taking a hiadus at the moment until i need to house sit for a friend, i will probably overhaul the guide at that point. I am hoping i will get this guide done by the time the game launches. This guide is now officially a General Thread for Paladins with some dips into the Dragoon tree. I am currently working with Hawly for tangible numbers and visuals for the guide so expect a drastic change in the near future. ~ Gutek
Gutek's Paladin Conpendium
Table of Contents
i. Intro
ii. Skill Explanations
iii. Warrior Builds
iv. Knight Builds
v. Paladin Builds
vi. Dragoon Builds
vii. Player Insight
viii. Special Thanks
Intro
Hello, i've been an avid Dragonica Player since Alpha, and people know me on the THQ forums as Aruberga (Circa the Pathfinder) the headsmen of APhEX. I have decided to step out of my comfort zone as a ranged player and try out the knight class. Since the gravity forums for Dragonica are still young i have decided to create a resourceful list of peoples insight, builds, arguments, etc about the Knight class in the PvE aspect. No advice is good if you wouldn't follow it yourself, therefore if you are reading this interested in becoming a PvE know that when i wrote this thread i was learning just as you are now. So happy Dragonicing, and good luck.
Skill Builds
Warrior
Warrior Regular Skill Build
Standard warrior skill build, only stun hammer for bossing and the standard Air Combo + Storm Blade, sword mastery used to use up skill points and small boost early game
Warrior Skill Build With Extra Points
This build opts out Sword Mastery and maxing out cutdown, keeping it at level 3 so that you can put in extra points into second job
Knight
Sharpeye's Knight Skill Build With 40 Extra Points
This build was provided by Sharpeye, it contains all the essential skills from Warrior & Knight skill builds
Paladin
Dragoon
Kazra's Dragoon Build With 340 Extra Points
This build was provided by Kazra, it contains the necessary skills needed without skill resetting. Allows you to allocate remaining points into Dragoon tree as the player wishes or other Paladin skills
Hawly's Dragoon Build
Build recommended by Hawly,for reasoning look below in the Player Insight section
Player Insight
Well, I'm playing as a lv 66 Dragoon on -_- right now. I have to say, it's amazing.
The damage is ridiculous, so PvE is really easy.
Well, let's start off.
A solid build would be this one.
Now, to some explanations.
You shouldn't get lv 5 Stun Hammer, because Cross Cut can replace it. You shouldn't max Storm Blade, because it'll be like a secondary move later on (you'll use a lot of Cross Cut, Rolling Ground, etc). Sword Dance lv 3 to wider range (you can get it to lv 5 if you want, or just stick with lv 1).
Don't get Revenge, it's gay. Avoid Increased Defense and Giant Growth, they suck. Avoid passives that increase defense. They won't add to your current defense, but your BASE defense. So, it sucks too.
Barricade lv 5. With this new patch, it slow heals and has Cure (OP). Get Armor Breaker to lv 5 because it's awesum.
Now, this is why you should get Storm Blade to lv 3. When you get Dragon Dive (4th job skill), it'll hit 8 enemies 7 times. Your Storm Blade will hit 8 enemies 6 times. So you can combo Dragon Dive > Storm Blade > Spin It Bear.
Get Rolling Ground to lv 5. It's AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGG. And don't get the Ultimate. It sucks. Really bad.
Now, stats.
The most important stats for a paladin would be Aim Rate, Health and Agi ( I guess, correct me if I'm wrong, pls ). That's at least what I look for on my gears.
I think that's it. Someone will probably post something more complex and pro than this. But at least I tried <3
The ultimate just sucks. The damage it does total I can do easily with one single combo. And it takes so long to charge (full awakening bar) and it has a huge cooldown (5 minutes). But I heard it's going to be fixed and the damage will increase, so I'll wait to see.
Hm, Paladin insight? Let's see.
First of all, the Auras.
The only useful Aura is Time Reverse. The other ones suck, because they add % to your base attack/defense (your attack/defense without any gears).
Armor Mastery at lv 5 increases 30% of your physical defense. But, pay attention. It's not your CURRENT defense, as the description says. It adds 30% of your BASE defense (without equips), so it's a waste of SP. Iron Skin adds 430 defense at lv 5. It's a waste of SP too. You can get that defense from a good shield, save your SP!
Barricade. Oh, I love this skill. It heals and cure you! It's amazing! At lv 5, it removes 5 debuffs and has the effect of lv 5 Slow Heal.
-_-roach Life. Personally, I don't like this skill. Of course, it's useful sometimes, you can even get it to lv 1. But, I don't know. As a Paladin, you'll have a huge HP if you stack Health, and most of the times, you will be dead before being able to use this skill.
Armor Breaker. This is skill is awesome sauce. When you use it on the beggining of your combo, it'll help you alot. It decreases your enemy's defense by 600, giving you a good damage boost.
Joint Break. Meh, I dislike this skill. It only decreases your enemy's attack and movement speed. Unless your enemy is a Shaman/Archer, it won't be really useful.
Weapon Suspension. This skill is so funny. When you use this skill, your enemy will be unable to attack/use skills for 5 seconds!
Weapon Crasher. It kinda sucks, it decreases your enemy's base attack power.
Cross Cut. Best Paladin skill, huge damage. Max it asap.
I think that's it. At least I tried again.
The only skills you -need- before level 20 are Air Launch level 1 and Cutdown level 1 (Blow level 1) for that. Yes, you can do an aerial combo/SB out of Cutdown level 1. That being said, it'd be nice to add points into Storm Blade and Sword Dance.
As for Knights it's important to max out Spear Jab, Spin it Bear!, Shield Mastery, Parry, and Body Activation. Level 1 Impervious for PvP.
Aerial Smackdown basically replaces Cutdown and can be followed up by Spin it Bear or Storm Blade (or both). Level 1 will hit both standing and fallen enemies.
Paladins... hmmm..
Crosscut, Barricade, Reverse Time maxed for sure.
Start of and basically useless information:
I'm not too sure on how the exact mechanics work on Armor Break, but if armor stacks diminishingly and negative armor stacks diminishingly it might work out.
What I mean by diminishingly is better illustrated using numbers.
In a linear model of armor:
Say Person A with 0 Armor is attacked by Person B with a skill that does 4000 physical attack damage. It does 4000 damage.
If Person A had 2000 Armor, the attack would have done 2000 Damage.
If Person A had 4000 Armor however, the attack would have done 0 Damage.
The problem with this model is that an attack could be nullified with enough armor.
In a diminishing model:
Say Person A with 0 Armor is attacked by Person B with a skill that does 4000 physical attack damage. It does 4000 damage.
Let's introduce a formula: Damage Mitigation = A / (C + A), where A is armor and C is a constant.
For example if C = 2000, and A = 2000, we have 1/2 Mitigation, so the damage done to Person A would be 2000, like in the linear model
if we keep the same value for C and give A a value of 3000, we would have 3/5 mitigation, so the damage done would be 1600.
In this type of model Armor will never truly nullify the affects of an attack.
Usually in this type of model there is a negative armor attribute (complementary to Armor), if this were to stack diminishingly the formula would likely be:
Damage Amplification = 1 + NA/C (using the same C constant as before), NA being Negative Armor
Using our previous example, C = 2000, A = 2000, NA = 0, we have Damage Done = ( 1 - Damage Mitigation ) * Damage Amplification * Base Damage = 1/2 * 1 * 4000 = 2000
If we have level 5 Armor Break on though (NA = 600), we have Damage Done = 1/2 * 13/10 * 4000 = 2600
If Person A had more Armor (say 3000), we have Damage Done (without Armor Break) = 2/5 * 1 * 4000 = 1600
Damage Done (with Armor Break) = 2/5 * 13/10 * 4000 = 2080
What this means is that regardless of their opponent's armor value, Armor Break will amplify the attacker's damage by 600/C. Whether or not this number is significant enough to use 60 more SP (as opposed to 200/C) would be up to the user's discretion. In my honest opinion, leaving it at level 1 and leveling up other skills first would be better.
tl;dr I would personally choose to use level 1 over level 5 Armor Break
Edited by Gutek, 08 September 2010 - 01:19 PM.
