Dwarf paladin build - need some help

[Buddhacheese]

I want to make a dwarf paladin as my main character, and I'm going to play tactician with a total of four characters.

I'm going to take the fighter class, with board & sword.
Focusing on warfare and hydro. Starting skills: Battle stomp, Bouncing shield and Restoration.
Attributes: Con, str and or wits? Not sure if I need to focus on str or wits or level up both?
Talents: unstable, comeback kid, morning person, picture of health, oppertunist (If I die I do alot of damage to the one that killed me because of the hight vitality and the unstable + come back kid and morning person talents.)

My plan is to make a tanky dwarf with cc and support skills from warfare and hydro. I know that bouncing shield does not scale with strenght so I could focus on con and wits, but I'm not sure how powerfull that skills is in the long run. So the main question is what attributes are best for this build.

[Buddhacheese]

Anyone? :D

[Ozymandias]

Others may disagree, but puting lots of points into constitution will gimp your character in the early game. Try to focus on one or two stats, then expand later.

Recently, I built a lohse battle mage like that - I invested a lot of points into intellegence, wit, some into strength and constitution (to carry weapons and armor), and picked up hothead and savage sort so my spells would crit. The intellegence would help you break magic armor; but if you fancy breaking physical armor more, invest in strength.

Investing into wit as a dwarf seems unoptimal since you aren't going to get that race bonus, and initiative is going to be bad for you if you decide to pick up executioner.

comeback kid doesn't bring you back from death, it just stops you from dying. It doesn't stack well with unstable or morning person. Additionally, I would advise against relying on dying as it becomes quiet expensive when you have to buy a bunch of rez scrolls.

Good luck!

[Lucid]

When you get into Act 2 you can respec so I would just put points in where you need them for the moment. I also like some of the polymorph, geomancer defensive skills books, AOE armour regen is cool, also I use some necro books for even more utlity. I don't use my tank for spell casting so I dump points into 2h, strength > memory > wits. With Paladin type I wonder if it will be more difficult cause you would need more INT to make your heals more powerful. Its the balance you will have to achieve, less Warfare and melee damage for heals or vice versa. Luckily, you will get gear that gives you all kinds of +points to different skill lines. Its not unlikely to get like +4 points into a single skill line.

I imagine a paladin being a buff bot and healer and utility so you would rely on all your other characters for damage. Therefore you need mobility. Either get the poly fly book or the Hunstman book that allows you to jump.

Then I would say only a few points into warfare for some stomps and charges, most into hydro for some juicy heals, one or 2 into poly for more buffs, and one or 2 into geo for more buffs, and get a point into necro too! Poly allows you to fly!

Early on during the first levels I recommend having atleast 2 characters with restoration, buy the book ASAP and then use the ring you will get on another character. Spread your heals through a few characters if possible. Then as you level you will rely less and less on them and more ony our pally.

Just pulling this out my ass, hope it helps

[Sunshine]

My friend has an Undead Dwarf Tank, he heavily relies on Warfare/Geo/Necro and has plenty of sustain

[Gamebot]

Tanking doesn't work on tactician. If it's physical dealer, focus on STR/FIN and weapon ability(2H, DW, Ranged). If it's magic dealer, focus on INT and magic tree. Only 1 character need high Wits. 2 physical / 2 magic dealer is the most efficient combination.

[Buddhacheese]

Alright, yeah I want to break physical armor so I should take str and con then. What do you mean by con will gimp your character in the early game? About the talents: Yeah I found this talent combi on a guide thought it would work. (By Nerd commando).

[Sunshine]

Of course tanking works on tactician, but you have to be tactical about it not just face rushing the center mass of their army

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Alexei Stukov:

My friend has an Undead Dwarf Tank, he heavily relies on Warfare/Geo/Necro and has plenty of sustain

Necromancy actually makes for very good tanks. Get some living armor, the talent that lets you cast for less ap (because you'll be standing in blood constantly).

[Buddhacheese]

Originally posted by Lucid_Con:

When you get into Act 2 you can respec so I would just put points in where you need them for the moment. I also like some of the polymorph, geomancer defensive skills books, AOE armour regen is cool, also I use some necro books for even more utlity. I don't use my tank for spell casting so I dump points into 2h, strength > memory > wits. With Paladin type I wonder if it will be more difficult cause you would need more INT to make your heals more powerful. Its the balance you will have to achieve, less Warfare and melee damage for heals or vice versa. Luckily, you will get gear that gives you all kinds of +points to different skill lines. Its not unlikely to get like +4 points into a single skill line.

I imagine a paladin being a buff bot and healer and utility so you would rely on all your other characters for damage. Therefore you need mobility. Either get the poly fly book or the Hunstman book that allows you to jump.

Then I would say only a few points into warfare for some stomps and charges, most into hydro for some juicy heals, one or 2 into poly for more buffs, and one or 2 into geo for more buffs, and get a point into necro too! Poly allows you to fly!

I recommend having atleast 2 characters with restoration, buy the book ASAP and then use the ring you will get on another character. Spread your heals through a few characters if possible. Then as you level you will rely less and less on them and more ony our pally.

Just pulling this out my ass, hope it helps

I use the hydro skills for healing and these heal abilities are not scaling with int so I can focus on str and con. Thanks for the info btw.

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Buddhacheese:

I use the hydro skills for healing and these heal abilities are not scaling with int so I can focus on str and con. Thanks for the info btw.

Correct, they scale only with hydromancer.

[Buddhacheese]

Originally posted by Gamebot:

Tanking doesn't work on tactician. If it's physical dealer, focus on STR/FIN and weapon ability(2H, DW, Ranged). If it's magic dealer, focus on INT and magic tree. Only 1 character need high Wits. 2 physical / 2 magic dealer is the most efficient combination.

If I use two physicall and two magic characters, wouldn't that devide my options too much? Because most enemy's have both magic and psysical armor.

[rasabt]

Originally posted by Gamebot:

Tanking doesn't work on tactician. If it's physical dealer, focus on STR/FIN and weapon ability(2H, DW, Ranged). If it's magic dealer, focus on INT and magic tree. Only 1 character need high Wits. 2 physical / 2 magic dealer is the most efficient combination.

yes it does. it's just a bit...well alot different than in other crpgs:

a) you can only expect to bind melee-focused enemies (by gettin stench on the other party members)
b) cc and placing the "tank" in the right spots can force the KI to focus him/her

once you get used to it tanking in DOS2 feels alot more engaging than the usual tank'n spank.


overall warfare and hydro (and some geo) make quite a sturdy tank, especialy since you don't need INT for the support spells, but your damage on death setup won't work (comeback kid only prevents dying).
CON isn't as important as strength since you want to have both mag and phys armor mostly up all the time...but some points won't hurt, early game or not.

But if you want to build a realy "op" tank you should go undead (+geo) or necro (leech)...but that's just my opinion.

[Gamebot]

Originally posted by Buddhacheese:

Originally posted by Gamebot:

Tanking doesn't work on tactician. If it's physical dealer, focus on STR/FIN and weapon ability(2H, DW, Ranged). If it's magic dealer, focus on INT and magic tree. Only 1 character need high Wits. 2 physical / 2 magic dealer is the most efficient combination.

If I use two physicall and two magic characters, wouldn't that devide my options too much? Because most enemy's have both magic and psysical armor.

Knight - weapon 7 : buff and healing 3
Ranger - weapon 6 : magic arrows 3 : healing 1
Enchanger - Hydro Aero 6 : buff 2 : healing 2
Wizard - Pyro Geo 5 : Necro(physical) 3 : healing 1

This was my first party, and 'Healing' includes frost armor, fortify, mending metal, soothing cold etc. You don't need tank cause everyone has skills to fill up armor. Giving shields to mages also helps a lot at early games.

Also everyone had mobility skills. cloak and dagger, tactical retreat, phoenix dive, teleportation, nether swap etc.

[Buddhacheese]

The idea about this paladin build is to support the other 3 damage dealers with cc, and healing. So the other characters can stay up and fight.

[Lucid]

Originally posted by Ozymandias:

Originally posted by Buddhacheese:

I use the hydro skills for healing and these heal abilities are not scaling with int so I can focus on str and con. Thanks for the info btw.

Correct, they scale only with hydromancer.

Nevermind, was confused, so only putting points into Hydro increases heals, so no need for such high INT