How about full dexterity on Paladin? thank you

[Hachiko]

The only way this would even be a viable thought would be running full HQ Darksteel with maxxed out DEX. Which maybe viable for the time being but won't be towards the end of coil. Honestly even then if you managed to get an extra 2% chance to dodge/block/parry I'd be really surprised

Actually, you would want to do this with crafted jewelry (ideally DPS jewelry 4-5 melded with VIT and Parry).

You can get 40 from accessories (and 40 STR) at the cost of ~25 VIT and some parry.

That plus 30 Dex from distributable points would be 70, plus an additional what, Plus whatever you get for being in a party? That could potentially put you up two teirs in terms of block and parry, which could be between 2-4% additional chance for both, which would be a significant reduction in damage (~2%).

[Jediman]

Lol. Nice sig.

yeah it got removed not like it showed much lol
this one but with bigger jugs i know what u thinking lol

[C-croft]

You should test it. Parse some WP's or something with 30 DEX v. 30 VIT and see if there is a noticeable difference in Parry and Block.

That's the best place to start, imo.

Subtle snarkiness?

[misterrpg]

I hate how completely rude this community is.

And for those who are saying to go 30 VIT.. you're mistaken. It has been tested over and over again that 30 STR mitigates more damage than 30 VIT will give you more HP. If you really need that 450 HP to stay alive, then you should consider playing a different class entirely.

[Maelwys]

Actually, you would want to do this with crafted jewelry (ideally DPS jewelry 4-5 melded with VIT and Parry).

You can get 40 from accessories (and 40 STR) at the cost of ~25 VIT and some parry.

That plus 30 Dex from distributable points would be 70, plus an additional what, Plus whatever you get for being in a party? That could potentially put you up two teirs in terms of block and parry, which could be between 2-4% additional chance for both, which would be a significant reduction in damage (~2%).

However as you mentioned, that 2% reduction in damage is gained at a cost of 25 Vit from accessories and 30 from distributable points.

55 Vit = ~825HP. That's a lot of HP. At endgame you'll be sitting anything from 5.5 to 7.5k HP as a Paladin - so that's well over 10% of your HP. Which translates directly into extra health buffer for your cooldowns, healing and passive regen... even a little extra damage on "Spirits Within".

Even if we make a leap and assume that the Dex build would grant you a whopping 5% extra mitigation instead of 2%, you would need to be sitting at more than 16550HP for the percentage of extra damage mitigation granted by the Dex setup to the equal the percentage of HP you'd be giving up.

And for those who are saying to go 30 VIT.. you're mistaken. It has been tested over and over again that 30 STR mitigates more damage than 30 VIT will give you more HP. If you really need that 450 HP to stay alive, then you should consider playing a different class entirely.

On solo Warriors, on easy content, sure.

They can use the extra STR for more powerful self heals and reach the immortality line sooner (the point at which they can mitigate/heal all damage received and survive indefinitely)

On Paladins (OR warriors), grouped, on hard content, not a hope in hell.

On hard content, such as Titan HM or Coil or even certain endgame dungeons, you will NOT be able to outheal the incoming damage yourself and will have to rely on external healing. At that point, being able to mitigate the incoming damage as it hits you (and buffing the amount of healing you receive from external sources - see Wrath Stacks!) plays a far bigger role than being able to self-heal after receiving that incoming damage.

----------------------------------

What's better: being able to self-heal 200 points, or being able to resist incoming damage by 20%?

On a 500 damage hit:
(i) you take 500 damage, you heal 200, you're left with -300 HP.
(ii) you resist 100 damage, you're left with -400 HP.
So the Self-Healing is better.

On a 5000 damage hit:
(i) you take 5000 damage, you heal 200, you're left with -4800 HP.
(ii) you resist 1000 damage, you're left with -4000 HP.
So the Resistance is better. Particularly if you had between 4000HP and 5000HP, because (i) would be dead before they could self-heal.

Scaling Mitigation is better at hard content than Flat Mitigation.
More Vit is a higher HP pool for your damage resistance, passive regen and outside healing to act upon.
More Str is only good if you're having issues holding hate (which you shouldn't do, weapon quality being equal) or are doing content that is ridiculously easy (to the point that a Vit build very probably wouldn't struggle to survive it either, and would just complete it sightly more slowly!)

TL;DR: "Nope."

And if you're not referring to the endless "Warriors vs Paladins" debate, and are just saying that a Paladin should invest in speccing STR instead of VIT... then double-nope. Because it HAS been tested and 30 Str will AT BEST move you up 1% Parry and Shield block strength. Which is not a flat extra 1% mitigation, but an extra 1% mitigation (block strength) that you have a ~25% chance (block chance) of getting - assuming that you're fighting every enemy face-to-face so that you're running at your maximum parry chance and also assuming that all the attacks received are non-magic and blockable! And finally; since the distance between parry tiers is quite large, often +30 Str won't be enough to bump you up into the next parry/block tier anyway... in which case that extra Str would be completely wasted.

[Fyreus]

I hate how completely rude this community is.

And for those who are saying to go 30 VIT.. you're mistaken. It has been tested over and over again that 30 STR mitigates more damage than 30 VIT will give you more HP. If you really need that 450 HP to stay alive, then you should consider playing a different class entirely.

IIRC those tests have been done in phase 3 before the changes made in phase 4 (against lowbie content mind you).

[Bardo]

I hate how completely rude this community is.

And for those who are saying to go 30 VIT.. you're mistaken. It has been tested over and over again that 30 STR mitigates more damage than 30 VIT will give you more HP. If you really need that 450 HP to stay alive, then you should consider playing a different class entirely.

But higher max HP also means stronger Stoneskins and Lustrates. : /

[Ariyn]

-snip-

Really think you should take the time to look at valid tests because the str vs vit debate hasn't been in favor of str outside of farming dungeons or spiritbonding since phase 3. The only benefit from str current for a PLD is to reach the next tier in block dmg anything above or below that is completely wasted since even with 30 in str you would see maybe a 1% dmg increase which is worthless compared to the HP gain. For a WAR str is a bigger debate since it does provide them with a little more dmg which does equate to more survivability for them. However even the few that are doing coil seem to be going VIT just due to the sheer dmg they take.

Not sure what content you have done but in Turn 5 that 450 HP can very easily save a wipe when a death sentence and auto attack hit you for 6k total. Without that 30 vit you wouldn't survive it

Actually, you would want to do this with crafted jewelry (ideally DPS jewelry 4-5 melded with VIT and Parry).

You can get 40 from accessories (and 40 STR) at the cost of ~25 VIT and some parry.

That plus 30 Dex from distributable points would be 70, plus an additional what, Plus whatever you get for being in a party? That could potentially put you up two teirs in terms of block and parry, which could be between 2-4% additional chance for both, which would be a significant reduction in damage (~2%).

Like how you said ~25 vit and some parry ... So basically you are stacking Dex to equal out to the parry you lost? Gain 2% block chance and sacrifice 2% block amount. Fail to see where you are gaining anything at all here. Seems to me like no matter how you spin that you are losing

[Stryker]

I would pay the price of admission to see a full dex tank at end game.

[Hachiko]

However as you mentioned, that 2% reduction in damage is gained at a cost of 25 Vit from accessories and 30 from distributable points.

55 Vit = ~825HP. That's a lot of HP. At endgame you'll be sitting anything from 5.5 to 7.5k HP as a Paladin - so that's well over 10% of your HP. Which translates directly into extra health buffer for your cooldowns, healing and passive regen... even a little extra damage on "Spirits Within".

Even if we make a leap and assume that the Dex build would grant you a whopping 5% extra mitigation instead of 2%, you would need to be sitting at more than 16550HP for the percentage of extra damage mitigation granted by the Dex setup to the equal the percentage of HP you'd be giving up.

You've really screwed up your math. There is no way you would need to be at 16550 HP for the extra damage reduction to pay off. You can't just say "825/.05 = 16550!" because that's a meaningless calculation. What matters is incoming damage, relative damage reductions, and your healer's ability to keep you alive. More HP increases your ability to survive burst damage, but more damage reduction increases your healer's ability to keep you alive versus higher sustained damage.

If you really wanted to be silly you could calculate a "time to death" at various levels of DPS for various levels of DEX / STR but it seems like a fool's errand to me. If you had 10k HP it would be easily worth it to sacrifice 10% of your HP for an additional 5% damage reduction, particularly at the current levels of DPS.

At 7k it's up in the air / up for debate. But without any testing or any solid modeling It's silly to just say one way or another that it's pointless or not.

If you look at it this way, a PLD will block ~22% of the incoming hits, and parry ~19% of those not blocked (at my gear level, anyway). That means 41% of hits are reduced by a significant amount. If you can take that up by 3% each, that would mean 25% blocks and 22% parries. That's 47% of all hits being reduced by a significant amount.

That's a clear gain. The question then becomes whether or not you are still in burst range.

And chances are dropping the allocated VIT is not going to be worth it until you have very high levels of VIT from gear. But on the other hand it is probably worth it to sacrifice the 25 VIT / 25 Parry for 45 STR and 45 DEX * (I wasn't using HQ stats before, derp) if you can afford it.

Unfortunately, I can't, otherwise I would try it.

Like how you said ~25 vit and some parry ... So basically you are stacking Dex to equal out to the parry you lost? Gain 2% block chance and sacrifice 2% block amount. Fail to see where you are gaining anything at all here. Seems to me like no matter how you spin that you are losing

Nah you only lose ~25 parry rating IIRC. 40 DEX will outweigh that, particularly if you have high parry values from your other gear. You won't be sacrificing any block amount, and in fact it will go up with gryphonskin accessories (40 STR is enough to bump both block and parry values by at least 1%).

Plus you're talking about parry AND block rate going up, and parry AND block value going up.

Subtle snarkiness?

No I think someone should do some extensive testing of this.