Finding a job for the Paladin

[JPLRocket]

Many folks put Paladins into their melee stun teams, I think unwisely, based on their +1 stun force strike bonus (max 7 stun with test of faith hammer).

This is erroneous; enemy stun thresholds are 6,7,11, 12, and 15, so he only shaves 1AP off stun on plague marines vs a non-melee specialist doing the same. Worse, the left side of the Paladin skill tree has very few good nodes.

But Paladins *do* have other positive qualities. They get +3 WP instead of +2 for WP passives. They have a +1 ammo passive on their ranged side on the way to arcane ammo. With the eternal wrath (TIII) bolter and extended clip III, their arcane ammo buff is worth +12 damage. This applies to AoE, and fully boosted is actually a very strong enhancement (+8 with credo T1 storm bolter, +12 with tier III).

They can place this on an allied purgator or purifier before combat, reload, then when combat is entered can gift it again after the ally clears out an enemy group.

Purgators can do this too, but psycannons generally are low ammo and 4wp is a lot for one knight to spend. And the effects of two such uses may stack (unclear).

A Paladin's ability to hit 5 stun on his own means he can support a mostly ranged team via stun without requiring an apothecary. As stun and arcane ammo are both support effects, this fits the paladin surprisingly well into the role of support knight, paralleling in ranged AoE groups what the apothecary brings to melee crit groups.

Emperor's will 0AP will gift is also useful here, since a ranged group probably lacks space for a Chaplain but will often see knights burning their own WP fast.

Recommended gear:

morningplate (spend HP as WP)
Test of Faith (+1 stun, FS+2 stun, total 5- don't give it knockback)
Eternal wrath (9 ammo with ranged tree)
Extended clip (+3 ammo)

Recommended team:

Librarian (mass TP, crit bolter, +AP/crit hammer/falchion, psybolt crit, shriek)
Purgator (Titans roar/soulflage, clip+shard)
Purifier (sagefire/helscorcher/piety ash, clip+kantu's)

[Gorwe]

You can also blow ♥♥♥♥ up with Ancient Fury while tanking like a pro. He can also stun, I guess, but I'm not a fan of this.

But thank you for mentioning this! Will have to try it out the next time I play.

[JPLRocket]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

You can also blow ♥♥♥♥ up with Ancient Fury while tanking like a pro. He can also stun, I guess, but I'm not a fan of this.

But thank you for mentioning this! Will have to try it out the next time I play.

The problem with his other activated powers is that other knights do them better. Fury of the ancients is a cone attack that does significantly less damage than a purifier can do with his repeatable attack, but it's 1/turn.

He can tank, but so can any knight with a force staff and some aegis shield bonuses. His crit nodes are poor. But his full stun capacity unlocks as early as level 1.

More generally, tanking isn't good. Wiping all enemies before their turn is just a lot better.

What he has on other knights is more WP than he needs, and the ability to carry a ton of ammo for arcane ammo without actually needing to use it himself.

Let me know in particular if you discover arcane ammo can double stack on a knight. I think I tried this once when cast by the same knight and it didn't work.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by JPLRocket:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

You can also blow ♥♥♥♥ up with Ancient Fury while tanking like a pro. He can also stun, I guess, but I'm not a fan of this.

But thank you for mentioning this! Will have to try it out the next time I play.

The problem with his other activated powers is that other knights do them better. Fury of the ancients is a cone attack that does significantly less damage than a purifier can do with his repeatable attack, but it's 1/turn.

He can tank, but so can any knight with a force staff and some aegis shield bonuses. His crit nodes are poor. But his full stun capacity unlocks as early as level 1.

More generally, tanking isn't good. Wiping all enemies before their turn is just a lot better.

What he has on other knights is more WP than he needs, and the ability to carry a ton of ammo for arcane ammo without actually needing to use it himself.

Let me know in particular if you discover arcane ammo can double stack on a knight. I think I tried this once when cast by the same knight and it didn't work.

It can work if you're going for something like MegaBleed. Or other cheese. And the only other GK who can tank anywhere close to him is Justicar. And these are simply different flavors.

Purifiers though? Yes, his damage is through the roof, but he's also one squishy bum! If you set up his killing field properly, he's gonna reward you. Amply. But without support? Yeah, he's far worse than a Paladin in such a scenario.

I always wanted to out these more eclectic builds. Something like a melee Purifier lol.

[snuggleform]

What do you mean by "only shave off 1 AP." I find AP constraining.

[JPLRocket]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

What do you mean by "only shave off 1 AP." I find AP constraining.

I mean that in a dedicated stun team, the Paladin can stun a plague marine in one hit. Any other knight doing the same would require two.

However, his extra stun doesn't make him able to stun any other unit any faster, due to the legendary difficulty stun threshold values of 6,7,11,12, and 15.

Going to 7 stun just doesn't help much. Being able to deliver 5 without any assistance does, of course. But 5 stun isn't enough to build a strategy around; it is enough to support an alternative strategy.

[snuggleform]

Right but what I'm saying is that requiring two hits vs 1 hit is a big deal. With a paladin it's conceivable to hit -> execute -> hit execute -> over and over. If you require 2 hits, then it becomes hit hit execute hit hit execute and that is net negative in terms of AP; you will run out of AP fast.

I don't know you could just blow over that so easily.

[JPLRocket]

And what I am saying is that applies to exactly one enemy type and no others. And only if you roll with an apothecary.

The correct approach for a stun build is not to have the stun-inducing knight complete the executions, by the way. Other knights should be doing that, knights who stack autos that give AP for crits/executions and have powerful attacks that you want to make repeatedly.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by JPLRocket:

And what I am saying is that applies to exactly one enemy type and no others. And only if you roll with an apothecary.

The correct approach for a stun build is not to have the stun-inducing knight complete the executions, by the way. Other knights should be doing that, knights who stack autos that give AP for crits/executions and have powerful attacks that you want to make repeatedly.

In response to your first paragraph - But that enemy type appears abundantly in the last mission for the vanguard team...arguably that's exactly the place where you want an efficient execution team.

In response your second paragraph, even so I'd much rather spend 1 AP instead of 2 to do the stunning, AP is not some limitless resource. And you're forgetting that the autos that give extra AP from weapons for example only trigger once or twice at best with the right passive talent per turn.

[JPLRocket]

I am forgetting nothing.

I never suggested AP gain from autos did not run out once the autos were fully activated. My point is to get the executions so the autos are always used. The knight on stun duty does not have a powerful damage weapon or a weapon with such autos, ergo, he gains less from an execution. He also gains AP when someone else makes the execution, so more of his actions can be spent stunning targets.

The vanguard team faces a mixture of enemy types. It's wrong to claim they mostly face plague marines. The paladin's +1 stun does not result in him spending less AP to stun terminators, cultists, plague ridden, or plague bearers. All of these enemy types are faced. The paladin is no more efficient in stunning these enemy types than any other knight.

Despite this, he is a significant asset to the vanguard team when also carrying the arcane ammo skill, though, as AoE is very useful there. And it's likely he can set up an execution or two on his own.

The "main" team also benefits heavily from executions, as a lot of damage has to be dumped on the boss, and executions are generally net AP positive for the squad as a whole, even if the knight stunning the enemy winds up with less.

The interceptor with 20+ critical damage winds up with 7+ AP, and that's kind of the point.

[snuggleform]

I never said anywhere that the vanguard team faces mostly plague marines. You've committed an outright strawman right there. I said it appears abundantly and there is an important nuance I was trying to get across by carefully choosing that word. It's not a claim that there isn't a mixture of other enemy types. It's just that if you count the numbers, the plague marine is the highest count. In case it's not clear, if I fight 3 terminators 2 plague drones and 5 plague marines, yes it's accurate to say that plague marines appear abundantly. I never said it was the only type.

The arcane ammo skill is...interesting, but having completed the final mission many times using a paladin who didn't have it, I just shrug. You do you I guess, but you haven't discovered some secret trick that leads to some success that I could not have achieved otherwise. To be fair, the +1 stun to FS is a low tier talent that has no requirements and essentially single-handedly enables the paladin's stun role, so you can do whatever you want to do with the rest of the skill points and not compromise the stun aspect.

The interceptor with 20+ critical damage is fascinating, but I use zero interceptors in my vanguard team because it's completely unnecessary. The vast majority of the enemies are bowled over by a paladin with biomancy stunning/executing everything, the apothecary helping clean up stragglers, a librarian in case the team needs a teleport, and the final slot can be just about anything really. I think I used a justicar or something silly like that and it worked out fine, and I'm going to try a tech marine this time for his armor piercing bolt to help pick off those annoying anti-stun guys.

In terms of the main team I prefer 2 interceptor 2 purgators. (It's not the only way to do it obviously, so I deny any future strawmans trying to say I think it has has to be done that way.) I've actually found that trying to melee Mortarion with the interceptors isn't the smartest thing. It puts them in harms way and they get slowly worn out over the fight. I have the interceptors isolate and snipe targets to clear the way for Drago, and let the purgators wear out Mortarion from afar (with some pot shots from the interceptor's support fire which adds quite a lot of damage, up to 20 damage a turn when totaled across both interceptors doing support fire twice each).

If I'm absolutely certain the interceptor will trigger the next phase of the fight I might teleport one in and deal a mighty crit but only if I'm sure Mortarion won't respond immediately by swiping him next turn.

[dv]

Paladins have an important place in execution squads. They are the best at their job. That's because they require 1 fewer AP to set up the first stun of a turn.

I agree that there are other uses. If you want to experiment with ranged builds for fun, they work fine. Just not as good as execution does.

[Gorwe]

Should their shields be buffed somehow? If so, how?

[JPLRocket]

Originally posted by dv:

Paladins have an important place in execution squads. They are the best at their job. That's because they require 1 fewer AP to set up the first stun of a turn.

I agree that there are other uses. If you want to experiment with ranged builds for fun, they work fine. Just not as good as execution does.

Again: only when the first stun is being made on a plague marine. Sometimes the enemy force contains zero plague marines. Other knights can bring additional skills to the table with greater net benefit.

This post does not say "don't use Paladins for stun" but rather "the entire paladin stun skill tree is one node. He can be a more thorough support." Most of the other paladin nodes are just not worth using.

Along this line, I have a question for folks:

Does teleport strike benefit from the arcane weapons buff? I have confirmed that Pale/Warpbreaker FS AoEs and all psycannon/flamer AoE strikes do benefit. Not sure if TS does, but if it does, there's some significant untapped potential.

To snuggleform- my main note on the final battle is the roots are so far apart that I really feel a need to bring g a librarian to the inner sanctum, so that each phase can be done in a single turn. It's possible that a justicar giving him +3 AP could get it done too, but I am uncertain of the chapter master has enough movement without the aid of two teleports.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by JPLRocket:

Originally posted by dv:

Paladins have an important place in execution squads. They are the best at their job. That's because they require 1 fewer AP to set up the first stun of a turn.

I agree that there are other uses. If you want to experiment with ranged builds for fun, they work fine. Just not as good as execution does.

Again: only when the first stun is being made on a plague marine. Sometimes the enemy force contains zero plague marines. Other knights can bring additional skills to the table with greater net benefit.

This post does not say "don't use Paladins for stun" but rather "the entire paladin stun skill tree is one node. He can be a more thorough support." Most of the other paladin nodes are just not worth using.

Along this line, I have a question for folks:

Does teleport strike benefit from the arcane weapons buff? I have confirmed that Pale/Warpbreaker FS AoEs and all psycannon/flamer AoE strikes do benefit. Not sure if TS does, but if it does, there's some significant untapped potential.

To snuggleform- my main note on the final battle is the roots are so far apart that I really feel a need to bring g a librarian to the inner sanctum, so that each phase can be done in a single turn. It's possible that a justicar giving him +3 AP could get it done too, but I am uncertain of the chapter master has enough movement without the aid of two teleports.

Only Smite is meh imo. Everything else has an use.

[JPLRocket]

The problem isn't whether it can be used, but whether it's better at a given task than other knights.

The Paladin's problem is he does 1 thing (stun a plague marine with apothecary support) better than a chaplain would, but 4 things (support allies' WP with invocation of focus, add AP to allies' executions, deal AoE damage, deal critical damage) significantly worse or not at all.

Being the best tank in the game doesn't mean much if other teams can completely wipe out the enemy.

But supporting ranged attackers lets the Paladin lean into this, while still being a pretty beefy character. Even without an apothecary, using endbringer or mercy he can hit 4 stun, which is usually sufficient to add a good stack of AP to the team.

Adding 12 damage to a wide range AoE and a further 2AP to three other knights is more than sufficient contribution for a turn.