ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Since sun pallies have now gotten some nice 2 handed weapon trees, as well as the revamped Celestial/Sun tree, has anyone tried a staff-wielding sun pally? Has it worked out at all? Is the damage okay?

I did one before 1.2 and all the goodies that came with it, so my experience is a bit dated, but I'll see what I can say...

1) Your staff is no longer an ideal melee weapon.
a) it now will only deal physical damage
b) it now only uses 80% magic (far less than than the 120% strength of a 2-hander)
c) because randart staves can be 1 or 2 handed, you may not get as many good ones for the skill tree you invested in

2) Staves boost magic potential
a) more proc damage (weapon of light)
b) more light damage for all your spells
c) even more healing and survivability

3) There are not many good fixed artifact staves for a sun paladin
a) therefore, you are 'stuck' with randarts and at the mercy of the ever-painful RNG
b) see 1c

Give it a shot, and tell us how you do!

i did it. Cornac paladin, th extra cat point on radiance, max out INT and CON.
The start may be a bit rough but it get a lot better after level 4. Max sun ray and weapon of light, put generic points into healing ad accuracy. For chants, i went for the Fortitude one but i guess Resistance is better on the long run.
The only thing i miss is some kind of AoE spell, right now there's only Judgement and i feel i could use more.
The combat part is good also since even the combat trees scales and requires magic, so is a win win situation with a staff. Also weapon of light deals massive damage and you can attune the staff with light element.
If you are lucky enough to find an alchemist, unlock the generic staff combat tree and go straight for Staff Mastery and max it out. Sadly i died against the farportal guardian in the fortress, but i had just a couple of close call along the way, go for regen/wild/teleport for runes/infusions.

Hope it helps.

Shortstaff+shield pal is extremely durable and adequately lethal.
Bought staff tree from Angolwen. Trained Magic and Con, then Cun.
Eternal Guard prodigy, not sure what to take next. My shield has a lot of elements, meaning I have 200-something damage reduction most of time.
Searing light soften ups crowds, Retributes wipes them out, and then there is Brandish and Path of the Sun, so there is enough AOE attacks. As for single targets, very few survive counter-attacks.

Here she is: http://te4.org/characters/38522/tome/81 ... 3af6a20188

Two-handed paladin feels WAY worse. Both trees are way too situational.

Two handed staff paladin or just two handed in general? I just won (for the first time) with a 2h paladin. te4.org/characters/5409/tome/8c9eedb4-538c-4e97-8017-9c41a0fdb55c
While I wouldn't say it was easy, it certainly wasn't particularly difficult. A big part of that is Flash of the Blade which is amazing...

Two handed staff, i wanted to try all the new skill trees, everything scales off magic anyway, so even though staff gets only 80% stats from magic, at least you are not splitting points into 3 stats (str, int and con)

You only get 80% stat damage, but you get some of that back off their damage multiplier.

Unlike Guardian, nothing in Crusader appears to change your damage type so setting yourself up with a physical starstaff may not be a bad idea.

Between that and needing fewer stats it's probably okay. A greater starstaff would boost both physical and light and at that point you may wind up ahead.

As far as I can tell, you get the best multiplier on staff combat by first rescuing an alchemist, taking the skill rather than the category, and then buying the category at Angolwen.

Also, since you're a tank anyway, it might be worth investing in Defensive Stance and Blunt Thrust.

I imagine that Bolbum's Big Knocker would actually do pretty well as a mid-range unique staff. There might be a high-end Anorithil staff or two worth playing with as well, though I know less about them.

You .1 for each staff skill you nab from an escort, providing you don't reveal the tree..

Once you reveal the tree it is locked in.