Human or half elf paladin

[Revanx22]

Is one better than the other? I really like the looks and stats of human, but I'm not sure how hard night blindness is to deal with. I was able to snag one of the serpent sight rings, but giving up an item slot just to see seems like it could be a pain as I level up and get better gear.

My only real issue with half elf is the horrible starting wisdom. I've tried to look it up and I see some people say it doesn't matter due to mana regen being more important, and others say wisdom is the most important. Kind of lost on which one is true. They do have high dex and agility, but does that really do much?

Finally, any help with starting stats would be great. I was thinking 5 stam 15 wisdom for half elf, and 5 strength, 5 wisdom, 10 stamina for human. No real idea if that's dumb or not, the wiki says dump all in stamina but I don't know if that's accurate.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I only have about 10k to gear him, if that makes a difference.

[Crede]

Human is better.

Half elves are basically only better for natures defender, but just get pally epic on human. It’s not that hard, better ratio, looks cooler, and gives you 2h bash.

[Ripqozko]

Ill wait for DSM to let us know its int

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Is one better than the other? I really like the looks and stats of human, but I'm not sure how hard night blindness is to deal with. I was able to snag one of the serpent sight rings, but giving up an item slot just to see seems like it could be a pain as I level up and get better gear.

My only real issue with half elf is the horrible starting wisdom. I've tried to look it up and I see some people say it doesn't matter due to mana regen being more important, and others say wisdom is the most important. Kind of lost on which one is true. They do have high dex and agility, but does that really do much?

Finally, any help with starting stats would be great. I was thinking 5 stam 15 wisdom for half elf, and 5 strength, 5 wisdom, 10 stamina for human. No real idea if that's dumb or not, the wiki says dump all in stamina but I don't know if that's accurate.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I only have about 10k to gear him, if that makes a difference.

As Crede says, Nature's Defender is inferior to Paladin Epic. Paladins have one of the easier Epic quests too. Nature's Defender would be the main reason to pick Half-Elf with Tunare as deity.

Realistically it is fine if you use the serpent ring for night blindness. You'll be down 65 HP and a few AC, but you have bigger problems in a fight if 65 HP was the determining factor for life or death. Especially since Paladins can heal themselves and root.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Glowing_Stone_Band
https://wiki.project1999.com/Globe_of_the_Everburning_Flame

These are the two items I use on my human mule, they take a ring and range slot. Should hold you over until you can get https://wiki.project1999.com/Eyepatch_of_the_Shadows , which has Ultravision and good melee stats.

Starting stat-wise, with 10K of gear you can get a lot of cheap STR gear and WR bags. Put all your points into WIS. If you cannot put the full 20 into WIS, put the last 5 into STA. At the end of the day starting stats aren't going to really affect your leveling experience. You'll notice them more in the endgame if you get there.

Some posters may try to tell you that putting all your points into STR is going to give you a noticeable increase to your DPS, but they have nothing to back up this idea. Getting a small increase in DPS does not always mean you are getting more kills per hour.

[sajbert]

Human or High Elf are both good choices. Pick what you like the look and feel off, remember to check velious plate helmet designs.

Str is a waste. Wisdom or Charisma. Both are fine choices from start to finish.

[sajbert]

And yeah Tunare sword is meh.

[Lune]

Is one better than the other? I really like the looks and stats of human, but I'm not sure how hard night blindness is to deal with. I was able to snag one of the serpent sight rings, but giving up an item slot just to see seems like it could be a pain as I level up and get better gear.


Humans are definitely better. Don't worry too much about night blindness, as you can always just turn your gamma up in your EQ window using the windows gamma calibrator, and you'll get plenty of options for night vision on good gear (not a serpent ring) later on.

My only real issue with half elf is the horrible starting wisdom. I've tried to look it up and I see some people say it doesn't matter due to mana regen being more important, and others say wisdom is the most important. Kind of lost on which one is true. They do have high dex and agility, but does that really do much?

Logic it out. When is maximum mana (wisdom) going to be useful? Only when going from 100% mana to 0%. It's not useless. Some day, having a bigger gas tank may help you win a fight, but it pales in comparison to the utility of mana regen. And having higher HP will also help you win a fight some day, in addition to other important benefits. Strength will absolutely give you better DPS while leveling, and allow you to carry more gear. However, this stat is not as useful as stamina in the end-game. Many people never make it to that point.

Finally, any help with starting stats would be great. I was thinking 5 stam 15 wisdom for half elf, and 5 strength, 5 wisdom, 10 stamina for human. No real idea if that's dumb or not, the wiki says dump all in stamina but I don't know if that's accurate.

Those starting stats are fine. Personally, I'd go all stamina for both, or divide between stamina and strength depending on your goals for the character. You're very unlikely to ever get the gear to cap your stamina, and if you do, you'll have more flexibility to trade out a stamina piece for something else. Are you planning on raiding? Then stamina is more important. Max HP is more important than max mana, will make complete heals more efficient, will give you a greater reserve during fights, and save you from having to cast spells to convert your mana into HP.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I only have about 10k to gear him, if that makes a difference.

Having 10k to gear him makes strength slightly more desirable.

You say you really like the looks of human, so I would strongly recommend you go human. That's going to be far more important than any of these stat considerations. Seriously, these are small differences compared to how you like the look of your character.

And again, night blindness is easily fixed by opening the windows gamma calibrator by typing 'gamma' into windows search, opening calibrate display color, pressing 'next' three times, dragging that bar all the way up, then minimizing it until you close the game, at which point you just hit reset and/or close it. Honestly even my ultravision dark elf's vision is terrible unless I do this. Client is just too dark.

[Lune]

I've tried to look it up and I see some people say it doesn't matter due to mana regen being more important, and others say wisdom is the most important. Kind of lost on which one is true

Yes, unfortunately, this was all figured out years ago with consensus, but there are few of us left from those times. That's why the wiki says what it does. People who recommend wisdom do so because in the best gear with the best buffs your str/sta will be capped. So if your plan is to go right to that, WIS could be justified, as could charisma. However, you will find many accounts of non-dwarf paladins in very good gear who still haven't capped without buffs, and if you're not just raiding, you will spend a lot of time without the best buffs. Having greater starting stamina will also give you more flexibility in gear choices, such as trading a stamina piece for a piece that has other stats. Stamina is a safe bet no matter what you end up doing with your character. Wisdom is of very limited usefulness in any content, and is typically only picked when operating under the assumption your other stats will be capped. And following that line of thought to its conclusion, ignoring that most players never make it to that point, charisma is arguably a better choice for greater success with lulls.

[Ripqozko]

i barely cap sta on my human pally with pretty good gear

https://ibb.co/2vWb737

thats with putting sta in at start, will it get better with more gear? sure

but thats a lot of time and gearing it takes for that sta not to be good thing.
you have 1 job to not die and tank things. Get all the hp you can.

edit: when i get gozz cloak ill be short again, but thats way it goes balancing and swapping in stuff to maximize ya stats, without sta at start itd be much harder and take lot higher end items to cap.

[Crede]

Human or High Elf are both good choices. Pick what you like the look and feel off, remember to check velious plate helmet designs.

Str is a waste. Wisdom or Charisma. Both are fine choices from start to finish.

I went wisdom on my erudite paladin. Found it to be useless. Pallies struggle with mana expenditure. Dw helm/bp is all you need.

Would def go charisma for pulling if I had to do it again.

[Ripqozko]

ive never had issues with cha for lull and my cha barely over 100, sta is hard to find less ya super raid geared

[Snaggles]

Outside cosmetics the only thing you will notice is the human's ability to wield a Frostreaver (and lack of infravision) or a elf's ability to wield a Nature's Defender.

I'm tempted to avoid the stat-chat for sake I'll regret it for an eternity but my own paladin barely caps str with focus and yaulp4 (+40). He's an erudite with 20 extra str at starting.

Tank gear prioritizing hps and AC rarely gives strength. At least at the low to mid range of the spectrum. Not that I'm saying one should put points into it at creation, better to have more hps than maxed attack, imho.

[Ennewi]

It's a shame there weren't more racials available in classic, or other features to further distinguish one race from another beyond aesthetics and rearrangement of stats, not that these forums need more debates. Restricted armor/weapons added some flavor and fashion into the mix at least.

[Snaggles]

It's a shame there weren't more racials available in classic, or other features to further distinguish one race from another beyond aesthetics and rearrangement of stats, not that these forums need more debates. Restricted armor/weapons added some flavor and fashion into the mix at least.

Yea I think WoW did that right. It does bring more balance into the mix for PVP, which Verant/Sony did not care much about.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

It's a shame there weren't more racials available in classic, or other features to further distinguish one race from another beyond aesthetics and rearrangement of stats, not that these forums need more debates. Restricted armor/weapons added some flavor and fashion into the mix at least.

The good races did have "racials", they just weren't stat based. The original Everquest before expansions put a heavy emphasis on faction.

The racial bonuses of the good races was that they generally had an easier time finding merchants and other players. This would theoretically offset the meaningful stat boosts and racials of the evil races. Essentially evil races would have a longer run back to their merchants, and it may be harder for them to find balanced groups. Ogres/Trolls were basically playing with SK/War/Shaman only in their starting zone. In theory this balances everything out.

With 20+ years of game knowledge and multiple expansions that basically dropped faction as a racial bonus, Trolls/Ogres ended up just being statistically better. Kunark onwards basically made all racial faction equal, because Iksars hated everyone but Iksars. Same with Velious for the most part, with the exception of Rallos Zek followers and Giants.

[Ennewi]

The racial bonuses of the good races was that they generally had an easier time finding merchants and other players. This would theoretically offset the meaningful stat boosts and racials of the evil races. Essentially evil races would have a longer run back to their merchants, and it may be harder for them to find balanced groups. Ogres/Trolls were basically playing with SK/War/Shaman only in their starting zone. In theory this balances everything out.

With 20+ years of game knowledge and multiple expansions that basically dropped faction as a racial bonus, Trolls/Ogres ended up just being statistically better. Kunark onwards basically made all racial faction equal, because Iksars hated everyone but Iksars. Same with Velious for the most part, with the exception of Rallos Zek followers and Giants.

It didn't/doesn't have a meaningful effect on how one plays their class though. It's an indirect positive/negative, rather than a direct feature such as the ability to slam.

[Snaggles]

It didn't/doesn't have a meaningful effect on how one plays their class though. It's an indirect positive/negative, rather than a direct feature such as the ability to slam.

Or halflings food consumption :D

[Lune]

Gnome x-ray vision racial is the most OP imo

[Ennewi]

Gnome x-ray vision racial is the most OP imo

Still counts imo, even if unintentional. Same with being able to scale the mast of old world ships, at least the ones on p99; large races get stuck at the boom.

Tinkering was a decent racial as well.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

It didn't/doesn't have a meaningful effect on how one plays their class though. It's an indirect positive/negative, rather than a direct feature such as the ability to slam.

Faction arguably had a greater effect when the game first came out, when nobody knew what to do. It isn't like today where people know exactly how to farm faction in the most efficient manner. Having easier access to merchants and other players would have been a meaningful improvement on experience for people who knew nothing about the game.

I am not saying it was the right design choice now that we can look at the game 20 years later. But they obviously didn't have this perspective in 1999. That is why Ogres/Trolls ended up just being better. Once faction was figured out and normalized in later expansions, the racial bonus of faction went away, but the raw statistical advantages of Ogres/Trolls remained.

[Ripqozko]

Faction arguably had a greater effect when the game first came out, when nobody knew what to do. It isn't like today where people know exactly how to farm faction in the most efficient manner. Having easier access to merchants and other players would have been a meaningful improvement on experience for people who knew nothing about the game.

I am not saying it was the right design choice now that we can look at the game 20 years later. But they obviously didn't have this perspective in 1999. That is why Ogres/Trolls ended up just being better. Once faction was figured out and normalized in later expansions, the racial bonus of faction went away, but the raw statistical advantages of Ogres/Trolls remained.

ogres/trolls look like ass

[DeathsSilkyMist]

ogres/trolls look like ass

I disagree. Trolls have the best animation set in the game, and great armor graphics.

[Ennewi]

Faction arguably had a greater effect when the game first came out, when nobody knew what to do. It isn't like today where people know exactly how to farm faction in the most efficient manner. Having easier access to merchants and other players would have been a meaningful improvement on experience for people who knew nothing about the game.

I am not saying it was the right design choice now that we can look at the game 20 years later. But they obviously didn't have this perspective in 1999. That is why Ogres/Trolls ended up just being better. Once faction was figured out and normalized in later expansions, the racial bonus of faction went away, but the raw statistical advantages of Ogres/Trolls remained.

For sure. These all had workarounds though. Faction song, OVP, sneak, invis pots, CoS. Kill this. Quest that. No amount of killing or questing can earn the human race innate regen, ultravision, or slam; while these can be obtained with items, upon death the character is still subject to the same problems as a newbie of the same race. Worn upgrades are cool and all, but not as cool as abilities the character might instead gain from a quest or guild master after reaching a specific level. Skills/abilities granted and rescinded by one's god, based on faction standing, could have worked too. Agnostics could have had fewer to choose from, perhaps even weaker versions, but without the hassle of maintaining that faction.

[Ennewi]

Skills/abilities granted and rescinded by one's god, based on faction standing, could have worked too. Agnostics could have had fewer to choose from, perhaps even weaker versions, but without the hassle of maintaining that faction.

It wouldn't have had to be a long list of OP features either. Paladins of Mithaniel, for example. After reaching 50, the character should have acted as a light source (https://wiki.project1999.com/Light_source), first only giving off a faint glow and then, at max level, something similar to a greater lightstone.

[Lune]

It wouldn't have had to be a long list of OP features either. Paladins of Mithaniel, for example. After reaching 50, the character should have acted as a light source (https://wiki.project1999.com/Light_source), first only giving off a faint glow and then, at max level, something similar to a greater lightstone.

I've thought about this as well. Would have been cool to tie mild bonuses and maluses to deity, like Solusek Ro worship increasing damage of fire spells or Cazic Thule making your fear spells slightly less likely to break. Would add a reason to not just go agnostic for the faction every time when the choice is available.

Veeshan worship for bards already has some cool faction perks in Kunark and Velious.

[Keebz]

While we're talking about Paladins, I'm gonna hijack this thread to ask a related question. Do Paladins wear fungi much at 60? Because many melees do and if you don't like your race's plain chain BP graphic, you're gonna have a bad time.

Human and Half Elf both have solid chain graphics, but HiE is pretty oof.

[sajbert]

I went wisdom on my erudite paladin. Found it to be useless. Pallies struggle with mana expenditure. Dw helm/bp is all you need.

Would def go charisma for pulling if I had to do it again.
I'm in favor of charisma too. Wisdom is better for solo when fighting difficult mobs and is better if off-healing or raid-buffing.

[sajbert]

While we're talking about Paladins, I'm gonna hijack this thread to ask a related question. Do Paladins wear fungi much at 60? Because many melees do and if you don't like your race's plain chain BP graphic, you're gonna have a bad time.

Human and Half Elf both have solid chain graphics, but HiE is pretty oof.

Fungi has its place but becomes more of a swap item as you get better gear such as vindi BP. Stats, resist and AC and eventually worn regen through aura of battle effects eventually make a fungi sorta meh in combat.

[Toxigen]

While we're talking about Paladins, I'm gonna hijack this thread to ask a related question. Do Paladins wear fungi much at 60?



At 60 pretty much only when solo / weird duo.

[Troxx]

Human is better.

Half elves are basically only better for natures defender, but just get pally epic on human. It’s not that hard, better ratio, looks cooler, and gives you 2h bash.

More or less this. Nature’s Defender is a cool weapon. 45ac, decent stats, amazeballs graphic and a good proc. The paladin epic is better and not all that hard to get to be honest. Knowing that I still went half elf for ND and fashionquest. Human is 5 more str/stamina and 15 more wisdom. Half elf is 15 more agility and 10 more dex. Nothing really game breaking won or lost but admittedly humans have the edge. Night blindness sucks but there are ways around that. It is a quality of life issue, however, and I would hate to build my gear choices around being able to see.

If we’re going to sperg out about starting stats in these instances, the actual correct answer is dwarf.

If the vote is only between human and half elf, pick what you think looks better is the correct answer.

[Snaggles]

While we're talking about Paladins, I'm gonna hijack this thread to ask a related question. Do Paladins wear fungi much at 60? Because many melees do and if you don't like your race's plain chain BP graphic, you're gonna have a bad time.

Human and Half Elf both have solid chain graphics, but HiE is pretty oof.

While leveling up sure, I guess. With the DW helm it's probably fine for solo stuff.

I stopped clicking my helm and bp a lot at 59. Medding for 175hp/tick you can cast between swings is hard to beat. I still have the helm bagged but sold the BP. That is the bp to wear if you want free fast heals; it's also less than half the price of a fungi.

[Toxigen]

If you don't have crown of narandi you're gonna have a bad time.

[Ripqozko]

If you don't have crown of narandi you're gonna have a bad time.

ehh, i sold both my narandi's, hobarts ftw

[magnetaress]

you could go all in on DEX with a half elf as a lot of ppl did on live back in the day and grab a ghoulbane and call it good once u ding lvl 55 or 60 with a DW helm.

That is kinda pretty much how pallies did it back then.

Human for cool factor for sure tho and balanced stats are always nice when it comes to gearing as u will never be strongly lacking in anything important.

[Crede]

you could go all in on DEX with a half elf as a lot of ppl did on live back in the day and grab a ghoulbane and call it good once u ding lvl 55 or 60 with a DW helm.

That is kinda pretty much how pallies did it back then.

Human for cool factor for sure tho and balanced stats are always nice when it comes to gearing as u will never be strongly lacking in anything important.

Tried that build. Ghoulbane ratio is garbage. Better just getting a reaver and avoiding undead entirely.

[long.liam]

Is one better than the other? I really like the looks and stats of human, but I'm not sure how hard night blindness is to deal with. I was able to snag one of the serpent sight rings, but giving up an item slot just to see seems like it could be a pain as I level up and get better gear.

My only real issue with half elf is the horrible starting wisdom. I've tried to look it up and I see some people say it doesn't matter due to mana regen being more important, and others say wisdom is the most important. Kind of lost on which one is true. They do have high dex and agility, but does that really do much?

Finally, any help with starting stats would be great. I was thinking 5 stam 15 wisdom for half elf, and 5 strength, 5 wisdom, 10 stamina for human. No real idea if that's dumb or not, the wiki says dump all in stamina but I don't know if that's accurate.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I only have about 10k to gear him, if that makes a difference.

Human is better.