Paladin solo/DPS build questions and tips.

Discussion in 'Paladin' started by ARCHIVED-Eskol, Mar 28, 2011.

  1. ARCHIVED-Eskol Guest

    I know this has probably been talked about plenty, and I am sure that I am gonna get heck from people on here telling me to use EQ2 flames...I am gonna be the first one to say, 1. Yes I am to stupid to figure out how to find "relevant" information on that site (I keep finding TSO and older specs) and 2. I get pushed around on that website so bad...I try to completely avoid posting there.

    Without further delay...I am trying to build a Paladin for solo'ability and DPS spec. I do still plan on tanking from time to time, but only with friends and nothing serious at all. I have always played scout's and or mage's and recently decided that I want to have a character that can successfully take on more than 2 or 3 enemies at a time. I was trying to grind AA in the Hole and a guildie was helping me out, Defient. He is a 90 Pally with PQ gear and only 203 AA and was able to solo the northern side of the hole with ease...I want to be able to do that...He hasn't logged on in a few day's and I am having a hard time getting any tips from anyone so I was hoping to find some help here.

    1. AA, how many AA does a Paladin need before he can start killing? I have no trouble with surviving but it takes FOREVER to kill something, I have 44 AA and went down the wraths line and the Int line...any tips? Maybe a respec for better solo'ability?
    2. Deity, I have managed to get a toon to 90, and a toon to 80, and numerous toon's to 50 and I have never done anything with my deity...should I worry about this? If so who would you all recommend for a solo build pally? (I was thinking Mithaniel Marr)
    3. I am currently locked at lvl 29 (so I can do Fallen Gate) I did this so I can work on AA for a little while...Is there a better lvl to lock at and grind AA or a better zone to grind for AA? I can currently handle about 5-8 mobs in FG without to much trouble, they are just long fights. (Unless Smite is up)
    4. Defensive vs. Offensive I want to DPS and kill faster, but I also want to be able to solo really well while I am killing stuff. I currently use the offensive Stance with a two handed weapon, would anyone suggest anything different?

    Please be generous and I thank you all in advance for the advice. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!
  2. ARCHIVED-Rainy Guest

    get rid of the INT line. so down Str or Sta. str gives you hate gain, but also gives haste adn reuse speed...and Sta give you some tanking stuff/health but more importantly, Crit for your dmg. I'd also look into getting Trample. 40% ae auto attack can be pretty nice too.
    2h for dmg at your level is fine...later on you'll get aa that makes using a 2hander pretty much pointless unless it is one NASTY 2hander (Vig x2 and the Theer 2handers come to mind here)
    I wouldn't worry about a deity just yet. mith marr is the only one left with a pet buff that will fo anyhting for you...bu the deity miracles for good fighters are pretty blah exvept the tanking one from the Tribunal. (they gave all the really nice dmg stuff to the evil deities)
    for me usually, but I'm high end with 270+ aa...I go offensive with sword and board. but like I said later on you get an AA that ups your damage pretty nicely as long as your wearing a shield.
    at your level I'd prolly do like your doing, off with a 2hander...but just remember that you can't insta switch stances, so if your looking at something you think might be tough, try out the def stance with your 2hander..or try staying offesive and usinf the sword and board.
  3. ARCHIVED-Ironcleaver Guest

    At your level and AA, you'll want to go Str line (10 in double attack) and Stam line (10 in crit chance); these will net your biggest boost. After go agility (10 in AE auto attack). Once you have all three of those at 10 ranks it's really up to you. You could then go down Wraths or Wisdom (for more wards, weapon skill and potancy). Hunt down any gear with crit chance and double attack, once those are high look for crit bonus.
    Also, if you can afford it, get battle Hardening (shadows), even if you get nothing else in shadows at these levels. This will reduce incoming damage by almost 290 points per hit and at your low level, that's pretty godly.
  4. ARCHIVED-Eskol Guest

    I am not to worried about tanking, like I said, I have no big plans to tank anything other than small groups with a a friend or two, I am more concerned with dishing out lots of pain.
    You don't recommend the spell damage increase on the Int line? I do have a 2H that I was thinking of using when I hit 90 http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Prodigious_Executioner's_Axe
    How does that look? I thought it looked pretty good...this is my first fighter though...I do feel like I need the reuse speed...those timers kill me...
    Here is my current build and it seems like at lvl 29 with MC'd gear and all Master'd out, and all my gear has cheap adornments...I would expect to kill faster than I do...

    ***P.S. I am stopped at 29 because one it was cheap to twink him at that level, and also the other Pally that I am trying to take notes from (that I cannot catch in-game anymore) Stopped there and said he grinded AA till 100 AA then went to lvl 55 and grinded other zones till 160 AA before moving on


    *Edit*
    So after looking, it will be about 75 points before I start looking good then?
    http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?f01p14...4a820f@35@15@75
    How is that?
  5. ARCHIVED-agovu Guest

    Take the points out of Higher Ground and Lance and put 8 Into Idolic Axe and get Avenging Invigoration.

    The reuse and casting should make a fairly noticable difference instead of a 45 second recast AE
    Honestly, If your expecting to do damage I would reroll before you put alot of time into the character.
    Paladin's will never be placed into a group as damage and most likely will never be considered DPS.
    If you'd rather DPS, then scout/mage would be the better path for that.
  6. ARCHIVED-Eskol Guest

    Don't get me wrong, I am NOT trying to build a Paladin that will be grouped for DPS. I do not want to be considered a "DPS" class as I know Paladins never will be.

    I am simply interested in making a Paladin hit as hard as possible. I want to be able to solo VERY well, while still being able to group with my family and friends...no one I know is an "uber" player. Meaning we are lucky to see anything higher than 15k DPS...(we don't plan to do DoV zones like this)
    I think I am slowly getting the hang of things btw...I am VERY impressed in my survivability and the amount of damage I can still do.


    Does power ever stop being a problem for Paladins?
  7. ARCHIVED-Controlor Guest

    Sent yah a PM with 2 possible builds you might like (if yah get to max level / aa) But for now what the other paladins sugest for lower levels are good.
  8. ARCHIVED-Eskol Guest

    Thanks! I really like the first one the survivability and DPS build and after reading some of those I feel like a lot of it made sense! Thanks Controlor
  9. ARCHIVED-Etruscus Guest

    My "best advice" for you is to either follow Jeal's DPS spec or Jeal's tank spec. I know you want to be able to DPS as much as possible, but 95% of paladin DPS comes from gear. You are better off just going for a tank spec and being a decent tank and taking a few seconds longer to kill. Our AA is really designed for tanking, in my opinion. We have a few good options for added damage, but this isn't going to be earth shattering.
    That said, i would spend your AA something like this, if really want to go DPS:
    75
    http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?f0211a...14a814a81202@32
    118
    http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?f0211a...0l@35@15@35@351
    149
    http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?f0211a...@35@351@1555@21
    199
    http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?f0211a...351@1555@215@22
    244
    http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?f02j1a...5@25@21130ka@3a
    282
    http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?f02r1a...1131ea@28aaa@51

    And then you could just distribute the last 18 wherever.

    I would never use any of that personally and I would strongly advise not using any of it, but that's the best DPS with little consideration for tanking or even survivability, other than the DA option.

    Again, I would say just go to flames and use Jeal's tank spec, maybe imrpovise a little, but not too much. What difference does it make if your parsing 4K vs 5k and you can't tank anything when your friends want to you to go run with them?
  10. ARCHIVED-Eskol Guest

    That's why I added "solo'ability" and "survivability" only because if I can solo pretty well, tanking will be easier with another DPS and healer.
    Toons that I plan to play with include a 90 Swash, 90 Fury, 90 Templar, 90 Bruiser(the sucky kind, he has no idea what he is doing) and sometimes a 90 SK(very rarely)
    Like I said I DO not plan to get this toon to involved in much of the DoV zones...I have a 90 assassin that I group with, this Paladin is strictly for grinding AA out in older zones (with PQ gear) places like The Hole(northern side) and stuff like that.
  11. ARCHIVED-Controlor Guest

    Eskol you will also want to work on your casting order to maximize your dps / survival. If you do not have one i suggest you get a melee swing timer as well. Melee dps is about 30% of my total dps so it is REALLY important that you swing your sword. A lot of the paladins DPS is all about synergy (and procs).
    Things to consider in casting...
    Holy Ground -- IF all your spells are down and holy ground comes back up DO NOT CAST IT. Instead wait a second or two until your spells start coming back up than cast it. When fighting large groups of mobs you want to follow holy ground by your aoe's. When fighting a single mob you want to follow holy ground with your FASTEST casting spells (these are primarily your single targets but ancient wrath is one as well). NEVER cast Castigate when you have holy ground active. Castigate does NOT trigger holy grounds dmg proc. Also holy ground is the ONLY reason that the build i sent you has 1 point in hammer ground as it is another aoe that will trigger holy ground. Any other time i do not cast hammer ground (its dmg is to low) unless i have nothing else to cast.
    Power -- Power is less of an issue this expansion, however last expansion (and all others before) paladins soloing had to learn the value of power conservation. However still knowing how to conserve power can be useful at times. Usually it was in the form if sacraficing dps (by just relying on your melee swings and smite evil / holy ground as they are 0 power) and focusing on healing. Another benefit was learning good casting order combonations.
    Healing -- This goes along with the power conservation in a way. Like with DPS you need to learn to optimize your healing abilities. Moreso as our heals have much longer reuse timer so you can not spam heals. So you often times will want to wait till your health drops into the yellow before casting certain heals. I Suggest you make a macro for your ward to only cast that on yourself also. Typically you wont be healing other members unless it is with the group heal, but in case you are not the one who has agro you still want the ward on you. This is important in places such as raiding where if you are the OT you can cast the ward on yourself before an AOE goes off to help offset the damage, instead of casting the ward on your MT. Also ALWAYS cast your ward on yourself BEFORE pulling stuff. You can also cast your myth clicky to pull the mob or as it is running towards you, other than that pretty much never cast your myth clicky it is useless.
    % my health is at when i usually cast the heal soloing
    Any Time -- Demonstration of Faith (since it is a ward it will offset the damage so cast it when its up, and before pulling)
    75% -- Prayer of Healing (this has a fast reuse and low heal so try to cast this when your just starting to drop health)
    60% -- Combo Stonewall / Crusader's Faith (this is a combonation that i like to use when i am at around 60% health before using holy aid to heal me up. The stonewall will prevent melee damage from hitting you and the crusader's faith will heal you while you do dps. Once you start this combo if holy ground and faithfull cry are up cast holy ground than faithful cry and follow that by your normal holy ground chain. The healing from crusader's faith and faithful cry combined with you not taking that much melee damage while stonewall is up should heal you to full. Watch your buff window as I typically dont cast any healing spells (other than prayer of healing or demonstration of faith) on me while crusader's is running so i can get the full effect from crusader's.)
    50 - 60% -- Holy Aid (the amount has been increased on this casting it at this time will usually put you back at around 90% health, If you timing is good you should have prayer up again shortly).
    30 - 40% -- Devout Sacrament (Longer reuse than holy aid, heals for more. This should heal you to 100% from this % of your health)
    30% > -- Lay Hands (pretty much a complete heal if your potency is high enough)
  12. ARCHIVED-NorwegianWood74 Guest

    Ok, here is my take on paladin solo/dps play.... Not trying to say its perfect in any way but I read through all the abilities and pondered long with some trial/error for what worked best.
    As above poster said, go for a 2 hander (crush/slash, dont matter as long as skill is maxed so you dont miss a lot) with the highest possible max damage. It can be slow as heck (8.0 sec) but that dont really matter.
    First off, Crusader tree, go down the line for the Multi Auto attack. Fill that one to the hilt. Try to find gear that also gives + to multi-attack. I havent tried very hard and Im just in broker/questreward gear at lvl 81 with 96,6% Multi attack proc. Think you should be able to get 50-60% multi auto around lvl 20-30.
    Then build up the Trample for multi multi auto :) (your autoattack has a % chance of hitting all surrounding mobs). Mine is currently around 50%.
    After that I start the Paladin tree and build out the heals and AoE boosts.
    Right now at lvl 81 in Moors I can pull around 10-15 blue/white mobs and AoE the lot in short order. I regularly double-crit my multi-attacks and one-shot blue mobs. Most often blue/whites are left with 10-20% health after the first strike hits. For example, soloing Quartermaster Stumps (Tripple-up heroic) in Moors is cakewalk.
    Soloing with Paladin is much easier than it was with my Necromancer (lvl 90). I suspect it could be because of better gear now which improves the Paladin notably compared to last time I was playing it (about a year and a half ago).
    Anyhows, the auto-attack damage is actually the most important dmg I rely on. Double-whacking one or more mobs with the same autoattack for 15-19k damage is fun. Seeing 9k+ autoattacks land pretty often brings out a little smile :)
    I love my Paladin, Haqzo of Crushbone server.
  13. ARCHIVED-Kendakon Guest

    Ironcleaver wrote:
    Just fyi,
    You can't spend anything in shadows until level 50 now. :(
  14. ARCHIVED-Jehue Guest

    I appreciate the information in this thread. I just returned to the game and rolled a human Paladin. All my other toons are dark elves with my primary being a wizardress and Berserker as my 2nd most played. I have always liked the idea of the Paladin but I didn't care for Qeynos and the class seemed slow to level. I was a little discouraged at first with this toon but after passing down some level appropriate gear from my higher level characters things are going better.

    Best of all I am having fun cleaning out Blackburrow, which was my favorite newbie dungeon in the original Everquest. :)

    Anyway, the information here is encouraging enough that I am going to invest some time and a little station cash (mount) in this Paladin. I know a Paladin will never kill as fast as a wizard but it isn’t meant to. But it is fun getting in the middle of action and mixing it up while visiting some zones I couldn't easily access as a dark elf.