Revisiting the TWF Drow Paladin for New Players (U23)

[Caprice]

That's not a Paladin build though! I'd suggest checking out something like the Champion of the Gods for ideas about and discussions on TWF FvS builds.

[unbongwah]

1 why take dodge feats + dodge enhancements ? (common practise is to either go Evasion or hvy armor; you don't get Evasion with These class Combo, and you don't Need either dodge feat nor dodge enhancements if you want to use heavy armor .....

To elaborate on this: the +3% Dodge from Imp Dodge enhs only applies to light armor or robes; but the only reason to wear either is for Evasion, which your proposed build doesn't get. It's pretty easy to max out your Dodge bonus in hvy armor just from gear without bothering with Dodge feat.

In any case, see my Tempest Warpriest and Sohei of Vulkoor threads for ideas on what you can do with TWF drow FvS builds.

[Nahiz]

Nice, friendly builds for newbies\casuals (as usual, Unbongwah). How does the hunter version heal on heroics? CMW? Im thinking on a melee only version of the hunter to gain a couple of extra feats (and get others earlier)

[unbongwah]

How does the hunter version heal on heroics? CMW?

Pots & wands to start, LoHs for emergencies; CLW is available at lvl 6 (rgr 2 / pal 4), CMW is available at lvl 16 (rgr 5 / pal 11). Epic lvls take advantage of the usual ED healing abilities.

[Nahiz]

Pots & wands to start, LoHs for emergencies; CLW is available at lvl 6 (rgr 2 / pal 4), CMW is available at lvl 16 (rgr 5 / pal 11). Epic lvls take advantage of the usual ED healing abilities.

Healing is the only weak spot I see on the build (but maybe I´m wrong). I´m not sure if Lay on Hands is enough burst healing for emergencies (BTW, is UMD enough for healing scrolls?). Well, maybe in heroics it is. What about epics? I´ve never done it before (I always play builds with great healing through spells) but twisting cocoon should be enough?

On another note, what do you expect to be the best destiny? Crusader? FotW?

I really love the build but I´m afraid of its healing capabilities. This is the one thing that keeps me looking at a 15/4/1 pally/fvs/fighter build for ameliorating strike (and shield of condemnation since i´ll be dual wielding celestias mostly). Though DPS loss would be huge, right?

Thanks for your help!

[MrGharus]

You already have access to most AA abilities with rgr 5, so there's not really any need to unlock the racial AA tree. You can shift APs from, say, KotC to AA or DWS if you wish to beef up ranged DPS; that's up to you, as resetting enhancements is pretty easy.

This build is based on drow because they're easy to unlock (just 400 Favor) and +1 DEX tomes are relatively cheap, thus making it a more newbie-friendly option. For 32 pt or more builds with access to better tomes, I would probably go human for the extra feat, heal amp, and racial Dmg Boost, which will stack with either Tempest Haste Boost or KotC Melee Power boost. But elf is also a reasonable choice; pallies are strong enough now that you can pick the race you want and not feel like you horribly gimped yourself.

I am about to TR a Rogue for the first time and want to try this build. I was considering either the Elf with Aerenal (I have a lot of decent rapiers in the bank) or I thought a Dwarf version using Dwarven Axes might be viable. No one suggested it though, so I'm wondering where the flaw in my plan is. Of course the extra feat and healing amp for human is interesting too. I will have 34 points for the build and he has eaten a +5 supreme tome. I am primarily looking for solo capable build but he doesn't have to be min/maxed for epics since I'm probably going to TR him shortly after gaining lvl 20 (I'm going for the pally past life). I want to enjoy the journey too, so I'm not looking for a build to get to 20 as fast as possible.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you!

[unbongwah]

I was considering either the Elf with Aerenal (I have a lot of decent rapiers in the bank) or I thought a Dwarf version using Dwarven Axes might be viable. No one suggested it though, so I'm wondering where the flaw in my plan is.

The beauty of Holy Sword is HS + Improved Crit make just about any weapon viable for a paladin. That said, if you want to use dwarf racial weapons, I would suggest looking at weapons with better-than-avg crit specs, such as Axe of Adaxus (17-20/x5) or Deathnip (15-20/x5).
[Listed crit specs are w/HS+IC.] The main advantage of d.axes over battle-/handaxes is that they can get glancing blows, but only when single-wielded (either S&B or SWF); the slightly higher base dmg isn't as important as other factors.

For an HTR-only build, I would suggest sticking with pure pally, in order to acquire your higher-lvl pally abilities ASAP (namely Holy Sword & Zeal). The pal 15 / rgr 5 combo is more of a late-bloomer, so it's focused on epic lvls.

[Tinco]

Playing a similar 15/5 myself atm, I leveled the life as 1-2rgr/3-17pal/18-20rgr to prevent some of the late blooming. Any reason that you are spraying the ranger levels so much?

I think leveling mostly as KotC and picking up DoD only for epics is a better experience for newer players. Additionally, the downsides of TWF leveling overall is something to really consider, even if that defeats the point of the build for some time. I switched to TWF after level 12 and was really shocked how sluggish and ineffective it felt until I picked up GTWF at 15 and chain-chugged haste pots.

So a fair reminder, especially for new players: On lower levels, don't hesistate to swing a big weapon and use those KotC cleaves to their fullest. TWF will be great later on, but it's the worst fighting style earlier in your career.

[Sindrax]

I'm a new player and I am trying out your 15/5build.Iunlocked the drow, my question is about the weapons. In the op you said that this is a rapier build, but the first feat you take as a pally gives you a bonus to long swords. Should I use the long swords until higher level? They seem to be more available and do higher damage at the lower levels. Thanks for the info and the build, I'm enjoying it so far.

[Caprice]

I'm a new player and I am trying out your 15/5build.Iunlocked the drow, my question is about the weapons. In the op you said that this is a rapier build, but the first feat you take as a pally gives you a bonus to long swords. Should I use the long swords until higher level? They seem to be more available and do higher damage at the lower levels. Thanks for the info and the build, I'm enjoying it so far.

The weapon choices for the deity feats are not important for this build. Paladins and Rangers are already proficient in all (non-exotic) weapons and the +1 attack bonus is not particularly helpful since both classes give the maximum possible attack bonus already. The main benefit for picking Sovereign Host is that it grants a "super heal" at Paladin level 6 called Unyielding Sovereignty that you can use once per 10 minutes and heals you to full as well as removing almost all negative status effects. Unyielding Sovereignty is good all the way to endgame. The other choices available to Drow are not very good; one is a banish effect that's fairly weak and does not scale well (Silver Flame), and the other is a level 10 pet that you can't control and doesn't scale at all (Vulkoor).

You should feel free to use any weapon you can find to start since you won't notice much difference in the damage they do in early levels. If you find a good Longsword by all means use it (or scimitar, warhammer, &c.). The advantage to Rapiers is that they do more critical hits (15%, vs. 10% for Longswords, and both do double damage on a crit), which makes up for the lower base damage. At first the weapons are pretty balanced in the damage they do, but once you hit level 9 you take the "Improved Critical: Piercing feat" which doubles the critical hit chance for Piercing weapons. From then on Rapiers will be your best weapon option because they are Piercing and will critically hit almost a third of the time (15% x 2 = 30%), but Longswords are Slashing so they don't benefit from the feat and will still be only 10% chance for a critical hit. As you get to higher levels you will find more and more effects that increase critical hit damage, which will make the Rapiers even more impressive compared to Longswords. You may still want to use Longswords later on if you find particularly good ones (e.g. Oathblade at level 20), but generally Rapiers will do better damage.

[unbongwah]

Playing a similar 15/5 myself atm, I leveled the life as 1-2rgr/3-17pal/18-20rgr to prevent some of the late blooming. Any reason that you are spraying the ranger levels so much?

Partly to stagger out the skill pts; mostly because I wanted Dance of Death as soon as I hit lvl 12. AoE melee DPS is traditionally the biggest weakness of TWF builds; DoD really helps with that.

IMHO, the main problem with pally is you don't get much that's exciting between lvls 6 and 14: just more APs and lvl 2 & 3 spells (of which Resist Energy and CMW are the important ones for newbies). So it's a tradeoff: do you make a beeline for the "good stuff" on pallies (namely HS & Zeal); or do you make a beeline for the good stuff on rgrs (i.e., Tempest)?

I'm a new player and I am trying out your 15/5build.Iunlocked the drow, my question is about the weapons. In the op you said that this is a rapier build, but the first feat you take as a pally gives you a bonus to long swords. Should I use the long swords until higher level? They seem to be more available and do higher damage at the lower levels. Thanks for the info and the build, I'm enjoying it so far.

Hi, welcome to DDO.

I take Sovereign Host for the Unyielding Sovereignty feat at pal lvl 6, which provides a free full heal once every 10 mins (basically it's your emergency "OH $#!%" button), not the bonus to longswords. On a drow, you could take Vulkoor instead, but frankly the deity feat (Vulkoor's Avatar) is terrible, largely because the summon doesn't scale with character level, so it quickly becomes obsolete.

Both builds are set up to take advantage of drow bonuses to rapiers (Xen'drik Weapon Training), although as you can see I backloaded the enhancements to focus on KotC and Sacred D. first. That said, it's fairly easy to adapt either build to use whatever 1H weapons you like; heavy picks are a good alternative, esp. if you have Deathnip.

When it comes to evaluating weapons, there are three major factors to consider: the base damage, the critical threat range, and the crit multiplier. Of these, base dmg is actually the least important, IMHO, because there are lots of bonuses to base dmg these days; so what you really want to focus on when choosing weapons are the crit specs. The bigger the crit threat range, the more often you crit; and the bigger the crit multiplier, the more dmg you do when you crit. Note that Holy Sword adds +1 to both crit range & multiplier of any equipped weapon, which is what makes it such a fantastic DPS booster.

So take Deathnip: it's a 1.5[1d6] weapon (meaning the game "rolls" a d6 then multiplies it by 1.5 for base dmg) with a 19-20/x4 crit profile (meaning it crits when you make an atk "roll" a 19 or 20 for quad dmg). Holy Sword improves the crit profile to 18-20/x5; Improved Crit:Piercing feat doubles the crit range to 15-20/x5. That's basically as good as it can get when it comes to crit profiles. The fact Deathnip also has Seeker +10 (usually not available until epic gear) and Improved Heartseeker (an extra 9d10 dmg on crits or an avg of +14.85 dmg per swing w/HS+IC active) is what makes it one of if not the single best 1H named weapon for upper-heroic levels.

By comparison, longswords are considered pretty mediocre DPS, since their base stats are [d8] 19-20/x2; i.e., same crit range as Deathnip, but only half the crit dmg. Rapiers and scimitars are better: [d6] 18-20/x2; in the long run, the extra crit range is more important than the lower base die dmg. There are a few named longswords with better-than-avg crit dmg (e.g., NF Avenger is 18-20/x2, same as a scimitar, but with the higher [d8] base dmg of longswords); but most of the time you'll be better off using other weapons.

EDIT: that being said, as a newbie you'll use whatever are the best weapons you can lay your hands on. And as Tinco pointed out, at low lvls you will often do better DPS with a good 2H weapon.

EDIT 2: curses, ninja'ed by Caprice again!

[Sindrax]

New question. As a melee with the ranger class for some ranged skills why invest so many feats in ranged attack skills? Point blank, many shots. Would it be better to take oversized two weapon fighting? Just curious as to the why.

[unbongwah]

As a melee with the ranger class for some ranged skills why invest so many feats in ranged attack skills? Point blank, many shots.

Because Manyshot is still one of the best burst DPS options in DDO; and MS+Imp Prec Shot is a great way of tearing into mobs. The second build is intended as a modern revamp of my Faithsworn Hunter, which is based on a rgr/pally PrC in 3.5E. So the core concept was always TWF+Manyshot.

Would it be better to take oversized two weapon fighting?

No: because of the changes to combat mechanics in U14, +2 to-hit is virtually worthless in the grand scheme of things.

[Sindrax]

Thank you.I'm still really green at this game so I was just curious as I said.

[Singular]

Because Manyshot is still one of the best burst DPS options in DDO; and MS+Imp Prec Shot is a great way of tearing into mobs. The second build is intended as a modern revamp of my Faithsworn Hunter, which is based on a rgr/pally PrC in 3.5E. So the core concept was always TWF+Manyshot.

No: because of the changes to combat mechanics in U14, +2 to-hit is virtually worthless in the grand scheme of things.

Does the leveling order matter, or can you just take 5 straight ranger before switching over to Paladin?

[unbongwah]

Does the leveling order matter, or can you just take 5 straight ranger before switching over to Paladin?

Like I said before, I staggered out the rgr lvls to spread out the skill pts a bit, but if want to front-load your rgr lvls, that works too. I might suggest rgr 1-4, pal 1-7, rgr 5, pal 8-15, since the only thing you need rgr 5 for is Dance of Death, which can't be taken until lvl 12.

[Singular]

Like I said before, I staggered out the rgr lvls to spread out the skill pts a bit, but if want to front-load your rgr lvls, that works too. I might suggest rgr 1-4, pal 1-7, rgr 5, pal 8-15, since the only thing you need rgr 5 for is Dance of Death, which can't be taken until lvl 12.

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. Doing it my next life - I like my pure fighter twf's doublestrike, but the survivability is just not all there.

[Caprice]

Like I said before, I staggered out the rgr lvls to spread out the skill pts a bit, but if want to front-load your rgr lvls, that works too. I might suggest rgr 1-4, pal 1-7, rgr 5, pal 8-15, since the only thing you need rgr 5 for is Dance of Death, which can't be taken until lvl 12.

Unless you plan to use your bow a lot and thus really want Precise Shot ASAP I'd probably suggest one of:

• Ranger 1-2 Paladin 1-4 Ranger 3-4 Paladin 3-7 Ranger 5 Paladin 8-15
• Ranger 1-2 Paladin 1-7 Ranger 3-5 Paladin 8-15

Ranger 2 for TWF is obviously required immediately, but after that I feel that Divine Grace, SaD stance &/or KotC core damage, and DM are more beneficial in early levels than those extra Ranger levels. YMMV.

[KGKaos]

Would it be possible for you to do a template of a human 32 point build?

I have only a premium account and 32 point char builds, nothing else.

EDIT: My bad, a pure build TWF. I do not have access to a dex tome at start.

[unbongwah]

For which build? EDIT: and do you have a DEX tome?