Pally or War for my box?

Discussion in 'Tanks' started by Malkavius, Jan 2, 2022.

  1. Malkavius Augur

    So I decided to come back for a bit and see if I can actually do live for once instead of the usual TLPs. Now I am pretty dead set on the bard box, I just don't enjoy casters and I really like bards. The problem is I am having trouble deciding which tank out of these 2 (NO sk I'm tired of them). But the more I think about it I just can't figure out what the warrior brings to the table in a box setting compared to a pally. Slightly better mitigation? Better dps unless I go for undead zones on my pally? I am really curious what does a warrior actually to the table bring in a box or group while leveling these days? Furthest I ever got one was to like 62 during PoP. If neither of these options is that great I was also considering a ranger.

    And some of the pally kit might be redundant with a bard I think. Also I play on FV so gearing them up won't be an issue while leveling since I still got a good amount of plat and can pretty much buy raid gear while I'm leveling. Not sure if that tips the scales in either classes favor.

    Also I want to strictly keep it a 2 box I've tried 3 boxxing before and absolutely hated the entire experience.
  2. Bigstomp Augur

    The war brings less button pressing and especially with the bard, more dps.

    You may run into issues with healing though. Wars need more active healing where a pally can self heal through a lot of things. (and mercs suck).

    I've had a good experience this expansion with my war, brd, clr.
    If you're only doing 2, I'd suggest the pally.
    Ozon and Tucoh like this.
  3. Tucoh Augur

    I play a warrior as the core driver of my 6box group and have a paladin as my main healer in the group, backed up by a shaman.

    war/brd is fine, especially if you want to be really active on the bard. You can pull a few mobs, pop a few cooldowns, pop your AE aggro ability (Hurricane Blades) and then spam whatever attack / aggro abilities on the first mob to die and auto-attack. The warrior's aggro generation from auto-attack and ae-aggro-on-heal (Confluent expanse) will keep aggro on everything until it's time to switch to the next mob. The warrior will also have more reliable DPS with a bard as your backup.

    The problem is that the warrior will have limited utility options and won't be able to take care of himself or the bard so you'll be dependent on healer mercs.

    The paladin will be able to take care of the group better, allowing you to switch to 2x melee mercs (which do substantial DPS with a bard) on more content. The paladin will also reduce how much you need to switch to the bard to handle CC and other utility.

    Overall, the paladin is what I'd recommend.
  4. qaxbert New Member

    Tucoh and others -

    Do you suppose a paladin is good enough to be a main healer for the group with no other heals besides a healer merc while tanking? (Or off tanking).
  5. Tucoh Augur

    Depends.

    For the CoV mission, The Crusaders and The Call, no. There is so much AE damage that even with a good group you'll want more than a healer merc + paladin. Then again this is probably less true if you're already at level 120 with ToL gear.

    However, for all the ToL named mobs and ToL missions, yes I think a paladin + merc would be fine for healing. Maybe the next expansion will have some big AE damage in missions or named mobs that give the cleric class a reason for existing in group content, maybe it won't.
  6. Malkavius Augur


    That's kind of what I figured. You think the paladin can handle heals while leveling and 2 rogue mercs well enough? And it will be faster than a warrior/cleric merc/bard/rogue merc? Also what level should I really be upgrading from defiant gear and looking for tank augs?
  7. Tucoh Augur

    I'd recommend that the bard and paladin have both a healer and melee DPS merc at their disposal. Ideally you'll be swinging your 2H with two melee DPS mercs out, because that'll be the most damage, but you might find yourself needing to switch to shield + 2x healer mercs to grind down a red-con named that you just can't let live.

    Farming augs while leveling is a bit overrated. It can be fun and a good way to direct your leveling, but if your goal is to get to ToL content ASAP, the best way is to optimize toward XP-gain and just limp there as much as you can.

    You'll probably want to progress from defiant -> TBM gear ( https://www.almarsguides.com/eq/quests/TBM/GroupGear/ ) -> Conflagrant ( https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=129332 ) -> ToV T1 gear ( https://items.eqresource.com/items.php?id=163021 ) which is all more or less purchasable. You can get plat by either selling tradeskill mats or just paying $$$ for a krono and trading it for platinum. You'll be able to farm platinum later and trade it back for a krono, so consider more of a loan from your wallet than p2w.
    Skewert likes this.
  8. Malkavius Augur

    One thing i forgot to mention is it "easier" to box one or the other? As in am I going to have to constantly mash buttons on a pally compared to the war? My hands and wrists are starting to get old and brittle.
  9. Riou EQResource

    Warrior is a lot easier to box, yea
  10. Nucman New Member



    Ok Tucoh...you have blown my mind yet again. How in the world does a Pally take the place of a cleric as the main healer in a group? What makes the Pally heal so well? Is it actual heal spells or procs or what? Also, how far off is the dps between your Warrior compared to your Pally? Thanks again.
  11. jhaimes Lorekeeper



    Tucoh, you have managed to do it again...You have blown my mind with the Pally as the main healer. How is that possible? Is it the heal spells they have or is it procs? What makes them good enough to become your main healer? Also, how close is the dps between the pally and the warrior? Thanks. Sorry if this double posts...The first one did not go thru.
  12. Tucoh Augur

    Paladins rely a lot on active abilities to reduce mob damage from stuns or heal themselves. Warriors rely on self-buffs to mitigate incoming damage and active abilities cast by other players (or mercs) to heal. So paladins are more active. If you're 2boxing a pal/brd, expect to generally hang out on your paladin mashing a few button every few seconds at least. If you've got serious physical problems, there are gaming devices you can get that will press multiple buttons and stuff, ex:

    I use the G600 mouse for work/home and make use of all the 12 side buttons to extend what I can do with my boxes.
    Skewert likes this.
  13. Tucoh Augur

    This may have been a little misleading.

    In my group I typically use heal proc augs ( https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=140162 ) and in some cases heal proc weapons ( https://items.eqresource.com/items.php?id=167546 ) to stream healing to the tank. The healing from this can be quite substantial and enough to overcome a single ToL mob's DPS if they are debuffed and my warrior has a decent set of defensive buffs running.

    In addition to that I have my paladin auto-attacking and multi-casting an assortment of direct heal spells. I also have a button I press (G14 on my Logitech G600 mouse...) to cast group healing spells (multi-cast of his dichotomic -> his whatever heal spell -> his silly aurora heal spell) and the swell spell on the shaman. Because of shaman synergy these spells are enough to fully heal the group if the AE damage is intermittent enough. The paladin's group armor of the inquisitor and spire ability are unmatched for increasing healing of the entire group and pair well with the bards reckless renewal song.

    In addition to that I have my shaman which only spams his Lion's Roar and Spectre line (to keep synergy up on the group), and then casts DoTs / group heal / slow / root / cleanse when needed. However when I fight a tough enemy I press a different button on the shaman to spam some reckless heal buffs too, dramatically increasing the healing delivered to the tank.

    I have the shaman taking a break from casting heals largely to make his mana available for DoTs, which are substantial boosts to the group's DPS but very mana intensive (especially since I ditched casting mana regen songs on the bard...).

    So, while the paladin is the "main healer" in the sense that they are the only ones always actively casting healing spells, the shaman's ability to heal outstrip's the paladins.


    As far as DPS, the paladin is the most situational DPS in EQ, which is astounding to me that paladins aren't whining more about that. I'm no expert on paladins, but from my perspective they can do decent DPS if they are fighting undead (and can slay undead) or have one or more of the following buffs running:

    Slay Undead (18)120 ToL55 / 368-
    1: Increase Chance to Slay Undead by 7% with 4200 Damage Mod
    This passive ability grants your melee attacks a 700% chance to deal 4200% damage against undead and vampiric targets.

    [25399/10339] Pureforge Discipline
    1: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 290%
    2: Increase Chance to Crippling Blow by 25%
    3: Increase Chance to Triple Attack by 30%

    [4500] Holyforge Discipline
    1: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 200%
    2: Increase Chance to Crippling Blow by 20%
    3: Increase Chance to Slay Undead by 1.4% with 1700 Damage Mod

    [53988/23548] Valorous Rage XV
    1: Decrease Weapon Delay by 20%
    2: Increase Critical Hit Damage by 320% of Base Damage (Non Stacking)
    3: Increase Hit Damage by 150% (v185)

    [53990/27537] Blessing of the Faithful XXII
    4: Increase Hit Damage by 250% (v185)
    12: Increase AC by 262 (Raw=3500)

    The only buffs that are under their control are the disciplines and Valorous Rage, which have massive cooldowns. Blessing of the Faithful is proc'd if they get a killshot, which is very group-adversarial and out of place with EQ and the paladin class, but good for a 2box with a paladin.

    So, that means that when I pop burns, the paladin does just fine, especially against undead or if I have a blessing of the faithful proc up. During normal killing however, without burns or BotF or Undead, the paladin has modest DPS. This is completely opposite of the Warrior which can provide very reliable DPS with zero cooldowns if they have adps from the group, and doesn't have an equivalent to BotF or Slay Undead. Their DPS disciplines have short durations and their analog to Valorous Rage (Heroic Rage) is not nearly as strong.

    [54060/37195] Heroic Rage III
    1: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 45%
    3: Increase Critical Hit Damage by 170% of Base Damage (Non Stacking)
    9: Increase Melee Haste by 72%

    You can get a good read on the difference from this vid of me doing Oubliette of Light (the hardest mission in the game currently). Look for the middle of the vid when I fight Umber for when I pop DPS cooldowns. The top center of the screen shows my group's live DPS. Caveat: I'm still learning how to use the paladin and am not using him properly. I'm also having him spam healing spells instead of damage spells, reducing his damage.

  14. p2aa Augur

    If 2 boxing, go with a Paladin.

    While nowadays warrior mitigation is only slightly better than knight one, warrior self healing ability is just very awful compared to knight one, talk about tank parity lol.
    So with a bard that is not a healer, your paladin will be able to heal himself or the group much better than a warrior, and as said, cleric merc sucks so it won't be reliable to keep the warrior healed on tougher encounters.

    Some additional notes based on further comments made in this thread.

    I see often the "warriors are easy to box as don't need to push buttons often".
    This is giving imo a false picture of a warrior potential.
    As a warrior main, I press something every 10 sec at worst (for shield splinter to be back), keeping gut punch on the target every 20 sec. Can be less than 10 sec when I need aggro and I need to refresh Bazu Roar and Scowl aggro lines.

    Sure you can press an aggro button on a warrior every min or so, but this is very subpar playing.

    Regarding this
    1 : Zero cooldown ?

    Mighty Strike is 20 min refresh for a 30 sec duration
    Brightfeld Onslaught is 15 min refresh for a 30 sec duration.
    War Sheol Heroic Blade is 15 min refresh for a 2 min duration

    Short duration yeah, but I don't consider 15-20 min a fast cooldown.

    2 : if they have adps from the group

    Aka if they have a bard. Else warrior auto attack DPS is bad.
  15. Ozon Augur

    Pally, its not just about how many buttons you push or self healing. Its about the little things out of combat, yes a Bard can Invis/levi, and run speed. But Pally can buff you, rez, cleric buff ( I know he has mercs), root. I play a SK + Bard, just being able to self invis/buff/whatever is such a QoL thing its hard for me to play a class who cant. The Pally just adds more room for mistakes.
  16. Tucoh Augur

    1. Right, they have cooldowns but don't really need them because a warrior's auto attack is so strong without using them (*with ADPS). You could never hit Heroic Blade / onslaught / might strike and do pretty decent DPS (*with ADPS). And hitting those isn't nearly as impactful as a paladin's Valorous Rage (320% of base dmg vs a 170%), Blessing of the Faithful or fighting undead. You can see this in the vid I posted where the warrior, without hitting Heroic Blade or disciplines, is doing respectable DPS before I get to Umber, but the paladin suffers pretty badly until they hit Valorous Rage


    2. The bard is great, but you can't discount how useful a berserker, ranger, enchanter, shaman and beastlord (especially the beastlord) is to a warrior.
  17. Qimble Augur


    You might know this but inquisitors judgment, righteous censure(that the ToL version) and thunder of karana are also important for burns. Stacking all of that stuff makes it pretty easy to break 1m DPS vs undead with minimal ADPS from group. For reference, as a raid geared pally I am over 1m DPS during the shei mission while also doing all the cures and trying to out-root the druid on the exploding adds.

    Re: nukes, I have found they're generally neutral or a DPS loss while using a 2 hander. It's been a while since I parsed it, but I expect that the returns would be fairly similar. Not worth the trade off IMO vs casting heals / threat gens / stuns. (if the mobs are stunnable)

    Re: CoV missions, I think that a properly played pally can handle most of the group healing if you're using the right spells and know the missions well. Vulak is the only one I'd really be worried about, and even then only if DPS was low enough that running OOM was a real concern.

    Pally vs War for group content pally has the edge, but also requires pretty much constantly hitting buttons to reach top performance. You've also gotta learn the areas / missions and switch stuff up pretty routinely. From what I understand warriors can approach pretty much everything with the same set of abilities. It's very, very rare for me to not be hitting any buttons at all unless the content is trivial and I've stepped away to make a sammich.
    alanus and Tucoh like this.
  18. p2aa Augur

    Remember also that the DPS parse you are seeing is not indicative of the DPS parse you would see if you were playing with skillfull mains of the other classes of your box group, you play mainly your warrior so it favors the warrior over other classes.
    Tucoh likes this.
  19. catcattank Elder

    What third box would you add to pal/bard Tucoh?
  20. Tucoh Augur

    Mag, nec, bst, shm, ber, rog, shd would all be fine. I'd personally probably do bst.