So far I've worked out that this build would work decently on a PDK but human is better due to allowing you to take Rogue at 1. Still looking at optimal level order (will depend on feats/skills) but the feats aren't tight and can be taken to taste. With 7 heroic feats, 4 fighter feats, and 1 human feat there's plenty to go around. Main feats would be SWF line (3), Shield Mastery Line (2), Improved Shield Bash, Precision, Insightful Reflexes, and Improved Crit Pierce. That would leave 3 heroic feats as well as one epic feat at level 24 that wouldn't be locked in to a particular epic feat. I could see arguments made for Quicken, Extend, Maximize, Emp. Heal, Empower, Weapon Focus: Piercing, Weapon Specialization: Piercing, and Sap (Sap + Coupe = dead enemy and they share the same 15 second CD). Probably a damage-focused build would take WF, WS, Quicken, and then one other to taste, while someone not sweating the last few percent of damage would have a lot more flexibility to fit in other feats.

Skills I haven't made it very far on yet but on a no-tome, 32-point PDK there's no problems at all maxing Balance, Jump, Perform, UMD, Disable, Search, and Heal (half points). There were plenty of points left to almost max Open Lock if the leveling order was optimized for it as well. I could see Bluff being handy to the build and honestly on a toon with decent tomes you're going to have plenty of skill points to hit up whatever your pet skills are.

Enhancements are the next sticking point but really all I can see that are necessary are about 34 points in Swash, 11 each in SD/Van, 8 in Harper, and 2 in Human/PDK. That's really tight for fitting in anything else (only 14 points) but seems doable.

Wouldn't it have a chance of proc'ing on your off-hand shield attacks that happen from Improved Shield Bash (20% chance base from the feat) that gets bumped up to 40% chance by Vanguard Core III? That's still a shield bash...it just automatically happens when you make your normal weapon attack.

I would assume not. Improved Critical Bludgeoning doesn't even apply to shields.

Vendui wrote on Sep 20^th, 2015 at 3:34am:


It's the same reason we can't TWF with a shield + weapon. The game does not historically apply anything good to shields. You know, answering his only question:

Quote:


He didn't ask if it was viable, so you can fuck off.

Vendui wrote on Sep 19^th, 2015 at 7:16pm:


No, it's more that I have a lot of builds that I'm considering playing after the one I'm on and the offchance of rolling a 19-20 vorpal shield strike rather than a 20 vorpal shield strike either on the automatic attacks or the triggered ones might be the difference in me trying out this build or going with an entirely different one for my next life.

string table error, tableDID wrote on Sep 20^th, 2015 at 8:43am:


Yeah, that's kind of what I was looking at building but I wanted to max out survivability so I was taking the shield feats. Kind of wanting a character that can easily handle self-healing tanking duties, trapping, and some general buffing as well. I like the idea of doing PSWF on a utility build like that to raise how often you can neg-level trash (though the value of neg's in a lot of content is also iffy given the damage a lot of builds put out which is another strike against the plan). Glad to hear the part about Sap though...I was debating whether or not to fit that in - played around with Bluff + Sap on an assassin a long time ago and it sounds like it's just as good as I remember it.

The Celestia glances sound great while leveling and on end-game skele's, etc, but I'd have to think a TF light pick would blow it away on anything else regardless of the glances...am I underestimating those glancing blows though?

Honestly the 15/3/2 is a nice middle ground between a tank-focused trapper and a full bard. I'd be able to take other feats at 24/28 (including both PSWF and PTWF) as I wouldn't have a reason to spend feats on the song-boosting feats you're probably taking there, but at the same time I wouldn't be getting those nice abilities either. Do you feel like you could tank some of the EE raids (specifically the dragons in TF) on the 15/3/2? The build has so much going for it at 15/3/2 that it if could pull off the tanking I think the 3 added bard levels would push it ahead for me.