[CLASS BUILD] holy warrior of fire (RP DD/heal paladin)

[Madscientist]

Koamalu is a paladin from the deadfire. He always travels around in order to help other people. One day he killed some people who tried to throw somebody else into a vulcano. Unfortuanatly, sacryficing to the vulcano god was the most holy ritual on this island and for this blasphemy the whole tribe started to look for him in order to torture him slowly to death. Somehow he managed to escape to the dyrwood. In PoE 2 he will return to his old home, hoping that the fanatics do not look for him in the whole archipelago.

 

 

HOLY WARRIOR OF FIRE

 

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difficulty: 3.06 hard with a full party

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 class: paladin (kind wayfarer)

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race: coastal aumaua

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background: deadfire explorer

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stats:

mig: 16

con: 10

dex: 10

per: 10

int: 16

res: 16

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skills: split between lore and survival

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abilities and talents:

lv1: flames of devotion

lv2: strange mercy

lv3: zealous focus

lv4: sword and shepard

lv5: sworn enemy

lv6: runners wounding shot

lv7: lay on hands

lv8: weapon focus soldier

lv9: inspiring triumph

lv10: scion of flames

lv11: healing chain

lv12: 2h style

lv13: sacred immolation

lv14: apprentice sneak attack or savage attack

lv15: abjuration

lv16: intense flames

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weapon: Hours of St. Rumbalt or Tidefall, Redeemer against vessels

 

boots: shoed in faith, though this might only lead to overheal; viettros formal footware at the end of the game (dex+4, lore +3)

head: maegfolk skull (mig +4)

armor: ryonas breastplate (int+3)

neck: liliths shawl (per +3)

belt: blunting belt

rings: ring of protection, ring of deflection

hands: forgemasters gloves (firebrand is the perfect weapon for him), siegebreaker gauntlets at the end of the game (res +4)

 

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I wanted to make a paladin who does some damage and heals the party by the way. Race and background are for role playing. I want to solve quests peacefully if possible. Therefore I took high int, res and lore to have more options in conversations. Since BG2 we know, that a greatsword is the ultimate weapon for paladins. I am not sure if tidefall or st. rumbalt is better against non vessels. Since paladins have several fire related abilities (flames of devotion, sacred immolation), I chose to make the whole build around fire (and healing). So I will give him red skin. RP wise, fire godlike (if you focus on fire) or moon godlike (if you focus on healing) are also nice, but I like to have a helmet. I am still not an expert about equipment. I will use items that boost int, res and lore for better talking.

 

If you care less about talking and want a better fighter, take points from res and put them elsewhere. The abilities and talents are quite clear, only the order in which I take the talents is not so sure and if I take apprentice sneak attack or savage attack. I took runners wounding shot so I do not waste a FoD as alpha strike. Every time you kill an enemy or you use FoD you will heal your whole party ( I am not sure if strange mercy and sword and shepard heal the paladin himself). They will also get a defense bonus if you kill somebody.

 

question: What are the max values for stats or skills that are checked in conversations or scripted events?

In this case I ask especially about int, res, lore and survival.

[bigwillystyle]

I have completed the game on POTD with a Kind Wayfarer ... twice.  Once under 1.06 ruleset, once under 3.06 / White March / White March 2.  

 

I admittedly built mine a little bit differently, but its a strong build.

Regarding your question on max values for conversations: I have seen a couple of Res 19 (Serel) and Int 19 (Rymrgand) checks.  Not everyone will see them.

[Torm51]

It will work well.  The only thing I don't like is that you have too much healing.  If you have to use THAT much healing in one encounter your backline will be dead (or maimed if you don't play PotD) before you use all those abilities so healing their endurance will be irrelevant.  Since you are going for a 2 handed build I would dump The Sword and the Shepherd.  I think a lot of the time it hamstrings you into saving FoD as a heal instead of a damage dealing ability.  Also for some reason its AOE does not scale with INT (the healing does scale with might and level).

 

Lastly, If you have a lot of passive healing in your party I would dump Lay on Hands.  I know it sounds core to any paladin build but I am currently in a TC run with Kana, Eder, a PC Paladin, and Storm Hiravious (who both have vets recovery) and not only is the healing more then enough its much quicker then Lay on Hands which if you don't use early enough you will be slow to land that critical heal (since you are likely wearing heavier armor).  I just hate how SLOW LoH is.  It is really good but its slow which I admit can be mitigated.

 

I would replace LoH with Liberating Exhortation.   you dispel a fight ending debuff on a damage dealing character and return him/her to destroying things and winning the encounter.  That being said a priest has an AOE version but even with high INT it will only last 7 to 8 seconds.  With your High INT you can clear those debuffs (assuming they don't get reapplied which happens with the priests dispel also) for 25+ seconds.

[bigwillystyle]

I agree with your comments Torm51.  I used Strange Mercy & Shod-In-Faith, and that was more than enough.    I would also get rid of Healing Chain.

 

My build looks like this - my focus is on as many passive abilities as possible - just go kick butt and watch the healing flow.

 

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difficulty: 3.06 POTD with a full party

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 class: paladin (kind wayfarer)

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race: pale elf 

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background: white-that-wends explorer

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stats:

mig: 18 - Always vital for a healer / damager

con: 9 - You'll heal quickly enough

dex: 10 

per: 20 - I use the Firebrand and accuracy is critical; I ended up at 29 +3 Caed Nua, +4 Excavator, +1 Song of Heavens, +1 Hylea's Boon

int: 18 - Need max to keep firebrand uptime high (base 30 secs)

res: 3

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skills: high survival and lore - I capped Lore at 10

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abilities and talents:

lv1: flames of devotion 

lv2: strange mercy [all the healing you'll need for the most part, now that it scales]

lv3: zealous focus [accuracy for firebrand]

lv4: weapon focus soldier [accuracy for firebrand - doesn't have to be soldier]

lv5: inspiring triumph [passive buff which will kick in A LOT]

lv6: scion of flame [damage for firebrand]

lv7: coordinated attacks [passive buff for others]

lv8: veteran's recovery [if shod-in-faith doesn't kick in, you're toast]

lv9: liberating exhortation [or reinforcing exhortation, if that's your style]

lv10: two handed style [damage for firebrand]

lv11: aegis of loyalty [works so well in conjunction with sacred immolation]

lv12: savage attack [more damage for firebrand!]

lv13: sacred immolation

lv14: bear's fortitude [honestly 14-16 can be anything really]

lv15: righteous soul

lv16: deep faith or bull's will or superior deflection

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in terms of equipment, the only vital things are forgemaster's gloves, excavator's cloak (or Lilith's shawl) and shod-in-faith.  everything else is player choice.

[bigwillystyle]

one thing that I like that's purely aesthetics - the WHAM when strange mercy triggers is audio / visually amazing.  Never gets old.

[Madscientist]

After playing the PoE2 beta for some time and reporting tons of bugs I went back to have a finished game with the char and outcome I want.

 

some feedback on my holy knight:

I play with a full party on hard.

In the beginning it was nice and strange mercy triggered quite often.

Later ( I guess after lv10 ) the char is not bad, but others are much better.

Now I am lv13 and Eder (dual wielding resolution and bittercut, taking all damage+ talents) and shapeshifted Hiravias ( with greater wildstrike ) do much more damage and kill stuff very fast. Kana stands there with a hatchet, suras plate and heavy armor and kills things with dragon trashed. Durance and Aloth use their per encounter abilities and autoattack, casting spells only during harder battles.

 

I get the feeling that dual wielding does much more damage than any other weapon style. When trying to level up the redeemer, causing 1000 damage was super easy. But killing 10 vessels or 50 enemies took forever. Eder and Hiravias kill everything super fast. Durgans battery is full of vessels, but even there it took many fights until I could finish 10 of them. I have also the feeling that dual wielding is the best way to kill things in PoE2 too.