[Tank Poll] Holy Slayer (Trickster/Bleak Walker) vs Swashbuckler (Unbroken/Streetfighter)

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

 

 

Holy slayer was my vote.

 

I don't see how the other two make up for FoD or lay on hands. Swashy is good but for pure min/max it won't touch holy slayer. Also HS is a bit more fun to micro.

 

My standard usage is first 10-20s use a shield and then swap to dual wield after the initial pressure is absorbed and your party does its thing (works solo too more or less). Once the dual wielding happens its FoD spam time, bonus to set the AI to devastating blow at 50% target hp.

 

Hunkering down with a shield all the time just hits the breaks on the pain train, and that makes the pain train sad. Choo Choo.

 

The poor pain train...

 

I can kind of see that though - Unbroken only really shines when enemies break engagement with you. So if the AI is smart, it won't, and then you just get left with a bunch of enemies hammering your face. 

 

From a roleplay perspective, I CAN make a Bleak Walker Principi work, I just have to bend the rules of how Bleak Walkers work in canon a bit for it to fit with the kind of character I want to play. I wonder if I could get away with the Blackened Plate armor as a Pally? 

 

I definitely want to be a Rogue multiclass tank though, because the extra splash of damage Rogue provides is just too good. 

 

 

What Thundercleese said is true basically fighters are more pure martial classes focused on disrupting the enemy while paladin has a bunch of utility thrown in with their abilities that improve their party members attacks.

 

case in point:

 

FoD vs Penetrating strike or Knockdown: FoD can buff fire lash on everyone in the party, fighter takes it to the enemy and maybe knocks them down.

 

Inspiring Beacon vs Charge - the paladin abilities improves everyone around them in that enemies take extra damage for x time, while the fighter ability tries to disrupt the enemy again by knocking them down. 

 

but in general all tanks are pretty "low maintenance" if they good

 

So I'm curious which you'd recommend? I know you had good fun with a Bleak Walker/Trickster on solo - did you have issues with engagements there? I'm assuming Persistent Distraction only applies for as many enemies as YOU have engagement slots, not all of the ones that are engaging you - correct me if I'm wrong. 

 

Would you say its damage is on par to, or surpasses, a Swashbuckler? Flames of Devotion, especially with Eternal Devotion, seems like a really good DPS upgrade, especially combined with what Rogue gets. 

 

Would a Streetfighter/Bleak Walker work for this kind of tanky playstyle, or am I better off sticking with Trickster for defensive upgrades?

 

Are all of these questions super annoying? 

 

I also need to consider which would be more effective in a party, since I don't really feel comfortable soloing yet. Though if I were to solo, I feel like the Holy Slayer would be better in that regard too. 

 

In a party based setting I would always go for Paladin over Fighter in a tank - yes the Fighter can do very good damage even as a tank but as I stated the over net gain from other perks which a paladin provides will be less. The Party will be overall more efficient with a Paladin /x tank. 

 

Now streetfighter/ trickster are two completely different builds for paladin.

 

With trickster you are generally the main tank as you will have the best defenses. With streeetfighter, it becomes an off tank. in a party of 5 there is generally the tank, the offtank, 2 damage dealer glass cannons and a healer/buffer. Broken down more specifically the main tank is there to hold aggro, take a beating if necessery and either support the team with some form of party buffs to their offensive prowess or debuff the enemies so they become easier to hit (Holysleter trickster can do all three and deal good damage for tank to boot). The offtank is there to 1.) pull aggro off the main tank and the squishies if the main tank becomes too stressed 2.) to deal "decent" damage though not as much as the pure damage dealers though more is always better 3.) provide anything else that  team might need at any given point - the offtank is the wildcard slot really (chanters and Priests excel at this role for example).  The two damage dealers are usually broken down to one is strong in aoe damage and the other is strong in single target and burst damage. If the damage dealers can also debilitate/ cc targets on the side while doing damage that is a bonus. Finally, healer/buffer is there to make sure everyone is healthy and defenses are up. That to me is an efficient party composition. For example, my last run in a party was Tank-Holyslayer, Offtank Shaman, Aoe dps Mindstalker, burst/single target dps Marauder, Healerbuffer was a Theurge. 

 

 

Alright. As long as the Holy Slayer tank can do *okay* damage then that's fine. I just didn't want to end up at the bottom of the total damage chart. I play a tank in an MMO, and it's always nice to outdamage at least one of the DPS (More often the AoE damage dealer). 

 

I might honestly recruit custom adventurers/sidekicks for my next party. Because frankly I don't like the companions enough to really care much about what they want me to do. I'll still do their personal quests to upgrade their gear and stuff, but after that? Eh. Vatnir can stay though, he's new and pretty cool. Pun not intended. Maybe if they actually do add the Triple Crown Solo achievement I'll go ahead and genuinely solo it. 

[Malkoy]

Goldpact is much better imho for tanking purposes.

 

They get penalties for "passionate" and "aggressive" behavior, and from what I read you are trying to role-play as a smart-ass who really don't give a damn and is piratey, which in this game are

"Clever"(Humor/Sarcasm: Eder: "Is Eothas Worth Following?", PC: "Even Berath wants us to follow him!" XD )-

"Stoic" ("I don't give a dam type of attitude: Flip off Bennewith, then remind him of who you are by flipping him off again, long sullen silences during gods' tirades)-

"Shady"(sacrastic "[lie] I would would never look into the bag that you want me to fectch for you, how could you even ask such a question?!").

 

On a side note I was blown away due to the amount of intimidate checks that are not aggressive. Usually aggressive choices are: screw dialogue, lets fight type of picks

 

I am wary of deflection gear like Casita Samelia's Legacy due to the Entonia Signet and "That armor with stacking deflection that also doesn't work and requires negative rep -4 to get"=P

 

People are clinging to Bleakwalkers, even though they are not what they used to be: FoD nerfed, Bleakwalker FoD bonus damage nerfed, Const affliction healing reduction nerfed. I might be mistaken, but I sense some inspiration drawn from this build: The Faceless Dancer . With focus on pure deflection and with limited class resources on solo (Especially SOLO+Berath Challenge) this little bit of damage and one extra affliction are so much more useful than in the group environment.

 

I personally play-tested all paladin sub-classes on PotD:

 

Dracozzi are widely perceived weakest, and they live up to this rep. Mostly because if you'd like to even begin utilizing flame shield, you need low deflection, high armor and plenty of healing supply. Sadly for us, AI steers away from high armor value characters. The only way to get enemies to hit you is to engage them and satisfy above conditions, which is about as easy and simple as shooting off left nut off a fly, with a blunderbuss while piloting a plane.

 

Shieldbearers are mechanically interesting due to +1 engagement for laying distracted de-buff from rogue tree and work well with Pale Plate helm and Kapana Taga, but are tied into using a shield to receive it this bonus. If this is you designated tank, and you have a healer to look after them, you might want to consider. Invulnerability granted by the Lay on hands sounds good, doesn't work. If you Lay on Heands on target that is about to die in the middle of recovery phase, the target will die. Lay On health don't provide throughoutput to bring the target up quick enough if the target is being focused by enemy. If you are doing everything right, you would be taking most of the damage in your team, but you don't get invulnerability, so it's very meh.

 

Kind Wayfarers are very meh. I had high hopes for them, and they embody my RP preferences best among all the sub-classes. As mentioned above, AI tends to disregard high armor targets. Now your melee characters surrounding Paladin would fall into this "ignored" category. Backline squishes are the ones who will need healing, but the radius is not that good on the FoD healing, so even with 20-25 Int you'll be pulling your squishes into AoE danger zone, if you'd like them to benefit from this healing.

 

Goldpact Kinghts benefit greatly from essentially "free" +4 bonus armor, once you get a Refund Upgrade on your Sworn Enemy. Gilded Enmity lasts for 7 ->hits<- (or crits), which are rarely going to happen to Trickster though (miss-miss-graze-miss). Basically the only time I have had to use Lay on Hands on my GREATSWORD (WotEP) Trickster/Goldpact on PotD was on a final boss, when my team died to each other due to dominate. If you rock a good large shield, you can throuw couple of health regen items on your tank and forget about ever healing them again.

 

Hope that helps. Worst comes to worst, you can always offload the burden of RP limitations to the custom adventurer=P

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Goldpact is much better imho for tanking purposes.

 

They get penalties for "passionate" and "aggressive" behavior, and from what I read you are trying to role-play as a smart-ass who really don't give a damn and is piratey, which in this game are

"Clever"(Humor/Sarcasm: Eder: "Is Eothas Worth Following?", PC: "Even Berath wants us to follow him!" XD )-

"Stoic" ("I don't give a dam type of attitude: Flip off Bennewith, then remind him of who you are by flipping him off again, long sullen silences during gods' tirades)-

"Shady"(sacrastic "[lie] I would would never look into the bag that you want me to fectch for you, how could you even ask such a question?!").

 

On a side note I was blown away due to the amount of intimidate checks that are not aggressive. Usually aggressive choices are: screw dialogue, lets fight type of picks

 

I am wary of deflection gear like Casita Samelia's Legacy due to the Entonia Signet and "That armor with stacking deflection that also doesn't work and requires negative rep -4 to get"=P

 

People are clinging to Bleakwalkers, even though they are not what they used to be: FoD nerfed, Bleakwalker FoD bonus damage nerfed, Const affliction healing reduction nerfed. I might be mistaken, but I sense some inspiration drawn from this build: The Faceless Dancer . With focus on pure deflection and with limited class resources on solo (Especially SOLO+Berath Challenge) this little bit of damage and one extra affliction are so much more useful than in the group environment.

 

I personally play-tested all paladin sub-classes on PotD:

 

Dracozzi are widely perceived weakest, and they live up to this rep. Mostly because if you'd like to even begin utilizing flame shield, you need low deflection, high armor and plenty of healing supply. Sadly for us, AI steers away from high armor value characters. The only way to get enemies to hit you is to engage them and satisfy above conditions, which is about as easy and simple as shooting off left nut off a fly, with a blunderbuss while piloting a plane.

 

Shieldbearers are mechanically interesting due to +1 engagement for laying distracted de-buff from rogue tree and work well with Pale Plate helm and Kapana Taga, but are tied into using a shield to receive it this bonus. If this is you designated tank, and you have a healer to look after them, you might want to consider. Invulnerability granted by the Lay on hands sounds good, doesn't work. If you Lay on Heands on target that is about to die in the middle of recovery phase, the target will die. Lay On health don't provide throughoutput to bring the target up quick enough if the target is being focused by enemy. If you are doing everything right, you would be taking most of the damage in your team, but you don't get invulnerability, so it's very meh.

 

Kind Wayfarers are very meh. I had high hopes for them, and they embody my RP preferences best among all the sub-classes. As mentioned above, AI tends to disregard high armor targets. Now your melee characters surrounding Paladin would fall into this "ignored" category. Backline squishes are the ones who will need healing, but the radius is not that good on the FoD healing, so even with 20-25 Int you'll be pulling your squishes into AoE danger zone, if you'd like them to benefit from this healing.

 

Goldpact Kinghts benefit greatly from essentially "free" +4 bonus armor, once you get a Refund Upgrade on your Sworn Enemy. Gilded Enmity lasts for 7 ->hits<- (or crits), which are rarely going to happen to Trickster though (miss-miss-graze-miss). Basically the only time I have had to use Lay on Hands on my GREATSWORD (WotEP) Trickster/Goldpact on PotD was on a final boss, when my team died to each other due to dominate. If you rock a good large shield, you can throuw couple of health regen items on your tank and forget about ever healing them again.

 

Hope that helps. Worst comes to worst, you can always offload the burden of RP limitations to the custom adventurer=P

 

Hrm... Goldpact DOES sound nice... but then, there's that matter of RP-ibility. I'd probably have to modify it a bit for it to be workable from a pirate perspective, but then I'd have to do the same thing for the Bleak Walkers.

 

Yes, I was HEAVILY inspired by the Faceless Dancer - and I do acknowledge that that's a solo build, and thus rather different. 

 

(I do kind of like the idea of just sitting silently during the gods' conversations, because it's not like anything you say to them actually MATTERS. I can just imagine your Watcher tapping your foot and checking their proverbial watch. "Are you done yet?)

 

Their favored dispositions are Rational and Stoic, aren't they? I do like that Stoic is flipping off Benweth. It does imply that just because you tend to act that way doesn't mean you're above a little cheek. 

 

Plus doesn't their buff give you a cool golden armor shell? 

 

My Paladin info is a little outdated, so I do need to take a look at how badly FoD was nerfed. 

[Malkoy]

Got you covered. I'm #1 Paladin Fan. Yes, Gilded Enmity duration is supported by golden shell visual, that also beautifully cracks (you can see shards on the ground) once broken.
 
Honestly between Bleakwalkers and Goldpact, I would have to say that Goldpact adhere to modern pirates stereotype more. They are all about money (booty comes first, rational part, dead don't pay, hence lack of love for aggression) and contracts (honor among thieves, not bound by conventional morals like passionate characters, hence stoic). Whoever pays, has Goldpacts loyalty once the pact have been sealed. 
 
Bleakwalkers at least to me, associate more with totalitarian dedicators or barbarian kings. Sort of you are either with me or against me character.
 
Food for though, from Blackbeard's Wikipedia page:

"Teach was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of force, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response that he desired from those whom he robbed. Contrary to the modern-day picture of the traditional tyrannical pirate, he commanded his vessels with the consent of their crews and there is no known account of his ever having harmed or murdered those whom he held captive. He was romanticized after his death and became the inspiration for an archetypal pirate in works of fiction across many genres."

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Got you covered. I'm #1 Paladin Fan. Yes, Gilded Enmity duration is supported by golden shell visual, that also beautifully cracks (you can see shards on the ground) once broken.

 

Honestly between Bleakwalkers and Goldpact, I would have to say that Goldpact adhere to modern pirates stereotype more. They are all about money (booty comes first, rational part, dead don't pay, hence lack of love for aggression) and contracts (honor among thieves, not bound by conventional morals like passionate characters, hence stoic). Whoever pays, has Goldpacts loyalty once the pact have been sealed. 

 

Bleakwalkers at least to me, associate more with totalitarian dedicators or barbarian kings. Sort of you are either with me or against me character.

 

Food for though, from Blackbeard's Wikipedia page:

"Teach was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of force, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response that he desired from those whom he robbed. Contrary to the modern-day picture of the traditional tyrannical pirate, he commanded his vessels with the consent of their crews and there is no known account of his ever having harmed or murdered those whom he held captive. He was romanticized after his death and became the inspiration for an archetypal pirate in works of fiction across many genres."

 

Hmm. You make a very good point there. Plus, more or less getting Ironskin is pretty great. 

 

And it's fitting in with the Principi too. If you garner a reputation for slaughtering people, they'll be more willing to fight to the death. Plus the focus on Sworn Enemy/Sworn Rival (Gilded Enmity/Gilded Rival?) is essentially a mark. 

 

Tomorrow, I'm going to start producing a more complete version of the build I want to play, going for a Goldpact Knight perspective. 

[Malkoy]

 

Got you covered. I'm #1 Paladin Fan. Yes, Gilded Enmity duration is supported by golden shell visual, that also beautifully cracks (you can see shards on the ground) once broken.

 

Honestly between Bleakwalkers and Goldpact, I would have to say that Goldpact adhere to modern pirates stereotype more. They are all about money (booty comes first, rational part, dead don't pay, hence lack of love for aggression) and contracts (honor among thieves, not bound by conventional morals like passionate characters, hence stoic). Whoever pays, has Goldpacts loyalty once the pact have been sealed. 

 

Bleakwalkers at least to me, associate more with totalitarian dedicators or barbarian kings. Sort of you are either with me or against me character.

 

Food for though, from Blackbeard's Wikipedia page:

"Teach was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of force, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response that he desired from those whom he robbed. Contrary to the modern-day picture of the traditional tyrannical pirate, he commanded his vessels with the consent of their crews and there is no known account of his ever having harmed or murdered those whom he held captive. He was romanticized after his death and became the inspiration for an archetypal pirate in works of fiction across many genres."

 

Hmm. You make a very good point there. Plus, more or less getting Ironskin is pretty great. 

 

And it's fitting in with the Principi too. If you garner a reputation for slaughtering people, they'll be more willing to fight to the death. Plus the focus on Sworn Enemy/Sworn Rival (Gilded Enmity/Gilded Rival?) is essentially a mark. 

 

Tomorrow, I'm going to start producing a more complete version of the build I want to play, going for a Goldpact Knight perspective. 

 

 

Since you will be tanky enough, you also get to choose your weapons with close to no restrictions, I enjoyed pirate RP with Serafen's mortars personally, Scordeo's Edge and Scordeo's Trophy are pirate's wet dream. I would try Duelist with one Blunderbuss concept with Streetfighter/Goldpact for my damage dealer on Triple Crown+ Magran's Challenge once I finish my Solo+Berath's grind.