Solo Paladin build?

[Vidar]

Ok, long story short im curious on how everyone else would go about making a paladin as soloable as possible. Lets say that you dont have enough money to twink him. Basicly i would like to know what would you focus on? raising str for more dmg? Wis for more healing/spells. or just go the usual AC/stam, everything else second.

Btw i know Paladins cant solo worth a crap. BUUTTTTT if you had a gun to your head and were forced to make a solo pally how would you do it?

[shooteneq1]

ide pull the trigger

[Itap]

Roll erudite

[Hagglebaron]

Erudite, holy warrior of Prexus the Oceanlord. Only way to go

All decisions beyond that are trivial

One day, don a shield of the stalwart seas, heft a wurmslayer, and put on your sash of the dragon born. Wander off in pursuit of further adventures and shenanigans

[Ephirith]

tunare half elf or high elf for nature's defender and sexy pixels

Fungi tunic

Nothing else really matters that much.

Also, I think the following should be required reading for anyone looking to roll a paladin or shadowknight (ranger too I guess):

There is almost no reason to have a paladin or shadow knight over a monk. A monk can do almost everything those classes can do, and more. They are more durable (or will be in Velious), they add substantial dps, and although their snap agro isn't as good their agro generation is sufficient for most purposes. The current state of monks (as it was in classic through Velious) is one of the most heinous instances of class imbalance I've ever seen in an MMO and to this day it still makes me cry myself to sleep sometimes. If pallies and sk's appeal to you, that's cool, have fun, but be aware it could get frustrating when your monk friend has comparable mitigation, sufficient agro, and 4x your dps.

[Ogre]

yeah except monks are boring as fuk

[Vidar]

Ok, so none of these answered the question. I guess i shouldnt have expected a straight answer. Damn internet =\
So, again, From lvl 1 -60 how would you build up a paladin so he could be the best solo paladin that he could be. any ideas?

Btw, to all who gave a straight answer, thank you.

[Alawen]

I think your biggest challenge is going to be DPS, so you'll probably want to be a dwarf and maximize your strength wherever you can. It's going to be rough without twinking.

[Swish]

From lvl 1 -60 how would you build up a paladin so he could be the best solo paladin that he could be. any ideas?

How much have you got to spend on him? You want at least a set of Deepwater, a Ghoulbane (but better if you can) and a lot of patience.

Paladins aren't big DPS, so you'll have to rely on a combo of your melee and perhaps your undead nukes. Plenty of STA/WIS basically. Your heals won't be very good so you'll find a lot of repeat healing + medding is required :/

A solo 1-60 paladin is a big ask! If you can get a key to Paineel, undead guards in there from 25 or so is a good way to level (EDIT: and no faction attached to killing them)

[Ephirith]

wha whaaaaaa booo hoooo a goo burr I didn't get the answer I was looking for sniffle

Make a Dwarf and put all your points into STA, make sure you have at least 75 AGI.

Lets say that you dont have enough money to twink him.

You're going to want to prioritize the pieces that are most cost effective, the pieces that give you the largest benefit for the lowest price. Here is a sloppy, rough list of what your priorities should be:

1. Ghoulbane (250ppish?) or Sword of Skyfire 200ppish
2. 5/55 rings (200-250 each)
3. Deepwater pieces (Should cost a little more than vendor price, check lucy for vendor price)
4. Crested Spaulders (100-150ppish)

You're going to be building toward a suit that looks something like this as you find money:

Ears: 2x diamondine earring
fingers: 5/55 rings
neck: Sebilite Scale neckguard
Head: Deepwater Helm
Face: Sarnak Hide Mask or Targishin's Bone Mask
Chest: Treeweave
Arms: Deepwater Vambs, Vambs of Ro, Azure Sleeves (in order of price)
Back: Hooded Black Cloak or the much cheaper Cloak of the Ice Bear
Waist: Try to get an fbss or something, you can wear bronze or fine plate til then
Shoulders: Crested Spaulders
Wrists: Hero Bracers and Sebilite Scale bracer are most cost effective I think
Legs: Seb Scale or Kylong greaves, or greaves of Ro
Hands: Dark Mail gaunrs or Iksar Scaled gloves
Feet: Dwarven work boots, boots of ro

Ghoulbane and Sword of Skyfire are both pretty cheap for untwinked noobs. Later you can upgrade to Sword of Morning or any good ratio 2h of your choice.

The general trend here is that you are prioritizing AC and HP, STR doesn't hurt but your dps will suck nuts no matter what.

And of course let me add that if you decide to play an untwinked paladin you are in for a long, shitty, unimaginably frustrating journey and you are almost certain to quit the char before level 40.

[Danth]

You want strength and armor mostly. I'm not sure why someone would recommend maxing stamina on a dedicated solo character. High hit points are mostly useful to maximize complete heal efficiency. That isn't a concern for a solo'er.

Paladins do terrible damage--probably the worst in the game in a solo setting (even a Cleric can blast away with damage spells than meditate back up). You need to maximize what little damage you do so as to kill monsters before they kill you. If you're patient and in an area with space, use the highest-hitting 2-hand weapon you can get, strafe run, and joust your target. That'll minimize the relative damage you take. You can do much the same using Root in more cramped areas.

Dwarves have the best starting stats, followed by Humans and Half Elves in an approximate tie. High Elves and Erudites both have weak stats for a Paladin. Starting in Freeport (Human or Half Elf) would offer the advantage of access to buffs in East Commons during the low levels--a crucial advantage when you don't have spells.

On the plus side, most Paladin equipment is fairly cheap since it's probably the least-played class on P1999. On the down side, it's the least-played class for good reason and you had best come with a lot of patience or not at all. Personally I don't recommend trying to play this class as a solo'er, but each to his own.

Danth

[godbox]

step 1: download WoW
step 2: spec retribution

[Vidar]

Thanks guys!

I have a question tho. With the AGI needing to be 75, does it need to be 75 at creation or can i just make sure to keep it at or above 75 with gear?

[Danth]

Agility only has to be over 75. It doesn't matter how you accomplish it. Most people, myself included, recommend making sure it's 75 at creation because it's not worth having to worry about agility for the entirety of your character's existence.

Danth

[Swish]

Well Danth's advice is mostly good but equally with only 20 points to spend I dont think you want to put them in strength unless you're starting an erudite or high elf. As a soloist you've only got yourself to rely on, and for the sake of survivability you're not going to get far if your base stamina is 75ish.

Ultimately its your own choice, whether you follow the wiki suggestion, or someone from the board. Best of luck with it, I'd like to know how you're getting on even if nobody else does...feel free to update with your progress of if you need advice on camps ;) Generally if there's an undead option when you have undead nukes, take it! :)

[seanidor]

I'd like to mention a few things. My main is a 26 pally right now and I basically had a setup that you guys were listing off for the OP. After selling almost all of his gear and switching back to banded, there is almost no difference in his abilities to solo the same mobs. Basically his AC dropped by about 100ish and his STR went down from 183 to 147ish and things were pretty much the same. Also, dwarves can't use a Treeweave or Hero Bracers and its pretty much impossible to get a Ghoulbane for cheaper than 600. :-)

[Hagglebaron]

If you go with Erudite, and promise to stick with it, I'll give you a Shield of the Stalwart Seas (google it, nice eru only pally shield)

[Hagglebaron]

Lmao Swish please explain that gif to me, I always laugh when I see it. It looks like a dog with post traumatic stress disorder who can no longer enjoy cupcakes due to his mental damage

[pasi]

Not sure why people suggest ghoulbane when you can get a baton of faith for 200pp or a sword of the mourning for <1k.

[Itap]

I'd like to mention a few things. My main is a 26 pally right now and I basically had a setup that you guys were listing off for the OP. After selling almost all of his gear and switching back to banded, there is almost no difference in his abilities to solo the same mobs. Basically his AC dropped by about 100ish and his STR went down from 183 to 147ish and things were pretty much the same. Also, dwarves can't use a Treeweave or Hero Bracers and its pretty much impossible to get a Ghoulbane for cheaper than 600. :-)

sean! why did you sell your gear bro

[mostbitter]

Lmao Swish please explain that gif to me, I always laugh when I see it. It looks like a dog with post traumatic stress disorder who can no longer enjoy cupcakes due to his mental damage

its from an episode of its me or the dog and the dog loved to steal cupcakes

[Safon]

its from an episode of its me or the dog and the dog loved to steal cupcakes

Lol what the fuck is up with his eyes

[mostbitter]

idk was just a creepy ass dog

[runlvlzero]

Can solo plenty fine, gb nice for undead, but the better kunark weapons are legit vs anything, just takes a long time, think of all your med time being face time with a mob rather then afk between burns on a wiz its like the opposite.

* just a quick update to clarify

It takes a long time to kill a mob, its actally faster to med mana back from killing then it is to actually bring one down as a melee solo in this game. Pallies are slow killers. The posts below mention low hp undead... its possible. Some poor guy doing it in guk on R99 solo undead mobs probably, i told them to move to com till 50 =P

But there is no "solo build" for classes in this game they come pre-built that way or not.

[Arkanjil]

step 1: download WoW
step 2: spec retribution

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll248/poiul123/gifs/tumblrlzp1v0oluj1qhl2u3.gif

[godbox]

Can solo plenty fine, gb nice for undead, but the better kunark weapons are legit vs anything, just takes a long time, think of all your med time being face time with a mob rather then afk between burns on a wiz its like the opposite.

and you will be able to understand a wiz med time while you yourself med but with a capped med skill

[kotton05]

yea youll also wanna level on undead mobs id assume. low hp ones...

[A1551]

Not sure why people suggest ghoulbane when you can get a baton of faith for 200pp or a sword of the mourning for <1k.

Yeah what Pasi said -- forget ghoulbane, or really anything else. Baton of faith can literally be picked up for about 200pp or even less and is 30/40 2HB. The DPS on this post 20 trashes ghoulbane even vs. undead. As an untwinked paladin there really is no other answer for a cheap, effective weapon. Additionally, there aren't a whole lot of droppable upgrades to a BoF and most of them are fairly expensive for a first time character.

My experience here with this is my first char on P99 was a paladin, who I took up to about 52. I did get a ghoulbane around level 20 (and it was expensive/took a lotta jumping through hoops to afford). Lvl 20 is when it starts proccing. It WAS a lot of fun in unrest and seemed pretty overpowered, but as soon as I saw another pally w a BoF I realized I had made a mistake. Sold the GB for a few pieces of DW and never looked back.

Also as to the paladin class in general -- I loved it right up until about 50. Post 50 (even 40s) even with amazing equipment your DPS is almost inconsequential. Someone earlier said gun to your head, just pull the trigger on that gun instead of solo leveling a pally, and I'd have to agree. A paladin's strength is their (essentially awesome) snap aggro, making them good tanks for experience groups. Their heals / undead nukes in theory make them sound like they could solo, but the dps is just not there to do in any way that is even marginally efficient.

[Ferok]

Without a fungi tunic i wouldn't bother if strict soloing is your goal. Once you hit 45, a Deepwater helm will help a lot - but dark blue mobs become harder and harder to solo. The exp will not be good.

I played a Paladin to 65 on live, I'd solo if i only had 5 minutes to play or while I was LFG. But the xp in groups is unquestionably better and, without raid gear, you won't be taking on targets solo of any real value.

[Swish]

Lmao Swish please explain that gif to me, I always laugh when I see it. It looks like a dog with post traumatic stress disorder who can no longer enjoy cupcakes due to his mental damage

BEHOLD! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTuOr2vlC-c

The Vietnam flashback version is a bit of YouTube creativity, better than the original (and with YouTube you know there's always a bunch of others!)

[Ogre]

Post 50 (even 40s) even with amazing equipment your DPS is almost inconsequential. Someone earlier said gun to your head, just pull the trigger on that gun instead of solo leveling a pally, and I'd have to agree. A paladin's strength is their (essentially awesome) snap aggro, making them good tanks for experience groups.

How exactly is a Paladin's melee DPS significantly worse than a non-Ogre SK? I mean, the Paladin class has the same Offensive skill caps that a Shadow Knight does.

[DinoTriz]

yeah except monks are boring as fuk

/flying kick straight to your head, sir!

*Feign Death flops away*

[Ogre]

Out of any class, the Monk has by far the most disproportionate amount of unpleasant and generally retarded players who play them. I'm not saying all Monks are terrible/retarded, but the vast majority of the terrible/retarded P1999-population are Monks (specifically, Iksar Monks).

On the other hand, anytime I've been randomly buffed or healed while leveling a new toon it was almost always a Paladin. And they're usually the most pleasant people to get along with in-game.

[godbox]

How exactly is a Paladin's melee DPS significantly worse than a non-Ogre SK? I mean, the Paladin class has the same Offensive skill caps that a Shadow Knight does.

SK has pet/dots/lifetaps/fear/snare/higher damage weps <---(well not really higher dmg weps but higher innate str)

[Danth]

Godbox said it. Baseline Paladin and Shadow Knight melee is roughly the same, but soloing Shadow Knights have a lot more besides melee. Also, SK's solo mostly via fear kiting, which means they hit mobs in the back and benefit from the associated higher hit rate. Soloing Paladins don't generally have such a luxury.

The hardest part about soloing as a Paladin is that the class's damage potential just doesn't scale well at 45+, and particularly at 50+. Monsters in that level range gain health at a much higher proportional rate than you'll gain damage, resulting in a slower and slower kill rate.

Danth

[runlvlzero]

Places like mm have some good monsters that dont get high on health you can probably solo around in the house until 50, good spot for any melee to solo, easier with stuns, 1-1.5k hp mobs on the upper end.

Kunark 50+ mobs start getting hard with lots more hp 5k+ even some lower guk mobs 5K on ghoul sentinal, frenzy ghouls are tough, like 2-3k on the zol's/dar's/jins, but u can of course get solo xp on the wans and vis ghouls upto 50.

Its nothing fast though. It really is kinda slow.

CoM is the best kunark zones the undead all around the entrance there have pretty low hp on par with wan's and zol's.

Probably some mobs in solb arent to bad either. Like beatles probably dont have more then1-2k hp. this is 50+ mind you were talking about were stuff starts to get real real slow.

But I was soloing greens at 34+ and it was pretty boring to kill mobs in like 2-3 mins. With decent gear.

TBH thinking about it you probably want to play a race with semi decent charisma cause the better places to solo are going to be rooms were you can split 2-3-4 spawns up slowly to handle by yourself. when their light/barely dark blues.

[bizzum]

Ok, long story short im curious on how everyone else would go about making a paladin as soloable as possible. Lets say that you dont have enough money to twink him. Basicly i would like to know what would you focus on? raising str for more dmg? Wis for more healing/spells. or just go the usual AC/stam, everything else second.

Btw i know Paladins cant solo worth a crap. BUUTTTTT if you had a gun to your head and were forced to make a solo pally how would you do it?

Vonhammer basically solo'd to 60 at KC entrance because hes crazy!

Probably want STA/AC/STR over everything, but you definitely want a Deepwater Helm and Fungi so you can mana free heal yourself. Getting epic as soon as you can if you can muster the help would also be beneficial I think. It will be slow, have fun.

[Xadion]

once you can click dw helm, its a matter on time..not if you can... Root, free heal, go back in....over and over.... Its slow but you will eventually get there.

[Larethan]

Alright I rarely ever post here, but I feel like I need to participate in this conversation as I have actually experienced exactly what the OP is asking about up to level 50. And from reading the posts in this thread thus far, I have a feeling that a fair number of peeps have good points but most are just speculating about this and really have no clue how it works.

So to start, I soloed a Dwarf Pally on EQlive from 1-50 during Kunark/Velious (close to a mirror of where Project1999 is at the moment). And I mean solo . . . NO grouping, at all, not once. I think this is where people are getting the wrong info and giving the wrong advice. The OP asked about a solo Paladin, NOT the best Paladin overall, or the best for groups. There is a huge difference regarding this dynamic!

The most important thing to realize about the solo Pally is that it truly is a fun solo class if played correctly. It is a tank that can heal itself! No, it's not the highest DPS tank, or the heaviest at soaking up damage, but seriously - a tank that can fu#@ing HEAL itself? Repeat after me: heal, heal, heal. This class has Lay on Hands, a complete heal in addition to its normal heal. I can assure you that never have I died so little as when I soloed my pally in live. And this is extremely important, as we know that not dying is a huge save for XP over the life of a toon. Also, never have I had so little downtime as when I solo'd my Pally in live (where the hell is everyone getting this idea about tons of downtime with this class?) - this is even more important to keeping your interest the game as a solo player and not getting frustrated. Both of these major factors are exclusively due to the healing capabilities of the Paladin class.

Everyone who has been focused on STR and STA in this thread is inadvertently describing the best Pally overall and for group-play. But NOT the best solo Pally. The solo Pally is not a tank or a DPS class . . . in fact, it's a self-healing, low-downtime, survivor class. In other words, the most important attribute for a solo Pally is WISDOM. More wisdom means more mana means more healing means less downtime and more survival. Pally's come with decent HP and decent STR if rolled correctly - and don't get me wrong, those are important attributes. But they are nothing compared to the importance of mana.

In addition it's very important to keep in mind that with a solo Paladin healing is important in combination with knowledge of the game. Attacking mobs that are yellow or red and not knowing exactly what you're doing is going to get you killed fast. You should be an experienced EQ player in order to roll this toon. You have to know where to go, what to do and how to do it to get the most out of your toon. I'm going to give a brief description how to roll a solo Pally as I did in Live. If you follow it in combination with your pre-learned EQ skills you should have loads of fun and avoid rage-quitting.

--Quick-Guide--

Race: Dwarf
Attribute Allocation: +100% WIS
Gear: Focus on attributes in the following order: WIS / STR / AC / AGI / STA / HP
Weapon: Eventually Ghoulbane or Baton of Faith, or 1h+stat shield (bash is decent)

Zones: Starting in Faydwer is awesome for soloing. After newbie zone move to Orc Hill in greater faydark, then to Crushbone, then to Unrest. You can really get alot out of unrest all the way up to level 30. After that, go to the Overthere in Kunark for great solo hunting in this massive outdoor zone. You can do OT all the way until 40. After that you should be able to figure things out for yourself. There are plenty of areas to solo 40-50 but things will slow down significantly compared to before.

Playstyle: Very simple: attack, heal, attack, heal. Spells start at level 9. Use Lay on Hands when needed to avoid dying and also to avoid downtime when cycling through mana. With good WIS you should be able to heal up during and after most fights and keep things rolling with very little downtime. Don't worry about hp as much, as you can heal yourself, root, stun and also Lay on Hands in emergency. Speaking of root, you should eventually get stun and root spells (root at level 22 I believe). Use the crap out of them to CC mobs and take on multiple encounters. This will be especially useful in Unrest (which is where you should be at level 22 anyhow). Bind wound up to 50% can also be helpful in combination with your heals/lay on hands. Make sure you skill it up to max and always have bandages. Just remember the general rule on this class - focus on healing. If you cycle healing correctly as a solo pally then you will have very little downtime and survive almost all encounters. You will level very fast for a solo toon if you abide by this philosophy.

Mobs: Undead is obviously a target for Paladins, but don't get stuck on them either. Wandering mobs tend to be the best for soloing, especially a Pally. If you go after wandering mobs that don't aggro, you can sometimes juggle mobs with root and stun at higher levels and end up leveling faster than most dungeons. Minimizing downtime is important so running from a train inside a dungeon should be a factor in what you choose to engage. Spend time running from 2-3 trains when you might have killed 6-8 more low-aggro animals and all the undead spells/procs in the world can't make up for that.

--------

There may be other ways to roll a solo Pally toon, but this is how I did it in EQ live and it proved to be very fun and rewarding. Feel free to ask other questions as well.

[A1551]

How exactly is a Paladin's melee DPS significantly worse than a non-Ogre SK? I mean, the Paladin class has the same Offensive skill caps that a Shadow Knight does.

Godbox basically answered this but yeah, the SK really only edges out paladins in terms of dps with all their spells / pet / ability to fearkite, not that SKs dps is particularly good but it certainly trumps paladins. I think the most significant difference is the SK has a much wider variety of good weapons to use. Unless you have a fair amount of plat to spend the paladin is basically stuck with the BoF until they can afford something like a granite face grinder or quest for Fiery avenger etc. The SK has a lot of choices that bridge you between the 200pp weapon you can afford as a new character on the server and the 7-10Kpp weapons you probably can't afford until you could quest something better anyway.

[webrunner5]

If you think playing a Paladin is bad now wait till Velious comes out and mobs hit about 3 times harder and try and kill them on a Pally. Good luck with that. But they do make pretty good pullers in Velious. P.S. I do like the class though

[Aicha]

Really good advice

This was incredibly helpful. :)

[godbox]

lerethan I will take what you say since yes I dont play pally but your theorycraft makes no sense for a few reasons
1 higher base wis only slightly barely even noticeably increases a hybrids mana pool. (sk player reporting here)
2 you have no innate mana regen and your med skill is capped at a low level so higher mana pool just means sitting even longer waiting for FM
3 As with a SK I assume a paladin doenst use there entire mana bar each kill and if they do then thats probly cause there wearing a fuckload of wis gear instead of walking around with 200+ str/sta and needing to heal themselves more than if they killed faster

[pasi]

Stack things that increase your killing efficiency - AC/STR work well. Wisdom is weak in comparison as Godbox covered.

The biggest things I can recommend aside from gear suggestions are

1) The spell Courage. Use this as your main downtime heal until 30. Time it with your sit regen ticks to minimize downtime. The HP per mana on it is much better than minor healing and light healing. Light healing isn't terrible to use between melee swings (another reason 2handers rule). After a melee round, hit F1 and alt+# then F8 really quickly.

2) You have a huge exp penalty. Avoid low ZEM zones if possible. From 15 or so until 41, you should probably stay to Unrest. There's groups, high levels for buffs frequently, a nearby city with a paladin's guild, a huge ZEM, decent loot (small bronze), an easy escape route, undead galore, etc.

If you absolutely must solo in an outdoor zone - try to find room (i.e. no adds) to joust a mob with a 2hander (Baton of Faith). It's a lot more efficient than straight up tanking.

[kaev]

In general, for defensive gear AC is king, queen, rook, bishop, & knight. HP don't hurt, obviously, but AC is worth more on tank classes. AC is what you're good at, it's what you need, even solo.

For offensive gear, save up the 150-300pp it takes to get a Baton of Faith by L20 at the latest (it is so incredibly cheap on this server.) It'll cost you 10kpp or more for a 1h+shield combo that'll out-perform the Baton solo. It's just too good.

Under L9 you're a wimpy Warrior with a single nice insta-heal on a 72 minute cooldown.

Under L12 (when you get Meditate skill) your spells are pretty limited in use. A weak ac/hp buff that's worth casting anyway, and a puny little heal that has only its very short cast-time to give it some value. Minor Healing can be cast between swings of your weapon if you're paying attention to give you a few more HP without losing any of your puny damage output.

At L12 you get Meditate. Worth noting is that if you watch your HP (numbers not bar) while resting you'll quickly be able to learn to time your healing casts between meditate ticks.

At L15 you get Light Healing, 3x as big as Minor Healing and yet still quick enough to cast between slow weapon swings and Meditate ticks.

In your teens, Flash of Light can serve as a handy means of escape, blind the mob, back off until it runs, run in a different direction (to a ZL, obv.) I don't encourage this if soloing in a dungeon as other players don't usually love you much at all for making huge trains (and some of them will be very good at "innocently" getting you back, repeatedly, until you go away.)

Also in your teens, Oasis crocs & caimans are good because they are not social. If a fight's getting dicey hit 'em with Flash of Light and back off so that they run, but instead of running to the zone use the time until they return to get some healing done without being interrupted. This also can start some entertaining conversations in OOC.

Undead are not especially great targets solo for a Paladin, with the exception of Unrest in your 20s. Invis vs. Undead at L22 lets you move freely through most of the house and agro ranges of those mobs are fairly small compared to the spacing of many of them. Sadly, Unrest is often overrun by the damned PLers that plague this server. :(

Also at L22 you get Root, which is an invaluable aid to solo, as trains = death. You can sometimes manage an add or two with root, depending on your mana situation.

In your 30s, the giant fort in Frontier Mountans can be done even in ghetto gear.

In upper 30s Firiona Vie has some spots you can make work.

Get a DW Helm by the time you hit L45. Just do it.

Unless outrageously over-geared, the key to successful xp gain while solo as a Paladin is that you must be able to get mobs single and you must be able to meditate safely after you've been properly thrashed for the insolence of soloing a melee class in EQ.

Any race works for a Paladin. Them dirty dorfs have an edge, but it's only an edge and far from decisive IMO, besides they're not only dirty but also ugly as sin. The Erudites get access to Shield of Stalwart Seas, but shield isn't a big deal for solo play unless you can afford a Rod of Faith for your mainhand, and if you can gear yourself that well the differences between the races will matter less. Choose Erudite only if you're willing to sacrifice dearly for the cool factor, apparently it's cool to be a weakling. Personally, I prefer Human and Half-Elf because that way you can do good and look good doing it. Get your STR to 90 (minimum) as you need to be able to wear plate and still carry home some loot. Get a Hero Bracers as soon as you can afford it (cheap +10 STR with plate AC is good.) Going overweight is a foolish and unnecessary handicap, it slows you and trashes your AGI which will in turn trash your tanking avoidance (if it drops below 75) which are not good for your survival odds.

Seriously though, Paladin can solo, and due to the huge preponderance of players here who love to fap to the movement of their xp bar you will be stuck solo at times, but tanks are meant to front a group. You're like a singer who can't play an instrument, it's hard not to get bored when there's no band to back you.

[webrunner5]

A Paladin can't solo on here. They are total crap. Do a /who all Paladin and you will poop your pants. And half of them are in the EC tunnel selling. Give it up Dawg. Save you lots of time and anguish.

[jijii]

A Paladin can't solo on here. They are total crap. Do a /who all Paladin and you will poop your pants.

wow this guy wasn't kidding, i did a /who all paladin and i did, in fact, poop my pants :(