Paladins in raid/endgame

[Bagger]

Hi folks! Never played EQ before, but always wanted to try it out. I've always been drawn towards paladins in mmo and heard that only a few plays them on this server, only adds to the fuel. However I've heard that they kinda sucks in raids. Is this info rubbish or not? I will be content with off tanking. As long as I've a viable role to forfill, I'm happy.

[chief pokishi]

As a Paladin, you will never be the main tank for a raid mob. At least none come to mind. Honestly, you will more often than not be a spam healer and casting Divine Strength. It's a 200 hp buff that stacks with all other HP buffs so you'll be useful in that regard.
If you are able to get some really good gear on your Pally, you could tank mobs in Halls of Testing and in Plate House.
One good thing about being a Pally is as you've said, there aren't many of them. At least not many raid Paladins. There are some damn good Pally or Hybrid only gear that you can get dirt cheap if you join a DKP guild or may just be given if you are in a guild that randoms items. So that is really cool.

[Swish]

If you're content with offtanking, you've got yourself a job for life.... SKs/paladins great at that raid role in most locations.

Lay Hands is one of the best things to bring to a raid, it could be argued ^^

[Caiu]

Plane of growth will be the end game encounter you play something of a real role in. Hybrids catch the growth mobs our taggers bring towards camp.

[Bagger]

Heard that there were actually a lot that a pala could main tank, beside some exceptions. Well if I can get a viable role as an off tank, I'm content. Heard someone on the forum that it would be really effective to use 15 points into wisdom and the rest in Dex. Is that true?

[Bagger]

And btw: is there any key bindings I should know of? And do you have tips for a completely nooby player both in general and class wise (paladin ofc).

[Raev]

To give you an idea of just how good defensive disc is, my sperglord calculator suggests that to tank Derakor the Vindicator:

BIS Warrior with Defensive: 6.5s chain
HOT geared Warrior with Defensive: 5s CH chain
BIS Paladin: 3s CH chain
HOT geared Warrior without defensive: 2.5s CH chain
HOT geared Paladin: 2s CH chain

So you can see that defensive warriors simply crush Paladins for pure beefiness, and Paladins' superior snap aggro is completely pointless when Warriors can have 40 aggro spell charges stored on Puppet Strings, Midnight Mallets, Bladestoppers, and Prayers of Life and recharge them for 100p a click or less.

I think raid geared paladins can tank slowable NTOV dragons, but in practice no one does this and as a Paladin you'll probably face an uphill battle just to tank wurms in the Halls of Testing. Also, contrary to Swish there is no such thing as offtanking unless you are talking Hate or Arena trash that a Shaman or Ranger can handle easily.

[Issar]

Heard that there were actually a lot that a pala could main tank, beside some exceptions. Well if I can get a viable role as an off tank, I'm content. Heard someone on the forum that it would be really effective to use 15 points into wisdom and the rest in Dex. Is that true?

If this really is your first ever EQ toon, there may be some QoL options for stat allocation that you haven't considered. What race you going to play?

[Bagger]

If this really is your first ever EQ toon, there may be some QoL options for stat allocation that you haven't considered. What race you going to play?

Dwarf!!

[Bagger]

So what you're saying Raey, is that paladins are more or less useless in raids... damn ... then I might wanna just do a high elf Enchanter, and make my buddy play warrior.

I'm gonna assemble like 5-6 dudes that I play with, so I might just gonna do that instead.

[Vexenu]

High end min/max choice would be a High Elf with 20 points in WIS. This recognizes that as a raiding Paladin you'll be doing more patch healing and buffing than tanking the sort of mobs where an extra 20 STA (100 hp or so at 60) would be appreciated. However, it's a tough road to hoe starting from scratch. 65 STR is abysmal and will be sorely felt while leveling and gearing up an untwinked chracter. Dwarf with 15 points in WIS and 5 in AGI would be better in that regard, but suffers from the terribly low CHA, which absolutely matters for lull/calm pulling (which is not to be disregarded in the least, it's one of the best abilities of the class). Humans offer a good balance of stats, with either 20 WIS or 10 WIS 10 STA being reasonable allocations.

Gearing tips: Get a Baton of Faith, 30/40 2HB and under 50pp in EC. Can level with that until Epic/Velious weapons. Get a suit of banded armor, +55 hp rings, Hero Bracers (if not Dwarf) and fill in other slots with AC/HP/STR gear as you can. Get a Deepwater Helm and Bracer for 46+, both are must-haves.

Playing tips: don't blind mobs unless you are inside melee range or else they'll run around as if feared. Learn to root park adds and have a macro informing your group the mob is rooted and to assist you on the actual target mob. Learn to lull split/pull mobs and have a set of +CHA gear for critical lull pulls (Kobold Jester Crown, Crude Stein, Dragonskin Mask alone are +55 CHA total and cheap). Time stuns to interrupt casters. Pre-taunt (blind, stun) mezzed mobs before breaking mez. Stun charmed pets as soon as they break. When 46+, spam heal with Deepwater Helm to reduce downtime as needed. When grouped and fighting casters 46+, spam DW bracer mixed with casts of stun to completely lock down the mob. Only cast as many taunt spells as you need to hold agro, which is especially important if you don't have clarity. Always keep LoH in your pocket and don't burn it unless you're 95% sure that you or someone else (especially the Enchanter or Cleric) is about to die.

Paladins are the premier class for tanking group content and are uniquely well-suited for that purpose, having all the essential tools needed to keep their group alive (an impressive combination of heals and CC combined with their instant threat). However, that's really all they're good at. If you aren't actively tanking trash on a raid you'd be more useful as almost any other class. So you really, really have to be dedicated to the class to make it to high-end.

If Paladins appeal to you immediately for whatever reason but you also have a strong desire to raid, I would strongly advise you to choose one or the other of the Paladin's parent classes - Warrior or Cleric - as both are much, much more critically needed for raiding.

[Bagger]

Thanks for the long post Vexenu! I really appreciate it. I guess when Pantheonmmo comes out someday, I just gotta take revenge and go with a Crusader then.

As I said I'll role an Enchanter then. The other guys that I'm gonna be playing with had not even heard about EQ, while I knew about, but always wanted to try it out. I think that a lot of chaotic situation will be created by 5-6 noobies (played wow for 8 years where I semi hardcore raided and fought for top 10 on a server), so it might be a good idea that I take the job of sorta bring order to the chaos. Gonna read some guides on the wiki, and probably gonna open a new thread on the caster forum.

[Burrito]

Play Paladin imo. If your playing with friends fuck the 12 month plan. Make it fun for you for the first year.

[Raev]

So what you're saying Raey, is that paladins are more or less useless in raids... damn ... then I might wanna just do a high elf Enchanter, and make my buddy play warrior.

I'm gonna assemble like 5-6 dudes that I play with, so I might just gonna do that instead.

Enchanter is also not a lot of fun to play on most raids. You spend half your time casting buffs and the other half the time dying after casting tash.

Also keep in mind that the raid scene here isn't a lot of fun. The GMs have decided that only people who stare at the wall for 0-16 hours waiting for a raid mob to spawn shall be rewarded with pixels. There are two guilds (Aftermath & Awakened) that do a lot of this, and everyone else mostly gets HOT/Vindi/Kunark content.

[Bagger]

Play Paladin imo. If your playing with friends fuck the 12 month plan. Make it fun for you for the first year.

Yea I know what you're saying, but I need to know that there is something I can do in the endgame as well, if I decide to to invest a lot of time into this game.

[Bagger]

Enchanter is also not a lot of fun to play on most raids. You spend half your time casting buffs and the other half the time dying after casting tash.

Also keep in mind that the raid scene here isn't a lot of fun. The GMs have decided that only people who stare at the wall for 0-16 hours waiting for a raid mob to spawn shall be rewarded with pixels. There are two guilds (Aftermath & Awakened) that do a lot of this, and everyone else mostly gets HOT/Vindi/Kunark content.

I'm probably gonna role Enchanter anyway, that's fine. But if I want an action packed raid experience, who also contributes, which classes would you recommend?

[chief pokishi]

If you want to hit things: Warriors, Rogues and Monks are good raid classes.

If you want to cast spells: Clerics are king. An extra Cleric is never bad. Each class though is pretty specific in what they offer.

Chanters mostly buff and tash. They also can charm trash mobs.
Druids typically port and make bulk of your spam healers. POTG is a big contribution, particularly for the Clerics.

Shamans again mostly buff and malo/slow. If you have Torpor you can assist in patch healing, including for the Tanks. If not, you mostly sit on your bum once mob is slowed. If it can be slowed.

Necros biggest use come from twitching Clerics and casting DMF when levi can be used.
Wizards port mostly. Can lend in Dps a bit with Lure of Ice or Dragon Bane if it's a certain mob.
Bards help with mana song, OOS and DS.
Pally/Sk at times are not a factor at all. Well SK more than Pally.