Starting a new Paladin!

[Tenloar]

So I finally got the Race/Class/Deity I wanted after much consideration.

Now I'm on a limited budget. I was wondering what kind of gear/weapons to get.

Mainly I am worried about the weapon.

Should I try to get Sword of the Morning or Ghoulbane? Both?

Of course the +55 hp rings but anything else I would need for a good start up Paladin?

Any and all info/help/input would be appreciated!

[Danth]

Sword of the Morning is a better 1H than Ghoulbane. You'll need the Ghoulbane if you plan to obtain the epic, but otherwise the former weapon performs better in regular use. Baton of Faith is a nice cheap weapon to have if you want to try to solo. Eventually you'll want a Deepwater Helm for the click effect, but it doesn't work until 45; granted it's a decent armor item anyway. Paladin gear tends to be fairly cheap so your major item you'll need to save up for will be some form of haste.

Danth

[kaev]

Danth gives good info. To elaborate a bit and add some things he didn't mention :

Greaves of Ro are good, you won't beat them before the gear from Fear at L46+ unless you're a cheatin' dorf with piles of platinum to buy the cultural or a truly stupid-rich twink able to buy DW Greaves.

Boots of Ro are ok too, they give 35hp vs. the higher AC on DW Boots.

Skull-shaped Barbute goes for 800+ these days, it's well worth it. Other than the clickie at L45+ the DW Helm doesn't really compete, it just doesn't give enough AC to make up for both 35hp and 10mr. You'll want both eventually even if you have to choose one at first (if you're strapped for pp just get banded or turtleshell or something else ultra cheap until you can afford a decent hat.).

Budget Paladin is often ugly looking because Treeweave has leather look but it has pretty much unbeatable price vs. performance for a budget chest piece. Just go ahead and embrace the ugly until you're rich or raiding Fear, other budget chest pieces are weak in comparison. (Again, banded or whatever if you're forced to cheap out some slots at first.)

BTW, besides needing it eventually for the epic, Ghoulbane procs starting at L20 and at that level up through your low 30's the proc damage makes for some fun fighting undead. Unrest is well stocked with appropriate level-range undead for your Ghoulbane proc'ing pleasure. Once you're out of Unrest I'd bag Ghoulbane in favor of the Sword of the Morning 100% of the time.

If you're Erudite, Shield of the Stalwart Seas is obvious. For other races Cracked Darkwood is cheap and the 9str can be handy as Paladins are often low-ish str. Clay Guardian Shield is well worth 500ish when you've got that to spend, and of course eventually you'll want one of those Sarnak Battle Shields that the scummy Chardok AEers have made so invitingly reasonable in price.

If you need to start out working only a single weapon forget the 1h+shield and just get Baton of Faith. As a budget Paladin, it'll be your best damaging weapon for a long time, and your relative damage output doesn't become obviously horrible to everybody living in the same zipcode until you level into your upper 40s (quiet in the peanut gallery, we're ignoring the 9000+ Freebringer Rogue twinks atm) so it will be useful in some groups for quite a while.

[Arteker]

Head: skull shaped barbute.
face: enshrouded veil.
Neck: 55/55 hp mana Black saphire necklace.
Earring :Black saphire + earring of essence.
Arms: mithril or sebilite scale armguards.(jarshant works aswell).
Legs: ro leg plates.
boots: ro boots.
rings: 55 hps.
bracer : x2 granite bracers.
shoulders: sebilite mantle.
range : either bow or idol of the thorned.
cloack: hooded black cloack .
belt: fbss.
Breastplate : depend ur race , if not human dusty breastplate is the best , if human charred guardian breastplate ,
weapon : 1hs till 20 sword of skyfire , then rod of lamentation or baton of figth , rod will be superior once u hit 50 . if u wanna play 1hs paladin then sword of the morning and sarnak shield .

utilitys : outside jboots u will be interested in 3 things , Dw helm, free heal come handy for solo, Dw boots , minor magic resist buff, and dw arms for free soothe spell.

this is the cheap paladin gear i cant name with no item bigger of 5k in market(idol may be bigger).

[Tenloar]

This is all some great advice guys, appreciate the help. Never played a tank class before and I'm looking forward to playing a Paladin.

They receive a lot of negative feedback on this server it seems. I'm looking forward to the utility the class brings!

And what weapon skills would I need to keep up? Just 1 hand and 2 hand slashing?

[kaev]

This is all some great advice guys, appreciate the help. Never played a tank class before and I'm looking forward to playing a Paladin.

They receive a lot of negative feedback on this server it seems. I'm looking forward to the utility the class brings!

And what weapon skills would I need to keep up? Just 1 hand and 2 hand slashing?

2hb, especially if you're on a budget. The Baton of Faith (2hb 30/40) is super cheap and quite effective, you won't likely have a superior 2hs for a long time if pp limited. 1hb isn't worthless, but unless you can afford to buy Rod of Faith (1hb 24/32) you won't miss it so it's easy to skip with a budget paladin.

[Tuljin]

One of the main characteristics of the Paladin is sword-and-board. You have to get a 1hs and a shield. I recommend for a nub Sword of Morning, Ghoulbane, and Crested Mistmoore Shield, which has great stats for those undead procs in Unrest as well as some nice saves.

You have to make sure you keep up your bash skill. Its tough to skill up and you have to keep up on it constantly. It is a key skill even at low levels because you don't get your first stun until 30 and there's many caster mobs you'll run into before then. You are stuck with only one stun until 49 - you will absolutely need both your magic stun and your bash to deal with casters in Mistmoore, Sol B, and Lower Guk etc. When you're all grown up and tanking Frogloks and Erudite ghosts you will need it then too.

Baton of Faith is dirt cheap and very decent. Use the Baton on melee mobs, sword-and-board casters. Make sure you're keeping up on your skillups every level.

Also, when you get level 9 make sure you use Flash of Light liberally. It is your main snap agro tool all the way on up to 60. When you finally start stunning you will learn when to use Flash and when to use Stun.

Paladin only gets a bad rap on this server because people love to run their mouths about things they don't understand. I'm convinced a small fraction of the population of this server has spent any extended period of time in dangerous dungeons, and an even smaller percentage has played a tank class. Paladin is an agro machine and can pull incredibly effectively with root and calm. A great Paladin can do anything besides tank raid bosses.

Paladin DPS sucks, but that's not what they're for. You make up for that lost DPS by keeping mobs snapped to you - rogues can stab to their hearts content, and weaponized, hasted, charmed pets will just rip as hard as they can. The class fanboys of blue P99 just can't think that far ahead.