Viable spellweaving paladin?

[Han Telemnar]

I put into action one of a previous poster's template using no necromancy and a 100% LL weapon, and I have to say I LOVE it. I have LONG wanted to get rid of vamp form on my warrior. Seriously...this is awesome and IMO, much better than a sampire. Not having to account for all that fire resist and 99 points in a wasted skill has got me thinking...

Now I am wondering about spellweaving on a warrior. There is no hands-free requirement to cast these spells and it almost seems like it was designed for a warrior. I am thinking about the following template:

120 swords
120 chivalry
120 tactics
100 spellweaving
80 anatomy
60 parry
120 bushido

anatomy and parry would have to be adjusted based on best possible anatomy+tactics combination for damage and chance to parry. From what I understand spellweaving skill only matters when it comes to being able to reliably cast WOD and obtain a focus. 100 spellweaving may be sufficient, however 120 may just be more worthwhile, while taking away from either anatomy or parry.

Mana obviously would be an issue here but since you will be leeching I cant see it being too much of a problem. Some really useful spells are going to be gift of renewal, attunement, repear form (if SSI is needed and you offset for the resist penalty), summon fey, dryad allure (because who doesn't like fighting with a orc brute?), and word of death.

I see spellweaving on a warrior to be more for enjoyment than performance. It would add something different to the playstyle. I am looking forward to testing it. I will post later on what I find.

A side note; I run my warrior along side my second account's 3x bard. I will be taking into account the buffs I get from peacemaking song spells.

 

[CorwinXX]

100 tact + 100 anatomy > 120 tactics + 80 anatomy

Mana become a problem when you are mana-drained.

Casting time is critical for a warrior. Even with protection you probably will die while casting GoR. And if you didn't die while casting it than your opponents are weak - so you needn't GoR.

 

[NuSair]

It can work, with Gift of Renewal, Attunement, Immolating Weapon, Essence of Wind will be the ones you use the most. 3 of those are quick cast.
Also, you can run spellweaving at 4/6.

Spellweaving is very useful as a warrior.

I think you'll find Immolating Weapon is better than most people seem to give it credit for.

 

[Duncan Drake]

Interesting thought. This might work.very nice indeed

 

[NuSair]

Also, using spellweaving when you are a warrior isn't like other spell groups. Examples (I think I was going to do something similar for another write up)

Attunement*: Amazing melee defensive spell. Creates a shield that absorbs incoming melee damage.

Gift of Renewal: Hit point regeneration, last up to 90 seconds with a level 6 focus... gaining like 16 hit points every 2 seconds is pretty good. Near impossible to cast during combat, nice just before confronting a boss or running into a spawn.

Nature's Fury: Nice to kill off low level spawn and for a little extra damage.

Immolating Weapon*: 18 extra fire damage per hit (with level 6 focus) adds up in a hurry

Thunderstorm*: up to 16 tiles away, hits with an AE energy attack- interrupts spells. I used it mostly to get creatures aggro'ed on me.

Arcane Empowerment: About useless in this application

Ethereal Voyage: The awesomeness of this spell cannot be over stated. The ability to walk just about everywhere (some extreme high level creatures like the shadowlord will see through and still attack you). Allows you to walk through crowded areas to pass through or for corpse retrieval.

Reaper Form: I'd almost call this spell useless for melee. You cannot ride a mount (there is no movement penalty, that was removed a long time ago). It is in every way inferior to Vampiric Embrace/Stone Form. Actually, I will call this spell useless for melee. The +5% SSI... bleh... the resist bonus... you should be maxed out anyway. I guess you could build your suit around it, but why? In order for this spell to be worth it, I'd say it would need to over the resist similar to stone form. Or offer some other benefit. The only redeeming quality of this spell is the bonus to SDI.

Gift of Life: This is just about useless, as you will probably die as soon as you resurrect yourself.

Summon Fey*: Solid summon spell. With a level 6 focus will summon upto your max available slots.

Summon Fiend*: Similar to Summon Fey, but imps aren't as good as fairies.

Dryad Allure: Amazing spell- go grab like an artic ogre lord and you are good to go.

Essence of Wind*: Amazing AoE Cold Damage spell. All targets get a swing speed and faster casting penalty. Great spell.

Wildfire*: Decent fire area damage spell. Duration based off skill (4 seconds for 100 skill)

Word of Death: Unless you are going to switch to a slayer book and/or are carrying around an SDI suit to switch to, not sure I'd use this in melee. Too long to cast and you'll probably come close to damage with melee anyway (depending on weapon and build). Plus, you can't be engaged with the creature when casting this... the casting time is just too long.

*= spells I use in melee.

 

[CorwinXX]

Spellweaving is a very good PvP skill but in PvM it's not so cool for a warrior (but good for a caster). In PvP you do much less damage and usually take less damage as well. This skill could also be helpful when your suit is not very good. But when you suit is good you needn't any additional help when you fight not so hard enemies. When you fight hard enemies the help from Spellweaving is not so noticeable.

Attunement absorbs about 80 damage. If you need 10 minutes to kill a boss this mean the first few seconds your fight will be easier.
Gift of renewal is best healing way in terms of hp per mana ratio. But you need to run out of fight to cast it.
Immolation weapon add 18 damage... but it's not affected by Slayer/Perfection/EOO and is not essential comparing with 150-200 damage you usually do. The same is with Hit Lightning and other hit magic effects on a weapon. They are great in PvP and pretty useless in PvM.

Spellweaving is better for a ranged warriors because it's easier to run out of range and cast a spell.

 

[CorwinXX]

Paladin is one of the most powerful warrior in the game. With 4/6 Paladin in a good suit you can fight Semidar being male. I don't know melee char that could survive better. Paladin needn't Spellweaving. If I had 100 free skill points to distribute I would preferred Meditation/Focus to Spellweaving.

Also Paladin must use a shield to get 4/6 casting (although now days you can get 1 FC as a city bonus). So I would go without Bushido or with 50-60 Bushido (for perfection and mana cost reduction).
I prefer to use Disc Mace because you can imbue 93 HML/HLL on it. I hope it's obvious that 90-100 HLL is a must have for a Paladin.
Otherwise I would play with a human to use JOAT Spellweaving and Necromancy.

 

[NuSair]

Disagree on Immolation Weapon... 18 damage when you are swinging at 1.25s (48 times per minute) adds up in a hurry, especially against the bigger creatures (agreed that is will make no difference against lesser enemies). A 4 minute fight is 3456 damage. In a 10 minute fight, that's 8640 damage... that's pretty significant. And you cannot compare it to hit lightning or any of those other effects, because Immolating Weapon is on EVERY hit.

 

[Obsidian]

I've always wanted to make an arcane archer, but never could get the mix of warrior and mage mods right. Maybe I should try again with the Shame Jewelry. They seem to have some good hybrid pieces. And with 55 LMC it could be doable. I just wish there were more items with FC 2. Else I am almost limited to using an Orny which kills a nice hybrid Shame bracelet.

 

[CorwinXX]

18 damage when you are swinging at 1.25s (48 times per minute)

It's not 48 times per minute because sometimes you miss, sometimes your stamina drop below "min for 1.25s", sometimes you must run or cast, and so on.
Also big monsters usually have about 50 fire res. So you do 150 damage without Immolation and 160 with Immolation. It's about 6% difference providing you have enough mana for both AI and Immolation and casting Immolation doesn't take time.
Also you don't leach from Immolation damage.

 

[Kayne.]

Having to rely on having 6 people available to get a focus just to go pvm isn't worth it.

 

[NuSair]

Having to rely on having 6 people available to get a focus just to go pvm isn't worth it.

That is very true.

 

[Obsidian]

Having to rely on having 6 people available to get a focus just to go pvm isn't worth it.

I agree if you are on every shard but Atlantic. I've never had trouble getting a lvl 6 focus on Atlantic. But I wouldn't even think of running SW on any other shard.

 

[Boontendo]

IMO, If you have a difficult time getting a 6 on most shards you simply don't have any friends. It takes me all of 2 minutes to get a 6 on my shard.