Sun Paladin Insane Win 1.2

[Thomas]

brave sir thomas ran away

The games first Sun Paladin insane win.. but I'm sure there's more to come! Sun Paladins are actually pretty strong right now.
No vault!
I won't go into any detail about the run itself; I am going to write a comprehensive 2H Sun Paladin guide soon and I'll include all my discoveries from not only this run but also hours and hours of testing during development. But I'll answer any questions.

I will say one thing about the run.. 2H IS SUPERIOR! hehehe

Cheers!

[Nori]

Nice! I'm working on a Skeleton 2h Paladin.

Curious as to why you didn't 5 mark of light or weapon of light?

How's the radiance tree?
How do you like the path of the sun talent? I'm finding it to be vital and insanely useful.

Lastly, stupid question... So when you crit you have a chance to get a free Sun Ray cast. I frequently find myself missing that it happened. Is there a way to have it autocast or prompt you?

[Thomas]

Hi Nori

To answer your questions:

re: MoL/WoL. I find that on Insane there is no point maxing Weapon of Light, as the extra light damage is negligible and the extra shield generation is nowhere near high enough to keep up with the enemies damage. As for Mark of Light, my main concern wasn't healing/staying alive, it was more being able to kill mobs fast enough, so I (mostly) preferred maxing the damage abilities. Absorbing Blow/Flash of the Blade/Wave of Power hit realllly hard when maxed ^^

re: Radiance. It still needs some work (hard for me to say that since I designed the tree haha), but it's quite strong. 2nd skill is most definitely a one point wonder. Judgement is AWESOME for big packs of enemies (think the post-Dreadfell ambush ;D). Free blind resist is great, too! And you can focus on lites with the best +stats instead of +lite radius. Searing Sight for the passive daze is a no brainer :p and the dmg, although pretty tiny, can be helpful.

re: Path of the Sun. One of my favorite talents in the game. Probably second after Windblade (btw, get Windblade as your first prodigy. Works with 2h weapons. It'll make your game a lot easier). You can do an awful lot with Path of the Sun, including one of my favorites involving Fearless Cleave (it's pretty obvious ). I usually get it to 2 pts early (for the 8 range) then get it to lvl 4 late game (for the 9 range).

re: Sun Ray and Sun's Vengeance procs: There's probably some way to get a prompt, not sure about the autocast though. I'm afraid I don't really know. My strategy is just to cast it whenever it's off cooldown, regardless of whether it's a free cast or not, because the blind is awesome, and it's some easy pos energy gen.

Keep at it!

[Razakai]

Might be a good idea if Sun's Vengeance got a really flashy shader effect, like even bigger than Second Life. That'd make it easy to spot.

[malboro_urchin]

I'm trying out a 2h Sun Paladin now, and I"m curious; in what order did you unlock the Crusader and Radiance trees? Was the Radiance tree worth the cat point? It seemed sorta meh when I took a look at it.

Edit: My pally's a ghoul, and I too enjoy Path of the Sun (what speed penalty?) + Fearless Cleave!

[Thomas]

Good to see people having a crack with the 2h!

To answer your question, since I was playing Cornac, I have the extra cat pt to work with. Personally I always unlock Crusader at lvl 10, regardless of class, mainly for Absorbing Blow.. I really like having the extra hard hitting strike. Seriously it hits really hard. Also the debuff component has no save check so is really reliable. I unlock Radiance around lvl 20 (as a Cornac, at least, for other classes the extra rune/infusion might be more preferable) for the early 1/1/0/0, because the second skill is essentially free blind fight(!!) and piercing sight. Then I like to have at least 3/1/1/1+ before going East because Judgement is really great for Vor Armory, and of course all the Prides. If you are high enough level, having Judgement for late Dreadfell and the Ambush really makes it an easy time. You can do fine without Radiance however, in favor of maxing your other abilities, but I wouldn't go the whole game without it to be honest.

Good luck!

[Nori]

My run is going well. At level 35 doing the prides right now.
I have only died once. Was level 7 something of dreadfall. Entered a massive vault and was happily slaughtering the inhabitants when boris (unique) came along... Try as I might I couldn't defeat him with all the other guys around so I ended up dying. Came back and whipped their butts though so it was ok I guess.

Took irresistible sun as windblade is only a option for dual wielders (not sure how you got yours or if it was a bug). It is a awesome prodigy though.

Trying to think of what the next one should be. Flexible combat would add some nice damage, but so would arcane might. Getting a +size and going you are my weapon would be fun. Also the draconic heal would be nice... Or maybe the corrupted one.. Tough choices...

I have terrible armor and defense now and despite 5 points in accuracy I'm having a tough time reliably hitting things. Averaging 3k damage per 10 turns with just bump attacks though.

[Mankeli]

Took irresistible sun as windblade is only a option for dual wielders (not sure how you got yours or if it was a bug). It is a awesome prodigy though.

It has a damage requirement with dual weapons. You can use it just fine with two-handers after you have picked it. 50 K is really easy. I bet you can cheese that much against a single rare/uniques if you meet an oozemancer one which heals.

[Razakai]

Managed to get a Thalore 2h SP to 20 on nightmare, before dying in a rogue cave to a rare with a 60% healing reduction poison. I might try Cornac next, but what I wonder then is what to do with all your generic points? Even if you 5/5 everything in Light, Combat Training and Chant of Fortitude that still leaves 5 to go.
Harmony doesn't seem that impressive, perhaps taking Conditioning from a warrior escort could be good, but seeing as that takes a cat point you're effectively swapping a good racial tree like Tha/Shaloren for it, which isn't guaranteed.
And did you find yourself missing Combat Techniques?

[Nori]

Screw two handers and get the staff tree. That would give you several skills to spend points on.

[tylor]

Even if you go staves (meaning extremely narrow selection of one-handers), shield way feels waaay better.

[Marson]

Congrats Thomas.
You and Shibari did a smashing job on the class revamps, too.

[pizdabol]

Path of Light is seriously broken on two-handers due to fearless cleave. It allows for infinite attacks till you run out of stamina. With highborn's bloos or hidden resources it should allow for infinite attacks forever.

Indeed, anything along the Path of Light is as good as dead as long as you pop it alongside Hidden Resources\Bloom and are able to move. All the cleavage you can pack in a turn.