Anything think it's odd that hatchets are the best tanking weapon?

Care to elaborate?

It's give a bonus to deflection (not sure how much). That's how it reads atleast, maybe it means it ignores a certain amount of enemy deflection?

Edited February 7, 201510 yr by BlueLion

maybe it means it ignores a certain amount of enemy deflection?

That's what accuracy does accuracy

 

Hatches give deflection. Which is by far the best tanking stat. Nothing else compares to these small axes in terms of damage reduction. 

Edited February 7, 201510 yr by Bazy

The Hatchets give +5 to deflection so if you want the maximum possible deflection then create a Hatchet and large fine Shield Paladin, with the Faith and Conviction upgrades and the Weapon and Shield talent. That should give you a deflection score in the 80-90's and if you add the ring or bracer's of deflection you can push it up to over 100 Deflection before you've even used any buffs.

 

It doesn't ignore the enemy deflection it gives you a deflection bonus.

Edited February 7, 201510 yr by aeonsim

The Hatchets give +5 to deflection so if you want the maximum possible deflection then create a Hatchet and large fine Shield Paladin, with the Faith and Conviction upgrades and the Weapon and Shield talent. That should give you a deflection score in the 80-90's and if you add the ring or bracer's of deflection you can push it up to over 100 Deflection before you've even used any buffs.

 

It doesn't ignore the enemy deflection it gives you a deflection bonus.

Deep conviction only gives 2 deflection. 

Edited February 7, 201510 yr by Bazy

I had a 100+ deflection Paladin the other day. Makes for a serious tank, but suffered from debuffs due to poor fortitude/will rolls. 

If I think it's odd that a hatchet has deflection? Nope, if I recall correctly the Vikings were fearsome warriors/soldiers with the axe and shield, and developed some techniques with it.

Here's some first-glance research I did but, an Axe (or Hatchet) can hook objects due to the curve of the blade+hilt, legs, arms, neck, and pulling/dragging to get the opponent off-balance. A sword thrust would easily be deflected or "hooked" out of the way (just like the guy is hooking the leg in the video at 2:20-2:30)

 

2:20-2:30
2:50-3:10
4:00-4:10

 

2:00-2:30 explains some more about holding the shield/axe too and why.
2:50-3:00 disarming a sword
3:30-3:50 binding the sword to the shield/disarm

Hope this was insightful OP

Edited February 7, 201510 yr by Osvir

 

The Hatchets give +5 to deflection so if you want the maximum possible deflection then create a Hatchet and large fine Shield Paladin, with the Faith and Conviction upgrades and the Weapon and Shield talent. That should give you a deflection score in the 80-90's and if you add the ring or bracer's of deflection you can push it up to over 100 Deflection before you've even used any buffs.

 

It doesn't ignore the enemy deflection it gives you a deflection bonus.

Deep conviction only gives 2 deflection. 

 

So my lvl 6 Paladin has 103 Deflection before buff spells, which increases to 110 when ever he makes a kill.

 

Deflection bonuses: +4 Perception, +5 Resolve, +5 Faith & Conviction, +5 Hatchet, +24 Large Fine Shield, +10 Weapon & Shield Talent, +10 Ring of Deflection.

So +63 on top of his base, and I've not taken Deep conviction yet or the +5 Deflection talent.

 

 

If you really want to max deflection build a Wild Orlan (+ 10 to defences when Will attacked) with 20 Per (+10 def) & 20 Res (+10 def, need to choose + resolve culture).

Then use a Hatchet +5 def, Fine Large Shield +24 Def, Weapon & Shield Talent +10 Def, Cautious Attack talent +15 Def and a Ring of Deflection +10, Faith & Conviction +5, Deep Faith +2  for a extra 71 Deflection.

 

At 6th level the Paladin will have 136 Deflection when Cautious Attack is active, before any buffs are added if it's hit by a will attack goes to 146, and if you've the right ability get +7 with every kill for 153 Deflection before spells. Most of the other defences will be reasonably decent as well from +15 from faith and conviction + deep faith, + 20 Reflect from the shield, and +7 from the kills and possibly +10 from a will attack.

Edited February 7, 201510 yr by aeonsim

If I think it's odd that a hatchet has high deflection? 

I'm more concerned about hatchets being the only weapons that offer any kind of damage reduction. 

That's what I was trying to make sense of for you in my post (I.E. why they are good at deflecting blows/lowering damage)

That's what I was trying to make sense of for you in my post (I.E. why they are good at deflecting blows/lowering damage)

I got that sense. 

 

But from a gameplay perspective I don't feel like I'm left with a choice.

 

Either 

 

1) do no damage with a hatchet and have some tanking stats, OR

2) do no damage with something else, it will look cool, but you will take more damage. 

 

That being said... with how deflection is scaling... I don't think the 5 deflection will be that important after mid game. 

Edited February 7, 201510 yr by Bazy

Got it. I'd think Axes would have Bonus Deflection too if Hatches have them, and perhaps, like you say "5 isn't much", giving them more through the tiers could make it more of an interesting choice through the entire game.

You can always use enchantment to increase the Hatchets damage (though you can do that for everything else). For a maxed out Deflection Paladin the biggest issue is going to be the reduction in accuracy that results from using the shield.

 

In general I'm not sure the Hatchet makes much sense for a Paladin it's a ~10% increase in defence (at low levels, where def is ~50) in exchange for about 20-30% less damage per hit compared to a sword (later it's approaches a 5% increase in def as def approaches 100). For a Rogue, Cipher, Wizard though the hatchet does make sense with there lower base defence it ends up being a near even exchange 20-25% better defence for 20-30% damage. It's more complex than that because of all the different weapon types and some of the other bonuses like Armour penetration but it's still a fairly close trade off. For a Paladin it would probably be better to consider something like a Spear, Rapier or Dagger for there accuracy bonus to offset the shields accuracy penalty, or maybe a Mace or Stiletto for there armour penetration.

Edited February 7, 201510 yr by aeonsim

 "5 isn't much"

5 is actually a lot. My point was that deflection scales so well that I won't even need the damage reduction after mid game and can then be free to wield whatever I want. 

 

This totally depends on how well enemy accuracy scales relative to deflection. 

Edited February 8, 201510 yr by Bazy

 For a maxed out Deflection Paladin the biggest issue is going to be the reduction in accuracy that results from using the shield.

I just kind of assume any really good tank is going to have horrible damage. Which makes me think something with a lot of base abilities would be a "better" tank in the long run as opposed to a fighter. Pallys would be little better off cause they do something in fights other than miss with a hatchet. 

Edited February 8, 201510 yr by Bazy

 

 For a maxed out Deflection Paladin the biggest issue is going to be the reduction in accuracy that results from using the shield.

I just kind of assume any really good tank is going to have horrible damage. Which makes me think something with a lot of base abilities would be a "better" tank in the long run as opposed to a fighter. Pallys would be little better off cause they do something in fights other than miss with a hatchet. 

Bear in mind Fighters can get an extremely high deflection and benefit for those paly aura's too.  They can also engage more than one enemy, unlike the paladin, and have tons of abilities they can proc that give them damage resistance.  Not to mention the fact that they constantly regen endurance... even in combat.

 

As for the hachet

 

No, seriously, 5 is not a lot.  Any decently built tank will be fine with or without a hatchet.

Weapon and Shield Talent doesn't appear to work properly in this build.

 

I also haven't found building high Deflection characters useful

Weapon and Shield Talent doesn't appear to work properly in this build.

 

I also haven't found building high Deflection characters useful

 

Oh? I certainly appear to be seeing the Def bonus at least...

it could be related to a bug where the stat sheet doesn't update it's display unless you re-equip an item.

it could be related to a bug where the stat sheet doesn't update it's display unless you re-equip an item.

There are many strange issues like that.  I do agree though, stacking deflection past a certain point is not a great investment in characters.  You only need to have enough to be unlikely to crit, once you hit that base threshold going further is big time diminishing returns to say the least.