Paladin agro spells and charisma effect for lull spells

[Stonewallx39]

I'm interested in creating a new paladin. I'm curious what spells to use to create agro after level 9. I've heard using flash of light and blinding mobs creates sufficient agro but can't that cause some mobs to run like fear or sometimes path in strange ways? If taunt is it until 30 I'm probably going to play an SK instead.

Also looking at dwarf but I'm wondering if the low charisma will cause more critical resists on lull. Pulling is one of my main interests in the class (I just enjoy it i'm to busy to sit in camp) I would hate to not be able to pull as efficiently because lull is less effective.

Thank you in advance for any guidance.

[Danth]

Charisma affects the lull line. Dwarves are modestly disadvantaged in this respect--perhaps their only drawback as Paladins. Work around this by asking for a charisma buff from your local Shaman or Enchanter since most groups have one or the other. You can also carry a few charisma items if you like. A crude stein adds 15 charisma and costs perhaps 30 or 40 platinum; it's not hard to swap out a couple pieces when pulling.

Flash of Light remains your primary spell for hate generation from 9 through 60. It uses little mana, has a short recast time, and adds significant hate. If you use flash when nobody is in melee range, or move out of melee range while a monster is under the spell's effect, it WILL cause the monster to flee as though feared. In practice this is not a problem--you'll likely never even notice--since you should only be using the spell once your target is in melee range anyway. Seriously, it's virtually a non-issue. Stun (30) and Holy Might (49) are also both excellent for hate generation although they use a lot more mana. Because of mana expense, you'll use flash quite a lot even in the 50's, especially when you lack Clarity.

The grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence, and Shadow Knights aren't a bed of roses. Disease Cloud has a longer recast time than Flash of Light and also is infamous for breaking mezzes. You'll be glad you have the Paladin when you have to shut down that Ilis Wizard that's trying to gate.

Danth

[Allidon]

Flash of light does not cause the mob to run if it is in melee with someone just causes a high amount of threat... as far as lull and charisma I really couldn't say as I am human... However flash of light makes it pretty easy to keep multiple targets off of healers and taunt followed by a flash of light is great for snap aggro

[Stonewallx39]

Awesome! Thanks for the replies.

[Jimjam]

root is also an option.

You can exploit your bad charisma and use lull critical resists to pull without line of sight.

[Swish]

On Danth's comparison with SKs, they tend to lead from the front - particularly after getting shadow vortex.

So your terrible puller brings 4 mobs. As a paladin you clench your butthole and pray the enchanter/bard gets it under control or you root a couple on their way in.

As a SK you peel one with disease cloud, then wave of enfeeblement them all while the enchanter mezzes - that should guarantee your dps knows your target and effectively aoe taunts the others meaning the puller and enchanter aren't taking damage.

That in turn keeps the healer happy because he's only got the tank to heal and keeps things efficient.


I'd love to hear the paladin side of how they deal with 4 incoming, is rooting at a distance their only option? Stun seems good and high aggro but you've got that horrible pause if you wait for the mob to come to you.

I love my SK :)

[Swish]

On the charisma gear note, cheap stuff is the crude stein as mentioned, siryn hair hood and golden cat eye bracelets are about 10pp each to make at cost price.

[falkun]

I'd love to hear the paladin side of how they deal with 4 incoming

I'll generally root 1 or 2 out of camp, if 4 mobs beat me to death before I can get at least 1 root off, then I'm too low level for the camp I'm at. Take the last 2-3 to camp, stun 1, FOL the rest. If I've got CC, let them get to work, if I do not, I'll root and back up until everything is ghetto CC'd. All the while I'm keeping an FOL on the main target so he sticks to me and DPS can work him down. Then on to the next mob. Between root, stun, and FOL, keeping aggro on 4 mobs is not a problem.

[Danth]

I'd love to hear the paladin side of how they deal with 4 incoming, is rooting at a distance their only option? Stun seems good and high aggro but you've got that horrible pause if you wait for the mob to come to you.

Hi Swish! My main for the past few years is actually my 60 SK now. Poor old Danth has been collecting dust since about 2011-2012; I found priorities had changed after my daughter was born and the SK works better for my current needs.

On a multi pull on the Paladin I liked to stun one incoming--my primary--so the CC'ers know the first ones incoming are the things to control. Enough folks have root that I barely ever needed to use it; I kept root available if necessary but only rarely did it ever prove necessary. If desired a Paladin can also attract the attention of all the incoming monsters by tossing a modest heal on the puller provided he isn't at 100% life. Casters on P1999 tend to be so shell-shocked from grouping with lousy tanks that most of them tend to spam root on everything anyway, even when it's not necessary and in come cases when it's detrimental to do so (ie, when snare would be preferable).

Working with a puller (usually a Monk) also helps the CC'ers. Regardless of which character I play I like to tag my own primary target off to one side while the puller heads to the other side of camp. That just makes things a little easier on the CC'ers.

Danth

[kaev]

Like Danth said, stun the first target so it comes last and CC in camp can choose targets easy. Alternately, root one for the warrior to tank while the pets & rogue kill it and line up the rest separated with root so by the time the warrior & killers are on the last one I've got mana to go out for the next pull. Oh wait, that was live, here on p99 you apparently get perma-banned or are forced to watch kittens being eaten by rottweillers or somesuch if there's more than one tank in a group.

[williestargell]

Don't choose your paladin's race based on charisma stat. There are so many better options to break a dicey room than having a paladin lull pull. If you are that interested in being a puller, paladin is a bad choice of class for you.

Be careful with flash of light. I see someone above saying he's doing FoL on multiple mobs in a pull, and FoL'ing while backing up. Those are both very bad practices in my opinion. You should only be using FoL on mobs that you intend to stay in the face of, as leaving their hit box can and will cause them to flee if they are actually blinded. Mobs fleeing in a dungeon usually cause a wipe.

You should start to wean yourself off the use of flash of light as you level higher and get more stuns. By the time you get all three stuns that have their own timers you should not be using flash of light at all.

[Tuljin]

Flash of Light is always a crucial spell to have when tanking even at high levels. The issue with throwing out too many stuns is that they are far more mana intensive than Flash and because Paladin has very little sit time mana is always at a premium. It is very important to stun mobs but its even more important to understand not to stun too much and waste mana. If you have an Enc with C2 the standing mana ticks grease the wheels quite nicely, but if you are playing without an Enchanter the mana squeeze becomes very apparent very quickly.

For melee mobs, its a good idea to toss out a low mana 0 damage stun to put yourself right at the top of the hate list and you can keep him agroed with one flash of light, maybe another. There is no reason after that point to toss out any more stuns on a melee mob. Use Holy Might when you split up mezzed mobs so you deal a little damage to break the mez and get yourself a nice cushion at the top of the hate list.

Another issue with stunning to much is stunlocking the mob in the wrong direction and having pets, rogues, and other melees miss out on damage from behind. Stunlocking is a very effective trick and you can get creative with it when changing targets and tossing roots and heals etc, but too much stunlocking is a hassle for pets and your other group members. It also consumes a ton of mana.

For caster mobs I find that Stun and Holy Might (with Goblin Earring) along with Bash is plenty to keep them chain interrupted. Instead of a third stun in my spell bar I have Flash of Light. Stunning caster mobs on pulls is great because you can run away and duck around a corner out of LOS and they will blow right by the rest of your group, come around the corner, and you can park them wherever you want and they won't cast on your group.

It is a poor choice to roll a Paladin for high Charisma. It does need to be understood, however, that a High Elf Paladin benefits far more from his high charisma than his high wisdom as far as his dungeon crawling career is concerned. Its a good idea for Paladins of all races to carry charisma gear around with them and in true P99 spirit this tip falls mostly upon deaf ears.

Between a bow, root, calm, stuns, and DA at level 55 Paladin is an excellent puller and I often play without a Monk or other FD class and also often without an Enchanter. If you're a Paladin you really shouldn't have to depend on an FD class or even an Enchanter to do your pulls for you. You only really need an Enchanter to calm very nasty room breaks, and even still you can root mobs on bad splits with the coordination of other casters and you'll be just fine. I don't really understand the P99 mentality of FD being an absolute requirement to be a "puller" and if you are a Paladin you certainly are a "puller" even if you don't have FD.

You won't always find yourself lulling but there are certainly many situations where you will have to, even at high level. An example of a situation where you would have to charm is a nasty room break in a group without an Enchanter or FD class. If you have a Shaman with you he can give you a charisma buff and with some charisma gear you're in great shape even as a Dwarf.

Much of the time when I pull I use Enstill for two mob splits and it works even for three mob splits (you'll take a couple hits at that rate but its usually not the end of the world) Usually on multiple mob splits I'll coordinate with another caster to help me stick additional mobs. I very frequently use root on Paladin and I can't really wrap my brain around how someone can play the class and not have it be a key and frequent tool.

Perhaps the biggest tanking tool a Paladin has is Flash of Light and Paladin should -always- have Flash of Light in their spell bar when tanking at all levels.

[Stonewallx39]

Could you explain your tactic a little more for breaking a room with root/enstill? Do you completely forgo lull/sooth and root one, kill the others then when root breaks kill that mob? Im starting to realize my pally on live was a newb haha. Thanks again.

[Zheddar]

Would it be worth it as a dwarf paladin to toss 15 of your 20 generation points into wisdom, bringing it up to 70? You would still have 100 str and 95 sta. Wich is more stamina then any of the other races after pumping generation points into, except human, who ends up at 100 sta.

[Zheddar]

I meant 15 of the 20 points int charisma.

[Stonewallx39]

Does anyone know the calculation for how much hp each point of stamina gives a Pally/SK? I thought it was something like hp=sta(.02xlevel) for <200.

[maskedmelon]

5.2hp/sta at L60, so .0867hp/sta/lvl.

[maskedmelon]

Could you explain your tactic a little more for breaking a room with root/enstill? Do you completely forgo lull/sooth and root one, kill the others then when root breaks kill that mob? Im starting to realize my pally on live was a newb haha. Thanks again.

Depends on number of mobs in room, distance from camp, how much space you have to work with and what your group composition is. I never like rooting somehing that may pass oh of line of sight, because then you have lost control of it. In addition to maintaining LoS with your cc'd mobs, rooting them as far apart from one-another as possible goes a long way towards remaining efficient.

[Jimjam]

Levelling up you can root mobs next to common path routes / crowded spawn points to help you pull more without having to come out of camp.

Works well while doing the 20s in mistmoore.