Paladin Charisma or Stamina

[Leorus]

Starting a new Paladin and debating between putting my attribute points into stamina for survivability or charisma to assist with lulls. For races I’m leaning towards half-elf or high-elf. I’m also fine with a more difficult leveling experience if it’ll make me more effective at end game in groups and possibly raids.

[Snaggles]

TBH, I never had issue lulling since Unrest soloing. Calming out the basement is pretty precarious with Crusty armor. With a Kobold Jester Crown and Crude Stein any elf should be great (not in Crusty).

I would go Stamina if have moderate goals unless you have a crazy EC budget and have plans for the best raid stuff, then Wisdom.

My ERU went full STR way back and still won’t cap with Focus. Yaulp4 helps a lot though.

[sajbert]

It's not easy to max all relevant attributes as Pal without godly gear. That said, you absolutely can max both WIS and STA unbuffed even though you put all points into CHA at character creation. CHA is difficult/impossible to max unbuffed without gimping yourself.

If you have a significant level advantage over the mobs you'll get less resist and thus, CHA will matter less. Otherwise it's a useful stat that will give your Paladin a useful tool and added dimension to the class.

For survivabilty I'd argue that WIS is the most important stat, particularly for solo. STA mostly matters for tanking and will rarely matter in a group setting and if 20 STA makes the difference in a raid they'll probably have replaced you with a Warrior anyway.

Half-elf is a pretty garbage choice for Paladin I feel. High Elf offers the best CHA and WIS and is the best choice in the long run I feel. Human has better rounded stats but eventually none of that matters with raid gear, raid buffs and primal weapon if you ever get that far. Dwarf has the best melee stats and good WIS but eventually none of that matters and the +5MR bonus comes at the price of not being able to wear a robe. Erudite also has the +5 MR bonus and can wear a robe but has lower WIS and CHA than High Elf.

I'd probably go Erudite for fashion. +5 MR is arguably worth the -10 charisma and any other stats don't really matter once you twink past all difficulty and then get raid geared.

[Zuranthium]

I would for sure put 20 Strength if doing a High Elf. Going to want it for carrying capacity, and it's more damage.

[pokishi]

Putting your points into Cha only helps if you plan on being your groups primary puller or if your soloing. Since you're going with an elf, I wouldn't even bother with it, as their Cha is already sufficient.
If you can mildly twink your Pally out, then I would probably throw your points into Wis. A higher mana pool is always a plus. Your gear is going to address your hp, ac, str and sta so you aren't always going to add to your wis/mana numbers until you get some higher end stuff, whether thru raiding or paying lots of plat.

[sajbert]

Don’t need to be a primary puller for it to be worthwhile in a group. Lull can allow for breaking a camp or getting to location all that much quicker. Sure, a cleric may be able to lull too but ir cleric dies there’ll be no one to res them barring a high level paladin or another cleric.

[Solist]

Charisma for sure.

It's the only stat that will effect your gameplay any meaningful amount that you don't get handidly in gear.

[Toxigen]

I went full CHA, was super happy I did.

Was a twink solo'd all the way. Warrens --> Permafrost --> CT/Paw --> Specs --> tiny bit at CoM --> Hole ent --> boom level 55

Bring lots of 10 dose Kilva's.

[Snaggles]

I have a 220CHA set in my bags. The only time I ever wear it is to help a group crawl through Seb or The Hole. Once in camp, I don’t even swap out the Narandi for a Kobold Jester Crown or use my crude stein. The last time I was in ABC I just got a shaman CHA buff and pulled for about 3hrs. I recall three crit fails involving a full room pop.

There are a lot of suboptimal places to put starting points. Even a frail pally can justify strength over CHA though. Pick the race you want and tbh you can’t mess up that bad. Even the SK’s can’t agree on this stuff and the biggest starting stat difference is like 70 points…

[Balimon]

Str, sta, wis, cha are all good choices. Cha is the hardest to max in Velious, that is something to consider. My question for the OP is are you planning on raiding or doing group/low man content?

If you're going to be raiding, and doing a lot of tanking then I would suggest sta all the way, thats the big epeen stat that everyone is looking at. It's harder to cap than most people realize even in Velious.

If you're going to be doing group size content/solo/low man stuff go cha, you will need it way more then 100 hit points. I have a cha swap set that gets me to 225 and I use it all the time, having that extra 20 from creation would've been really helpful for the solo stuff I do at 60.

edit: Don't go half elf unless you want for fashion they have pretty bad stats overall, human, high elf and erudite and stronger choices.