Allods Online Forum

I. Introduction

I am Nethan, a Xadaganian Avenger in Disturbed (Nezeb) on the New Frontier (F2P) server, and I've been playing since patch 1.1, "Revelations of Gipat."

My role has primarily been DPS but I've recently started using a tank build again since I was unhappy with my damage output.

I've enjoyed playing as a Paladin for a long time because it was something different from my Summoner (energy vs mana user), but still allowed a good deal of flexibility.

As a quick warning to anyone looking for a build, you will not find that here. I'm not particularly fond of sharing my build(s) to begin with, but I also find that discussing the pros and cons of different abilities provides a better understanding for everyone involved.

II. What's New

Patch 6.0, "Broken Chains" brings several changes to the class, a few that are quite interesting and one that is seen as something else entirely.

The bad news first; Paladins will now take 25% of all damage directly, before going their barriers. Depending on what you do, and how you view the class this can be both welcome and devastating. The obvious downside to this is that you can be killed out right before your barriers have a chance to act. Having run the numbers myself however, I find that this is less of a problem than I thought it would be prior to this patch. I do still feel significantly squishier but this has more to do with strategy than abilities at this point. The upshot is that anyone interested in running determination (tanks) will find their average determination bar going up.

Next we have the "Anger Flushed" rubies on the Crusader's Blow ruby grid. These rubies reduce the cooldown of melee abilities while "Righteous Cause" is active. In my experience this only applies to "Crusader's Blow" and "Retribution" along with their upgraded forms. More specific testing would be needed to verify this, but that doesn't particularly change its effectiveness.

"Pure Thoughts" on the Retribution ruby grid is another new ruby. It provides a chance to recover a Canon of Purity for "each enemy killed by your direct attack." I haven't done any real testing to confirm the function of this ruby, but I have not found it to be particularly useful. It is difficult to reach with a physical build and I'm unconvinced of its utility in a holy build. The only time I can see this being worth getting is if you spend a lot of time solo killing mobs as you need to get the killing blow, and it needs to be with a direct damage attack (not Condemnation.)

Lastly, we have "Pledge of Allegiance" in the Overcome ruby grid. These rubies provide a chance to recover a Canon of Light when a barrier breaks. This is an indispensable ruby for tank Paladins. You will be constantly breaking barriers to reduce damage, so you will numerous opportunities to gain Canons of Light. This is particularly helpful when you consider how many abilities rely on having Canons of Light. Anathema and Interdiction, Particle of Light and Touch of Light, Binding Curse, Solemn Prayer, Deliverance, Shining Sword, Challenge, Reparation and Shield Slam all rely on having Canons of Light available.

III. Builds

There are a wide variety of builds available to the Paladin. They all fall into two different categories, either Physical or Holy. In each of these categories you can choose from either Tank or DPS, though I haven't personally found a viable Holy DPS build. In each of these you can specialize in either solo, party (Dragon Bay or Astral), or raid (Eclipse or Project Gates.) I would say the most common builds are Physical DPS or Holy Tank, but again these are not the only options. The abilities are fairly straight forward, but if you need to know what they do you can look them up at http://en.allodswiki.ru/calc#!7.

a. Physical


If you choose to go with a Physical build, your core talents will revolve around having Crusader's Blow, Retribution, and Purifying Strike. If you have the talents available, you will want to pick up the upgraded versions which are Crusader's Seal and Entangling Chains respectively. (Un)fortunately there is no upgraded version of Purifying Strike. You will also want to get Pious Anger as it will increase your damage and range. If you have the available talents and rubies for it Righteous Cause combined with Anger Flushed, Rage of Light, and Righteous Rage can also be very beneficial. The core talents for a physical build are above on the left, and rubies to the right.

After getting Purifying Strike rank 3 you will need to spend 17 more talents to unlock Aura of Ferocity and Righteous Cause. Another 8 talent points spent will unlock Crusader's Seal and Entangling Chains. Finally, another 16 will unlock Pious Anger.

Strike of Justice, Binding Curse, Tenacity (rank 1), Solemn Prayer and Shining Sword are good candidates regardless of the type of build you plan to use. I personally would not recommend more than rank 1 in Tenacity for any build, but there appears to be differing opinions on this.

If you plan to do DPS you should be looking at Aura of Ferocity and Righteous Cause as places to spend talent points, however this is not strictly required depending on your preferences. If you tend to do single player activities and are short on rubies you may opt not to take Aura of Ferocity and the True Faith rubies. Conversely, if you are creating a raid specialized build you will almost certainly want both.

If you plan to tank, Righteous Word, Overcome and Deliverance are essential places to spend points.

b. Holy


If you choose to go with a Holy build, your core talents will revolve around having Condemnation, Anathema, Sacred Sunrise and Interdiction. Because Righteous Word increases threat generation, and the Holy build doesn't have many options that exclude it, holy is used mainly for tanking. That said, your core talents would look something like the image above left and standard rubies to the right.

You will immediately need to spend 1 point to unlock Condemnation, then 16 more to unlock Anathema, another 16 more for Sacred Sunrise, and a final 16 more for Interdiction. If you are not looking to do a hybrid build you will likely end up spending the first point(s) on Overcome. As with a physical build, Strike of Justice, Binding Curse, Tenacity (rank 1), Solemn Prayer and Shining Sword are good filler candidates. There aren't really any strictly DPS spec choices here, so you would also be spending points in Righteous Word, Overcome and Deliverance. Pious Anger is also a good choice if you can fit it in.

Because of the difficulty with a strictly DPS holy build, the standard holy rubies include the Guilty Conscience rubies for tanking. An alternate path would be left from Retibution through Self-sacrifice and the blank, but you don't end up saving much.

c. Overcome Ruby Grid


The final ruby grid, shown above, is primarily where your tank abilities will be, and generally you shouldn't have to do much here as a DPS spec regardless of build. The really important rubies here are the Extra Barriers (2), and if you can make it there, Canon of Light. Everything else will depend on your spec. If you took Righteous Cause you will definitely want Righteous Rage and if you want to tank you will definitely want Righteous Vitality, Justice, Absolution, Protection of Faith, and probably Self-healing.

IV. Stats

I'm not really going to go over stats here, because I don't really feel there are any right or wrong ways to do this. It all depends on what you want to do, and how. The one thing that I will say in regards to stats is that if you plan to tank, make sure to keep your Tenacity and Vitality in mind, as they determine how much damage you can take before wound complexity begins to set in.

V. Conclusion

My goal for this guide was to provide a basic framework for players to flesh out their own creations since cookie-cutter builds don't work for, or appeal to everyone. Hopefully I have provided that to at least some of you, and if anyone would like to have a discussion about the class or abilities, hit me up and we can talk.