Quote:
Originally Posted by kaev
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Good post Lorraine.
Also worth mentioning that classic stuns are not super quick to cast compared to lower level fast-cast nukes. 2.0 sec seems fast, until you're actually trying to interrupt a L30 wiz-casting mob and you have even the slightest bit of lag or latency. Bash is HUGE for a Paladin, it is one of the features of the Fiery Avenger (the original epic) and the Fiery Defender (the "real" Paladin epic) that they allow Bash while using a 2hander. Further, talk all you like about how "broken" AC is here, a 25 AC shield does make a noticeable difference in damage taken over the course of an xp session in the mid-levels.
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I don't want to quote numbers because they are so hard to quantify with AC (again, see any of the numerous ac test posts floating around) but the one thing they all more or less agree on is the benefit of 25 ac going to be fairly small at best. Yes, over the course of an entire evening that ac and extra stun time will add up, but so does all that lost dps. Sword/board -- it certainly looks cooler, and stunning mobs with shield bash is pretty cool, and there definitely ARE situations where the 1 hander/bash will be advantageous. But for most mobs <50 killing them even slightly faster (and a baton of faith for 200pp is going to be significantly more than "slightly" higher dps than any 1 hander in its price range) is going to usually be the better choice. By a wide margin.
As a quick example take hags in unrest. The way to kill them is to make them die fast not try and play defensively (stun all their spells and outlast them over a long fight). Shield bash will fail a lot. Stuns will resist. None of that matters if the mob is dead. My pally did some soloing vs hags in unrest -- the baton of faith absolutely trounced ghoulbane, for example. Also, the baton with its fairly long swing time lets you cast spells in between swings very reliably (like stuns, undead dds etc) without losing any dps.
I'm not saying the 1 hander/shield doesnt have its place, but the answer to the OPS question is a resounding "yes, get a baton of faith and blow things up, and no, 1 hander/shield is not necessarily the way to go even if you're tanking"