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!)