For a High Elf, where you put your stats depends largely on how much money you have for gear (ie, are you a twink?) and how quickly you intend to be leveled or power-leveled. Who you group with also matters. If you have a lot of twink gear and/or intend to level at rocket speed, go ahead and put your stats in end-game statistics. If you know you'll always have a strength-buffing class around (Shaman, Druid, etc) you can get by with less of it. However, if you're a main without a lot of money and that'll level at the usual modest rate--without having consistent group partners--you want to go heavy into strength. Even 80 or 85 strength isn't truly enough and you'll find yourself wishing for more. 65 is laughably inadequate.
Stamina simply isn't as big a deal as some folks make it out to be. At 60 on P1999 it's 5 HP per stamina for a Paladin; your full 20 points amounts to 100 HP in-game. A 60 Paladin even with just group gear will fully buff to in the vicinity of 4000 hit points, and will exceed 3000 with just self buffs. In so many words, that 20 stamina is worth only a couple percent more life with full buffs, and not even four percent self-buffed. Only large races (particularly Ogres) actually have enough innate stamina to give them a noticeable advantage on the order of ten percent, and even that advantage declines with high-stat Velious gear as people reach stat caps.
Strength of course doesn't have a huge impact on your combat performance either (none of the primary stats do, really...not as much as AC/Resists do). Strength does, however, massively improve your quality of life during the leveling process. Your gear will commonly weigh in the 70-90 range even without heavy items like Imbued Granite Spauldors. On top of that, loot weight adds up quickly. Having excessively low strength as a plate class is a constant drag that often reduces fun and not uncommonly causes people to lose interest and quit. When P1999 first opened, I knew numerous Paladins (and a few Warriors) who ignored strength as a stat (as is commonplace on modern EQ) and quit by the mid levels due to being permanently encumbered. Having ideal level 60 stats doesn't matter if your Paladin gets shelved at level 35.
If you care solely about end-game (and particularly if you can race there quickly), there's a fair argument to be made for Wisdom. Paladins in end-game raids aren't really a key class and tend to be used primarily as either "ignorable weak damage" or as tertiary healers. For that you may as well want a large mana pool.
Danth
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