Paladin Build

[Violyn]

Hey peeps! How would you guys build a paladin character? I'm talking class, stat distribution, weapons, armor, I imagine it should be white mage since it has smite, but who knows.

I haven't played CoC II or participated in the forum for over a year I think? A lot could have changed, and the unofficial save editor seems to have not been updated in a while, so I'm going to play a lot more legit than I used to;

 

[valkyr42]

by paladin, do you specifically mean a heavy armor using holy warrior, or more a holy warrior archetype in general? If you want to use heavy armor, I'd actually start as Warrior and just purchase the White Mage skills you need. Otherwise, White Mage is a great pick, with one of the two level 7 perks being just a flat addition of holy damage to your melee strikes. Saving Eryka is a must, as the weapon she provides is a fundamental tool for early to mid game, and just in general one of the best in the game. If your character is a woman or not opposed to becoming one, the Valkyrie soul-bind should be your goal.

of course, there is support enough for a dark paladin playstyle, with the Corrupted Dawnsword being the crown jewel of the build. stats i leave to the min-maxers to dictate, but basically any playstyle is viable on Normal, and even Dark with a bit of thinking as to which Companions to bring. good luck!

 

[quickpawmaud]

I am in the same boat as you having taken a break from the game for a long time. I also like Paladin builds. The Valkyrie definitely seems like the best bet but I am opposed to becoming a woman. Would not mind being a Futa I guess but would rather just stay a man. So I am starting as a Warrior and seeing how things develop. I picked Human Noble Warrior start. Now I plan to take Strength, Toughness, and Agility as my main stats and drink the Willpower drink from the inn. Although you may prefer to ignore Agility and take Willpower as a main stat. Being a Paladin in this game is more clunky than it should be when so many characters in game are Paladins. You are missing stuff either way if you choose to go Warrior or White Mage. I wish you could choose per level which you want rather than all of one or the other since you want early levels of Warrior and later levels of White Mage. Most of the build is going to be down to skills and gear though and you want White Mage skills and Warrior gear for the most part. Early on you can get the Gladius from saving Eryka like the previous poster said. However I plan to not get the Dawnsword as I do not see it as being that much of an upgrade and you can instead let your temporary Paladin companion for the quest take it and you get a cool ring instead and that is a Paladin thing to do anyway to let your fellow Paladin share in your glory. I also think Leadership is an important stat for Paladins so I plan to take all of the Leadership boosting items which that ring is one of them and it is the best way to get it. The other items are the Helm of Heroes and the Conqueror's Breastplate. I like playing a tank and I think it is a better way to play with how Paladin works in this game with the gear mostly being one handed swords. So Leadership lets your companions deal more damage. https://wiki.smutosaur.us/CoC2/Shadows_Over_the_Sun this quest seems to be the turning point of the build and where most of the differences will come into play. Depending on how you do this quest will change how you play your Paladin as you can choose one of 4 unique items. I plan to choose the two handed weapon but you might prefer the armor (it is quite good however would lose out on the Leadership from the previous armor mentioned but gain Initiative instead which combined with the Winged Sabatons which also boost that could help you out should you decide to go White Mage over Warrior) or something else. https://wiki.smutosaur.us/CoC2/Powers this page shows all the powers in the game. Annika teaches basically everything you could possibly need. Generally you just need things with the word "Smite" in it and Charge Weapon. If you want to be more tanky then use a stance from Warrior like Shielded or Guarded. For the rest of the gear not from that quest or not mentioned yet really anything works. Only other item worth mentioning I guess is Shield of Brawn which I plan to use. Depending on which companions you prefer you may be better off going for different powers. If you like Cait and always bring her you do not need Revive for example. If not probably need to take Revive. If you do not bring a healer with you and want to be pure tank support character take Heal at will instead of a stance and then maybe Vanguard from Warrior to help keep threat and defenses up. There are a lot of options for Paladin but sadly they lean more towards support than damage dealing from my experience. TLDR is learn all White Mage abilities and Warrior abilities and change them out depending on your current needs and you will be a nice defensive support that works well with all damage dealing companions.

 

[quickpawmaud]

I am in the same boat as you having taken a break from the game for a long time. I also like Paladin builds. The Valkyrie definitely seems like the best bet but I am opposed to becoming a woman. Would not mind being a Futa I guess but would rather just stay a man. So I am starting as a Warrior and seeing how things develop. I picked Human Noble Warrior start. Now I plan to take Strength, Toughness, and Agility as my main stats and drink the Willpower drink from the inn. Although you may prefer to ignore Agility and take Willpower as a main stat. Being a Paladin in this game is more clunky than it should be when so many characters in game are Paladins. You are missing stuff either way if you choose to go Warrior or White Mage. I wish you could choose per level which you want rather than all of one or the other since you want early levels of Warrior and later levels of White Mage. Most of the build is going to be down to skills and gear though and you want White Mage skills and Warrior gear for the most part. Early on you can get the Gladius from saving Eryka like the previous poster said. However I plan to not get the Dawnsword as I do not see it as being that much of an upgrade and you can instead let your temporary Paladin companion for the quest take it and you get a cool ring instead and that is a Paladin thing to do anyway to let your fellow Paladin share in your glory. I also think Leadership is an important stat for Paladins so I plan to take all of the Leadership boosting items which that ring is one of them and it is the best way to get it. The other items are the Helm of Heroes and the Conqueror's Breastplate. I like playing a tank and I think it is a better way to play with how Paladin works in this game with the gear mostly being one handed swords. So Leadership lets your companions deal more damage. https://wiki.smutosaur.us/CoC2/Shadows_Over_the_Sun this quest seems to be the turning point of the build and where most of the differences will come into play. Depending on how you do this quest will change how you play your Paladin as you can choose one of 4 unique items. I plan to choose the two handed weapon but you might prefer the armor (it is quite good however would lose out on the Leadership from the previous armor mentioned but gain Initiative instead which combined with the Winged Sabatons which also boost that could help you out should you decide to go White Mage over Warrior) or something else. https://wiki.smutosaur.us/CoC2/Powers this page shows all the powers in the game. Annika teaches basically everything you could possibly need. Generally you just need things with the word "Smite" in it and Charge Weapon. If you want to be more tanky then use a stance from Warrior like Shielded or Guarded. For the rest of the gear not from that quest or not mentioned yet really anything works. Only other item worth mentioning I guess is Shield of Brawn which I plan to use. Depending on which companions you prefer you may be better off going for different powers. If you like Cait and always bring her you do not need Revive for example. If not probably need to take Revive. If you do not bring a healer with you and want to be pure tank support character take Heal at will instead of a stance and then maybe Vanguard from Warrior to help keep threat and defenses up. There are a lot of options for Paladin but sadly they lean more towards support than damage dealing from my experience. TLDR is learn all White Mage abilities and Warrior abilities and change them out depending on your current needs and you will be a nice defensive support that works well with all damage dealing companions.

Also would add that Etheryn seems to be the best pick for a Paladin Champ and is the best girl regardless . She deals holy damage, and has two very Paladin-esque sets in her Queen set and the new one I have yet to try the Warrior set which seems to be inspired by Valkyries (yet she is able to avoid the vagina requirement somehow). Now in the past I have struggled in using Etheryn as she has just seemed like a weaker choice in terms of damage or healing than Pyro Brienne or Witch Cait respectively. However with her new set she may be viable as a tank and you could lean more into healing or damage (although I still do not think a Paladin build is very good damage wise). Regardless I need to experiment more to find out how to make Etheryn work but she is definitely the closest we have to a Paladin companion at this point. She even has increased Leadership with the set! Which will boost your damage possibly? If you do go this route I suggest going for the highest damage companion you can find as you may be lacking it. The highest damage I know of from back in the day when I played was Pyro Brienne. Things may have changed since though.

 

[WolframL]

I have yet to try the Warrior set which seems to be inspired by Valkyries (yet she is able to avoid the vagina requirement somehow).

There is no requirement to have a vagina to be a Valkyrie. There's even one in the game right now who does not. Valks are required to be female but female=/= vagina.

Also, Ryn doesn't actually become a valkyrie with that gear set in any case. It's equipment similar to what they use and it's been blessed by Lumia but she doesn't go through the soulbinding process.

 

[quickpawmaud]

There is no requirement to have a vagina to be a Valkyrie. There's even one in the game right now who does not. Valks are required to be female but female=/= vagina.

Also, Ryn doesn't actually become a valkyrie with that gear set in any case. It's equipment similar to what they use and it's been blessed by Lumia but she doesn't go through the soulbinding process.

Ah so it seems. I misunderstood it. It just requires you to have breasts I guess. I have not gotten to that content yet. "Your gender will be locked to female, and you will not be able to change it in the future. Transformations that fall into these categories, and sub-categories thereof, will be blocked or limited: wings, breasts." It is a little confusing tbh. As they usually specify dickgirl. Annika is not listed as female for example and is listed as dickgirl under gender. Whereas Cait for example under gender is listed as female. So that is why I assumed for the game female = vagina. Perhaps this should be made more clear?