I've just leveled my Sylvanus Maul to 20. He is a 8 Fighter/12 FvS PDK. Summarizing my mixed feelings over this build during heroics I'd say "meh". It is not bad, not at all. The most precise annotation would be: a rip-off paladin yet a fun way to play melee FvS.
Charachterwise I've got +2 inherent on all abilities (except for a +5 on STR), 36 point build, some past life bonuses (nowhere near completionist of any kind) - so there's nothing really special about accumulated bonuses. I maxed out STR splitting the rest between WIS and CON.
Featwise I went for: weapon focuses, power attack and cleaves, THF, +4 to tacticals and stunning blow, improved crticals, quicken spell and the rest are obvious FvS class feats choices - Sylvanus favored weapon line, absorptions and stout heart.
As per enhancements: a must-have Kensei T5, War Soul's +10% doublestrike and hit-damage with favored weapons line. Rest is rather optional. I also invested left-over APs in Stalwart to get at least some bulk (PRR-MRR, +6 STR, +4 AC, +3 saves, some HPs).
Speaking of the gameplay. What is good about the Sylvanus?
He is a very good party player.
1) He can decently absorb damage with heavy armor, Stalwart defender bonuses and equipment enchantments like protection, shield, natural armor and so on.
2) Heals are consistent. Large mana pool for spell-heals and smite foe AOE heal. You can also invest some points to get FvS SLAs, though I've decided not to. You also get 3 second winds, which is not a bad a thing to have.
3) Multitude of buffs. The same old large mana pool allows you to spam prayer, inflame is nice to have too and a variety of protective spells extends this list. Of course, you also get to resurrect your mates.
4) Finally, the damage. It's fighter-like with a 16-20 x4 critical profile, ability to hit AOE and decent (hopefully) doublestrike (because I got 27% at 20 with a +11% in sight during epics). You'll roughly get 500-600 damage crits with 1000-1200 on a doublestrike proc. It's not annihilative but still tangible. You can also CC with stunning blow reliably using Divine Will enhancement and equipment bonuses to stunning and debuff bosses' with sunder, improved destruction, shattering strike and vulnerability (from smite foe).
So why would I say "meh"?
Well, pretty much because of the same fact - he is a good party player.
While soloing he barely makes it through R1 on half of the quests (I'd say 50% went fine, the other 50% went not as good).
You can't reliably heal yourself on R1, the damages are not good enough to get past batches of mobs fast enough not to hurt yourself real bad and the lack of physical shield in your hands dismisses a big chunk of AC and PRR. Damage increase and ability to AOE are supposed to be the trade-off but they turned out not to be, at least not at the rates I've expected.
You don't get combat style fighting speed, only a few action boosts and man are mauls slow. Enemy fortification downplayed my DPS even further as I didn't take precision, had no armor-piercing item (had an item for AC in its place) and had to rely on sunder, shattering strike and improved destruction, which are applicable effects meaning you spend time procing them with your gigantic, extremly slow maul. Also stunning blow doesn't apply to a large variety of mobs, like undeads for example. There's also a lot of clickity-clackity to this build with many buffs, some spells and a range of melee abilities, which I enjoy, but some people don't.
Maybe with a perfectly attuned equipment and precision feat it would've felt better. Still, heavy equipment dependacy is a downside, especially for newer players.
On my previous life I've played as a 18 Fighter/2 Rogue with a tower shield and a bastard sword, using shield combat style and THF. Both DPS and survivability felt way better. On the other hand my previous attempt at a warpriest (shield-and-sword 16 Cleric/4 Fighter) went awfully worse with the guy not doing any damage at all and being on the verge of failure as a tin can.
Conclusion:
Mediocre solo player and almost excellent party member. Excells in nothing, can do most things decently. You can level him fast but you'll have to avoid reaper difficulty most of the time if you are soloing.
I haven't really played epics with this tune so that's a TBD. Would love to hear your experiences with Sylvanus Maul build or other Warpriest build variants.
Charachterwise I've got +2 inherent on all abilities (except for a +5 on STR), 36 point build, some past life bonuses (nowhere near completionist of any kind) - so there's nothing really special about accumulated bonuses. I maxed out STR splitting the rest between WIS and CON.
Featwise I went for: weapon focuses, power attack and cleaves, THF, +4 to tacticals and stunning blow, improved crticals, quicken spell and the rest are obvious FvS class feats choices - Sylvanus favored weapon line, absorptions and stout heart.
As per enhancements: a must-have Kensei T5, War Soul's +10% doublestrike and hit-damage with favored weapons line. Rest is rather optional. I also invested left-over APs in Stalwart to get at least some bulk (PRR-MRR, +6 STR, +4 AC, +3 saves, some HPs).
Speaking of the gameplay. What is good about the Sylvanus?
He is a very good party player.
1) He can decently absorb damage with heavy armor, Stalwart defender bonuses and equipment enchantments like protection, shield, natural armor and so on.
2) Heals are consistent. Large mana pool for spell-heals and smite foe AOE heal. You can also invest some points to get FvS SLAs, though I've decided not to. You also get 3 second winds, which is not a bad a thing to have.
3) Multitude of buffs. The same old large mana pool allows you to spam prayer, inflame is nice to have too and a variety of protective spells extends this list. Of course, you also get to resurrect your mates.
4) Finally, the damage. It's fighter-like with a 16-20 x4 critical profile, ability to hit AOE and decent (hopefully) doublestrike (because I got 27% at 20 with a +11% in sight during epics). You'll roughly get 500-600 damage crits with 1000-1200 on a doublestrike proc. It's not annihilative but still tangible. You can also CC with stunning blow reliably using Divine Will enhancement and equipment bonuses to stunning and debuff bosses' with sunder, improved destruction, shattering strike and vulnerability (from smite foe).
So why would I say "meh"?
Well, pretty much because of the same fact - he is a good party player.
While soloing he barely makes it through R1 on half of the quests (I'd say 50% went fine, the other 50% went not as good).
You can't reliably heal yourself on R1, the damages are not good enough to get past batches of mobs fast enough not to hurt yourself real bad and the lack of physical shield in your hands dismisses a big chunk of AC and PRR. Damage increase and ability to AOE are supposed to be the trade-off but they turned out not to be, at least not at the rates I've expected.
You don't get combat style fighting speed, only a few action boosts and man are mauls slow. Enemy fortification downplayed my DPS even further as I didn't take precision, had no armor-piercing item (had an item for AC in its place) and had to rely on sunder, shattering strike and improved destruction, which are applicable effects meaning you spend time procing them with your gigantic, extremly slow maul. Also stunning blow doesn't apply to a large variety of mobs, like undeads for example. There's also a lot of clickity-clackity to this build with many buffs, some spells and a range of melee abilities, which I enjoy, but some people don't.
Maybe with a perfectly attuned equipment and precision feat it would've felt better. Still, heavy equipment dependacy is a downside, especially for newer players.
On my previous life I've played as a 18 Fighter/2 Rogue with a tower shield and a bastard sword, using shield combat style and THF. Both DPS and survivability felt way better. On the other hand my previous attempt at a warpriest (shield-and-sword 16 Cleric/4 Fighter) went awfully worse with the guy not doing any damage at all and being on the verge of failure as a tin can.
Conclusion:
Mediocre solo player and almost excellent party member. Excells in nothing, can do most things decently. You can level him fast but you'll have to avoid reaper difficulty most of the time if you are soloing.
I haven't really played epics with this tune so that's a TBD. Would love to hear your experiences with Sylvanus Maul build or other Warpriest build variants.
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