As the subject states, is this possible? I have heard yes from several Paladins on my server but nobody will list out how this is possible. I think it is possible to molo with a Paladin and a wiz merc at this level but just need some guidance. I just need a decent rotation that will keep me healed and agro off the merc. Thanks for your help everyone.
Afew threads down i went more in depth https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/returning-paladin-rotation-help.218895/
forum name has changed, try - https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/returning-paladin-rotation-help.218895/
Do not waste your time trying to find the secret sauce. It does not exist for the combination you have described; Those who claim it can be done do not factor in the conditions you are describing and here is why: As an 85 heroic toon- -your AAs are under-developed leaving your agro, healing, & tanking AAs at a minimum. -your merc AA are at or near 0. It will take you a long time to get the AA count high enough to lower the merc agro. -If you do manage to hold agro from the start, you will need to focus on healing instead of agro. (since you said molo with only wiz merc). Yes, stuns are key, but again, won't be able to do the job by themselves. -Your spells will be rk1 or rk2 at best in the future, lowering your overall abilities. -Your gear / augs are in a sorry state for a lvl 85 toon making it harder for you to tank which will require you to heal more. What you can do ...would be to actively flip your merc from balanced to burn after 50%. (assuming there is not a bug issue with delays in the merc dps stance change... there was some talk of that a while ago so i dont know if they fixed this or not). I only use my wiz merc on balanced and very rarely flip it to burn. I do box with a bard so I have a healer merc; but I still don't waste time trying to pull out the extra dps from burn mode. To me, the risk of having a 5 min downtime is not worth the reward of extra dps to save a few seconds on each mob.
I think your view is unnecessarily pessimistic and unambitious. You describe at the end that your choice is to run a group that requires you do neither good agro nor good self healing. The feedback you offer might help out someone with the same preference, but OP has more in mind. Also your supposed conditions are specious and/or wrong.
Tell me what is specious and/or wrong with the 5 conditions I listed. OP said he had a lvl 85 heroic toon with wiz merc. Then tell me what the OP is going to realistically gain with a merc wiz on burn over balance. Tell me the the risk vs reward and include the downtime for anytime the merc dies and the risk of wipe when you agro 2 at a time.
Heroic characters are max AA, OP has literally everything there is to get in every category of agro, tanking, and healing - plus damage and utility. Mercenary AA aren't filled in, but are laughably low impact. It would take infinite time for him to get the AA count high enough to lower merc agro, because that AA count isn't in game. To say that the job is agro + healing isn't an actual point. Of course the job is agro + healing, that's like saying, "well if you ride a bike you have to pedal and steer!" Someone getting on a bike Is Signing On For That. Spells at rk1 to begin is a bit better than the previous points, but not a night/day situation. A rank 2 spell is maybe 10% better than its base version. An advantage certainly worth pursuing on spells one uses a lot, but not a deal breaker to lack. Certainly one doesn't need raid spells to beat group mobs, as implied by your "at best". Far more relevant is whether the player is casting more or casting less than 20 spells/minute while fighting, which has nothing at all to do with spell rank. Gear could theoretically be better, but unless you were a raider when you dinged 85, it's already better than you were wearing. Heroic Characters don't begin with them in /claim, but have a full set of 30ac augs readily available to them from Feerrott tasks, which again is only not as good as The Best There Is, which is pretty appropriate. If someone had been playing daily for the previous decade when they dinged 85 naturally, they'd still have been wearing half 30ac augs. As for what he gains? Well let's ask you. Combine a couple hours of your fight logs for us to show what your 85 mercenary on Balanced is putting out. I can't test that; Balanced mercenaries scale their damage to the agro the tank is generating. On Burn, though, an 85 caster is just over 2k dps.
On my pally alt I used to start a fight with my wiz merc on balanced , once the fight was underway I would switch to burn. If I started to lose agro I would switch merc back to balanced. I used to rotate through Force of the Crying Seas, Devout Force and Force of Disruption which was pretty good agro. When it came to healing I would normally start with Glorious Vindication to get the twinheal proc and then use Burst of Dawnlight or Protective Confession. I also molo'd in SoF / SoD zones especially Old Bloodfields (daily + Prezul kill tasks). The mobs were not too hard and I could pull singles with little effort. Only journeyman mercs can use burn stance so I'm guessing you have a gold account in which case turn on auto-grant to get nearly all your AAs. I also used the 15k plat from a heroic toon to buy the following :- a couple of planar donuts, keep in top slot for AC and force feed yourself some cheap food. 2 Tavon burnished gemstone (34ac aug) 2 Tavon's polished gemstone (34ac aug) Ancient Alaran Shield (20-25 more ac than heroic shield) I also grabbed the hotzone augs from Hill of Shades, Ashengate, Steppes, Keasora Library, Vergalid Mines, Old BlackBurrow. Those were between 20 and 26ac each, I did not bother to grab the other hotzone augs . Once I got a little higher I started the quests in Hot zones so I could fill slots with the heroic augs (30 ac). Make sure you have Knight's Sedulity and Weapon Stances (enabled) AAs, these will really help to reduce the healing required allowing you to concentrate on agro.
I guess it depends on a persons definition of 'max AA' and 'minimum level of aa'. When you start a heroic toon with auto-grant, you still have AAs which you can buy. To me, that is not max. One will get more auto grant AA when you increase the toons lvl and options to buy more AA at lvl 86. Call me a pessimist, but to me, they start at the minimum amount (but appropriate for their toon lvl). This level however doesn't mean their AAs for tanking, healing, and agro are maxed. Many people who want to say paladins can control agro at lvl 85 are under the simple assumption of making the comparison from their current maxed toon vs their merc and not from a -been there, done that- stand point. I haven't done it either, but im going with the safe bet... You didn't go and jump your bike on the first day you learned to ride it. Not to mention at some point in the early playing career of a molo'ing person, he will be faced with a multi-pull and be forced into CC. Good luck controling agro on a merc wizard set to burn during that time... but I guess you would see this as another accepted part of riding a bike... eventually you have to turn and go in an unexpected direction. That shouldn't be factored into to the risk portion then I take it. I'm not listing each point as a deal breaker. But instead, I listed those points as a whole. Each little bit here and there will add up to make the risk vs reward tip out of the OPs favor. I'm not trying to even think about how an 85 paladin stacked up during HoT expansion with current lvl raid gear and spells. This isn't about making a comparison or where one would or could be at if they were a paladin during the HOT era. It's about a Heroic toon and a wizard merc on burn. When I read your reply, you actually make my points for me when saying the agro is about 10% less with the lower ranks, the heroic gear is group gear for HoT era, and the augs have to be gotten via tasks (which means you do not start a heroic toon with them). Sure, augs are easy to get and gear can be upgraded... but to me, everything adds up to make it harder on the OP. ------------ I'm not even sure what you mean when saying "it would take infinite time ... to lower the merc agro, because the AA isn't in game". I'm referring to the merc AA called 'Silent Arcanum'. Maybe it's broken and doesn't work... let me know. But again... I'm not listing individual deal breakers... but pocket change can still buy you something in a vending machine if you have enough of it. And relavence with casting more / less then 20 spells per min? seriously... come on. Thats more of an elitist assumption then what I made with the gear and spells being rk1. At that amount, your talking nearly optimal level of play. One should factor in the time it takes to do stuff other then just spamming a hotkey. As for a dps parse of a merc in different stances.... thats nearly irrelevant to my point also. Just 1 time in which the merc dies will set a molo'ing paladin back more then the few seconds gained by a burn stance over the balanced. I can tell you though, the DPS parse of the wizard for the 5 minutes it takes him to revive is 0.
Ooooop, and now we've gotten to it. 20 spells a minute isn't some uber bar. It's 2/tick instead of 3/tick, 50% more than my rubric, which would then be elite play. 20/minute is just a reasonable pace for good paladining, and if you're not accustomed to meeting it, we've sussed out why you don't think moloing with a wizmerc works.
I started a heroic paladin and it started with 4960 AAs. Self buffed it hit 39k HP and 4.8k AC (32 shielding 89 avoidance) but no Weapon Stances I spent 5k and brought better stat food, the mage summoned augs, better shield and managed to get displayed AC to 5.3k I also noticed I had the following AAs but the next lvl showed up as Req Lvl <= 85 and category of HoT, I would have expected to receive them with auto-grant but didn't. Battle Ready 3,Delay Death 25,DIscordant Defence 10 General Sturdiness 15,Innate Regeneration 25,Planar str/agi/etc etc 20 Armour of wisdom 5,Spell Casting Reinforcement 4,Armour of the Inquisitor 9 Beacon of the Righteous 1 The following were dependent on TBM and req lvl <= 85 so were not available on auto-grant Enduring Reproval 1,Quicker Damage 1,Radiant Cure 7,Clock of Light 2,Divine Aura 2 Looks like we get all the AAs for tanking / healing /agro except for a few like Beacon of the Righteous 2. After swapping to a J1 Wiz merc I popped over to the Feerrott I started to kill Restless Spirits. For each mob I healed myself with 1 Devout Cleansing and then when needed Protective Confession / Burst of Dawnlight - after Glorius Vindication. On balance stance the merc finished with around 50% of their mana and I used about 10%. Switching to burn mode, the merc had a habit of stealing agro on inc. It was much easier to start in balanced and then switch to burn when mob dropped below 90% health. Using that approach I was able to keep agro by spamming Force of the Crying Seas, Devout Force, Force of Disruption and during cooldown I alternated between Glorius/Protective/Burst. The merc would finish with around 20% of their mana. Switching the merc to burn mode meant I could kill slightly faster but that was offset by waiting longer for the merc to regen. To be honest with a J1 merc I couldn't tell which was the best approach and I'll have to try with a J5 merc. I also popped over to Old Bloodfields and completed the daily so I grabbed Weapon Stances. Pulling singles took a little more effort but I could keep agro if I started with a balanced merc and then going into burn stance.
Yea, Heroic characters no longer get all AA that Auto Grant gives at 85 or w/e or at least paladin didn't, if you turn it on and are all access it should fill in a bit more
Crush of Compunction would be a great addition to this linup if you can cram it onto the spell bar. High agro, doesn't share timer with your stuns, just has its own 24s cooldown. The Crush of Crying Seas is a higher agro substitution for that Force, but lacks the stun so might necessitate an additional heal spell. That may be a net win if your mana use is more balanced with your merc's while increasing the pace of kills.
What I'm reading on this thread is the main power of a paladin to solo or milo has never been about current content. Sure we are capable, a heroic toon much less capable but still possible. A heroic toon solo milo or otherwise should be doing the same thing a paladin of that era was doing for easy xp. Ruins of illsalin was good until 86-87 from there xp in fc was ok. I'll be honest and say I was swarming back then which is less feasible now after changes. Regardless trying to jump into hot at 85th level dps in group gear even with a merc wiz on burn is pointless. A paladin should focus on older content mobs with less attack values, less dps overall but more importantly less hp. You don't reinvent the proverbial wheel just because someone buys you a new car. What can be soloed at 85 is irrelevant. What I was soloing at 85 for fun isn't necessarily anything I'd recommend to another player. Getting from 85-90 and then tackling content will be much more enjoyable. Yes it seems backwards depending on your goals. If you just want the immersion of being a paladin running around slaying evil while you slowly level up then by all means spend time with a merc using 50% mana per fight by all means have at it. But if you want to make real gains in xp toward catching up to max level this is literally one of the least efficient methods. I wish I had the time to do it from a heroic perspective and write a manual. I have done it twice on a paladin though and spent 2 years at that xp level. You can do more with less especially with a paladin.
Yeah bottom feeding's been the rule for exp for all classes always, solo molo or grouped, basically. My full group of six real players in Underfoot raid gear at 85 did our Lesson runs for fills & glyphs in 3-expansion-previous SoF Mechamatic Guardian. There are other reasons to want to kill mobs, though. These days, self healing versus even-leveled content is important for the consensus best way to level, DH HAs.
Thanks for the posts Rinrigok & Riou. I hope it made things clearer for some people. I stand by the the underlying idea of having a merc on burn is not worth the trouble in the conditions the OP listed. Like i stated in my original post, flipping the stance from balanced to burn, is much easier and reliable then starting with and keeping a merc on burn. I was off with the % to flip the stance, but a quick adjustment could be made once the player had experienced the style.
Nice way to selectively read my post; add in more then what was actually wrote; and then make comments about my abilities. I didn't say anything about -my- play or -my- casting per tick. I was talking about a person making a heroic toon and -their- skill on a -new, heroic- toon. Assuming a person can make a heroic toon in which they have no experience within that class and go right into casting at that rate is elitist. Additionally,... one can make 20/per min easy...but I said one must also factor in other things then just the time spamming a hotkey which you ignored. Anyone can hit 20/per min in short bursts, but the game isn't a constant hotkey smash. There is downtime for mana regen, pull time, adjustments in positioning, interuptions in casts, and change in targets for casting just to name a few. A person has to completely ignore all of that 'non-castable-time' in order to meet those cast rates over a duration of time while playing the game. Just like an M16 machine gun has a rate of fire 700+ on semi auto. However, no gun can actually fire at that rate even for a short duration of time because the barrel will literally melt as it gets over-heated.
