Question - What's a paladin like?

[Ordell]

Greetings. My main tank in my box crew is a shadow knight and I enjoy playing him greatly. However, I've gone about as far as I can as a single player non raiding, and have been looking about for something else to play. The one tank that I haven't played is a paladin. I'm wondering what kind of experience you get from playing the class versus a warrior or a shadow knight.

The warrior is the tank, right? Get and keep aggro and stay alive while the rest of the group or raid does the damage. The shadow knight has life tapping and massive aggro generation. What is the paladin have beyond massive procs versus undead, which are pretty rare in this game to be honest?

So what are the paladin’s strengths and weaknesses, especially when compared against the shadow knight? And what is the heroic stat to get for him, dex, agility, what?

 

[Trevocalpse]

Greetings. My main tank in my box crew is a shadow knight and I enjoy playing him greatly. However, I've gone about as far as I can as a single player non raiding, and have been looking about for something else to play. The one tank that I haven't played is a paladin. I'm wondering what kind of experience you get from playing the class versus a warrior or a shadow knight.

The warrior is the tank, right? Get and keep aggro and stay alive while the rest of the group or raid does the damage. The shadow knight has life tapping and massive aggro generation. What is the paladin have beyond massive procs versus undead, which are pretty rare in this game to be honest?

So what are the paladin’s strengths and weaknesses, especially when compared against the shadow knight? And what is the heroic stat to get for him, dex, agility, what?

Is this for Live? Or a specific level range/expansion?

 

[boxbuddy]

Paladins are basically shadowknights except they don't need a healer (for the rest of the group).

Tanking wise, they are about equal to shadowknights.

Heroic stat is dex, same as every other class in the game.

 

[Koko]

Their group heals and cures come in handy on certain raids

 

[Darkwynd3]

I don’t really like paladins as a boxed character. Unless they’re assisting rhey always end up targetting someone to heal…and then just sit there if nothing puts them back on target. Can’t just stick them on something with auto attack cause they’ll eventually target themselves or a group member.

They also don’t have the SK epic which means as good as they are at tanking, they’ll never tank as well as they SK does during epic (ok sure they mitigate the same, but the healing from SK epic is ridiculous).

 

[Sic]

I really enjoy my paladins - I don't enjoy "driving" them as much as i do the sk/war - just because of all the casting (sk's have more insta or near insta stuff).

I do think paladins are underrated for PL tanks too

 

[BobGrabber]

I typically use paladins or warriors for tank duty. The self heals are great, and our aggro tools via threat, splash heals, stuns are more than adequate. If not tanking, consider using pally as your 6th man. They can roll with a 2 hander, insta rez of things go sideways, and step into tank if need be.

 

[Ordell]

All good feedback, thank you all.

Question: I roll with a shaman instead of a cleric because SK self-heals are ridiculous. With max AA and some raid gear I've tanked dark blue mobs without a shaman and never noticed. Can I expect something similar with the pally?

Also, is it worth doing the epic?

 

[boxbuddy]

All good feedback, thank you all.

Question: I roll with a shaman instead of a cleric because SK self-heals are ridiculous. With max AA and some raid gear I've tanked dark blue mobs without a shaman and never noticed. Can I expect something similar with the pally?

Also, is it worth doing the epic?

I've grouped with a few paladins in just group gear that tanked modern content while being the group's healer.

The epic isn't necessary though I've heard it might have uses?

I typically use paladins or warriors for tank duty. The self heals are great, and our aggro tools via threat, splash heals, stuns are more than adequate. If not tanking, consider using pally as your 6th man. They can roll with a 2 hander, insta rez of things go sideways, and step into tank if need be.

Rolling 3 tanks in a group is honestly a legit strategy. Tanks are just DPS that wear can hold aggro and survive.

 

[Tim2051]

Pros for a paladin:
- tankiness similar to an SK but not quite for single survivability.
- group heals help you save some allies
- if others do die? You can Rez if you survive
- can lock aggro on singles super easy
- stuns are fun.

Cons
- the biggest as a driver is the target swap. To heal or whatever, then you realize your attack is off, so you’re procs/taps are off
- not as many tools. Example - regular invis + fd + epic, etc…
- not as good as a warrior or sk in aoe aggro
- dps is not as high as warrior or sk unless its undead

I have all 3 at end game, and my preference is SK for group and War for raid.

All are good with just a shaman.

No need for an epic for the Pally.

Although with SoR it’s an interesting decision to keep the evolved LS neck and type 18/19 or the updated healing focus on an SoR neck!

 

[Redmonkey]

A Paladin is really just the diet version of an SK. Kinda almost there but not quite.

 

[TVCChiver]

I absolutely love my paladin in my caster group. I run one as my main tank with a druid, chanter, mage, wizzy x2 and steam roll things just fine. I run mine with heroic agi instead of dex. My job is the tank, I have much more dps than I would ever need from my dps toons, so no need to try and make a pally dps. Now my SK that I run with my melee group I do use mostly Hdex for them.

 

[Warlock45]

Not much to add that isn't posted...

Have played all three tank classes. Pallies tend to be third, but are by no means useless... to me thay are just lacking attention from the devs.

I have always felt paladins being stun centric was a disservice when they made stuns have low level limits (IE unusable for named/raid targets) with ridiculous low damage spells, IE not building aggro. I say this because I can pull aggro off of pallies with my DPS crew with going going burn mode, have to work at it on warriors/SK.

Personally I load group heals/splash/self heal on my pally, so typically never switch targets.

I do agree that pally casting time compared to SK is ick... and required at times to decide if aggro building/damage was better just attacking + AA, or include casting.

 

[TVCChiver]

Not much to add that isn't posted...

Have played all three tank classes. Pallies tend to be third, but are by no means useless... to me thay are just lacking attention from the devs.

I have always felt paladins being stun centric was a disservice when they made stuns have low level limits (IE unusable for named/raid targets) with ridiculous low damage spells, IE not building aggro. I say this because I can pull aggro off of pallies with my DPS crew with going going burn mode, have to work at it on warriors/SK.

Personally I load group heals/splash/self heal on my pally, so typically never switch targets.

I do agree that pally casting time compared to SK is ick... and required at times to decide if aggro building/damage was better just attacking + AA, or include casting.

I have to say, if you are taking aggro from a paladin on just doing burns, that paladin is terrible. Paladin's have incredible aggro if you know how to play one correctly.

 

[reedreddington]

PAL is alright. Not really my play style. If you are used to SK then it will be slightly jarring, but familiar. Just imagine everything is DD/Stun or Heal related and that pretty much covers it.

 

[pasthiml]

Pallys used to be good, over a decade ago. The developers have made Sk and Warrior better for group content. They still have a solid role in raids for aoe heals/cures battle rezing, and off tanking mobs that should not be damaged. In my opinion, I would never recommend a pally for a new player, but is a interesting project class for those who have the time. I had a Pally main for several years about 20 years ago.

 

[zarroth]

This is why I use the Pally as my primary healer, warrior to tank and druid in DPS mode

 

[Bovinity]

Ironically, I generally feel more in control of my survival on SK than on Pally, and SK brings all the other toys to the table as well.

I'm always tempted to play some other tank in my box group - if only because SKs are a dime a dozen out there - but they're just so damn stacked. Shame, too, I always preferred dual-wielding!

 

[Warlock45]

I have to say, if you are taking aggro from a paladin on just doing burns, that paladin is terrible. Paladin's have incredible aggro if you know how to play one correctly.

--shrugs-- had to back my mage off on raids for some warriors or if we switched to pal. Had the same issue in groups before as well. The way RD was hammering the mobs you pretty much didn't see the spellbar ungrey until oom or dead. If I used a wiz I had to put in spell casting delays. Of course that was ToV release time frame, I haven't used a pally tank since except recently to loot aug drops.

Recently has a raid pally upset my group SK was pulling aggro off him on group hero missions... and all I did was turn on auto attack. NO taunt, no lifetaps, no casting.

 

[hackzimus]

Don't sleep on paladins, they are very strong imo.

Like an SK, their self healing is very strong. Their Aggroe since the Valiant line fix is very good as well. I've had SK/Paladin in both set ups of tank/sham/brd/zerk/rog/bst and dru/enc/wiz/wiz/clr or brd .... in both set ups, each tank held aggroe solidly.

As stated above, they can also heal group members which can be invaluable. This also includes combat rezzing through the staff of forbidden rites from OMM naggy/vox

Damage wise, they can be your top damage toon against undead once BoTF is going. Their burns outside of undead aren't too shabby either albeit a little janky when compared to an SK/War

They can also maintain themselves against swarms decently because they can proc heals on enemies hitting them. Pairing a paladin with a druid/enchanter is a very strong combo. Their healing AAs effect lifetaps from the nights dark terror line and you can utilize reptile in the event your self buff drops during a pull, which is also augmented by your healing AAs.

Paladins with lifetap weapon procs and healing proc on bashes get greater healing performance than shadowknights do from these tools. My parses show my paladin getting crit heals 2x larger than the SK would using the same items. Its a bit fuzzy since i didnt play my paladin during ToL, but in CoV i had nights terror line heals on the paladin for 600-700k where as the SK would get 250-300k iirc.

The downsides imo:

-The self buff maintenance on paladins is a bit more annoying than SKs
-SKs offer some decent pulling utility i feel a paladin lacks
-Their spell damage is pretty bad, even with thunder of karana the vast majority of damage is from auto attack
-SK epic is better on nameds than paladin epic. Pally epic is still viable though as with it they can maintain 40-50% healing mod on themselves
-It can feel a bit dry at times spamming heals/parlay/ maybe a crush intermixed. SKs to me feel they are a bit more varied in their approach.
- SKs can burn and be defensive at the same time w/o relying on a glyph. Paladins don't get the same degree of effectiveness during a burn because one of their larger dps CDs uses their disc combat timer.

 

[Bovinity]

Pairing a paladin with a druid/enchanter is a very strong combo. Their healing AAs effect lifetaps from the nights dark terror line and you can utilize reptile in the event your self buff drops during a pull, which is also augmented by your healing AAs.

It is a little frustrating that Pally proc buff doesn't stack with Reptile. It does stack with SKs Decrepit line, though. (Which isn't the same thing, sure, but it's still nice.)

There seem to be a lot of little synergy things working against Pallies sometimes. The Reptile thing, Cleric mercs making a lot of their buffs kind of redundant for most people, little things like that.

The class is still fine, still perfectly functional, but SK just has such a kit working for it. Though at the end of the day, 99% of my failures come from "Tank Died" and it's true that nothing beats slamming a huge heal to save yourself as a Pally.

 

[zarroth]

don't really need the res stick, unless maybe on a TLP maybe. Pally AA res works fast enough for combat res duty. Of course, I can't be bothered to do the work to get the res sticks so I dunno if there's a good reason to get it for a pally on live these days

 

[Ordell]

Ok thanks for all the input.

So what AA should I prioritize?

 

[boxbuddy]

Ok thanks for all the input.

So what AA should I prioritize?

Act of Valor.

Then DPS AAs. If you're dying, then defensive AAs.

 

[an_image]

Greetings. My main tank in my box crew is a shadow knight and I enjoy playing him greatly. However, I've gone about as far as I can as a single player non raiding, and have been looking about for something else to play. The one tank that I haven't played is a paladin. I'm wondering what kind of experience you get from playing the class versus a warrior or a shadow knight.

The warrior is the tank, right? Get and keep aggro and stay alive while the rest of the group or raid does the damage. The shadow knight has life tapping and massive aggro generation. What is the paladin have beyond massive procs versus undead, which are pretty rare in this game to be honest?

So what are the paladin’s strengths and weaknesses, especially when compared against the shadow knight? And what is the heroic stat to get for him, dex, agility, what?

@Ordell paladins are amazing, they die faster than a ranger and heal worse than a druid. Its a toss up between a monk tanking, a berzerker tanking, and a paladin. They all go squish at about the same rate. They make fantastic floor decorations and only make you want to reroll 80% of the time.

If i had to pick between a monk and a paladin as a tank…i’d pick a wizard…because at least then i have the i’m not a plate class excuse.

But seriously try one out, you’ll love how good they are at rezzing themselves while a mage or beastlord pet does the job for them.

Said the naked tank waiting for a rezz

 

[Bovinity]

@Ordell paladins are amazing, they die faster than a ranger and heal worse than a druid. Its a toss up between a monk tanking, a berzerker tanking, and a paladin. They all go squish at about the same rate. They make fantastic floor decorations and only make you want to reroll 80% of the time.

If i had to pick between a monk and a paladin as a tank…i’d pick a wizard…because at least then i have the i’m not a plate class excuse.

But seriously try one out, you’ll love how good they are at rezzing themselves while a mage or beastlord pet does the job for them.

Said the naked tank waiting for a rezz

Might be slightly exaggerated.

 

[RobRenfro]

A Pally is the defensive tank. The tank that stun s and heals. Whereas the SK is an offensive tank. Do you play an offensive or defensive game? I'm D first so I'm a Pally.

 

[Ordell]

I think offensive. Going through the pally AA I see nothing but healing spells and hardly any offensive AA.

 

[hackzimus]

I think offensive. Going through the pally AA I see nothing but healing spells and hardly any offensive AA.

Burst of power, Veterans Wrath, Blessing of the faithful, Valorous rage, weapon mastery of the knight are the main ones at higher end.

 

[TVCChiver]

I think offensive. Going through the pally AA I see nothing but healing spells and hardly any offensive AA.

With blessing of the faithful active my paladin crits higher than my sk.

 

[hackzimus]

With blessing of the faithful active my paladin crits higher than my sk.

Exactly.

VoDeath which is the SKs main big burn CD, at its highest rank is 280%. lasts for 1.5-2 mins and has a CD of 12 mins

BoTF is a death trigger proc, can be maintained. is 290% increase with a 5 minute timer, no proc limiter. The playstyle during this phase for a paladin matches what an SK would do in terms of very fast cast/instant spells to maximize swings...

Paladins are always burning~

 

[reedreddington]

Are we talking just melee crits? I am pretty sure they balanced PAL higher on melee crits due to DOT crits from SK Vis of Decay which should be on cooldown after Vis of Death timer runs out. Not to derail thread.

PAL is very similar to SK. Just different..... I find it hard to play PAL myself. If I were to be utilizing automation I would load one into group for sure. I just wouldn't drive one...

 

[Water]

so much to be unpacked in eq even after all the years it's been out. that's one of the main things I love about the game. definitely could use some optimization/modernization in a lot of things. but it's uniquely rough and cool in it's own way.