En1gma, your write up on the Hydra really couldn't be better, way nice write up and I can't add to much to it.
However, I'm happy to share my personal feelings on the Paladin, although
havnor may take umbrage with my opinions re: paladin vs. berserker
An In-depth look at the PaladinPaladin: Your Backup Captain The paladin is, in my opinion, unfairly pigeon-holed as a healer. Sure, your paladin can keep your templars alive and well out in the field. Yes, your paladin has a "medic" stat and quite a few talents focused on healing. However, the sheer utility of the paladin leaves those that truly understand it in total awe.
Weaknesses of the Paladin The paladin suffers from being a pure melee specialist to the extent that it cannot even make use of grenades. As such, you will have issues dealing with ranged enemies and should be a little weary of using one when you are using a hydra-heavy strategy.
The paladin, just like the berserk, is a mid-to-late-game templar. Low-level paladins are a pain in the butt, they bloom late in life.
The paladin, when used in certain roles, will have a lot of issues with heat. You'll want to keep this in mind when thinking about how you want to employ one.
The paladin, more than other classes, must specialize in what you want it to do. You can't really have a multi-role paladin (at least at Brutal+ difficulty), so you'll want to make use of that free respec ability frequently.
The paladin has a very high cost, this means that you'll generally have to either save or sacrifice other specialist templars if you want to deploy one.
Strengths of the Paladin The paladin has a lot of gear harmony with your captain, especially if you run with a melee captain. This helps to minimize wasted RP.
The paladin, when built properly, can be an absolute beast in combat -or- an incredible force multiplier through buffs.
Comments and Strategies You may be that the weaknesses far outweigh the strengths of the paladin, and if you are only considering quantity you might be right. However, we are all taught that quality is better than quantity, right? The first thing that you need to realize with the paladin is that you have two main paths to take; Do you want a
support paladin that exponentially multiplies the effectiveness of your other templars, or do you want a
combat paladin that can wade into combat, shut down an entire lane of advance, and just generally wreak havoc all by its lonesome?
Choose! Support paladins should be built around medic and tactics, with just a bare minimum of combat ability. Basically, you'll want your paladin to always be in the middle of your squad and acting as a janitor, only moving into combat to pick off damaged xenos or danger-close xenos. With a support build, you'll probably want your gear to focus totally on getting your paladin's auto-block, deflection, and armor up as high as possible (in that order). Ideally, you'll want to follow this basic build strategy:
(Everything is written in order of priority)
Attributes: Fortitude, Willpower, and Strength
Skills: Medic, Tactics*, Warrior, and Evasion
Gear: Auto-block, Deflection, and Armor
*only bring this up to 6 or so, rarely will you be able to buff more than that many templars at once.
Talent to go for:
Battlefield Medic, is, of course, a good solid choice. Having a couple points in it, level 4 is my favorite sweet spot, is ideal.
Battlefield Enhancers can be a nice substitute for Battlefield Medic, sacrificing single templar healing for group healing while also adding in very nice damage and dodge bonuses.
Warding Fire is the king of defensive buffs, giving anywhere from 10% to 60% (!) auto-block in addition to dodge.
You may be asking, "well John, what about
Inspiration?" I generally avoid it because if I'm running a paladin, I'll generally avoid other melee templars. Melee is fun, but, in my opinion, at Brutal or above you are asking for trouble if you start putting out more than 1 or 2 of templars focused on melee.
Really, what you want to do with your support paladin, is choose between a damage buff focus or a defensive buff focus. The basic talents will be the same regardless, you'll just change priorities based on what you like more.
Damage buffer:
Battlefield Enhancers,
Warding Fire, and
Battlefield MedicDefensive buffer:
Warding Fire,
Battlefield Medic, and
Battlefield Enhancers Combat paladins should be built around one thing only; Smashing everything in their path. You can choose between a
Thor paladin that pastes everything within reach with a giant hammer or a
knight paladin that, while slightly less smash happy, has a bit more of a defensive focus. Regardless of your particular kink, you'll want to focus your build like so:
(Everything is written in order of priority)
Attributes: Strength, Fortitude*, Willpower*, and Focus**
Skills: Warrior and Evasion**
Gear: Auto-block, Damage, Deflection, and Armor
*these skills are a priority up to a certain point, I usually bring them up to 5 and stop.
**only after maxing non-starred entries
There are two talents that are just generally good regardless of your focus, and I'll list them here.
Battlefield Medic is worth sticking a couple points into. Again, level 4 is my favorite sweet spot.
War Machine is
very good if you want to have a defensive powerhouse. You'll lose MP, but you'll gain max heat, deflection, and auto-block while also healing yourself. This is especially good for thor paladins that are holding a tact point down.
Slay is a nice talent to have for some single-target clobberin'. Depending on what you are building for, it my be worthwhile to stick a couple points in it.
Thor paladins are the masters of disaster. You do lose a bit of auto-block, but in its place you gain some amazingly potent offensive buffs. I generally save thor for late game, as I can usually get a decently high auto-block through armor, stats, and tact-systems at that point.
What you want to do with a thor paladin is build around one thing: Righteous Embrace. Getting that kill buff should be your mission in life, and as such, you'll want to be out in front stomping on xeno heads.
Talents to go for, in order of priority, are:
Righteous Embrace for its kill buffs, listed below.
Death's Embrace (from level 1) grants you +1 MP, +20 damage, +16% auto-block, and +16% penetration.
Militant Embrace (from level 3) grants you +6 accuracy, +12 damage, +12% crit, and +12 plasma damage.
Ultra Embrace (from level 7) grants you +24% crit, +32 plasma damage, and +16% penetration.
Those buffs stack on AoE kills, so if you kill 3 enemies with a single attack you get all three. That means +1 MP, +32 damage, +16% auto-block, +36% crit, +32% penetration, +6 accuracy, and +44 plasma damage ON TOP of the standard buff you'll get from the talents itself (+damage and +accuracy)
Staggering Blows gives you the AoE oomph for grabbing the kill buffs above.
Basically, build around getting those kill buffs, so shoot for Righteous Embrace level 3 mid game and 7 late game, and then pump up Staggering Blows and Slay. Watch as your beefy paladin becomes a god, smiting anything that even dares to look at it.
Knight paladins are more traditional killers, relying on their shields for defense and their swords for cleaving through hoards of enemies.
Talents to go for, in order of priority, are:
Shieldbearer as it gives you incredible survivability by adding anywhere from 5-30% auto-block and 3-16 parry.
Shalun's Wrath is a nice addition to your killing ability because it gives your paladin a buff on hit, increasing damage and crit as well as melee accuracy at higher levels.*
Devastating Strikes can be a decent talent to get for its debuffs, it lowers enemy accuracy and dodge.*
*One or the other, not both
With your night paladin, you'll want to focus on getting Shieldbearer up high, compliment it with a couple points in Shalun's Wrath for buffs or Devastating Strikes for debuffs, and supplement that with Slay. You basically want to get the buff from Shalun's Wrath and then use Slay on everything.
