Dwarven Warhammer Paladin help

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Hireling

Well-known member
Heyas, I have started playing an alt with low racial points (3 from MD).

He is going into his 3rd life soon. He will have 2 Cleric PLs.

I was thinking about trying to make a Warhammer/Onatar based Dwarven Paladin.

I haven't really made a Paladin in a few years, so unsure if I am "doing it right".

I really want to use Warhammers. Unsure if I should do SWF with an Orb or TWF or Doing the KotC and Vangaurd combo or Sacred Defender combo.

KotC gets cleaves in the tree and Knight's Training too. This helps with AoE and I wouldn't need to use a feat for Knight's Training.

I was mainly thinking SWF with an Orb for attack speed and the Elemental Absorption. Anyone try this before? Or is Warhammer and Shield the obvious way to go? Or 2 Warhammers?

Stats and feats

Was thinking Starting with 16 STR and 14 CHR and 18 CON (so never paying the 3 points per 1 stat point cost) Guessing levels ups into STR.

Feats would be:
3-4 of SWF or TWF or the Shield Feats with maybe Off-Hand Versatility or Oversized TWF or Improved Shield Bash
Precision
Improved Crit
Stunning Blow
Magical Training if I want to use Orb and Feydark Illusionist

1 First melee style (SWF TWF Shield Master)
3 Magical Training if doing SWF or Precision or Stunning Blow maybe Oversized TWF
6 Second Melee Style Feat (ISWF, ITWF, Improved Shield Mastery though will need to move shield down a bit/later)
9 Improved Crit
12 Third Melee Style Feat (GSWF, GTWF or Shield stuff)
15 Precision or Stunning Blow
18 Dwarf Dragonmark for Radiant Forcefield. Will put AP into Racial Tree at this point.
21 Overwhelming Crit

Have also thought about Going full tilt on CHR and using Feydark Illusionist for CHR to hit and damage and Color Spray for some CC? If I did this, I'd start with 16 CHR and lower DEX a tad since I wouldn't need to qualify for TWF

Any help would be appreciated.
 
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Terpilar

Terpilar

Well-known member
Vanguard gives you attack speed and shield bashes in the cores and some CC, KotC gets you the cleaves, a strong imbue and the trance, the Shield Mastery line of feats adds to your doublestrike – so you go 41 in one and 21+ in the other, choosing which tier 5 you prefer, the 18 APs left plus your 3 racial APs let you take the Radiant Forcefield SLA which needs 12 points, leaving 9 points, 4 of which can be put in Sacred Defender to at least get the extra LoH, the last 5 points maybe get some more tier 4 Vanguard or Kotc goodies or get something in tier 4 of your racial tree since you've spent a lot there already. IMO the right combination of Dwarven flavor, punchiness and resilience.

The Feydark route doesn't seem very dwarven to me and you'd be spreading your APs a lot.
 
K

Kodewraith

Well-known member
I'm in the middle of Dwarf life 3 and has similar ideas about warhammers + shields. My experience is the Shield just isn't worth it wile leveling. The main issue is that 2HF is just so much faster for cutting down mobs, especially if you've got a ML10 SoS. The SWF route + Knight's training is _almost_ as fast, but relies more on cleaves and less on glancing blows. I basically didn't need th AC from the shield running solo on R1 from 1 -> 27. YMMV, but I found I just didn't get hit enough to justify the slow down in AoE. Especially if you're runnign in groups and the Sorcs are tearing through mobs before you get there.

That said, if you're lower on PLs and APs, of are a dedicated tank, or want t aflavor, the shield + wh line is completely fine. I haven't done the forcefield DM while leveling at all. My normal "using a shield" loadout is ShieldMastery line feats with 41 AP in KotC, 31 in Vanguard and 6 in SD for the 25 PRR/MRR. Note that if you decide to go Dwarven Axe, take the Shield Mastery line + 1 or more THF feats to get the extra strikethough.
 
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Kodewraith

Well-known member
I'm back up to 25 after a ETR. I'm mostly using Bsword + shield with full Shield and 2HF feats lines. The shield + hammer is still behind DPS on SWF, but not by as much as I would have thought. I'm using DC, Fury as my main DCs with healling from the epic strike in EA.

One thing to note, I'm in 15Pally/5 DL with 36 odd AP in DL. This doesn't leave much room for Vanguard + SD, so I ended up taking only like 22AP in vanguard. As such I had to forgo my normal 6 AP in SD spend, so I'm down 25PRR/MRR, so the shield is not quite as tanky as I'd have thought. If you're pure pally I think the best shield spend seems to be 41 KotC, 6 SD, 8 Vistani (haste), rest (~25) in Vanguard.
 
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Darkspyre2000

Member
Kodewraith said:
I'm back up to 25 after a ETR. I'm mostly using Bsword + shield with full Shield and 2HF feats lines. The shield + hammer is still behind DPS on SWF, but not by as much as I would have thought. I'm using DC, Fury as my main DCs with healling from the epic strike in EA.

One thing to note, I'm in 15Pally/5 DL with 36 odd AP in DL. This doesn't leave much room for Vanguard + SD, so I ended up taking only like 22AP in vanguard. As such I had to forgo my normal 6 AP in SD spend, so I'm down 25PRR/MRR, so the shield is not quite as tanky as I'd have thought. If you're pure pally I think the best shield spend seems to be 41 KotC, 6 SD, 8 Vistani (haste), rest (~25) in Vanguard.
Click to expand...
I think 8 points would be better spent in DL (rather than Vistani) for Haste Boost?
 
K

Kodewraith

Well-known member
Hireling said:
I think he was saying if you (or I/me) stayed pure Paladin, the Vistani for Haste
Click to expand...
Correct. BTW the 15 pally / 5 DL split does a ridiculous amount of damage such that it's substantially faster to level in 19+, especially if you have a good twink weapon. The net survivability boost from AoE stun is significant. In the non-shield mode, I think I ended up with 36 DL, ~26KotC, 6 SD, the rest in Berserker. I didn't Rage, so I did the SD aura instead for the extra PRR/MRR.
 
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