Paladin stats & race

[Boarder981]

My first character on live was a Half Elf Paladin. I never prioritized Wisdom, but I’ve read a few threads stating that it’s the most important stat, especially late game. This makes sense to me because an extra heal/HoT or two would make up for some extra Stamina.

If I were to do it again, I’d probably roll a Dwarf. Others seem to think High Elf is the best option. I compared stats and it looks like High Elves start with only 12 more Wisdom than Dwarves, but Dwarves have far superior melee stats. The Wis gap isn’t huge, so I’d be willing to deal with it, especially if it means I wouldn’t be encumbered all the time.

I guess my real question is how important is the extra Charisma of a High Elf? I know it affects Lull spells, but I don’t think much Paladin gear has CHA, and I wouldn’t go out of my way to stack it. Does a High Elf with 90 Charisma have a massively lower chance of getting a Lull failure than a Dwarf?

If so, how critical is using Lull as a Paladin? I don’t remember using it much, but perhaps I was doing it wrong :eek:

[Jimjam]

In a way poor charisma is a boon; When you cast lull and it critical resists the charisma check then the target will aggro on you.

Seeing as you can cast lull without line of sight, this lets you aggro mobs through walls/floors and so on. The worse your charisma the easier this trick is to perform.

A second benefit of dwarf, is they are naturally rather magic resistant. Don't overlook that!

[bigjeff100]

Erudite Paladin!! Do it Do it!!!

[Ennewi]

Critical resists happened often enough on my high elf that I always equipped at least two charisma items when pulling, and occasionally a Luminary 2hs where mobs seemed more resistant. Less charisma definitely has its uses though, it just depends on the group. Worst case scenario, you can always ask the shaman or enchanter for a charisma buff.

[Danth]

The low dwarven charisma is something to be aware of, but I wouldn't call it super critical. If you're lulling on a Paladin, any Paladin, you have to have a plan for when lull crit-fails, because it's going to do so sooner or later. Lull will fail less often on a high-elf, but it'll still happen, and if you're routinely in situations on a Paladin where a lull fail is going to mean death then you're going to have a bad time. Carry a few charisma items, maybe ask for a charisma buff, good enough.

Most people who suggest prioritizing Wisdom are either approaching from a PvP mentality or from the mentality of a higher-end raid player who often finds himself healing tertiary groups. In ordinary leveling group--typically counting for the vast majority of game-time for most Paladin players--WIS is a secondary stat at most. That's why your half-elf was always fine. Race is not a big deal for the Paladin, for the most part. They all level at the same rate, they all have broadly similar factions, in the end there isn't a drastic difference between them.

Danth

[Snaggles]

If the SK’s can debate race with a swing of 50+ str and str for non-fatties then Pallies can’t argue for long on it. Mainly it comes down to fashion and some mid-tier gear. I have an Eru with 20 starting so arguably screwed up. It doesnt matter.

Dwarves = best combat stats. Jump rolls. Low CHA. No Hero bracer. Can use a Frostreaver
Human = bad vision. Can use Frostreaver. Dragon Velious helm and pretty cool fashion.
Tunare Pallies = Nature Defender access.
Erudite = Fashion p!mps and Shield of the Stalwart Seas (like 500p...)

My assumption as a casual player was the DW helm would be very difficult to not wear much of the time. I was right. I think ERU look best with the old plate helm model. I still have and use my Stalwart shield. I wish I could rock a Nature’s Defender though.

There is no class regen, front stun immunity, ac bonus, slam, or massive stat swings. Go with what you like. You can build a +Cha set pretty cheap. Crude Stein, Kobold Jester Helm is 35Cha. Luminary Sword prof is an extra 30ish. Etc. A few items and you can get well over 80+ extra. I still think pulling over a monk is a stunt. In the high levels anytime you lull you have to assume it’s going to be a possible 3+ inc. have the CC be ready :).

[Crede]

I did a wisdom build on my erudite pally. Definitely regretted it because all hybrids need is mana regen. if I could redo it I’d 100% go CHA. can recall several times I wiped due to crit lull resists.

A pally with good CHA is a better puller than monk 99% of the time

[Troxx]

If so, how critical is using Lull as a Paladin? I don’t remember using it much, but perhaps I was doing it wrong :eek:

I used it a lot leveling to 60 and still use it frequently. It's honestly a pretty OP spell line for a tank.

When you make your race/diety selection do not skim too quickly over the benefits of tunare diety (half elf vs high elf).

https://wiki.project1999.com/Natures_Defender

Wickedly easy and comparable to epic. Only draw back is no 2hand bash perk.

[Jauna]

Go dwarf. 5 agi, rest sta.. even cha if you want.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Luminary_Two_Handed_Sword
procs at level 26, +29 cha starting out, gets stronger, dick cheap

Dwarves get:
Access to that sweet ass Brell armor that rivals even Thurgadin armor in some cases
a barrel roll
innate magic resist
high str/sta/wis

Even with 55 CHA I never ever once wished I was another race. Others said CHA only comes into play on a resist. Not worth it in the long run to cha dump for that one Sun, Moon and Stars aligning moment

[DMN]

Do you care a lot about lulling in groups? Roll human with max cha.
Don't care too much about lull effectiveness, dorf with +5 agi and rest stam.

[rajax]

Lull is situationally one of the most useful spells you get. The more CC a group has the less vital it becomes, but for solo/duo work it makes the impossible fight, possible and even easy. My opinion is that like most things with tanks, levels matter more with lull then any stat. You want lull to be effective and not start trains? Do not be under leveled for this encounter. Start with lowest level targets and as you target those at or around your level you are looking at close to a hypothetical 50% chance to pull or succeed.

I would not place too much importance on cha as a stat. Others have pointed out cheap equipment to temporarily boost it and especially if you will be moderately twinkling this new character out with gear race choice for paladins really is cosmetic with the exception of how much importance you put on Nature’s Defender. If you are starting from scratch, the low str of High elf and Erudites would be what would concerned me for emcumberance issues trying to wear armor and still loot.

I just want to say when I see starting race questions about EQ paladins it always reminds me how much I wanted Barbarian paladins to be a choice since first discovering the game.

[Ennewi]

I just want to say when I see starting race questions about EQ paladins it always reminds me how much I wanted Barbarian paladins to be a choice since first discovering the game.

I always wondered if the developers had at one point seriously considered including other class options for certain races before release, but then scrapped those options due to time constraints. I only say this because, when looking at the layouts of starting cities, it becomes clear that not everything went according plan, what with buildings left abandoned or filled with generic, unresponsive NPCs.

For instance, across the Rivervale bridge there are several nondescript huts with only young halflings for local color, character models that weren't even made smaller to give off the impression of youth; in a zone where you can't get away from the obnoxious music, that area could have served as a Bard guild. Also, deep within Surefall Glade there are the bear caverns and deeper still that strange isolated crystal; the area around it would have made for a decent Shaman guild. Then in Halas there are empty stone buildings with fenced-in sled dogs where Paladin NPCs could have been added. If only.

Barbarian Paladins would've had great starting stats too (approx. 113str 100sta 82agi 70dex 75wis 60int 65cha +20), rivaling those of Dwarves, not to mention slam which would have taken value out of the epic and made Velious alternatives that much better.

[Jimjam]

The development team was largely unmonitored before release, so perhaps the wigs wouldn't let them expand the game in the way they had originally planned (purchase new area instead of filling in details).

I think the original intention was to do more of the hole/warrens type stuff.

[rajax]

I have vague memories of seeing 2nd hand notes on barbarian paladins being a thing during development, but was scrapped as being out of character (against "The Vision") for primitives who worship the eye for an eye style tribunal.

But at least we eventually got space kitties from the moon, frog paladins and gnome shadow knights.

[DMN]

The development team was largely unmonitored before release, so perhaps the wigs wouldn't let them expand the game in the way they had originally planned (purchase new area instead of filling in details).

I think the original intention was to do more of the hole/warrens type stuff.

They just did the world building before the "peopling" of it with a healthy dose of realization that more is better than less, since the average joe citizens and things like the young halflings in the burrows would become some simple RPG flavor. Realistically there would be a ton more of these "flavor homes/NPCs" than important interactable NPCs. No one wants to run through rows of pointless homes for 30 minutes to go to the freeport bank, for the "true" feeling that freeport would offer.

[Jimjam]

I have vague memories of seeing 2nd hand notes on barbarian paladins being a thing during development, but was scrapped as being out of character (against "The Vision") for primitives who worship the eye for an eye style tribunal.

But at least we eventually got space kitties from the moon, frog paladins and gnome shadow knights.

Frog Paladins were always a thing.

[Jauna]

I have vague memories of seeing 2nd hand notes on barbarian paladins being a thing during development, but was scrapped as being out of character (against "The Vision") for primitives who worship the eye for an eye style tribunal.

But at least we eventually got space kitties from the moon, frog paladins and gnome shadow knights.

I will never not be mad about the lack of Barbarian Paladins.

The fucking marrs created the damn barbarians

[Jimjam]

Justice is about balance, not about being good...

They stepped away from honour and love, preferring to be 'right' instead of 'good'.

Kinda tragic.

[White_knight]

As you gear up Strength and Stm will rise fast, esp. with HoT/Velious gears.

Re: Strength
You eventually have access to a +40 str yaulp, and if you really gear your Paladin out you have the + str click from DW legs which is another +22 stength buff so putting points into strength is a very very very very very poor choice for knights

Re: Stamina
This stat is a meh stat to place 20 starting points into, firstly its a stat on raids/with any shaman around you will most probably cap it at 200 with decent gears.

In terms of a direct stat 20 stm (when not capped) will give 5.2 stm per 1 pt - so 20 stm will give 104 extra hp at max level WHEN stm is not capped. So this is a very very very very very very very poor choice for knights as you arent tanking end game velious mobs.

So that leaves us with dex and wis/int.

Dex can be argued that it helps with procs, and it does. But to get a noticable increase you need ALOT of dex, so unless you're building around dex then 20 pts isnt going to make you a proc star.

That leaves wisdom/int, the greatest stat a knight can have. A knight is a wetnoodle without mana. Cant heal, cant CC, cant add extra dps, cant keep agro without it.

Having 20 extra int/wisdom gives a hybrid somwthing like 200 extra mana (when not capped) but the only time you will cap a hybrid is if you build a int/wisdom spec OR you running around in full BiS (then it wint matter about what starting stats you have). 20 extra wisdom allows for a one WHOLE extra heal on a Paladin (700hp hot) or a WHOLE extra life tap on a Shadowknight (extra damage/hp heal)...WHICH far ourweights the pitfiful extra 104 hp you get from stm (when not stm capped) the pitiful extra dmg you get drom 20 str and the pitiful extra chance you get from 20 dex.

The MOST prudent and intelligent/wise decision to make on a Paladin or Shadowknight is to go wis/int.

In this year 2019 after 20 years of EQ, on a server that caps at Velious if anyone tells you otherwise then they are ill informing you.

THE END OF THIS DEBATE.

[Jauna]

Re: Stamina
This stat is a meh stat to place 20 starting points into, firstly its a stat on raids/with any shaman around you will most probably cap it at 200 with decent gears..

Capped stam only means you get an extra buff slot.

[Snaggles]

Mana/Wisdom tho never helps regen speed and there are no “heals” for your mana bar. That means having more mana only helps if fully medded before battle. Great for red but not so much on blue. Unless Stam is capped which is harder for most than one might expect (non raiders, etc).

[White_knight]

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin

My Paladin on blue....what do you notice? Only a few raid items, but stacked to 190 wisdom.

- Has more mana than HP.

- Has a bigger manapool than some full raid geared level 60 Paladins.

- Will have 200 wisdom with more raid gears

- Will have an even larger mana pool.

- Will have more functionality than a raid geared paladin with 130 wisdom.

Here is a wisdom build with items that are attainable without hardcore raiding (Also my wishlist) :
https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin_(WL)

1 stm buff from a shaman and this build hits 200+ stm 1 str buff from a shaman = 200+

I think you get the jist as why wisdom is the only stat to put points in too

[Ennewi]

(Disclaimer: This is coming from someone who adheres to self-made gear restrictions for added challenge and roleplay/flavor.)

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin

My Paladin on blue....what do you notice?

First? That you have gauntlets equipped around your arms which seems unwise, not to mention painful. Also, your face slot item has no AC and you're sacrificing AC elsewhere for stat increases. Not prioritizing AC will translate into more bodily harm, eating into your healthbar and then drinking up your manapool, assuming you haven't died as a result.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Mask_of_War
https://wiki.project1999.com/Ivandyr%27s_Hoop
https://wiki.project1999.com/Heavy_Dragonwing_Mantle


Here is a wisdom build with items that are attainable without hardcore raiding (Also my wishlist) :
https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin_(WL)


But Fiery Defender offers more wisdom/mana than Natures Defender? Regardless, that build is well-balanced and not much of a departure from what most raiding Paladins wear. Honestly, I was half-expecting to see the following items on your wish list...

https://wiki.project1999.com/Elder%27s_Earring
https://wiki.project1999.com/Matchless_Dragonhorn_Bracers
https://wiki.project1999.com/Polished_Mithril_Torque
https://wiki.project1999.com/Emerald_Dragonscale_Tunic
https://wiki.project1999.com/Boots_of_Distraction


1 stm buff from a shaman and this build hits 200+ stm 1 str buff from a shaman = 200+

https://wiki.project1999.com/Enlightenment

I think you get the jist as why wisdom is the only stat to put points in too

It's gist! The g is soft.

[White_knight]

(Disclaimer: This is coming from someone who adheres to self-made gear restrictions for added challenge and roleplay/flavor.)



First? That you have gauntlets equipped around your arms which seems unwise, not to mention painful. Also, your face slot item has no AC and you're sacrificing AC elsewhere for stat increases. Not prioritizing AC will translate into more bodily harm, eating into your healthbar and then drinking up your manapool, assuming you haven't died as a result.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Mask_of_War
https://wiki.project1999.com/Ivandyr%27s_Hoop
https://wiki.project1999.com/Heavy_Dragonwing_Mantle



But Fiery Defender offers more wisdom/mana than Natures Defender? Regardless, that build is well-balanced and not much of a departure from what most raiding Paladins wear. Honestly, I was half-expecting to see the following items on your wish list...

https://wiki.project1999.com/Elder%27s_Earring
https://wiki.project1999.com/Matchless_Dragonhorn_Bracers
https://wiki.project1999.com/Polished_Mithril_Torque
https://wiki.project1999.com/Emerald_Dragonscale_Tunic
https://wiki.project1999.com/Boots_of_Distraction



https://wiki.project1999.com/Enlightenment



It's gist! The g is soft.

AC is broken on this server, I had 1400 AC on my Red Paladin when stacked for it and it didn't translate to much difference than @ 1200. The one stat he was SO thirsty for in all aspects of the game was more mana, always more mana.

What does a Paladin need all that AC for anyhow? they aren't tanking Velious raid mobs, and you can tank Kunark raid mobs with 1k ac.

Also thanks for the tip on the arms slot, and spelling.

The ideology that Paladin's and Shadowknight's are tanks beyond Kunark era raid mobs, and group tier mobs in Velious is what causes people to make a SK/PAL and stack STM.

Warrior's simply do tanking of raid mobs better, with the exception of a few raid target (VS/VP Targets). If you're stacking your Paladin/Shadowknight to the Warrior aspect of the hybrid then you're weakening them as classes because the returns you get beyond a certain point don't entitle the classes to achieve anything that non-stacked for tanking hybrid with similar gear can't do.

[Snaggles]

Personally I roll around with as much ac and hps as possible. I can’t recall a situation where I ran out of mana and died. I can recall a ton of situations where a few more hps would have let me live. I don’t always have stamina buffs on in grind groups; I never do when by my lonesome.

Celestial Cleansing is very mana efficient. Still having a couple extra isn’t going to help you at all in group, rarely help solo, and marginally will help with raiding. If you can convince a group to let you AFK and top off between kills you are a better salesperson than me. Even if AC is borked it’s doing something more than sitting there. Then again, I won’t even stack wis on my shaman so maybe I’m not the best one to sell a wis build to.

A fifty gallon gas tank in a truck is awesome but you won’t notice it with your work commute...

[Danth]

Can't speak for red--some of its mechanics are different there than Blue--but AC parsing on P99-Blue since Velious launch confirms that armor has good effect since that time. It should not be ignored as a stat for any tank type.

The character linked a few posts above has less than 200 worn item AC, which I regard as unacceptably weak for difficult group/duo content. Upper-end duo/group named hit for 300's and 400's, sometimes (rarely) more. You want to mitigate that as effectively as possible. If you don't do difficult group/duo content and stick with Sebilis/Karnor trash before raiding (where Hybrids won't tank much anyway) that equipment would serve well enough. Since a lot of players--probably a majority if we're honest--do actually play that way, I won't call that gear setup invalid, merely unsuited to how I'd play the character.

Danth

[Troxx]

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin

My Paladin on blue....what do you notice?

Low ac. Wisdom is great an, imo, more important than most stats for a paladin, but you’ve made some very odd gear choices in places.

We’re tanks first and ac is fairly critical to what we do.

[White_knight]

I guess the problem is people play Paladin's differently, and not to their full potential.

If you're not CCing/stuning(mitigate damage taking)/dispelling hastes/dishing out top of heals etc. why are you playing a Paladin? All these aspects take mana.

If you have a 1400 ac 2000mana pool Paladin and you're tanking in say, Sebilis at an item camp, there's going to be very little difference between a 1100AC 3000 mana pool paladin if all you do is cast FoL and Divine Strength every 50 odd mins.. while the monk pulls mobs to you.

I think alot of the time people play Paladins because they are just lazy warriors and want to spam FoL while tanking in groups.

The only way to optimally get full potential out of hybrids tanks is to build for mana first then ac/hp, you can argue black and blue about the one time you tanked in velks CE and the named golem was tough: but the other 99.97% of your game time you're wasting high ac/hp on killing trivial mobs.

There is a reason why as a hybrids you have a red, and blue bar and a warriors only has a red bar. That blue bar isnt meant to look pretty sitting at 97% after tanking 50 mobs in a row because all you did was cast FoL over and over.

[Jimjam]

Having a large mana pool only really helps you when you are close to the bottom of your pool (squeeze out one more spell) or top of the pool (more space to keep regenerating mana for later use).

If you tend to use mana at the rate you recover it, and neither go oom nor sit at full mana then the size of your pool is largely relevant.

Your worn AC is relevant almost every time you take a hit. Your hp pool is relevant each time you are hit by cheal, and often relevant when under a heal over time.

[White_knight]

Low ac. Wisdom is great an, imo, more important than most stats for a paladin, but you’ve made some very odd gear choices in places.

We’re tanks first and ac is fairly critical to what we do.

Thats my current gear because I dont have a bazillion plat: I tank better and play a Paladin better with more functionally than NToV twink Pallies. Choices are made depending on budget. I have 7k plat in the bank. Some of us dont play EQ 10 hrs a day 7 days a week.

[DMN]

At the end of the day it's not going to make much difference but I'd personally never put any points into wisdom for a paladin. A slightly higher mana pool means very little in typical grouping/soloing/raiding situations.

[White_knight]

At the end of the day it's not going to make much difference but I'd personally never put any points into wisdom for a paladin. A slightly higher mana pool means very little in typical grouping/soloing/raiding situations.

Absolutely - it doesn't matter too much where you stat allocations truly go.

But for totality of efficiency as a class a wisdom/mana > hp/ac build has more potential than a HP/AC build for a Paladin.

People think/believe that Paladin's are tanking these overtly hardcore mobs in EQ -they simply are not, and AC is broken on this server. So the difference between a 1100AC 4000 HP 3000 mana Paladin and a 1400AC 4500HP 2000mana Paladin is very little in terms of raw tanking capacity for what a Paladin needs to achieve, however the capacity to pump out more CC/Heals/Stuns than the 1400AC 4500hp Paladin is where a mana/wisdom build wins hands down ( and if you're playing your Paladin properly ).

You can antidotally specify specific situations where having high AC/HP is better, and there will be situations, but it's 0.003% of the time you're in game, so why handicap yourself for the other 99.997% of the game.

If all you do is cast FoL on mobs and occasionally cast Divine Strength to buff your group then it doesn't matter what build you have, this is true, and factual.... for those of us who are a little more intuitive, and participative of what we do in our groups and want to CC/buff/off heal/stun (stunning mobs alone mitigate dmg more than having 300 extra AC will ever do for 95 mana you can stop a mob from hitting you for 10 seconds) then building a larger mana pool is 100% the way to go.

The other mis-conception that is out there and quite prevalent in this thread is if you build towards mana/wisdom you handicap your capacity as a tank, which is utterly incorrect. Once hybrids reach a certain point in AC the returns are negligible ( around 1200AC ) and wearing full HoT and decent quest gear etc. and buffed you're going to be @ or near this anyhow.

Again I think people just play Paladins and Shadowknights as lazy group warriors and don't put much thought in to how/what they do - but that's the beauty of these classes, aslong as you know how to keep agro ( which is very easy ) then you are deemed to have achieved your job.
Argue all you want about HP/AC for the 3 times in your life you will tank HoT mobs when a Warrior isn't around - but the other 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000 mobs you will kill in your life don't need that HP/AC

[DMN]

But the ability to spam spells is almost always going to be constrained by your regeneration rate not your mana pool.

[Raev]

AC was broken on this server for years, but it was fixed around the time Velious came out. I should update the guide! My warrior is geared for AC (1400, which isn't soooo far from the raiding warrior mains) at the cost of HPs (5570 w/out Divine Strength, which is very average) and when parsing it is noticeable in all zones. Sakuragi can handle the spore king camp with a single cleric and no slow. Icy Servants are much more manageable when they virtually never hit for max. Liia and I duoed Xenevorash straight up WAR/CLR many times rather than cheesing him with the guards. You can even see a forum post where Zarza showed that 1AC:2-3HP for enchanters. Do not underestimate the power of AC!

Knights really are far superior to Warriors in Temple of Veeshan for most drakes and all wurms; people just aren't used to playing to their strengths, i.e. instant tash and putting Turgur's in the first slot and casting it every 6s with a clicky. Add in all of Kunark and Knights should be raid tanking decently often now, where AC/HP are more important than mana pool.

I can definitely see a bigger mana pool being relevant while duo/trio or so though when things go wrong. The question I guess is whether it's more important to have steady efficiency in the form of low average hits and big cheals or more ammunition when Murphy's law strikes. I guess it depends on the group. That low AC might prevent the Cleric from falling asleep!

[Danth]

People think/believe that Paladin's are tanking these overtly hardcore mobs in EQ -they simply are not, and AC is broken on this server.

I don't know why you keep parroting this, but you're dead wrong. Post-velious parsing on P99-blue has repeatedly demonstrated that AC works fine--well enough that there's some debate as to whether we even have a soft-cap here. If you keep spewing incorrect info henceforth, I'll decide that instead of being merely mistaken that you're either trolling or lying. It's an internet forum, not prison, and there's no shame or weakness in admitting you're mistaken about something.


Danth

[White_knight]

AC was broken on this server for years, but it was fixed around the time Velious came out. I should update the guide! My warrior is geared for AC (1400, which isn't soooo far from the raiding warrior mains) at the cost of HPs (5570 w/out Divine Strength, which is very average) and when parsing it is noticeable in all zones. Sakuragi can handle the spore king camp with a single cleric and no slow. Icy Servants are much more manageable when they virtually never hit for max. Liia and I duoed Xenevorash straight up WAR/CLR many times rather than cheesing him with the guards. You can even see a forum post where Zarza showed that 1AC:2-3HP for enchanters. Do not underestimate the power of AC!

Knights really are far superior to Warriors in Temple of Veeshan for most drakes and all wurms; people just aren't used to playing to their strengths, i.e. instant tash and putting Turgur's in the first slot and casting it every 6s with a clicky. Add in all of Kunark and Knights should be raid tanking decently often now, where AC/HP are more important than mana pool.

I can definitely see a bigger mana pool being relevant while duo/trio or so though when things go wrong. The question I guess is whether it's more important to have steady efficiency in the form of low average hits and big cheals or more ammunition when Murphy's law strikes. I guess it depends on the group. That low AC might prevent the Cleric from falling asleep!

Effectively this the whole point of a mana/wisdom build over others.

The concept that you are going to be a weak tank because you prioritize mana is just ill informed. For most of us players a HoT set will be the main focus of our gearing and probably the most we will ever achieve as our end game gearing. The HoT set alone will give a Paladin enough power to tank the mobs it has a capacity to tank.

So why bring a tank that has far beyond the defensive capacities needed in a group situation when you can roll up with 1000 extra mana figuratively speaking and be-able to heal more/stun more in bad situations (which will happen far more than the occasional need for a few extra 100hp for CHs that get missed timed ).

When mobs are hitting for 500-600s sure, 1400 AC should be a more effective, no one can debate that, but when you're grinding groups and mobs are hitting for 150s that effectiveness is far diminished. Wearing a HoT set and built towards wisdom/mana spec you're probably still sporting 1200 AC, besides a few SPECIFIC group locations a hybrid tank doesn't need anymore than that.


Case Example:


Over the course of a fight a paladin's get hit 40 times for max hit every time:


1400AC Paladin
vrs 150 max hit mobs: mitigates max hit down to 135 = 135x40 = 5400 damage recieved
vrs 600 max hit mobs: mitigates max hit down to 500 = 20000 damage recieved


1200AC Paladin
vrs 150 max hit mobs: mitigates max hit down to 145 therefore 145x40 = 5800 damage received
vrs 600 max hit mobs: mitigates max hit down to 580 = 23200 damage recieved


So congratulations you saved your healer 400pts of extra healing on a conventional mob in this extreme case of MAX hitting everytime.
If you're in a group with a cleric who is CHing you, you will NEVER meet the effective heal of a ch (7500) as a hybrid on this server, so if a cleric is CHing you that 400pt deficient is negligible.

[White_knight]

I don't know why you keep parroting this, but you're dead wrong. Post-velious parsing on P99-blue has repeatedly demonstrated that AC works fine--well enough that there's some debate as to whether we even have a soft-cap here. If you keep spewing incorrect info henceforth, I'll decide that instead of being merely mistaken that you're either trolling or lying. It's an internet forum, not prison, and there's no shame or weakness in admitting you're mistaken about something.


Danth

Danth you're a well respected member of this community, but you've always argued against mana/wisdom/int - I know this much as I've seen you post around.
This isn't trolling, this is just people who understand their class better than you and have come to conclusions that differ from what is conventionally known.

If you can't grasp the concept that's been explained here, don't go throwing the this is just "trolling" comment around.
This sort of debate has gone on for years.

[Danth]

Danth you're a well respected member of this community, but you've always argued against mana/wisdom/int - I know this much as I've seen you post around.
This isn't trolling, this is just people who understand their class better than you and have come to conclusions that differ from what is conventionally known.

If you can't grasp the concept that's been explained here, don't go throwing the this is just "trolling" comment around.
This sort of debate has gone on for years.

My latter post wasn't arguing against your basic line of discussion, only your claim that AC doesn't work here (ie, your "AC is broken" claim). Fair enough?

In my earlier post, I agreed that while your style of gearing wouldn't work for my own needs or purposes, it can indeed work decently for a fair portion of the community.

Danth

[Snaggles]

I get going the counterculture path. It’s fun to be an underdog and sometimes a choice (for its inherent flaws) can help you get out on top proving the critics wrong. I was a shockadin in WoW LONG after they sucked.

I’m curious the other and even have considered it but have never thought, not even once, my main problem was a shallow mana pool. Usually it’s been a lack of 1k+ unbuffed hit points and occasionally not enough charisma for safe lull pulling.

Do you do have to realize if you are bucking current logic to what tanks do and how they should prioritize gear...so it’s gonna generate some resistance. I have crap gear and most my cash is from hill giants and fine steel sales. Still, I’m trying for the common logic path, taking hits as well and plentiful as possible.

I certainly wouldn’t go so far to believe ac/hp prioritizing players lazy, ignorant, or trolls. At the very least I wouldn’t literally put that in writing.

Edit: I have 1500 mana with crappy gear at level 59. That’s two less Cel heals which is a lot of hit points. If all I’m doing is FoL and level 30 stunning though. I can still maintain 2/3’rds of my blue bar. That’s enough “oh sht” casting to make a difference and not nearly enough to save a team/raid. It’s four Cel’s but the 18 sec recast clips the Superman cape. If I could cast two more that would be cool but it’s only useful if we are waiting 5 mins between the next spawn.

[Ennewi]

It's fair to say that since Warriors are the tank for endgame Velious raid content, knights should at least diversify rather than attempt to compensate for where they are lacking in comparison--no amount of gear will make up for not having defensive discipline. When raiding such content, knights have little choice but to downshift into more supportive roles, sometimes ramp-tanking and sometimes off-tanking adds but mostly just swinging at the current target and serving as speed bumps/spike strips if and when the raid starts wiping and the Clerics are camping, counting down the seconds. But even so, there are exceptions in Velious that extend beyond group content for hybrids--the Ring War, Halls of Testing, and Kael Arena all come to mind.

I will, however, own that my Paladin has incorporated more and more wisdom/mana gear for raids because of those higher level heals. Neither HP or AC are needed as a tertiary healer, so your argument has merit there but, if bag space allows, wisdom items can be mixed in with charisma gear for such times. But outside of raids, having a larger mana pool hasn't really come into play (yet); how quickly that pool is being replenished though has dictated the rate in which I cast and who receives what buffs/heals and whether I will bother to CC. Thankfully, Norrath is currently the equivalent of America in the 80s, having more crack and more access to crack now than ever before. C1/C2, GoB, Cassindra's/Cantata, and PotG, along with Flowing Thoughts.

It's important to remember that hybrids are, or at least were intended to be, two-thirds warrior and one-third priest/purecaster--a distinction that will be more pronounced once their skill tables are adjusted. Granted, casters do have more versatility than melee classes which factors in when examining knights as a whole, but knights don't necessarily have the most mana-efficient spells either.

Imagine if each of the hybrid classes had a second option from the very start to be two-thirds caster instead of two-thirds warrior. Having more capabilities with magic, the argument would then be that players ought to focus on wisdom or intelligence. But being that knights are two-thirds warrior, players are more inclined to place their points into stamina just because. Personally, I also don't think those 20 starting points are terribly important, though they can help even out certain racial deficiencies.

As for AC, it is markedly better than years ago and I would even go so far as to say that it's more important than Stamina or Wisdom, at least in the traditional group role that knights frequently find themselves in.

[Troxx]

White knight is a fool.

[DMN]

White knight is a fool.

I think he's just beholden to a decision he made. I messed up on my SK way back when and put the points into int. I so wanted to show it was a good decision that I even solo'd the forglok king at level 50(in vanilla with bronze armor) to prove it was the best decision. And I only just barely killed him and it did, in fact, take every bit of my mana. Felt good but truth was it was a pointless exhibition.

[Jimjam]

He's not wrong that it is easy to cap effective AC for 51+ mobs in KC.

I'm curious if he has had any success tanking guardian wurms or pillar dragons yet.

[White_knight]

Mixed bag of responses: some get it, others more resistant (less willing to open up to theory craft, holding on to their concepts that knights need to adhere to max ac/hp)

If you're building a Knight specifically to tank g-wurms knock yourself out, that again is a specific case of tanking.

Enwei's comments are spot on. You should all read his post. The way that he explains that hybrids are a supportive tank role for raids is spot on. Trying to compete with tanks that kick our arse in all aspects of raid tanking is kind of pointless. Knights dont need all that ac/hp to do their job effectively so after a point it becomes less effective to stack it.

If you're objective is to tank gwurms go knock yourself out: farm all the ac/hp you want, you will never tank as well as a warrior. And you can insert all other specific cases in here that people seem to get hung up on.

Much like Enwei says, if you buff to the 1/3 or 1/4 of you that is the hybrid component your supportive role in raids, and your primary role in groups as tank will improve.

You dont need 1400 ac to do seb/chardok/velks/sg groups, what you need is more mana to be extra effective in your role when needed.

I think what alot of people suffer from is sympton of denial: not willing to accept that hybrid tanks just arent there to tank what their ideology wants them to think about their class.

(How do I know? I have a 1400ac Paladin)

[Raev]

It's fair to say that since Warriors are the tank for endgame Velious raid content

I haven't played in a few months (I like my EQ addiction intermittent) but the orb/mallet nerf should have made Knights clearly superior for tanking most ToV/Kunark NPCs, and the rooted Lords and Ladies should have increased the amount of random drakes and wurms everyone is fighting. Together these should lead to a lot more Knight tanking. Have the players failed to adapt here?

So congratulations you saved your healer 400pts of extra healing on a conventional mob in this extreme case of MAX hitting everytime.

Have you estimated how much extra downtime is caused by that healing, though? What if your group is heavily offensively oriented, say PAL/SHM/MNK?

White knight is a fool.

I disagree. His conclusions make perfect sense: if you are tanking <50 XP mobs and you have a cleric with clarity healing you, HP and AC don't matter because your cleric is half asleep anyway. I question those assumptions!

[Jimjam]

I don't think people build a knight to tank gwurms; they build to tank the best they are likely to be called upon to tank, and accept that doing so may result in small losses of efficiency elsewhere.

Note I don't mention gwurms or pillars as an obscure side line activity; they are the two non XP activities that I'm likely to be invited to or decide to organise.

@raev you mention sacrificing hp/AC might increase downtime, but there is almost a level synergy there: Wightknight's philosophy requires more medtime to get back to full mana anyway :p.

[White_knight]

I don't think people build a knight to tank gwurms; they build to tank the best they are likely to be called upon to tank, and accept that doing so may result in small losses of efficiency elsewhere.

Note I don't mention gwurms or pillars as an obscure side line activity; they are the two non XP activities that I'm likely to be invited to or decide to organise.

@raev you mention sacrificing hp/AC might increase downtime, but there is almost a level synergy there: Wightknight's philosophy requires more medtime to get back to full mana anyway :p.

I think you're missing the entire point: so let me explain in Layman's terms:

The point isn't just to have a larger mana pool, it's to have a larger mana pool to be expended when needed.

i.e sacrificing a potential larger mana pool for what essentially would be a small bump in tanking capacity. That 1400 AC is useless when you're OOM because you have 2k mana pool, and your healer is OOM. The difference between having 1200ac and 1400 ac on a normal tiered dungeon mobs isn't going to send your healer bust on mana.

Having a larger mana pool ALSO extends the duration you can stay in the fight when it's quite mana intensive, i.e chanter dies, and you have 6 mobs in camp and you're rooting and poping off heals to keep everyone topped off while tanking.

Now do you see the point?



Have you estimated how much extra downtime is caused by that healing, though? What if your group is heavily offensively oriented, say PAL/SHM/MNK?


It's a good question.

You're not looking at an massive difference in damage reduction from 1200ac - 1400 ac on normal tiered mobs, it's not a 700ac -1200ac type comparison.

Ultimately a larger mana pooled Paladin would benefit the SHM/PAL/MNK trio way more than a high AC Paladin as you'd be burning more mana CCing, and stunning mobs till they are slowed to reduce incoming damage taken.

Mana regen is a problem, always will be for Knights who burn through mana, but regardless of the how much mana you have there will always be a period where you arse is on the ground medding, or you're relying on candy buffs to get that blue bar back up.

[Troxx]

Deep mana pockets help on raid targets where you won’t be tanking anyways. In this scenario deeper pockets means more heals; something we do quite well both on ourselves and what we have to offer others. Don’t get me wrong I’m a fan of paladin mana and personally prioritize it above stamina. But ac? No. As has already been stated, we’re tanks. Damage mitigation is critical to how well we do our job every single time we get hit.

In most content knights are not limited by mana pool - it’s mana recovery. Deeper pockets just means it takes you longer to fill back up.

TLDR? You’ve made some pretty terrible decisions with regards to specific armor slots. Str/wis 0 ac mask is chief among them.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Crystal_Spider_Eyes

A bit less wisdom but also 8ac 35hp/mana

I’m not dogging you for prioritizing wisdom, it’s how you seem to have such tunnel vision that it’s led you to wear some really bad pieces when there are more balanced options out there.

[Danth]

Good morning folks!

WhiteKnight, I notice you're not now claiming AC to be wholly broken. Thanks for ceasing that particular claim. We can happily debate how necessary it is, but whether armor works at a functional level isn't up for question.

Funny you mention 1200 display AC. I agree that's a nice baseline value to aim for, for group content in this era of the game. 1400 AC represents high-end raid loot which is both unnecessary and unrepresentative of what most folks achieve. Maybe I got thrown off by that gear set you linked earlier with its ~200 worn AC, which at 60 will fall into the 1050 to 1100 AC range with average buffs. I think you mentioned it's unfinished and a work in progress, so if you're aiming for that 1200ish value (which will require about 270 to 290 worn AC), then we're more or less on the same page after all.



Danth

[FatherSioux]

You play a Paladin to save the day and snuggle with hot elves. More mana = more saves = more snuggles.

[Ennewi]

I haven't played in a few months (I like my EQ addiction intermittent)

Same, nearing three months here of no EQ.

but the orb/mallet nerf should have made Knights clearly superior for tanking most ToV/Kunark NPCs, and the rooted Lords and Ladies should have increased the amount of random drakes and wurms everyone is fighting. Together these should lead to a lot more Knight tanking. Have the players failed to adapt here?

Ah right, that. Honestly, I haven't the slightest idea. My experience in ToV is a bit dated, but during that time the underlying issue was an overabundance of Warriors, most of which were assigned to groups with healers outside of the main rotation. By default, and understandably, knights were left with their thumbs up their asses, thumbs extracted only when there were mobs to goaly, auto-attack, or loot. There were exceptions for knights in ToV, but few and far between back then. It seems likely that this has since changed; if not, than it should once the skill table adjustments have been made.

Guess it's about time to log in and shake the ol' sock out again.

[Jimjam]

I think you're missing the entire point: so let me explain in Layman's terms:

The point isn't just to have a larger mana pool, it's to have a larger mana pool to be expended when needed.

i.e sacrificing a potential larger mana pool for what essentially would be a small bump in tanking capacity. That 1400 AC is useless when you're OOM because you have 2k mana pool, and your healer is OOM. The difference between having 1200ac and 1400 ac on a normal tiered dungeon mobs isn't going to send your healer bust on mana.

Having a larger mana pool ALSO extends the duration you can stay in the fight when it's quite mana intensive, i.e chanter dies, and you have 6 mobs in camp and you're rooting and poping off heals to keep everyone topped off while tanking.

Now do you see the point?





It's a good question.

You're not looking at an massive difference in damage reduction from 1200ac - 1400 ac on normal tiered mobs, it's not a 700ac -1200ac type comparison.

Ultimately a larger mana pooled Paladin would benefit the SHM/PAL/MNK trio way more than a high AC Paladin as you'd be burning more mana CCing, and stunning mobs till they are slowed to reduce incoming damage taken.

Mana regen is a problem, always will be for Knights who burn through mana, but regardless of the how much mana you have there will always be a period where you arse is on the ground medding, or you're relying on candy buffs to get that blue bar back up.

I'm not missing the point; you're missing the point. The larger mana pool is a one trick pony, unless each time you dip into that extra mana you are willing to spend extra time medding just to regain that surplus.

My suggested path for if the enchanter dies: just soothe everything then cover the cleric on heals while she gets everything atoned.

To be honest I find your advice conflicting. On one hand, you say a paladin should be an active user of spells (which increasing mana pool doesn't even help), but now you are saying the mana pool is for emergency situations where depth of pool is more important than regen... Which is it? Because if you are spurging out your mana in general play you might not have it in an emergency.

You criticise other knights for doing the minimum expenditure to keep aggro; have you considered this is a strategy to keep mana at 97% so it is available when they really need it?

[Troxx]

Minimum necessary to ensure you hold aggro is the best way knights can functionally balance their mana. 60-200 less mana use unnecessarily per fight is a lot more important than having an extra large mana reserve. Our mana regen is poor. We really only have external buffs and meditate unless you have some high end FT items. I don’t know about the groups others roll with but I’m lucky if I have the chance to catch a few quick Med ticks between fights.

Using lots of mana always just means you have to sit on your arse that much longer to get it back. My goal is always minimum necessary to get the job done well while keeping a strong enough reserve that I can stun whenever needed, help emergency root as needed, and toss heals around (self and others) to save a life or ease the burden of the healer.

[Crede]

I put starting stats into wisdom into my pally and regretted in in the 50s when I realized all you need is Mana Regen. And if you’re constantly dumping your mana in a raid scene then you shoulda just made a cleric.

Dex all day IMO. Plenty of nice dex/ac items out there. More procs, more aggro, more mana saved by more procs, more fun.

[Pint]

I haven't played in a few months (I like my EQ addiction intermittent) but the orb/mallet nerf should have made Knights clearly superior for tanking most ToV/Kunark NPCs, and the rooted Lords and Ladies should have increased the amount of random drakes and wurms everyone is fighting. Together these should lead to a lot more Knight tanking. Have the players failed to adapt here?


The orb/mallet nerf seemed like it did more damage to casted aggro then clicky aggro. AM hasn't missed a beat using mallets for aggro that I've noticed.

[White_knight]

I put starting stats into wisdom into my pally and regretted in in the 50s when I realized all you need is Mana Regen. And if you’re constantly dumping your mana in a raid scene then you shoulda just made a cleric.

Dex all day IMO. Plenty of nice dex/ac items out there. More procs, more aggro, more mana saved by more procs, more fun.

Yup if I ever make another Pally I am going to try a dex build. I think a 200 dex build is 2nd on the list of credible builds. Done an AC build, doing a wisdom build now.

Mana regen will always be a dilemma for knights, afaik we werent always meant to be standing unless we just cast the minimum spells required to function - tapping those sweet 10 mana spells that make hybrid tanking a sinch.

[White_knight]

Deep mana pockets help on raid targets where you won’t be tanking anyways. In this scenario deeper pockets means more heals; something we do quite well both on ourselves and what we have to offer others. Don’t get me wrong I’m a fan of paladin mana and personally prioritize it above stamina. But ac? No. As has already been stated, we’re tanks. Damage mitigation is critical to how well we do our job every single time we get hit.

In most content knights are not limited by mana pool - it’s mana recovery. Deeper pockets just means it takes you longer to fill back up.

TLDR? You’ve made some pretty terrible decisions with regards to specific armor slots. Str/wis 0 ac mask is chief among them.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Crystal_Spider_Eyes

A bit less wisdom but also 8ac 35hp/mana

I’m not dogging you for prioritizing wisdom, it’s how you seem to have such tunnel vision that it’s led you to wear some really bad pieces when there are more balanced options out there.

You're trying to criticize an armor list someone spent a few minutes to compile awhile back and edited a day or so ago to update a bit here an there, that's a good tip I will add it it later.

Let's again state: I dont play 10 hrs a day 7 days a week, I started to compile a list of gear that would be attainable by a normal player (not a high end raider). I have 7k plat in the bank, I dont have time to farm endlessly. Progression is slow. My Paladin is level 55 after 4 years.

Your concept of Paladins is fixated on raiding, this is why you are having a poor time trying to understand.

Less than 1% of Paladins on this server probably participate actively in raids, and usually are there only to cast our DS buff. Of those 1% Paladins probably 5-10 have ever tanked raid mobs in the last few years.

So hope that helps frame things up for you and might help you understand a little better.

[White_knight]

I'm not missing the point; you're missing the point. The larger mana pool is a one trick pony, unless each time you dip into that extra mana you are willing to spend extra time medding just to regain that surplus.

My suggested path for if the enchanter dies: just soothe everything then cover the cleric on heals while she gets everything atoned.

To be honest I find your advice conflicting. On one hand, you say a paladin should be an active user of spells (which increasing mana pool doesn't even help), but now you are saying the mana pool is for emergency situations where depth of pool is more important than regen... Which is it? Because if you are spurging out your mana in general play you might not have it in an emergency.

You criticise other knights for doing the minimum expenditure to keep aggro; have you considered this is a strategy to keep mana at 97% so it is available when they really need it?

Doesnt make sense my dude: how does not having a larger mana pool not help someone when burning their mana, you sure this what you mean?

Also Pacify is a 100 mana spell, if sucessful its going to cost you 600 mana to pac 6 mobs as you described, calm is 50 mana spell so 250 mana but only works up to level 50 mobs - if you had to pacify 2x times thats 1200 mana, seems like that emergency larger mana pool would be needed after all.

You keep rattling on about mana regen too: it's a terrible arguement because mana regen is available to both spec builds - mana regen isnt exclusive to a certain build type - I dont get what this point is??
What your describing is a false economy of mana: a smaller pool regens quicker? Guess what? You're getting the exact same regen with a larger pool too, it's just when you hit 100% mana a wisdom/mana built paladin hits 60% mana.

[Troxx]

Let's again state: I dont play 10 hrs a day 7 days a week, I started to compile a list of gear that would be attainable by a normal player (not a high end raider). I have 7k plat in the bank, I dont have time to farm endlessly. Progression is slow. My Paladin is level 55 after 4 years.

Your concept of Paladins is fixated on raiding, this is why you are having a poor time trying to understand.

Less than 1% of Paladins on this server probably parricipate actively in raids, and usually are there only to cast our DS buff. Of those 1% Paladins probably 5-10 have ever tanked raid mobs in the last few years.

So hope that helps frames things up for you and might help you understand a little better.

You’re the one who touted having a 1400 ac Paladin on red. None of my characters have come close to such stupidly high numbers. They likely won’t ever for that matter. I’m not fixated on raiding. Quite the opposite. The point is that outside of raiding, high mana is not as cute as you think it is. For day to day paladin activity that extra mana is a waste. You will have precisely 0 extra spell casting potential than a lower mana pool knight unless you plan on sitting on your ass for long stretches. I, however, prefer to have more up time. We both regenerate mana at the same rate — and that’s the bottleneck.

You rolled into this thread linking your magelo and asking what the first thing people noticed it was. You might have thought people would fawn over your high wisdom but really the only thing extraordinary about that magelo was your bad ac and really goofy fucking gear choices :p

The degree to which you get defensive on this topic is comical.

[Varren]

I’m no paladin, but I do appreciate a good one.

Its true that paladins all regen mana at the same rate, barring those with flowing thought, but a larger mana pool is clearly better. I’d rather my reservoir be deep on any casting class, though. Size up the real difference AC will give you in a given situation. I would imagine having a wis build and an ac build depending on the group would be best.

[rajax]

A non-classic recommendation, but would it seriously screw class balance if paladins like later expansion clerics could still get their standard meditate server tick mana regen as though they were sitting if under yaulp and attacking?

This might actually be a thing in modern EQ but I stopped paying attention or had the free time to play anymore around the pirate mini-expansion.

[Jimjam]

Doesnt make sense my dude: how does not having a larger mana pool not help someone when burning their mana, you sure this what you mean?

Also Pacify is a 100 mana spell, if sucessful its going to cost you 600 mana to pac 6 mobs as you described, calm is 50 mana spell so 250 mana but only works up to level 50 mobs - if you had to pacify 2x times thats 1200 mana, seems like that emergency larger mana pool would be needed after all.

You keep rattling on about mana regen too: it's a terrible arguement because mana regen is available to both spec builds - mana regen isnt exclusive to a certain build type - I dont get what this point is??
What your describing is a false economy of mana: a smaller pool regens quicker? Guess what? You're getting the exact same regen with a larger pool too, it's just when you hit 100% mana a wisdom/mana built paladin hits 60% mana.

I said soothe, not pacify. Soothe works on mobs up to 55 and costs only 30 mana. Soothe + atone is a solid synergy, though I appreciate a little team work is required.

I talk about mana regen, not because I suggest wearing it for any one particular build (obviously all builds should if they can), but because mana regen is the limiting factor on how many spells you can cast across an extended period of time.

Given the same mana regen both Paladins will be casting the same number of spells. The exception is the wisdom paladin gets a one time boost of whatever their difference in mana pool is (and only if he gets really low on mana). He won't get that benefit again unless the low wis build paladin ends up sitting around at full mana, which if he does I'd ascribe to being a player mistake, not a build error.

[Jimjam]

I think the difference in our positions probably comes down in a difference in perspective on what a wis build paladin would be and what an AC/hp orientated paladin would be.

I interpret a wis build as sacrificing large amounts of defence for wisdom (as per the profile you liked with the jewelled mask instead of a targishin mask for similar money / trivial camp). Likewise when I say hp/AC orientated builds I mean one that takes defence and ignores other stats. I'm not really talking about 1400 AC builds, that is way beyond the point of diminished returns for most content, I agree.

But in like for like gear comparisons most of the way up, I don't think so.

[DMN]

I thought soothe capped at 40 or 45?

[Danth]

The level caps usually associated with the lull spell line were mostly added later on when those types of spells were revamped during the post-classic era.

Danth

[Boarder981]

Wow, my original post sparked quite a debate! Lots of good info and an interesting read, to say the least ;)

It’s been so long since I played any class with Lull, so can someone please explain the mechanics re: resists, crit failures, etc

Also, at what point does Charisma have such a big impact that it’ll almost always succeed? 150 CHA? 200 CHA?

On a related note, how much DEX is needed to actually have a decent proc rate? I’ve heard the gains per point are small, but I don’t know how valid that claim is. I would consider dumping some into DEX if it makes a big difference, but if it’s something I need to boost to 150-200 in order to see noticeable gains, I may as well leave it and get DEX gear later if I feel the need (after all, I most likely won’t be using a proc weapon ALL the time).

Honestly I’m willing to bypass starting points in STA for either CHA or DEX. 15 SAT equates to what, 80 HP at level 60? Not a huge gain IMO, especially since it’s likely easier to hit 200 STA than CHA or DEX.

And then there’s the choice of Tunare for Natures Defender... ugh, too many things to consider! I’m probably making this way more difficult than it should be lol.

[Danth]

I’m probably making this way more difficult than it should be lol.

You absolutely are. For all the discussion, Paladin starting race and statistics very much fall into the category of, "splitting hairs." No matter what you do it isn't going to dramatically affect your life in-game. That being said, making the plans and working out this or that can be fun in and of itself, so have at it. No harm in being over-prepared.

Danth

[Pint]

Pick dwarf 5 in agi rest in Wis, didn't need all this discussion to know what the optimal path was

[Boarder981]

You absolutely are. For all the discussion, Paladin starting race and statistics very much fall into the category of, "splitting hairs."

You’re absolutely right. It’s just what I always do when it comes to things like this. Too much analysis.

I was wondering if anyone has insight into the other questions in my last post.

1. How exactly do Lull mechanics work? It’s been so long that I don’t remember the details
2. How much CHA is necessary for Lull to almost always work?
3. How much does DEX actually affect proc rate, and at what point do you actually notice a difference?

Of course, I can create separate posts with these questions, but figured I’d ask here first.

[Troxx]

As usual Jimjam hits the nail on the head. Repeatedly.

My paladin needs more wisdom/mana, but I rarely find myself full mana with the limited pool I have. This is especially true after hitting 59 and getting the celestial cleansing spell. That heal is just too efficient and nice (1.5 sec cast) to not use routinely on both self and group mates. If I could choose between having 100ac or 60 more wisdom, however, I’d opt for the ac. Thankfully such trade offs don’t really exist on p99 without making some extreme choices (that also involves very high end raid gear).

For now my pathetic 1500 mana at level 60 gets the job done well. Threat is CHEAP for us to generate. Big mana expenditures for me are the heals I toss around, buffs I refresh, and stuns I strategically use. In a fast paced group I like to hover between 70-80% mana. It leaves enough reserve to heal/root/stun/calm liberally if the situation calls for it and enough mana deficit to capitalize on those moments I have to opportunity to sit on my ass for a pinch to get mana back. If I get to full mana, I preemptively refresh a round of Divine Str buffs +/- ghetto symbols and ac as needed.

Same concept with the shaman ... I try never to be full mana unless I’ve already refreshed every buff that isn’t already fresh.

Caveat: Warrior is what I take to primary raids. Paladin is for group fun or trashy clear raids without massive hitting raid targets at the end of them. If my paladin were raid exclusive I’d put more emphasis on wisdom. Those heals come in handy.

[FatherSioux]

Starting stats certainly are splitting hairs. Building your toon to be able to withstand the extreme situations is the way to go. More mana allows you to withstand these scenarios. Everyone saying that more mana isn't important is speaking to the ho-hum grind group where 99% of play falls, but when the going gets tough you can save the day with more mana as a Paladin. Wisdom build is the way to go without a doubt. Human for Fashion Quest, Dwarf for Min/Max.

[Boarder981]

Human for Fashion Quest, Dwarf for Min/Max.

I did consider Human, as their stats are pretty even and their plate look is decent. However, that bucket helm is hideous! Yeah I know, the Velious Dragon helm looks great, but I imagine I'd be wearing/using the Deepwater Helm for a long time... ugh!

Also bad night vision. Yes I know it's not as big of an issue on P99, but with my Barb it was always nice to have at least infravision spell up.

[Crede]

I did consider Human, as their stats are pretty even and their plate look is decent. However, that bucket helm is hideous! Yeah I know, the Velious Dragon helm looks great, but I imagine I'd be wearing/using the Deepwater Helm for a long time... ugh!

Also bad night vision. Yes I know it's not as big of an issue on P99, but with my Barb it was always nice to have at least infravision spell up.

Thurgadin dragon helm is extremely easy to get. The mq is like 1k and you just need kindly coldain faction. No reason you can’t get this in the 40s or sooner if you farm faction. Dragon look is simply just turning in the helm via the custom helms quest.

[Snaggles]

I did consider Human, as their stats are pretty even and their plate look is decent. However, that bucket helm is hideous! Yeah I know, the Velious Dragon helm looks great, but I imagine I'd be wearing/using the Deepwater Helm for a long time... ugh!

Also bad night vision. Yes I know it's not as big of an issue on P99, but with my Barb it was always nice to have at least infravision spell up.

That was the main reason I rolled Erudite; the other plate helm models were annoying (IMHO). You gotta go with whatever you like the look of the most though. Swapping out for helm healing or only having the DW on while soloing is easy enough.

There are plenty of cheap ways to get greater light sources (most the revamped runnyeye items...alloy helm, necklace, mask, etc) and a few cheap infravision ones. I always have one of these on me for those weird situations where its difficult to see. Way easier than swapping-in/out my Shield of the Stalwart Seas.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Glowing_Stone_Band


A Kobold Jester Crown is about 900p and gives a ton of charisma plus passable AC. No graphic so it's a fashionquest win. Not a bad item to have in a backpack to help avoid those crit lull resists or just wear as a helm.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Kobold_Jester%27s_Crown

[Danth]

1. How exactly do Lull mechanics work? It’s been so long that I don’t remember the details
2. How much CHA is necessary for Lull to almost always work?
3. How much does DEX actually affect proc rate, and at what point do you actually notice a difference?

With respect to statistics, EQ's a big-numbers game. 10 charisma here, 5 dexterity there won't make any substantial difference. One of the few exceptions of this is having less than 75 agility, which incurs a fairly large penalty. Increasing DEX from 100 to 200 might roughly double your weapon special effect rate. If you want to stack dexterity, go big or don't bother.

Lull-type spells reduce aggro radius. Higher ranks of the spell reduce that radius more than lower ranks. "Lull" itself is often ineffective, "Soothe" works decently, and "calm" is usually enough even at high levels. "Pacify" is generally unnecessary. No amount of charisma will wholly eliminate lull resists, or the occasional critical-resist where monsters attack. At high levels, some monsters are resistant enough that the lull spell line becomes ineffective as a splitting tool, especially for Paladins who have few means of dealing with an unwanted multi-pull. You should not use the lull line if you cannot survive the results of a critical fail, except as a desperation effort when no other options are available.

Danth

[White_knight]

This has been a great debate thread. Sorry been MIA with IRL.

Eager to read all replies though.

[White_knight]

As usual Jimjam hits the nail on the head. Repeatedly.

My paladin needs more wisdom/mana, but I rarely find myself full mana with the limited pool I have. This is especially true after hitting 59 and getting the celestial cleansing spell. That heal is just too efficient and nice (1.5 sec cast) to not use routinely on both self and group mates. If I could choose between having 100ac or 60 more wisdom, however, I’d opt for the ac. Thankfully such trade offs don’t really exist on p99 without making some extreme choices (that also involves very high end raid gear).

For now my pathetic 1500 mana at level 60 gets the job done well. Threat is CHEAP for us to generate. Big mana expenditures for me are the heals I toss around, buffs I refresh, and stuns I strategically use. In a fast paced group I like to hover between 70-80% mana. It leaves enough reserve to heal/root/stun/calm liberally if the situation calls for it and enough mana deficit to capitalize on those moments I have to opportunity to sit on my ass for a pinch to get mana back. If I get to full mana, I preemptively refresh a round of Divine Str buffs +/- ghetto symbols and ac as needed.

Same concept with the shaman ... I try never to be full mana unless I’ve already refreshed every buff that isn’t already fresh.

Caveat: Warrior is what I take to primary raids. Paladin is for group fun or trashy clear raids without massive hitting raid targets at the end of them. If my paladin were raid exclusive I’d put more emphasis on wisdom. Those heals come in handy.

If you have a level 60 Paladin with 1500 mana you're handicapping yourself for "burst" heal potential, and I would go to say your stance on this subject is probably based inherently in the fact you know you have, OR you're using a Paladin simply as a sub-par warrior with easy agro mechanic, which there is nothing wrong with that.

A 1500 mana Paladin would be abysmal to play at 60 vrs a 3000-3500 mana pool Paladin, sorry - but nothing you can say can explain this away. You're burning 15% of you mana pool to cast a single HoT, where as a 3500 mana paladin is blowing 6.4%, how is that good thing lol?

I said soothe, not pacify. Soothe works on mobs up to 55 and costs only 30 mana. Soothe + atone is a solid synergy, though I appreciate a little team work is required.

I talk about mana regen, not because I suggest wearing it for any one particular build (obviously all builds should if they can), but because mana regen is the limiting factor on how many spells you can cast across an extended period of time.

Given the same mana regen both Paladins will be casting the same number of spells. The exception is the wisdom paladin gets a one time boost of whatever their difference in mana pool is (and only if he gets really low on mana). He won't get that benefit again unless the low wis build paladin ends up sitting around at full mana, which if he does I'd ascribe to being a player mistake, not a build error.

Always thought Soothe capped at 40? if not - well there you go learned me something new, or that needs to get fixed on the server.

If both Paladin's are starting off as OOM and have to consecutively cast spells as they regen mana, than yes that's true. Where it deviates is if you're starting point is 2000 mana, or 3500 mana, then effectively a mana build Paladin has 1500 more mana each time they med up to expend.

2000mana /225 mana cost of HoT = 8.8 casts <-- Sacrifices the extra heals for maybe a little extra mitigation that doesn't really matter for the tier level of mobs most Paladins tank.
3500mana /225 mana cost of HoT = 15.5 casts <--Far more effective on raids as they can take on a roll of patch healing/far more effective in groups when needed to heal.

So no, you're wrong that they have the same basis of healing potential due to Mana regen alone, that only stands true if they are starting at OOM.


---


I think ultimately the dance is danced on this subject and those that get it, get it, and those that don't, don't. "Splitting hairs" on starting stats is def. a good comment that was made.

I think the only TERRIBLE race choice you can make as a Paladin is Half-Elfs because that 60 something starting wisdom would be painful to over come.

Regardless of whats been discussed, a dex build vrs a mana build vrs a ac Paladin build will pretty much tank normal groups without much difference if all the tank is required to do is keep agro and be healed.

The split of difference seems to be:
(1) Excessively going for Mana (more healing/stunning)
or
(2) AC/HP (slightly more mitigation)

There's merit for both sides, but I personally think and have experienced that having a low mana pool on your Paladin is not optimal in this era of Velious.

But it's good to see the discussion take place.

[Jimjam]

TBH I may be wrong on Soothe; I know I had used it a lot in Seb in the past, but that was a long time ago and may have been changed. If so I take back that point.

[Troxx]

Incoming small novel.

If you have a level 60 Paladin with 1500 mana you're handicapping yourself for "burst" heal potential, and I would go to say your stance on this subject is probably based inherently in the fact you know you have, OR you're using a Paladin simply as a sub-par warrior with easy agro mechanic, which there is nothing wrong with that.

I have a 60 paladin which was my most recently created toon. It’s not my primary raid toon. He’s a fun alt, and no he is neither geared to be a warrior nor played as such. He’s a half elf and started off with a 35 wisdom disadvantage compared to high elf.

I made him half elf for 2 reason:

1) Tunare Diety for Natures Defender Quest. It looks cool as hell, was super easy to quest (he’s an alt - wasn’t going to do epic), has 45 ac (stupid strong) along with a comparable to epic stat spread and proc. If this wasn’t in game I’d have rolled dwarf.
2) FashionQuest. I hate the way high elf males in plate look. I gave up 35 wisdom for a tradeoff of +15 str +5stam/agility, +15 dex. The stat trade offs are debatable (I would have preferred the wisdom) but most importantly I don’t have run around looking like a half elf male in plate. Looking the way you want is the single most important stat. 10 of my starting stats were wisdom.

His magelo: https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Mithromir

If he were a high elf geared as he currently is he’d have 1975 mana from the 35 extra wisdom. I’ve already got my bp gems (need to give the stolen fungi back to my monk), the finances to buy the cloak, and nearly enough saves up for Narandi Crown. I need to tap into my inner “not lazy” to go get my 7/6 talisman. Imminent upgrades put me at this:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Mithromirnext

If I were a high elf paladin I’d be at 2400 mana with these non-raid upgrades on the horizon. Othmir prexus totem next goal? 2600 mana.

Really my mana boils down to refusing to be a high elf and being unwilling to wear gear like a zero ac 7 wis/str mask as a tank class.

This whole discussion kicked off after you posted this magelo and asked what the first thing we noticed was:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin

The first thing I noticed was your bad ac despite clearly having some pretty decent overall gear quality. Clicking through your gear choices quickly explained it. You’re wearing a few dumb pieces that are dragging you down.

A 1500 mana Paladin would be abysmal to play at 60 vrs a 3000-3500 mana pool Paladin, sorry - but nothing you can say can explain this away. You're burning 15% of you mana pool to cast a single HoT, where as a 3500 mana paladin is blowing 6.4%, how is that good thing lol?

Heal over time has a 30 second cool down. You can’t exactly chain cast it even if you want to. Wave of Healing is actually weaker than wiki places it. It’s much less efficient than heal over time and only has situational use, the most important of which I’d argue is threat snap while topping off some group health. 220 heal isn’t going to save anyone. That leaves us with superior heal which is generally on my bar for emergencies where someone needs a faster blast heal. If I’m grouping with a healer worth their salt and not on a raid I don’t keep it mem’d. It’s got a slow cast time and if the ench is going down it usually won’t land in time - that’s what LoH is for. It’s also more expensive to cast and heals for a lot less total than our heal over time. That heal over time should be the only heal any 59+ knight uses outside of extraordinary circumstances. For those circumstances I keep other heals loaded but they have significant drawbacks in terms of insufficiency, inefficiency, and for one of them in being slow to cast.

So what does that leave us with?

-an amazing heal over time that is fast to cast and efficient with a 30 sec lockout
-the need to hold threat which is easy and cheap with a 12 mana spell
-the ability to stun as desired or needed (I keep 2 up always)
-the ability to root as needed
-lulls (not expensive)
-buffs to cast/refresh as needed
-rez to do rarely as needed
-a targeted rune which does actually have some uses. If puller is bringing in a few - tag me with rune and mobs will run to you instead

Having more total mana let’s you cast none of these more often over time unless you or your group has enough down time that one paladin can Med longer while the other would be sitting around full mana and not climb any further. My experience is that this scenario is the exception, not the norm. I usually roll with fast paced groups. The bigger pool just gives you more total reserve with which to operate. In a raid environment on big targets with aoe damage, that deeper pool is critically important.

If you play your paladin like a holy healing Gandalf with chain casting wave of healing and throwing around superior heals like they’re going out of style you’re just simply going to find yourself out of mana. If you’re using that extra mana on extra unnecessary aggro ... you’re going to just run out sooner and either force your group to stop to wait on you to Med or find yourself so low on mana you can’t do anything but flash of light. When that happens you’re NO better than a warrior with less mitigation, fewer hitpoints, and less dps.

My opinion is that knighting properly is balancing your mana usage while effectively using the tools at your disposal and keeping enough always on reserve in the tank to deal with the unexpected when it happens. So far I’ve gotten really good with working that balance with 1500 mana. I’m about to have 2k - or 2 extra HoTs in my hip pocket.

Mana is good. Wisdom is good. Our spellbook is what distinguishes us. At the end of the day, however, we’re still tanks. Tanks with low ac are mana sponges and tanks with low hp are less efficient to heal.

[Vexenu]

If you're going to play a Paladin like a Cleric, why not just roll a Cleric to begin with? Yeah, Paladin spells are awesome, but they are awesome within the context of also being a strong tank. There are very few times as a (PvE) Paladin where having a huge Mana pool means the difference between life and death for you or your group. In contrast, AC/HP come into play with every hit you take. If you're sacrificing too much AC/HP for WIS to raise your own Mana pool, all you're effectively doing is stealing more of your healer's Mana by being a less efficient tank. In other words, the trade-off is at best zero sum, and in reality a net loss to the group because a Cleric/Shaman is equipped to utilize their Mana much more effectively than a Paladin. If you actually think about it, the correct build is to have "just enough" WIS/Mana. Just enough meaning you never find yourself running OOM at inopportune times for 99% of your gameplay. Because everything beyond that "just enough" threshold is pure waste and represents item slots that could have been better utilized to make you a more efficient and durable tank. Which, as we established at the outset, should be your primary concern, or else your should reroll a Cleric.

[Danth]

You're not hitting 3500 mana on a lower/mid range-geared Paladin without severely ruining yourself as a tank. The wife's Shaman doesn't even have 3500 mana. 2000 mana is generally sufficient for normal functionality. 2500 mana should be fully adequate for any reasonable jobs asked of a Paladin in the level 60 group game. 3000 mana would be nice but I'm not sure a Paladin (outside high-end gear) can achieve that without making unacceptable trade-offs.

My Shadow Knight has been 60 for more than 6 years. This is relevant since Paladin gearing is nearly the same. Depending on the equipment I swap in and out it ranges from about 2000 to 2300 mana. I refuse to wear a Narandi crown (no graphic--I want my human winged helm) so I could gain some there, but regardless of what I did I wouldn't be getting past about the mid 2000's--same as Troxx reports, more or less. It's enough because if something goes wrong, I can't USE mana fast enough to require more than that, anyway. Within the length of time it takes me to run out, either a bad situation has stabilized or it's turned into a wipe. That's not theorycraft, it's multiple years experience doing a great deal of the upper-end nonraid content, often merely as a duo. Main area more mana would be nice would be solo'ing--which isn't such a concern for Paladins. Before the Shadow Knight I spent many years playing the Paladin extensively, and the considerations were always the same. Mana is nice, but only so long as it can be gained without ruining other statistics.

Numerous posters in this thread listed 1200 display AC as a nice value for non-raid content in this game. I agree with that assessment. My Shadow Knight, in its "duo set", reaches 1184 AC with typical self- and shaman-buffs. That's with 285 worn AC. It's on the lower side due to the SK epic having no AC, but acceptable because of the large amount of self-healing generated by the SK epic special effect. For unslowed, hard-hitting monsters (things that hit for 300's, 400's, etc) I'll stick on my 1H/shield till slowed and push the worn AC up to about 320, reaching display AC up into the 1230's.

I'm not saying don't gear for mana, I'm saying you shouldn't gear for mana at the cost of ruining yourself elsewhere. Gear with decent values in all areas (crystal spider eyes, etc) is highly valuable. Hybrids by nature need a lot of different statistics, so it's always a juggling act. With lower or mid-range gear it's unlikely you'll be totally satisfied with any individual statistic, and certainly not with all of them. Got to make do with what's available.

For the record, I haven't been in Karnor for a long time. Most of what the wife and I like to do is stuff like velketor castle-area golems, WW dragons, stuff in dragon necropolis, revamp-chardok, middle levels of skyshrine, the occasional trip to guardian wurms or deeper areas of sebilis, and so forth. I don't much care for raiding, but we're not bottom-feeding either.

Danth

[Raev]

WK, have you considered rolling a Battle Cleric? I've been really curious to try this build. The Cleric quest armors all have very nice armor class: the Templar (Giant) set has 219 AC, 13 STA, and 200 HP which compares reasonably with the Scaled Knights (Paladin Skyshrine) set at 188 AC, 39 STA, and 260 HP. So from a mitigation standpoint you should be right there. Your avoidance would be terrible, of course, due to lower defense and minimal dodges. So I would guess that a Battle Cleric would take about 20% more damage than a Knight, which is really not bad. The worst part would be the lower HP pool and CH efficiency, so let's say in total the BC requires 50% more healing.

However, the Plane of Sky mace should give about 10 mana per tick (15 with full dexterity, but good luck trying to get a primal brawl stick over Team Monk). That's one complete heal every 4 minutes. If we assume that heal goes off for 2800 HP or so, that's 70 HP/tick of regeneration or 11-12 healing per second. That means the BC is winning if he is taking under 30 damage per second (vs a 'normal' tank's 20). I haven't parsed NPC damage in a long time, so Troxx would probably be the guy here, but I'd guess this is pretty typical.

Of course, the Paladin would be doing much more damage, but the BC would have the advantage if the group got in trouble. And the BC would have some options to increase damage output, especially via damage shield (since fewer attacks would miss) and perhaps judicious use of the pet (by breaking mez before the first NPC dies, its hatelist never empties).

TLDR: I think reasonableness of the Battle Cleric build shows how badly Paladins are underestimated. But I just don't see how they have enough mana regeneration in this era to function as efficient healers, and I'm having trouble imagining a situation where an extra 2-3 superior heals save the day.

WK, how about you post some fraps of that mana pool being put to good use in a group situation? If your theory is correct, you shouldn't need more than 1 group session to do so.

P.S. Troxx, you need to hit the Halls of Testing!

[Snaggles]

With enough dex a Dawnfire is going to do 10-20dps average from the proc alone (1-2ppm x 585).

You could also go with a Poison Wind Censer gnome build and the cultural arms. With SCHW and those you can self-haste to 60%. Wear a fungi and just club away. Gale of Poison is nasty to get hit with but you have heals for days.

I'd say "it's going to slow down in the 50's" but soloing a pally to 60 isn't exactly a thrill so any sadist who can do that could probably be fine with a cleric...

[Danth]

Numerous posters in this thread listed 1200 display AC as a nice value for non-raid content in this game. I agree with that assessment. My Shadow Knight, in its "duo set", reaches 1184 AC with typical self- and shaman-buffs. That's with 285 worn AC. It's on the lower side due to the SK epic having no AC, but acceptable because of the large amount of self-healing generated by the SK epic special effect. For unslowed, hard-hitting monsters (things that hit for 300's, 400's, etc) I'll stick on my 1H/shield till slowed and push the worn AC up to about 320, reaching display AC up into the 1230's. .

Separate post since I can't edit anymore:

If I wear all my highest-AC stuff and stack a group with best AC buffs (bard, etc) I'll get into the low 1300's, like 1315 or some such. I don't ordinarily do that because, as others including WhiteKnight have said, it becomes unnecessary past a certain point and starts to hurt other factors. Always a balancing act!

-----------------------------------

Raev: The wife used to play her Cleric with a mind towards defensive toughness/durability. Our own experience was exactly what you'd expect: It worked fine for normal XP-group monsters, but ran out of steam for tougher stuff where you really want the extra damage reduction and higher health pools of a proper tank type. Cleric (and--Paladin) damage mitigation can be difficult to fully gauge because as long as you have mana (clarity!) and are fighting things where stuns can land, chain-stunning massively reduces damage intake.

Danth

[White_knight]

Incoming small novel.



I have a 60 paladin which was my most recently created toon. It’s not my primary raid toon. He’s a fun alt, and no he is neither geared to be a warrior nor played as such. He’s a half elf and started off with a 35 wisdom disadvantage compared to high elf.

I made him half elf for 2 reason:

1) Tunare Diety for Natures Defender Quest. It looks cool as hell, was super easy to quest (he’s an alt - wasn’t going to do epic), has 45 ac (stupid strong) along with a comparable to epic stat spread and proc. If this wasn’t in game I’d have rolled dwarf.
2) FashionQuest. I hate the way high elf males in plate look. I gave up 35 wisdom for a tradeoff of +15 str +5stam/agility, +15 dex. The stat trade offs are debatable (I would have preferred the wisdom) but most importantly I don’t have run around looking like a half elf male in plate. Looking the way you want is the single most important stat. 10 of my starting stats were wisdom.

His magelo: https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Mithromir

If he were a high elf geared as he currently is he’d have 1975 mana from the 35 extra wisdom. I’ve already got my bp gems (need to give the stolen fungi back to my monk), the finances to buy the cloak, and nearly enough saves up for Narandi Crown. I need to tap into my inner “not lazy” to go get my 7/6 talisman. Imminent upgrades put me at this:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Mithromirnext

If I were a high elf paladin I’d be at 2400 mana with these non-raid upgrades on the horizon. Othmir prexus totem next goal? 2600 mana.

Really my mana boils down to refusing to be a high elf and being unwilling to wear gear like a zero ac 7 wis/str mask as a tank class.

This whole discussion kicked off after you posted this magelo and asked what the first thing we noticed was:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin

The first thing I noticed was your bad ac despite clearly having some pretty decent overall gear quality. Clicking through your gear choices quickly explained it. You’re wearing a few dumb pieces that are dragging you down.



Heal over time has a 30 second cool down. You can’t exactly chain cast it even if you want to. Wave of Healing is actually weaker than wiki places it. It’s much less efficient than heal over time and only has situational use, the most important of which I’d argue is threat snap while topping off some group health. 220 heal isn’t going to save anyone. That leaves us with superior heal which is generally on my bar for emergencies where someone needs a faster blast heal. If I’m grouping with a healer worth their salt and not on a raid I don’t keep it mem’d. It’s got a slow cast time and if the ench is going down it usually won’t land in time - that’s what LoH is for. It’s also more expensive to cast and heals for a lot less total than our heal over time. That heal over time should be the only heal any 59+ knight uses outside of extraordinary circumstances. For those circumstances I keep other heals loaded but they have significant drawbacks in terms of insufficiency, inefficiency, and for one of them in being slow to cast.

So what does that leave us with?

-an amazing heal over time that is fast to cast and efficient with a 30 sec lockout
-the need to hold threat which is easy and cheap with a 12 mana spell
-the ability to stun as desired or needed (I keep 2 up always)
-the ability to root as needed
-lulls (not expensive)
-buffs to cast/refresh as needed
-rez to do rarely as needed
-a targeted rune which does actually have some uses. If puller is bringing in a few - tag me with rune and mobs will run to you instead

Having more total mana let’s you cast none of these more often over time unless you or your group has enough down time that one paladin can Med longer while the other would be sitting around full mana and not climb any further. My experience is that this scenario is the exception, not the norm. I usually roll with fast paced groups. The bigger pool just gives you more total reserve with which to operate. In a raid environment on big targets with aoe damage, that deeper pool is critically important.

If you play your paladin like a holy healing Gandalf with chain casting wave of healing and throwing around superior heals like they’re going out of style you’re just simply going to find yourself out of mana. If you’re using that extra mana on extra unnecessary aggro ... you’re going to just run out sooner and either force your group to stop to wait on you to Med or find yourself so low on mana you can’t do anything but flash of light. When that happens you’re NO better than a warrior with less mitigation, fewer hitpoints, and less dps.

My opinion is that knighting properly is balancing your mana usage while effectively using the tools at your disposal and keeping enough always on reserve in the tank to deal with the unexpected when it happens. So far I’ve gotten really good with working that balance with 1500 mana. I’m about to have 2k - or 2 extra HoTs in my hip pocket.

Mana is good. Wisdom is good. Our spellbook is what distinguishes us. At the end of the day, however, we’re still tanks. Tanks with low ac are mana sponges and tanks with low hp are less efficient to heal.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin (bumped up to level 60 for a better comparison ;) )

Vrs

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Mithromir

You now have..115 more hp, 60 more ac...I have 907 more mana. The difference of 115 hp and 60 ac isn't going to impact tanking greatly, but the 907 extra mana will help far more when needed.

Effectively Salahdin = same tank capacity as Mithromir, however Salahdin can out heal Mithromir almost 30% more over. Granted we aren't talking about a HUGH healing capacity in the first place, but 900 more mana = 4 more HoTs = 175 hp x 4 = 700 hp = 2800 more patch healing.

This is practically the whole point of what I am trying to say. Why gear for a tiny marginally better tank role (the difference at this stage of comparison is probably negligibly) when you could gear/race choice for tanking and mana pool depth.

As a bonus here's a blend of both our gear: https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Saladhin_v2 but built more towards manapool. The difference now is only 94hp, 8 ac ( again an almost negligible difference in tanking) but I still retain a larger mana pool by 897 pt.

Further more if we go back to my wish list of what is quite attainable items for a non-hardcore raider:
https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin_(WL) (mind you it is still a work in progress as those Crystal Spider Eyes do seem like a good choice) so I could see a non-hardcore raider getting a 3k mana pool while retaining their tanking capacity.

[Troxx]

But you’re still a gay high elf male in plate, therefore I win. :D

I love how you completely ignore the actual talking points. More mana is only more good if your group is more bad and needs you to burn more mana to make shit work ... unless you’re raiding and thus not tanking in which case you should be playing a clear/dru/sham?

If you care to actually discuss the body of my post you quoted carry on.

Otherwise:

TLDR: You have some stupid ass gear. A zero ac 7 str/wis veil is bad mkay?

[White_knight]

TBH I may be wrong on Soothe; I know I had used it a lot in Seb in the past, but that was a long time ago and may have been changed. If so I take back that point.

tested at basement group in KC, Soothe was lulling basement mobs including Verix PH.

:D

[Danth]

The "WL" profile WhiteKnight linked is not materially different than what any other skyshrine-level (meaning midrange, middle-tier guild) Paladin is going to reach. A couple slots might differ here or there but not enough to significantly alter things. Mana pool is somewhat inflated only due to high elf with points in WIS at creation. A Human in equivalent equipment and more typical stat allocation would have about 2400-2500 mana with similar gearing, so we're right where I said we'd be and back to discussing what amounts to a couple of casts of celestial cleansing.

The point is--and what that profile illustrates--is how nobody's actually going to gear for HP/AC to the total exclusion of mana, or gear wholly for mana while entirely ignoring tank-type statistics. This entire discussion is more for fun than anything else. Most characters at a given gearing level tend to wind up looking fairly similar, stat-wise.


Danth

[Sweeper41]

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin

My Paladin on blue....what do you notice? Only a few raid items, but stacked to 190 wisdom.

- Has more mana than HP.

- Has a bigger manapool than some full raid geared level 60 Paladins.

- Will have 200 wisdom with more raid gears

- Will have an even larger mana pool.

- Will have more functionality than a raid geared paladin with 130 wisdom.

Here is a wisdom build with items that are attainable without hardcore raiding (Also my wishlist) :
https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Salahdin_(WL)

1 stm buff from a shaman and this build hits 200+ stm 1 str buff from a shaman = 200+

I think you get the jist as why wisdom is the only stat to put points in too


Having watched your videos as you solo stuff you hardly use any of your mana. You always root back up and spam Deepwater helm for heals. Or if you pull to much you root everything and camp out. I dont see the point of having more mana if your not using any of it. Yaulp cost next to nothing, you can use the lowest lvl root(30mana) Stuns? Sure but with Force being slow you'll just be using Stun(35mana) and Holy Might(60mana) the most. This is from a solo perspective.

[White_knight]

Having watched your videos as you solo stuff you hardly use any of your mana. You always root back up and spam Deepwater helm for heals. Or if you pull to much you root everything and camp out. I dont see the point of having more mana if your not using any of it. Yaulp cost next to nothing, you can use the lowest lvl root(30mana) Stuns? Sure but with Force being slow you'll just be using Stun(35mana) and Holy Might(60mana) the most. This is from a solo perspective.

Forgot about this old thread till now.

Larger mana pool, coupled with DW helm = more fights before medding. Also you will find when you solo hard mobs i.e AM in lguk your mana pool will get very low.

I haven't really played much for 6-8 weeks now as I have been busy IRL - I however have an AM solo video somewhere. W̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶u̶p̶l̶o̶a̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶.̶

EDIT:

Couldn't find the video which is a bugger but I found the screenshots I took after some named in Lguk:

https://i.imgur.com/8EFCfua.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/tZqCCSF.jpg

AM was a PITA, he can go either way - cushy and easy or making you blow LoH/helm healing/rooting alot to get him down.

Only 2 named I have left on Undead side is Lord and Frenzy, I will return to this project once I am less busy - it's been fun.

[Snaggles]

I’m a filthy casual.

This thread pushed me to crank up my AC for my “tanking gear” set. Yes, fashion had to take a back seat.

After picking up about 50 worn AC it’s made a noticeable difference. Idol of the Thorned, Seahorse cloak, velium fire rings, DW bracer #2 and wearing DW arms, etc, Barbed legs. Stats took a dive along with looks but tanking has been much easier in Seb king and even my Earthshaker greenie farm runs need less Cel cleansing casts.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Vojun_Zissou

IMHO, for a scrubby load out it’s easy to surpass the 200 worn AC goal if you don’t mind sacking stats. You can still cast around 3000 points of heals plus some roots per mana bar. In groups it’s all about mana regen, not mana pool. I had spare mana for a few HoT’s / Wave of Healing casts when mana was topped and I was bored. Casting FoL, Stun and even Holy Might with C2 doesn’t do much harm to the mana bar.

As for soloing, I did it almost my entire journey to 60. Unrest, Sol A/B, Grobb, The Hole, HHK. Root mana is cheap, Narandi dots make a huge difference, helm healing is free. It’s a slow grind but mana was never the XP bottleneck. Usually it was a painful slow kill speed or zone repops.

If I was a raider or dueler I could see really wanting an extra 1k mana. As Danth said though as a non-raider that mana comes at a huge AC cost (no Vulak loot in EC). After seeing the difference I’m not willing to wear jewelry to get there and since it’s been a contest of HP attrition rather than mana I’ll stick it out as a fake warrior with aggro tricks and clutch heals.