Dwarven Defender

[Baktiotha]

A separate thread pushed my thinking and then real life got in the way. It gave me time to flesh out a build I have been playing with the thought, "What if I had everything?"

This build is not designed to solo, although I do solo significant amounts of EH and lower content on the lesser versions of this build. But, soloing is not the designed function of this build.

This build is intended to serve as the main "tank" in a group even in LE content. Its main function is to get and hold aggression while surviving with cooperative healing from fellow group members. As a "theory" build it has the potential to stand in the face of the most difficult current game content as long as cooperative healing lasts. The idea is to hold aggression long enough for the "off tanks" to win the encounter.

The build is based on having completed three lives in every class, destiny, and iconic race in order to gain the benefits of all the possible past lives. That does not represent my current character, he is through all the class past lives but is working just his fifth destiny past life and has only two iconic past lives. The build, instead, represents a goal state -- a "what if I had everything?"

Build

Dwarf is selected as the race because of the dwarven armor enhancements. Starting stats: STR 16, DEX 12, CON 16, INT 8, WIS 8, CHA 16. The build uses a +7 Supreme Tome. All stat increases are in CON.

Character Plan by DDO Character Planner Version 4.31.203
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Dwarven Defender
Level 30 Lawful Good Dwarf Male
(16 Fighter \ 4 Paladin \ 10 Epic) 


Level 1 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Toughness
(Toughness is selected multiple times for the impact on Hit Points)


Level 2 (Paladin)


Level 3 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Completionist


Level 4 (Paladin)


Level 5 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Shield Mastery


Level 6 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Heavy Armor Training
Feat: (Selected) Toughness


Level 7 (Fighter)


Level 8 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Improved Shield Mastery


Level 9 (Fighter)
Feat: (Selected) Toughness


Level 10 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Heavy Armor Combatant


Level 11 (Fighter)


Level 12 (Fighter)
Feat: (Selected) Precision
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Improved Shield Bash


Level 13 (Fighter)


Level 14 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Heavy Armor Master


Level 15 (Fighter)
Feat: (Selected) Force of Personality
(WIS is dumped in favor of CHA)


Level 16 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Improved Critical: Bludgeoning Weapons


Level 17 (Fighter)


Level 18 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Heavy Armor Champion
Feat: (Selected) Toughness


Level 19 (Fighter)


Level 20 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Combat Expertise


Level 21 (Epic)
Feat: (Selected) Epic: Bulwark of Defense


Level 22 (Epic)


Level 23 (Epic)


Level 24 (Epic)
Feat: (Selected) Epic: Epic Toughness


Level 25 (Epic)


Level 26 (Epic)
Feat: (Epic Destiny) Arcane Sphere: Epic Mage Armor


Level 27 (Epic)
Feat: (Selected) Epic: Epic Damage Reduction


Level 28 (Epic)
Feat: (Epic Destiny) Martial Sphere: Elusive Target
(Selected for the 5% automatic miss opportunity.)


Level 29 (Epic)
Feat: (Epic Destiny) Multiple Spheres: Dreamscape
(Selected to provide momentary escape from danger.)


Level 30 (Epic)
Feat: (Selected) Primal Sphere: Perfect Two Weapon Fighting
Feat: (Legendary) Scion of the Plane of Earth

I will post AC, PRR and HP assumptions in a follow on post.

[Baktiotha]

AC assumptions

10 base
38 Platemail of the Celestial Avenger
03 Dwarven Armor Mastery
03 Stalwart Defensive Mastery
03 Sacred Armor Mastery
03 Armor Expertise
05 Bulwark Aura
04 Bulwark Defense
20 Epic Mage Armor
07 Insight (parrying from armor)
15 DEX 40 (MDB 16)
09 Deflection (protection)
10 Natural
05 Insightful Natural
05 Unbreakable
15 Hardened
38 Reinforced Armor (fighter and paladin)
04 Combat Expertise
27 Past lives
21 Epic Shield of Tireless Aid
03 Shield Expertise
09 Shield Mastery (Dwarven, Stalwart and Sacred)
21 Shield Prowess and Reinforced Shield
---
278

PRR assumptions

10 Stalwart Defense
25 Insightful and Quality bonus
20 Scion of Earth
15 Durable Defense
30 Heavy Armor fighter feats
10 Epic Damage Reduction
38 Sheltering (armor)
09 Iconic past lives
27 Epic past lives
30 Head No Pain
10 Large shield
10 Improved Shield Mastery
15 Legendary Shield Mastery
40 Heavy armor
---
289

HP assumptions

10 base
10 Draconic Vitality
41 Stalwart Defender AP spent
23 Sacred Defender AP spent
140 Fighter levels
60 Paladin levels
100 Epic levels
720 CON 58
128 Toughnes
50 Epic Toughness
50 Stalwart Guardian
80 False life and Vitality
397 other bonuses (Stalwart Defender and Strength of Vitality)
-----
1839

[Loromir]

Does Epic Mage Armor stack with your Heavy Armor?

[Baktiotha]

Does Epic Mage Armor stack with your Heavy Armor?

Yes. At least that has appeared to be the case when I've tested it in the past. I will double check, but I believe Epic Mage Armor stacks with everything.

[Kentpb]

Yes. At least that has appeared to be the case when I've tested it in the past. I will double check, but I believe Epic Mage Armor stacks with everything.

no it dose not stack but unlike the spell Mage Armor you can cast it on others

[Baktiotha]

Don't have a character of level to test it. Thought it did last time I was at level. Will be a while before I can check. If it doesn't that's fine, I just need to replace it with something to help the build then.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

why is having all past lives tied to a given build? wouldnt they be equally useful to any build then?

your level split seems like a bad idea to me right off the bat.

multiple toughnesses makes me cringe, especially if its only helping getting you to 1800 hp.

you dont post any useful information on enhancements or destinies. or gear.

your assumed 1800 hp is not very high, especially if you are in sentinel and intending to be a le main tank. i think you could probably tank sorjek just fine with heal spam, but then again with 200+ prr and ~1800 hp i get two shotted if i cant heal fast enough (so basically if i have aggro and i stay in melee range, i *will* eventually die when he attacks twice in rapid succession), although thats without blocking or using a tower shield or sentinel stats. basically i think your expected prr is fine, but you need more hp, and thats not just for sorjek.

also, your mrr is not listed, but i doubt that would really be an issue generally on a full tank build with a tower shield.

i wouldnt sacrifice much (or maybe anything) for ac, its not really worth it. it depends on what ranges are actually effective against what and how hard it is to get to that range, but honestly, hp+prr is the way to build against physical damage as this kind of melee, and avoidance is very easy to gear. if you can easily get an ac that works well enough and doesnt require you to spend too much of your build on it, then you should stop there instead of trying to max it.

you dont appear to consider intim. that is important.

[Baktiotha]

<snip>

Past lives certainly can apply to any build but in this case I'm just observing that this build is one that I've enjoyed playing and is sort of my target build if I ever actually get to the point where I've accumulated all the past lives.

The level split is deliberate in order to reach specific tiers in the enhancement trees and to gain the maximum number of bonus fighter feats.

Would be glad to see alternative ways to reach ~1800hp without toughness feats while still keeping the paladin/fighter class mix. ~1800 is a break-even point given expected damage. The expectation is not to self heal and to be dependent on external heals as part of a cooperative party. That it will not work in a different situation is an initial caveat.

I don't list MRR or gear or much else about the build that is true. Part of the reason is that I have not fleshed out what gear I might use. I do assume that various bonuses to stats, saves, abilities, etc. will be part of the gear -- but whether that is on a random loot item or a named item and what slot it fits in I have not really contemplated.

There is a forum mindset that belittles AC. But, AC is a key element in gaining miss chances and even on a CR 70 mob will generate enough misses to help survivability. I'd rather focus on it to the degree that it is possible.

With a low starting INT there are few skill points. Intimidate is the one skill that will get full skill points. There are enough to sink 20 points into something else or 10 points into a cross-class skill with tome increases affecting INT. I don't know if it will be enough to matter given the CHA achievable.

[unbongwah]

38 Platemail of the Celestial Avenger
20 Epic Mage Armor

These two don't - well, shouldn't - stack, as they are both armor bonuses. If you discover otherwise, I'm sure we'd all be interested in finding out.

04 Combat Expertise

CE isn't just +4 AC, it's +10% AC, which IIRC is applied at the end. Which is good, since it makes up for the AC you lose from Epic Mage Armor.

There is a forum mindset that belittles AC. But, AC is a key element in gaining miss chances and even on a CR 70 mob will generate enough misses to help survivability. I'd rather focus on it to the degree that it is possible.

The point is not that AC is useless; it's that you hit a point of diminishing returns and trying to max it out involves sacrifices elsewhere, either to DPS or your other defenses like PRR/MRR. In your case, since you don't list Enhancements, I can only make an educated guess, but it appears you plan to put all your APs into Stalwart D, Sacred D, and dwarf, which means you're sacrificing Vanguard & Kensei. That's going to hurt your DPS quite a bit, which lowers your threat potential; less threat means a greater chance of losing aggro to a higher-DPS toon, which is a fail if you're a tank (IMO). You are also losing your higher-lvl cores by not staying pure ftr; Defensive Sweep and Last Stand are both situationally useful.

Basically it feels like you're putting all your eggs in one basket labelled "AC & HPs," but you need more than that if you want to be a tank.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

The level split is deliberate in order to reach specific tiers in the enhancement trees and to gain the maximum number of bonus fighter feats.

Would be glad to see alternative ways to reach ~1800hp without toughness feats while still keeping the paladin/fighter class mix. ~1800 is a break-even point given expected damage. The expectation is not to self heal and to be dependent on external heals as part of a cooperative party. That it will not work in a different situation is an initial caveat.

There is a forum mindset that belittles AC. But, AC is a key element in gaining miss chances and even on a CR 70 mob will generate enough misses to help survivability. I'd rather focus on it to the degree that it is possible.

if your level split is so you can spend ap on ac, lmao.

my current character build is achieving 250+ prr and 1800 hp while being fully specced for offense. i dont have a single toughness, and i dont have to be in sentinel, and i dont have all of the prr or hp past lives. clearly its possible, and i dont have any paladin levels...so yea, idk what those have to do with hp. also, its pretty hard to point out an alternative to something that is effectively nonexistent (your "build"). i can tell you that if you arent taking power surge, but are taking 4 toughnesses, thats really dumb. power surge is +120 hp at level 30 before hp multipliers. much more efficient than toughness. im suggesting your expected hp wont be enough to give healers sufficient time to keep you alive in key situations, not even talking about yourself.

my opinion on ac is not a "forum mindset" as its based on my own experience and nothing else, i dont know **** about others experience with ac, so im not going to parrot what they say when i know nothing about it. my experience is that without investing in ac at all i survive pretty much everything with a little bit of smarts and sometimes luck, and when ive ever tried to build ac to a useful point without sacrificing soemthing more important, my ac quickly became irrelevant. despite that, i still see a surprising amount of misses currently, and my ac is only 90 something (i think?). and i didnt say it was useless or anything. im just telling you, to make it as useful as it can be, you are going to damage your characters overall power. thats not really an opinion, or an assessment of how effective ac is or isnt at its maximum, its just a fact about character building. additionally, even at its max, and even if its fairly/very useful, its just straight up not worth it because of its limited function. it only applies against physical attacks, and only some of the time. relying too much on ac is the same problem as relying too much on dodge (which is better...) for example because you will get hit and you need to be prepared for that. obviously youre planning to have a very high amount of prr as well, but that just reinforces my opinion that investing so much into ac is just even more wasteful.