but nothing amazing (though I suspect part of this was that I was levelling up divine crusader during these levels, so didn't have much power coming from EDs). I think using fists of iron is an important part of melee dps for this build, as you crit a lot and the extra +1 multiplier is very nice. Every light casts a shadow is also a very nice ability, and the 12 FVS levels means you have access to deathward and so don't end up hurting your party in order to use it.

Getting sireth at 23 gives a very nice boost to dps, and you end up with decent sustained melee dps independent of whichever ED you're in. As I'm finishing off levelling up some of the EDs that I haven't max'd, I haven't been running the build in 'appropriate' EDs for the large part, but e.g. when I was running in DC with it max'd I was seeing extremely good melee capability. The focus is however different from the shoikan build, in that I was using the melee abilities much more than the nuking ones.

Ultimately, I'm in two minds about this build. I think it (the 12fvs/6monk/2pal version) does represent a mix of very high melee dps with excellent saves and excellent non-raid healing, but it may be that its still caught between the houses - its neither a max dps build like say Zeus or Cetus, nor is it a fully raid capable healer build. If you had a spectrum as follows:

Full melee dps -- balanced dps -- full raid healing

The builds looks something like this:

Full melee dps /12rog/x monk (e.g. Zeus) -- /6monk/1rog -- 12fvs/6monk/2pal -- 15fvs/3mnk/2pal (this build is probably the epitome of 'balanced' dps) -- full raid healing


My conclusion is as follows:

If you want the best stick dps and good survival, you're best off dropping fvs levels entirely and going with some pal/monk/rog variant. The main ones are all BF, and the optimal choices seem to be one of 12Rog/6pal/2monk, 12 Rog/6monk/2pal, 12Monk/6pal/2rog, 9monk/6pal/5rog depending on your exact taste.

If you like the idea of having fvs or cleric levels but mainly want to melee, the 12fvs/6monk/2pal is the best balance between offense and good saves.

If you like fvs levels, are ok with middle-of-the-road melee dps and want to use most of the divine features in the ways a typical pug would expect, the shoikan build is your best bet.

If you want undisputed full raid healing, some build with 17+ cleric or 18+fvs levels is the way to go.

[BigErkyKid]

My bad on the implement, you are right. But aside of that, the shortage of placeholders for SP remain.

Overall, I have to say that I find this build extremely dependent on gear and tomes. Hence, not rookie friendly at all.

In my opinion, going too much in the direction of melee with this sort of builds is a mistake. Melee sacrifizes come at a high cost in casting, which again, is the unique killing ability of the build. If you don't have burst trash killing damage with energy burst and bombard, then just go Zeus for a staff build and you will win by it. Other than offensive casting, FVS is only good for buffs and heals and you can get most of it from a BF anyway. So this means you need as high as possible CHA.

Trying to raid heal on this build is very suboptimal too, I think.

So ultimately I think that the qstaff approach traps you a bit. In order for qstaff to be effective, you need to make make melee investments that come at a cost. If you do OC, your DCs for casting are going to suffer and we all know how unforgiving end game is in that respect. If you go rogue (monk, rogue, fvs) for DPS, you are going to lose the saves. If you do rogue instead of monk, you lose the stances which means that you really need OC and that kills your DCs.

In this situation, I decided to keep CHA high and kill the saves instead going 13fvs/6 monk/1 rogue. With mediocre saves you can still survive (its harder, but possible), and this gives you a boost in DPS trying to make up for OC (ultimately, I think 15% DPS might be better than OC, need to run the numbers). Taking fewer monk levels in favor of fvs does not at that much casting anyway, so this seemed to me a sweet spot.

In any case, I am wondering if it really is Sireth or nothing here. Pity I dont have Sireth on this melee.

[Dalsheel]

I've been considering a Drow 12FvS/6Monk/2Fighter with shortswords, going for Tier5 in Warpriest to utilize Backlash + Fists of light

This is purely on paper atm, I'm planning to try this build once I get completionist on my (originaly) Wizard toon.

Obviously I won't be touching Henshin tree and the fighter levels are just for the feats. I won't be spending any points in AoV either, it'll be purely melee oriented build, using spells for buffs and heals.

So far, I'm thinking 28ap in Ninja Spy (also considering 7ap in Shintao for 10% extra off-hand chance, in this case 21 in NS and 7 in Shintao), 35ap in Warpriest (30 to qualify for tier5 + 2 for vengeful weapons + 3 for backlash) and 17ap spent on racial tree for full Shortsword damage line.
Drow also get Shuriken Expertise for free and with the racial damage bonus + Ninja training I'm thinking it will be decent for ranged damage when needed without too much effort (aka no need for bow feats). Ranged will only be used when absolutely needed anyway.

No Divine Grace is a loss, but I consider saves in the 70s being more of a convenience and less a must-have, so I'm willing to go with fighter for the time being.

Thoughts?

[BigErkyKid]

I've been considering a Drow 12FvS/6Monk/2Fighter with shortswords, going for Tier5 in Warpriest to utilize Backlash + Fists of light

This is purely on paper atm, I'm planning to try this build once I get completionist on my (originaly) Wizard toon.

Obviously I won't be touching Henshin tree and the fighter levels are just for the feats. I won't be spending any points in AoV either, it'll be purely melee oriented build, using spells for buffs and heals.

So far, I'm thinking 28ap in Ninja Spy (also considering 7ap in Shintao for 10% extra off-hand chance, in this case 21 in NS and 7 in Shintao), 35ap in Warpriest (30 to qualify for tier5 + 2 for vengeful weapons + 3 for backlash) and 17ap spent on racial tree for full Shortsword damage line.
Drow also get Shuriken Expertise for free and with the racial damage bonus + Ninja training I'm thinking it will be decent for ranged damage when needed without too much effort (aka no need for bow feats). Ranged will only be used when absolutely needed anyway.

No Divine Grace is a loss, but I consider saves in the 70s being more of a convenience and less a must-have, so I'm willing to go with fighter for the time being.

Thoughts?

Is the build crafted around the blacklash + fists of light? I would be careful, everyone is assuming they will change that.

Other than that, why not simply robot and get rid of fvs in favor of more melee damage? You may lose some utility spells, but robot gives you nice immunities so its not clear to me that you are losing much.

I guess that I am of the opinion that if you do not want to use offensive magic, fvs is a bad investment.

[Loriac]

My bad on the implement, you are right. But aside of that, the shortage of placeholders for SP remain.

Overall, I have to say that I find this build extremely dependent on gear and tomes. Hence, not rookie friendly at all.

In my opinion, going too much in the direction of melee with this sort of builds is a mistake. Melee sacrifizes come at a high cost in casting, which again, is the unique killing ability of the build. If you don't have burst trash killing damage with energy burst and bombard, then just go Zeus for a staff build and you will win by it. Other than offensive casting, FVS is only good for buffs and heals and you can get most of it from a BF anyway. So this means you need as high as possible CHA.

Trying to raid heal on this build is very suboptimal too, I think.

So ultimately I think that the qstaff approach traps you a bit. In order for qstaff to be effective, you need to make make melee investments that come at a cost. If you do OC, your DCs for casting are going to suffer and we all know how unforgiving end game is in that respect. If you go rogue (monk, rogue, fvs) for DPS, you are going to lose the saves. If you do rogue instead of monk, you lose the stances which means that you really need OC and that kills your DCs.

In this situation, I decided to keep CHA high and kill the saves instead going 13fvs/6 monk/1 rogue. With mediocre saves you can still survive (its harder, but possible), and this gives you a boost in DPS trying to make up for OC (ultimately, I think 15% DPS might be better than OC, need to run the numbers). Taking fewer monk levels in favor of fvs does not at that much casting anyway, so this seemed to me a sweet spot.

In any case, I am wondering if it really is Sireth or nothing here. Pity I dont have Sireth on this melee.

I broadly agree with your comments, with a few caveats.

i. Sireth is probably the best weapon from level 23 on, though its possible that a fully built TF qstaff might be better (particularly if the top abilities remain as they are without nerfing). A fully upgraded sireth does have a red slot, but red slots in general are tough on a 2handed fighter build. The stout walking stick is behind sireth, but not unusably so; if you're in DC (the logical endgame ED for this build) the walking stick is a 15-20x4 weapon vs. the sireth's 11-20x3. Purely on crit profiles, this puts expected base damage for the walking stick at 1.85x base vs. sireth's 1.95x base. In other words, you do lose out a fair chunk of dps because the sireth proc's are a lot better than the walking stick, but the walking stick is still a decent weapon provided you perform the 1st adamantine ritual on it.

ii. I agree that the build requires decent endgame gear (+4 tomes or better are strongly advised) but I think this is an issue with any build that tries to combine two 'core' function sets. Conversely, if you have access to +5 tomes, the stat distribution I went with (17 Str, 17 Cha, 1 level up to Str to allow OC, remainder to Cha for spellcasting DCs, saves, etc) gives you close to max Cha on this platform, which means you can get very good melee ability without completely destroying your epic spellcasting. Theres nothing stopping me twisting fire energy burst on my build for example, and running with a fairly decent DC on it. I also strongly prefer strike down to bombard on this build as well - it gives you better damage over time, synergises well with the staff, and has no saving throw (vs. bombard's wisdom based save).

iii. I generally agree that its debatable whether the melee investment is worth it on a FVS platform vs. going BF and using the racial reconstruct SLA. Thats why I'm in two minds about this build and where it fits overall. I think the shoikan build also suffers from this question, but to a much lesser extent as it pumps up spellcasting ability much more. I would definitely recommend the shoikan build over this one for anyone looking to use the full FVS feature set (but it is at the cost of melee capability).

iv. I agree you can't raid heal on this build. Raid healing probably does require 15+FVS levels, which excludes all stick builds.


So in the end, I think this build is fairly niche. Its good if (e.g) you don't want to play BF and still want the best possible self-healing, whilst maintaining a strong melee focus. Its good for levelling up the divine EDs and the martial EDs on a single platform (whereas I think more FVS heavy builds will lose too much of their spellcasting focus in martial destinies whilst not having sufficient melee). Its not a FotM build where you'll see a hundred clones of yourself running around. But as a long term proposition, I would prefer a dedicated stick build if going melee / martial EDs or something like shoikan if going divine EDs.

Having said all that, once u22 hits I'm most likely going to drop sticks for a while and explore the new SWF tree. I'd still recommend this build as a fun fleshie stick build, but if the SWF feats are released close to what they currently are on test, I think I'll crunch a few new build ideas including what the new best FVS melee option ends up as.

[Loriac]

I've been considering a Drow 12FvS/6Monk/2Fighter with shortswords, going for Tier5 in Warpriest to utilize Backlash + Fists of light

This is purely on paper atm, I'm planning to try this build once I get completionist on my (originaly) Wizard toon.

Obviously I won't be touching Henshin tree and the fighter levels are just for the feats. I won't be spending any points in AoV either, it'll be purely melee oriented build, using spells for buffs and heals.

So far, I'm thinking 28ap in Ninja Spy (also considering 7ap in Shintao for 10% extra off-hand chance, in this case 21 in NS and 7 in Shintao), 35ap in Warpriest (30 to qualify for tier5 + 2 for vengeful weapons + 3 for backlash) and 17ap spent on racial tree for full Shortsword damage line.
Drow also get Shuriken Expertise for free and with the racial damage bonus + Ninja training I'm thinking it will be decent for ranged damage when needed without too much effort (aka no need for bow feats). Ranged will only be used when absolutely needed anyway.

No Divine Grace is a loss, but I consider saves in the 70s being more of a convenience and less a must-have, so I'm willing to go with fighter for the time being.

Thoughts?

What essential feats are you getting from 2 Ftr (along with access to haste boost and extra action boost)?

The spend in AoV is close to essential on this build imo. With abilities like scourge, empyrean magic, just reward and so on, its very nice to have your archon automtically build up stacks. I would seriously weigh up the advantages of the marginal extra damage from the drow tree vs. almost always on +50spellpower to light and fire and +20 to positive, +10% crit chance to all spells, fairly constant +10 temporary sp being added back to your blue bar etc.

I think opening up a ranged option is a very good idea. On paper, I'd originally planned my ranged dps to come from things like avenging light, but there are instances where having solid weapon based ranged dps would be preferable. I don't know if you'll get enough from shurikens, as most thrower builds go full-dex. But its definitely a good option to have.

You don't get improved evasion on this build, so your reflex saves are all or nothing. I wouldn't give up the paladin levels lightly.

[BigErkyKid]

I sense you are giving up a bit on it? :P

I still think it is possible. Might need to do two sticks, a casting one (you dont cast that much anyway) and a fighting one. Epic luminous truth is what I am using right now for casting.

Tomes make any build better, so if you can have OC and high CHA, kudos. It is not something everyone can afford, so if I had to chose, I would go high CHA.

So, to make the most out of this, what TF stick would work? Is it possible to get a TF better than sireth? Can we do the maths? (Card! )

Are you set on giving up DPS for saves?

I do think there is potential for a stick build like this.

[Loriac]

I sense you are giving up a bit on it? :P

I still think it is possible. Might need to do two sticks, a casting one (you dont cast that much anyway) and a fighting one. Epic luminous truth is what I am using right now for casting.

Tomes make any build better, so if you can have OC and high CHA, kudos. It is not something everyone can afford, so if I had to chose, I would go high CHA.

So, to make the most out of this, what TF stick would work? Is it possible to get a TF better than sireth? Can we do the maths? (Card! )

Are you set on giving up DPS for saves?

I do think there is potential for a stick build like this.

I agree on using different sticks for casting. Funnily enough, I use the (heroic, as I don't have the mats to make it epic yet) luminous truth when casting, in particular when summoning the archon - its actually a decent weapon in the hands of a staff specialist, which is a nice bonus. I also try to recast the archon once I get 10 scourge stacks, to maximise its light spellpower. I've also put aside a lootgen qstaff that has devotion and combustion as well as healing lore for quests where I might have to perform healing duties as a priority (but also wear a conc-opp greensteel cloak with healing lore anyway, so the healing lore isn't strictly necessary). Light spellpower is best achieved using the lantern ring long term I think, and devotion slotted into sireth (though I haven't yet got enough CoH to upgrade mine).

On the TF sticks, I think it depends on what procs off glancing blows. I've no idea if e.g. mortal fear can proc off glances, but if it can then a tier 3 TF qstaff for trash could well end up out-dps'ing sireth on trash. The TF staves also provide at least 2 augment slots I think (orange and red) which helps with slotting spellpower. I think sireth remains the best boss beater provided you can bypass dr.

Re: giving up DPS for saves, it seems a shame to leave +20 to all saves on the sidelines when you're building for near-max Cha anyway. What I'm finding is that on e.g. boss fights, the ability to throw max'd divine punishments on top of the staff melee damage keeps the dps high enough; whilst on trash mobs, it would be nice to kill them a bit quicker but the build has sufficient survivability that its not really a huge difference either way. I find that at epic levels I'm getting 'outkilled' by some melee, but I suspect this is down to speed of attacks rather than actual damage output. In general, short of a dedicated melee build sitting in a relevant epic destiny, I think this build's melee dps is comparable at the very least. I think there was one situation in the time I've used this build so far where the dps output was just barely sufficient - I was doing elite heroic claw of vulkor at level without using stealth, and accidentally triggered 6 or 7 healing scorps along with the guardian for the last barrier before finishing. Even then, I managed to scrape through that encounter despite the ridiculous mob self-healing which gave me a lot of confidence in the build. Otherwise, I've never really been in a situation where I've thought this build fails to hit any required dps thresholds.

To be clear on my misgivings, it boils down to what you mentioned in one of your earlier posts - if you want a heavy melee build, FVS isn't really an optimal choice. Your version, or even this one, give more or less the highest melee dps an FVS build can hope to get, but it is going to be a fair bit lower than a dedicated melee (due to choice of ED to sit in at endgame as much as anything else). Its still a very good build, and has the soft advantage that because it only has 12 FVS levels few puggers would expect you to be a full time party healer (whereas a 15+ FVS build would be more likely to encounter such player misunderstandings).

Of the stick builds I've tried, I like this one the best - it feels extremely durable thanks to the saves, the self-heals, and the nice defensive bonuses from warpriest and ninja spy, so it may just be that I'm starting to flag on the stick build concept itself. I'm still playing the build on my main, but with u22 release drawing near I guess I'm starting to think about what the 'next' build will be.

[Cardtrick]

Of the stick builds I've tried, I like this one the best - it feels extremely durable thanks to the saves, the self-heals, and the nice defensive bonuses from warpriest and ninja spy, so it may just be that I'm starting to flag on the stick build concept itself. I'm still playing the build on my main, but with u22 release drawing near I guess I'm starting to think about what the 'next' build will be.

Have you tried a primary paladin one yet? Of the six or seven different stick builds I've played, my favorite fleshy staffer so far was my most recent: 14 paladin, 5 rogue, 1 wizard. Great saves. Good self-healing (mostly Cocoon, but boosted by lots of innate healing amp and devotion, with cure spells and LOH for emergency bust heals). Good defenses (PRR and saves from Sacred Defense stance). Great DPS (staff specialization with +15% attack speed and haste boost + damage boost + divine might + divine favor + zeal). Lots of crits (staff specialization, exalted smite, divine sacrifice) and doublestrike (quick strike + zeal + lightning mace + epic past lives). Convenient (Extend to make Divine Favor and Zeal a lot less painful, 1SP invisibility SLA, and can self-cast some useful buffs -- shield, protection from evil, jump). Trap skills.

But I still agree, it's time for me to take a break from staff lives for a while. They're awesome, but they also all play more or less the same. I just started a ranged artificer life for my staff guy and then I'll do a swashbuckler bard life with him once U22 hits before I go back to staffs.