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The Divine Champion: flexible warrior, Lord and Master of active combat (save against a Defiler or especially a Dark Oppressor), and all around badass.

The Divine Champion is generally a very difficult class: if you want easy power, go be a Seraph. The Divine Champion requires planning, work, more planning, and more work. And when you're done planning and working, you'll need to plan and work some more. In all honesty, though... the moment where you find yourself locked in combat with an Eternal Soldier, laughing derisively at his futile attempts to hurt you, and then finishing him with a car to the face... ah, that makes it all worthwhile. The Divine Champion can be one of the most potent classes in the Nexus, if you're smart. Which is why you have this guide.

Let us explore the path of the Divine Champion. It's a long and hard road, but the destination is worth the journey.

Contents 1 The Divine Champion, in summary. 2 Growing up: The Divine Champion as a Mortal 2.1 Combat Skills 2.2 Sense Skills 2.3 Utilty Skills 3 The Adolescent Years: Life as a Paladin. 3.1 Paladin Skills 4 The Goal: On Becoming a Divine Champion 4.1 The Steel Tree 4.2 The Air Tree 4.3 The Fire Tree 4.4 Utility Skills 5 Example/Sample Divine Champion Builds 6 In Closing

[edit] The Divine Champion, in summary.

The Divine Champion is essentially whatever you need it to be. Want power? Slip into a comfortable Cloak of Steel. Spell casting is a snap with Cloak of Air! Maybe you'd like the hot and sexy Cloak of Vengeful Fire: certain to impress friend and foe! A Divine Champion is many things to many people, and there are so many different builds that it's completely obscene. I can't say anything about uniqueness, but it's not too hard to develop a Divine Champion for your particular play style.

[edit] Growing up: The Divine Champion as a Mortal

Any good build starts at the Mortal levels, and the Divine Champion is certainly no exception. Because the Divine Champion is a warrior first and foremost, combat trees should generally be considered first... but don't let that stop you! But let's get into the Mortal skills, shall we?

[edit] Combat Skills

Now, the combat trees can be summed up in my Guide to Combat Trees, but this is a summary.

• Dodge- The major weakness of the Divine Champion is a high reliance on Magic Points, and... well, no real way to gain it back. Thus, Divine Champions (especially in Cloak of Steel, which has a defense penalty) tend to be very weak toward demonic spellcasters with Dark Heart. As well, Dark Oppressors have Agony Curse, which deals damage that even the greatest of cloaks can't defend against. And of course, there's the Defiler Poison. Fortunately, all three of these dreaded skills are Hand to Hand, which means Dodge will help protect against them.

• Hand to Hand Combat is fairly reliable, requires little work, and the Cloak of Steel tree enhances it. You may want to consider this tree as your first combat tree. Make sure to learn ALL of it, including Boxing: Divine Champions don't get the nifty innate attacks that Infernal Behemoths get.

• Melee Combat is also fairly reliable, but fairly dependent on your equipment. However, the Cloak of Steel tree makes (at least up to Advanced Melee Combat) very worthwhile, as there are very heavy background objects (such as telephone poles) that that can be used as exceptionally damaging improvised melee weapons. As well, the Cloak of Vengeful Fire tree has potent sword-based innate attacks. Generally, if you want to focus on heavy melee combat, you won't want go go past Advanced Melee. If you plan on using the Vengeful Fire tree, or use normal swords, you'll want to take Fencing as well. Normal melee becomes very viable with Weapon Mastery. However, if you use swords, Expert Blade Combat is heartily advised.

• Ranged Combat is EXTREMELY reliable, but requires ammunition. Again, many of the cloaks (Cloak of Steel and children, Lightning, Vengeful Fire and Hoarfrost) make very strong use of the Throwing tree. Many Divine Champions take the Thrown Weapons tree later on in their builds for this purpose. It's also of interest to some Divine Champions who might want to take ranged spells, but personally I think Hand to Hand spells would be better. Again, with Weapon Mastery, other ranged combat trees become more viable.

[edit] Sense Skills

Determining the attributes of your opponent is important when deciding if you should fight or not.

• First Aid isn't particularly high priority, unless the Divine Champion plans to heal a fair bit as well. However, the usefulness of being able to see another's HP cannot be denied.

• Sense Magic is generally a "must-get" skill, for about any class, even the Divine Champion. That is, unless the Divine Champion isn't interested in identifying potions, magical items, or Isle of Gates portals. Seriously, this skill is a very good idea.

• Sense Morality is practically a no-brainer, as the Divine Champion is an angelic class, and angelic classes lose all their powers if they fall under 20 Morality. Now, it's fairly easy to take a test swipe at someone to see if they are good to attack, but really, why waste the AP to do so when you can get a nifty little dot that tells you if it's alright? Psychometry may be a child of Sense Morality, but it's of very little interest to any Divine Champion who doesn't plan on infusing.

[edit] Utilty Skills

There are, of course, other skills out there that can be of varying use to the Divine Champion.

• Engineering isn't a particularly crucial skill, unless the Divine Champion wants to improve their Morality or gain experience by repairing doors and the power grid... and really, there's much better alternatives out there. Still, it can be useful for door and power badges. Structural Engineering is even of less interest, unless you're interested in creating or maintaining a heavily barricaded area, such as Foghaven.

• First Aid is useful as a detection skill to detect HP, and is also fairly useful to help your friends (or random people with). The more of this tree you acquire though, the less useful it becomes in improving your Morality.

• Hide is useful if you're a soloing Divine Champion, but to be honest, if you're a hand to hand DC, you don't lose much from dying save AP you can hunt with. The best use of the Hide tree is "shadow dancing", which is essentially hiding before each attack in an attempt to take advantage of the hiding damage bonus, or to throw off an active foe's targetting. It's only effective against classes without Enhanced Senses, but nothing says "I love you" quite like 44 Holy damage to the face... unless it's making your enemy wonder where the hell you went before that! For the best results, you will probably want to get Advanced Hide as well.

• Lockpicking is a rather difficult XP gathering tool, but useful if you don't have Cloak of Air or want to spend time and MO busting down doors.

• Planar Protection is of interest to any Divine Champion who would like to risk Dark Oppressors and Ukkuhr-Makhai and hunt in Stygia.

• Repair Item and the crafting trees are very reliable experience, but for the most part the Divine Champion probably won't need to regularly craft or repair, unless they're planning to be melee-based, or serve their faction as an extra crafter.

• Search isn't exactly high priority either, unless the Divine Champion is scavenging or badge hunting. Research is even less impressive, unless the Divine Champion wants to level quickly via reading.

• Strength is useful if the Divine Champion wants to carry a lot of potions, or scavenges a fair bit. Stamina is even better since it helps add to the Divine Champion's hit points, turning them from "hard to kill" into "WHY WON'T YOU DIE!?!?!"

• Swim is generally not considered. Why should you swim when you get far more efficient Wings?

[edit] The Adolescent Years: Life as a Paladin.

Tier 2 tends to be described as the hardest levels in the game, and it's not hard to see why: the once numerous Tier 1s to prey upon are now worthless (if it's not outright frowned upon to attack) as experience, yet you don't quite have the firepower to take on Tier 3. You're (almost) soft enough for Mortals to eye you hungrily, and yet still worth experience to the godlike Tier 3s. On top of that, now that you're now an angelic class: only evil targets are acceptable, lest you lose your powers and be no better than a mortal! It gets even worse if you're factionless or are in a faction without a Stronghold: you don't even have a place that's even marginally safe to hide.

Like the teenage years in real life, this is a very hard time where everything pretty much changes all too quickly. Possibly the only good thing going for you is if you are a Hand-to-Hand Paladin (heartily advised), you don't have to worry about scrounging for ammunition or repairing weapons.

Still, at this point, many may consider the value of alternate sources for XP, such as repairing or crafting. This choice is up to you, in all honesty, although I had little trouble, admittedly.

[edit] Paladin Skills

• Divine Armor This is THE defining skill of the Paladin. Remember when I said "(almost) soft enough" at the beginning? This is why. It provides enough soak to deter some casual attackers, and gains in strength as you gain levels, until it becomes a deterrent to all but the most dedicated of killers (or Pariahs and Dark Oppressors). It's usually chosen as the first skill for Paladins, and it's not hard to see why.

• Lesser Smite is the only charged attack the Divine Champion will get, and is of special import to Hand to Hand Divine Champions, as it changes their (somewhat weak and easily soaked) fists into something fairly strong. Of course, it's also useful to any Divine Champion. Adding 10 damage (and making it all Holy damage) to cars? Sign me up, please!

• Purify is really only of interest for those Divine Champions who wish to aid their faction in infusing territory. It's not as good as Greater Infusion, but if the Divine Champion has spare MP (which may be a bit rare), why not?

• Strengthen is a very useful skill for temporarily raising Hand to Hand and Melee damage. The buff doesn't last long, but with luck it'll last you through at least one kill. I've found, though, that it becomes less of interest for the Divine Champion, as they often find themselves too MP-starved. However, during your time as a Paladin, it is VERY useful.

• Strong Attack, as well as Elite Attack should definitely be put into your build, as an innate +3 damage is useful to any Divine Champion, as they don't get Infinite Attack to buff up damage even further. If you don't need this, you're apparently a pacifist, which means that you really shouldn't be a Divine Champion, or you have some serious mojo going on here. Either way it means you don't need this guide.

[edit] The Goal: On Becoming a Divine Champion

Finally, we get to the meat of the guide: The Divine Champion skills! You've probably worked your ass off to get to this point, in which you really should be commended and have probably figured out what you wanted to do. If you haven't reached this point, well, let this part of the guide help you into deciding what you're going to do with your Divine Champion.

The Divine Champion has three distinct cloak trees, as well as several utilitarian skills that may or may not be of interest, depending on how you want to play.

[edit] The Steel Tree

The "Steel" Tree... that is, the Cloak of Steel tree, is all about raw power and plenty of it. Under Cloak of Steel, the Divine Champion becomes a hand to hand combat terror, with the ability to wield insanely heavy objects such as boulders or statues as weapons. One small tip though: Steel does NOT float. Do NOT attempt to swim in Cloak of Steel.

The Cloak of Steel child skills are incredibly MP-light, which allows the Divine champion to put their MP to liberal use in other ways, such as Smiting or spellcasting. It also allows the Divine Champion to remain in them for hours at a time if they so wish!

• Cloak of Steel: 30 CP, 1 AP/2 MP activation, 3 MP/minute maintenance, +10 Soak (to all), +8 Hand to Hand damage, -25% Defense Penalty, 4 AP movement cost, allows carrying and using heavy objects as weapons.
  • Cloak of the Carbon Core: 60 CP, 1 AP/2 MP activation, 3 MP/15 minutes maintenance, Immunity to mundane damage (Bludgeoning, Slashing, Piercing, Ballistic) +10 Soak (to all), +10 Hand to Hand damage, -5% Defense Penalty, 2 AP movement cost, allows carrying and using heavy objects as weapons. The Divine Champion can not be healed in this form.
  • Cloak of Titanium: 60 CP, 1 AP/2 MP activation, 3 MP/15 minutes maintenance, +4 Soak (to all), +5 Hand to Hand damage, +15% attack bonus with heavy items, allows flight, allows carrying and using heavy objects as weapons.

Cloak of Steel is the most basic Cloak, however, it makes the Divine Champion extremely heavy and slow: the Divine Champion may not fly and moves around at a very high AP cost. As well, they receive a massive defense penalty that makes them particularly vulnerable to indirect attacks such as Poison, Agony Curse, and Dark Heart, which can quickly turn a Divine Champion into a Divine Chump. It can also make a Myrmidon's Focused Attack extremely troublesome. As well, Cloak of Steel is only very good for a short burst of power: the maintenance cost adds up very quickly!

Cloak of the Carbon Core is a straight enhancement to Cloak of Steel: the Hand to Hand damage bonus is buffed slightly, and while soak isn't raised, the Divine Champion gains an immunity to mundane damage types. As well, the Divine Champion is lighter, so while they still receive a movement and defense penalty, it's not nearly as harsh as Cloak of Steel is. However, the inability to be healed can be a problem for those Divine Champions who are not quick with Invisibility, potions, and Angels Tears in the case they need to recover.

Cloak of Titanium is a lightweight cloak, which deemphasizes straight brawling in favor of mobility and running around with telephone poles. The Divine Champion receives none of the defense and movement penalties. In fact, the Divine Champion can actually fly in this cloak. It might be worth taking Weapon Mastery as well, so you can boost the attack bonus with heavy items.

[edit] The Air Tree

The "Air" Tree (Cloak of Air) is not so much about outright power, like the Steel Tree. However, it emphasizes mobility, spellcasting, and ranged combat.

Unlike the Cloak of Steel tree, this tree remains very MP-intensive no matter which cloak you choose. Don't expect the Cloak to last long if you're slinging spells and innates left and right!

• Cloak of Air: 30 CP, 1 AP/1 MP activation, 1 MP/minute maintenance, 1 MP action cost, immunity to nonmagical attacks and weapons, lesser flight (1 AP per square moved), can bypass doors and barricades, 1/2 MP cost for spells.
  • Cloak of Lightning: 60 CP, 1 AP/1 MP activation, 1 MP/minute maintenance, 1 MP action cost, immunity to nonmagical attacks and weapons, immunity to electricity, lesser flight (1 AP per 2 squares moved), can bypass doors and barricades, +20% to hit with ranged spells, gains Lightning Bolt attack (Base 10 Electrical damage, uses Throwing tree), gains Static Burst attack (10 MP, 30/200 Electrical AoE, base 70% to hit). The Divine Champion may not speak in this form.
  • Cloak of the Tornado: 60 CP, 1 AP/1 MP activation, 1 MP/minute maintenance, 1 MP action cost, immunity to nonmagical attacks and weapons, immunity to magical damage, lesser flight (no AP spent for moving), can bypass doors and barricades, 10% chance to reflect spells cast, 10% chance to absorb spells not reflected (gaining MP spent). The Divine Champion may not speak in this form.

Cloak of Air is the most basic of the this tree, and is perfect for spellcasting and getting into blocked off buildings. However, the flight is not particularly impressive (Wings is much better, faster and cheaper MP-wise). The big advantage of this cloak (which Lightning and Tornado does not have) is the fact that the Divine Champion only pays 50% (rounded up, plus the 1 MP action cost) of the normal MP cost for spells. This makes Cloak of Air perfect for self-buffing, as well as dispelling, or even AoEing if you feel like playing with Aether Wave or something.

Cloak of Lightning is the more power-oriented of the Air cloaks, and boasts proficiency with ranged spells as well as two very potent innate attacks, including one of the cheapest Area of Effect attacks in the game. It might be a very good idea to be VERY friendly with your local alchemist (especially with a Rose or twelve) or Shepherd (with Energize) if you plan to make extensive use of this cloak.

Cloak of the Tornado is the more mobile and defensive of the cloaks, boasting completely free flight (well, except for the 1 MP action cost), as well as immunity to Magical damage (as well as the ONLY immunity to Magical damage). Not only that, but there is a small chance that the spell may be reflected or added to your own MP. This is the only possible way (as of now) for the Divine Champion to gain MP beyond the usual ticks and recovery items. However, the absolute mobility of Cloak of Tornado allows the Divine Champion to cover almost as much ground as a Void Walker.

[edit] The Fire Tree

The "Fire" tree (Cloak of Vengeful Fire) is a balance between offense and defense, focusing primarily on innate abilities. While they recieve no soak bonuses, they gain powerful damage auras. If you invest in this tree, you should consider Weapon Mastery to make best use of the innate attacks it offers.

• Cloak of the Vengeful Fire: 30 CP, 1 AP/4 MP activation, 2 MP/minute maintenance, immunity to fire, gains defensive aura (inflicts Fire damage to any hand to hand or melee attackers), gains Fire Ball attack (1 MP, Base 8 Fire Damage, uses Throwing tree), gains Fire Sword attack (1 MP, Base 10 Fire damage, uses Melee/Fencing), gains Fire Rain attack (10 MP, 20/100 Fire AoE, base 50% to hit), cannot use equipment.
  • Cloak of Hoarfrost: 60 CP, 1 AP/2 MP activation, 3 MP/15 minutes maintenance, immunity to Cold damage, gains defensive aura (inflicts Cold damage to any hand to hand or melee attackers, scales with level from 4-9 damage), gains Ice Shards attack (Base 8 Cold damage, uses Throwing tree), gains Frost Sword attack (Base 10 Cold damage, uses Melee/Fencing), gains Soul Chill attack (10 AP/15 AP, 20/100 AoE that attacks Magic Points), cannot use equipment.
  • Cloak of Holy Radiance: 60 CP, 1 AP/2 MP activation, 1 MP/minute maintenance, 1 MP action cost, immunity to Fire and Holy damage, gains defensive aura (inflicts Fire damage to any hand to hand or melee attackers, scales with level from 4-9 damage), gains Kiss of the Radiant Sun attack (10 AP/20 MP, Unsoakable AoE that scales with level: 16-24/160-240), can use equipment.

Cloak of Vengeful Fire is the most basic of the tree, and sets the tone well: it boasts several innate attacks as well as a defensive aura. However, Fire damage tends to be easily soaked, can be immunized with potions, and Elementalist and Infernal Behemoth get skills that bestow immunity to Fire.

Cloak of Hoarfrost may have the maintenance cost of the Cloak of Steel Children, but it's not a tank cloak; it's a general maiming-and-killing cloak. Cold damage cuts through many soaks (especially Infernal Behemoth soaks) like butter. Soul Chill can be absolutely DEVASTATING for groups of characters without some way to restore MP.

Cloak of Holy Radiance skips the innate attacks, but you have full access to your inventory while you use it. This is good if you have MP potions (or can afford the MO loss of Soul Ice): the main draw of this cloak is Kiss of the Radiant Sun, which can inflict HEAVY unsoakable damage, cutting down soaky defenders in a snap. However, it doesn't discriminate, so you might want to tell your factionmates to leave before you unload.

[edit] Utility Skills

The Divine Champion's Cloak skills are not the only skills they can make good use of. From casting spells, to flight, and expanding your target range, the choices you make with these skills can help decide how well the Divine Champion will work.

• Cast Spell (30 CP) is possibly one of the greatest tools for easily expanding the Divine Champion's capabilities. There are quite a few things possible with this skill, from always damaging your foe, to strengthening your abilities. However, damage spells tend to be of less interest than buffing or utilitarian spells: a Divine Champion is already perfectly capable of dishing out a lot of damage. Why should they spend valuable and scarce Magic Points to inflict less than they could with say... a fist in Cloak of the Carbon Core? Some spells of interest are:
  • Bear's Strength (10 CP, 10 MP) raises hand to hand damage by 2 for 10 AP, essentially making it a more expensive (CP and MP wise, once Cast Spell is taken into account) Strengthen. This is mildly useful in combat, when you want to eke as much damage as possible out of your hand to hand attacks. However, you shouldn't have too much trouble inflicting damage, so it tends to be less of interest than outright raising your poor to-hit. Keep in mind that AP-based buffing spells tend to be best cast before you go to sleep, that way you have the buff and full MP for the next AP cycle... providing nothing happens to you in the meantime, of course. Unless you want the +4 damage though, live with Strengthen.
  • Dispel Greater Ward (20 CP, 20 MP) is very expensive CP and MP wise, but perfect if you're having trouble with a Greater Ward Versus Good (particularly with raiding), especially if you have Cloak of Air. It can be used to clear out any ward, so if your friends are blocked, you can let them in. However, it's generally better to let your local Wizard handle dispelling, since they are generally far better at it.
  • Eagle Eye (10 CP, 15 MP) raises ranged to-hit by 15% for 15 AP. It's rather expensive, but good if you're fond of throwing around ranged spells or want to be more likely to hit with that boulder you just picked up. Like all AP-based buffs, cast before bed to get the best results.
  • Reveal (7 CP, 4 MP) is the Divine Champion's answer to the Enhanced Senses that Seraphs get. It's MP intensive for hunting runs, but it can help you find targets faster, and unlike Enhanced Senses, it kicks Invisble characters out of invisibility. Perfect for pissing off that Void Walker!
  • Shade of the Dervish (10 CP, 10 MP) raises melee to-hit by 20% for 10 AP. Again, it's expensive, but it's good if you're particularly fond of using heavy items or swords. Like all AP-based buffs, cast it a few times before you go to bed to get the best results.
  • Shadow Wrap (20 CP, 5 MP) is a guaranteed way to hide, but it's very expensive CP-wise and can be a pain MP-wise as well. It's good if you want to hide on the next AP (to get a hiding bonus, or just low on AP and need somewhere to hole up), but I figure you'd be better served getting Hide and Advanced Hide, and maybe an Amulet of Hiding and/or some hiding enchanted gear.
  • Tiger Claw (10 CP, 10 MP) raises hand to hand to-hit by 20% for 20 AP. This is probably the BIGGEST boon to Divine Champions (hand to hand focused Divine Champions, anyway) that Cast Spell offers. Simply cast it a few times when you go to sleep, and you'll have +20% to-hit for your next AP cycle. Easy as that!
  • Turtle Shell (10 CP, 10 MP) raises your soak against ALL damage by 4, for 2 hours. Turtle Shell can help push your soak (in Steel Cloaks) from high into soak cap territory, and is generally useful with Divine Armor and a Potion of Invulnerability. However, it's a time-based buff, meaning that you really can't prepare it before you go to sleep. It becomes useful if you expect active combat (such as raids).
  • Visual Prestidigitation (7 CP, 5 MP) raises your defense by 5% for 2 hours. Again, when in heavy cloaks, the usefulness of this becomes apparent: you need every bit of defense you can muster up, and it's always useful if you're expecting something dangerous soon. Like Turtle Shell, though, it's time-based, so it's useful for raiding. However, the MP cost means that you can cast it a short time before you actually start hunting and still make good use of it.

• Dust to Dust (30 CP) is probably the least useful skill in the Divine Champion's arsenal: any character killed by the Divine Champion becomes dust and does not leave a corpse. It's probably most useful for a solo Divine Champion who wishes to evade the detection of a Nexus Champion who might use Tattoo of the Eye of Death to find you. Of course, it also prevents a Lich from using the corpse to create undead, but it's not like it's too hard for a Lich to find corpses.

• Grace of Blood (30 CP) offers a permanent +15 Maximum HP to the Divine Champion. Grace of Blood can make a hard to kill Divine Champion into an angel someone will have to budget a full AP cycle just to kill, especially with Stamina. It doesn't give the Divine Champion the HP of a Seraph, but with the defensive abilities that the Divine Champion offers, this can make you a true Pain In The Ass.

• Hand of Zealotry (30 CP) is one of the most useful utility skills the Divine Champion gets: it expands your target range to include neutrals by preventing MO loss when attacking neutrals. Attacking good-aligned characters will still be hideously bad for you, but at least you won't have to rely on finding evil characters. Keep in mind though, that Hand of Zealotry does carry a stigma to it (not in part due to angels using this skill to attack Tier 1 neutrals, as well as several in-character things in the Chafin Memorial forum), so some people who might normally be disinclined to attack you might just kill you in fear for their life or for others lives.

• Weapon Mastery (30 CP) raises to-hit with weapons by 5%. It's expensive, and not that much of a buff... but unlike a spell, it's always around. As such, it's only good if you focus primarily on weapon combat. If you don't plan on using weapons, don't bother.

• Wings (30 CP) is the travel skill for the Divine Champion, and allows flight over all terrains. It costs 1 AP to start, and 1 MP/minute to maintain, but reduces movement costs to 1/2 AP and you'll rarely use more than 2-3 MP to get where you want to go. This is generally one of the first skills a Divine Champion will take, because of this.

[edit] Example/Sample Divine Champion Builds

The Sample Divine Champion Builds have been moved here, due to size issues, and now includes example cloak combinations.

[edit] In Closing

Divine Champions are a very promising class for those looking for an incredible mix of fun and power. To me, they outclass almost every class save the Void Walker (tied, but then, I've never played a Void Walker) in the fun department. In power, they are easily one of the most powerful classes in the game, with an array of abilities that would make most people wonder just what the hell to do with them all. In the end though, how you create your Divine Champion is ultimately up to you. The MOST IMPORTANT thing with a Divine Champion is to build it so you can have the most fun with it, no matter what you do. Atrele is easily one of my favorite characters, if not my favorite between her, StarStorm (my bow-packing Wizardress), and Keitarma (my maxed rifle-toting Eternal Soldier). A Divine Champion can make you VERY happy if you have the time and patience for building one.

In any case, if a Divine Champion isn't for you, that's alright. There's a lot of classes you can have a lot of fun with. But if it is for you... well, trust me. Chances are you're going to enjoy (almost) every bit of it. Good luck!

Any discussion and useful edits are welcome. I'd especially like to hear about your Divine Champion experiences in the discussion page!

StarStorm 03:33, 22 March 2007 (CDT)