divine weapon bond vs horse

[Ginzo Force]

I know pets are gods in this game but I always see more upside in divine weapon bond, what's your opinion

[Cutlass Jack]

Seelah always gets the horse in my games. Purely for RP reasons. She hits level 5 almost immediately following the 'Inspired Cart' event so my headcannon is that her mount is the horse that pulled the beer cart.

So I name it 'Kegbringer."

[CHAO$$$]

Pets are great on lower difficulty but on higher theyre usually just glorified roadblocks after the early game. And sometimes they end up just blocking your party as well.

Brilliant Energy from divine weapon bond on the other hand is pretty damn good if you want to invest enough levels into paladin to unlock it.

Between the lunge feat, enlarge and reach weapons you really dont need additional safety for your melees. Horse can speed up slow armored paladins - but armor isnt really something you need anyway.

Overall id say weapon bond is more consistently useful on higher difficulty but if you dont already have a meatshield to go die to a swarm/obstruct that 1 enemy that spawned in an awful location next to your casters that gets infinite resurrects its okay.

Horse in particular just isnt very good to begin with but you could do something like 1 sabletooth marine and 11 paladin with boon companion and screw around with the new griffin if you wanna try out the new flavour of the month.

[AzureTheGamerKobold]

Originally posted by Ding Pao Chinese Spy:

Originally posted by AzureTheGamerKobold:

Weapon Bond is good in like through the ashes and such where, item levels are low. Moment you can get good gear the weapon bond is less useful. In table top its good because you never know if the DM is gonna give you good gear and animal companions are less busted.

In WOTR the animal companion is almost always better then the weapon bond.

the horse is good defensively but the offensive of 10 minute haste/holy/axiomatic/flaming burst on one weapon, especially on the trickster mythic path kind of blows the horse out of the water

I used weapon bond in my first play through on Seelah, and its not useless or anything its fairly good. But i think main issue here is that--- you get such good gear anyway the weapon bond can only add so much more. Meanwhile if you choose the horse its getting several attacks of its own, lots of defense, and you can even mount it.

basically the weapon bond is fine, i use it on occasion but if you ask me which one is more useful in the game. Its a hard sell to not say the horse, just because of how useful it is both in the early game and late game to absorb hits, do some extra damage ect. I just do not see the weapon bond giving as much damage as the animal companion. Especially when you start adding gear onto it and enchantments.

Having a 40+ AC horse, that is dealing 10 to 15 damage per attack and gets what 2 or 3 attacks i think (two hooves and a bite) is going to out strip some extra d6's on your weapon that cant crit.

I LIKE the weapon bond, and in fact brilliant energy MAY make it worth it on its own. but the horse is generally accepted to be the better of the two because of how powerful animal companions are in WOTR.

This is less divine weapon bond being bad and more WOTR over buffing animal companions.

[FunkyMonkey]

Horse is better. That said, I never pick it :D Don't like having animal companions.

[revan1229]

Originally posted by reidj062:

Weapon bond is limited times per day. Four at most, I think. Pets are forever. Unfortunately, even with mythical beast upgrade, and those super high stats, they seem to be one of the first things to go down in a fight. I think a lot of people prefer mounts for the speed and extra damage.

Weapon Bond is 1 minute/level, so not really much of a limitation, especially after the early game.

And pets should not be going down in a fight... They are very tanky. On top of their stats, they can invest in UMD to use scrolls for things like Shield, Mirror Image, etc.

[revan1229]

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

Pets are great on lower difficulty but on higher theyre usually just glorified roadblocks after the early game. And sometimes they end up just blocking your party as well.

Brilliant Energy from divine weapon bond on the other hand is pretty damn good if you want to invest enough levels into paladin to unlock it.

Between the lunge feat, enlarge and reach weapons you really dont need additional safety for your melees. Horse can speed up slow armored paladins - but armor isnt really something you need anyway.

Overall id say weapon bond is more consistently useful on higher difficulty but if you dont already have a meatshield to go die to a swarm/obstruct that 1 enemy that spawned in an awful location next to your casters that gets infinite resurrects its okay.

Horse in particular just isnt very good to begin with but you could do something like 1 sabletooth marine and 11 paladin with boon companion and screw around with the new griffin if you wanna try out the new flavour of the month.

Pets are very strong and higher value, even on Unfair. Brilliant Energy is good on paper, but the majority of enemies in this game do not rely on armor and shields for their AC.

On top of defense, pets provide an easy way to flank, and the wolf/dog trip on every attack, which is very good (especially when polymorphed).

[Razer]

Originally posted by revan1229:

Originally posted by reidj062:

Weapon bond is limited times per day. Four at most, I think. Pets are forever. Unfortunately, even with mythical beast upgrade, and those super high stats, they seem to be one of the first things to go down in a fight. I think a lot of people prefer mounts for the speed and extra damage.

Weapon Bond is 1 minute/level, so not really much of a limitation, especially after the early game.

And pets should not be going down in a fight... They are very tanky. On top of their stats, they can invest in UMD to use scrolls for things like Shield, Mirror Image, etc.

You mean a wolf reads a scroll? What is this? That's definitely an incorrect implementation of the skill.

[Cutlass Jack]

Originally posted by Razer:

You mean a wolf reads a scroll? What is this? That's definitely an incorrect implementation of the skill.

I taught my horse to pick locks.

[LArc7thHeaven]

Dip into any class that gives pet and grab divine weapon, no need to be picky lmao

[Shadow]

Originally posted by Razer:

pets are great, but I tend to have 2 max since they take so much space. In smaller areas everyone just gets stuck on one another, blocking doorways, preventing people from actually hitting enemies. It sucks. If I have Seelah in the party I always set her up with Divine Weapon. It's pretty good. I don't want horses and I don't want anyone to ride anything.

Not a big fan of horses either, personally. Except the ghost rider class. Have to admit that one is thematically tempting.

Anyway, that's why I usually have her dip into another class to pick up a different animal. Do that before you pick paladin level 5 and you can just chose that pet as her divine bond instead of getting a horse.

[Aranador]

I see the love OP has for the Divine Bond, but, if Seela spends hafl teh fight just trying to reach enemies, that makes the Divine Bond all the less useful. Plus Seela excells at holding the line, being the tank. Give her the speed and extra tankiness of a mount, and get someone else to throw a million DPR.

[john_boy]

I think that the horse has been slightly nerfed - last test I did (just level 5 so it may sort itself out at later levels), hoof was previously treated as a primary attack - it's now secondary.

As said may not be a problem at later levels, but (unless I'm going mad here) I could have sworn that by level 5 the -5 penalty didn't apply in previous runs.

[Shadow]

Originally posted by Razer:

Originally posted by revan1229:

Weapon Bond is 1 minute/level, so not really much of a limitation, especially after the early game.

And pets should not be going down in a fight... They are very tanky. On top of their stats, they can invest in UMD to use scrolls for things like Shield, Mirror Image, etc.

You mean a wolf reads a scroll? What is this? That's definitely an incorrect implementation of the skill.

Hey, if cats can figure out how to open doors, then surly a magically bonded wolf in a fantasy world filled with all sorts of intelligent creatures of every description can figure out how to read a silly scroll.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by Ding Pao Chinese Spy:

I know pets are gods in this game but I always see more upside in divine weapon bond, what's your opinion

Definitely one of those things that's more of a real choice in the pen & paper.

I can't see any downside to the mount in the PC game unless you intend to multi-class and don't plan to multi-class into one that can stack companion levels.

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by revan1229:

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

Pets are great on lower difficulty but on higher theyre usually just glorified roadblocks after the early game. And sometimes they end up just blocking your party as well.

Brilliant Energy from divine weapon bond on the other hand is pretty damn good if you want to invest enough levels into paladin to unlock it.

Between the lunge feat, enlarge and reach weapons you really dont need additional safety for your melees. Horse can speed up slow armored paladins - but armor isnt really something you need anyway.

Overall id say weapon bond is more consistently useful on higher difficulty but if you dont already have a meatshield to go die to a swarm/obstruct that 1 enemy that spawned in an awful location next to your casters that gets infinite resurrects its okay.

Horse in particular just isnt very good to begin with but you could do something like 1 sabletooth marine and 11 paladin with boon companion and screw around with the new griffin if you wanna try out the new flavour of the month.

Pets are very strong and higher value, even on Unfair. Brilliant Energy is good on paper, but the majority of enemies in this game do not rely on armor and shields for their AC.

On top of defense, pets provide an easy way to flank, and the wolf/dog trip on every attack, which is very good (especially when polymorphed).

No int to get crane feats in any reasonable amount of time. No int circlet before chapter 2. Massive feat debt in general with no classes or backgrounds to speed it up.
No mental stat to dodge (which also means no AC buffing with those). (Nevermind multi mental stat to dodge like monk/saint multi).
No equivalent to reduce person at all.
And the list goes on..

No, if you actually dont hate yourself just dont.

Dont let me stop you if you think its a great idea tho, good luck!