|
Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 20, 2006 0:20:19 GMT
If you have no other buffs divine power DOES raise this build's AB by 14, and the extra attacks are quite noticable. (MSG me in-game for a demonstation) I also just realized that i forgot to put the note in about magical AB enhancements only going up to +20, but I'm quite aware of it. Will fix that now. Bear in mind that weapon bonuses are included in the +20 cap. Funky
|
|
|
Post by Delfestra Ruinvorn on Apr 20, 2006 14:43:38 GMT
Wow. Mish...thats impressive. Tank cleric...what I was trying to do with my original Ariadne, except that I muddled it so bad that she couldn't hit things well, and couldn't cast either. Insufficient str to be a meleer, and insufficient wis/caster levels to be a caster.
Couldn't hit drow, was pathetic, film at 11.
I have a deep and abiding love of clerics, (moreso than wizards, before I came here) for their ability to tank and cast at once. Maybe this build can fix that.
How effective is your implosion and things like that? Your DC/Wis score is not listed at final levels?
|
|
|
Post by Balduvard on Apr 20, 2006 20:22:11 GMT
Yes, thank you for allowing us to "nerf" bugs that should have never been in the system in the first place.
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 20, 2006 20:57:36 GMT
Aye, I made a similar remaark in the bug report addressing divine power. Funky
|
|
|
Post by Grogbot on Apr 21, 2006 7:22:34 GMT
35 Cleric 4 Pally 1 Monk
This means Xp penalties after you get more than one level differenc ebetween Monk and Pally ....
So 20% penalty for LL? Ouchies
|
|
|
Post by mishimayukio on Apr 21, 2006 8:04:40 GMT
the 20% XP penalty isnt so bad for the benefits, and while it is possible to go cleric/BG/monk for the same benefits, the feat cost is too high for a build that is already short on feats.
|
|
|
Post by Delfestra Ruinvorn on Apr 21, 2006 15:57:14 GMT
Actually, I didn't copy it down...but no worry, I can find you about
|
|
|
Post by mishimayukio on Apr 26, 2006 8:35:23 GMT
Meh, with the new LL spell changes kinda putting back the power into this build, I'm thinking withdrawing this build might have been a bit too hasty. Good thing I saved it. Will update it with more recent update info when I get the time.
This is a variation of my own character Yumika Mishima, with improvements fixing some of the mistakes I made. The primary strengths of this character is high base damage (including a portion that cant be resisted), high attack bonus, GMW/DF, monk-like attack speeds (at level 60, with a high crit-range weapon), a large assortment and quantity of buffing and combat spells with no DC, one epic spell, high saves, and evasion. This build's primary weaknesses are low AC (typical with str builds), reliance on buffs, inability to penetrate high SR, low spell DCs(can be remedied by alternate spell selection), and a 20% XP penalty.
Build: Sub-race: Human Aasimar (can't really budge on this one, as wisdom and charisma need to be high without sacrificing any other stats) Starting Stats: STR 14 DEX 8 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 14 (16 with aasimar mod) CHA 16 (18 with aasimar mod)
Domains: Fire and a free choice
Alignment: must be lawful good for paladin, and lawful for monk
Skills: Max concentration every level, save the rest until the monk level at level 40. At level 40 make sure you have 43 points in concentration, 43 in discipline, and 40 in tumble. Use the remaining 5 any way you want.
Build progression: 1 cleric/1 paladin/15 cleric/3 paladin/19 cleric/1 monk
stat choices: All STR
Pre-epic feats: Toughness Power Attack Weapon Focus Scimitar Divine Might Extend spell Improved Critical Scimitar Blind fight Silent Spell
Epic Feats: (For the Cleric epic bonus feats on levels 27, 30, 33, 36, and 39 take Armor Skin and Great Wisdom 1-4) Epic Weapon Focus Scimitar Epic Prowess Epic Reflexes Great Strength 1-4
Stats at 40: STR 28 (40) DEX 8 (20) CON 14 (26) INT 10 (22) WIS 20 (32) CHA 18 (30)
Upon reaching level 40 you may want to use a wondrous tome of ancient lore, granting epic spell focus in one school. Due to the recent changes for divine power, your best bet is probably enchantment for GMW +13 and the girding of the faithful epic spell, adding up to 4 AC (stackable armor and shield bonuses) to the entire party.
LL choices:
Stats: All 10 into STR
Feats: Great STR 5-10 LL focus enchantment
Skills: Continue to max concentration, and distribute the rest however you want.
STR at 60: 44 (56)
One of the best things about this build is it's flexibility, while not as hard hitting with crits as a WM, with your increased attack rate and high base damage it's comparable. This build also excels at fighting undead (soloing the maze in record times), and is generally very effective against crit immune monsters.
Best spells listed in order of usefulness: Eagle's Splendor (Vital for your saves and divine might damage) Greater Magic Weapon (also useful extended for permaing groups) Freedom of Movement (allows you to move around the battlefield at greatly increased speeds) Divine Power (This spell was recently changed. It now gives +4 to AB and an extra attack at level 50 and 60. Cast it extended for the best results. Keep in mind that the maximum magical enhancement to AB is +20, this includes the bonus from GMW. So if you cast divine power, divine favor, and have a +13 GMW you will only get +20 to AB rather than +32) Bless (adds 1 to AB and saves for your entire party in range. Cast extended for the best results.) Aid (Adds 1 to AB, saves, and some temporary HP for a single target. Cast extended for the best results) Prayer (All allies within the area of effect gain +1 to attack and damage rolls, skill checks, and saving throws. Enemies receive -1 penalties to the same. Cast extended for the best results) Divine Favor (Adds 5 AB and 5 unresistable magical damage to each attack, stacks with your weapon's damage, best cast extended) Divine Might (adds 10 unresistable divine damage to each attack, stacks with your weapon's damage, tied to your turn undead ability when your CHA is maxed you get 13 of these a day, and each one lasts 2 minutes) Darkfire (an extra 20 damage a hit is always nice, but don't use it when fighting enemies with kickback damage, as it doubles the kickback you receive. Blue maze guardians not included) Greater Sanctuary ( This spell can save you or your party very easily, bests uses include: casting after being rezzed so you can rebuff in peace, casting when everyone is dead/dying so you can rez without being killed. This spell is very effective extended. avoid casting this spell while you have the entropic shield buff active, it can cause GS to not work sometimes) Undeaths Eternal Foe ( I LOVE this spell, not only does it add 5 to dodge AC for anyone in range, but it also provides immunities to many effects, including blindness deafness and negative energy. This is the only spell I know of that does this properly. It also automatically casts extended) Mass heal (the ultimate anti-undead spell, and with your high strength it hits a lot more often than it does for caster clerics. Cast this spell silent to double the amount you can cast without resting. Try spamming it in the maze after mass-spawning a large group of blue and red guardians. Works best when you cast AB buffs such as divine power, divine favor, bless, aid, and prayer. GMW bonus doesnt affect this.) Word of faith (Blinds everything in the large radius with no save, hypothetically reducing their AC and making them have a miss percentage. also does sonic damage with a reflex save. useful for "popping" red maze guardians. Cast this spell silent to double the amount you can cast without resting) Harm (kinda a double edge sword, its hard to hit things with high SR with this, but things with low SR are hit a lot easier than if you were using a caster cleric. Also extremely useful in breaking high-HP objects. Cast this spell silent to double the amount you can cast without resting. Works best when you cast AB buffs such as divine power, divine favor, bless, aid, and prayer. GMW bonus doesnt affect this.) Destruction (due to your low DC, this spell is very effective against anything with low SR, especially crit immune monsters like balors, mariliths, glabrezu, drow matrons and other bosses. Also destroys objects with one hit. Cast this spell silent to double the amount you can cast without resting) Searing light ( this spell isn't as effective as destruction due to many monsters being immune to level 3 spells outright, but is still useful against any creature not immune, especially undead) Earthquake (Large amounts of exotic damage, a large area of affect, and that fact that it ignores SR makes this a very useful spell for the battle cleric. unfortunately your low DC means it will almost always do half damage to targets. This spell can be cast silent for more uses per rest) Entropic shield (useful in areas with archers, as it reduces how many arrows hit you)
If all goes well, by level 60 you should have 908 HP, 73 AB (with buffs and with +20 cap), 7 attacks per round (with Extended Divine Power at level 60) with a 12-20 threat range, and with the proper weapon, be hitting for 90-130 on normal hits with 2x crits. Fort and will saves in the mid-high 60s, reflex saves of 60
|
|
|
Post by Lord FlashHeart on Apr 26, 2006 12:12:47 GMT
Looks good! One thing I would suggest however is that you try and squeeze in epic reflexes somewhere. I recently made a 38cleric/1pally/1monk who had a buffed charisma of 24 (adding 7 to saves) and with epic reflexes still only managed to get to 53 reflex (he's at lev 44 atm). I think with your build without the extra refl feats yours will be about 50/51 (by the mid-40s) even with the extra 3 to saves from the charisma (my build had higher dex too). If you could squeeze in the pre-epic lightning reflexes as well you may be able to scrape that all powerful 60 mark by the end. If it gets you to that magic 60 reflex I would say it was worth dropping silent spell for lightning reflexes and maximise spell or epic prowess for epic reflexes.
|
|
|
Post by Delfestra Ruinvorn on Apr 26, 2006 15:24:42 GMT
Out of curiosity, why do you choose maximize over empower?
In my experience, empower can often do more than maximize, though of course it can do less... And that would allow searing light to be used at 2,3,4,5...and leave level 6 for harm/heal/chainlightning?
Or is it better to go 2,3,5,6 and leave level 4 for hammer of the gods, in your experience?
|
|
|
Post by mishimayukio on Apr 26, 2006 22:25:40 GMT
Looks good! One thing I would suggest however is that you try and squeeze in epic reflexes somewhere. I recently made a 38cleric/1pally/1monk who had a buffed charisma of 24 (adding 7 to saves) and with epic reflexes still only managed to get to 53 reflex (he's at lev 44 atm). I think with your build without the extra refl feats yours will be about 50/51 (by the mid-40s) even with the extra 3 to saves from the charisma (my build had higher dex too). If you could squeeze in the pre-epic lightning reflexes as well you may be able to scrape that all powerful 60 mark by the end. If it gets you to that magic 60 reflex I would say it was worth dropping silent spell for lightning reflexes and maximise spell or epic prowess for epic reflexes. The silent spell is vital for getting more uses and alternate spell slots of key spells like mass heal, harm, word of faith, destruction, and earthquake, but I could see maximize spell being replaced by it, as its only use ATM for me are max chain lightnings and call lightings in the desert, maze and on objects like the orb in abode, and max searing lights on the immortal and drow. I actually really like this idea as it WILL get reflex saves to 60.
|
|
|
Post by mishimayukio on Apr 26, 2006 22:34:19 GMT
Out of curiosity, why do you choose maximize over empower? In my experience, empower can often do more than maximize, though of course it can do less... And that would allow searing light to be used at 2,3,4,5...and leave level 6 for harm/heal/chainlightning? Or is it better to go 2,3,5,6 and leave level 4 for hammer of the gods, in your experience? Actually since the immo run where yumika became immortal I focused more on melee and my level 1-5 spell slots have been permamently occupied by buffs. I havent really used maximize spell any more and this seems like a good chance to drop it it from the build. Also keep in mind that with wisdom as low as it is, the only time a mob is going to fail their save on hammer of the gods or chain/call lightning is if they roll a 1, so you would be doing half damage nearly all of the time.
|
|
|
Post by mishimayukio on Apr 27, 2006 7:20:13 GMT
I am such an idiot. Since the LL system came out in December or so, I had always thought LLs gave 6 feats. Basicly I looked at the book once, and never thought about it again. While working on getting the build down for "Halfling Death", I kept coming up 1 feat short for trying to get it like my own rogue. Anyway I need to think of a good feat for pretty much all my characters made with LLs in mind.
-EDIT- cleric build updated for the extra feat I didn't realize I would get.
|
|
|
Post by sonattine on May 19, 2006 10:44:15 GMT
So this will be my very first post as a newcomer I am. Greetings all and welcome to me. I actually started the game just last night with a character in mind very much along the lines of the build mentioned here, for which I have both suggestions and questions. To avoid the exp penalty for LL levels and still keep the base 4 attacks per round, one could take 4 Monk levels before level twenty actually starting with a Monk level. Granted, you do lose 3 caster levels and 2 Cleric Epic Feats ( -2 Wis overall) but you do get a few more Save points, noticiably in Reflex, 12 more Skill points (for 17 in Lore by level 40 for instance) and a couple of Monk feats. It would go something like this: 1 Monk- 2 Cleric-3 Pal- 1 M- 4 C- 1 M- 7 C- 1 M- 29 C -1 M If the world's equipment makes it wortwhile, one could have Monk speed by not wearing armor. A favourite of mine for exploration and quick action for healing team mates. In this case one could also contemplate the idea of going Two-Handed to maximize Str to damage as the shield would be a nuisance. I have yet to discover the world's offering to make these choices though. One could also forego another Cleric level for Monk level 6 and it's Knock down Improved KD Feats. But I have a feeling Higher Ground's Immunities might not make this worth one's while. Tremendous in PvP though if that's your thing. On the subject of Feats, I would have thought Divine Shield would have been a better choice than Blind Fighting. But I will trust you on the Still Spell versus Maximize which I usually favor because of the changes made here to spells. I'm not sure I see why you whould take the Fire Domain. Surely Earth is a better elemental choice. And with such high Charisma War and Strength are also valid options. But my questions are, beeing a newcomer and all: - how do I get the Aasimar benefits ? My character sheet tells me I am one but to no effect. I read that something must be given ingame. Whom do I have to sleep with to obtain that ? - and what about those custom Epic Spells ? Wouldn't any be worth the Feats they require with this build ? They do seem so very attractive... Faithfully, Sonattine
|
|
|
Post by chainlink on May 19, 2006 12:12:57 GMT
You need to be 'tagged' to use the (secret) Aasimar subrace and you're going to have to be immortal to do this because of where this tag option is located. Keep playing and as you get to higher levels and meet more people you'll likely find out.
|
|