Paladin Wishes

Sorry just no. Once you scribe your 9th spell in this game, you no longer have "free" spell gems. If a level 9 paladin could scribe a level appropriate version of Steely as the 9th entry in their spell book, it would not earn a spell gem (well maybe vs Truth North). It's no better a spell or different a decision at level 109.

Okay, so Steely is a spell for boxed paladins to use. I imagine Mark of Orthiss, a marginal spell line, is another spell that works for boxers as they prefer semi-afk duration effects. Both spells need a lot of beef to be used outside those margins.

I'm being chastised for loading a situational spell, on odd events, where it's useful. You're telling me that every event, every time, you use every spell gem?

I ALREADY know you're going to say, "oF cOuRsE yOu UsE eVeRy SpElL"

I wouldn’t say you’re being chastised. You definitely have some people disagreeing with you though. Steely and DPS spell weaves aside etc. I was more so surprised you said that you used Alliance. I was unaware that any raid force of your level used the Pal version for the most part.

Pertaining to the dps stuff that’s being debated, anytime a Paladin has 2hander out they’re dpsing. It’s alright to use weaves of Censure/Admonish etc. on those times no problem. When “burning”, it definitely becomes less than ideal for the reasons already stated. Depending on role, event and circumstances of raid makeup etc. though many Pals may not be able to switch to an ideal spell set for “burning”. Regardless, our damage spells have stagnated and are such a low portion of our dps compared to days of old that it doesn’t matter nearly as much though.

We do not allow our paladins to alliance. It is less than half the damage of any other alliance and debuff slots are at a premium. Imagine any DPS class alliance bouncing so that a paladin alliance could land.

Spell gems are also at a premium and as so many threads both paladin and sk alike have stated, we are the utility knight. Healing the group, healing the raid, bane damage, curing the raid, etc....all while still expecting to tank and survive. I'd love for that 14th spell gem that's been coded into EQ already to be released with this expansion...

I don't get why you were attacked so hard, in this context. Its not like you came at someone saying they were dumb for not using the spell or whatever.

But, to be less emotional and on point, there is no reason to use revitalizing. It is a poor spell, and the recast is what makes it awful.

Couple of points for dps:

1) You NEED to be casting during a dps burn with VR. This isn't a debatable point. You need to keep 0.5 sec or faster nukes on cool down.

If its a true dps burn, I'm using at least the big crush, brilliant, DP, and 2 or 3 of the combo undead nukes. Whether I use 3 or not tends to depend on what I need to keep up otherwise.

2) Only tangentially touched upon, but with regard to gem usage, certain slots should usually not be something you can switch out. Otherwise, you're sacrificing your ability to do your primary job if things go sideways for a little more dps. Like, I'm not dropping 1 group heal, splash, burst heal, valiant, protective (personally) very often, even if I don't expect to cast at all.

So I think spell gem availability is tighter or looser depending on what your raid force is (when stuff dies in 60 seconds, you can probably drop a lot of those, when it lasts 10 minutes, not so much). So everyone should keep in mind people in different guilds can do things differently.

3) Censure only gets in my burn rotation if the MT needs healing (I'll sacrifice my dps for valiant/PD/censure, I assume we all do), but once VR drops, its worth using on cool down for dps.

4) Alliance is not something you should be using. Unless you have 0 necros, then maybe? But pretty much anything else people use is going to be better than an alliance rotation from paladins, unfortunately, and even if not, its just discourteous.

Question, anyone parsed blunted blade lately? My sense is that the min damage modifier dps loss is as much as the proc damage, but not paid much attention to how much we are hitting min damage lately.

This is an odd way to look at debuff slot issues.

I ran a couple of 5 minute parses against a GH dummy (lvl 117, 5500 AC) on my SK and his counterpart disc (Spite of Kra`du) was a slight DPS increase over pure autoattack. I'd imagine Pally version would be a little bit better still since yours is a DD proc instead of a DoT. Still not a huge DPS increase, and could be basically within range of RNG.

Really? More odd than the following?

Paladin:
[50069] Holy Fulmination III
Mana: 10
Target: Single
Range: 50'
Resist: Magic -1000
Reflectable: No
Focusable: No
Casting: 0s
Hate: 85570
1: Stun for 4s up to level 110
2: Decrease Current HP by 1140962

SK:
[57951] Bloodletting Resolution III
Target: Single
Range: 50'
Resist: Magic -1000
Reflectable: No
Focusable: No
Casting: 0s
Hate: 197436
1: Decrease Current HP by 2512760


Mage:
[58208] Firebound Resolution III
Target: Single
Range: 300'
Resist: Fire -1000
Reflectable: No
Focusable: No
Casting: 0s
Hate: 213516
1: Decrease Current HP by 2717455

Rog:
[58094] Poisonous Resolution III
Target: Single
Range: 50'
Resist: Poison -1000
Reflectable: No
Focusable: No
Casting: 0s
Hate: 229549
1: Decrease Current HP by 2921557

Wiz:
[58161] Frostbound Resolution III
Target: Single
Range: 300'
Resist: Cold -1000
Reflectable: No
Focusable: No
Casting: 0s
Hate: 245266
1: Decrease Current HP by 3121559

Sounds good, let the pallies alliance all day when bouncing. Also you'll notice I linked the paladin alliance and the other classes covenant, that's not trickery or to skew the opinion. Paladin's didn't get an upgrade.

It struck me while reading here, one of the main problems with the class (as voiced by the class) is dps. Paladins are not a DPS class, but every class has the capacity to do some dps, and as is accepted by most people there should be a base of dps for all classes to allow them to keep up with the ever increasing hit points of mobs (I hope this is a universal belief).

So some have mentioned Slay Undead, and increases to it. The blessing for DB is that they control the dps of the Paladin class to a degree by controlling the number of undead in an expansion. This blessing is also a curse, as our "dps" is inexplicably linked to mob type. If they don't put any undead in an expansion (see TBL).

The problem with undead only spells is DB's recent move (last 3-4 expansions) to mix undead in with other mob types (not just undead, they have mixed in animal, summoned, which other classes have bonuses for). This is a pain as you have to swap out spells that are undead only, or suffer through the fight with a hand tied behind your back.

What DB has also done in the last few expansions is layer our damage spells. So Brilliant Exoneration RkII for example deals 7214 dmg to undead, 6411 to summoned and 5343 to any other mob type. In this way you can keep the spell memmed, doing better dps against undead than other mob types.

Why not adopt the same with Slay Undead? Rename it Slay Enemy - Slay undead is max potential Damage, with smaller slays for summoned and smaller again for everything else? I am thinking 100/60/40, where 100 is undead slays, to bring our dps up to something approaching usefulness in group.

The numbers are something DB could test out for balance, but the upside to this for them is;

1. The mechanism is currently in game.
2. Its passive so no new hotkeys to add.
3.No new spells to develop.
4.DPS output is also controlled by the weapon type - so a raid paladin will put out more dps than a group paladin and a paladin with a 2 hander (which now due to combat stability is our DPS stance) will do more slay damage than with a 1 hander.

It's odd that you cut from the middle instead of starting from the bottom. If you run enough paladins reliable enough to fulminate each alliance then it deserves a spot. I guarantee you things are taking slots that are *less* useful.

I am not sure what you mean in regards to cut from the middle...

I picked dps classes.
I compared the two knights.
Paladin is the worst alliance, aka the bottom.

1) I'll try switching out for combo undead nukes. I rarely use those as it stands.
2) Valiant & Protective never get removed from my spell bar (solo, group, or raid). I remove both Splash and Wave during t2 Generals when I'm in the tower. I used to mem Burst during Mearatas, but now it only finds a home during Generals.
3) I'm always in MT group so most, if not all, of my healing is ToT. The times I need to heal my group I have Dissident, Splash (situationally), Wave, Reflexive, Hand of Piety, and Gift of Life - in that order.
4) When the new expansion comes out I'll focus more on keeping heals out. Any of the guilds that have TBL on farm know what to expect, where they can flex, know when to heal, when to cure. Paladins do not shine in any form except in Mearatas, so when I get the opportunity to use a spell I never would be able to otherwise, I'll go ahead and use it.

Cut from the middle is in regards to debuff preservation. If you're going to prohibit things because they take up debuff slots then you should start from the bottom instead of the middle, which is where Paladin Alliance resides. There are several things other classes do/have that take up slots that do MUCH less DMG/Benefit to the raid as a whole.

I understand your meaning now. But I'm not sure I agree, but it's due to a combination of limited spell gem space and limited debuff space. We already limit shaman from dotting on raids, along with a handful of other things that are outright banned. I made a very detailed post a few months back in regards to the debuff limit and how quickly 97 slots are eaten up when each class has a mash key that takes a slot or 6....even if it's for 12s or 18s. Some of those abilities under burn or disc can be quite beneficial.

I agree. I know that on a burn, in my guild, when we potentially could have 5 paladins, we could do an alliance rotation and gain not just the fulmination but the extra dps from the damage added to other paladin nukes. We could also all hit forceful rejuvenation and do it again, having 10 fulminations in like 60 seconds.

HOWEVER, the reality is that any time I tried to play around with it, it doesn't even land. Its hard to tell someone that is an actual dps class to not cast something, in favor of a tank class. This is a game, after all, and dps players don't play dps to make a tank do more damage.

Not optimal, why I really wish they would fix necros, also prevent a lot of dumb things to stack on a mob from multiple of the same class (seeing some of the stuff some of the bards stick on raid mobs makes me sad sometimes). But, it is what it is, sometimes you have to live within reality.

This is another spell I will "chastise" paladins for using. Not only does it suck comparatively, it encourages paladins to play badly. People die when paladins are focused on nuking and not splashing and group healing. Paladins alliance should not be DPS related, rather healing or protective.

I'm curious about this as well. Last time I parsed BB, in 2018, it was a dps increase, second to Pureforge. Blunted Blade has a couple of nice offensive and defensive side-effects. It works with ADPS from Druid (black wolf), Enchanter (Illusions of Grandeur), Bard, Ranger; and it procs Healing Light AA (group heal). I think the min hit (SPA 186) 10% penalty doesn't really matter. It means our weapon dmg stat is 90% of what it says it is. Basically BB cancels out your +22 dmg weapon augment and makes a paladin ADPS friendly for 5 minutes.

Slay Unholy. Good idea!

I think a 100/60/40/0 four part grade would work There needs to be a zero grade since some things a paladin should just not be killing with a bonus, like perhaps animals or non-kos faction (is that possible?). A paladin killing an ally faction mob should not receive a damage bonus and might even incur a mild damage penalty.

Very creative and well thought out idea. Seems extremely Paladin like as well.

I like that idea as well for the dps.

Sithsonn mentioned an idea in conversation with me and then in a post I believe...

AE spell line that is similar to AE lifetap. Instead of lifetap it would DD the targets and heal target's target. A stun component could or could not be included.

But an AE heal target's target gem. I thought it was very paladin-like as well.