Newbie Solo Paladin build

[Circe_KinSlayer]

I am asking opinions on my paladin build. Perhaps a little late. I am posting my own rather than try to wade through endless iterations of other people's builds for ideas, bc they are probably not soloing like I do. I was intrigued by someone's rant about how bad (stupid) some people's builds are and wondered how mine would appear to an "expert". I did not memorize all rules and start out with plans to have a perfect character by 20th level (or whatever). The rules and possibilities are endless and its boring just to read through stuff when I want to smash things! This is my second ever character in DDO. I only play solo, as my one experience with a group ended quickly in my death. Everyone moved so fast! And I don't see the point in re-running a quest unless I die. I guess I'm just not a farmer. I always take a cleric hireling with me. I specialized as a slayer of undead.

Anyway, for what its worth, here is my paladin build. Opinions are welcome.
Paladin 12/Rogue 2
St 16 (20 with bracers), Dx 11 (+5 when needed), Cn 15 (19 w/ring), I 11 (+5 when needed), W 14, Ch 16 (20 w/goggles); some magic items I only use when I need to do rogue stuff.
Skills Disable 20+5, Open Lock 10+5, Search 18+5, Spot 15 (usually my cleric hireling will spot traps first)
Fighting feats: Improved Crit bludgeoning and slashing, Power Attk, Weapon Focus: Slashing, Two-handed fighting, Great Xbox proficiency (arbalester), Lightning reflexes
Paladin feats: all the usual
Rogue feat: evasion (which doesn't work in my armor)
Enhancements: Knight of Chalice: Slayer of Evil I-II, Courage of Heaven I-II, Extra Smite 2, Empowered Smite 2, Exalted Smite, Extra Turning 3, Improved Turn 3, Holy Retribution 1, Charisma +2,
Exalted Cleave
Enhancements: Mechanic Rogue: Arbalester (great Xbow proficiency), Mechanic 3
Enhancements: Human: attack boost, surge strength, Int +1, Dex +1, skill boost +4, improved recovery, Nimble fingers 3, Awareness 3

I know I could have done the feats better. Why do I have 2H fighting and then mostly use a hammer/shield or axe/shield? I used to use a two handed axe but haven't for a while. Everyone says bastard swords are the best for dealing damage, but I have never found one I liked. I don't shield bash when fighting, but I use cleave and smite all the time. I use my xbow a lot bc I am soloing, so I needed the more powerful great Xbow feat, but I actually got it as an enhancement. I have the ability and money to change a feat perhaps.

I like my enhancements but am willing to consider resetting them if someone sees an advantage I missed.

Go crazy folks, especially those know-it-alls who have more time on their hands than I do LOL

[goodspeed]

pretty much an 18/2 pally can solo it all. Especially if you went for bladeforged. I mean hell all the prr, the hp, the jacked low cost fast cast recon. Though id as soon as ditch the evasion on the blade.

If your a fleshy you can switch up armor quick for traps but robots are screwed with the feat. And then even with those high numbers eventually as you level and get up into epics you still take a bigass blast with what those monsters roll. So the extra 20% hp helps along with the mrr and prr to just shrug it off and heal through.

2 handed is the way to cut through everything quick. But if your going to use a shield then ud just as well should grab the feats for the extra defense with it in the tower line. Then ud want to invest into the shield tree. And yes ud want a bastard sword. I cant remember if a dwarven axe has the same ability with the shield as the bastard does.

Id say most of your points would be in KOTC and then the defender tree. And if your planning of semi deep splashing the build you'll need at least 14 pally 15 really for a melee build to get zeal for the extra 10 double strike. Otherwise the pally levels are pretty much useless without holy and zeal.

[Crysae]

Wow, uh, where to start...

Your build is a little all over the place. You're going to really want to settle down and pick one or two things to excel at instead of trying to do everything. You mention that most people aren't building to solo, but that's a fairly incorrect assumption - almost everyone playing the game at this point is built to self heal and solo effectively.

Let's consider a few things.

For starters, why do you have so many odd numbers in your base stats? Try to shoot for only even numbers, or odd numbers that satisfy feat pre-requisites. Otherwise you aren't gaining anything out of that extra point. In order to sort out what your ability scores should look like, we really need to evaluate what your build wants to do.

Looking at your feats, I can sort of see a progression of you trying things and coming to prefer other things and so on. That's fine, but lets hone those to be good at the things you want. You mention liking the Great Crossbow for soloing - that's great! We can use that, but we're going to want to do a few things to make that great crossbow effective.

You're going to want 14 levels in Paladin, that's when you'll get your first level 4 spell - Holy Sword. Contrary to the name, it applies to any weapon. Holy sword grants a +1 competence bonus to critical threat range and multiplier. This means that with any weapon you're using, you're going to crit harder and more often. Then on top of the two levels of rogue you have now, we'll take the other four, for a total of six rogue. This will let you use the third core ability from the mechanic tree, as well as mechanic tier 5 enhancements.

There are a handful of important feats you want to use with your great crossbow that will increase your dps a lot. You're going to want Rapid Shot, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Rapid Reload, and Improved Critical Ranged.

Using rogue enhancements, you're going to be applying your intelligence to your damage. So with this in mind, let's lay our your new base stats, assuming 28 point build.

STR - 8
DEX - 16
CON - 14
INT - 16
WIS - 8
CHA - 10

We're going to be putting our first 3 level ups into Dexterity (to meet the eventual 19 requirement for Improved Precise Shot), and any further level ups into Intelligence.

You may be asking yourself, "Why 8 Wisdom? How is he expecting me to cast spells?" Well, unlike PnP, in DDO you can use items to qualify for spellcasting ability. That means as long as you can get your hands on a +6 wisdom item by the time you have 14 levels in paladin, you can cast any spell available to you. I didn't have enough points to get to 17 base dexterity, and putting dexterity at 16 left me with 2 extra points, so I put them in charisma. As a paladin, your saves and your lay on hands are boosted by your charisma bonus, so you're benefited from having a higher charisma.

You didn't state a race so I'm also assuming human. Following that assumption, here is how I would lay out your feat order -

Level One: Point Blank Shot
Level One Human: Rapid Reload
Level Three: Rapid Shot
Level Six: Precise Shot
Level Nine: Improved Critical Ranged
Level Twelve: Improved Precise Shot
Level Fifteen: Precision
Level Eighteen: Empower Healing, Weapon Focus Ranged, Insightful Reflexes, Dodge (dealer's choice)

As far as leveling order, it doesn't matter much, but I'd probably shoot to have all of my rogue levels by level 18. You do need some Paladin levels early to get enough BAB to qualify for some feats.

You mention that Evasion doesn't work in heavy armor, which is true, and one of the benefits to paladin is the Sacred Defense enhancement tree. I would highly recommend putting 24 enhancement points into that tree, prioritizing enhancements that boost your saves and PRR/MRR and additional Lay on Hands. This is also enough points that you can get +6 constitution, 20% more hp, and 10% movement speed. That's enough to help keep your character more survivable. The bulk of your points will be spent into Mechanic, looking to gain the intelligence to damage from the third core and the fifth tier enhancements. Any extras can go into Knight of the Chalice for bonus light damage, Harper for the enhancement "Know the Angles" which adds extra damage based on your intelligence, or your racial tree. Human has low hanging healing amp which can be very nice.

Your skill points don't matter a ton, rogue skills are nice of course. I'd probably also look to put points into any of heal, balance, concentration, jump, and use magic device.

As a new character, you should have a lesser heart of wood that you received for free upon creation. You can use this to respec your character, gaining the ability to change feats and ability points and skill points, but not your race or class choices.

If this build doesn't appeal to you or you would prefer a more melee oriented build let me know. I've been playing paladins as my favorite and primary class for years so I know them pretty well. In fact I'll probably put together a sample melee build for you tomorrow at some point.

I'm also pretty tired so I may have missed something.

[Circe_KinSlayer]

wow is right. I didn't even consider rebuilding from scratch. Is that what Heart of Wood is for? (Doh!) I still have it. Well that opens up all kinds of possibilities...

Yes, I am human (boring, I know)

Of course, I know about odd stats. I think the odd point in Cn came from a tome. It was an accident putting that extra point in dex instead of intelligence. As a tank, Dx only helps me when opening locks. Maybe one out of 5 dungeons where I need to do this. But I am surprised at how you laid out the initial stats- looks like a rogue, not a paladin. Please explain why I should not emphasize ST and Ch rather than Int and Dx?

As for feats, I think you have overemphasized my reliance on the Xbow. I mean, I use it in wilderness areas a lot, but in most dungeons I get maybe one or two shots before I have to wade into hand-to-hand. So I really don't want to put all my feats into shooting. I feel like improving my crit range is important, so I will look into that. So far my best weapon is my hammer which I pretty much use unless fighting zombies. So perhaps I can lose the improved crit slashing and two-handed fighting. I think weapon focus slashing came from so many points in the KoC tree. I could lose lightning reflexes (not sure what that was about!) Do I have to use a feat to get bastard sword proficiency or is there some other way? I use power attack almost constantly- with such a high St and other things, it seems like I hardly miss, so I go for the extra damage. Seems like I never have enough enhancement points. I guess if I can redo the whole thing I will have to study the trees.

I am ready to level up in paladin now, and I can't wait to get to 14th level.

Thanks, and I am interested to see your "melee" build alternative.

[Circe_KinSlayer]

Thanks for the feedback Goodspeed, although I have to look up half your abbreviations to understand all you said (LOL). I'm such a noob that I didn't even realize there were enhancement trees besides the first 3 that appear on the screen for many levels. Never noticed the page button to the right!

My AC while using my shield is 46. Is that good, bad, average?

And I can't actually use the dwarven axe well, since I don't have the feat. (I take the -4 TH). I like it bc it has some great bonuses against undead (though come to think of it, I kinda forgot that last two dungeons).

[Crysae]

KotC doesn't give Weapon Focus, as far as I'm aware nothing does aside from taking the actual feat.

Sounds like you're playing sword and board then? In that case, you're going to want a handful of important feats.

The obvious - shield mastery and improved shield mastery. These will grant you additional melee power, doublestrike chance, and prr while wielding a shield, all useful. Improved Shield Bashing can also be useful early, although the usefulness falls off somewhat in the later stages. You really only need to shoot for about 50% chance to shield bash, as your proc rate is capped at one bash per second. If you're attacking multiple times per second (as you would be with the vanguard capstone and an eventual melee alacrity 15% item), shield bashing every other hit works just fine. You mentioned that you don't shield bash, but I think what you don't realize is that you are shield bashing passively automatically. That is to say, as long as you have 1% or more chance to shield bash, when you land a melee strike there is a chance that your character will automatically bash with his shield. This is a not insignificant way to increase your dps.

You're going to want to choose a weapon now, the most popular two being bastard swords and khopeshes. Bastard swords will deal glancing blow damage while wielded in your primary hand with no other weapon, meaning your attacks will deal a small amount of AoE damage automatically. This is improved by the Two Handed Fighting feats. Note that while you will not gain the fighting style benefits from Two Handed Fighting while wielding a bastard sword (that is to say, the melee power), you will gain the additional proc rate and damage on your glancing blows.

Khopeshes are popular for their impressive 19-20x3 critical profile, making them excellent candidates for Holy Sword. This option will improve your single target dps slightly, but you'll lose out on AoE damage. The choice is up to you. The main upside to Khopeshes is freeing up feat slots.

So let's say you choose bastard swords, probably the best choice for soloing as the additional rate of trash mob clear is quite useful. This means you're going to want the following feats: Improved Critical Slashing, Bastard Sword Proficiency, Two Handed Fighting, Improved Two Handed Fighting, Greater Two Handed Fighting, Shield Mastery, and Improved Shield Mastery.

Our sample build then would look something like this:

Human Paladin 18 / Rogue 2

Initials Stats:
Strength 16
Dexterity 8
Con 16
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 8
Charisma 14

All level ups in strength.

Feats:
Level 1: Two Handed Fighting
Human Level 1: Bastard Sword Proficiency
Level 3: Shield Mastery
Level 6: Weapon Focus Slashing OR Power Attack OR Improved Shield Bashing
Level 9: Improved Critical Slashing
Level 12: Improved Shield Mastery
Level 15: Improved Two Handed Fighting
Level 18: Greater Two Handed Fighting

Depending on when you took your rogue levels you may have to swap some of these around to meet your Base Attack Bonus requirements for feats, but thats a general framework.

The bulk of your AP will be spent in the Vanguard tree, with enough points in KotC for two ranks in Divine Might and full ranks in Exalted Smite, and enough ranks in Sacred Defendre for 6 strength, 20% hp, and 10% movement speed.

Particularly useful in the vanguard tree are the CC abilities, stunning shield and shield rush. For these you're going to want to try to find ways to improve your stunning and trip DC's. Combat Mastery items will give lesser amounts than their specific counterparts, but will condense them on to one item. Additionally, the deflect arrows option will save you a lot of chip damage.

Let me know if you have further questions, I'm happy to explain any choices. If you'd rather skip vanguard, the best option is two handed fighting with a falchion. This is pretty straightforward. Use the same stat spread, take the two handed fighting line and improved critical slashing, leftover feats can go into precision (the fort bypass lets you crit against mobs you otherwise wouldn't be able to), empower healing, weapon focus, etc. Build points largely in KotC and Sacred Defender with some racial thrown in for healing amp.

[unbongwah]

One of the easiest newbie traps to fall into is trying to do too many things on one char. A paladin with trap skills who tries to use xbows and S&B definitely qualifies as "spreading yourself too thin." So my first suggestion is pick a combat style and stick with it. Paladins are meant for melee (esp. KotC), but there are some oddball ranged pally builds out there too.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5759360

Honestly, pick a build at random and you'll probably wind up with a better toon than your current one.