I played a warrior back in 99-02 and loved group tanking so want play a tank class again. I was a real fan of the warrior class but been there done that so I am considering playing a paladin as I would imagine shadowknights will be everywhere. Was hoping someone with paladin experience in classic->PoP could help me answer some questions. Pluses/Minuses of the class in general Can they hold agro well in a group environment? Is chain stun the best method for agro control early on? Can they replace a priest class in a group when one isnt available? When AAs are available - is the destory undead line or whatever the AA is called - open up the availability to solo during downtimes? Are their 2h skills about on par with warriors ( early on ). I remember my warrior being able to dish out damage comparable to other melee classes until the introduction of AAs in Luclin. Do they have access to weapons like the truc of doom in OS, wavecrasher in SG, etc.? Thanks in Advance!
The best single target agro by miles, yes with chain stuns. Superbad dps. Have pacify & root, so that's something. They can replace a priest in that they have heals, but only if a priest 2/3 your level could hang, since that's the tools you have. Exactly cleric heals 2/3 your level. Nothing fast, nothing big. Dps on classic mobs is so low, though, that sometimes you can just fill up hp between fights and that's enough. Paladins can always solo during downtime, just takes patience. No slow proc weapon better than Willsapper till Hammer of the War Machine in Grelleth's Palace, I think. Definitely no on the Truncheon.
Before OOW you'll be the 3rd choice for tanks in groups. There's not a whole lot they bring to the table in a raid setting until at least Luclin when some curing is needed. They don't get really good until 70 when slay undead becomes powerful giving them another dimension, they keep getting better and better from there every expansion and become godly at 85 and beyond. It's worth it if you can stomach the first couple years of suck.
I would say that the biggest thing to mote at lower levels is that we suck massively at aoe threat. Holding multiple mobs is a chore that won't go away on progression for ages. On the plus side, paladins make excellent group leaders very early. Your pacify line is available way before SK feign, so we're solid pullers. If you're willing to level on undead the nuke really helps too.
Few things someone wanting to play a paladin on the new server should take in account. For grouping purposes i will asume everyone on it has the same level of gear. Paladins in Clasic to Velious get their first stun around level 30, then get another in the 40's iirc. Both are highly mana intensive for the mana pool/regen you will have, making them unsustainable for agro purposes. Your biggest agro tools will be Flash of Light, Root, and praying for everyone else to be wielding rusty weapons so they don't outagro you. The spammable stun spells you will use come with Luclin. Cease and Desists will work all the way till OoW at least. You will become able to use the Force and Word lines eventually. Force is good, Word can lead to a lot of pissed off people if you aren't paying attention to where you are pushing mobs with it (hint: you push them in the direction YOU are facing) Paladins lack AE agro tools all the way to SoD iirc. You will either have to switch targets and stun individually, or use group heals and hope people around was hurt enough for you to get enough agro from adds. Heal wise, a paladin "can" work as main healer if needed. You will need to be properly equiped for mana regen purposes, and most likely will be unable to do anything else if you don't want to have your group holding every other pull cause you ran oom. You will provide close to druid level healing up to Kunark i think. Slay Undead on its early stages is nothing more than eyecandy. Whoever tells you otherwise either never played a paladin, or did it before all the nerfs that have come, or plays on live and thinks a Luclin era paladin is the same. You should always prioritize mobs with low health/low ac over undead-type mobs. Paladins seem to suffer from a serious penalty to accuracy. You will be nowhere near dps classes when using a 2hder (much less if tanking or doing support). In fact, paladins are the bottom of the dps list on the earlier expansions (behind the people that died on inc probably). Playstyle wise, you shouldn't pick a paladin on clasic era if you are just looking for min-maxing. You will grow tired of it pretty soon. You will have the worst dps, be the second/third choice for tanking purposes till Luclin (and that is if you don't have a dps class or a mage pet tanking instead), be a subpar patch healer most of the time, and not be able to see much in terms of soloing. If, even knowing all that, you still want to play a paladin, you will find a couple nice gear pieces early on that you can acquire relatively camp-free, or that should be rotting soon enough (while other classes will struggle for months to acquire similar stuff). Your role will be mostly of support, but played well may lead to being one of the most fun classes on the early stages (need a puller? can do. CC? can ghetto it. Patch healer? on it. Tank afk? i got it. All bases covered? I'll wack that orc with my cracked staff and see if i can do more than 100 damage per minute).
I played a Paladin on live Kunark on up for years. I came back and played on Fippy as one as well. Am considering playing one for the new TLP coming out. Paladin serves just fine as a tank from my experiences in both. Our spells offer us some extra stuff to do rather than auto-attack and nap. Differences from true classic and on Fippy that I noticed: 1. I was loved WAY more on fippy due to lack of tanks 2. I was able to solo. Like, seriously. Light blue cons didn't mean certain death anymore... could even go higher on undead omg! 3. Only problem grouping was if the group leader was a min/maxer that didn't want a second tank. 4. SK was the better raid option... not for tank, but for HT to kill everything before it even renders. Overall, if you are looking to tank, Warrior, Paladin, and Shadowknight are all terrific. Really. A good player will do fine with any of the three. If you are not looking to tank, then do not consider these classes.
Pros: You're a tank with some versatility. You can also heal, pull, buff, root, cure debuffs, nuke undead, and rez. Lay on Hands is great for when things get really ugly. You can generally tank any group content that you have the levels and gear for. You can hold aggro on a single target extremely well. When AA unlocks, you can get a free insta-cast mount that is almost max bard speed. Cons: You don't tank as well as a warrior, and probably won't be tanking raid content. Your dps is very low. There are other classes that are better at most of your utility abilities. While soloing is possible, it's really inefficient compared with a number of other classes. Yes to both. Taunt can help for getting aggro if you don't already have it. In later expansions there are other spells and abilities for generating additional hate, but even with other things, stuns are your bread and butter for getting and keeping aggro. It would be tough. You get heal spells, but a priest of the same level will always have spells that can heal for more, and are more mana efficient. The priest will also have a larger mana pool, and more time to med... And they'll also have the specialization skills that reduce mana costs, which you won't ever get. You might be able to keep up healing the incoming dps, but you'd probably have trouble sustaining the mana to do that for any length of time. Maybe if you did nothing but heal and med. Slay Undead is the AA line. From what I remember, the ranks you get from Luclin and PoP were pretty underwhelming, due to the slay rate being really low. Every once in awhile you'll see a really big hit, but you might go several fights without getting a single slay. It's cool when it happens, but it isn't going to make or break your ability to solo something. During the Luclin/PoP era this is probably one of the last AAs you should buy (probably right before act of valor...), if you want AAs with real utility. You can always find something you can solo that yields experience, but it's usually going to be pretty slow, especially as you get to higher levels. Soloing undead can be slightly less slow due to your slightly higher dps, but still pretty bad. If you like to see your exp bar move at any rate other than maddeningly slow, group whenever you can. I think the skill caps are pretty close, paladins might be slightly lower. I think paladins are going to be lower dps than warriors due to the lack of critical hits and dual wield.
I have played a Paladin since 1999. I also played a paladin on that last Progression server. Most of the Pros and Cons that ironblade mentioned are correct. Paladins really shine in raiding and later group content. Groups You are one of the only three classes that can rez. The others being Necro and Cleric. You are the 4th best healer in the game behind a druid and shaman. Until very future expansion Paladin are the only class that can group heal They have a Heal over time as well. Raids Because of the stuff mentioned above, Paladins can be extremely useful on raids. You will be off tanking adds, Rezzing dead when the clerics are too busy. You will be using a DA hammer to be the Ramp tank. You will be curing nasty stuff when the healers are too busy. The other two tank classes can't even come close to your flexibility on a raid.
I too had thought to roll Paladin but am not set on it. What tank would you recommend for a progression server?
I've a 19 paladin on phinny. Been playing alot in upper guk. Its a complete falsehood that paladins are bad ae agro. There is no class better than a paladin. I throw a few heals on whoever needs health (or me) and all the mobs in camp come running. Sk's need to target each mob for agro, as do warriors (they get one ability in kunark, but its not a constant reuse like heals are). Given, if there are 3 dps classes all burning on 3 different mobs, I wouldn't be able to hold them. But I can keep 3-5 on me without dumping them on the healer. More and I can't ever cast through the stuns.
I have not played a Paladin enough to offer much advice but I have played several other class extensively since original release in 99. I just want to point out this one thing. Do not believe comments like "you will be the third choice for groups". When does that ever happen? You have a group with everything but a tank. YOu look for a tank and a warrior and an SK and a paladin of the same level are all available and the group chooses someone else because you are a paladin. Seriously, how often does that happen? I am just saying don't let the idea that "groups won't want you as much" be any part of your decision. It simply isn't true. I have played a cleric more than any other class and while I will admit a slight preference for SK/paladin over warrior in group content, the difference is negligible. Usually you are just hoping to find a well played tank and any class is fine.
In the group game paladins are a good choice for tank in every expansion. Paladins can usually fill the healer role if the tank is well geared. Paladins can rez. Paladins don't dps. As far as wether groups want you or not, that's only a concern early on in the server or if you're very casual. If you're social most of your groups are going to be with friends or you're going to make the group (its almost always easier to make the groupn than to lfg) On my paladin on Fippy and on Ragefire I was able to heal groups all the way upto 50, there are some exceptions like if you want to single group fear or hate then paladin heals are not enough. Paladins are also GREAT for raids in the lower expansions because you can always heal where a warrior without a tank assignment is just a dps.
Laronk raises a great point. Pallys are the only other class that can rez in classic. If your healer is a druid or a shaman, dead players are running back and have to make it through the zone. If your cleric dies, only the pally can rez him/her.
I played a paladin up on ragefire and as group tanks go it works quite well with stuns for aggro lock. My only beefs are pre Velious almost every spell is a low level cleric one which can be slow and cumbersome (can't wait for group heals!). That and to maintain great aggro with stuns eats mana like crazy - having an enchanter is a must for chain pulling groups. It's also a pretty mediocre solo in this era given the poor dps. Having a 90% Rez at 59 is quite handy too as they pointed out. If you like tanking and want to group I found it a good choice even in classic/kunark.
Classic + Kunark, paladins rock big time for tanking, and they do fairly well in Velious HOWEVER... starting with luclin, and lasting until paladins get their first real defensive discipline, which is dragons of norrath expansion... you will run into issues as a tank, It appears that all the raid content from velious onwards, was mathamaticaly ballanced around haveing a warrior tanking while running defensive discipline... In luclin, and more so in planes of power, you will run into group content "named" mobs that you just wont be able to tank efficiently, it will require a defensive warrior. IF you trudge thru it all and make it to later expansions, then paladins are godly tanks, group heals, stuns, buffs, fantastic group tanks, and not bad off tanks in raid content Heals. as far as heals go, classic + kunark, a level 60 paladin can heal just as well as a lv 60 druid or lv 60 shaman. and during velious almost as good. During luclin, however, druids and shammy will definatly beat you out in healing as they properly should. In my opinion. the single biggest hinderance for both Paladins and Shadowknights, is the serious lack of defensive discipline until much much later in the game.... if someone could talk DBG into letting paly and sk have defensive disc earlier... then they will truely be active viable tanks all the way thru .. in both group content and off tank in a pinch in raid content
What Rez spells do Paladins get in classic and then kunark and then velious? I'm having a hard time figuring out what fits in what era.
"HOWEVER... starting with luclin, and lasting until paladins get their first real defensive discipline, which is dragons of norrath expansion... you will run into issues as a tank," This is really only regards for when AE taunt is needed or for a main boss. Paladin and Shadow Knights have the ability to quickly pick up ago and off tank no mezz mobs very easily. Remember that most of a raid is leading to the boss, not just the boss encounter.
