Pally + BST ... suggestions

Discussion in 'Tanks' started by Cintile, Feb 3, 2023.

  1. Cintile Lorekeeper

    So i have a 112 BST, but I really wanted to play a tank. On the same account as my BST i have a 111 SK, that i started from 0 years ago, did 1.5 and I just don't really enjoy the character. I've always wanted to play a Pally. I like the stuns and heals and that style of play so I used my 85 heroic boost on my secondary account and for the next week or so I'll be PLing him with my BST until he is around 106-110. At that point I plan to play the Pally as main focus, and use BST as added utility and dps. I should mention, the BST pet is insane. Even at 110, using a 108 pet spell, the pet could tank ToV trash mobs up to level 115. So the Pally won't really have to bear the whole tanking job until closer to the 115 range, if at all, but I do want to pull with Pally and play it as the focus.

    If you play a Pally as a main, I'm just looking for rotation advice, and what main AA and dics to be utilizing in most fights.

    As it stands, my plan is to spam stuns, and heals, which I have set to my number pad keys for ease. Kind of like how an SK would spam lifetaps. Once mob is pulled, send in BST pet, who will likely get aggro pretty quickly and can take over the tanking, snare, dps, while with a macro toss up a slow and a couple dots with actual BST, but probably wont spend a whole lot of time meleeing with the BST.

    Hmm maybe in this situation I should use a crazy 2h weapon?

    Thoughts?
  2. Maedhros High King

    You're going to be disappointed by the sheer amount of mobs that are immune to stun, and probably sad to learn that SK is capable of much more self healing than paladin.
    Doesnt make any sense I know, but welcome to being a paladin.
    Side note, I made a beast on my bard account, thought it would be a fun alternative to bard and bring nice adps. Its not. beastlord requires a ton more attention to do it well compared to a bard.
    You are not going to be very successful dpsing with a paladin while hoping your beast pet tanks. It doesnt really work that way.
    Good luck with all that.
  3. Cintile Lorekeeper

    BST pet will have no trouble tanking, however, I'm not suggesting the BST pet tank indefinitely, just until I get the swing of things on the Pally, and until the Pally is able to handle the job gear and AA wise. I'm also not suggesting that the Pally be the dps, my BST will be the dps, and I realize it won't be the most magical dps, especially with out my full focus. The other option, is once Pally is 110, I swap the BST for something else, like a mage or Necro.
  4. Maedhros High King

    The problem with your beast pet tanking is that the mobs you try to kill will almost always prefer to attack the paladin dpsing than the pet.
    Thats why you don't tend to see many melee box groups with no tank other than a pet tank.
    Of all the difficulties/limitations surrounding pal and beast as a 2box option, trying to let the pet tank and the paladin dps is right at the top of the list.
    Depending on your automation level or lack of it, mage and paladin works ok as long as youre usually trying to focus on the paladin tanking instead of the pet.
    Necro is not a very box friendly class unless you plan to only fire off 4 or 5 dots per mobs and then focus on the paladin. reapplying dots on a necro box would be a pain in the butt.
    At least with mage you can just nuke as much or as little as you want without worrying about much.
    IMO bard and shammy are easily the 2 best box options when you are tanking on a paladin and nothing else is really that close.
    If you have no other choices but paladin and beast, youre going to be best served to find content that the paladin can tank and the beast is there for dps, adps and not to pet tank.
  5. Zarkdon Augur

    I used my beastlord pet to tank until my SK was leveled and AAed enough to take over and here are a few takeaways.

    Pet has 0 AE taunt so you really have to make sure the pet is attacking all mobs. Basically the pet will let people die if there are more than 2 or 3 adds.

    The pet setup (for bst) is super important. Make sure you have pet tanking buff on, agro weapons, and all deagrro procs removed.

    Pets as a rule cannot tank in missions.

    You MUST have the best pet focus available.

    The stupid little swarm pets are nasty af and can tank better than your warder.

    If you follow these rules a beastlord pet can tank better than a raw undergeared player tank. A raid focused pet can tank named mobs will little issue. Eventually, one your tank is leveled, AAed, and decently geared you will want to move over for the AE taunts and cool downs that allow you to tank many mobs at once.
  6. Kleitus_Xegony Augur

    Use the 2H weapon when not tanking - pretty much always.
    Use the 2H weapon when tanking if you're able to survive with it.


    When setting up your spell rotations, you have to pay attention to the timers that the spells are on:

    Stun Rotation (106-110):
    - Merciful Force timer=4
    - Force of Mercy timer=3Heal
    - Force of Timorous Deep timer=5
    - Lesson of Expiation timer=6Knockback
    - Dissident Force timer=20 Group Heal
    - Force of Orthiss timer=5Undead only
    - Divine Stun timer=AA

    You will also want to keep the Harmonious/Concordant Blessing line of buffs up on you since that procs a stun + group heal when you are single-target healed (from the merc healers or your Beastlord).

    You would only use the Lesson of XXX line of spells if the mobs are immune to the knockback effect, or if you can pin them against something else like a wall or a corner between walls / rocks.

    You would only swap Force of Orthiss in for Force of Timorous Deep if the mobs were all undead. Even if it's a mix or live / undead mobs you would be better off with the general purpose stun instead of Orthiss.

    For heals, you probably want to use Burst of Morning Light & Merciful Light. You can fill in with the AA heals as well (Lay on Hands, Gift of Life, Hand of Piety, Reflexive Reverence). You probably want to keep Preservation of Rodcet up while tanking and possibly Revitalizing Steel (most of us hate this spell line though) if you are having a hard time tanking tougher mobs. Preservation and Revitalizing Steel can help some with the heal procs. You'll dump the Revitalizing Steel line of spells for anything you deem more important once you're able to tank everything reliably - just an FYI.

    This could be a pretty standard spell set for stun tanking at 110:
    1 Concordant Blessing
    2 Preservation of Rodcet
    3 Burst of Morning Light
    4 Merciful Light
    5 Wave of Expiation
    6 Refute for Honor
    7 Brilliant Exoneration
    8 Valiant Defense
    9 Censure
    10 Merciful Force
    11 Force of Mercy
    12 Force of Timorous Deep
    13 Dissident Force

    Maybe you aren't as lazy as I am and keep swapping the two crushes in for 1 & 2 so that you can use them to establish aggro on incoming. Then it doesn't matter since you're stun tanking. For other spell sets, you could swap out 10 through 13 for other spells depending on the situation (ex. undead nukes).
  7. tsiawdroi TittyGOAT

    I would drop merciful light for protective devotion. 15% rune is pretty solid. If pet is actively tanking, i'd suggest putting in the upbraid/remonstrate line. Does less aggro, heal recourse, and some damage. I don't think many paladins use censure on non undead content, so perhaps swap it for that. And, as stated above if you do drop for crushes, the 110 crush will share timer with one of the stuns. So keep that in mind if you go that route.

    Can consider also loading the 110 version of culpability for the wave if don't need group healing. In case you find yourself tanking and need massive heal.
  8. Szilent Augur

    Censure(107) is Remonstrate(112)/Upbraid(117) when the paladin is 110
  9. tsiawdroi TittyGOAT

    Ah thank you. idk the names of the paladins spells below 115. was thinking it was the hymnal spell. bc i saw in kleitus guide he posted hymnal in spam key.
  10. Cintile Lorekeeper

    What about pulling as a Pally? I'm assuming your lull spells continue to keep up as you level? Are you just using a paci and then your fade if things go bad? Unfortunately the fade can only be used like every 10 minutes or something
  11. Alnitak Augur

    Wouldn't it be easier to "pacify" with a pally and actually pull with a beastlord, because it can Play Possum every 90 seconds or so.
  12. Kleitus_Xegony Augur

    That spell list above was just a suggestion for when someone is stun tanking. The rune from the protective line is far less useful when the mob isn't swinging (much) but that is definitely something to consider vs. the nuke-heal I suggested. I'd absolutely recommend it in different situations. Same for culpability instead of the group heal. If you're pulling singles, and keeping them stunned, you probably don't need either one of them to be honest and could replace that with the protective line. Could also replace valiant line with protective as well. There are definitely options here.

    You're unlikely to be able to chain more than 5 or 6 spells before they refresh and while stun tanking you would want to stick to mainly the stuns. Once you get the feel for the timing on the stuns and refreshes, you'll figure out when you can pop in an extra spell or two. You'll also get a feel for what that spell is and whether you're better off with a nuke-heal, a rune-heal, a burst heal (probably not while stun tanking though), etc...

    Paladins are going to change their spell lineups quite a bit if they are trying to optimize them for a particular situation and how that individual player is comfortable playing. Each situation probably has a core set of spells for half the bar or so and the rest are based on the individual's preference. For example, it is extremely rare that I load the big, self-only heals because I can usually get by in that situation with one of lay on hands, gift of life, hand of piety, or reflexive xxx line and none of those use up a spell slot.



    Sure, if you can do it quickly and pull with the beastlord before pacify wears off. So it would depend on the number of mobs you are pacifying.

    Paladin "pulling" is interesting. Some of it depends on using pacify / lull spells to lower the Reaction Radius for mobs and then either an offensive spell to tag or a knockback stun to move a mob - depends on how close they are to each other. Just remember that the knockback spells move the mob before the aggro radius is checked by the mobs around them which is why they're useful when pulling. You can also use things like root + fade. Deflection + rooting a bunch of mobs and backing away before fading to leave 1 mob on aggro. etc... Divine Call can be useful too. If needed, I can explain this further.

    Anything else and you're probably relying on FD potions, clickies or something else along those lines.

    It's been a long time, and ignoring the lack of the ability against mobs from lvl 56 to 85, but from memory pulling via pacify vs. lull spells got much tougher going from:

    Pacify (Lvl 49):
    1: Frenzy Radius (1/55)
    2: Reaction Radius (1/55)
    3: Pacify

    to:

    Propitiate (Lvl 86):
    1: Reaction Radius (18/90)

    see: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...fting-line-where-did-frenzy-radius-go.202300/ for explanation

    sorry this was long - bored at work and taking a break for a few minutes...