Hurling paladin level 35 training advice

[Aluvius]

Hey all, I'm about to turn 36 with my hurling halfling paladin. I'm looking for some advice on further training goals from here.

Right now my thoughts are:


1) Let Armor Use fall back to 2x, I have some gem-eating chain hauberk that will serve me well. I'm thinking of just 2x till full plate and swapping to it.

2) Stop at 1635, head to 120. Stop there.


After that I have a conflicting jumble of possible priorities:


3) Train OHE for parry defense since I'm using a handaxe based returner. I dunno though, by the numbers it doesn't seem to gain me a whole lot of offensive stance DS. Maybe this should be a post-cap goal?

4) I'd like to pick up some lores at some point, I'm liking 40 ranks of summoning for self rescue with 1620. But its going to be tough to fit in ... post-cap as well?

5) What about 1x dodge, 2x PF, 2x CM and 2x Perception (for increased thrown AS). Post-cap?

6) I'd like to work in a bit of Survival, maybe 24 ranks .. seems more useful these days especially with some newer hunting grounds. Worth it?

7) Currently I'm in CoL and its nice for the minimal upkeep allowing me to use mana for spells ... I've thought about switching to Voln at some point, GoS just sucked up too much mana/stamina. I'd sure hate to lose Staunching though as a halfling and spirit regens quick as heck for me.

8) For shield maneuvers, has any other halfling found them to be successful perhaps at higher levels? What little testing I've done with bash shows some harsh penalties.


Race: Halfling Profession: Paladin (shown as: Paladin)

Gender: Male Age: 0 Expr: 1427683 Level: 35

Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 100 (10) ... 100 (10)
Constitution (CON): 87 (28) ... 95 (32)
Dexterity (DEX): 83 (31) ... 83 (31)
Agility (AGI): 83 (26) ... 83 (26)
Discipline (DIS): 80 (10) ... 80 (10)
Aura (AUR): 89 (14) ... 89 (14)
Logic (LOG): 92 (26) ... 92 (26)
Wisdom (WIS): 91 (20) ... 91 (20)
Intuition (INT): 42 (6) ... 42 (6)
Influence (INF): 47 (-6) ... 47 (-6)

Mana: 88 Silver: 0


Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 180 80
Shield Use.........................| 174 74
Combat Maneuvers...................| 134 37
Edged Weapons......................| 5 1
Thrown Weapons.....................| 174 74
Ambush.............................| 120 30
Physical Fitness...................| 134 37
Harness Power......................| 111 27
Perception.........................| 134 37
Climbing...........................| 78 17
Swimming...........................| 78 17

Spell Lists
Paladin............................| 35


Current society status:
You are a Master in the Council of Light.



your Combat Maneuver training is as follows:

Skill name Mnemonic Ranks

Feint feint 4
Specialization I wspec1 1
Combat Toughness toughness 1

Available Combat Maneuver Training Points: 1


your Shield Specialization training is as follows:

Skill name Mnemonic Ranks

Tower Shield Focus tfocus 3
Shield Bash bash 1
Prop Up prop 2
Block the Elements eblock 2
Protective Wall pwall 2

Available Shield Training Points: 8


Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

[Peppwyn]

I pretty much have the same build with my thrown paladin, though I went Dwarf for the STR bonus. I have the benefit of having a returner javelin, so my hands are never empty.

At level 33 here is what I'm looking at:



Armor Use..........................| 170 70
Shield Use.........................| 170 70
Combat Maneuvers...................| 128 34
Thrown Weapons.....................| 170 70
Ambush.............................| 120 30
Physical Fitness...................| 126 33
Harness Power......................| 124 32
Perception.........................| 126 33
Climbing...........................| 50 10

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 2

Spell Lists
Paladin............................| 32




Feint feint 3
Specialization I wspec1 3




Tower Shield Focus tfocus 3
Prop Up prop 1
Shield Spike Focus spikefocus 2
Shield Spike Mastery spikemastery 2

[Orthin]

So is hurling even possible without a returner for pallies? I was intrigued to try but figured I would have to fully bond and then hope my weapon didn't get stuck

[time4fun]

So is hurling even possible without a returner for pallies? I was intrigued to try but figured I would have to fully bond and then hope my weapon didn't get stuck

Even when fully bonded, there's a delay to the returner ability. That means there are critical seconds where you're in offensive, dealing with hard RT, and you have nothing in your right hand.

You need an actual returner weapon to avoid that.

[Orthin]

drat so hurling is a rich mans game then =(

[Ososis]

What is the draw of hurling? I don't see where it has an advantage over melee, but I see lots of cons. Is it mainly RP reasons?

[Aluvius]

What is the draw of hurling? I don't see where it has an advantage over melee, but I see lots of cons. Is it mainly RP reasons?

Well it has alot of advantages over melee, but the problem is getting over the 1 huge con of needing a returning weapon or at least a chainspear/bandolier.

For my halfling the biggest pro is being able to target the head/neck/eyes of stuff that I couldn't normally reach. Its also 2s quicker than regular melee or regular melee aimed attacks. Also the stat bonus to hurling AS is an average of STR/DEX so my halfling ends up with a 0 racial bonus instead of a -15 (with regular melee being only STR).

Also it ignores parry DS so I don't need to worry about stancing stuff down except for very rarely when turtled behind a shield.

[Ososis]

Well it has alot of advantages over melee, but the problem is getting over the 1 huge con of needing a returning weapon or at least a chainspear/bandolier.

For my halfling the biggest pro is being able to target the head/neck/eyes of stuff that I couldn't normally reach. Its also 2s quicker than regular melee or regular melee aimed attacks. Also the stat bonus to hurling AS is an average of STR/DEX so my halfling ends up with a 0 racial bonus instead of a -15 (with regular melee being only STR).

Also it ignores parry DS so I don't need to worry about stancing stuff down except for very rarely when turtled behind a shield.

Nice! Thanks for the education.

[Archigeek]

Pro's of hurling:

Shorter round time so long as you aren't encumbered much, (3 second vs 5 second base RT for a handaxe for example, but goes up faster when encumbered).
Bypasses a significant portion of DS.
DS bypass allows you to attack without a setup move, saving you more time.
You can spend shield/CMAN points you might have spent on setup moves on something else instead.
Able to attack flying things before they land, without setup move and with aforementioned DS bypass.
Most hurling weapons can also be used for melee, which is sometimes more effective, making it a nice, complimentary combo with the same weapon.

Con's:

More TPs to use effectively, a lot more. Hurling, melee weapon skill to match you're hurling weapon's melee counterpart, brawling, and CM are all generally trained in.
Much much higher cost for effective weapons.

[Aluvius]

Yeah, I wish I had the tp's to pick up OHE easily like a warrior could. In the meantime I also carry around a handaxe bandolier as a backup weapon for a disarm emergency or as a primary in disarming hunting areas. I usually leave the chainspear at home :)