New players need a bit of help with Warforged

[Phanes]

So just to give you a brief run down my family and I are tired of Minecraft so we want to move to something a bit more challenging. My wife and I have extensive MMO backgrounds so we understand the basics of MMOs. Our son is young and really only capable of WASD movement and left click to smash stuff. We have been playing the game using RD to help him zone in and complete quests.

We want to re-roll at this point as 3 WF with two sword and board paladins and one artificer. We want to go WF for many reasons the primary one being our son does not drown We know there are better race/class/party combos but right now we just want to keep it simple. So our plan is this

3 Month VIP
32 Point Builds

The problem is we can't find any pure Paladin artificer builds that are not years and years old and we are not sure if they are up to date. Or we find multiclass builds or builds using +5 tomes etc. Does anyone have any links to good builds? I just want to make sure we are taking the right stats, skills, and feats to get rolling and we stay on track in terms of stats, skills, enhancements, and feats as we progress.

Finally does anyone know how to get rid of this black on black posting box? When I type a post the box I type in has a black background and black text making it very hard to read. When I click out of the box the background turns white.

[Phanes]

I forgot to mention the purpose of the paladins is to be tanks able to absorb lots of damage, our son will stand in fire/acid etc, as well as hold agro. The artificer is to heal/trapper and do some DPS.

[LuKaSu]

So just to give you a brief run down my family and I are tired of Minecraft so we want to move to something a bit more challenging. My wife and I have extensive MMO backgrounds so we understand the basics of MMOs. Our son is young and really only capable of WASD movement and left click to smash stuff. We have been playing the game using RD to help him zone in and complete quests.

We want to re-roll at this point as 3 WF with two sword and board paladins and one artificer. We want to go WF for many reasons the primary one being our son does not drown We know there are better race/class/party combos but right now we just want to keep it simple. So our plan is this

3 Month VIP
32 Point Builds

The problem is we can't find any pure Paladin artificer builds that are not years and years old and we are not sure if they are up to date. Or we find multiclass builds or builds using +5 tomes etc. Does anyone have any links to good builds? I just want to make sure we are taking the right stats, skills, and feats to get rolling and we stay on track in terms of stats, skills, enhancements, and feats as we progress.

Finally does anyone know how to get rid of this black on black posting box? When I type a post the box I type in has a black background and black text making it very hard to read. When I click out of the box the background turns white.

For Paladins, I'd say go with 16 Strength and Con, 14 for Charisma, and 10 for Int and Wisdom (people will tell you to not put points in wisdom, since you can get items that will bring you up to being able to cast your spells, but for a beginner without a lot of equipment, it's a good idea to put a few build points in wisdom). All level ups into Strength. Skills put points in Concentration and Heal.

For feats, I'd go

1 - Power Attack
3 - Cleave
6 - Great Cleave
9 - Improved Crit: Slashing
12 - THF
15 - ITHF
18 - GTHF (or maybe Quicken if you use a lot of spells)

All this being said, this would not be a minmax build or feat setup, so long-timers will disagree with me, but for a beginner, this is pretty solid. (There is an enhancement that works much like Cleave and another one that works like Great Cleave, so many people leave these out, but again, for a straight-forward thing to play, it's pretty fun)

[Loromir]

I forgot to mention the purpose of the paladins is to be tanks able to absorb lots of damage, our son will stand in fire/acid etc, as well as hold agro. The artificer is to heal/trapper and do some DPS.

Stats and feats list by Lukasu are pretty standard and you can't go wrong with those. However, if you plan to go sword and board you might want to switch out GTHF for Bastard sword proficiency. That would allow you to us a one handed weapon and still get benefit of glancing blows etc.

Ehancements can be switch out at any time, so feel free to experiment.

For your son, I would suggest Sacred Defender tree as that will provide the most survivability. To help with surviving a fight, teach your son to use the shift key to "turtle up" behind his shield when things get out of hand.

For you I would suggest going THF (two handed fighting) with a Falchion or Greatsword and use the Knight of the Chalice tree. You will do a lot more DPS from that tree and maybe be able to pull some aggro off your son if things get a little crazy. If you choose Knight of the Chalice tree, you don't need to take the cleave or great cleave feats because you will have enhancements that will give you those abilities instead.

If you are dead set on Sword and Board for yourself, then go with the Vanguard tree.

I unfortunately can't help much on the Artificer.

[zorander6]

For artificer get str to 12-14, Dex 12-14, Con to 14-16, int to 14-16, wis to 10-12, and leave cha alone. Main reason is you want your wife to be able to spot the traps (which are in the same spots but if you run as a group will help. You need int for spells and disabling. (No I'm not doing the math right now, at work on lunch)

Focus more on INT and Con if at all possible, will give your wife more HP and ability to deal with traps.
Skills:
Disable Device
Open lock
Search
Spot
Jump
Listen

As for the paladin builds the above will work well for new players. Let us know which server you are on and someone will help you with gear I'm sure.

Edit: I would suggest toughness for all of the characters at build/1st level as it gives HP which will definitely help.

Edit^2: For your son I would suggest maxing con, toughness, high str, then wisdom, cha, and dex in that order. Will let him live longer (more HP) but be able to do some damage.

Edit ^3: For your paladin get your Cha up as high (not max mind) as you can, wisdom can be 12, dex default, int to at least 10 (I'd suggest 12 for more skill points,) Str and Con. Main reason being is you will want to invest in intimidate (based off cha) so that you can pull bad guys off your son if he's overwhelmed (which will probably happen
Skills for you:
Intimidate
Jump
Spot
any other you think will help.

Your Son:
Balance (lets him get up faster after being tripped)
Jump
And any others he thinks are fun.

Just my opinion.

[Munkenmo]

I Know you said you want warforged to avoid drowning, but it's honestly a rather weak choice for a new tanking paladin.

Despite having heavy armor profiency as a paladin, A warforged still has to spend a feat to pick up Adamantine Body. If you don't purchase that feat, you're essentially not wearing armor for PRR/MRR purposes. Right off the bat you're one feat behind any normal race, or 2 feats behind human. On a build with no bonus feats, this is a rather large disadvantage.

Eg:
Human: 1:Power Attack, 1:Bastard Shield Prof, 3: 2hf, 6: Improved 2hf, 9: Improved Crit, 12: Shield Mastery, 15: Greater 2hf, 18: Improved Shield Mastery,
Warforged: 1:Adamantine Body, 3: Power Attack, 6: 2hf, 9: Improved Crit, 12: Improved Thf, 15: Greater 2hf, 18: Bastard Sword prof

I could swap the feats round a little bit if I wanted to prioritize shield mastery over 2 handed fighting. But the point is that Humans (and every other fleshy race) have a rather large feat advantage over warforged.

Moving on from racial warning. You'll notice I didn't take cleave or great cleave in the build above, I honestly don't believe you can fit in cleaves (especially on a warforged) if you want to build your character as a tank. The Knight of the chalice enhancement line has an enhancement based cleave that you can pick up at level 2, I would recommend getting that over spending a feat on the ability.

The feat list presented to you by the players above is a great list for a light armored 2 handed paladin that knows how to play well. It's got no defenses built in though and you'll find that a character with those feats won't be able to withstand a lot of incoming damage.

That's why I recommend getting bastard sword prof & shield mastery. This will allow you access to 2handed fighting's glancing blow damage, prr/mrr bonuses from having a shield equipped, double strike from the shield mastery feats & you can make good use of the vanguard enhancment tree.

As for enhancements overall:
Pick up warforged Cores 1,2 & 3 for a 75% boost to your fortification, this'll help alot whilst you're searching for heavy fort items. Once you get a heavy fort item consider dropping to just core 1 to free up 3ap.
In KOTC: I'd only go as far as the third core ability and for a while only pick up the cleave and divine might abilities in tier 2.
In Sacred Defender: pick up the defensive stance (core 2) & the extra passive stance bonuses that boost your prr/mrr by 15, and your saves by 3, then ignore the tree till late levels.
Focus the rest of your enhancement points into Vanguard to increase your attack speed and shield damage.

[lyrecono]

So just to give you a brief run down my family and I are tired of Minecraft so we want to move to something a bit more challenging. My wife and I have extensive MMO backgrounds so we understand the basics of MMOs. Our son is young and really only capable of WASD movement and left click to smash stuff. We have been playing the game using RD to help him zone in and complete quests.

We want to re-roll at this point as 3 WF with two sword and board paladins and one artificer. We want to go WF for many reasons the primary one being our son does not drown We know there are better race/class/party combos but right now we just want to keep it simple. So our plan is this

3 Month VIP
32 Point Builds

The problem is we can't find any pure Paladin artificer builds that are not years and years old and we are not sure if they are up to date. Or we find multiclass builds or builds using +5 tomes etc. Does anyone have any links to good builds? I just want to make sure we are taking the right stats, skills, and feats to get rolling and we stay on track in terms of stats, skills, enhancements, and feats as we progress.

Finally does anyone know how to get rid of this black on black posting box? When I type a post the box I type in has a black background and black text making it very hard to read. When I click out of the box the background turns white.

i have to agree with earlier posts, if your son wants to tank as a paladin, multiclass early as a fighter (E.G. pal1, fighter2, pali3, fighter 4, pali 5 til 20)
this gives early access to tower shields, cleaves and allows for proper armor, leading to a better prr and mrr

1, paladin, adamantine body
2, fighter, power attack (bonus feat)
3, paladin, improved shield bash (standard lv 3 feat)
4, fighter, shield mastery (bonus feat)
5, paladin
6 paladin, weapon prof bastard sword
7, paladin
8, paladin
9, paladin, improved critical
10, paladin
11, paladin
12 paladin, 2 handed fighting
13, paladin
14, paladin
15, paladin, improved 2 handed fighting
16, paladin
17, paladin
18, paladin improved shield mastery
19, paladin
20, paladin

the improved feats can be switched without a problem
This purely to keep the amount of clickies and hotbars to a minimum for your son
besides having to turn on power attack once every time he logs in, all the feats are passive

[EllisDee37]

My thoughts on the feedback so far:

- You definitely want adamantine body.
- I think spending a feat on toughness would be a fairly significant mistake.
- As paladins (who are feat-starved) you do not need to spend feats on cleaves.
- Definitely do not dump charisma.

For a warforged pure paladin who has an artificer strapped to your back, I'd probably go with something like:


Stats
. . . . . . . .32pt . . Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . --------
Strength. . . . 16. . . .4: STR
Dexterity . . . .8. . . .8: STR
Constitution. . 16. . . 12: STR
Intelligence. . .8. . . 16: STR
Wisdom. . . . . 12. . . 20: STR
Charisma. . . . 14. . . 24: STR
. . . . . . . . . . . . 28: STR

Skills

All points in Intimidate.


Feats

.1 : Adamantine Body
.1P: Follower of the Lord of Blades
.3 : Power Attack
.6 : Exotic Weapon: Bastard Sword
.6P: Bladesworn Transformation
.9 : Improved Critical: Slashing
12 : Shield Mastery
15 : Improved Shield Mastery
18 : Improved Shield Bash


I'd start off with two-handed weapons (eg: Ember Greataxe) for the first several levels, then switch to S&B with bastard swords at 6.


For enhancements, I'm thinking:

Warforged (1 AP)
Core: Improved Fortification

Knight of the Chalice (41 AP)
Core: All (take the capstone)
Tier 1: Extra Smite II, Extra Turning III
Tier 2: Divine Might III, Exalted Cleave III
Tier 3: Divine Sacrifice I, Exalted Smite III, Strength
Tier 4: Censure Demons, Empower Smite, Strength
Tier 5: Censure Outsiders, Holy Retribution III, Avenging Cleave III

Sacred Defender (14 AP)
Core: Holy Bastion, Sacred Defense
Tier 1: Extra Lay On Hands III, Durable Defense III
Tier 2: Resilient Defense III
Tier 3: Strong Defense III

Vanguard (24 AP)
Core: To the Fore!, Shield Combat, Vicious Shield, Shield Combat
Tier 1: Shield Specialization, Shield Smash III
Tier 2: Shield Specialization, Stunning Shield III, Brutality II
Tier 3: Shield Specialization, Follow Up III
Tier 4: Shield Specialization, Shield Charge I

[Phanes]

You guys have been a huge help. My family and I are rolling on Kyber. We may form our own guild for the bonuses but will probably look at joining another guild later on. My in game name is Emrict feel free to send me a tell I am always looking for a mumble server to join and pick people's brains.

[EllisDee37]

Our son is young and really only capable of WASD movement and left click to smash stuff.

The build I just posted spends a few AP on clickie attacks, which will work great for you (some of them are truly uber) but for your son, maybe spend those points on other, non-clickie attacks. That list includes:

Extra Smite II (kotc)
Divine Sacrifice (kotc)
Avenging Cleave (kotc)
Exalted Cleave (kotc)
Stunning Shield (vanguard)

For your son, I might skip the kotc capstone and move all those other points over to stalwart defender for additional passive stance bonuses, and/or vanguard for additional passive dps. Or maybe even the warforged tree. (Extra fortification, Constitution, possibly even Improved Power Attack.)

Finally does anyone know how to get rid of this black on black posting box? When I type a post the box I type in has a black background and black text making it very hard to read. When I click out of the box the background turns white.

Yeah, the default color scheme is brutal. I use the stylebot from jjflannigan. (Note post #3 in that thread.)

[Phanes]

The build I just posted spends a few AP on clickie attacks, which will work great for you (some of them are truly uber) but for your son, maybe spend those points on other, non-clickie attacks. That list includes:

Extra Smite II (kotc)
Divine Sacrifice (kotc)
Avenging Cleave (kotc)
Exalted Cleave (kotc)
Stunning Shield (vanguard)

For your son, I might skip the kotc capstone and move all those other points over to stalwart defender for additional passive stance bonuses, and/or vanguard for additional passive dps. Or maybe even the warforged tree. (Extra fortification, Constitution, possibly even Improved Power Attack.)

Yeah, the default color scheme is brutal. I use the stylebot from jjflannigan. (Note post #3 in that thread.)

My plan for him is just everything passive that increases his durability so more AC, HP, MR, etc etc. He really right now just WASD moves and left click to attack he picked that up from Minecraft.

Thanks for the help with the color scheme.

[lyrecono]

i have to agree with earlier posts, if your son wants to tank as a paladin, multiclass early as a fighter (E.G. pal1, fighter2, pali3, fighter 4, pali 5 til 20)
this gives early access to tower shields, cleaves and allows for proper armor, leading to a better prr and mrr

1, paladin, adamantine body
2, fighter, power attack (bonus feat)
3, paladin, improved shield bash (standard lv 3 feat)
4, fighter, shield mastery (bonus feat)
5, paladin
6 paladin, weapon prof bastard sword
7, paladin
8, paladin
9, paladin, improved critical
10, paladin
11, paladin
12 paladin, 2 handed fighting
13, paladin
14, paladin
15, paladin, improved 2 handed fighting
16, paladin
17, paladin
18, paladin improved shield mastery
19, paladin
20, paladin

the improved feats can be switched without a problem
This purely to keep the amount of clickies and hotbars to a minimum for your son
besides having to turn on power attack once every time he logs in, all the feats are passive

i would still go with the multiclass fighter build for more power early on, small chance you'll be reaching 20, let allone doing elites near 20 so staying pure for the capstone is a wasted effort.
the vanguard and sacred defender have good passive enhancements but keep in mind to check if his defencive stance is on (just like power attack) once everytime he logs in.

though he just plays with a mouse i would recomend placing lay on hands on his hotbar for the oh sh!t moments

try and see if you can find that canith crafting guild, they might set you up with easy gear for the heroic levels
to bad you're not on my server, i could have set you up with canith crafted gear and a few +1 and +2 tomes XD

[Phanes]

How exactly do you multi class? I assume you go talk to another trainer but do you lose stuff or does it cost points or Plat?

[Qhualor]

How exactly do you multi class? I assume you go talk to another trainer but do you lose stuff or does it cost points or Plat?

talk to another trainer and you don't lose anything. a box will appear asking you if you are sure you want to do this.