Dwarven Paladin: 30 Day Check in

[robot]

Hello,

My 30 days are almost up on my dwarven paladin, so I wanted to check in to get some feedback (particularly around stats). I'm unfortunately not as far along as I'd hoped, too much work lately!


Race: Dwarf Profession: Paladin (not shown)
Gender: Male Age: 0 Expr: 126688 Level: 10
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 75 (22) ... 75 (22)
Constitution (CON): 64 (22) ... 64 (22)
Dexterity (DEX): 80 (15) ... 80 (15)
Agility (AGI): 84 (12) ... 84 (12)
Discipline (DIS): 63 (16) ... 63 (16)
Aura (AUR): 84 (7) ... 84 (7)
Logic (LOG): 89 (24) ... 89 (24)
Intuition (INT): 70 (10) ... 70 (10)
Wisdom (WIS): 63 (6) ... 63 (6)
Influence (INF): 30 (-20) ... 30 (-20)


(at level 10), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 102 24
Shield Use.........................| 102 24
Combat Maneuvers...................| 54 11
Blunt Weapons......................| 102 24
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 54 11
Physical Fitness...................| 102 24
Harness Power......................| 45 9
Spiritual Lore - Blessings.........| 25 5

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 1

Spell Lists
Paladin............................| 10


your Combat Maneuver training is as follows:

Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Feint feint 2
Surge of Strength surge 1

Available Combat Maneuver Training Points: 1


your Shield Specialization training is as follows:

Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Tower Shield Focus tfocus 2
Shield Bash bash 2

Available Shield Training Points: 8

I grabbed the blessing lore quickly just so I could use 1604 on my sanctified shield. I'm planning on switching that out for religion lore (as I gain paladin spell ranks) and continuing to raise that. In the next few levels I plan to get some perception, climbing, and swimming.

I am currently using a mace, but will be switching to a perfect morning star (currently being enchanted) when I get 1625. I am also currently using a sanctified tower shield.

I would love some feedback on:
- Stat changes if necessary
- Skill/Spell progression
- cman/shield man choices
- GoS vs Voln

Thanks very much!

[Erous]

Can you post your stats with "INFO START" this will give your base numbers because I'm too lazy and can't find the stat growth spreadsheet :D

Within regards to your training, I like where you're going so far because it's more or less how I progressed early on. I had a long note about religion lore then read your post again for clarity. So looks like you have the right idea, but don't discredit blessing lore because it is the best overall lore for your spells. All spiritual lores are very beneficial for a pally with only religion giving us a "soft cap" of sorts.

For combat maneuvers, I think you'd find that putting your ranks in wspec1 over feint/surge early on may give you a better bang for your buck. Surge is great and is a key CMAN, but you should be getting at least to rank 3 wspec 1 before worrying about others. You won't hit turtling mobs till somewhere in your 40's depending on where you hunt, so feint becomes more important at that point. Additionally, because you're a portly dwarf your ability to avoid maneuvers is diminished, so you'll want to start looking at adding points to combat defense soon once you get more points into wspec1.

I have no issue with your shield point options, but BASH is somewhat shitty as a dwarf because you're stout. You'll find that bigger critters tend to laugh at your portliness and bash becomes less of an option, especially if you decide to go voln with lack of a sanctified shield, bash starts to become worthless. But because you have a sanct shield it may come in handy, I just haven't had the privilege. As you age, though, your shield points become plentiful and you'll basically be able to get anything you want. TFOCUS and PWALL should be your first, with PWALL making you basically invincible if you're stunned/proned/on the ground after you max it out. Additionally, EBLOCK is a good to have later on as well when you're dealing with ball spells.

Lastly, I have a lance paladin in GoS and a blunt/board paladin in Voln and they're completely different. You'll find that GoS is mostly beneficial for grimswarm, whereas Voln gives you more all-around utility, especially with symbol supremacy if you like hunting undead(which I do), but you'll also find that a LOT of voln symbols really don't apply to you. I'd take voln just slightly over GoS because of it's all around benefit and ease of leveling, plus it makes areas like the Citadel a cakewalk for a paladin. Not to mention as a dwarf pally, your maneuvers against grimswarm are less than ideal so you'll find voln less situational.

Edit: ONE MORE THING! Because you're blunt/board, what are your plans for ambush? You should be thinking about ambush and planning to 24 ranks to open aim limbs and vital body parts. You become a more efficient killer with ambush as a dwarf 1 hander because you're short and your ability to crit tall mobs standalone is difficult. As a dwarf you'll find ambushing a kneecap then an ambush to the eye/neck/head becomes a fun and deadly hunting style as you start to aim more accurately.

[robot]

Thanks for the insight Erous.


Level 0 Stats, Dwarf Paladin

Strength (STR): 69
Constitution (CON): 57
Dexterity (DEX): 78
Agility (AGI): 82
Discipline (DIS): 58
Aura (AUR): 82
Logic (LOG): 88
Intuition (INT): 68
Wisdom (WIS): 58
Influence (INF): 20

Does wspec do anything other than add a bit to AS? I guess it would help when doing other cmans (like feint later) as well? I am planning on getting some ambush as well when I can, points are just really tight right now. Are there target levels to gain certain key skills/spells?

[Erous]

Yeah, you'll find that you can sacrifice some areas early on. By ~60 you start to pool training points because you're hitting milestones and can catch up on areas you missed out. For example, I just noticed you don't have perception. Perception is a KEY stat in anything we do and you'll eventually want to be at 1x perception (sorry I missed this in your training path). Based on your current path, you're sacrificing perception for MoC, which is what I did early on too, but perception becomes more and more important. I caught up my perception when I was in my 50's. You'll want to get at least some perception to get over some hurdles. Additionally you'll want at least 10 climbing swimming to start, then work your way up from there. 10 climbing and swimming gets you to Zul Logoth and to Illistim, but you'll need 30 to get to the monastery if you wind up hunting there for voln. So you'll want to play around with perception and climbing/swimming as well. The hardest part about playing an early paladin is our damn training costs. There's no right or wrong way to start.

Here's a maximized stat growth chart that provides the most 100s for a dwarf paladin. You can choose to "tank" or drop influence very low to bring DEX and CON to 100 at cap:



Maximized stats for a Dwarf Paladin
CO DE DI LO IT ST* AG IF WI* AU
GI's 30 17 28 10 15 35 15 18 28 15
Initial Placement 40 69 58 88 82 30 82 70 58 82
Stats at Level 100 97 93 100 100 100 100 100 95 100 100


http://www.nitefallz.com/statmax.html

WSPEC - https://gswiki.play.net/Specialization
The Combat Maneuver Weapon Specialization I adds +2 to Attack Strength (AS) and bonuses to CML attack/defensive strength (per rank) when using a weapon of the type chosen to specialize in.

So wspec is your single most useful weapon maneuver.

Depending on what you want to do with your pally, there are different goals. There's a resurrection lore goal, MoC goal, ambush goal, etc. So you'll want to know where to go.

Resurrection - At least 24 mana control spiritual (just go for 25 for multi incant spells)
Ambush - 24 is the sweet spot for aiming
Religion lore - 25 for force kneel
Summoning lore - 40 ranks for self teleport when dead. 9 ranks to infuse 1615 to your weapon through your bond.
MoC - 30 for double mstrike on a single target. End goal should be 55 for triple mstrike on a single targe
Climbing - Need at least 25 for fighting in the stronghold, 30 for darkstone unless you master voln by that time
Swimming - Need about 30 for River's rest and Monastery, 40 for the bowels eventually or ~70 for capped nelemar.