STA or STR?

[Zaloorb]

 I just wanted to start a post. I started it based on another post I saw saying that Pallys will NEVER have more than 5k hp. I for one know that I will have 5k+ self buffed and besides, ive seen at least one pally with over 5k who used to tank epic mobs for my old guild. Right now at level 45 I have 4300+ hp with tier 4 imbued rings and +10 sta dolls. I have 148 sta self buffed and have had over 5k hp on many occasions, especailly when grouped with a Shammy or Cleric =).  As far as str is concerned, there are many pieces of armor and jewelry that give str. Im not worried about it anyway as str can always be augmented in a group or raid setting. Of course my STA can be augmented to but id much rather have more hp when those nasty epic AEs start going off. Remember everyone. WE ARE TANKS! Dont let anyone tell you otherwise.  As far as aggro is concerned, dont worry. That will be fixed one way or another. Remember this game is only months old, change will come and when it does, it will be glorious! Zaloorb Tundrasteppe 45th Season Paladin Initiate of Phoenix Legion, Oasis Server <div></div>

[Titali]

<DIV>at that level you get aprox 3 power / 1 str and 1 power / 1wis. you will get about 10hp / 1 sta. the more you get of one stat the less effective it becomes, you arent gonna get the 10/1 ratio forever. however i am not sure at what number the decrease happens, 200 maybe? it was in a patch sometime, but ive always gone sta first, agi second, str third. assuming the #s are similar. with upcoming combat changes, will have to see where agi especially ends up, and our dps getting gimped so str for that reason will probably be less effective. i havent played in like a week but ill add my hp if i remember later.</DIV>

[Vidneras]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Zaloorb wrote:<BR>  As far as aggro is concerned, dont worry. That will be fixed one way or another. Remember this game is only months old, change will come and when it does, it will be glorious!<BR><BR><BR>Zaloorb Tundrasteppe<BR>45th Season Paladin<BR>Initiate of Phoenix Legion, Oasis Server<BR><BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>*cheers and does the wave!*<BR>I think a lot of people tend to forget this. This game IS only a few months old and will be fine tuned. Good point.</P>

[Sav]

<div></div><span><blockquote><hr>Zaloorb wrote: I just wanted to start a post. I started it based on another post I saw saying that Pallys will NEVER have more than 5k hp. I for one know that I will have 5k+ self buffed and besides, ive seen at least one pally with over 5k who used to tank epic mobs for my old guild. Right now at level 45 I have 4300+ hp with tier 4 imbued rings and +10 sta dolls. I have 148 sta self buffed and have had over 5k hp on many occasions, especailly when grouped with a Shammy or Cleric =).  As far as str is concerned, there are many pieces of armor and jewelry that give str. Im not worried about it anyway as str can always be augmented in a group or raid setting. Of course my STA can be augmented to but id much rather have more hp when those nasty epic AEs start going off. Remember everyone. WE ARE TANKS! Dont let anyone tell you otherwise.  As far as aggro is concerned, dont worry. That will be fixed one way or another. Remember this game is only months old, change will come and when it does, it will be glorious! Zaloorb Tundrasteppe 45th Season Paladin Initiate of Phoenix Legion, Oasis Server <div></div><hr></blockquote>I chose Stamina entirely when choosing gear and traits.  I am a high elf which is naturally lower in stamina.  Even still, at 50, I have 4913 hp unbuffed with no fabled equipment, 5566 hp self buffed.  As for agro, our guardians agree -- paladins are the king of agro if properly utilized on raids.</span><div></div><p>Message Edited by Savik on <span class=date_text>05-11-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:31 AM</span>

[GilfalasElaandrin]

<DIV>Oddly enough I ahve a totally different theory on tanking as a Paladin: Power & power regen > all. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As a high elf I have taken every opportunity to increase my power pool limits and my power regen. I took the elven trait that adds a constant 5 to my power regen rate and always make sure to use high orange or red drink whenever I can. I have taken all the traits that increase Str and or my power pool total.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>From my personla observation I regen power faster and have more than most other tanks my level and even chain firing my abilities and healing, I almost NEVER run out of power in fights. Additionally because my power pool is so large I seldom have to worry about slowing down on dungeon crawls.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now I should note that I am not a raider. I was a hard core raider on EQ 1 and learned the hard way that it killed the game for me. On EQ 2 I am 100% totally NON concerned about the end game or raiding regularly. So I am sure my view is radically different from someone who is raiding centric. IF I were a raider I would probably rank max stamina a bit higher than I do, since raiding you always have to worry about being one or two shotted even as a tank (which is the primary reason I dislike raiding. What is the differnce between a tank and anyone else if both can be one shotted but only one does great damage?) so max HP are far mroe important.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As a non raid Paladin, the power score rules all. As long as your not being mowed down in a handfull of hits then your power score is the king. You can heal with it, DPS with it and run with it if it comes down to it. But if you have fast power regen and a huge power pool, you can last a lot longer in battle and keep yourself going at peak output longer too.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now I am only level 34 but I have never once been in a situation where a 150-200 hp difference between tanks at this level has mattered, whereas me having a large power reserve and me having good power regen HAS made a difference regularly. greater power pool = greater damage/healing output and greater sustainability of that output.</DIV>

[Zaloorb]

<span><blockquote><hr>Savik wrote:<div></div><span><blockquote><hr><div></div></blockquote>  Even still, at 50, I have 4913 hp unbuffed with no fabled equipment, 5566 hp self buffed.  As for agro, our guardians agree -- paladins are the king of agro if properly utilized on raids.</span><div></div><p>Message Edited by Savik on <span class="date_text">05-11-2005</span> <span class="time_text">03:31 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote> Thank you for verifying that. See... even the more ummm... delicate races can have 5k or more hp.    Also, as far as aggro is concerned Guardians seem to be better with one large factor contributing to this, something I would like to call "Aggro Efficiency".  In EQ2 ALL classes are limited by power consumption. Sure a Wizard or Warlock could throw out xxx.x dps but not for extended periods. As everyone that has used or had a parser used on your group knows, dps will ALWAYS be higher on shorter encounters. Basically, the shorter the battle, the more you can spam those spells or combat skills and get back out of combat to regen more pow. Of course this can change marginally with a good chanter or bard in your group but dps will always be limited by pow. THE SAME GOES FOR AGGRO.  Guardians are much more aggro efficient because they have more direct taunts and  overall, use less power. As a Paladin you get a few aggro getters: 1 direct taunt, 1 shield bash, 1 group taunt, and our ward (which adds a whopping 1% hate). Thus to keep a wired Assassin or Warlock alive other spells must be used to gather hate. What ive found is that AE DDs and group buffs work, with other combat skills and our dots of course, to add to the aggro. Wow, lots of aggro eh? Yes, but over time you will expend pow much quicker than a Guard. If I could give a simple equation to determine aggro efficiency it would simply be:                                                 Hate Generated / Power Used Of course you could throw another determinant in there such as time but that might be pointless considering you will eventually run out of power and this negating the need for time as a factor.  In any case our taunts dont add enough hate, we dont have enough direct taunts, and our other spells are power costly. Now im not saying that Pallys cant raid tank, ive seen it done very effectively in epic raid encounters, it's just a little tougher because of power constraints.  Thanks for the time and again, thank you Savik for providing me with factual evidence that Pallys can and will tank! Zaloorb Tundrasteppe 45th Season Paladin Initiate of Phoenix Legion, Oasis Server</span><div></div>

[Sav]

<span><blockquote><hr>Zaloorb wrote:<span><blockquote><hr>Savik wrote:<div></div><span><blockquote><hr><div></div></blockquote>  Even still, at 50, I have 4913 hp unbuffed with no fabled equipment, 5566 hp self buffed.  As for agro, our guardians agree -- paladins are the king of agro if properly utilized on raids.</span><div></div><p>Message Edited by Savik on <span class="date_text">05-11-2005</span> <span class="time_text">03:31 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote> Thank you for verifying that. See... even the more ummm... delicate races can have 5k or more hp.    Also, as far as aggro is concerned Guardians seem to be better with one large factor contributing to this, something I would like to call "Aggro Efficiency".  In EQ2 ALL classes are limited by power consumption. Sure a Wizard or Warlock could throw out xxx.x dps but not for extended periods. As everyone that has used or had a parser used on your group knows, dps will ALWAYS be higher on shorter encounters. Basically, the shorter the battle, the more you can spam those spells or combat skills and get back out of combat to regen more pow. Of course this can change marginally with a good chanter or bard in your group but dps will always be limited by pow. THE SAME GOES FOR AGGRO.  Guardians are much more aggro efficient because they have more direct taunts and  overall, use less power. As a Paladin you get a few aggro getters: 1 direct taunt, 1 shield bash, 1 group taunt, and our ward (which adds a whopping 1% hate). Thus to keep a wired Assassin or Warlock alive other spells must be used to gather hate. What ive found is that AE DDs and group buffs work, with other combat skills and our dots of course, to add to the aggro. Wow, lots of aggro eh? Yes, but over time you will expend pow much quicker than a Guard. If I could give a simple equation to determine aggro efficiency it would simply be:                                                 Hate Generated / Power Used Of course you could throw another determinant in there such as time but that might be pointless considering you will eventually run out of power and this negating the need for time as a factor.  In any case our taunts dont add enough hate, we dont have enough direct taunts, and our other spells are power costly. Now im not saying that Pallys cant raid tank, ive seen it done very effectively in epic raid encounters, it's just a little tougher because of power constraints.  Thanks for the time and again, thank you Savik for providing me with factual evidence that Pallys can and will tank! Zaloorb Tundrasteppe 45th Season Paladin Initiate of Phoenix Legion, Oasis Server</span><div></div><hr></blockquote> You are missing a very very important notion here.  Guardians have a total of 5 or 6 (I forget offhand) abilities that have an explicit taunt component.  Some of these do not work on raid mobs as they have a stifle component and cannot be used on epics.  Even still, they have, I belileve 3 taunts that work on epics.  On top of this, they have Hold the Line which is a proc hate generator.  Their taunts have more hate generation than ours. However, against a single mob or even 2 mobs, a paladin holds agro better if properly managed due to two spells -- Redemption and Call To Glory/Theron's Whatever.  Both provide "current Threat" transfer.  When I was experimenting with agro, I happened to be in a group with my guild's top two agroers -- 50 wizard and 50 necro, both very well equipped and very good at their class.  Normally, regardless of whether or not a paladin or guardian was the MT, they would pull agro and typically die.  However, while doing Djarn, I tried Redemption.  I cast it on the wizard and instructed both the wizard and necro not to hold back.  Agro was never broken during that fight. Later we tried it on raids to amazing success.  Unless I die as MT or I do something silly, it is exceedingly difficult for anyone to pull agro off me provided 1) I am grouped with a high dpser.  I typically pick the necro for the stamina and hp group buff he provides.  However, the wizard can also boost my cold and fire resists, which is sometimes more important than the extra hp. 2) I cast Redemption on the necro or wizard, whoever is in my group.  My Redemption is Adept III. 3) I cast Call to Glory (I picked Kasine's over Theron's though I wish I had not) on my group before the pull. What happens is truly amazing.  The more the necro/wizard nukes/dots/etc, the more agro I generate.  Since I have picked one of the top hate generators in my guild, conceivably few if any other people on the raid will generator more agro than the person I cast redemption on.  Since I am constantly transferring 40% of their hate to me, they will not take agro off me.  Coupled with Clarion Call, Zealous Preaching, and Courageous Dash, this provides a very solid lock that requires very little mana on my part.  Both wizard and necromancer have sufficient mana regen to chain nuke/dot/etc. Solid agro from a T3 spell.  Amazing.</span><div></div>

[Zaloorb]

<span><blockquote><hr>Savik wrote:<span><blockquote><hr><span></span></blockquote> You are missing a very very important notion here.  Guardians have a total of 5 or 6 (I forget offhand) abilities that have an explicit taunt component.  Some of these do not work on raid mobs as they have a stifle component and cannot be used on epics.  Even still, they have, I belileve 3 taunts that work on epics.  On top of this, they have Hold the Line which is a proc hate generator.  Their taunts have more hate generation than ours. However, against a single mob or even 2 mobs, a paladin holds agro better if properly managed due to two spells -- Redemption and Call To Glory/Theron's Whatever.  Both provide "current Threat" transfer.  When I was experimenting with agro, I happened to be in a group with my guild's top two agroers -- 50 wizard and 50 necro, both very well equipped and very good at their class.  Normally, regardless of whether or not a paladin or guardian was the MT, they would pull agro and typically die.  However, while doing Djarn, I tried Redemption.  I cast it on the wizard and instructed both the wizard and necro not to hold back.  Agro was never broken during that fight. Later we tried it on raids to amazing success.  Unless I die as MT or I do something silly, it is exceedingly difficult for anyone to pull agro off me provided 1) I am grouped with a high dpser.  I typically pick the necro for the stamina and hp group buff he provides.  However, the wizard can also boost my cold and fire resists, which is sometimes more important than the extra hp. 2) I cast Redemption on the necro or wizard, whoever is in my group.  My Redemption is Adept III. 3) I cast Call to Glory (I picked Kasine's over Theron's though I wish I had not) on my group before the pull. What happens is truly amazing.  The more the necro/wizard nukes/dots/etc, the more agro I generate.  Since I have picked one of the top hate generators in my guild, conceivably few if any other people on the raid will generator more agro than the person I cast redemption on.  Since I am constantly transferring 40% of their hate to me, they will not take agro off me.  Coupled with Clarion Call, Zealous Preaching, and Courageous Dash, this provides a very solid lock that requires very little mana on my part.  Both wizard and necromancer have sufficient mana regen to chain nuke/dot/etc. Solid agro from a T3 spell.  Amazing.</span><div></div><hr></blockquote></span>/nod. Gonna have to try that myself.  Very well informed. I did omit redemption (maybe cause im posting at work and all my thoughts were there) and that is huge. With redemption we are essentially getting free aggro which means that our aggro efficiency may be much closer to Guards than I initially calculated. Again use the ratio:                                         Hate Generated / Power Used It might be really tough to see exactly how much power is being used as you would have to calculate a few other factors into it as well such as power regen or power drained (depending on the mob) which means keeping track of the battle so.... maybe time would be a good variable to throw in there. Maybe something like...   Hate Generated / Time of Encounter (in ticks) x Power Regen + Max Power - Power Left  Over Abbreviated version:           HG / ToE x PR + MP - PLO If someone could figure this out it might be very interesting to see the results on similarly geared (including combat skills) Paladin and Guardians. It might actually answer the question of who has better aggro WITHOUT circumstancial claims. [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot].... that does sounds a bit ridiculous LOL. Sorry for the math but I wallow in my nerdom. And yes.... I have too much time on my hands but hey, at least my job is paying me =)  Also, Im curious about the guardian you spoke of. While the stifle component of the taunts you mentioned doesnt work, the taunts still have the effect of added hate don't they? If they do, im sure that part would work while the stifle would be resisted. Im curious though because if those Guardian taunts are essentially useless against Epic mobs is true, then we Pallys are fine and they SHOULD NOT nerf our dps and increase our aggro.  Please let me know when you find out if the hate is generated or not on those taunts. This could be a key arguement against taking our precious dps away. <div></div>

[Zaloorb]

<span><blockquote><hr>GilfalasElaandrin wrote:<div>Oddly enough I ahve a totally different theory on tanking as a Paladin: Power & power regen > all. </div> <div> </div> <div>As a high elf I have taken every opportunity to increase my power pool limits and my power regen. I took the elven trait that adds a constant 5 to my power regen rate and always make sure to use high orange or red drink whenever I can. I have taken all the traits that increase Str and or my power pool total.</div> <div> </div> <div>From my personla observation I regen power faster and have more than most other tanks my level and even chain firing my abilities and healing, I almost NEVER run out of power in fights. Additionally because my power pool is so large I seldom have to worry about slowing down on dungeon crawls.</div> <div> </div> <div>Now I should note that I am not a raider. I was a hard core raider on EQ 1 and learned the hard way that it killed the game for me. On EQ 2 I am 100% totally NON concerned about the end game or raiding regularly. So I am sure my view is radically different from someone who is raiding centric. IF I were a raider I would probably rank max stamina a bit higher than I do, since raiding you always have to worry about being one or two shotted even as a tank (which is the primary reason I dislike raiding. What is the differnce between a tank and anyone else if both can be one shotted but only one does great damage?) so max HP are far mroe important.</div> <div> </div> <div>As a non raid Paladin, the power score rules all. As long as your not being mowed down in a handfull of hits then your power score is the king. You can heal with it, DPS with it and run with it if it comes down to it. But if you have fast power regen and a huge power pool, you can last a lot longer in battle and keep yourself going at peak output longer too.</div> <div> </div> <div>Now I am only level 34 but I have never once been in a situation where a 150-200 hp difference between tanks at this level has mattered, whereas me having a large power reserve and me having good power regen HAS made a difference regularly. greater power pool = greater damage/healing output and greater sustainability of that output.</div><hr></blockquote>That post should be titled, "How to DPS as a Paladin" </span> Another great post. This is what I would call optimizing for dps or an offtank role. With less hp it is a bit tougher to solo but it means less down time because of the large power pool and power regen. So you could focus on taking on solo blues but do so in rapid succession (I like to solo green ^^s 4-5 levels down). We are quite versatile as many of you well know, or will find out in the near future. Zaloorb Tundrasteppe 45th Season Paladin Initiate of Phoenix Legion, Oasis Server <div></div>

[El Chupacabr]

<P>Give you a robe's perspective, the only person that I can't pull agro off of is Sav in any situation be it raid or group mobs.  One of the tricks to making this work is have the redemption running and having your hate pumper drop <EM>everything</EM> they have to generate hate (in my case, weave in a ward and maybe redo a group buff).  Pet classes work well for this since they share their agro with their pets to some extent and the pets have additional hate buffs so there is a larger then expected taunt.</P> <P>Give me a pally any day, your DPS'ers don't have to back off when raiding with one and the agro is rock solid.  Nobody can pull agro off of a taunt team but they sure can pull it off of a guardian.</P>

[Sav]

<span><blockquote><hr>El Chupacabras wrote:<div></div> <p>Give you a robe's perspective, the only person that I can't pull agro off of is Sav in any situation be it raid or group mobs.  One of the tricks to making this work is have the redemption running and having your hate pumper drop <em>everything</em> they have to generate hate (in my case, weave in a ward and maybe redo a group buff).  Pet classes work well for this since they share their agro with their pets to some extent and the pets have additional hate buffs so there is a larger then expected taunt.</p> <p>Give me a pally any day, your DPS'ers don't have to back off when raiding with one and the agro is rock solid.  Nobody can pull agro off of a taunt team but they sure can pull it off of a guardian.</p><hr></blockquote> Elewood you stalker!</span><div></div>

[El Chupacabr]

<DIV>What?  Gotta work on tactics and that means coming to your boards.  As much as I prefer to stay on the necro boards, sometimes ya gotta hold your nose and visit pally-land :smileywink:.</DIV>

[Zaloorb]

<span><blockquote><hr>El Chupacabras wrote:<div>What?  Gotta work on tactics and that means coming to your boards.  As much as I prefer to stay on the necro boards, sometimes ya gotta hold your nose and visit pally-land :smileywink:.</div><hr></blockquote>AAHHHKKK! RUN! Its the Goatsucker!!!!  Seriously though. You guys dont like my equation? Man I spent all day thinking it up <span>:smileysad:</span> Zaloorb Tundrasteppe 45th Season Paladin Initiate of Phoenix Legion, Oasis Sever </span><div></div>

[Sav]

<span><blockquote><hr>Zaloorb wrote:<span><blockquote><hr>El Chupacabras wrote:<div>What?  Gotta work on tactics and that means coming to your boards.  As much as I prefer to stay on the necro boards, sometimes ya gotta hold your nose and visit pally-land :smileywink:.</div><hr></blockquote>AAHHHKKK! RUN! Its the Goatsucker!!!!  Seriously though. You guys dont like my equation? Man I spent all day thinking it up <span>:smileysad:</span> Zaloorb Tundrasteppe 45th Season Paladin Initiate of Phoenix Legion, Oasis Sever </span><div></div><hr></blockquote>I never said I didn't like it <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></span><div></div>

[RyFord00]

<DIV>I've mainly speced STR with traits, etc.</DIV> <DIV>5.3k hp selfbuffed</DIV> <DIV>2.4k mana selfbuffed</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Reien Rainsford</DIV> <DIV>Paladin of Gravestone Coven</DIV> <DIV>Antonia Bayle</DIV>