Bleak walker or Goldpact knight, paladin build help.

[Chrisghast]

SO, the idea is to run a paladin, human. I am just not too sure which way to go i am leaning towards bleak walker because i think theyre back story sounds more interesting and i dont mind being bad. But i am leaning towards goldpact because i am planning on leaving int at 10 and that way the DOT will be okay.

For attributes i am planning on going 16 mig, 10 con, but i am not sure about the dex and perception i want to leave int at 10 and have res up to 15.

I want to be able to catch the res dialogue checks and it also adds to me being an off tank with eder. I am leaning towards using 2 handed weapons namely greatswords and am wondering what dex/per i should use?  I dont prefer a min maxed approach, i know high int is suggested everywhere, but i want my paladin to hit hard with their weapon as well.

 

[Desmodeus]

Two-hander paladin isn't THAT good. Damage fall down quite a lot after you unload your flames of Devotion. Probably best synergy for two-hander paladin will be with Royal deadfire Cannoneer belt, which gives you Firebrand sword summon(giant flaming sword). Or there is good wounding greatsword which gets great boost from your might

IIRC Goldpact dot isn't affected by int. Actually, if you do not care about long effects of your exhortation buffs and zealot aura radius - you can drop int even lower. Focus on damage spells and "right now" effects

Bleak Walkers are actually awesome dual wielding. In WM1 there is saber called bittercut. If has basic corrode damage so it has nice synergy with corrode Flames of Devotion and they are both get bonus from Spirit of Decay. That's damn awesome weapon. And later you can get mold so you can have two bittercuts.

You can actually go even less with con if you are decently good with micro xD

 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Desmodeus

[Boeroer]

Iirc Goldpact's DoT will have lower dps the more INT you have. Because the overall damage will be the same no matter the INT - it just gets spread out over a longer timespan. Same thing with the wounding enchantment on Tidefall (and other wounding weapons) the way.

If you go with Goldpact and lowish INT you might as well use Tidefall (and high MIG) and also pick Runner's Wounding Shot as additional attack ability to use after FoD.

You can indeed make a Paladin with 3 INT and get away with it. There are several abilites/talents that are not influeced by INT or even profit from low INT. 

For a quick inspiration here's a "dumb" Paladin build I made five years ago (I think it was one of my first builds here) :

 

[Desmodeus]

11 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Iirc Goldpact's DoT will have lower dps the more INT you have. Because the overall damage will be the same no matter the INT - it just gets spread out over a longer timespan.

I heard somewhere that in addition its int scaling is bad. On par with might scaling of constant recovery. Might be wrong though

[Chrisghast]

I have spent alot of time looking at all of your builds and this build amongst other threads is what made me feel ok not buffing int. Thanks for clearing up the gold pact Dot. After playing and doing a bit more research it seems the Flames of devotion works better with dual wielding because of the full attack, it gets 2 hits while buffed. (unless i am missing something)  I dont know if i would dump int. all the way down to 3 but I understand the advantage i would get.

From what i gathered there really isnt any advantage i would gain from 2 handed weapons aside from thinking they look cool. Also from what i read if i was using 2 handed weapons, i would need light or medium armor not heavy while leaving dex at 10 or lowering it. Whereas using dual wielding i can still wear heavy armor without slowing me down too much. Is this correct?

How does this sound stat wise? 18.might 8 con. 10 dex 16 per. 10 int and 16 res?

[Desmodeus]

You can get away with 15 Res  I think. And maybe even  a bit less int(around 7 maybe?) so you can get some more dex out. MIG 18 CON 8 DEX 14 PER 16 INT 7 RES 15?

You want heavy armor for looks? Or for DR? In endgame some enemies provide so much damage that DR is irrelevant

[Boeroer]

Two Handers do more base damage and that helps against thick armor. They are as slow or fast as the heavier one handed weapons (hammers, swords, spears etc.). But those you can dual wield which will give you a 50% recovery bonus. So basically yes: you will have a lot faster recovery with your weapons if you are dual wielding and thus thick armor won't feel as slow as long as you are using your weapons.

Flames of Devotion is a Full Attack and thus you will hit twice with it if you are dual wielding. Offhand will hit first, then main hand will follow without recovery in between. Recovery will start only after the second strike. 

Generally speaking I would say dual wielding will be better with FoD against most enemies. But two handers aren't that far behind - especially if you are taking into account that some of the best unique weapons are in fact two handers (see Tidefall for example).

I think dual Bitttercut might be the optimal melee weapon setup for a Bleak Walker as @Desmodeus said. Also because Bittercut has two damage types (corrode/slash) which is a big advantage over normal sabres (which only do slash damage).

 

[Chrisghast]

Thank you for the feed back. I think now I can finally put my mind at ease and sit back and enjoy this masterpiece of a game. I think I'm going to take the stat spread suggested above and go for the dual wield. 

And to answer the question above was thinking heavy armor mostly for the looks.

 

[Chrisghast]

I decided to try and give the 2 handed goldpact knight paladin similar to dull runner i have my starting attributes

might 19, con 8, dex 14, per 15, int 6, res 16

playing through on hard, and plan on using skills similar to what is suggested for dull runner build.

[Boeroer]

Whoops sorry - I missed your update on this (three weeks ago). 

I hope you have fun with this.  Don't hesitate to dump it if you don't