You are a ~~ Paladin ~~ ... know your role in the raid scene.

disclaimer: i am addressing raids here, not exp groups.

You are not the almighty god of tanking. It's not because you aren't a skilled player, you just don't have the proper skillset. Take a look at your skills. "give target ac at the cost of yours" "give target X agi and XX skill to parry attacks" "heal target" "ward target" "grant target bonus to shield block" "give target str,agi,sta,wis" "give target blahblahblah...

you see the trend i am getting at... you are a support class. i know, i know.. that stings a little bit. it's ok the pain will go away when your first "raid" mobs drops. at level 50, with kaisines class skill (i highly recommend), i can give a guardian somewhere in teh neighborhood of 800 AC and 27sta/str... thats a TON of hps and power. don't forget with adept3 of the heal it does 700+ hps and master 1 of the ward is 700+ hps.

so when you get to T5 and you have saved up those precious ruby's and rhod's for your adept 3's.. I recommend you not be selfish by going crazy on your damage and melee skills. I suggest you take one for the team (guild) and get those buff spells up first and stick with your adept1's and app4's of the melee's for a bit.

But you missed one MAJOR thing about that. To do 3/4ths of the stuff your saying to do(just about everything except healing) requires you to be in same group but i hate to burst you bubble 90% of time on the big lvl 50+ groupx4 mobs you won't be in the same group at the MT. those spots will be reserved for a Toubuler,Dirge, and 1 of every priest class(Templer,Warden,Mystic) so all there buff stack on the MT(trust the way the mobs hit and how the encounter is made you'll need all those resist buffs and HP buffs) Anyone thats ever been hit by the Vision of Vox's group AE knows it doesn't tickle.

They REALLY need to make Paladins more RAID friendly aka allow your AC transfer be allow to be casted on a person out of the group but in the raid. So the ward too since every other ward class but crusaders can cast there ward outside of the group but us. Im not really sure they should let Unwaviering Faith to be casted outside of a group though.....

you bring up good points about buffing cross group. That is something that should be addressed. Hasn't been an issue for me yet since i am in MT group usually, but i definately agree with you.

our ward and heal can be casted cross group though at least last night they were able to be.

imho our buffs are better then wardens for MT. ac = mitigation.

I agree.

Unfortunately I am not raiding at all yet. Still waiting on others to catch up. I couldn't resist going Adept III's for Zealous Preaching and Refusal of Grace first.

After this I will adept III my heal, then off to the 4 major buffs. And consider Divine Touch or whatever our Lay on Hands is, based on how many hit points it does.

I have only had the opportunity to not be the main tank 1 time. I enjoyed giving up my armor to make the warrior a brick wall.


Herak Stonefinger
50 Paladin
3 Artisan
Unrest

The only problem with all of this is one thing. SOE told us over and over again that with the archetype system, all classes will be able to fill the role of their archetype. For fighters that role is tanking, or being the MT. So if it is not equally viable for a guardian, paladin, or monk to be MT in a raid then the system is broken. So we are just going back to our old EQ1 ways (which SOE insured us would not happen) and accepting that guardians are the only viable raid MT. This is unacceptable by a lot of players. As we bought the game with the promise that whatever class we picked would be on equal ground within it's archetype.

I agree, BUT it's obvious that the vision promised is changing rapidly for EQ-2. Crafting has already being redesigned, and I can tell you for a fact that not all crafters are created equal. The same is currently true for adventure classes. Will this change to rebalance things in the future? Only someone from SOE can answer that, and they ramain pretty silent on the issue.
Fenra Fairheart (Butcherblock)

Yeah, I know...maybe one day in a dream they will be able to make all this work out. :smileywink:

yes lets bow down to the guardians and accept our inferior role. /sarcasm off Its asinine how i see guardians lvls below me winning vs stuff that whoops my azz.

To the original poster..

Obviously you're commfortable with you're raid role and If it works for you then awesome.


However I came to EQ2 because Mooreguard and Co promised Knights wouldn't play second fiddle in THIS game.

The role you describe is hauntingly familiar to me and I for one won't buy into it.
That being said...if this indeed is the way EQ2's devs are steering Knights, someone needs to be straight with us on it.

That way those of us who are fine with this new role can stay and those of us who aren't can move on.

This isn't a flame mind you but I for one didn't pay $50 for EQ1 all over again.

The orginal poster has some nice opinions.

the heal yes can be casted cross group but i haven't tried since the last patch but before the last patch our ward couldn't be casted cross group.
AC is NOT going to save the butt of your MT when 50% of the lvl 50+ cast some MEAN and i mean some MEAN group AEs or AEs totally. where even 1% in a resist can mean life and death of the main tank and the Wardens Elemental resist buffs mean ALOT especially alot of the raid mobs AEs are Heat and Cold attacks

Wow, take your post and shove it. That's your role. :robottongue:

Considering raids can only consist of 4 or so groups, Paladins STILL make better damage soakers than Guardians. :robottongue:

Thanks for the intelligent Pally posts Tuccimm. They bring up some good discussion points. I personally feel all the fighters can tank in any given moment, yet at some points, some tanks may perform better than others. We do have secondary tank skills so if you don't submit to another tanks sometimes, then you're really only playing half of the Pally class. It comes down to skill for me. I was grouped with a Guardian the other day who had far less ac and hp yet insisted on taunting and pulling aggro. After her 2 deaths I think she finally discovered some humility. I also had to step up in one group over a Monk because he was sooo tentative on pulling, I personally feel Pallys make excellent pullers in groups. Anyways, I really like the Pally class and like how we can adapt to multiple group/raid situations and aren't pigeon holed. Keep up the good posts and topics. It sure beats the heck outta horse wars. =)

I don't know about all of you but I'm currently a 48 DE Paladin and I have never had 1 problem tanking in any group. The only reason I have sat to Guardians 45+ is because I don't have the time to get Ebon Clusters and get Ebon Gear. Also on raids I prefer doing damage and healing.. I have a duel purpose on any raid if things start going sour I can help heal.. if things are going good I can whack the hell out of the mob and push out some nice damage. I do hate when people say Paladins can't tank.. everyone I have grouped with always says I do a really good job and love grouping with me.. I just think that some morons out there are giving us Paladins a bad rap and it is most likely the ones complaining that we can't tank.

lvl 24 I tanked a group of 3 orange giants in TS with a group of 3 other people who were non healer classes.. our healer had ld'ed right as I pulled and I mass healed myself and kept my [FAAR-NERFED!] alive.. I'd love to see a Guardian pull off that

Sure Guardians have more ac and more hp but do they get heals? How are you losing aggro also.. we have hate transfer buffs.. offense to defense hate buff.. ward that increases hate.. 2 taunts.. if you lose aggro it should only be to tactics and that is that..

But back to raiding yes.. Guardians will play the tanking class and if you didn't realize that when you were picking your class then again you are a moron.. lets see their class name is GUARDIAN and they get tons of DEFENSIVE ABILITIES.. lets see you pick a PALADIN.. who gets tons of HEALS AND SUPPORTING BUFFS.. GOD MORONS!

pls dont take my post out of context. i didn't anywhere say that in exp groups paladins are worse then guardians. in any exp group we can tank and hold agro as well as any guardian and even better with heals and wards (pls see my post on useing redemption).

I was specifically targeting raid mobs and events with my post.

we play backup on raids not because we take damage any worse then a guard but simply because we cant hodl agro on 10 mobs as well as a guardian can.

so to address peoples concerns about SOE leing about paladins playing second fiddle.... thier comment is fair. we can tank jsut as well as a guardian for exp groups, but IMHO a guard is better suited to hold agro on teh raid scene against multiple targets.

(i will say that against a single mob paladins hold better agro with less work using redemption then a guard, but thats in a different post )

Paladins get many buffs that are used on themselves.. not just supporting buffs. Any Paladin that is level 50 and equipped just as well as a Guardian the same level should be tanking over them. Period.

Guardians have a higher DPS ratio than Paladins because of their ability to dual wield, making them better supporting tanks. Paladins get wards, heals, buffs, agro transfer buffs and the same emergency taunts that Guardians receive.. Paladins are without a doubt the ultimate meat shield in this game. If you let a Guardian tank over you, that's your fault. Telling any other Paladin they should let a Guardian tank over them in a 4 group raid is ridiculous.

People are getting strung up on this name business and relating it back to EQLive. Everyone and their sister thinks that assassins are the best dps in the scout class because of their name.. think again. Ignore the name and look at the abilities people. A well played Paladin will put any Guardian to shame as far as damage soaking goes. Period.

I have never seen such a ridiculous post.If u dont know what your talking about you guys should just keep to the newbie yard.

I level 50 Guardian can be pushed to 13K HP with around 300+ STA , a Knight (SK/Pally) will cap out around 7K-7.5K HP with that same 300+ STA. Its not a question of holding aggro or mitigation or even DPS, in the end
everyone is going to want a Guardian to tank simple because of that imbalance.When a Mob hits for 4-6K u really think 7K health is going to cut it?
So yes right now we are just filler in raids, cant DPS like mage/scouts, cant Heal/ward/buff like clearics/druids and sure as hell cant tank like a guardian.Face it we are screwed anyway u look at it.

If this is true at level 50 then we are broke and SOE needs to fix us. Unless SOE has abanded their archtype concept. Which means we are just playing EQ1 with pretty graphics.

I think the point of the OP was if you have say a level 50 guardian and a level 50 Paladin in a raid group, which would you take as the MT? I don't know how Paladin's perform in raids as an MT as I've never been on one, but I'd be willing to bet that with some creativity we can hold our own--maybe even perform better--versus a guardian. But what about all of these nice support abilities that we get? The AC Boost, +Block line etc. I think really augments what are already some nice defensive skills of the guardian.

This discussion always inevitably generates to an I can pee further than guardians argument. Fact is that both exist in the game for a reason, if a guardian can MT then great. I can drop some buffs on him, take Stance down, and burn power on DPS; nice change in my opinion.

Good thread, I think.

" Paladins get many buffs that are used on themselves.. not just supporting buffs."

yes we get many buffs that we can cast on ourselves... that can also be cast upon the guardian. what about "gift of armament"? that you cant cast on yourself... or unwaivering faith?

" Guardians have a higher DPS ratio than Paladins because of their ability to dual wield, making them better supporting tanks."

you are just flat wrong. when i bust out monsoon or my great flail, drop my defensive stacne and have a bard in group, i outdamage our scouts.

"Paladins get wards, heals, buffs, agro transfer buffs and the same emergency taunts that Guardians receive"

do you know that nearly every guardian skill has a explicit hate component? apparently not. there is no way that a paladin can hold hote more then a guardian against multiple mobs.

"Paladins are without a doubt the ultimate meat shield in this game. "

well, i'll agree and say we are the ultimate class, we are not the best meat shields ( FOR RAIDS).