Having a little trouble

[Sebastien]

<p>Hey all..</p><p>I'm having a little trouble on my Pally and I wanted to get some input from people who are more experienced with the class.  I'm level 25 now, I have 21 AA which I have spent in STR (4/4/4) and STA (4/4/1) so far.  I'm using a master-crafted weapon, armor from the level 20-25 AQ series, jewelry is average but probably my weakpoint, and my CA's and spells are all Adept I or better.</p><p>So, I think my character should perform decently.. I'm sure he isn't considered decked out but better than average I would think.</p><p>Anyway, I have a couple of observations so far.</p><p>First, re: the 'offense' and 'defense' stances (forget names), is it just me, or is the offensive stance not a very good tradeoff?  It seems like my damage will be just a TINY bit better, but I will get hit A LOT more often.  At first I assumed this would be a "solo" stance to help me do more reasonable damage, but I no longer feel that is the case.</p><p>Second, regarding survivability.. I don't feel like I have nearly as much as I would have expected from a "tank".  In some ways I feel pretty darned fragile.  Does this improve?  I could have slightly better mitigation if I splurged on MC gear, but I don't feel that should be a minimum requirement.</p><p>Third, and my biggest concern.. my taunts don't see to work.. at all.  If I'm even paired with someone, it is very difficult for me to maintain agro at all.  I spam my single target and AOE taunts every time they are up, and both are Adept I.  In additional, I spam my shield bash, and perform combat arts as much as I reasonably can without running out of mana.  If I do these things I will never have agro.. even the DPS from a healer class is enough to take it away from me.</p><p>Is this normal? o_O</p>

[Tames]

<p>Amends the highest agro producer in your group, agro issues should dissapear. The people you are grouping with could be twinked to the eyebrows which could skew agro quite a bit. Use your heals when you are having issues with incoming damage. </p><p>Paladins wear down mobs (like reading them Vogon poetry), soloing isnt that fast.</p><p>Use your self ward to help survivability on pulls.</p>

[Rast]

<p>are you using sword and board or a two hander for soloing?  a good two hander will help on your dps, especially on soloing and at the young levels, a shield doesn't help much.</p><p>in a couple levels, you will get redemption which will help with your agro.  At the lower levels, I've often found it harder to hold agro as your primary agro tools do not come until later (sigil, amends, holy ground).</p><p>Offensive stance is about all I'm in, in fact the only time I've been in defensive was when I tanked for Drull two nights ago (and I did the first half in offensive with only one healer...  probably could of done the whole thing in offensive if they'd given me the second healer and the troubie the first time through <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />)</p><p>why did you go STR?  you would probably get more bang for your buck going down the int line for the spell crit.</p><p>Right now, my new pally is level 32 (almost 33) with 28 AAs, I have my full spell crit (68%) and working on my melee crit (think I have 3 or 4 points in it now).  Not having much issues with survivability, but that is really situational, having played a pally before, I kinda know how far I can push without much issue...</p><p>Power issues get better, at the young levels you burn power like there is no tomorrow, as you level you'll get mana regen items which will mitigate a great deal of those issues though.</p>

[Sebastien]

I wanted strength for the haste, and because STR is a key stat for me.. but in retrospect, I see how little of my damage comes from autoattack, so I'm not sure there has been much payoff with Haste.

[Rast]

<p>really, Haste is nice, especially at higher levels.  But that is what a dirge is for <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.  But, especially at the lower levels when you are using a 27-40dps weapon, you just aren't going to get as much out haste as you will a 68% chance of criting on a 200+ damage spell.</p>

[Sebastien]

Well I plan to focus on the Crusader tree for a while, since it seemed to offer bigger benefits than the Paladin tree.  And I planned some mixture of STR/STA/INT.  So I can still go for the spell crit.But what is considered a spell for a paladin?  Just our nuke?  The procs?  Any of the combat arts that do Divine?

[Rast]

<p>we have a couple nukes (you get a couple more once you pass 50) and all our procs are considered 'spells' so that is also nice.</p><p>I think my path is going to be (I rerolled my pally on a new server) INT 4,4,8 -> STA 4,4,8 -> Hero -> wrath then fill out where I want in various other places.</p>