Greetings Fellow Paladins of Norrath, Given the state of our Class Boards over at Samanna's (Which, if you don't know--is completely devoid of activity), I feel like we're losing a lot of ground. We don't have adequate representation (as evidenced by the AAs we've seen in COTF, and several redundant spells lately). Our numbers are dwindling. SK's outnumber us 10 to 1, warriors at least 3:1. The last three raids I've been on, I've been the only Paladin in attendance. The SK Boards are always full of activity--I'm not sure if there's been an SK bias recently since they have had the ability to swarm. Basically there's a paucity of up to date resources for our class. If you've not played the class for a long time, you'd be lost. I've recently been appointed the class leader in my guild and have been trying to address the questions a several Pallys that have been quickly leveled or have been trying to slowly level up by themselves. It's remarkable what they don't know (since there's no easy way to find out), and I'm wondering if there's a lot that I, myself, don't know either since I've fairly recently hit max level. I've always counted on the class boards to get the best information for end game---but now there's no information there! So, Is there some unknown resource that I've been missing? Or have our numbers dwindled so low that we no longer have enough players that are active and engaged with their Paladin mains to crunch numbers, do some parses, and relay this valuable information to the community? I'm hoping the AA grant will bring a few more tank classes to the game--as we have some of the strictest AA checks to be able to play our roles properly. What I'm trying to do here is to rouse some of the sleeping pallys out there. Post in the recent AA thread, ask some questions here, or--heaven forbid, use the class boards. Some of us should step up and be the voice for our class. We need representation to make sure our class continues to perform decently under group, raid, and Duo/moloing situations. C'mon--lets push our limits and keep the class interesting! Aandyy of FV
To get people to talk you need to ask a question. Those boards are still a huge source of information, use search. The game has not really changed much in the last few expansion, therefore not much chatter is going on. On the SK boards its dead other than when they nerf one of our abilities or some new spell/aa gets introduced. This is normal for any class boards.
Most Paladin info is already known so there isn't much to post about. For the parsing stuff, there hasn't been anything new since like HoT, where everything got hammered out, it still carries over since again, there are no new mechanics really. On top of that the number crunchers basically gave up / quit / whatever around VoA or so , there are still some left, but I don't think they bother doing it anymore (nothing interesting that is new to play with to bother mainly I bet). Other Tanks you will most likely find more of because they are more fun/easier to play to the max for boxers, both SK and Warrior are better for people who box tanks as they are easier to play as a box, Paladins are generally better for named since splash can basically cure everything, but they are harder to play as a box vs the other 2. Since Tanks basically overlap on raids and the demand for Splash is basically gone (lol, OP ability that got stagnated out/most spells turning to no cure), there is no reason to pick any single Tank over the rest if you are pretty set, if you are 'full' on Tanks there is no point in recruiting more either really. Most of info now though (including newbie questions) is basically talked about in game in the serverwide paladin channel, /join serverwide.paladins: paladins (dump space, silly smilies on forum)
Not anything left to parse and most topics have been discussed any questions mostly get answered but samanna is basically just a database now and not much of a forum.
I guess I could be an anomaly, but I think part of choosing the paladin is wanting to be self-sufficient. If someone asks me questions directly, I always answer; however, people rarely ask anymore. Those types of inquiries used to come from players starting paladins fresh, but how many people actually start fresh anymore? I suspect the ever-increasing rate of boxing has something to do with that. I don't box/never boxed/will never box, as I find it contrary to the spirit of the game - which kind of leaves me out in the weeds helping the couple in-game friends still playing. I don't use chat channels other than /fs, so I wouldn't catch any questions or comments in the general type channels. That said, in just the last year I ran into three paladins that have played about a half-dozen sporadic years each, were max level and 7k+ aa . . . yet somehow knew nothing about our aura, knight's return strike, silent piety, or the need to put a point in triple attack if their character was created before that ability was given to paladins (among other things). It would be nice if there was a way to ask questions IN GAME targeted at a specific audience (with game features, not community-created channels). Some folks above have mentioned the paladin serverwide chat; I'm sure that is useful for those in it, but the people that need the most help probably don't know it exists unless they happen upon the right thread/forum and see it listed. Of course, even seeing that the channel exists they may be like me and choose not to join it anyways. My sample size is small compared to some of the other posters perhaps, but to one of the questions from the OP: my perception is that our numbers have definitely and dramatically dwindled. As I sat here writing this, I took five minutes to thumb through one of my EQ notebooks listing all of the paladins I remembered from 1999 to 2014. I of course don't remember or make note of everyone I meet in game, but I can count 61 paladins that I actively/consistently communicated with over that time, and zero (yes, 0) of them still play the game (or have moved servers and/or name changed and I don't know). The lack of the EQPlayers site doesn't help, either.
I have a lvl 95 paladin with HoT group armor and a few this and that clickies. About 3k AA's but I guess he will get some for free soon. Its to the point where I need to poo or get off the pot with this character but my fellowship has no tank class that can reach lvl 100 right now. I did post elsewhere a request on where to get info and it almost seemed like a "You really don't know this already?" response. It was appreciated, because the info was superb, but I still kinda came off like an idiot just for asking. Getting him to lvl 95 doesn't mean I did it right, nor was that serious about, but with the AA grant coming soon, a viable pally is now looking like a real possibility. Mostly someone else or something else tanked so my paladin just sorta smacked stuff, hit some stuns and hopefully died as little as possible. Needless to say I didn't learn crap about tanking as it didn't matter with bad gear and low AA. He wasn't gonna tank JS even if he tried. Paladin does seem like a class which has taken abuse to the point where if people actually want to play a paladin, than folks are surprised and don't know how to react. All the cool kids play SKs, right? Since they are the rebels of the tank world, plus they do a bunch of handy things in a group setting. Pallies also seem to play Sancho to the Warrior Don Quijote. Most every guild I raided in as a cleric had the same running gag of "We don't heal paladins". Some people even took it seriously, and if not, than many pallies thought it was policy every time they died. In that regard, you guys are your own worst enemy as it seems to be a bit exclusive in that there are so few paladins who have endured/overcomed so much garbage over the years and the few that there are are just stupid good. It might be leading you to circle the wagons a bit, and try to not let people who play a paladin like crap sully your ranks, such as myself. Well, people do want to play paladins but may not know where to start always in order to do it well. A well played paladin is like the turd that won't flush as far as keeping alive. That is what you all need, is people who want to play the class and play it correctly. That is if what you are talking about in mentioning "the future of paladins" as in the future of a class that people want to play, enjoy and succeed with...or the future of "Our exclusive club where we are gradually dying off but that is OK because we want to preserve our standards". Kinda like no one joins the Shriners or the Rotary Club because they can't convince younger people that it is worth their time. Well, you all need to stop being the victims and convince people that it's fun class and also convince the devs that its time to bring pallies up to contemporary standards, if need be. 75% of what is going on with pallies is just an image problem. Yes, pallies have been picked on for ages and the butt of many jokes but what is the alternative? Everyone makes Eskays? Or just roles a mage? I hope I am not trolling your thread, but /shrug. IMHO ignorant N00bs are the ones you need to convince more than yourselves. If there are so few paIadins playing, you would think that the devs would take the hint, but change in this game is all about how many complain, the volume of complaints (as in decibels and shear numbers) and who is complained to. If you all just keep a stiff upper lip, than the devs will believe nothing is wrong. Otherwise it comes down to if I want to pursue my own pally and get the most out of it, or I can just borrow a friend's SK.
I think you might be referring to the other recent thread where you asked about macros? The original post asked folks that played both knights, so I stayed out of that one. However, I did see the reply you are talking about and thought it was a bit odd - more reminiscent of the attitude on egn. I would have sent you a pm if I had an answer, but I've made it 15 years without using any macros so I can't help you in that regard. I don't think there are legitimate complaints that paladins could make, at least not of any magnitude. We are in a pretty good place compared to most other eras of the game. That doesn't mean we are content with getting no aa or spell upgrades of any merit, but what can we do? The community continually suggests spells and aa's and they are either ignored (spells), deemed too powerful, too out-of-character, too difficult to program, or something else. Inevitably we end up with a bunch of spells we don't use because there isn't room on our spellbar, and a lot of longstanding aa lines that warrant upgrades but don't receive them.
Hello Sirlord. i often think of the exact same thing you have started this thread about and i agree with you. im an old school dnd player and paladin is my favorite character archetype. i would say i am fairly new to everquest, although i did play a bit back in 2002-2003. i started playing Jazfer early last year. up untill about level 80 i pretty much soloed the game with a melee dps merc. it wasnt untill about level 70 that i realized exactly what i was supposed to be doing in a group setting, or even with my paladin. since then however i have learned much from the few paladins that are left. currently i am level 100 and i have 5665 aa (pre aa give away patch) with 7706 assigned (post patch). and i can say with what i am geared for i can tank like a monster. i dont even trust others to tank anymore because i dont see them as up to my standard as far as keeping aggro, keeping people alive and throwing out heals when the time comes. Jazfer is my main and i take the paladin class very seriously. i do believe that we are way underrepresented and could use a bit of a overhaul, but the problem is so few people play paladins anymore that why bother? i think the reason for that is with healer mercs, who wants to be a healer, or even have healing as a main part of your class? the other reason would be our dismally low dps. i parse at barely over 3k dps and thats with most if not all of my damage abilities running. i think that if our class was given some sort of damage capability, perhaps duel wield or an aa that gives more damage when using a 2h weapon, more people would be playing paladins. im not interested in anyone's criticism or opinions, just throwing my thoughts on whats going on with paladins. im glad to see this thread and i hope this discussion continues. perhaps ill get on povar's paladin channel and see if anyone else wants to comment on this thread.
At 100 you should be able to push more then 3k DPS by atleast a multiple of 3. Are you using Ostra/crushes and Disruptive persecution? 3k seems low unless you have absolutely no DPS AA's and are using a 3 year old weapon.
Paladin dps since level 90 is split 50/50 melee:spells If you are doing low dps values you need to cast more. Base melee is only half the equation there are various write ups so I won't elaborate more here in this thread. Just cast more.
^ This Everyone should have new things to look forward to or the game gets stale, but its hard to make a case for anything groundbreaking when you're pretty much perfectly balanced. Paladin has been my newest project given the lack of content to do on most of my toons - now 100 with all important aa done. The only thing I'd really like to see that he doesn't already have is a self only (yellow on bar) direct heal. Either fast cast with a moderate cool down (not ultra long like out ohcrap heal) or standard cast time with no recast. This isn't super important with the 2 heal target of target lines we have - but would be nice to not have to tab to self - heal - tab back. Aside from that, what else can a class so powerfully well balanced ask for? DPS is where it should be. Tanking is top notch. Healing is powerful. Utility is present but not overwhelming (balanced). Aoe hate might be a small area, but with rune procs, heals, aa well used, and half a brain it's already trivial.
Sorrow is exactly what your asking for. http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=34426&source=Live They aren't on the same timer, if you need it more often then 2:30 load last expansions as well.
I don't think I have ever witnessed this except during pre-Velious era, but then again SK's were in the same boat during that time frame. Was there really such a time after that, that paladins took "abuse"? Serious question, I was retired for some time so may be I missed this whole period, I find it very hard to believe though. Every guild I've ever been a part of showed utmost respect for paladins, even for the so so ones who seemed to be a bit challenged in comparison to the more crazy skilled ones.
Nah, Paladins have never been the butt of jokes! Lots of other funny skits from this guy (who was an SK until he retired)
Haha thanks for sharing the video, had never saw that one before. I've never witnessed Paladins being the butt of jokes, I've seen lots of ranger ones though.
I read in a few places about Paladins being low in number but I often do a /who and there aren't that many more Warriors though 30% more SKs.
Recast time makes that line of spells far less useful. Having 2 of them loaded is a big hit to total spells loaded ... i'd much rather have the targeted fast heal loaded and bother with tabbing to self
