Originally posted Feb 15, 2010
Originally posted by ShakaUVM:
Dr. Safe House, Knight of Dawn
When making a new LFR character based on an old one that I didn't really like that much, I poked around through some of the new material, and realized I could turn my character into a Saving Throw factory.
To save time, for the post here, I'm going to base it on an older build of mine, the Holyroller of Lathander, which still has some good tricks in it if you've never looked at it:
community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...(x)
Key Concept:
We're going to combine:
1) Saving Grace (paragon feat) - Whenever you make a save, you can choose to give an ally a save instead, with your Wisdom modifier as a bonus. By itself, it's kind of meh.
with
2) Starfire Womb - You get to make a save any time you inflict radiant or fear damage.
and since we have it -
3) Divine Challenge / Sanction
and
4) Blazing Starfall as an at-will, since we're a half-elf. (Blazing Starfall is a burst 1 radiant at-will)
In other words, when you're fighting a ton of insubstantial undead that weaken (save ends) or are fighting a BBEG that inflicts a mass daze (save ends) or any number of other, really serious, things that can potentially TPK the entire party, that's when it is our time to shine! We pop off a Blazing Starfall on a crowd of enemies (ideally enlarged as much as possible), and then pass out saves like candy to our teammates, all at a +5 bonus! And if we really need a ton of saves, we can use an encounter power and Pure Glow, and get one save for potentially every enemy within 5 squares!
In Heroic:
This character is in heroic right now in LFR, which means he's only a saving throw factory for himself.
Starfire Womb + Virtuous Strike (his paladin at-will basic attack) is a great combination. Virtuous Strike gives you +2 on all saves... and is radiant. So if he really needs to end an effect, he Virtuous Strikes a guy and gets to make two saves at +2 to the roll, which increases your odds of success from 55% to 88%. And if you have a daze (save ends) effect on you, then you can even end it in the middle of your turn and take your full round of actions. Or since Virtuous Strike is a melee basic attack, he's even triggered it off of opportunity attacks and charges.
Also, since Divine Challenge and Divine Sanction are both powers that inflict radiant damage, they trigger saves as well. So when a bad guy ignores his mark, he gets a saving throw each time. This has proven to be really really nice at removing ongoing damage before they take effect. This combo still works very nicely in paragon, since you can use it to pass a save right back to the guy that a monster that disrespected your mark just hit.
Doing Damage:
This character's actual point is to be a defender/striker, and now that hybrids are LFR-legal, the paladin|warlock completely blows the old Paladin MC Warlock out of the water. Sure, you lose Lay on Hands, and your DC damage drops by 3 (and becomes a reaction, which matters), but you pick up the ability to curse people, and eyebite at will (instead of once per combat). AND you don't need to buy four different weapons/implements to make it all work (Paladin Weapon, Paladin Holy Symbol, Warlock Wand, Sorcerer Dagger). Hybrids can use any implement they can use with any class power, so one of those new Pact blades will do us very nicely.
Blazing Starfall is our "We need saves!" ability, as well as his radiant AOE DPR beatdown, but his core schtick is the eyebite, mark and run trick.
Normal Round of combat:
Minor) Curse or Move
Minor) Divine Challenge
Standard) Eyebite for 1d6+1d10+Cha (1d6+2d10+Cha in paragon)
Reaction) Trigger Divine Challenge damage on enemy, since they can't see us. Allies get an effective +3 to defense against the enemy due to the mark and Group Defense.
I did the math, and this guy actually averages more damage than my barbarian was doing at the same level, and he's a half-defender. He's in plate and shield, so his AC is better than a fighters.
The Daily:
Frost of Letherna. Once per day, we get to kill a solo melee monster. No save, no attack roll needed. Can also immobilize an entire group of enemies twice in the encounter he pops this daily.
They fixed Frost of Letherna in the March 2010 Errata. A much needed change, IMO.
On a Paragon Path:
There's actually a lot of really good options for this guy. I picked Morninglord for the Radiant Vulnerable 10 it grants whenever you deal radiant damage (Crown of Stars!) which combos nicely with all the radiant damage powers we have to pass out saves, but Student of Caiphon is also a good match, as are more mundane things like Hospitaler, Entrancing Mystic, or Academy Master. Paragon Hybriding gives us next to nothing, oddly enough, since we can already pick up two full warlock pacts through Dual Pact at Paragon.
Edit: As pointed out below, Student of Caiphon gets the nod, since it allows the user to give himself an ongoing damage that he never needs to succeed at a saving throw on. Pick up resist psychic 5 and you're golden.
Feats:
I'll make a short note about each feat, since they all contribute very nicely to this class
1) Hybrid Talent (Paladin Armor Proficiency) - We get to wear full plate and shield
2) Starfire Womb - Saves every time we do damage with a radiant or fear power
4) Crimson Fire - Increase curse damage to +1d10 against DCed targets!
6) Group Defense - Allies get +1 to defenses against marked targets (even if they hit the paladin with a burst!)
8) Focused Expertise - Shortswords. (We don't hardly ever melee, so shortswords are perfectly fine, and can be used as Pact Blades)
10) White Lotus Riposte - Deal 6 damage to a target that hits us after an eyebite. They'll also take damage if they don't go after us, which is great.
11) Saving Grace - Hand out saves whenever we get a save.
12) Versatile Master - Radiant Starfall becomes an at-will
14) Dual Pact - Pick up another at-will and gain pact boons for both pacts. Take your pick.
16) Psychic Lock - When eyebiting, drop another -2 penalty on the attack.
Other fun feat possibilities:
Religious Dabbler - Get an extra divine at-will
Mark of Warding - Not LFR legal, but an extra -1 on the mark
Power of Arcana - Make Virtuous Strike into an arcane attack, which combos with White Lotus
White Lotus Master Riposte - Repeat an arcane attack if they go after us. This isn't as good for Eyebiters as it is for other people. But if you go the Power of Arcana route, not bad at all.
Arcane Admixture + Resounding Thunder - If you really want to be the Save House, turn Blazing Starfall into an at-will burst 2, so you get to grant saves based on however many hits you get in a 5x5 region. And, uh, technically if you hit your friends with it, you can use that to grant saves as well. =)
The Eyebite Combo:
So basically, in normal fights, we hit enemies with Eyebite while loaded up on Psychic Lock, Group Defense, White Lotus Riposte and using a Pact Blade. So if they go after an ally, they are at -5 to hit. If they go after us, they're at -7 to hit (if they know what square we're in). If they hit an enemy, they take 9 radiant damage. If they hit us, they take 10 damage. This is what we do when we don't need to pass out saves.
It's your Choice:
I'm posting a sample build at the bottom, but really if you want to play this guy, you'll have to decide for yourself what you want to focus on. I designed him to be an Eyebite guy who has the capability of granting a ton of saves whenever he needs it. You might want to focus him elsewhere. There's three main directions I see that you could take this build instead:
1) More Defending: Mark of Warding, all those feats that boost Divine Challenge, and/or take White Lotus everything.
2) More Damage: Weapon Focus, take Spiteful Glamour or Dire Radiance as your go-to power instead of Eyebite, and/or get a Master's Wand of Spiteful Glamour (which is very nice when you have Crimson Fire), load up on Radiant Attacks and exploit all that radiant vulnerability you're pumping out. Possibly consider multiclassing to get more damage options.
3) More Invisible. Take Evermeet Warlock, take Ethereal Sidestep, and you essentially become invisible all day long. Maybe multiclass to pick up Stealth as a class skill. We use Summoned Armor by default, which lets us boost our stealth whenever we go invisible.
Stats:
You'll max out Charisma. You can choose whether to max out Wisdom (in order to grant +Wis as a bonus on every save you pass out), or Con (to pick up Dire Radiance, which is wicked powerful with Morninglord).
Items:
A pact blade is nice (since it saves you a lot of money by just needing one magic item for all four types of your attack powers), as is summoned full plate (since it lets you boost Stealth when you really need it), but there's no items really needed to make the Save House work. Depending on your DM, if he lets all of your implement powers cast through a Sunblade or Radiant Weapon become radiant, well, then that's your go-to weapon. Any way you can make eyebites radiant is a really good boost for this build.
Build:
I didn't pick any of the powers beyond the key ones. They don't especially matter - I do like the Frost of Letherna + mass marking combo. It lets you lock down entire combats for a couple rounds.
Character Sheet at 16th
[sblock]
====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Holyroller 2, level 16
Half-Elf, Paladin|Warlock, Morninglord
Hybrid Paladin: Hybrid Paladin Will
Eldritch Pact (Hybrid): Fey Pact (Hybrid)
Hybrid Warlock: Hybrid Warlock Will
Twofold Pact: Star Pact
Hybrid Talent: Paladin Armor Proficiency
Background: Born Under a Bad Sign (Born Under a Bad Sign Benefit)
FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 9, Con 14, Dex 12, Int 11, Wis 20, Cha 22.
STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 8, Con 10, Dex 11, Int 10, Wis 17, Cha 16.
AC: 32 Fort: 20 Reflex: 19 Will: 26
HP: 110 Surges: 10 Surge Value: 27
TRAINED SKILLS
Thievery +12, Bluff +19, Diplomacy +21
UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +7, Arcana +8, Dungeoneering +13, Endurance +8, Heal +13, History +8, Insight +15, Intimidate +14, Nature +13, Perception +13, Religion +8, Stealth +7, Streetwise +14, Athletics +5
FEATS
Level 1: Hybrid Talent
Level 2: Crimson Fire
Level 4: Starfire Womb
Level 6: Group Defense
Level 8: Focused Expertise (Longsword)
Level 10: White Lotus Riposte
Level 11: Twofold Pact
Level 12: Saving Grace
Level 14: Versatile Master
Level 16: Psychic Lock
POWERS
Dilettante: Blazing Starfall
Hybrid at-will 1: Virtuous Strike
Hybrid at-will 1: Eyebite
Hybrid encounter 1: Valorous Smite
Hybrid daily 1: Frost of Letherna
Hybrid utility 2: Call of Challenge
ITEMS
Pact Blade - Raiment of Shadows Short sword +4, Summoned Specter Plate Armor +4
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======
[/sblock]
Added Bonus for Humour:
This is perhaps the best build in the world for making use of Sehanine's Reversal. When you get to pitch 20 saving throws at an effect, you have a 65% chance of rolling a natural 20 and flipping the effect right back on the target. Think for a second about all the annoying and cheesy (save ends) effects monsters get. Now, if there's not a small smile slowing forming on your face as you contemplate being able to flip this back on them every combat, well, you need to play more LFR. =) You can gain the ability to use Channel Divinity with this feat.
Originally posted by ShakaUVM:
Dr. Safe House, Knight of Dawn
When making a new LFR character based on an old one that I didn't really like that much, I poked around through some of the new material, and realized I could turn my character into a Saving Throw factory.
To save time, for the post here, I'm going to base it on an older build of mine, the Holyroller of Lathander, which still has some good tricks in it if you've never looked at it:
community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...(x)
Key Concept:
We're going to combine:
1) Saving Grace (paragon feat) - Whenever you make a save, you can choose to give an ally a save instead, with your Wisdom modifier as a bonus. By itself, it's kind of meh.
with
2) Starfire Womb - You get to make a save any time you inflict radiant or fear damage.
and since we have it -
3) Divine Challenge / Sanction
and
4) Blazing Starfall as an at-will, since we're a half-elf. (Blazing Starfall is a burst 1 radiant at-will)
In other words, when you're fighting a ton of insubstantial undead that weaken (save ends) or are fighting a BBEG that inflicts a mass daze (save ends) or any number of other, really serious, things that can potentially TPK the entire party, that's when it is our time to shine! We pop off a Blazing Starfall on a crowd of enemies (ideally enlarged as much as possible), and then pass out saves like candy to our teammates, all at a +5 bonus! And if we really need a ton of saves, we can use an encounter power and Pure Glow, and get one save for potentially every enemy within 5 squares!
In Heroic:
This character is in heroic right now in LFR, which means he's only a saving throw factory for himself.
Starfire Womb + Virtuous Strike (his paladin at-will basic attack) is a great combination. Virtuous Strike gives you +2 on all saves... and is radiant. So if he really needs to end an effect, he Virtuous Strikes a guy and gets to make two saves at +2 to the roll, which increases your odds of success from 55% to 88%. And if you have a daze (save ends) effect on you, then you can even end it in the middle of your turn and take your full round of actions. Or since Virtuous Strike is a melee basic attack, he's even triggered it off of opportunity attacks and charges.
Also, since Divine Challenge and Divine Sanction are both powers that inflict radiant damage, they trigger saves as well. So when a bad guy ignores his mark, he gets a saving throw each time. This has proven to be really really nice at removing ongoing damage before they take effect. This combo still works very nicely in paragon, since you can use it to pass a save right back to the guy that a monster that disrespected your mark just hit.
Doing Damage:
This character's actual point is to be a defender/striker, and now that hybrids are LFR-legal, the paladin|warlock completely blows the old Paladin MC Warlock out of the water. Sure, you lose Lay on Hands, and your DC damage drops by 3 (and becomes a reaction, which matters), but you pick up the ability to curse people, and eyebite at will (instead of once per combat). AND you don't need to buy four different weapons/implements to make it all work (Paladin Weapon, Paladin Holy Symbol, Warlock Wand, Sorcerer Dagger). Hybrids can use any implement they can use with any class power, so one of those new Pact blades will do us very nicely.
Blazing Starfall is our "We need saves!" ability, as well as his radiant AOE DPR beatdown, but his core schtick is the eyebite, mark and run trick.
Normal Round of combat:
Minor) Curse or Move
Minor) Divine Challenge
Standard) Eyebite for 1d6+1d10+Cha (1d6+2d10+Cha in paragon)
Reaction) Trigger Divine Challenge damage on enemy, since they can't see us. Allies get an effective +3 to defense against the enemy due to the mark and Group Defense.
I did the math, and this guy actually averages more damage than my barbarian was doing at the same level, and he's a half-defender. He's in plate and shield, so his AC is better than a fighters.
The Daily:
Frost of Letherna. Once per day, we get to kill a solo melee monster. No save, no attack roll needed. Can also immobilize an entire group of enemies twice in the encounter he pops this daily.
They fixed Frost of Letherna in the March 2010 Errata. A much needed change, IMO.
On a Paragon Path:
There's actually a lot of really good options for this guy. I picked Morninglord for the Radiant Vulnerable 10 it grants whenever you deal radiant damage (Crown of Stars!) which combos nicely with all the radiant damage powers we have to pass out saves, but Student of Caiphon is also a good match, as are more mundane things like Hospitaler, Entrancing Mystic, or Academy Master. Paragon Hybriding gives us next to nothing, oddly enough, since we can already pick up two full warlock pacts through Dual Pact at Paragon.
Edit: As pointed out below, Student of Caiphon gets the nod, since it allows the user to give himself an ongoing damage that he never needs to succeed at a saving throw on. Pick up resist psychic 5 and you're golden.
Feats:
I'll make a short note about each feat, since they all contribute very nicely to this class
1) Hybrid Talent (Paladin Armor Proficiency) - We get to wear full plate and shield
2) Starfire Womb - Saves every time we do damage with a radiant or fear power
4) Crimson Fire - Increase curse damage to +1d10 against DCed targets!
6) Group Defense - Allies get +1 to defenses against marked targets (even if they hit the paladin with a burst!)
8) Focused Expertise - Shortswords. (We don't hardly ever melee, so shortswords are perfectly fine, and can be used as Pact Blades)
10) White Lotus Riposte - Deal 6 damage to a target that hits us after an eyebite. They'll also take damage if they don't go after us, which is great.
11) Saving Grace - Hand out saves whenever we get a save.
12) Versatile Master - Radiant Starfall becomes an at-will
14) Dual Pact - Pick up another at-will and gain pact boons for both pacts. Take your pick.
16) Psychic Lock - When eyebiting, drop another -2 penalty on the attack.
Other fun feat possibilities:
Religious Dabbler - Get an extra divine at-will
Mark of Warding - Not LFR legal, but an extra -1 on the mark
Power of Arcana - Make Virtuous Strike into an arcane attack, which combos with White Lotus
White Lotus Master Riposte - Repeat an arcane attack if they go after us. This isn't as good for Eyebiters as it is for other people. But if you go the Power of Arcana route, not bad at all.
Arcane Admixture + Resounding Thunder - If you really want to be the Save House, turn Blazing Starfall into an at-will burst 2, so you get to grant saves based on however many hits you get in a 5x5 region. And, uh, technically if you hit your friends with it, you can use that to grant saves as well. =)
The Eyebite Combo:
So basically, in normal fights, we hit enemies with Eyebite while loaded up on Psychic Lock, Group Defense, White Lotus Riposte and using a Pact Blade. So if they go after an ally, they are at -5 to hit. If they go after us, they're at -7 to hit (if they know what square we're in). If they hit an enemy, they take 9 radiant damage. If they hit us, they take 10 damage. This is what we do when we don't need to pass out saves.
It's your Choice:
I'm posting a sample build at the bottom, but really if you want to play this guy, you'll have to decide for yourself what you want to focus on. I designed him to be an Eyebite guy who has the capability of granting a ton of saves whenever he needs it. You might want to focus him elsewhere. There's three main directions I see that you could take this build instead:
1) More Defending: Mark of Warding, all those feats that boost Divine Challenge, and/or take White Lotus everything.
2) More Damage: Weapon Focus, take Spiteful Glamour or Dire Radiance as your go-to power instead of Eyebite, and/or get a Master's Wand of Spiteful Glamour (which is very nice when you have Crimson Fire), load up on Radiant Attacks and exploit all that radiant vulnerability you're pumping out. Possibly consider multiclassing to get more damage options.
3) More Invisible. Take Evermeet Warlock, take Ethereal Sidestep, and you essentially become invisible all day long. Maybe multiclass to pick up Stealth as a class skill. We use Summoned Armor by default, which lets us boost our stealth whenever we go invisible.
Stats:
You'll max out Charisma. You can choose whether to max out Wisdom (in order to grant +Wis as a bonus on every save you pass out), or Con (to pick up Dire Radiance, which is wicked powerful with Morninglord).
Items:
A pact blade is nice (since it saves you a lot of money by just needing one magic item for all four types of your attack powers), as is summoned full plate (since it lets you boost Stealth when you really need it), but there's no items really needed to make the Save House work. Depending on your DM, if he lets all of your implement powers cast through a Sunblade or Radiant Weapon become radiant, well, then that's your go-to weapon. Any way you can make eyebites radiant is a really good boost for this build.
Build:
I didn't pick any of the powers beyond the key ones. They don't especially matter - I do like the Frost of Letherna + mass marking combo. It lets you lock down entire combats for a couple rounds.
Character Sheet at 16th
[sblock]
====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Holyroller 2, level 16
Half-Elf, Paladin|Warlock, Morninglord
Hybrid Paladin: Hybrid Paladin Will
Eldritch Pact (Hybrid): Fey Pact (Hybrid)
Hybrid Warlock: Hybrid Warlock Will
Twofold Pact: Star Pact
Hybrid Talent: Paladin Armor Proficiency
Background: Born Under a Bad Sign (Born Under a Bad Sign Benefit)
FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 9, Con 14, Dex 12, Int 11, Wis 20, Cha 22.
STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 8, Con 10, Dex 11, Int 10, Wis 17, Cha 16.
AC: 32 Fort: 20 Reflex: 19 Will: 26
HP: 110 Surges: 10 Surge Value: 27
TRAINED SKILLS
Thievery +12, Bluff +19, Diplomacy +21
UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +7, Arcana +8, Dungeoneering +13, Endurance +8, Heal +13, History +8, Insight +15, Intimidate +14, Nature +13, Perception +13, Religion +8, Stealth +7, Streetwise +14, Athletics +5
FEATS
Level 1: Hybrid Talent
Level 2: Crimson Fire
Level 4: Starfire Womb
Level 6: Group Defense
Level 8: Focused Expertise (Longsword)
Level 10: White Lotus Riposte
Level 11: Twofold Pact
Level 12: Saving Grace
Level 14: Versatile Master
Level 16: Psychic Lock
POWERS
Dilettante: Blazing Starfall
Hybrid at-will 1: Virtuous Strike
Hybrid at-will 1: Eyebite
Hybrid encounter 1: Valorous Smite
Hybrid daily 1: Frost of Letherna
Hybrid utility 2: Call of Challenge
ITEMS
Pact Blade - Raiment of Shadows Short sword +4, Summoned Specter Plate Armor +4
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======
[/sblock]
Added Bonus for Humour:
This is perhaps the best build in the world for making use of Sehanine's Reversal. When you get to pitch 20 saving throws at an effect, you have a 65% chance of rolling a natural 20 and flipping the effect right back on the target. Think for a second about all the annoying and cheesy (save ends) effects monsters get. Now, if there's not a small smile slowing forming on your face as you contemplate being able to flip this back on them every combat, well, you need to play more LFR. =) You can gain the ability to use Channel Divinity with this feat.
