I played Everquest from about 1999/2000 to 2002 back in the day and so when I returned to EQ a month ago I was naturally drawn to Agnarr and rolled a Paladin. I just hit 60 and it was a very fun road and had a great time! But now its down to business. (longish post, sorry about that): Group Play Question: I currently am working now on getting my level 60 experience to 100% and starting on AAs (have a 50/50 exp/AA split). I mostly look for groups in GE. For tanking, I'm still doing what I've done since Luclin came out. Spamming low level stuns (Cease/Desist/Stun) to get agro. I don't usually use any of the high level stuns due to draining mana in the fast pulling groups. Is this the way to go? If we dont have a cleric I usually use a combination of Celestial Healing and Superior healing to help support myself and others if needed. Am I on the right track? Getting into Raiding Question: I've never raided in EverQuest before, let alone as a tank/Knight role. What spells will I want to be using? What should I expect my "role" to be, what should I be prepared for? What does a rotation look like for raiding (if there is one). I've searched Google and there is almost nothing out there for TLP Paladin Tanking guides First AAs/AAs to get ASAP for Raiding: My current plan is to get Holy Steed first and then Divine Stun (paladin chat said its good?). But where do I go from there? What should my priorities be? Things I need to get: I havn't even started on the Paladin epic, mostly due to conflicting reports in Paladin chat that at this point Luclin weapons will replace it and the time spent could better be spent elsewhere. I know it looks amazing, and as a Fashionquest piece itd be great to have, but should I make this a priority or let it go for now? And aside from that, anything else I need? I've been use EQItems to find items (tradeable) to get as close to BiS as possible not including No Drop items. I'm having a really good time and want to make sure I can continue down the right path and hope to experience some type of raiding environment on Agnarr as Luclin progresses and into PoP! Thanks for taking the time to read and reply
Yep the low lvl stuns have the same aggro generation, so are best for mana conservation. I believe the aggro from a stun is much less if it's the first thing you do to a mob, so either whack it first or set up a hotkey that taunts first, then casts a stun. Celestial healing has a better ratio so use that if it's not on cooldown. For raiding, you're an off-tank (pick up any adds so they don't beat on healers). You won't likely be in any tank rotation (pallies don't get defensive like wars). I usually have cease, desist, and stun memmed for raids. The new high lvl stun (Quellious?) is nice because it can stun raid targets for 10 sec, but is has a knockback that can be annoying for all melee. Group heals are nice for raiding, esp against aoe casters like in ToV. Also buff the raid with Brell's something-or-other HP buff. Holy steed and divine stun are good starts. Lay on hands AA adds a 36 sec (I believe) heal over time which is almost like doing lay on hands every tick for 6 ticks - pretty epic. Then probably get combat agility/stability and the other one that's 2% to both evasion/AC softcap. Slay undead is nice if you plan on fighting undead, but you need combat fury first. One nice weapon to have is the divine aura hammer that drops in Grieg's End. With that proccing DA you are a very effective rampage tank on raids.
Stuns do not do less if it's the first thing you do to a mob. Stuns have a hate override that negates the agro cap affect that you are talking about. Anyway the cap is higher than the agro the lower level stuns do anyway. With AAs, if you are going to be raiding PoP in the near future, fearless is one of the AAs you should be getting.
I appreciate the replies guys! Good feedback and and I'll be putting it to use! Thanks so much and if any other readers have something to offer, please throw in your 2 cents Thanks!
A few months ago I started up a Paladin on a TLP server that was in the LDoN expansion so this post struck a chord. I had not played an EQ tank as a main so I went through a similar learning experience. The first thing I will say is make sure you find a guild that fits your play time and play style. That makes your game and raiding experience infinitely better IMO. Going to go with a stream of consciousness style post here and just throw out some ideas in no particular order. The caveat here is when I joined my guild they were already farming Time very efficiently so I was able to gear up and start contributing in raids pretty quickly so my specific experience in pre-raid grouping is limited. That being said, tanking is tanking, and paladins follow the “if you aren’t casting then you should be casting” mantra. You want to use the highest level stuns you can use and still slowly gain mana. Without FT, spell focus, AAs, and higher level enchanter buffs you will be sticking to your low level stuns. The primary reason to use higher level stuns is to interrupt casting and to give yourself a few seconds of not being hit which is a form of mitigation. As a point of reference at 65 I can use the highest level stuns non stop and gain mana with just self buffs and KEI. This lets me group heal a fair amount and never risk running OOM. You want to use stuns that do not push unless you are off tanking or have some sort of urgent need such as using a long stun to give someone that has low health agro time to be healed. So that means you aren’t using divine stun for your threat rotation in most cases. Understand that when you do use your push stuns they move the target in the direction you are facing if they land. This is useful. You will be using taunt but you want to stun ASAP. Without a bellow type threat debuff or lucky proc you will lose your threat on the next DPS hit. In addition to a straight taunt key I have a divine stun macro that taunts then divine stun AA. Yeah it moves the mob a little but if taunt lands it gives me some headroom on my threat. Works well on the pull or if someone grabs threat and the mob starts to move. You want target of target up at all times and you want that to display your name. If it switches to a non-tank you want to taunt and/or stun to get back on. As a side note the mob’s target won’t switch while it is stunned so even though that squishy wizard is on ToT you can look at your taunt to see if you have its attention. You want a stun aug in your weapon. Go for the highest level Wulfenite to start. I still use the LDoN aug force of Ykesha until I can find something better. Map a key to toggle between yourself and your last target so you can press, heal, press and get back to it. Our healing is pretty inefficient IMO and in a group setting I try to avoid it if I’m tanking. That being said it is something we can and should do if it improves the efficiency of the group in some way. Usually this means throwing around group heals but I will target a low health group member and toss a fast heal. I try to avoid our heal over time if there is a cleric in the group. I love audio triggers so I have a lot of them. At the very least a trigger for taunt landing, taunt failing, you already have threat, and spell resists helps a lot IMO. If you have a tank or knight channel setting a trigger for when a message is posted is useful as well as tells so you never miss that buff request. Invis dropping. Triggers for specific event messages and debuffs. The list goes on. LoH is not only a life saver for you and your friends but with the recourse heal over time it acts like a mini discipline and is very effective for keeping you alive while tanking stuff you have no business tanking. Have a conveniently placed macro to target yourself and cast. As a bonus it refreshes when you die so if you are going down in a blaze of glory you might as well use it. Raiding tasks will be dictated by the specific strategies employed by your raid leaders. For the most part we never “main tank” on purpose. The exception is certain bosses that can fear since knights get 100% fear resistance very early in AA progression. Otherwise we rampage tank, off tank, heal, cure, remove curses (LDoN), buff, and protect the raid from loose trash. It isn’t “glamorous” but there is always something to do. In a raid don’t fight another tank for threat. If you have it and someone takes it, let them have it. It is easier for the healers. The exception is if you are supposed to be tanking then take it back and work harder at keeping the threat. Get used to tanking without attacking. Just use taunt and stuns with no damage. Paladins are very good at controlling adds that will be mezzed. When breaking mez, always taunt first and make sure it was successful. You can use divine stun and other no damage stuns to build up threat before breaking. You want to get your DA hammer from GE which is very useful for rampage tanking. You will also want a macro that lets the raid / healers know when DA is up and another when it is about to drop. You will want to be able to shrink on your own. The wand from the deep is a pain to get but you don’t have to buy potions constantly. Invisibility potions (cloudy potions). Have a lot of them and use them. Some way to levitate. I grabbed the ghost froglok illusion from the marketplace. You can click off the illusion and keep the levitate effect. Buy a mount from the marketplace. The buff alone is worth it. As a knight we get the bonus of insta-cast mounts which don’t break invisibility. I’m sure everyone will have a different opinion on AAs, but I went for defensive first then healing then divine stun. If you are raiding and need it the fearless AAs are higher priority. From there just work on what you need. For gear you will be looking for AC, HP, and useful spell focus. You will get enough mana without looking for it. Since shield AC is really nice, I use a shield and one hander. I haven’t needed the epic but I will get it. The class weapon out of Time, Hopebringer, is better and I can use a shield. You have to evaluate if you will get something better sooner. Once LDoN is available make sure to put an aug everywhere you can. There are 10 AC augs in the BB camp that are not lore and can be placed in the non-visible slots. I personally never augment mana. In LDoN raids you can get a really nice group heal aug and other nice AC augs. I like heroic stamina and agility. Ok, I ended up typing a lot more than I expected. Ultimately I really enjoy playing my Paladin and since we seem to be somewhat rare I want to encourage any other Paladin out there to keep going regardless of the haters
