Paladin Modals/Auras

[Cacophonix]

Greetings Folks!

 

I am playing on NORMAL>>> not Hard or PotD. I am having a GREAT time in game so no worries there. 

 

at 10th lvl my Darcozi pally got 'critical focus' which bumps hits into crits I suppose. My question is how many of you use this modal vrs the Zelous Aura which is a decrease of Hits to grazes and a deflection/DR bonus? This is my tanking pally and is using an enchanted shatterstar and pally buckler. 

 

I play with a Rogue using Tall Grass and my own custom Cypher which I may replace with Grieving mother or the Monk or the construct rogue. Cypher is using leadspitter. 

 

Aloth, man wizards are OP!! Once you get per encouter ..slick slick missiles! Fun!

 

Durance, again per enounter makes prayers and armor buffs all around! Durance has new staff and some heavy warbow I found with a name.

 

Eder (2nd tank) Ravenwing n buckler (the one with retaliate)

 

 

So, is the pally Accuracy+Crit aura better than the deflection aura?

 

On a small quirk, when I continue a game, it ALWAYS defaults to the armor buff and I have to keep checking if i want the accuracy one. 

 

Cheers!

[Torm51]

I would say this.  If you run ONE Paladin Zealous Focus is generally better as accuracy does more for your party then DR. 3 DR is not going to save a light armor wearing Wizard from being knocked out it just helps your frontline.   Zealous Endurance does not give you Deflection it gives you a bonus to all types of DR.  If you have 2 Paladins I would say yes go with ZF and ZE but if I only had one I would go Zealous Focus.  This is coming from a guy who SWORE by Zealous Endurance on his first three Paladins lol.

 

Lastly, the Wild card Aura and what I am running right now because I have 2 Paladins is Zealous Focus and Zealous Charge.  I know the DR is great and I miss it but My priests casts armor of Faith and Zealous Charge gives me flexibility to tactically move my party should I not have the positioning I want.  It also lets a Cipher throw its Crushing Mental Laser (Ectoplastic something) on me and I just run to the back end of the enemy group and they all take MASSIVE crush damage and die. 

[Cacophonix]

Great information! 

 

I was thinking of dumping Eder and getting Pellagini ( the pally) and respecing her to use the mace. 

[Torm51]

Great information! 

 

I was thinking of dumping Eder and getting Pellagini ( the pally) and respecing her to use the mace. 

Ya its not bad.  Although specced right Fighters can do a lot of consistent damage.  One thing I forgot to mention.  If you have not invested heavily in Intellect or if you do not have a melee heavy party You might want to just take Zealous Endurance as Zealous auras are too small to get your backline consistently.  Unless you just want Zealous Focus for you if you are going for a pure damage build.  Obviously having a high Int also makes you a better support Paladin as your Lay on Hands and Exhortations last a long time.

[hilfazer]

It doesn't matter much if you have a priest. He will just cast different buff (Bless or Armor of Faith).

 

Bless + Endurance advantages:

- +10% more damage

- 15% hits to grazes

 

Armor + Focus advantages:

- +1 DR

- +1 ACC

- 15% grazes to hits

 

Hits to grazes is better as it affects up to 50% of all attacks while grazes to hits affects up to 35%. It's also harder to obtain.

 

Critical Focus is seriously UP ATM, just so you know. Pally has many better things to pick. 

Edited October 2, 2015 by hilfazer

[Torm51]

UP??

 

Or the priest could be casting more important things like Circle of Protection, Devotions of the Faithful, Crowns of the Faithful etc.  The advantage of having the Modal already there at the start of the fight without having to do anything could be the difference between your party taking some type of debuff or hit or it saving/grazing against that debuff because your priest casted circle of protection. 

 

I am not saying you are wrong.  You aren't but having a priest is not EXACTLY the same.  Also the priest buffs don't give the graze to hit or enemy hits turning to graze.  But I get you that the Priest can somewhat cover up those buffs if you only bring one Paladin or NONE.  It still isn't exactly the same.

[Torm51]

and ya critical focus by itself is lack luster.  Give it to a rogue who already has 20% crit and now has 25 and its a whatever talent.  I agree there are better talents but taking it isn't bad if you stack it with a rogue or a priests Crit buff.

[Cacophonix]

Well the base modal for Critcal focus DOES give everyone +6 to accuracy. That seems like a win with the extra crit as an added bonus. 

[Torm51]

yep + graze to hit.  that's pretty big.

[Cacophonix]

I am thinking Pella for the movement Aura actually. That can benefit EVERYONE a bit better than the armor buff. Ill have to check on that. 

 

Seems two Paladins can be a bit of over kill. I have Eder speced as weapon specialization and extra specialization for the mace which is an extra 20 or 25% Ravenwing dmg. He hits like a Mack Truck but I think the other pally would be better. Not sure yet. 

 

Eder or Pella...hmmmm new debate. (I did the entire quest line for Eder already.)

[Cacophonix]

I suppose I can respec Pella and give her the two handed sword where I got Tall Grass and she would be 2nd kinda tank and dps.. Not sure if she would hold up as well as Eder though.

[KDubya]

I like the Zealous Endurance aura for the hit to graze as well as the DR, primarily for protection from status effects. With high defenses, monks and Paladins, you can get rid of getting crits from afflictions. The aura helps you to get rid of some hits. Your DR and endurance pool can suck up the damage taken during a graze.

 

Accuracy helps you kill faster, especially trash mobs. DR and hit>graze helps with the tougher fights by letting you survive when things go bad.

 

And drop Eder after you do his story quest, he's a nice guy but everyone else is better. My choices in order to replace him are Pellagrina, Zahua, Devil, Kana. I'd move Kana up a spot if you do a lot of weapon based damage as his fire weapon chant is boss. All can serve the purpose of frontline melee and all bring extra abilities to the team, something that Eder as a Fighter just can't.

[mosspit]

Well for me, I approach character building in the sense of survivability first. Invest enough in survivability to reliably get past battles and put the excess in offense.

 

That said, I like the endurance modal. The DR is good at the start and the hit to graze conversion scales decently to end game. Before the addition of the graze conversion, Focus is my modal of choice though. And assuming you have WM, you can take up Gallant's focus on someone else in case you don't have 2 pallys. Granted the radius is smaller, +4 compared to +6 and it lacks to graze to hit conversion, but it is still decent.

[sapientNode]

My opinion is that in normal game I would go for the accuracy hit modal.  While from Hard to PoTD I would take the Defensive one.

That is if there is a choice with just one Paladin.

Deflection and DR is king with the increase of mob density on higher difficulty.

But with a Normal difficulty I would go with accuracy and hit just because the battles would be over faster and defenses are not coming into play as much.

[Torm51]

Been playing through PoTD and trial of iron.  Concelhaut and Alpine Dragon dead so far without Zealous Endurance but you guys make very good points.  I do agree.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Torm51

[Boeroer]

On PotD I surely would take Zealous Focus, not Endurance. It stacks with Inspiring Radiance and all hit2crit bonuses and that helps a lot. With all the blunting belts, hiro's mantle, orlan's bramble ring and so on there's a bunch of +DR items in the game. I never had the feeling I need more DR, but more ACC. Especially when you think of all the weapons that cause afflictions on crit, which is very powerful if you crit often. Even +5% hit2crit is OK then.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Boeroer

[hilfazer]

I did Raedric fight, without bottlenecking, with 8 CON pally, no LoH and with Endurance aura. My other frontline was Eder. XP level was either 4 or half 4 half 5. Difficulty PotD.

IIRC only one squishy backliner has dropped in this fight.

[Boeroer]

I did it with 6 rogues. One lvl 4, the rest still lvl 3. That doesn't say anything about ZF or ZE.

 

But I agree that it is easier to survive fights if you are more sturdy. You can't loose if you don't go unconscious - you just need one or two chars that can really hurt someone. You can't win if the enemy doesn't go down either. So maybe it depends in your party composition if ZE or ZF is better for your game.

[Torm51]

8 Con makes me barf lol what type of warfighter has an 8 Con! lmao I know it can be done its just weird

[Boeroer]

My Sacred Immolation pally tank had 8 con and it worked without any problems. Where's the problem? If you don't get hit, you don't need superhigh endurance. And every point of DR is more valuable than 10 of endurance.

 

High con on a light armored monk or low defl. barb - that's where you need it.

Edited October 4, 2015 by Boeroer

[hilfazer]

One more thing - Endurance is more synergistic.

 

DR is more valuable if enemies graze instead of hit as it allows you to absorb higher % of incoming damage.

While Focus, by increasing ACC, decreases your chance to graze, making it's secondary effect less potent.