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.