Low-End Paladin = OK High-End = not OK

Nebi

Nebi

Dalayan Pious Diety
(original thread in uzzdaars thread. I felt if it was there It wouldnt have been read as much)

I'm pretty burned out and its going to be a pain in the ass reading this. so have fun.

I've been thinking over and over wondering if I should bump this thread or if I should start my own. I know that if you basically involve yourself in anything remotely close to Uzzdaar you've basically shot yourself in the foot. None of the problems im going to write about have been issues in the lower tiers. Oh well here is my current rant as a person who plays a paladin.

I have recently started playing again and can remember the amazing times of /s 4, and the more amazing times of highkeep being the go to zone for exp. From what I see now basically nobody ever has anything good to say about paladins. In what situations would you use a paladin over a SK? in what situation would you use a paladin over a Warrior?

Atm everyone who doesnt play a paladin has their own ideas on why paladins are so amazing. Some of the those ideas are as follows: 1. you're the king of aoe tanking - 2. you can tank and heal - 3. your heals are amazing with althuna's conduit - 4. undead crits!.... all those are great and everything not once can you say hey lets bring a paladin because of those reasons. As it stands now SKs get that runic spell / voice / whatever its called that transfers the aggro the group has created onto the SK. the cooldown is 2 minutes (about the time it takes to destroy a group of mobs) and basically makes them an AOE TANK. Warriors with their whirlwind / foelock combo can basically get initial aggro on a group of mobs and keep them locked down aswell. Essentially taking our once prized role with better aggro management / midigation.

Althuna's Conduit:
When using althuna's conduit (by your powers combined) I basically turn into a shaman healer without the infinite mana. Dont get me wrong, I love this spell and think its amazing(kinda making me like a wow paladin) But I dont think it makes me a good enough healer to warrant the lack of tanking ability. During this my job as a paladin basically becomes an aux tank. I aux mobs from the front and compliment the real healers whenever a quick heal is needed. My dps is still shit, my tanking ability becomes 0, and my healing becomes decent at best (can only really spot heal)

Recent Paladin changes:
The changes to divine stun and light have been amazing. They now give us the ability to aggro mobs we were unable to aggro prior to this patch. Unfortunately it doesnt really help our tanking ability to mobs which we were already having issues with.

My thoughts on how to improve paladins.
Divine Stun: Aggro only really becomes a problem for a paladin when everyone else gets better. Please make a tome (can be class tome 10000) that once completed adds 50 100 150 200 aggro to divine stun. (can make up the numbers however you want / whatever you feel will help us)

Blinds: Everytime you clip one of your blinds it adds additional aggro (+ hate if a blind is currently on a mob) . That way I have a form to get some type of snap aggro on a single mob without killing a shadowknight. (the recast of aoe blind already makes it so he wouldnt have a problem)

Althuna's Conduit: as it stands now I use to to be the very last healer in the pile. the proc rate at the moment seems to be less than a crystallis. If this is a tool that is going to help define a class I would sure hope its better than a weapon. Please increase its proc chance (not to the insanity it was before). Could even consider making this a paladin self mark of karn. Everytime the paladin hits a mob while this is up it heals for a portion of the damage of the weapon. (higher damage weapons heal for more than lower). Please consider maybe adding a mana tap (seive?) to this spell so that i steal mana from mobs with mana and it transfers that to me so that I can continue to spam heals.

Runic 2: Lower the mana cost so that i can be a viable way of tanking in exp groups. The current high cost of mana makes this only worthwild in raid situations.

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After speaking with the fine people in #Goonsquad these were also some ideas

Gerick: bring back healing aggro (never really played my paladin in those days so I dont know how good this is)

Eyate: I forgot what you said. please chime in.
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crazy stupid way to fix this that will never happen.

Make paladin aggro as good as SKs but if a sk terrors a mob paladin aggro is halfed.

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PS: PLEASE HELP US (me)

TL;DR - wha wha wha paladins are bitch babies.
 
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My suggestion was restore aggro generation (perhaps through a tome) to paladin self heals but base it off potential hitpoints healed not actual and decide on a reasonable hp:hate ratio. This would give paladins an unresistable form of aggro generation vs everything they are currently on the hatelist of that scales with Healing Increment etc. This would also increase the value of their self heals in a raid setting.
 
Having done a few xp groups with uzzdaar since he got his R2 and had him tank raid mobs, I felt his aggro was fine, not sure how he works in R2 but he kept aggro in a citadel group like 9 out of 10 times, more if i wasn't being bad. Could pal's use some kinda class tome that helps aggro? Probably but not by much.

One way to solve this imo would be, Take Pal R2 and either increase the duration, or lessen the mana cost, I do remember after about half a clear in cit uzz needing to sit down and med for a bit, but then the question is, should a 100% Aggro buff but sustainable for eternity with FT/Mana/Rods?

As for veil turning SKs into AoE tanks thats completely wrong, When i play a SK in say citadel and we go though the casters i use it once, kill one group of mobs, Kill the next group, Kill the next group, Then its back up. But regardless unless your group is ready to do some massive AoE stuff well the spell is going, its not going to do much it will stick the mobs to the SK for a few seconds but without coordination within the group it doesn't do jack all, So you have the aggro from a heal, well even with R2 Veil thats only 95% of the aggro from that heal and the next one is gonna peel it.
 
Runic 2 is amazing and works wonder, I think it is perfect except, like the above posters, I would like to see it's mana cost reduced a bit, for better use in XP groups.

I personally think Paladin Heal generating aggro makes sense for the class, but the runic 2 really does solve ALOT (not all) of the high end paladin aggro issues.
 
Could ppl posting suggestions how to fix classes PLEASE stop referring to runic2's? how many % of the server have them?

You keep forgetting that T3-T11'ish ppl DONT have the possibility to get those (actually only 3 guilds that can get those atm) and pallies of all levels have problem of keeping aggro and thus getting raid/exp spots. Should we just say "hey guys you are useless until you happen to get your runic 2"

runic2 is frosting on the cake, not the full meal solution.
 
That is just it tho, Pal aggro is just fine till around T10-11 when you get r2, 3 pals i have never had aggro issues with pre r2, Vart/Apros/Bango, Rocking render/galeforce, and at the time i was grouping with them they did not have r2(or there r2 in its current form), and there was no issue with aggro at all. Ask these guys what it is they do for aggro because there was no issue (Minus MR immune mobs) With a pal tanking when i was grouping with them.

P.S. The only reason i can think of Pal getting a bad rap is it takes alot of button pushing and timing on button pushing to be any good, and if you can't get it down then your no good so why would anyone want to group with you, because i have seen pre runic 2 pals hold aggro just fine, so it has to be possible.
 
i have a hard time jumping on this "paladins are bad" bandwagon, i've spent a few minutes playing with some ok paladins (vartenaal/bango) and killed a couple bosses with them. yeah, their aggro isn't the best, but their healing and group hot are extremely good. the class does take some finesse to play well, but that's what makes the class cool... not everyone can do it well. i know i've said this before, but it bears repeating: the best tank in the history of this game is a paladin. every single raid boss and 6 man boss was killed with a paladin tank. yeah, i think their blinds should be made unresistable to match terrors, but for the most part, i think they are a solid class.
 
i've played a paladin in every tier up to tier 10. The ONLY time's did i EVER have problems holding aggro pre runic 2 was when i was grouping with Nwaij, Tarutao, Lleoc and occasionaly Drezin.... (this is all grp settings) Raid settings the only time i've ever had "issues" other than the occasional aggro steal is when im raiding with Lleoc.
 
cian2 said:
i have a hard time jumping on this "paladins are bad" bandwagon, i've spent a few minutes playing with some ok paladins (vartenaal/bango) and killed a couple bosses with them. yeah, their aggro isn't the best, but their healing and group hot are extremely good. the class does take some finesse to play well, but that's what makes the class cool... not everyone can do it well. i know i've said this before, but it bears repeating: the best tank in the history of this game is a paladin. every single raid boss and 6 man boss was killed with a paladin tank. yeah, i think their blinds should be made unresistable to match terrors, but for the most part, i think they are a solid class.
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you are the biggest paladin shit talker. you yourself say that you guys hate grouping with paladin tanks. I find it amazing that when its time to actually do something people back peddle so as not to help out the class.
 
So yes it would be nice if r2 cost less mana.
Yes teir 10-11 were kinda rough 1 resist and you basically lost agro (this was pre light change)

But I see nothing drastically wrong with the class anymore.

Apros said:
Runic 2 is amazing and works wonder, I think it is perfect except, like the above posters, I would like to see it's mana cost reduced a bit, for better use in XP groups.

I personally think Paladin Heal generating aggro makes sense for the class, but the runic 2 really does solve ALOT (not all) of the high end paladin aggro issues.
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THAT. except these pesky mr immune mobs
 
Pally single target aggro really is substantially worse than SK/War. My DPS is pretty awful compared to most t10+ players, and I still usually have to feign multiple times per mob if it's a pally tanking. Since pallies usually run with like half their spells as heals, it would be a good thing for those to actually generate some meaningful aggro.

Also, people saying pallies don't have aggro pre-t11 are wrong. I did the bulk of my AAs and CoP with Asura playing Ringo or with Lindstrom, and in both cases aggro was always an issue. With Slibu or Ochah it was not, even when it was other people playing them who weren't experienced with tanking.
 
I don't think anyone actually believes that paladins suck as a whole but it is kind of weird that they are the only tank still subject to resists (and of one type at that) for aggro.
 
I agree that aggro should return to paladin heals. I think that they removed heal aggro from ethereal cleansing because it placed such a huge advantage to paladin AoE aggro (especially coupled with wave of light) over other tanking classes. This is no longer the case with the changes to tanks so now paladins are a bit left behind in what actually makes them appeal.
 
The Only Issues I have with paladins is I don't swing my wep ever. I'm a T 7 Paladin and I'm starting to have issues with threat. We have a very strict rotation to maximize threat that takes up 3 spell gems. You can only hold good threat if you are able to stay in this rotation. Stoping to self heal or group hot will GREATLY reduce your agro.

ROTATION AA stun, Light, Blind, AOE blind, Blind, AA stun, Light Blind AOE blind Blind aa stun ect.... Stoping this to heal or group hot you then have to start the rotation over.
Not that things should be balanced around Boxing but boxing a SK whos threat rotation is TERROR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Things are much different.

TBH I don't want to spam dumb spells to hold threat. give SK's and Paladins 1 Range agro spell to cast for initial threat and just let us do our thing and auto attack.

I'd like to see 1 gem for SK threat and 2 Gems for paladin threat. 1 being blind the other AOE blind and thats it. I swing between every cast and once more before spellgray goes away.

Any how what I"m getting at is go back to the basics on paladin SK agro. I'm not saying make knight weps OP again. I just want to swing my sword for threat and throw some patch heals here or a group hot there.
 
Do any paladins these days use bash cuz bash is a fucking ass load of aggro and if your not using bash this could be your issue.
 
yah u're missing Bash, Disarm, The new single target hate spell/mini nuke. Ghot's are alot of aggro. your AoE stun (if u want to talk singles then your single stun)
 
Macro #1
/Doability 1 Taunt
/doability 2 Bash
/altactive ##(forget) Divine stun
/cast Flame of Light
/cast Blind

Macro #2
/cast AOE Blind
/cast Blind

I Mash Macro 1 till it goes through 1 round. Then I mash macro 2 till it goes through a round. Then I go back to macro 1. I use only macro 2 on mez targets to hold agro. ( I DO NOT BLIND ON BLIND THIS WILL REDUCE YOUR THREAT BY MAKING BLIND TAKE LONGER TO COME OFF)

I'd like to say I know my stuff pretty well however EQ mechanics are never streight forward. Maybe I'm not getting bash every time its up.

Once I lose threat It stays gone for the most part.

I'd just like to see some more threat added to melee attacks with low-moderat casting pending on the ecounter.

AOE tanking LOTS of casting

Raids Moderate casting

Groups Low casting

As it is now I spam cast all day all night.

We have many many other spells that are all situational.
Sanctify,Consecrat 2 Undead setup
Single stun, aoe stun. When fighting non undead and mobs that are stunable

My Most common spell set:
Big heal
Self heal
Hot
Light
Stun Subed for Sanctify
AOE Stun Subbed for Consecrate
Blind
AOE blind

I don't have Shout of agony or healing flames yet those will be replacing my stun and Big heal most likely

as I mentioned we have 3 Gems Dedicated to threat leaving us with 5 spells to work with.
5 spells to work with isn't to bad considering 90% of our spell book is worthless. All the 60+ damage absorbs and the likes.
 
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Get taunt out of that macro. Only use taunt when you lose aggro, as it does nothing if you are already at the top of the hate list.

Titanas said:
Thats fine if it does nothing then it does nothing still going to leave it in my macro.
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It means you probably won't have it up for times when you should actually use it, and people will die as a result. It's just sloppy play, and easy to fix. Not really related to this thread though so I'll drop it.
 
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Dinadass said:
Get taunt out of that macro. Only use taunt when you lose aggro, as it does nothing if you are already at the top of the hate list.
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Thats fine if it does nothing then it does nothing still going to leave it in my macro.
and isn't it atleast +1 agro

In the rare chance taunt actualy works. Also if I'm not mistaken you can't taunt mobs Higher level then you is that true to classic EQ?
 
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Nebi said:
you are the biggest paladin shit talker. you yourself say that you guys hate grouping with paladin tanks. I find it amazing that when its time to actually do something people back peddle so as not to help out the class.
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yeah, I hate paladin tanks. you realize I pull aggro off lleoc, xach, stryda, basically anything. I do more aggro than just about anyone. add in the fact that you are like t9/10 and grouping with t13 people. You are basically saying I can't tank for these groups 3 tiers higher than me. what do you expect?
 
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