Hi, I am newish player, I use to play back in the days until World of Warcraft swept me away. I was thinking of playing on a live server, after fooling about on the TLP ones. I want something more permanent, but that comes with some problems... I don't want to box, I understand people who do, but it is not for me. Also I don't really like classes with pets, just never been my thing. Though I do want something that could hold its own, and that is why I am here at the 'tank' forum asking about paladins. How does it feel in the end game to play a pally? What responsibilities do you have in raids? Are we any good? Can we solo stuff on our own when everyone else is busy? Also is it possible to solo/molo this class to a level where I could meet people and do things as group? I know it is a lot of questions, I am sorry... Much love, A hopefully future paladin
Personally, I love playing a paladin on live. I played through every single expac with a paladin and they are pretty meh prior to Underfoot. In UF we get our Splash heal which heals every friendly target within 50' range of where you target it, unlimited number of targets. Later expacs cleric and shaman get splashes of their own and each one is a bit unique. Shaman splash is 3 waves of healing. Cleric is pure high raw healing. Paladin splash has an enormous amount of cures attached. At max rank, it currently cures 58 (29x2) poison counters, 60 (30x2) disease, 48 (24x2) curse and 36 (18x2) corruption, as well as 2x7% chance to remove a detrimental effect. We also get a line of spells called Brilliant ___, which is a nuke that, when it lands, gives us 1 charge of Healing Twincast, which makes our next heal fire twice. It works with Splash. So all those counters I listed, double them. Your role is based on the event and what your raid comp is like. If your raid has an abundance of tanks and light of healing, you will probably be mainly healing. If the event has a deadly dot or DT or something with counters, you are responsible for making sure splash lands as soon as that AE fires. Solo/Molo probably depends on gear. Personally, I am able to molo basically any reasonable content in the game. Some of that is thanks to ToV (the previous expac) being immensely undead. Leveling solo is possible, its not ideal tho. You are better off joining a guild as a heroic 85 and seeing if you can leech xp to get higher levels.
Paladins are a fun class if you like to tank stuff and heal. The higher level you get the better you get. For solo/molo its actually a good option.
Paladin is very powerful, the precis of "tank+healer in one" is intrinsically strong. In EQ, how powerful a given Paladin looks is highly dependent on the player. If engaging with all their tools (there's offensive spells to cast, defensive & healing spells, some self-buffs to manage, plus Combat Disciplines for offense and defense, and "Alternate Advancement" abilities to sequence. lotta stuff!) a paladin is legit one of the toughest things running, capable of being highly independent, forming the foundation of a group team, and in high demand for elite raiding guilds. That last has something to do with the rarity of a paladin engaging with all their tools. If not engaging with all their tools? …not so much so powerful. Like, none of it. There's no baseline "well at least a paladin is here" quality brought to the table, which leads to - This is the difference between the two knight classes in the public eye. Shadowknights have an extraordinarily high "floor" on their performance, for EQ classes. Otherwise said, shadowknights who are bad are more effective than paladins who are bad. Which makes them much more popular with players who are bad. Gamers often like to compare two characters as they are when the most skilled in the world are playing them, but the other end of the spectrum can also be examined. Paladin is a good class for a player intending to be good at their class. It is not a good one for someone looking to fill a hole in their roster.
Kind of what's been said already, there's alot of micromanaging and understanding of mechanics and forethought on tactical application of skills to hit a functioning at a decent level comparatively to Sk or warrior, so depending on how much effort outside the game you are going to put into learning what the things do, and how to make them work for the effect you want you put in, will drastically alter your results. Leveling is kind of slow, you can solo stuff most other classes cannot, but it won't be always be very fast. Though that's going to hinge entirely on the how accomplished you are at the whole micromanagement and understanding part. End game raid wise, you can tank, heal, event depending dps, cc, and cure, if you use all your tools and your guild actually uses paladins well, you can do some pretty wild stuff, if not it can be really boring.
Thank you all for the very comprehensive and detailed answers. It seems like the pally community is the place to be. Kind regards, Elaka
