Solo Paladin build?

[Ogre]

Originally Posted by A1551 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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]

Originally Posted by Ogre [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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]

Originally Posted by Ogre [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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]

Originally Posted by Vidar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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.

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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]

Originally Posted by Ogre [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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.