Crusader Template Complications

Well tonight I got it stuck into my mind that I wanted to add faith hammers to my crusaders loadout. This is my reasoning: When I am going around kicking ass and dealing out hard censure damage and suddenly run out of mana I don't wanna be dead in the water. Also, too many times I have casted censure on a person until they are near death and then they have about 50 hp left but I have to go ahead and waste another 50ish mana on another censure to finish them off. Why not just use a hammer as extra damage?...

So in order to accomplish this I would have to put around 80 points into the following skills: Hammer to 100% and Blessing of Strength GM. The sacrifice would come from about 20 points from liturgy (taking it down to 130% instead of 150%) and about 20 from block (taking it down to 105%). I would also have to give up the commander rune; not that bigga deal for me.

Now there is an alternative to the above solution: take 20 points out of blessing of the healing hands (was GM; it is a 85% instant heal at GM with 15 minute recast; ~50% at 20) and put 10 points each back into liturgy and block. That would take lit to a comfortable 140% and block to 115%.

I am wondering the following: How high does block have to be to be effective? 105% any good? How worth it is GM blessing of healing hands? Which option is better? Should I keep block at 105% if I take points from BHH and put 20 points into liturgy?

Thanks ...

imo block/parry/dodge (after the patch at least, when block is fixed, as they claim it will be) should go to 100% if you want to have ANY use out of it... if you realy want it to be useful tough, it would need to be substantially higher...

however, even though block/parry/dodge skills ignore an atr, they do appear to be waged against the weapon skill of the attacker... so at 100% you will only be blocking in a now&then sort of way... however, at 100%+ block/parry/dodge skill your active buff relating to the skill starts becoming much more effective... if you want to block passively much more often, you need to get your the skill up in the 120-140 range (again, this only apllies if and when block is fixed, other wise youd be fine)...


flip side is, you are only brining your hammer to 100% you say... even w/ the str buff, your hits probably wont connect all that much, especially against dex monkeys... not to mention versus other passive/active defenses...

also, i though the recycle time on BHH was 1800 seconds, not 900... though in either case, even for a healer, i dunno if i could justify an expenditure of more 10-20 points in it, since its single target, and w/ such a slow recast...

I posted this on Ubi forums too. They gave some feedback but most were fighter crusaders.

Anyway I am think this might be a good route to go but then again with what you said I don't know.

Only put 20 points into BHH (for a 50% 1000+ hp insta-heal) and take 20 out of the 90 that was planned to be put into block. This will take block to 100%. Then dump those points into liturgy for 150%.

I am taking from block because one guy said something like, "The extra 20 points in block will only give you a +5% to block." Well I already have a shield with +3 passive defense so that is +15% block chance. I think I block a lot with that setup.

I am still having that confirmed but so far this looks like a good route. Another mentioned not GMing str buff, but the Str buff adds to defense (HA) as well as offense. The most offense comes from liturgy though so that is why I spike that.

well, i believe he may be incorrect on the effect the points into block above 100%, even the formulas for calculating all focus skill seem to give diminishing in returns... a lot of bad info comes outof ubi forums (hell look at that recent commander thread, they went about three pages back arguing about the bonuses Battle Tactics give)... and whats worse is that moderators/ubi/wp only step in with correct info maybe half the time...



(i.e. yes, you get less and less for each point over hundred, but thats why you have to spike to 120-140...)

as far as the bonus from shields, well thats what im talking about being fixed... people have been complaining that block is was overpowered... and its been found that block stops more attacks than parry or dodge at the same level, not to mention that shields offer more d, as well as passive d bonuses... thats why a lot of people complained about it, and why its said to be adjusted in the patch, so that its not so much more powerful than parry or dodge... but like i said, its just *supposed* to be fixed in the patch... though with the people have complained about it, im get the feeling itll get fixed before too long...

I figured with such a high passive defense, I could counter the penalty of being in offensive stance.

Even if they cut Passive D by 1/2, I still have as much as a normal tower shield.