So recently returned to the game after a decent hiatus. And I’ve always enjoyed tanking (strictly group, never bothered with raiding). And over the course of my on and off relationship with EQ, I’ve made 3-4 different SKs. Last time I came back and left again, I went a different route and rolled a Warrior. Loved it. Seemed to do better with it than my SK. But now this time around I’m going to go with a Paladin. I had a spare Heroic boost waiting around surprisingly so I used that. I’m not really asking for a spell/disc/AA line up (won’t say no though!) I haven’t really had a chance to play him, I made him earlier today before I had to come to work. Looked through the AAs and read over most of them and, well, he’s a knight. Not too terribly different from the SK in that regard. So what I’m wanting to know I guess is, what’s going to be my biggest concern coming from an SK to a white knight? I understand my DPS will be lower (against anything not undead). Aggro has never truly been an issue (never really grouped with DPS that we’re constantly “burning”). I’ve read a lot that the survivability is a bit less? Do Paladins passive/proc heals so do less than that of an SKs proc heals/life taps? Can’t really think of much else. Any extra tips/advice is always welcomed! PS - I already miss SK 2.0 and Leechcurse lol
The biggest difference I feel when playing paladin is spell gem starvation. At one point (not recently, may be even worse now) I counted up like 25 spells I'd keep loaded if I could, whereas for SK I'm satisfied with the existing 13 slots. SK could make use of a couple more, if they were around. It'd be a nice luxury. But for paladins have to choose tools that just get put aside, can't fight with them at the same time as fighting with other tools. Can't have all of Best Agro spells and Best Survival spells, and Best Dps, and Best Healing, and All The Stuns, and Toolbox Stuff loaded all together. Can have some of each , or all of a couple, but not all/all. Which is frustrating when -- something unexpected happens, and you know you could have handled it with Paladin Things, but you didn't have those ready, or -- you do expect something to happen, so you're prepared for it, but you wanna spend the time until then putting on some extra heals & damage, or randomly tanking something while you're waiting to burn, or whatever.
Really? That’s interesting. I haven’t had a chance to go through all the spells or anything yet. Was going to do a little research tonight with my down time to look at how Paladins have their spells lined up and then just use according to my level of spells. SKs were simple. 4-5 life taps, couple fast cast DDa, an AC draw, and a couple aggro grabbers. Done and done.
Spammy how so? Heals? Stuns? Discs. All of it? And I was reading that Paladins can fill the role of a group healer? Or is it just back up emergency heals? I’ve never bothered to try healing before (had a Druid and Shaman but only ever needed to throw out an occasional heal). I think it would be fun. Anyone have a spell line up for being a battle healer? Alternatively, does anyone have a mash key multi-bind they wouldn’t mind sharing? I’m following the ABC rule (always be casting), but still new to the spell line. Only level 83 right now so spells and disc/AA are limited. And I need to go through my spells and check timers. Noticed one of my newer crush spells was locking out one of my force? spells I think it was.
Well, for heals, try to keep splash loaded, group wave heal, and atleast the fast casting single target loaded. Forgot what lvl stuns start procing heals but thats helpful later on. Target of target heals are also useful.
Get to level 85 and that will open up glorious vindication, Dd that autocasts twinheal buff that goes to song window. When you get to 86 you unlock a dd that does bonus damage to undead but works on live mobs as well When you get to 87 you unlock denouncement - you will be familiar with this spell line as it is very close to sk life taps, you’ll want to debuff mr to make this spell line worthwhile as the resist mod is abysmal. You won’t be able to debuff yourself until 92 Your going to want to use the reverse damage shields - they are trash. Spell book filler that add next to nothing for dps. One of them has a long recast so just eats a spell slot. The other is only useful in situations where a mob has a ds and this will override it. So when you achieve those levels for dps Brilliant Elegy Crush Crush Denouncement Ward Splash Burst Protective confession Aurora For playing main healer Disable bold attacks if it is available at that level, take off your aggro mask cast marrs salvation on yourself. This should allow you to do healing and aggro spells without overtaking the tank on the hate list You can load up stuns and stun lock if capable this drastically reduces your need to cast a heal if the mob can’t be stunned you can use some nukes when you get to the 90s you can double up on the denouncement line Brilliant vindication Protective Denouncement Splash Aurora Burst Touch Wave Your go to in this situation is going to be touch this is your most priest like heal. It does have a longer cast time but it has the highest base just spam it over and over and you can keep most tanks alive that are playing their toon correctly. Spamming one heal is very one dimensional but it will get the job done giving you time To feel out a situation to min/max Aurora- if you are looking for a fast spam heal this one will do the trick. This is a smart heal and balances healing across all party members who are damaged. For a group heal it is terrible because it does not crit and is not modified and if multiple members are being damaged the heal being divided makes it really ineffective. Where the spell really hits stride is when 1 member of the group is damaged and you chain cast this. In the event that the person getting damaged receives a heal other than one you cast the spell is coded to only heal to its max value minus the targets gap to 100% health and charges the mana cost accordingly Example 50k hp char Takes 15k round Player 2 casts a support heal that lands for 7k You cast aurora which has a max value of 15k And cost 4K mana It heals the remaining 8k and only charges you half the mana Like I said it’s great when you need quicker than touch that you can spam. Side note this doesn’t eat your twin heal charges so it allows you to cast brilliant spam this and save the twinheal for a more potent direct heal from touch or burst if the tank takes a bad round Side note #2 if you get a dps that takes aggro and is near death don’t be afraid to hit them with bestow divine aura and then while they are da you can heal them through da with aurora which will help drop their aggro and get healed back to full so they can click off da Let’s talk burst. It seems like a great idea because it has a high potential healing and is super fast. I only use this spell to heal others so long as I know the rest period isn’t going to screw me. This is more effective at self healing than anything else because of the stackability of healing mods so even on a non crit you get ample healing. Great spell staple in my spell line up since it’s release just learn to know when it is your best option. You have to take some Ls to get the feel for it Splash not crazy high healing but super effective for curing (/mourn original version) if I’m loading this spell I just click the spell to bring up the target ring and keep it in hover so that all I have to do is click the ground when I need it. Great for keeping an emergency heal loaded in the chamber I also almost always paired this with brilliant for double curing and getting the most effective ae heal. Better for raids than groups from a healing point of view. Wave: your best group heal. If you are in a heavy ae situation or have off tanking happening you can load the most current and the previous expansion they don’t share a timer. Hand of piety your best group save at higher ranks it has a really great hot and fast refresh from our as heals Protective vs denouncement these require you to have the mob targeted. Denouncement if the mob isn’t me debuffed and you are the main healer I would shy away from this spell - it is not like the cleric heals where a resist of the dd still heals the target. If you get resisted in the dd you get no heal so cast it as needed but stay away from it as a staple until you can cast your own me Debuff unless you have a chanter or other class casting tash Protective adds a mitigation buff to the song window you will appreciate how effective this can be to keep up at all times on the tank as it beats out the cleric vies. This spell you don’t have to spam but can be woven through other spells to keep the buff up it will fade after certain damage is absorbed. This has healing values close to light which can be underwhelming at times Stunning will proc healing light If you can get someone to run you through rallos returns you can get hands on a staff of hamahiru which has the priest Hohv proc there is also an aug from the card packs that has this proc on it too not a huge heal but it has a high proc rate and heals the group just by auto attacking Heal over time with aa it helps smooth out damage At higher levels the majority of your targeted spells will become pass through heals this was a much needed change Healing mods: save them for oh s@&$ situations if you are trying to keep them in group spire/group armor of inquisitor If you are tanking spread them out for 100% uptime or stack them in heavy tanking situations As you level up you will gain access to hand of tunare 10 charges of twin heal Gift of life huge ae direct heal with a bonus heal over time LoH has this as well don’t be scared to cast this and hand of piety as a mitigation tool as the heal over time stacks for enormous hot ticks Your biggest limiting factor will be mana using the mana pres glyph can be your best friend here you’ll have to be choosey as you are leveling up and it can be painful wasting aa on glyphs That’s all I got for now Hope it helps
With pally, when it gets hairy just remember "Armor of the Inquisitor" or to save yer bros "Group Armor of the Inquisitor"... with SK when it gets hairy you just have to sort of wake up at the keyboard and remember to hit autoattack.
I can't comment on specific pally stuff, but based on ones I play with you need to be casting. Stuns, heals, ect.
Yes, Aurora has a couple of special qualities: - it's a variation of Divine Arbitration damage balancing - it heals through Divine Aura, e.g. heal a DA rampage tank - it has no hate itself, so it was nerfed to prevent a paladin for healing while remaining OOC by: (a) +100 hate mod on spell (b) Aurora Effect was added for another +100 hate mod and a +1 heal amount (witness check) (c) even so, it's a low aggro healing tactic
Notably, Aurora does not heal pets. In the casual group game, pets are very often tanking. I recommend against it in a default grouping lineup. Can always sub it in.
If healing Pets you’ll want to be using the touch line as pets have inflated hp to compensate for tank class mitigation and touch is the only spell we have that will have a high enough base to be worthwhile. Pets with ice flame etc will be less spikey than real tanks and blasting off a twinheal touch will be more than enough usually to keep pace
Well and true until ToV. The 114 Mark of the Jade Cohort is strong enough to serve as the paladin version of SK's melee lifetaps, e.g. Mortail Coil, Lich Sting. Cast this Mark on the mobs you're fighting for a nice boost to passive healing (at long last). This might be the best "new spell" for paladins in ToV. Protective is quite unique. It's a pass-through ToT spell that doesn't actually affect the target (no direct aggro or resist chance). You can target yourself for it's full benefits.
I was speaking specifically to playing main healer in group. The tank isn’t going to keep himself targeted. So the healer will have to target the mob. With the changes to touch/light/burst/hot this is less of a tab fest but he is still below the update to heals What spell are you dropping for mark at 115
Lol touché My how the times have changed that hurts my soul. I can’t get to 115 need to join a guild grinding out the xp from 113 is going so slow and I can’t find groups wanting to do the other zones I couldn’t 2 box. I’ve taken to pling a 3rd box and I don’t want to redo progression so I stoppped on the bard and paladin. Definitely missing out getting to try new tactics.
Most folks complete ToV progression and collections (from last 3 or 4 xpacs for 2% normal xp) to get to 115 quickly.
Not to derail this thread even more (I pretty much concur with Shiftee's thoughts for the OP around your current level)...but... So, first, thanks for bringing attention to the new Mark and the much better numbers for it than previous versions. Completely missed it. Second, if you think the new Mark is anything close to Mortal Coil or Lich Sting … well, you would be wrong. Admitting that this is one end of the spectrum, I took my normal group to a Great Divide: Restless Assault raid instance to kill trash. On 27 mobs (wurms and coldain), I pulled with Mark (meaning it landed on every mob before I was hit … except one, which got in a few rounds before Mark landed). Everything else my group did was the same as normal (so had short term buffs, mobs slowed, etc.). Here's the healing on my paladin by my paladin: Code: Spell Name Actual HFull HeaOver HeaCount Total 2084120931812128109709192752 Remonst Heal II 4606521 6726004 2119483 78 Curate's Ret II 2355604 2450299 94695 98 Burst of Wak II 2001357 6756417 4755060 33 Protective Cons 1900023 3003009 1102986 38 Mark of Jade C 1368357 1373517 5160 1641 Vector of Heal 1277655 1504307 226652 69 Remote Healing 1240499 1317249 76750 91 Valiant III Caz 1073918 1432348 358430 25 Preservation II 966545 1056726 90181 141 Healing L XXVI 953622 1595156 641534 20 Blessof L XXVI 546580 639376 92796 24 Dissident Fo 5 527393 1378740 851347 12 Shining Azia VI 500094 593009 92915 49 Hand of Pi XL 399444 734040 334596 6 Guardian's G VI 326993 326993 0 1 Hand of Holy 306510 415872 109362 26 Ennui Health 249817 257701 7884 61 MeleeTap 240277 251365 11088 339 (Sorry, tried to make it more readable … not sure I succeeded) As you can see, the Mark was like having another shield proc overall (I have the TBL raid drop tank shield). It proc-ed a ton ... but for an average of 833. Cleric's Curate (which stacks!!!) was better. But I think it's a stretch to say that it should change the way you approach your fighting. It's another tool … one that is valid to use (unlike old Marks). If you are in a situation where you can pull with it and/or are fighting a lot of singles (either due to pulls or cc), I'd certainly consider it. If you are fighting multiple mobs, it's a slow spell to cast so really hard to walk down the line hitting each mob at the start … and I'd much rather be focused on doing other things. I'll try it again today when the servers come back on regular ToFS mobs.
Constant, thoughtless healing over time (Mark) has high value. Its value for keeping the tanks/melee alive is greater than a relative comparison of total healed amount would indicate. This is because it is not subject to near as much RNG. Its displacement of mob DS is also more valuable than heal parses will show. This is not to say that it is super effective and should be a mandatory spell for the healing/tanking paladins. We have many similar value spells that compete for same slots. It just depends on what you are up against. This spell has made it into my permanent group lineup, and I've been happy with it so far.
I've monkeyed with it in certain situations also, I just wish the spell data didn't taunt me with a much higher value of the heal on the reverse ds than is actually possible.
