We got L9 on our alts last night. Ran Mabar/Night revels so JM didn't miss anything important. I got a witch hat.
Feywild Illusionist will be a boon for Paladins, amusingly. CHA to-hit and Damage means you can focus on CHA, leading to massive saving throws with no penalty. Makes me wish they had skill points and I could fit in trapping on one.
I got the Feywind expansion and ETR'ed my paladin into a charisma build. There are snags to be aware of here.
The Feydark Illusionist universal tree will indeed grant you hit and dmg bonus based on charisma if you invest just 7 points into the tree. The snag is that the tree is NOT open to all classes. You need the feat called Magical Training to access it. Some classes get this automatically like Alchemist, Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Favored Soul, Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard. Bards get it from Spellsinger enhancements, Rangers from Arcane Archer enhancements. Aasimar can also get it from the Aasimar enhancements.
Other classes like paladin will have to purchase the feat before the tree becomes open. I play a human paladin so I was able to get rid of Empower healing for this tree and it works well.
There are major benefits to doing this. One is that you don't have to focus on boosting strength. So you can more easily find a combination of gear to max out the abilities you need for a melee toon. You only need to focus on maxing charisma and constitution instead of having to max 3 stats.
With higher charisma you can get more constitution enhancement bonuses in Sacred Defender. That means a lot more hp's for the toon. You can also add charisma bonuses in all enhancement trees and epic destinies to charisma instead of spreading between strength, constitution and charisma.
Your lay on hands will be more efficient. Even more important is that your DC's to sunder, stunning (if you get the stunning blow feat) is based upon charisma so you will land these more often. Your saves will also be really high.
It's definitely worth a try, but it will cost you quite a bit. 41 points into Knight's of the Chalice, 31 points into Sacred Defender, 7 points into Feydark Illusionist. Then not many left for the racial tree. So either get racial past lives or not plan on many boosts from the racial tree.
So far my ETR'ed toon is only 25 and I haven't noticed any downsides. I hit as well as I did with my STR build and I have way more hp's and quite a lot higher saves. LOH's work better too so I can heal myself well even on reaper.
All in all it's definitely interesting to try. PDK paladins are probably a little bit stronger becauase you have more useful enhancements in the PDK tree to get to bonus to hit and dmg.
It's also worth noting that the best epic destiny tree for charisma based paladins is supposed to be the Fatesinger tree (bard one).
Here is an example of a great PDK paladin build and it can easily be adjusted for Feydark Illusionist
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthre...-THF-Paladin?p=6313780&viewfull=1#post6313780