M2017 Holy Melee Paladin (Retaliator) Videos

Well no, if you want a supplemental damage skill while retaling then you could look into stuff like whirlpool oskill on boots, it does lock out divine apparition or colosseum though but yeah, cherub strike is not the place to look for if you want anything remotely useful. The Zohar RW has ok stats in order to support whatever 1h you are using but unless you are using angiris star or the SSSU hand axe (or TalXis I guess) then you are better suited to not using a shield and going for a random 2h craft (Or Gehenna but the max damage with that isn't too good)

Jitan for instance I did as a holy melee dude while kiting guards in and out of whirlpool pops, it wasn't fast or smooth but it worked eventually.

edit: In fact if you missed the previous discussion threads about the spec they are here - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5487 & viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4840

And I eventually summarized what I thought about the spec here: viewtopic.php?p=123310#p123310

No one seems to care about the spec so the available information on what works and what doesn't is very sparse. I could barely get people to discuss how to approach the problem in the previous threads

Haven't really looked at gear past mid-game, but I really don't see this build making it in end-game. Survivability probably won't get much better and with almost all HMP's damage coming from Plague, I don't see how he'll be viable against all the Poison-immunes. Was kinda thinking about a proc-based/elemental damage build (another reason I was toying around with Shadow Influence), but IDK.

Edit:
Oh yes, I followed those discussions when they took place. In fact, it's one of the reasons I started playing HMP (had to see it for myself). I even copy/pasted your criticism post into my notes so I could reference it as I played. I wonder if part of the problem is not only his weakness, but the constant skill-switching (it seems a lot of people are really against this). Besides, UHC is so ubiquitous (literally every Paladin out there is UHC), there's no point to Holydin. I hope HMP gets some love in the 1.1 update, b/c I'm rather enjoying it (despite the many frustrating flaws).

I think one has to weigh tankiness vs ability to deal damage when it comes to the general approach on how to gauge median power - the class only does tankiness "ok" (leech that isn't tied to MO space on your weapon together with flat +ar on solar flare is a really nice bonus) and the damage isn't anything exceptional no matter how you approach the problem (4k str 2h class weapon swinger for maximum stat scaling etc)

The skill switching is fine - there should just be a payoff to bothering with it. I do not think putting solar flare on a much longer duration would solve anything - I already have almost full uptime of both solar flare and vindicate, the end result is still the same; you could get much more for less with another character.

Because the class doesn't have actual damage outside of raw melee range you end up struggling with some gimmicks in ubers and you will never turn into a specialized boss killer like ancient hand barbarians with -170 fire because there are no tools for it, the spell oskills that are available on paladin shields are all locked out by solar flare so there isn't any hybrid potential with stacking str factor and weaving in external buttons like ring of light.

Either way, not to derail your progress further but I would be surprised if you find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with your holy melee dude

Is Plague even worth it end-game with all the Poison-immues? What if instead you maxed Drakemaw (if using Light Tree) or Frozen Breath (if Using Shadow Tree) instead of Plague, then used STR-Factor for that? You'd lose some defense b/c less points into Dragonheart, but at least you'd have something to deal damage from a distance. Or would you be better off just sticking to an oskill like Hailstorm or Avalanche so you don't have to sacrifice Plague damage and defense?

I think plague is good for what it does with smaxed points, it just wont ever carry you damagewise but it does the job as a support skill to whatever else you do (which is usually retals and other wdm procs from that to prolong/refresh duration). I think I had like 3100-5100 poison/sec with sots as only other source at my gear level.

I did cheese QT with smaxed hydra and some basic resistance swap gear but otherwise I didn't really find much use for the caster side of the tree

I am currently leveling my own holy meleedin, I found some SU's for a Cold/Poison-Spec I want to try, we'll see how it goes, but I can already see single target dmg as an issue

I was so happy in M17's patch notes that Solar flare was getting a duration buff... Because I didn't expect a skill lockout timer buff to go with it. It'd be much less tedious if the lock-out was shorter than the duration imo.

That is to say, I miss XVc Dragondin, but that's in the past.