To make this brief - I haven't played MXL in a few years and obv much has changed. I don't see a single physical-based melee holy pala guide at all on the forums (Maybe I'm blind?). Is this playstyle viable? I know it would be fairly tanky but as I'm looking through the combat abilities I'm clearly seeing that damage might be an issue, even using a pally lance and going high strength.
In short, is this rough archetype viable and what oskill would I have to have to make it work?
Holy Melee Paladin Viable?
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What you are looking for is probably a retaliate pala. Works fine to farm, survival is great but single target damage is lacking for most charms you will respec to a better boss killer (Hailstorm ftw!) but when you have that gear you get nearly all charms in one setting.
Edited by Nitz 6 years.
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Nitz wrote:What you are looking for is probably a retaliate pala. Works fine to farm, survival is great but single target damage is lacking for most charms you will respec to a better boss killer (Hailstorm ftw!) but when you have that gear you get nearly all charms in one setting.
I've already noticed the single target damage sucks, and I'm still in Hatred
Is turning him into a faux-melee caster the only way to go? I'd rather stick with melee, but retal seems like the only decent ability and like you said, it's more of a room clearer.
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The short answer:
No.
The longer answer:
HMP is fine until you start doing Ubers. Divine Judgment is worthless (even fully maxed), so you're reliant on oskills such as Hailstorm (as Nitz said) for single-targets, but the lack of Rare reroll makes good oskills more difficult to get. Many of the late mid-game/end-game enemies (and most Uber bosses) are Poison-immune as well. And since most of your damage comes from Plague (none of your melee skills have any viable damage scaling), you're again reliant on oskills.
Your low damage also affects your survivability later on. Blessed Life provides plenty of %DR, but your defense isn't likely to ever get much above 300k (which is low for a melee build considering you'll have no CtB even when using a shield). Plus, many of the more difficult enemies are not affected by Retaliate's knockback, so you've got no viable means of keeping them off your back while Plague or Hailstorm do their thing.
Finally, it has a terrible mid-game due to a lack of good gear choices. Cinadide's set would be fantastic, but it locks out Solar Flare, which makes it utterly useless. That said, Yaerius' set is actually pretty good for HMP, but it's still not enough to overcome all the previously-listed shortcomings of the build.
Artagel wrote a substantive criticism of the build here:
viewtopic.php?p=123310#p123310
And here are some links to previous HMP/Holydin "discussions":
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5487
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4840
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6265
No.
The longer answer:
HMP is fine until you start doing Ubers. Divine Judgment is worthless (even fully maxed), so you're reliant on oskills such as Hailstorm (as Nitz said) for single-targets, but the lack of Rare reroll makes good oskills more difficult to get. Many of the late mid-game/end-game enemies (and most Uber bosses) are Poison-immune as well. And since most of your damage comes from Plague (none of your melee skills have any viable damage scaling), you're again reliant on oskills.
Your low damage also affects your survivability later on. Blessed Life provides plenty of %DR, but your defense isn't likely to ever get much above 300k (which is low for a melee build considering you'll have no CtB even when using a shield). Plus, many of the more difficult enemies are not affected by Retaliate's knockback, so you've got no viable means of keeping them off your back while Plague or Hailstorm do their thing.
Finally, it has a terrible mid-game due to a lack of good gear choices. Cinadide's set would be fantastic, but it locks out Solar Flare, which makes it utterly useless. That said, Yaerius' set is actually pretty good for HMP, but it's still not enough to overcome all the previously-listed shortcomings of the build.
Artagel wrote a substantive criticism of the build here:
viewtopic.php?p=123310#p123310
And here are some links to previous HMP/Holydin "discussions":
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5487
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4840
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6265
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Solfege wrote:The short answer:
No.
Damn. My other choice was a barb, I guess I'll go that route.
Speaking of which, dumb question - if you're using a skill that requires a sword (Stormblast, for instance), and you're dual wielding a sword and an axe, would you be doing less damage than if you were DW two swords?
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No, the weapon restriction only prevents you from using certain weapon types.
If you have the required weapon as offhand, you can use stormblast with all weapons, whatever type you put in your main hand. It uses only main hand weapon and its damage.
If you have the required weapon as offhand, you can use stormblast with all weapons, whatever type you put in your main hand. It uses only main hand weapon and its damage.
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What holy melee could use:
- more defense, exclusive for melee (compared to spearzon for example where lionheart is comparable to lioness, zons have balance, pala lacks that big chunk of flat defense, pala shields are relatively low defense too)
- faster 2h weapons.
- buff single target skill (and actually test it lategame until it is very solid)
- buff/tweak colosseum so it is really worth using, makes gameplay less monotonous (its a buff so make it op because this skill has been unused since it was introduced 20 years ago)
- potentially buff endgame scaling of plague (it starts very strong and is fine, but if you take fully geared lategame pala with all charms, it tickles ubers)
But I think bottom line with holy melee feeling weak in lategame was low defense, which makes you quite fragile. If you could get barb runemaster levels of defense then it could stay alive in harder ubers, and people would start complaining about damage
mainly trying to kill necrobot with plague carried by 50% wdm skill, thats like small fraction of what snake stance barb can do in current patch. If its tweaked that lategame, with all proper gears and pierce, you can actually 1shot uberlevel white enemies with plague, holy melee will be considered as back to viable.
- more defense, exclusive for melee (compared to spearzon for example where lionheart is comparable to lioness, zons have balance, pala lacks that big chunk of flat defense, pala shields are relatively low defense too)
- faster 2h weapons.
- buff single target skill (and actually test it lategame until it is very solid)
- buff/tweak colosseum so it is really worth using, makes gameplay less monotonous (its a buff so make it op because this skill has been unused since it was introduced 20 years ago)
- potentially buff endgame scaling of plague (it starts very strong and is fine, but if you take fully geared lategame pala with all charms, it tickles ubers)
But I think bottom line with holy melee feeling weak in lategame was low defense, which makes you quite fragile. If you could get barb runemaster levels of defense then it could stay alive in harder ubers, and people would start complaining about damage
mainly trying to kill necrobot with plague carried by 50% wdm skill, thats like small fraction of what snake stance barb can do in current patch. If its tweaked that lategame, with all proper gears and pierce, you can actually 1shot uberlevel white enemies with plague, holy melee will be considered as back to viable.