AC or HP?

[rikustrength]

So I'm playing a Paladin, it's my first time playing a tank (actually first time playing a melee at all!). I was wondering in general which is more useful, AC or HP, and to what extent?

Current situation: I'm a high elf (so I can get that sweet sweet pog sword later), and im in mostly crustacean armor for visible slots for the massive stamina. Some of my friends have suggested going for the cultural armor to replace it. Thoughts?

This means I have the following bonuses from crustacean armor (I have omitted the gauntlets as I have schw and the shield since im using a 2hs:

81 ac, 33 str, 73 sta, -10 dex, -36 cha

as compared to what I could get from cultural:

107 ac, 14 str, 0 sta, 33 dex, 32 cha, 27 wis, 12 agi

The crustacean armor gives me a bonus of 158 extra hp at my lvl (31). would an extra 26 ac be worth giving that up? I'd also lose 19 str, which isn't the biggest deal but high elves aren't very strong to begin with so I take it where I can get it. The dex is nice but my current 2 hander doesn't proc, so I'm not really worried til 49 when I get the proc buff. Other than that the extra cha would be nice for not getting soothe resists, and the wis is handy for extra mana although being a high elf I already have more of that, and the agi is just a tiny bit of extra ac.

The crustacean armor seemed like a good idea at the time for all the stamina, but more and more I'm hearing AC is what I want, and by the time I'd get enough of a return on the stamina for it to be more worthwhile I'll have access to better gear anyway I think...

Any input would be well appreciated. Sorry for the wall of numbers and text!

[Pyrion]

The problem with crustacean is charisma, which is a usefull stat for paladins (Lull success depends largely on it). Your cultural also gives you wis and agi so i would lean in that direction. Still, the hp loss would be noticable i guess.

Not sure how much AC affects getting hit and how much agi figures in. I have the suspicion that its actually more than people think, based on my relatively high agi ranger who can tank surprisingly well... would be great if somebody would parse that.

[username17]

I recommend HP/Resists over AC for Knights. Due to your lack of a Defensive discipline you're never going to be tanking any ultra hard mobs. If you were a warrior I'd say focus on AC. But as a Knight HP/Resists is probably better.

Note, this is based only on my experience as a 57 Paladin and not based off any actual parsing.

I have a full set of Crusty armor on an SK alt in the 30s. It's an excellent set as far as STR/STAM goes. But I have 60 dex and ONE cha as a result.
If you're ok with basically not having a working Lull spell while leveling then I'd say stick with the Crusty. But look into replacing it later on.

Also, if you were lower level I'd recommend rerolling Half Elf for the better stats. HE Paladins can also get Nature's Defender. But 31 is probably too late to reroll.

[Troxx]

If you have a shaman or Druid healer ac will always beat out raw hp. If you have plenty of hp to make cheal efficient, likewise AC > hp.

If you're fighting casters, resists > all.

Generally speaking, in classic for tanks, a lot of the good hp gear also has good AC.

At the end of the day, remember we're talking about Classic eq where this discussion isn't all that important. Have a balanced group and players that know what they're doing is more important than most of your gear decisions. For high end content, having a well oiled complete heal chain with enough clerics is the real issue.

For a paladin I'd bail on the crusty gear. Lull is very nice and that negative charisma will cripple your ability to use it.

[Baler]

Both..
I remember reading about an ogre warrior who was hard pressed on stats vs AC
He tried going all stats and found that he was getting hit too hard too often.
Then he tried going all AC and found that he was tanky but wasn't doing as much damage or procing.
He finally settled on a healthy balance of stats and AC at which point he said it felt right.

[Raev]

Personally I would value AC >> HP on a leveling Paladin. Because you have access to so many cleric spells already, your ideal group is a Shaman and a bunch of DPS. You'll still be nearly fully buffed and he can get mobs slowed very quickly while you taunt them with flash of light and stun. Since Shamans don't have complete heal, HP is worthless.

If you are being healed by a cleric, you might not have enough HP to make CH effective anyway. For example, this paladin (http://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Falkun) has 1800 HP at L50. If you want to make CH effective, you'll have to spend a lot of time clenching your asshole at low HP waiting for it to land. You'll need both Shaman AND cleric buffs to make it work, and that's going to be a very defensive (= low dps = slow leveling) group.

Warriors are in the opposite situation. They have higher HP, so CH is more effective, and lower threat, so slow lands later. They also do a lot more damage, so a Warrior/Shaman/Cleric group core actually makes sense.

And finally, AC is very effective against dungeon NPCs who have very low damage bonuses and high DIs. Even if you go full AC, you won't lose much vs someone with full HP. (as opposed to, for example, the Halls of Testing where most dragons there have a DB of 200 and a max of 400, so AC isn't very effective).

I recommend HP/Resists over AC for Knights. Due to your lack of a Defensive discipline you're never going to be tanking any ultra hard mobs. If you were a warrior I'd say focus on AC. But as a Knight HP/Resists is probably better.
This seems backwards to me. Warriors can emphasize HP over AC because Defensive Discipline is effectively a massive boost to armor class.

[Jimjam]

Having bad charisma gives an interesting dynamic to lulls; As it doesn't require line of sight, a critical resist (i.e. not only does the lull fail, but it also causes aggro) can be used to pull mobs (especially casters) when they can't see you.

I used to use this on good effect on my Halfling cleric, but that was a long time ago and was an even stronger ability (racial hide would render you invis to everything which at the time would stop anything adding on to your pulls).

[Lartanin63]

I used crusty armor for a long period of time on my paladin. Worse case if you really need those lulls just take off the neg char peices quick cast you lull and throw it back on. It's kinda a pain but it's better than buying a whole another set of gear. The stam is pretty good for being beefy to make it through the solo kills and heal in downtime with your deep water helm. If you get the big hitter flat HP/mana jewelry you could most likely get away with losing all that flat stamina. Yet them together if make your highelf no so squishy. If you have a slower as said before it won't matter much. I'd keep it till you get some planar armor of thurg gear. Just my 2 cents.

[Grombar]

My main was an SK starting in 2000 for 6 years on live.
AC > hps > everything else. Back on live in this era the accepted formula was 1 AC = 10-12 hps. Since I was an AC whore, i skewed it closer to 1=15.

The more you mitigate the less you have to be healed. At 39 when the cleric has CH, the more you mitigate the less spiky your damage will be and the easier it will be to time those CHs for max effect w/ lower hps.

Maxing hps is for warriors tanking top end content where the damage bonus is so high that the only way to reasonably mitigate damage is with their defensive disciplines. That said, you still need enough to do your job, but no reason to over stack on it.

[Xaanka]

Worse case if you really need those lulls just take off the neg char peices quick cast you lull and throw it back on.

Correct answer, and crustacean armor is better than cultural for this reason

[rikustrength]

Well I'm mostly looking at the difference of 30-40 ac more from cultural, or 150+ and rising hp from the sta from crusty. If the formula of 1 ac equals 10+ hp is even remotely true, this would mean the gain of 35 ac would be like having 350 hp, way over compensating. The only downside in that case is slightly lower str, but I'm not meant to be the heavy hitter so that doesn't bother me too much.

And I already have velium/black sapphire jewelry so I have a ton of hp from all that. (255?)

[Kalex716]

I'm not sure the AC calculations on P99 are quite the same as they were on live back in 99 though.

[khanable]

I'm not sure the AC calculations on P99 are quite the same as they were on live back in 99 though.

it's not the same as live, but the old idea of 'ac doesn't matter here' is outdated. The recent updates with Velious have made it absolutely matter.

[Xaanka]

Well I'm mostly looking at the difference of 30-40 ac more from cultural, or 150+ and rising hp from the sta from crusty. If the formula of 1 ac equals 10+ hp is even remotely true, this would mean the gain of 35 ac would be like having 350 hp, way over compensating. The only downside in that case is slightly lower str, but I'm not meant to be the heavy hitter so that doesn't bother me too much.

And I already have velium/black sapphire jewelry so I have a ton of hp from all that. (255?)

stamina will give you more health as you level even if it's at parity with AC right now at lvl 30.
you're a paladin, don't waste your time auctioning and posting on the forums, just go level. you can hit 60 in bronze easily.

[Lartanin63]

In the argument of AC you could just ditch whatever 2 hander you are using for a flat AC bump from a shield. Idk, the stats of cultural armor doesn't seem like an upgrade because of the 30 something AC. Losing that much str and stam doesn't seem to balance out for a small amount of AC and wis agi increases. I did get sick of being that ugly crusty color for 20 some levels so I feel ya on that ha-ha.

[rikustrength]

I was just looking to see what would be most effective. I can probably get what I need at cost so it's really just a matter of what I prefer, and I'm definitely still leveling with my crusty gear in the mean time.

Actually, after parsing some rough numbers here it seems like that amount of AC makes a pretty reasonable difference. Enough to warrant the AC over the HP even as increasing levels would have me gain more of a return from stamina.

[Rararboker]

Mix and match?

[Xaanka]

doing math on a level 30 paladin

oh blue server :rolleyes:

[Lartanin63]

I don't math well :P

[Sage Truthbearer]

AC makes a noticeable difference and should be weighed heavily in your gearing decisions. Just don't forget that any AC above the softcap is penalized heavily except for shields. You always get the full value of your shield's AC.

[rikustrength]

What's the softcap on ac?

[botrainer]

Just go with HP HP HP HP.

[Danth]

HP vs AC is more of a kunark-era question. Mid-range or better Velious gear provides decent quantities of both. It's not an either-or choice anymore at this stage of the game.

Danth

[Troxx]

What's the softcap on ac?

Even beyond the softcap (it's soft ... not a hardcap) the benefits of ac are worthwhile.

As Danth pointed out, with velious gear there is not much of a choice. The best ac gear generally has hp on it. The best hp gear generally has decent ac on it.

At lower levels, the *right* choice should be obvious.

[Pint]

The crustacean set is better

Mix and match

[k2summit]

Lull is such a good spell, but the crusty set makes it basically useless. Crusty is the better set if you never have to pull. I chose the cultural for this reason on my tunare pally. As is the usual answer for most classic gear choice questions, it depends how you play.

[Jimjam]

Critically resisted lulls are actually really good for pulling without line of sight, which lower charisma aids. So even when used not as intended it is a useful, not useless spell.

[Jimjam]

What's the softcap on ac?

In classic it was about 289 worn ac for hard cap at level 60 (which then became softcap but with minimal returns some time in velious).

On here, I guess only the Devs know.

Note casters had a higher worn ac cap as they got less value out of each AC so needed more AC to achieve the same 'tankiness' at the same skill. Casters also didn't get extra AC after exceeding the cap.

[falkun]

For example, this paladin (http://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Falkun) has 1800 HP at L50.

Thanks for the shout out Raev, that's my alt (Live main recreated). He's in mostly Deepwater because that shit is RIDICULOUSLY cheap, and the AC was better than any easily obtainable stat gear I could obtain with him pre-Velious. He mostly solo'd with a Fungi until I reclaimed that back on Deajay. The Valorium greaves were a straight downgrade from Seb legs (http://wiki.project1999.com/Sebilite_Scale_Leggings), but I couldn't stand the chain with the leather apron anymore, so I wear the plate. DW is still fantastic armor due to the high AC, and with how cheap it is you should be able to obtain everything besides the greaves/BP by the 30s (each piece sells for basically vendor price, 400-500p/piece). Outside of the 5/55 or 6/65 AC/HP rings, Deepwater is the most cost-effective gear you can buy.

You won't replace Deepwater until the Runed Protector's (http://wiki.project1999.com/Runed_Protector%27s_Armor), Righteous (http://wiki.project1999.com/Righteous_Armor), and/or Scaled Knight's (http://wiki.project1999.com/Paladin_Skyshrine_Armor_Quests) sets.