Sam - Human 12FVS/6Monk/2Pal

[BigErkyKid]

Ultimately, I have to admit that when I invest on a build I feel a bit let down when it comes out to be a flavor build, not not a legit kick as$ one.

But in any case, I have not given up yet on this one. I do feel that it will not be a great build focusing too much on melee DPS at the expense of spell / SLA dps, and also it won-t be top by giving up on DPS in general for saves.

I am also at a point where I think that any pure melee that isn-t aiming at best blitz possible is not going to be optimal. So non blitz melee must get help from spells. I thought that maybe there was room for a SWF plus orb, but I am not yet convinced that the melee aspect won t end up being just flavor. What do you guys have in mind?

But in any case, thanks for the discussion, always a pleasure.

[serthcore]

Ultimately, I have to admit that when I invest on a build I feel a bit let down when it comes out to be a flavor build, not not a legit kick as$ one.

But in any case, I have not given up yet on this one. I do feel that it will not be a great build focusing too much on melee DPS at the expense of spell / SLA dps, and also it won-t be top by giving up on DPS in general for saves.

I am also at a point where I think that any pure melee that isn-t aiming at best blitz possible is not going to be optimal. So non blitz melee must get help from spells. I thought that maybe there was room for a SWF plus orb, but I am not yet convinced that the melee aspect won t end up being just flavor. What do you guys have in mind?

But in any case, thanks for the discussion, always a pleasure.

By playing it as an hybrid you get full potential of this kind of builds IMO. In fact even as a hybrid it falls below a blitzer, but don't forget you cant always maintain blitz. It's in those situations where warpriest builds shine

[Loriac]

In fairness, I'd have to run a shoikan type build to properly place the 12fvs stick build. The key loss that this build has vs Shoikan is on group-healing capability rather than spell damage of the nukes*; the epic level stuff runs off character level and charisma based DC which is close enough between the two builds, leaving maybe 40 or so difference in spellpower between the two (15 or so from implement, the remainder from investment in warpriest). Looking at the dps on paper, and my own experience of the epic level nukes during my maxed-int arty lives, its quite possible that this build is still legitimately top dps and has sufficient nuking capability to outshine shoikan until endgame, where I suspect that the dual wielded fully maxed-out TF longswords on that build will end up being better than either sireth or a top TF qstaff. However, that is more because of the nature of TF weapons which don't seem well balanced for THF'rs compared to what dual wielders get out of them.

*assuming +5 tomes so that you can get OC and more or less max charisma too

The key difference then between 12 FVS and 15 FVS is not so much nuke damage output, but more the range of group healing spells you have access to, plus of course ameliorating strike which is very strong on a two-weapon fighting toon. In all honesty, I have no interest in running a build that specialises in party healing however.

I suspect that the wall being hit here is the limitation on divine class based dps vs. either arcanes with better nukes or weapons based classes with their better melee / ranged damage. But I still stick to the claim that, short of probably bugged abilities such as magical backlash (and maybe even mortal fear counts as a future likely-to-be-nerfed feature), the stick fighting FVS builds are currently easily top melee dps amongst all reasonable FVS builds. Its saying something I think that even an eSoS wielding FVS major would be unlikely to out-damage in practice a stick fighting fvs (12fvs/8ftr might outdps a stick build I think, but the loss of evasion, saves, and general utility from monk levels would make this a one-trick pony in comparison).



Looking to u22, there may be room for some strange builds which mix in bard and fighter levels, but I'm not really convinced by the general synergies with FVS. A 12ftr/7bard/1fvs for example would be an interesting mix - you'd be able to get psionic surge, divine might, and even displacement from the bard levels, but this is hardly an FVS build. It would also be a pain to do this as BF, meaning that self-healing would be noticeably worse than on a current Cetus type build. The simpler choice would be to do a straight-up conversion of Cetus to use bastard swords or a 1handed martial weapon instead, and possibly change from using bows to using shuriken as its less feat intensive (I think you need to find 2, ideally 3 feats on top of the existing Cetus list, as you'd want the full SWF tree, bastard sword proficiency, and magical training would very desirable to open up orb use).

An FVS heavy build would probably end up at either 12FVS/6Bard/2Rog [or 13FVS/5Bard/2Rog] if you wanted a full swashbuckling variant (with second skin and class levels providing hopefully a passable reflex save), or alternatively a more 'traditional' 16fvs/2monk/2pal (or the magical backlash 15fvs/3monk/2pal version of course) type splash using a longsword as the main weapon. However, in this case I can see no reason why you wouldn't just revert to the shoikan build and dual wield longswords instead.

The 12fvs/6bard/2rog might end up out-dpsing a current stick build, but it would come down to what actually gets released to live as it all seems to be in flux atm.

On paper however, I think a 16arty/2pal/2monk bastard sword wielder looks much better with the new SWF tree and gives you strong melee, effective use of a runearm at the same time, deadly weapons, tenser's transformation, and reconstruct assuming you go BF or WF, along with decent ranged capabilities.

From what I've seen so far about u22, I think /7bard/1fvs is a strong splash combination (for displacement, full access to the swashbuckler tree, and access to divine might) as are the 3bard or 5bard splashes (for access to the better crit profiles and full access to the whole SB tree respectively).

But until the 'final' version of the swashbuckler tree and the SWF feats are in place, all these build ideas are subject to change.


Edit: 15FVS/3Bard/2Rog might also work, but I'd be concerned about the reflex saves to make evasion useful on this variant.