Paladin stats & race

[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]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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!

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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

[Troxx]

But you’re still a gay high elf male in plate, therefore I win. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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?

[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.