Talk to me about Paladins [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

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VikingGamer

02-15-2010, 06:06 PM

I am new to the game. Played around with a few different classes in the last 3 weeks to get a feel for things. I always seem to gravitate back to being a tank in every game I have played. I am a pretty casual player. I like playing all the content and always push myself to be a well informed and well played tank but I don't have the time dedicate to being a hardcore raider ever again. I also don't want to play a class just because it is easymode. In WoW I was a warrior, in War I was a black orc and in Aion I was a templar.So now I am trying to understand where the 6 fighter classes sit in relation to each other. Right now I am leaning toward Paladin (thus where I am posting) because the crusaders seems to be the best suited for tanking small group heroics at the endgame. I tried out the SK up to lvl 20 and so far it seems pretty fun to play though almost too easy. Beside I don't like the evil side of things so much. Freeport is a slum and Neriak makes me want to cut myself. Guards sound better suited to raid tanking with their emphasis on survivablity but dependence on others. zerkers seem more like dps warriors to me and I am not sure what to make of the two brawler classes. In the end I wan't to be a tank. Mostly tanking small groups but with the opportunity to get into raids from time to time and so I don't mind offtanking or somekind of dps/utility in that context. I like learning the content and having people really enjoy running in my group and wanting to do it again.So am I getting that mostly right? or have I been taken by the propoganda?How does the Paladin compare to the SK in play and feel?What is the Paladin's role in endgame?What are the challenges or gaps for the Paladin?How important is race for tanking? I have an affinity for Barbarians lorewise as you might guess, but I sure like the way an arasai/fae can glide off anything and jump pretty wide gaps as well as having night vision enhancements. But I do want to be the best tank I can be and don't want my race to be a limitation. Is night vision very important in this game? I know it was in old EQ.

Boli32

02-16-2010, 02:51 AM

So am I getting that mostly right? or have I been taken by the propoganda?The only propganda you'll come across is pallys beeing played by "n00bs who can't play a real tank", ignore them a large majority of paladins given the rest of us a bad name.How does the Paladin compare to the SK in play and feel?Similar but you will take a more active role in your own protection; playing an SK its eaisest just to spam buttons knowing you'll heal yourself; a paladin has to plan when he heals, which ones he uses ; time them correctly with stuns if needs be, with incoming AoEs if nessercary.A good relasionship with a priest is vital - you'll know how far you can push him and he'll know what you can take and more importantly how to heal you out of a bad way. Every priest I know who groups with me regually knows that if I am unstunned and have the ability to cast my own heals I can heal a large portion of actual incoming damage; they like having that "buffer" and feel its more of a colaborative teamwork than just following a tank and hoping he doesn't do something stupid.We do not do as much DPS as SKs, with top end gear tho we can keep up there; but in general an SKs Spells and CAs will deal more damage than ours are generally more power efficient (as they do not have to cast separate spells for healing).You will feel more secure as a Paladin; especially at end game and be able to take a more punishment than the SK but at the same time you won't feel as "powerful" especially when you see the DPS parses SKs can really push out; but played right Pallys can be right up there although it takes more work and we do have a make an effort to separte ourselves from our heals (which reduces our tankability) in order to push out the DPS. likewise our DPS suffers if we need to use our heals.Agro wise simialr to SKs tho we don't have to "work" at it as much as other tanks due to transfers. That's not to say its always going to be easy.. in some situations agro will be easy in others you are pulling every trick you know out of the bag; but what it allows us to do is concetrate more on our healing/DPS whilst still being able to hold agro whereas SKs concentrate on DPS and agro more than the healing which happens like paladin agro in the background.That is the main balance between the crusaders; one balance more effective in groups than raids I'm sorry to say.What is the Paladin's role in endgame?Tank, first and foremost we grab, hold an survive agro. We use our heals to supliment the healers and to assist our group/raid. Played right we make both a great MT or OT. With the new expansion pallys will be considered more and more as the MT than the OT, tho we can still preform each role very well. Our role is more the flexibility betwen the two roles currently; whereas other plate tanks seem to obviously fit into a MT or OT role we can fit into both very well.What are the challenges or gaps for the Paladin?In the new expansion (as we will be in when you read this <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />); our major drawback will be snap agro. we will find it hard to pull the mob off a player if he grabs agro; we only have two abilities to do that and if we are dumped to the bottom of the hate list either through a mob mechanic or a death. This weakness is shared by all the plate tanks however paladins will feel it the most.The second biggest challenge is to be taken seriously; in order to DPS we have to invest a lot of time, practice and gear sets into it and train untill it becomes second nature; likewise our healing abilities can easily be overlooked but allow us tremendous defensive power. Our agro may be "easy mode" but unless you work at it there is only so far you can go in the game. Other classes will find it easier to stay upright or DPS more, or hold agro better against anything. but paladins have the POTENTIAL to be fantastic, it just takes a lot of practice, skill and knoweldge of the class/zones.Many paladins in the game will coast on only doing a fraction of what they are capable of and you will be rediculed for that. There is someone who always knows a story about a paladin who couldn't DPS or didn't hold agro with a warlcok or.. etc etc. We have fantastic potential but you need to work your behind off to capitalise on it; and if you get it perfect... people won't even notice you're only noticed if you mess up.I'm sorry to ramble on there but I love this class and I truely believe that we are an easy class to enjoy intially but one of untapped potential difficult to master."When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."How important is race for tanking?Any race will do, the best ones for pure utility are the ones which grant tracking. Barbarians, ogres and dwarfs don't look stupid with the paladin helm on, choose whatever you think fits your character

VikingGamer

02-16-2010, 06:02 PM

This is great. Exactly what I was looking for. Thank Boli, you always seem to have informative posts.So it sound like the Paladin is easy to play but hard to play well. I just hope I land in the latter catagory eventually.

Prestissimo

02-17-2010, 05:29 AM

The only thing I will add to boli's post is that it will benefit you infinately to learn how to tank without amends. Despite it being insanely easy to cap out transfers and start to reduce their effectiveness, it still does not make it any less of an issue when your amends siphon dies, or if you have an overzealous dpser that is parse fighting with your siphon.The truely good paladins don't need amends and will often times not even bother using amends purely because it is our greatest asset, and our greatest weakness in the same package. If you are able to overcome and remove the greatest weakness of the class (relying on another player to generate your hate) you will be able to tap into that often unseen and difficult to master potential boli is speaking of. And much like he also said, you will rarely be recognized for being great, but when you are recognized for it, it will often be someone that will appreciate just how difficult of a task it is to be a great tank especially a paladin and that will lead to oportunities and it will pay off. A reputation as being a good paladin is better than a reputation of being a good pretty much anything else purely because of how difficult it is to master a paladin.If you understand how to manipulate hate, and know when to use your stuns and heals (especially your ward to prevent shamen agro pulls on the pull of the mob) and similar such tricks to keep the mob under control and focused on you, you will find yourself getting called on more often than most any other tank purely because of the ability to fit the need of the group or raid rather than most tanks who make the group or raid fit the tank, and that is the one true stregnth of the paladin's potential.Also, as a last thought, a great and easy way to make your paladin noticeably more survivable is mitigation, higher health, and procing wards/heals when damaged. (Buckle of light and darkness, Ring of repulsion, etc. because paladins are naturally better at mitigating via our itemization or using wards/heals to take hits rather than avoiding it, and such procs work much better for us.)

Brizlor

02-22-2010, 10:50 AM

<cite>ReverendPaqo wrote:</cite><blockquote>(especially your ward to prevent shamen agro pulls on the pull of the mob)</blockquote>I am re learning the paladin class (been playing templar on most RoK & TSO). Wanted to play paladin again becacuse I love to pull, like to be in control and hate crappy tanks lol. I am not aware of that trick ? Is it to just ward yourself right after the shaman ward you ?I never though about removing amends to learn to be better, thats a great idea too :p<cite>Boli32 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Barbarians, ogres and dwarfs don't look stupid with the paladin helm on</blockquote>Ive always valued your opinion Boli but I think this is prolly in your top 3 tip <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Boli32

02-22-2010, 11:59 AM

Heals give about 1/3 hate of the amount healed. So if a 10k ward is on you and is one shotted essentially your shaman has just taunted the mob for 3.3k. Casting your ward means you also "proc hate" when your ward is used up; since your hate gain is higher and theirs will be lower this often negates the pre heal agro.Having Damage shields and casting damage immunities (like our new stonewall) means the pre heals are not used up and thus don't generate agro.Most of the time casting the ward just slows down pulls... so pull with faithful cry; if you move out of the room the named will often "leash" but the trash will come out... a few well timed AoEs - couple of spike heals and you can now pull the named at your leasure <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Ofc yu really need to know what ya doing before you start pulling tricks like that <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

TerrorFirmer

02-22-2010, 07:53 PM

<cite>VikingGamer wrote:</cite><blockquote>So am I getting that mostly right? or have I been taken by the propoganda?How does the Paladin compare to the SK in play and feel?What is the Paladin's role in endgame?What are the challenges or gaps for the Paladin?How important is race for tanking? I have an affinity for Barbarians lorewise as you might guess, but I sure like the way an arasai/fae can glide off anything and jump pretty wide gaps as well as having night vision enhancements. But I do want to be the best tank I can be and don't want my race to be a limitation. Is night vision very important in this game? I know it was in old EQ.</blockquote>Hello! My name is Gukkmaw the Cave Troll, and I have some experience with tanking as a paladin. I have tanked most of the old encounters in the game, and all of the instances. Here is my breakdown for you.So am I getting that mostly right? or have I been taken by the propoganda?There are a lot of bad players out there, not just paladins. There are tons of terrible healers, dpsers, etc. Lousy tanks. They are infamous on different servers. The thing with paladins is you can "get by" with good group makeup being a mediocre paladin whereas you can't if you are a mediocre warrior. Now, this is true to an extent, but also very deceptive. To tank means many things, holding aggro is only one of these things. I like to narrow it down to the following: Survival, protection, dps, and aggro control.Survival>> mythical reduces lots of damage. High mit, good resists. Can help healers heal through spike damage. AAs to improve blocking which translates into less incoming damage. Protection>> can heal and cure other players. Group heal is quite helpful. Intercepts damage. 41% transfer on high dps keeping them from the top of the aggro list. Holy ground is on a relatively fast recast but other snap aggro is weak compared to other tanks. Constant mem wipes/blurs can be an issue.DPS >> with the new expansion, our dps is actually quite good. I am getting zonewides around 9k with just a troub and at level 88 in Abandoned Labs (my new favorite zone, so creepy). That is zonewide, not named, which I often parse much higher on, sometimes beating the "dps" classes. Now, my gear is part of the reason, as I have Shield of the Dwarven King and the Kunarkian Crusader Earring which both proc for like 10% potency and proc often. So a lot of that comes from putting time into my character and properly gearing him up. If you don't want to put time in, your dps will be considerably lower (1/3 to 1/2 of that).Aggro control >> in groups, it is quite easy, you just need to learn the encounters. In raids, it can be tricky sometimes. Before I mentioned mem wipes which erase all of the aggro you have generated, things like that can happen sometimes and unless you have a good offtank in a raid there might be a death or two before you can get back to the top of the dog pile.Paladins are a strong class. Great heals (now!) and dps. I think we are right where we need to be, as far as instance content, I haven't had any experience with raiding in this expansion yet. As for the weaker players being drawn to paladins, I'd say that is incorrect, less experienced players I'd think would be drawn to the flash of the shadowknight or berserker (cool name!) or to the familiar guardian class before playing a paladin. That being said, there are quite a few lousy paladins on my server, and only a handful of well played ones.As for a comparison between SK and paladin:Survival: Paladin > SKProtection: Paladin > SKDPS: Paladin < SKAggro control: Paladin = SK (SK is better in a raid environment)I hope that helps with some of your questions.

VALKOR

02-24-2010, 05:42 PM

In keeping with previous posts on this forum, Boli's advice is spot on. I'll give you my specific take for what it is worth. I MT in a 3 night a week raiding guild and so my focus is entirely on being a raid MT and hence often dealing with only a single mob. In general, you want to get an AA mirror so you can try out defensive vs offensive AA specs.Pre-SF was straight-forward and there are a lot of AA posts. SF and on will probably change a few things but here are the ones that I believe will remain the same.CrusaderDef: STR to the bottom, STA to the bottomDef Options: The INT line is no longer as helpful for DPS since it is a simple % increase on a declining curve (it is not base/potency), but it is very helpful for resists especially with SF changes and the endline ability is an excellent magic reduction useful on mobs like Gynok. If you have enough points, AGI for multi auto attack is easier to get to and so worth it.- - -Off: STR to the bottom, AGI for multi auto attackOff options: If you are over 110% melee crit without the STA melee crit AA, then I would skip it until you have points to burn. I don't know how it will work out in the long run, but the WIS line with group potency could be extremely useful especially with extra points in the bottom to increase it to a signficiant number. Think of it as giving the Choker to everyone in your group without a health cost; it's a lot of points though so not sure of this yet.- - - - -PaladinYou want Block, Smite, and Cure. The cure is far more useful than the healing, and while the SF changes have made it less so than during TSO days, I still think it wins out. For your offensive spec, Heretic's is worth getting to up your group.- - - - -ShadowPretty much the same as before - damage reduction, block increase, weapon increase, and endline abilities. Flavor as you like.- - -As for Pago's comment about procing items, the vampire ring (EA or lots of shards from black market) that procs on blocks is an excellent item for defenisve paladins with high block.I understand Pago's sentiment regarding Amends but disagree with his suggestion. Amends is an excellent tool and you should use it all the time. Good DPS recognizes the benefit of Amends - I hear the purr of joy in DPS classes when they have it on and can really let loose. As Boli said, this stream of hate allows you to switch between DPS, heals, and taunts.In the end, I have a single target raid spec focused on survivability/hate that does not primarily rely on DPS for hate generation. It could well be that I simply have an excellent Amends target in raids and so I've never lost aggro in a normal situation due to that. Memwipes are meant to force raids to use more than one tank, though that has been resisted and work-arounds devised (TSO holy ground being one of them). The fact is that you'll have to pick between survivability and DPS with some of your points, and you'll go with what works for you, your group, and your raid. My other AA spec is a multi target DPS spec focused on damage over survivability. Both will work well for tanking in groups and raids and you can change up depending on the group/raid makeup.You should also have macros for your gear so that you can easily swap among heavy single target survivability gear, multi target gear, and out and out DPS gear. I generally reserve the first two bags for gear with the third for bleed over.

VikingGamer

02-24-2010, 07:12 PM

Thank you for the continued interest in this thread. This is great information.Where do you get one of those mirrors? or what is the exact name of it so I can hunt it down.

TerrorFirmer

02-24-2010, 07:30 PM

<cite>VALKOR wrote:</cite><blockquote>PaladinYou want Block, Smite, and Cure. The cure is far more useful than the healing, and while the SF changes have made it less so than during TSO days, I still think it wins out. For your offensive spec, Heretic's is worth getting to up your group.- - - - -</blockquote>From my testing so far, heals are really good. Besides being stronger, they crit 100% of the time for me. With the AAs, you can solo heal yourself through some pretty crazy stuff.

VALKOR

02-25-2010, 02:29 PM

I think it'll depend on your focus. As a raid MT, my heals are helpful but one extra long reuse heal just doesn't add all that much. On the other hand, I have been knocked completely out of cure range, had healers stunned, etc. and it was invaluable to be able to cure myself and get back to the fight. It also has a minor benefit in curing the irritating near constant reduce your CA/Spells to 1 hp or slow cast effects. For group fights where everyone is incapacitated, I can use Aura of the Crusader and then cure a healer so they can get everyone else.I'm not saying the heal endline is useless, just that I've found more instances where my cure has prevented one-shot effects (think Mynzak) which is much more useful to me than supplementing healing. My experience is that the healers are generally able to heal easily enough (I wear DPS gear and the Jewel of Animosity for trash and easy names) so the cure just adds more overall. In TSO, I had 5 to 10 fluff points I could toss into the healing line so I was able to boost it some.As for an AA mirror, a tradeskiller can make it for you. Just ask in the Crafting channel - it has great people in it.