Paladin - S&B or THF

[Cavalier]

This has come up a few times but I was wondering about my current build.

I wanted to make a Paladin that could tank if the main tank was incapacitated or to tank a secondary boss/trash mobs when needed and have enough DPS to actually kill stuff on his own.

One word: FAILED.

Now I am not sure if the failure is the build itself or me, but I am considering swapping to a THF Paladin at this point. I was in a EE quest the other day and I was doing more damage with an ESOS without ANY feats to help it that I am with the Feytwisted Longsword from D&DG raid.

I specced out with CON, the standard combat feats, the entire shield line and have an AC around the 430 range, with a PRR somewhere in the 400's (about 80% damage mitigation) and a MRR around 280 IIRC (could be wrong on that last one).

Heroics was easy as you can imagine, but epics, I spend way too much time killing stuff. granted, it can't really kill me, but may, boring is the word.

Most of my hits are for around 200 or so damage with the corresponding crits to go with it that can go in the 3K to 4K range, but most of the time it is in the 1.5K range.

Since you can't have multiple "setups" of feats in DDO, you have to go one way or the other, DPS or TANK, and my build is fail.

So anyone with S&B actually able to be viable as a hybrid TANK/DPS or you have to go one route?

One caveat - I don't play multi-class characters. Ask my guildies (there are precious few left) and they will tell you I play pure classes only and usually human (90% of the time). I *KNOW* this limits some of my options but that is just my prefered way to play. I have racial/epic/heroic completionist and all iconic PL does except for Bladeforged and Morninglord.

So, am I doing something wrong, is there a magic feat I missed that makes this work, or should I just lesser reincarnate into a THF Paladin?

[unbongwah]

I was in a EE quest the other day and I was doing more damage with an ESOS without ANY feats to help it that I am with the Feytwisted Longsword from D&DG raid.

I'm not too surprised. ESOS is 14-20/x4 weapon with Holy Sword + Improved Critical feat plus basic Strikethrough; longsword is only 16-20/x4 with Knights Training feat, lower base damage and no Strikethrough. SWF longsword would be better DPS than S&B longsword: higher attack speed and higher damage modifier.

Your typical Vanguard will spec for bastard swords or dwarven axes to take advantage of:

• 1.6x damage modifier + Strikethrough bonuses from THF feats and Improved Second Strikes (KotC). Racial Strikethrough bonuses will stack too (e.g., Great Weapon Aptitude).
• +20% attack speed and shield-bashing bonuses from Vanguard tree.
• Helm paladins get bastard swords as favored weapons; but only the Forgotten Realms Iconics (excluding Morninglord) can worship him. Dwarves can make dwarven axes into favored weapons for 12 APs (Dwarven Axe Training III).
• Shield Mastery bonuses to doublestrike and PRR.

Don't need to tank? Respec into a THF DPS build just by resetting your Enhancements; then respec back into DPS-tank hybrid or full-tank when necessary.

The biggest downside is this is pretty feat-intensive and pure paladins don't get bonus feats. Fighter Vanguards get a lot more feats to play with, of course, but don't get paladin perks.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-of-Helm-(U45)
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ard-Mmmmmm-AOE

[tpbtoc]

I'm not too surprised. ESOS is 14-20/x4 weapon with Holy Sword + Improved Critical feat plus basic Strikethrough; longsword is only 16-20/x4 with Knights Training feat, lower base damage and no Strikethrough. SWF longsword would be better DPS than S&B longsword: higher attack speed and higher damage modifier.

Your typical Vanguard will spec for bastard swords or dwarven axes to take advantage of:

• 1.6x damage modifier + Strikethrough bonuses from THF feats and Improved Second Strikes (KotC). Racial Strikethrough bonuses will stack too (e.g., Great Weapon Aptitude).
• +20% attack speed and shield-bashing bonuses from Vanguard tree.
• Helm paladins get bastard swords as favored weapons; but only the Forgotten Realms Iconics (excluding Morninglord) can worship him. Dwarves can make dwarven axes into favored weapons for 12 APs (Dwarven Axe Training III).
• Shield Mastery bonuses to doublestrike and PRR.

Don't need to tank? Respec into a THF DPS build just by resetting your Enhancements; then respec back into DPS-tank hybrid or full-tank when necessary.

The biggest downside is this is pretty feat-intensive and pure paladins don't get bonus feats. Fighter Vanguards get a lot more feats to play with, of course, but don't get paladin perks.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-of-Helm-(U45)
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ard-Mmmmmm-AOE

What would be more DPS, the SWF or S&B Pally?

Also, if going Vanguard, is it better to get Vanguard or KOTC core 5?
I am thinking about getting Vanguard core 5 and KoTC tier 5 enhancements.

[unbongwah]

What would be more DPS, the SWF or S&B Pally?

For simplicity's sake, let's presume we're talking pure PDK paladin of Helm so we get Favored weapon bonuses to both bastard swords and long swords.

SWF with longsword: +30% attack speed, 2x damage modifier with Offhand Versatility + PSWF, 16-20/x4 critical threat range with Holy Sword + Knights Training
S&B with bastard sword: +20% attack speed, 1.6x damage modifier (+0.5x GTHF + 0.1x inherent bonus to hand-and-a-half weapons), 16-20/x3 with Holy Sword, 190% Strikethrough (GTHF + 2nd Strikes + Great Weapon Aptitude), shield-bashing procs

I'd say SWF will have higher single-target DPS but the S&B build will (almost) hit 3 targets with every swing. SWF will kill faster one-on-one but I wouldn't claim that it can kill trash mobs 3x faster.

FYI Strimtom has a SWF Bladeforged paladin. Further in the thread I posted a dwarf variant who uses dwarven axes for mobs and battleaxes for bosses which could be converted to PDK (longswords+bastard swords). You can run in Fury of the Wild to take advantage of passive Strikethrough bonuses from Wild+Malicious Weapons (40%) and Unbridled Fury's burst DPS (+100% base and +120% from temp-granted GTHF).

Also, if going Vanguard, is it better to get Vanguard or KOTC core 5?
I am thinking about getting Vanguard core 5 and KoTC tier 5 enhancements.

You can do 41 Vanguard for the capstone / 36 KotC for tier-5s / 3 PDK for Cormyrian Knight Training. Extra racial APs buy you Great Weapon Aptitude (+20 Strikethrough) and/or more KotC. I guess best-case scenario with 96 APs is something like 41 VG / 38 KotC / 17 PDK.

[tpbtoc]

For simplicity's sake, let's presume we're talking pure PDK paladin of Helm so we get Favored weapon bonuses to both bastard swords and long swords.

You can do 41 Vanguard for the capstone / 36 KotC for tier-5s / 3 PDK for Cormyrian Knight Training. Extra racial APs buy you Great Weapon Aptitude (+20 Strikethrough) and/or more KotC. I guess best-case scenario with 96 APs is something like 41 VG / 38 KotC / 17 PDK.

I decided to go S&B. Thinking about going with The Shattered Hilt of Constellation + The Legendary Best Defense, unless there is a better combo out there. Maybe Legendary Ferrocrystal Shield for some summer combo? But then loses Sovereign Vorpal. Also not sure about Bitter Blade, is the freezing proc good enough for some cc?