The Renegade Paladin - Bladeforged 15 Paladin / 5 Artificer

[slarden]

This is complete theory-crafting. Just looking to try out the new Renegade Master tree - 15 Paladin / 5 Artificer melee build when it's released soon.

St: 8
Int: 18 (all level ups)
Dex: 6
Wis: 6
Con: 18
Char: 16

Feats:

1) Adamantine Plating
3) Single Weapon Fighting
6) Improved Single Weapon Fighting
9) Improved Critical Slashing
12) Khopesh Proficiency
15) Quicken (Artificer Spell)
15) Greater Single Weapon Fighting
18) Power Attack
21) Overwhelming Critical
24) Cleave
26) Perfect Single Weapon Fighting
27) Greater Cleave
29) Dire Charge
30) Insightful Reflexes
30) Scion of Arborea or Scion of Fire

Renegade Master: 32 pts
Harper: 12
Sacred Defender: 23
Bladeforged: 13

If you have no racial ap from tome or past lifes. With racial ap put more to sacred defender

A maxed out character with 12 racial ap might have something like this:

Renegade Master: 32 pts
Harper: 20
Sacred Defender: 27
Bladeforged: 13

Ap split may be different while leveling, for example you probably want the paladin and arti cleave while leveling.

Idea is a survivable swf rune arm with a bit of arcane warrior flavor with Legendary Blight Inferno + Burnscar Sash + an insightful combustion item along with energy burst fire possibly in divine crusader. Not yet sure if the renegade master cleave is on the same timer as other cleaves, but not too worried about it even if it is.

20% + 6 con from renegade master. Another 20% hp from Sacred Defender. Solid repairs with a 6 second cooldown in racial tree and good repair amp - backup repair spells from bladeforged paladin spellbook.. Full trapping skills. Crit bonuses from holy sword. Stacking AC and other bonuses from rmm and sd.

Obviously a work in progress and not well thought out Any suggestions would appreciated as I would like to try out this build soon after U38.

This is based off the latest tree proposal. I am liking the int-based melee stun.

[SerPounce]

I've been working on something very similar. Wouldn't you want to use a rune arm to take advantage of mighty slam +battlefist. Sure the damage effect won't scale up, but it's mostly about the CC anyway.

Also note that the RMM reconstruct enhancement says that it shares a cooldown with other reconstruct SLAs. I assume that would include communion of scribing since that's the only other reconstruct SLA. Since you can't stack those it seems like warforged would be at least as good, maybe a little better, than BF. If I do it I'll be using BF also though since I want the PL.

[DrWily]

I actually tried a 14 Pal/6 Art when on the test server, except as an Aasimar, and using Onatar for deity feats while using daggers. It actually worked out decently. Just swap out Harper for Vistani and take Divine Might from Chalice.

I was able to squeeze in 32 points into Mastermaker (Paragon Body + most of the other stuff), 21 into Vistani (knife crits), 13 into Defender (Reinforced Sacred Defense HP), and 14 into Chalice (Divine Might & Exalted Cleave). Vistani isn't the best but it's what I was speccing for with other builds so I tried to make it work, so a lot of those points can go into Harper for Int instead, and racial AP will work as well. Alternatively you can just go further into another tree for even more benefits.

Runearms would still probably be preferable to orbs for damage. In particular, Machination of Madness is amazing even with the neg it will apply, because it's basically a free DoT while also adding some extra repair amp.

[peng]

I think you should be able to take gswf at 12, which should add more dps than power attack.

[SerPounce]

I actually tried a 14 Pal/6 Art when on the test server, except as an Aasimar, and using Onatar for deity feats while using daggers. It actually worked out decently. Just swap out Harper for Vistani and take Divine Might from Chalice.

I was able to squeeze in 32 points into Mastermaker (Paragon Body + most of the other stuff), 21 into Vistani (knife crits), 13 into Defender (Reinforced Sacred Defense HP), and 14 into Chalice (Divine Might & Exalted Cleave). Vistani isn't the best but it's what I was speccing for with other builds so I tried to make it work, so a lot of those points can go into Harper for Int instead, and racial AP will work as well. Alternatively you can just go further into another tree for even more benefits.

Runearms would still probably be preferable to orbs for damage. In particular, Machination of Madness is amazing even with the neg it will apply, because it's basically a free DoT while also adding some extra repair amp.

You need 12 levels of artificer to take improved construct essence (what is now construct exemplar) which you really need for a fleshy repair build. Without those 12 arty levels WF/BF is the way to go.

I think you should be able to take gswf at 12, which should add more dps than power attack.

Depends on the leveling order. As long as you don't take more than 4 levels of arty before that you can which should be a problem. If you can make the skill points work it would be nice from a leveling perspective to take all 15 levels of pally first for holy sword +zeal, then take the arty levels.

[Wh070aa]

You need 12 levels of artificer to take improved construct essence (what is now construct exemplar) which you really need for a fleshy repair build. Without those 12 arty levels WF/BF is the way to go.




Depends on the leveling order. As long as you don't take more than 4 levels of arty before that you can which should be a problem. If you can make the skill points work it would be nice from a leveling perspective to take all 15 levels of pally first for holy sword +zeal, then take the arty levels.

You really want those Arti levels for trapping (its like good 30% boost to XP). Even without master trap smith, you can still use mines for quite bit of advantage, as long as you wear your trap gear too, assuming you can keep up the DC's. Hart to fit in the gear slots tho.

[SerPounce]

You really want those Arti levels for trapping (its like good 30% boost to XP). Even without master trap smith, you can still use mines for quite bit of advantage, as long as you wear your trap gear too, assuming you can keep up the DC's. Hart to fit in the gear slots tho.

A few levels of arty for trapping makes sense, but just as an aside really not anything like a 30% boost to xp. It's up to 30% of base xp, but if you're running reaper on a streak you're at +200% already, and more like 220-250% for not dying/re-entering/ kills/breakables/secret doors. So a bit under a 10% increase in the quests were you can get the max bonus, which isn't close to all all quests. I bet it's more like 5% on average all things considered.

OTOH trapping is really nice if you do a lot of re-running quests (like epic dailies) without the first time bonuses.

[slarden]

I actually tried a 14 Pal/6 Art when on the test server, except as an Aasimar, and using Onatar for deity feats while using daggers. It actually worked out decently. Just swap out Harper for Vistani and take Divine Might from Chalice.

I was able to squeeze in 32 points into Mastermaker (Paragon Body + most of the other stuff), 21 into Vistani (knife crits), 13 into Defender (Reinforced Sacred Defense HP), and 14 into Chalice (Divine Might & Exalted Cleave). Vistani isn't the best but it's what I was speccing for with other builds so I tried to make it work, so a lot of those points can go into Harper for Int instead, and racial AP will work as well. Alternatively you can just go further into another tree for even more benefits.

Runearms would still probably be preferable to orbs for damage. In particular, Machination of Madness is amazing even with the neg it will apply, because it's basically a free DoT while also adding some extra repair amp.

I think you should be able to take gswf at 12, which should add more dps than power attack.

I've been working on something very similar. Wouldn't you want to use a rune arm to take advantage of mighty slam +battlefist. Sure the damage effect won't scale up, but it's mostly about the CC anyway.

Also note that the RMM reconstruct enhancement says that it shares a cooldown with other reconstruct SLAs. I assume that would include communion of scribing since that's the only other reconstruct SLA. Since you can't stack those it seems like warforged would be at least as good, maybe a little better, than BF. If I do it I'll be using BF also though since I want the PL.

Great points I changed the feat order, power attacks is mainly to take cleave and greater cleave. If not for that I would prefer precision over power attack.

It's a rune arm build which is required for some of the benefits - I typed orb but meant rune arm and included a rune arm as one of the items - my bad.

I assume the slas in RM are based on arti level in the rm tree which is why I am using the racial reconstruct instead of the arti reconstruct. I may take the other slas just for topping off, but am not expecting much from those.

I actually tried a 14 Pal/6 Art when on the test server, except as an Aasimar, and using Onatar for deity feats while using daggers. It actually worked out decently. Just swap out Harper for Vistani and take Divine Might from Chalice.

I was able to squeeze in 32 points into Mastermaker (Paragon Body + most of the other stuff), 21 into Vistani (knife crits), 13 into Defender (Reinforced Sacred Defense HP), and 14 into Chalice (Divine Might & Exalted Cleave). Vistani isn't the best but it's what I was speccing for with other builds so I tried to make it work, so a lot of those points can go into Harper for Int instead, and racial AP will work as well. Alternatively you can just go further into another tree for even more benefits.

Runearms would still probably be preferable to orbs for damage. In particular, Machination of Madness is amazing even with the neg it will apply, because it's basically a free DoT while also adding some extra repair amp.

Vistani is great for fleshy build - and you probably don't even need repairs and can go with conventional healing.

[RD2play]

I am running a 15pal/4arti/1ftr PDK CHA/INT build atm, and will definitely dip into this tree.

I'll keep an eye on this tread as it develops, but as of yet I have nothing really to contribute. As I like crazy builds and making them viable but am not a powergamer in any way.

I do like to front load the cleave attacks tho since they are a great tool while leveling. But since I use PDK and have access to Helm deity I do have a bit more freedom on the feats due to the bonus feat and not having to burn one on exotic weapon.

[Kodwraith]

I have been trying this level split out just using Battle Engineer / Sacred Defender on my alt (normally my crafter, so mostly +3 , +4, +5 tomes, 34 pt build). I had originally built him as a 14 pally/5 rogue /1 arti repeater / xbow build from back in the days when 14 pally > 20 rogue for basically everything.

So far the DPS is... not great in SWF. I went INT based with 12 points into Harper for KTA / Strategic Combat, 8 in Bladeforged tree for Reconstruct and 36 into BE, rest into SD. The lack of Diving Might is livable as I'm getting KTA, but the SD enhancements don't seem to be enough to really offset the lack of DPS. Granted, my gear sucks at the moment, but it just seems kinda meh. The survivablility is ok, but without RMM or direcharge there's no way to take on multiple mobs at all.

With RMM released, I can reclaim a bunch of AP from Racial since I get Reconstruct on the way to T5 RMM. LD is nice because it boosts both ranged and melee.

I took Adamantine Body, SWF x3, ImpC Slash, PA (which I'll probably switch to precision), Quicken (arti), Bastard Sword. That was heroic. OC at 21, then PBS(24), PSWF(26), ImpC Ranged(27), Doubleshot(28). DireCharge(29), PreciseShot(30).

What am I missing?

[Kodwraith]

I have been trying this level split out just using Battle Engineer / Sacred Defender on my alt (normally my crafter, so mostly +3 , +4, +5 tomes, 34 pt build). I had originally built him as a 14 pally/5 rogue /1 arti repeater / xbow build from back in the days when 14 pally > 20 rogue for basically everything.

So far the DPS is... not great in SWF. I went INT based with 12 points into Harper for KTA / Strategic Combat, 8 in Bladeforged tree for Reconstruct and 36 into BE, rest into SD. The lack of Diving Might is livable as I'm getting KTA, but the SD enhancements don't seem to be enough to really offset the lack of DPS. Granted, my gear sucks at the moment, but it just seems kinda meh. The survivablility is ok, but without RMM or direcharge there's no way to take on multiple mobs at all.

With RMM released, I can reclaim a bunch of AP from Racial since I get Reconstruct on the way to T5 RMM. LD is nice because it boosts both ranged and melee.

I took Adamantine Body, SWF x3, ImpC Slash, PA (which I'll probably switch to precision), Quicken (arti), Bastard Sword. That was heroic. OC at 21, then PBS(24), PSWF(26), ImpC Ranged(27), Doubleshot(28). DireCharge(29), PreciseShot(30).

What am I missing?

I'm running the split as 15/5 for HolySword/zeal. I switched over my AP to RMM definitely improved surviveability to this: Harper 8, RMM 36 (T5)s, SD 6, BE 30 (T4). I picked up Endless Fusilade for the bow and that helped a lot (I have haste boost out of LD). With completely gimp gear at 26, I'm running around with only about 99 PRR and 100ish AC. So not very tank-y at all. I'm debating pulling the 25+AP out of BE over to SD to double dip on auras and defense. RMM helped a lot and the battlefist and mighty slam are nice. Even with only 5 arti levels, the rune arm does a lot of damage. (but of course is wildly hard to target).

The single biggest issue seems to be you are effectively locked into a single combat style xbow or bsword but you don't quite have the feats/enhancements for both. This isn't that weird, lots of toons can't switch styles dynamically. Honestly, in this sense 6 Kensai seems a much better investment, so I think if you want to run a melee + runearm build, a SWF version of slarden's 12/6/2 build seems a much more promising platform. There just isn't currently enough reason to go 15 pally.

I'm going to try to play with the AP and see if I can build for pure offense with BE + KotC and see what happens. IT'd also be interesting to tr a pure STR build with Diving Might. There's no particular reason you can't have highish STR and INT on this build, especially if you largely ditch the xbow.

Side fun note: gearing with CC for doubleshot AND doublestrike is a fun puzzle.

With SWF and a vanilla LGS Bsword, I'm doing about 150 dmg a hit on the dummy with a pretty high attack rate. Rune arm is doing +1k per full charge. By contrast my 24 monk main with very good gear is doing 250+ per hit with an even higher attack rate.

[Vorachtin]

This is complete theory-crafting. Just looking to try out the new Renegade Master tree - 15 Paladin / 5 Artificer melee build when it's released soon.

St: 8
Int: 18 (all level ups)
Dex: 6
Wis: 6
Con: 18
Char: 16

Feats:

1) Adamantine Plating
3) Single Weapon Fighting
6) Improved Single Weapon Fighting
9) Improved Critical Slashing
12) Khopesh Proficiency
15) Quicken (Artificer Spell)
15) Greater Single Weapon Fighting
18) Power Attack
21) Overwhelming Critical
24) Cleave
26) Perfect Single Weapon Fighting
27) Greater Cleave
29) Dire Charge
30) Insightful Reflexes
30) Scion of Arborea or Scion of Fire

Renegade Master: 32 pts
Harper: 12
Sacred Defender: 13
Bladeforged: 13
Knights of Chalice: 9

Idea is a survivable swf rune arm with a bit of arcane warrior flavor with Legendary Blight Inferno + Burnscar Sash + an insightful combustion item along with energy burst fire possibly in divine crusader. Not yet sure if the renegade master cleave is on the same timer as other cleaves, but not too worried about it even if it is.

20% + 6 con from renegade master. Another 20% hp from Sacred Defender. Solid repairs with a 6 second cooldown in racial tree and good repair amp - backup repair spells from bladeforged paladin spellbook.. Full trapping skills. Crit bonuses from holy sword.

Obviously a work in progress and not well thought out Any suggestions would appreciated as I would like to try out this build soon after U38.

This is based off the latest tree proposal. I am liking the int-based melee stun.

not bad, could be better if you dropped khopesh and used the daxe and set bonus from the new set. the +1 artifact crit multiplier stacks with other crit multipliers.

[slarden]

not bad, could be better if you dropped khopesh and used the daxe and set bonus from the new set. the +1 artifact crit multiplier stacks with other crit multipliers.

Ax has 20 crit range and 3 multiplier. Khopesh has 19-20 crit range and 3 multiplier.

With improved critical - comparing the two:

Khopesh:

16: x4 multiplier (3 exta crit #s)
17: x4 mulitplier (3 extra crit #s)
18: x4 multiplier (3 extra crit #s)
19: x4 multiplier (3 extra crit #s)
20: x4 multliplier (3 extra crit #s)

Dwarven axe with set bonus

18: x4 multiplier (3 extra crit #s)
19: x5 multiplier (4 extra crit #s)
20: x5 multiplier (4 extra crit #s)

Khopesh ends up with more crit damage. Nightmother / Morninglord khopesh also has slightly higher base damage (1d8 + 4 vs. 1d10 +2 assuming the wiki is right). So set bonus benefit is mainly the 20 repair amp and the built-in armor piercing.

I have been trying this level split out just using Battle Engineer / Sacred Defender on my alt (normally my crafter, so mostly +3 , +4, +5 tomes, 34 pt build). I had originally built him as a 14 pally/5 rogue /1 arti repeater / xbow build from back in the days when 14 pally > 20 rogue for basically everything.

So far the DPS is... not great in SWF. I went INT based with 12 points into Harper for KTA / Strategic Combat, 8 in Bladeforged tree for Reconstruct and 36 into BE, rest into SD. The lack of Diving Might is livable as I'm getting KTA, but the SD enhancements don't seem to be enough to really offset the lack of DPS. Granted, my gear sucks at the moment, but it just seems kinda meh. The survivablility is ok, but without RMM or direcharge there's no way to take on multiple mobs at all.

With RMM released, I can reclaim a bunch of AP from Racial since I get Reconstruct on the way to T5 RMM. LD is nice because it boosts both ranged and melee.

I took Adamantine Body, SWF x3, ImpC Slash, PA (which I'll probably switch to precision), Quicken (arti), Bastard Sword. That was heroic. OC at 21, then PBS(24), PSWF(26), ImpC Ranged(27), Doubleshot(28). DireCharge(29), PreciseShot(30).

What am I missing?

The reason for paladin was to get the +1 crit range and multiplier and zeal for free rather than making a significant ap investment, combined with the racial reconstruct from bladeforged (which comes with 1 paladin level) and the repair spells that come with the bladeforged/paladin combo. This was all theory crafting and unfortunately I've been too busy with work to level up this build.

Int vs. divine might was to take advantage of the 3rd cleave from RMM with stun. While leveling you would use the paladin cleave as well. I expected dps to be good but not great, but it sounds like your experience is that it's weaksauce dps. That's disappointing to hear. When I get some time I'll try tweaking to see if it's salvageable or not.

I'm running the split as 15/5 for HolySword/zeal. I switched over my AP to RMM definitely improved surviveability to this: Harper 8, RMM 36 (T5)s, SD 6, BE 30 (T4). I picked up Endless Fusilade for the bow and that helped a lot (I have haste boost out of LD). With completely gimp gear at 26, I'm running around with only about 99 PRR and 100ish AC. So not very tank-y at all. I'm debating pulling the 25+AP out of BE over to SD to double dip on auras and defense. RMM helped a lot and the battlefist and mighty slam are nice. Even with only 5 arti levels, the rune arm does a lot of damage. (but of course is wildly hard to target).

The single biggest issue seems to be you are effectively locked into a single combat style xbow or bsword but you don't quite have the feats/enhancements for both. This isn't that weird, lots of toons can't switch styles dynamically. Honestly, in this sense 6 Kensai seems a much better investment, so I think if you want to run a melee + runearm build, a SWF version of slarden's 12/6/2 build seems a much more promising platform. There just isn't currently enough reason to go 15 pally.

I'm going to try to play with the AP and see if I can build for pure offense with BE + KotC and see what happens. IT'd also be interesting to tr a pure STR build with Diving Might. There's no particular reason you can't have highish STR and INT on this build, especially if you largely ditch the xbow.

Side fun note: gearing with CC for doubleshot AND doublestrike is a fun puzzle.

With SWF and a vanilla LGS Bsword, I'm doing about 150 dmg a hit on the dummy with a pretty high attack rate. Rune arm is doing +1k per full charge. By contrast my 24 monk main with very good gear is doing 250+ per hit with an even higher attack rate.

I went straight melee, with crossbow only for situations where I can't live, safe spot auto targeting against big bags of hp and when I can't reach something.

I would be interested in hearing how the strength build goes. I guess the other option is to go straight ranged, but I find melee cleaving to be better aoe.

[Kodwraith]

BTW slarden, I hadn't realized you were the one posting when I referenced your really really good 12/6/2 build thread. Clearly you are familiar with arti hybrids.

I should mention a couple things before claiming I had meh DPS on this toon:
- my baseline was my 26 monk main doing monk lives with pretty optimal gear, full EDs in LD doing 250+ PER HIT, with 150ish PRR, 100ish AC, 40% dodge and stunning a lot.
- This was not on my main or even a frequently played alt. This was one a sometimes alt crafter with +3/4 tomes and all CC gear while trying to level EDs, so not optimized in any way.
- I was trying to squeeze in xbow feats and gear as well since it seems to work better for my play style (mostly solo while dying a lot).

My experience was the SD/RM combo still didn't seem to allow enough survivability and CC on LE to solo. Basically I would get killed by a pack of mobs since I couldn't CC the stragglers long enough to kill them. I have no idea how this would work with a "real" toon geared out. Loading up on XBOW/SLAs and keeping to range seems to suit my play style (kiting and praying) better for soloing.

For comparison I used to run my main as an "Anti paladin" with 15pally/5warlock running in ES with SWF and bastard swords. I found the same thing. The DPS was OK but 5 more pally levels and full KotC was better.