Paladin re roll?

[jman]

I just hit 20 and I'm seeing a lot of videos and guides that are saying wisdom is more important for paladins. My toon is sitting at 68 wis. And I go oom every couple fights self healing. Is wisdom easy to gear for? Or am I going to be gimped for not putting my points into it over Stamina and strength?

[Therudwiz]

What was your starting race?

[Nagoya]

Obviously Half-Elf at 68wis ~

My highest paladin is a level 30 erudite so I'm not gonna answer like I know shit about your class.

However, in general, starting stats are mostly irrelevant and shouldn't warrant a reroll even if you had put +20 in INT. You'll get your hands on some nice WIS or MP items on your journey and you'll do just fine :)

[Danth]

Wisdom (mana pool) is important for Paladins who're raiding and assigned to jobs like tertiary healer, or who live on the PvP server and can expect to get themselves into prolonged battles. It isn't a particularly critical stat for normal grouping/leveling. In ordinary situations your limiting factor is your mana regeneration rate, not mana pool, and wisdom won't help the former at all.

Danth

[Crede]

I’d only reroll if you just hate being a half elf. Putting points into stamina is still a solid choice because you are primarily a tank. And as you get higher and your mana pool grows those low level aggro spells won’t hurt your mana as much. And like others said high end gear will give you plenty of wisdom and mana returns.

[jman]

Thanks. Will keep on leveling.

[Issar]

You’re return on mana provided by wisdom at level 20 is ridiculously low. Having an extra 20 points in wisdom would net you maybe 2 extra light heals per mana bar, at level 20. Unless heavily twinked or a bard, every class has to med/bandage after a few fights when soloing. Paladin in general is not an efficient solo or self heal class, and operates best in a group. Wisdom gear is widely available on the server and cheap to stack if you feel like you need it. Otherwise, your points into stamina as a tank are never wasted.

[kaev]

I split my points 10/10 wis/sta on my paladin, because it bugged me to have "below average" in a primary stat for my class. Probably would have done better to go 20 sta tho. HP buffer has always been more important than mana buffer in actual play, whether tanking for a group (yay Complete Heal) or solo, and when tossing heals at DPS to counter raid AEs a few extra base mana is meaningless, you are riding the mana regen all the way in that situation..

[Pyrion]

What Danth said: Mana regeneration is way more important than a big mana pool. With a big mana pool you can heal yourself up once. And then? Take a long time to med back up. In the end you spend the same time healing up as with a smaller mana pool if you want to be FM at the end again.

Big mana pool is important if you have enough time *in a fight* to cast spells. So if your paladin has the healer role (can happen sometimes) then sure, it can save the day. As long as you are tanking you are only using like 10% of your mana in every fight, even when you are a total gimp with wisdom, so its really not important at all.

[Meguvin]

you should reroll for a sk. joke :P

[loramin]

Mana regeneration is way more important than a big mana pool. With a big mana pool you can heal yourself up once. And then? Take a long time to med back up. In the end you spend the same time healing up as with a smaller mana pool if you want to be FM at the end again

That's not a universal truth: it REALLY depends on what you're doing.

I'm coming at this from a Shaman's perspective, but the basic idea is the same. When you are leveling, whether solo or grouping, it's all about your ability to kill as many mobs as possible over the course of an hour (or more). Max mana/HP gear only gives you more HP/Mana for the very first fight in that hour; after that it has no effect on your kill speed. Regeneration/Flowing Thought gear however gives you more and more HP/Mana as the hour progresses, so after a few fights it does more to improve your kill speed than wearing higher maximums gear.

BUT not all of EQ is a steady stream of (as efficient as possible) killing. If you're planning to solo a tough mob, unless the fight lasts a really long time, starting with higher maximums is going to give you more HP/Mana for that fight than the regen gear will, because the regen gear won't have time to regen much. Similarly if you are killing raid bosses everyone waits until the raid is ready before the boss fight, then they kill the boss (usually in under a minute or two), then they recover again. So again you have a situation with a relatively short fight, which means maximums truly are better than regen (for most raid bosses at least).

[Sage Truthbearer]

60 pally here. The size of your mana pool does not matter unless you know for sure you're going to spend a lot of time raiding Velious content. That's because your groups are going be eating a shitload of AoEs, and every extra point of mana is critical because it means more HoTs you can cast. Paladins HoTs are actually pretty efficient and having a large mana pool means being able to cast more of them to keep your groups topped off. However, if you do not plan to do Velious raiding then who cares.

[Jimjam]

Your mana pool might be relevant once per raid, or while XPing once or twice per session.

Your stamina pool is going to be contingent everytime you get to low hp, every time you receive a cheal and probably every time you receive a torpor.

At the very peak of the game, wis might be more useful. Having more stamina is going to make your ride there easier, though.

[Tuljin]

As mentioned many times the main limiting factor during most of your life as a Paladin (and all other magic users in EQ) is your mana regeneration rate, not your max mana pool. PvP Paladins point out wisdom because if you run out of mana you're dead.

When I rolled my Paladin I was very much "into" short tanks which is the main reason why I went Dwarf - its also a happy coincidence that its the mix/max option. I often regret not rolling Erudite but it really doesn't matter. My biggest disappointment with Dorf was the horrendously low CHA because you will find yourself calming quite often. I got through it just fine however and there is plenty of CHA gear you can swap in if you want. On a PvE server its arguable that on Paladin your base CHA is more useful than WIS, though I would not throw any points into CHA at roll.

Something that nobody in the thread has mentioned is the importance of DEX as a Paladin. Paladins rely on proccing weapons while leveling all the way on through epic weapon (and you also get the Divine Might spell proc). Paladin DPS is never stellar and procs come in huge such as the stuns from a Sword of the Morning, which do way more for melee damage and spell mitigation than your raw DPS ever could. I rolled my Paladin with 100 base STR/STA/DEX with 5 points into AGI because I really liked the thought of a "statty" toon.

All this talk of "end game Velious raiding" comes with a huge caveat - that you will actually level the Paladin to 60. Even with the removal of the class XP penalties this is a tall task. Paladins are highly group dependent and even with the removal of the huge hybrid penalty you still won't be first choice for a pickup group. Also realize that the point of a rolling a Paladin is not to sit on a "raid" as a tertiary healer. If you really wanted to "raid" (i.e. wait for batphones and faceroll trivialized content) you wouldn't have rolled a Paladin. You will spend way more time on the path to 60 actually playing dungeon content than you will just sitting on your hands not being very "raid useful." Paladin has an incredibly versatile spell set that is specifically suited to group dungeon play and if you have friends who are good at the game you can play with its a ton of fun.

In short, don't regret your roll at all. Half Elf has low WIS but all the other stats are fine. Just keep getting your levels and have fun playing. If you are playing in groups and getting XP your mana bar will rarely be full.

[kaev]

60 pally here. The size of your mana pool does not matter unless you know for sure you're going to spend a lot of time raiding Velious content. That's because your groups are going be eating a shitload of AoEs, and every extra point of mana is critical because it means more HoTs you can cast. Paladins HoTs are actually pretty efficient and having a large mana pool means being able to cast more of them to keep your groups topped off. However, if you do not plan to do Velious raiding then who cares.

No doubt onelast 700hp HoT saved a raid somewhere, somewhen, once, maybe. Or maybe kept somebody alive one more second so the last living cleric could actually log out for recovery after the wipe. There were dozens of EQ servers after all. But seriously? Does your guild check whether its paladins are FM before a pull?

No offense intended, you've posted a fair bit of good stuff to the forums. But I just don't see meaningful value to a little bit of extra max mana (a max of 20 wis is less than one cast of Celestial Cleansing) on a char the raid leaders are thinking of primarily as a Divine Strength buffbot.

[Sage Truthbearer]

No doubt onelast 700hp HoT saved a raid somewhere, somewhen, once, maybe. Or maybe kept somebody alive one more second so the last living cleric could actually log out for recovery after the wipe. There were dozens of EQ servers after all. But seriously? Does your guild check whether its paladins are FM before a pull?

No offense intended, you've posted a fair bit of good stuff to the forums. But I just don't see meaningful value to a little bit of extra max mana (a max of 20 wis is less than one cast of Celestial Cleansing) on a char the raid leaders are thinking of primarily as a Divine Strength buffbot.

Reading comprehension must be hard for you, because nothing of what you just typed is even close to what I said.

This thread is about a guy who wants to min/max his race and starting stats, which is just a question of very small optimization.

I gave my opinion that the size of your mana pool is not all that important other than Velious raiding. I am not suggesting that a Paladin is going to play a significant role in patch healing raids.

[kaev]

Reading comprehension must be hard for you, because nothing of what you just typed is even close to what I said.

This thread is about a guy who wants to min/max his race and starting stats, which is just a question of very small optimization.

I gave my opinion that the size of your mana pool is not all that important other than Velious raiding. I am not suggesting that a Paladin is going to play a significant role in patch healing raids.

Interesting. You claim size of mana pool is important for Velious raids, I respond with an explanation why that is simply not true, and you come back with a gratuitous insult and a repeat of your claim without any meaningful argument to support it. Maybe my attempt to be courteous to you was unwarranted after all.

[Troxx]

Starting stat choices don't really amount to any significant functional difference at any level of game play. You could dump all your points into intelligence and still manage just fine. Whether group or raid ... a cleric or group would probably be unable to notice any difference amongst 4 paladins of identical race/level/gear with one dumping 20 into wisdom/intelligence/stamina/strength. People who really think this matters at all make me giggle. The most important factors are level/gear/skill ... the rest seriously is a wash.

Min/max for a person who plans on raiding end game? Probably wisdom.

2nd best? I'd vote stamina.

Stat that will help the most while leveling? I'd vote strength for carrying capacity and higher dps in the early game.

The frequently forgotten paladin stat? Charisma. This is off set by the relatively low price of cheap charisma gear that can be swapped in for lulling.

[maskedmelon]

Starting stat choices don't really amount to any significant functional difference at any level of game play. You could dump all your points into intelligence and still manage just fine. Whether group or raid ... a cleric or group would probably be unable to notice any difference amongst 4 paladins of identical race/level/gear with one dumping 20 into wisdom/intelligence/stamina/strength. People who really think this matters at all make me giggle. The most important factors are level/gear/skill ... the rest seriously is a wash.

Min/max for a person who plans on raiding end game? Probably wisdom.

2nd best? I'd vote stamina.

Stat that will help the most while leveling? I'd vote strength for carrying capacity and higher dps in the early game.

The frequently forgotten paladin stat? Charisma. This is off set by the relatively low price of cheap charisma gear that can be swapped in for lulling.

best paladin statvice right har ^^

[this user was banned]

make friends with an enchanter or bard (or a bored necromancer) and you'll quickly forget what the wisdom stat was

[Beastagoog]

single best stat to put in too? Wisdom.

dex I would consider the 2nd best stat for procs, and procs you like as a Paladin for + dps/agro

Anyone else tells you otherwise they a filthy dirty casual who doesn't know hybrids.

stm is simply a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad,bad choice on p99, 1. it's easy to get stm 2. easy to soft cap it, and the returns are no where near as good as wisdom. iirc @ level 60 1 stm = 4.8 hp? so 20 stm = 96hp? when you're not capped @ 200. 20 Wisdom can give you an entire heal +800hp with CC.

Wisdom is ESPECIALLY the best stat for a casual too as most people forget that Paladins get:

Yaulp 4
1 : Increase ATK by 17
3 : Increase STR by 40
4 : Decrease Stamina Loss by 10

which they should be using for the ATK, iirc 10 atk = 1% more dps??? roughly? + the str making you hit a little harder.

I don't think it warrants a reroll.

But if you want to be serious about playing a Paladin then you might want to consider it before it's too late.

If you're a casual and end up getting to the 50's then I'd suggest getting your bum to plate cycle/arena in KD and getting this armor:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Runed_Protector%27s_Breastplate
https://wiki.project1999.com/Runed_Protector%27s_Greaves
https://wiki.project1999.com/Runed_Protector%27s_Vambraces
https://wiki.project1999.com/Runed_Protector%27s_Helm

there's 27 str, 13 stm, 13 dex and only....8 wisdom.

----

Note:

I built my PvE blue Paladin (who's level 52 now, I dont play anymore on p99) around the concept that Wisdom was the best stat for a casualish player, I think my mana pool is 2.8k on a high elf in crafted/crap gear. My semi NToV geared red Paladin @ level 60 has like 3.1k Mana and it's biggest draw back was running low on mana in lots of situations. A hybrid without mana is a wet noodle and a waste of space. so if you can increase your mana pool by 20-30% you're going to be a better asset ( in a Paladin way ) when you need to a) burn your mana, b) solo.

Also you can efficiently level your Paladin 15-52 in duo's/solo's that require a decent mana pool, you just have to have patience and the know how. It slows down post 52 as xp pool requirements ramp up hard.

[Beastagoog]

Note 2:

Another reason why you need a bigger mana pool is this: https://wiki.project1999.com/Soothe costs 30 mana per cast till you get your DW arms, and you going to be using this spell alot going 30-46 ( when you get DW arms for free clicky version). Calm costs 50 mana and Pacify costs 100 mana but you rarely use Pacify as a solo Paladin since you don't really kill mob levels that are 50+ solo.

If you have a Mana pool of 1000 at 40, you're gunna run out of mana rather quick especially if you have to sooth 3 mobs to pull one out and solo it ( that's almost 10% of your mana) when you fight the mobs and you get low HP and you needed JUST that one more heal to get the mob over the line than you will curse the day you didn't aim for the biggest manapool you could get.


Note 3:

A point on mana regen side of things? yes you will have a hard time regening mana unless you get buffs and or some high end raid items/quest items, ( have they fixed the FT stack problem on this server? ) I think Paladin can get MAX FT4 stacked on p99 but it's pretty much you're life traded to attain it.

Anyone who's played a Paladin solo/duoish knows that eventually you need to med for mana, infact most of the time after you solo a mob/a few mobs you HAVE to med up. Having a larger mana pool will make your med times longer (like duh?), but you're killing at a more efficient rate/safer rate. Trust me when I tell you want that extra heal, or root, or stuns over the .25% more dps from the 20 str or the 80 hp from the 20 stm.

Note 4:

So again if you're a casual player wisdom is the best stat you can get, if you're a hardcore raider it doesn't matter what your stats are because you're just there to give the tanks a +200hp buff.

[Ennewi]

Imo there are arguments for and against both wisdom and stamina because a paladin's role is situational. In groups you'll have so much survivability but on raids, especially in Velious, you'll be a speed bump / battle rezzer. It's a shame that hybrids weren't given the ability to specialize, at a later level than priests/purecasters, as that would have allowed for a slightly more significant role on raids. Paladins that wanted to forgo raiding altogether could have chosen evocation to be actual undead soloers. And paladins that wanted to be more than just reliable spot healers could have specialized in alteration.

But even for all of the raid encounters where paladins aren't used in their primary role (tanking), there are still quite a few situations where paladins manage just fine. The ring war is a good example. When needing to disengage and head off giants that have popped on the opposite side of GD, you can do so without having a cleric or shaman attached at the hip because you have loh, group heal, and mini torpor to keep yourself and others alive until the rest of the raid arrives. Imo the importance of your manapool is greater then, more so than mana regen because by the time you'll have regened enough for another heal, reinforcements will have arrived (and if not than the ring war is probably lost).

However most of the time as a hybrid tank you will be relegated to tanking Kunark's mobs needed for epics, but a fair number of players still need/want theirs so it's not for nothing. Faydedar, Yael, Xenovorash, Black Reavers, etc. Basically, all the stuff that can be downed with one group.

As the tank in those situations you're open to being stunned, blinded, silenced, grav-fluxed, bashed, feared, etc...and resist gear only goes so far on p99. Paladins don't have access to frontal stun immunity (or even cure blindness as a spell, oddly enough) so you can expect to be interrupted when casting any spell that isn't yaulp, flash of light, or divine aura, and to be blinded where only your hotkeyed spell(s) will be usable. Taking that into account, imo stamina/raw hp are probbably more important than wisdom/raw mana. Sta/hp are passive benefits used up by the mob's attacks, whereas wis/mana must be actively used in order to have value and that value is dependent on a number of conditions, not excluding player skill and ping. If you go linkdead, you'll still be in-game for a few minutes autoattacking and taking damage, but you won't be casting so your mana is worthless. If you're running from a train of mobs, your mana isn't going to save you because you have to be standing still in order to cast (except when spamming yaulp). HP, AC, resists, and potions will keep you alive, along with LoH.

While offhealing your character is open to the occasional aoe and healer aggro. Your hp can't be converted into mana unless you have a manastone and are in an old world zone, so it's only useful as a buffer to keep more important/squishy classes alive. You're not just keeping DPS alive, but enchanters as well. Clerics and shamans are usually hard-pressed for mana and/or too focused on the tank/ramp tank to notice pet breaks and what not.

Plate house is another good example of where paladins are more ideal than warriors. Everyone wants to rush through as many cycles as possible as quickly as possible and snap aggro is great for that, with the additional cc helping to make sure the fleeing dwarf doesn't make it beyond the stairs. With clarity II and a flowing thought item, it's really difficult to get anywhere near being oom.

I usually try to compensate for whatever stat(s) my chosen race is lacking so that, as a class, they are more well-rounded. If p99 had no expansions whatsoever, than those initial 20 points would be more significant in a min/max conversation, but classic is a trilogy and that includes Velious with all of the amazing buffs and hybrid gear. So, imo, don't bother rerolling.

[Musgo]

Really good advice ENNEWI and BEASTAGOOG

[Squire]

Dwarf +5 agil rest in wis or all wis High Elf are the best options, the mana to celestial cleansing (https://wiki.project1999.com/Celestial_Cleansing) ratio will always trump stamina hp gain

are you on blue? Nature's Defender (https://wiki.project1999.com/Natures_Defender) might be a cool alternative to an epic and more obtainable. Do you want a robe? Robe of the Azure Sky (https://wiki.project1999.com/Robe_of_the_Azure_Sky) is something HEs have over dwarves. I've played both, I tried an all Wisdom Dwarf and tried to use the Cat O' Nine Tails (https://wiki.project1999.com/Cat_o%27_Nine_Tails) procs to keep my agility above 75 but it just wasen't worth it and was a pain in the ass to keep up imho. IMHO Dwarf if the way to go on Red, HE on blue. I think I liked my HE more though, the additional CHA on a HE was noticable on lull attempts when pulling but that 65 base str is shitty for encumbrance but I had like 120 base wisdom for heals, both were on red so ymmv

[Jimjam]

Charisma will help you beg your way into groups, and later raid gear, for sure.

Definitely the stat for convincing city mobs and village hands to follow you on holy crusades too.

[Snaggles]

Levels > all.

Besides a few quests or gear items you may want that other races cannot use (Natures Defender for example or Dwarf/Human for Dain's Frostreaver) for a pally it's a toss-up. Even for SK's if you go with a Dark Elf over an Ogre or Iksar it won't make a notable difference with your ability to do end-game content.

Sage is right. Having mana for group heals might be the main reason for wisdom. Otherwise it's about mana regen and using down-ranked spells for aggro. Flash of Light is cheap as hell as is the lvl 30 stun. Once the Deepwater helm works you have a free 120'ish hp heal for a 10 second cast so soloing hard stuff is more a matter of patience than race.

I went Erudite for fashionquest and put my points into Strength figuring I would never raid or prob hit lvl 60. With Deepwater armor and some cheap EC items I'm at about 120 str with a 2hander or 140 with the Shield of Stalwart Seas. Without those points I'd be overweight pretty much non-stop. Even with Yelp, that's an annoying way to play. Carrying a few charisma items is also handy for lulling.

[Polycaster]

Sheer nonsense. Why roll a class that isn't great for raiding then stat it up for raiding? If you want to be good at raiding, roll a raid class. If you roll a paladin it should be because you want to tank stuff in non-raid situations.

[GoldScar]

Reroll High Elf or Dwarf if you're afraid of the racial superiority of the High Elf, max wis, and start on Red if you're man enough. Also, exp bonus on Red and no Paladin exp penalty, so much faster leveling (You will be 60 by the time it takes you get 50 on Blue).