Going solo

Paladin is an excellent class to solo. It starts out somewhat slower but as soon as you get your gear/aa's and spells you'll be a machine.

If you have fun going up all the content, i would recomend to save some money and get AoD, as you gain accsess to mercs almost from the start of the game. Which can be handy if some situations might require a bit of help. Which does make AoD pay off more then most expansion ever does (no dont want to start a sidetopic to this, there are plenty around ^^ thanks ^^)

Feeling particularly nitpicky? Soloing is playing by yourself with no other real life person. Hiring a merc qualifies.

I wouldn't recommend getting the latest expansion, CoE until you are in your mid to upper 80's, none of the content will be for lower level characters. AoD is the expansion you'll need to play a beastlord, it also contains mercenaries, tradeskill npcs and reforging, the first 3 of which will be useful to you at lower levels. I have also liked having AoD and wish I had gotten it earlier than I did.

I hate to seem ignorant but could someone explain what all the abbreviations mean?

CoE Chains of Eternity
AoD Age of Discovery

Don't see any others on this page...

Other page...

DPS Damage per second
AOE - area of effect (means spell will hit everything in its radius of effect, instead of just one mob - means you get the attention of every mob that's in the area)
CA - combat art - a melee attack
SK - shadowknight
AA - Alternate Advancement - point system that allows you to specialize your toon's abilities

Whatever gets you through the day I guess.

Makes my day ^ ^
(sorry, could not withstand on that one)
But going back to topic, i would recomend paladin, as it is played pretty easy, at least it was for me.

Thank you for the explanation of the abbreviations. I don't plan on getting those expansions right now, It would be rather pointless because it beyond my capabilities at this time. Off subject but could someone give me a site that helps me the / words and the game in general.

Since I'll be doing at least 99% of my adventuring solo how should my paladin be......well I'm not sure how to put it. How to build him up. I'm not sure if I'm making myself clear but I don't know how else to put it.

There's the official SoE wiki on the game, here:

http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/EverQuest_2_Wiki:Main_Page

It's hard to find current info about this game on the net. There's a lot of it out there, but most of it is outdated. Don't base any game-breaking decisions on what you read - ask here if you need to.

As far as developing your Paladin:

One of the most important investments you'll make is your Alternate Advancement (AA) experience. This type of experience is completely separate from your standard adventuring experience, and is awarded when you complete quests, discover new areas, defeat new enemies, etc. You can also choose to convert your standard experience into AA experience at any time. If you're F2P, you can convert up to 50%, and 100% if you're a subscriber.

Taking the time to develop your AA's early can be very beneficial. You can put your AA's in up to 4 different trees, but in the beginning, only your class and subclass trees are available (for a Paladin, that's the Crusader and Paladin trees).

You can respec at any time, but it will cost you in-game coin - however, near the beginning of the game you can get a card to respec for free 5 times.

Everyone has their own strategies for how to develop their trees, but I'll give you my early game opinion. Paladins are highly survivable and really don't need extra survival early on, so I like to trait to increase their damage. Later on, when and if you start grouping and tanking, you'll need to adjust accordingly, but for soloing:

1.) Start down the Strength path on the Crusader tree (far left path). After putting 22 points in it, you can spend 2 more points to unlock the ending ability, which will reduce the casting time, recovery time, and reuse time for all your skills. Put 10 points in the first skill and 10 in the second - getting more frequent hits in with your auto-attack and having the chance to hit more than once can really help in the early game. The last skill is for hate increase, which you don't need soloing - just put the last 2 points there.

2.) After that, I would go down the Stamina path (middle), and get 10 points put into the second skill ASAP to increase your critical rate. Critical hits make a huge difference in battles, especially with so many skills to use. You might also eventually run into power (mana) issues with your Paladin, so being able to hit as hard as possible is very important.

Alternately, you could choose to go down the Agility path and get Trample, which extends your auto-attack to all enemies within range. You only get 50 points to spend in the Crusader tree before Level 50, and that's not enough to take Strength to the endline and put 10 in both Crit + and Trample, so I opted for Crit + and took Stamina to the endline, which gives a skill granting death immunity for 10 seconds. It's nice to have, but not necessary early on. The Paladin can wear heavy armor and has several different healing skills, which are all more than sufficient for solo content.

For the Paladin tree, the first upgrades I make are the ones that grant more damage to my AoE skills. Many of the Paladin's skills are for tanking, and you won't need to develop those until you start grouping.

3.) For Tradeskilling, I chose an Alchemist and I don't regret it at all. Alchemist can make skill upgrades for all Fighter types, including Paladins. If you keep your tradeskill level up to par with your adventuring level, you can upgrade your new skills as you get them. It takes rare materials to get the best upgrades, so spend them wisely - upgrade your AoE skills first, and maybe one or two of your healing skills. If you can upgrade your buffing skills that provide strength increases, those are nice, too, if you have the rares to spare. More strength = more damage + more power.

For solo play, Paladins are already highly survivable, so keep your damage output going as high as your grinding willingness allows.

That's all I can think of for now. If you have any other specific questions, just ask and I'm sure someone here can help you.

Thanks for the information. I'm going to copy and paste it to my note pad and then print it out.