4 Months later, I still like Pure Paladins.

[Gangwulfe]

So, I payed 15 dollars to turn my account on so I could check out mod 5, and what I have missed for 4 months. I noticed a lot of people are still hateing on Paladins staying pure, so here is my reasons for thinking they are still quite good.

Mana bar -- My Paladin has 626ish mana. I use this mana bar to Cast 70 point heals, buff for every possibly occasion, and still have enough to cast virtue and divine favor constantly. If you think wand healing is as "clutch" as dropping a 70 point heal on someone in the middle of a heated fight, you are only kidding yourself.

Buffs -- Getting higher levels, means your buffs last longer. This is a good thing. It also means you get more powerful buffs, like say 30 point resists instead of 20 point resists. This is a good thing.

Better Spells -- I do not know what spell list you guys are looking at to say that the lv 4 paladin spells are bad, but to me EVERY lv 4 spell is good.

-- Break Enchantment -- Nice for dispelling, and need the highest pally level possible to make it work.

-- Netural Poison -- No cloudkill, or Poison.

-- Holy Sword -- I can not believe how good this is. Lets see, I not only get to chose what kind of weapon I want to fit what my specialty is, I also get to have a + 5 Holy / Cold Iron weapon that busts through damage reductions, (notice all the undeads in the new areas?) AND it gives me the constant benefit of protection from evil (yes, I will take a + 2 to my AC and saves that stack with everything that can not be dispelled) wich allows me to remove the amulet of the silver flame trinket, and equip my PoP 10. MMM. I like mana.

-- Cure Serious -- See above comments about laying down 70 point heals. Thats with NO empower healing feat.

-- Death Ward -- Think this is bad? Go run an undead mission, and take notice how often that little black circle appears over your head, and realizie that you could be loseing 1 point of stats every time that happens.

-- Restoration -- How can it be bad to be able to cast this?

-- Lv 2 / 3 spells that are not too shabby also.

-- Circle of Prot Evil -- Worth casting, massive stackable effects for a tiny mana cost.

-- Cure Blindness / Remove Curse -- Can it really hurt to be able to cast theese?

-- Angelskin -- Big fight Inc? Sure I will take 5 points of damage reduction. If I was a barbarian, I would be mad.

-- 30 Point Resistances -- Need I say more?

Getting your paladin level maxed means you get to have more spell slots, to fill up with all of theese utility spells. At best, you will be able to have 4 or 5 of all your spell levels. You basically become a walking buff station, and become immune to everything. You can cast any type of resist you will ever need, be a nice back up healer, and still have the mana for divine favor. If you stop at lv 11, you basically have a garbage mana bar, and have just enough mana for divine favor and a few weak resists here and there. Personally, I will take the mana.

Now, I know someone is going to say use scrolls or potions or wands, but they are nowhere near as good as actual casting. Sure, you can make up for quality with quanity, but for me, I will always take quality.

More things that make pure Paladins good.

Higher level means more smites that are more powerful. This saves you enhancement points.

Higher Pally level means better Turn undead. I was able to turn the cr 13 undeads in the new zone tonight, so I still think it is worthwhile if you know how it works.

All Paladin levels means a better BaB. Takeing non melee levels loses you Bab.

Higher Paladin level makes better Lay on Hands.

Higher Paladin level make more cure diseases.

Faith Tennants -- I do not know what the new ones will be, BUT the one I got now is crazy... Sovern Host. It not allows me a free feat (wepon focus longsword) it also allows me to make anyone proficient in longswords (cause you know mages and clerics love that sort of thing) AND it grants me a "cure all / heal type spell" once every 10 mins... it is actually BETTER than the heal spell, cause it heals a person to full HP where as a Heal can be capped. If the new ranks of the tenants are nearly as good as this and / or better than this, and are like lv 15+.. I think you would be crazy to not want theese.

Last but not least, you have the comfort knowing you are a Pure class, and you can roleplay acordingly. This is something I enjoy.

Anyways, I will be back untill Nov 25th then My account will run out again. If anyone wants help with a build, that is not your steriotypical cookie cutter rogue / Pally evasion build, or any other build such as my Elven Bladesinger or Battle Cleric build, send me some mail. I will be happy to get ya some great build advice, that is unlike all the other stuff you read around here.

I hate drow and dwarves, and will not build one. Elves, Humans, and Kender only.

Gang

[Borror0]

Good reasons, but not enough.

C'mon, join my cause and say they aren't worth it, we'll gte them even bettter

[wiglin]

All good points, but ddo is a hack n slash. The way this game is currently we do not need a primary buffer class. Even Bards should be dps or cc first then buff second. Now this is my opinion, but if I invited someone to my party and all they did was buff and back heal I would tell them to reroll...lol

I like your build Gangwulfe, always have. I followed your old post when you where defending it. From a roleplay perspective I think it is one of the best paladin builds. It has its uses, but how much do we need. I guess I look at it in the sense if I can farm and item, then I am not to worried about the spell. (Deathward) The paladin's spell list is pretty weak. Are the spells useful...sure, but not so much that I miss them. If someone in the party needs that much backup healing then tell the cleric to reroll.

DPS
Tank
Healer

From a pure powergamer perpspective, your primary role needs to fit in one of those categories.

In fact I am rolling a more traditional paladin much likes your in NWN2. I was banned for a couple of days, so I enjoyed playing NWN2 again.

It was nice having all the races, classes, and rules that I enjoyed about 3.5. Now if only they would add a jump button to NWN2 I would be set.

[Zenako]

Welcome back from the outlands Gang. Hope you enjoyed your walkabout.

I also like pure for many of the reasons you name. I think you will find that the main difference between points of view will stem from a fundamental choice of how players percieve the game. Those who come from an MMO background will tend to look at the characters as Toons, whose objective is to achieve maximum DPS or boons/second in an optimized questing party. Those who come to DDO from an RPG perspective will place a greater value on some of the intangible aspects of the game, like purity of class.

The second difference I expect lies mainly in how often those players run those toons in small parties or solo. The survivability of a pure paladin is better in small/solo runs.

[Pfamily]

Gotta agree with the Gangwulfe and the rest of the Pally fans, pure pally offers a lot of benefits. My Barb regularly teams with a Paladin for short-man runs, and the characters compliment each other quite nicely...esp. the touches and that 1000+ point heal from the enhancement line when yours truly charges headfirst into a group of baddies! (I'm kinda a mana sponge at those times, but heck my Int is 8 and I play it to the hilt...heh)

I've no doubt that the class could be made better by Turbine...but. A good blade, sick saves, nice buffs, and powerful inherent abilities makes the Pally a welcome addition in my book.

[wiglin]

Welcome back from the outlands Gang. Hope you enjoyed your walkabout.

I also like pure for many of the reasons you name. I think you will find that the main difference between points of view will stem from a fundamental choice of how players percieve the game. Those who come from an MMO background will tend to look at the characters as Toons, whose objective is to achieve maximum DPS or boons/second in an optimized questing party. Those who come to DDO from an RPG perspective will place a greater value on some of the intangible aspects of the game, like purity of class.

The second difference I expect lies mainly in how often those players run those toons in small parties or solo. The survivability of a pure paladin is better in small/solo runs.

I played dnd when it was the redbox. In fact I have only played a couple of mmo's, and not very long. I love the realtime aspect of ddo, but your right I look at ddo from a powergame perspective. I could care less about the roleplay side of things. I look at a class and see a list of abilities.

I guess when I log on to play online with friends, I throw any roleplay out the window. I find as I am getting older (28 currently) that I do not care about story or roleplay anymore. I just want to blow stuff up and get better at blowing stuff up.

If I want to roleplay or enjoy a good dnd story, I just go back to NWN or NWN2.

[wiglin]

Gotta agree with the Gangwulfe and the rest of the Pally fans, pure pally offers a lot of benefits. My Barb regularly teams with a Paladin for short-man runs, and the characters compliment each other quite nicely...esp. the touches and that 1000+ point heal from the enhancement line when yours truly charges headfirst into a group of baddies! (I'm kinda a mana sponge at those times, but heck my Int is 8 and I play it to the hilt...heh)

I've no doubt that the class could be made better by Turbine...but. A good blade, sick saves, nice buffs, and powerful inherent abilities makes the Pally a welcome addition in my book.

I guess I am spoiled in that I have a cleric that handles all the healing. She keeps everyone alive. The typical party I am in does not need that much back up healing, because our cleric can handle all of it. The rest of us use wands and potions to top off after the battle.

Now a time or two I have pugged, and it would have been nice to have Gan'g there helping out, because the cleric was horrible, and when I say horrible, I mean healing the wizard that it out of spell points while the barbarian that is tanking the mob is going down.

[Borror0]

And your views on Warforged?

Even worse.

EDIT: Woot ninja!!

[MrCow]

I hate drow and dwarves, and will not build one. Elves, Humans, and Kender only.

And your views on Warforged?

[llevenbaxx]

I took the first two levels of my paly as ftr levels and kinda regret it. I like the durability/versatility of the class very much and will still benefit from most of it with 12 paly levels.

The good thing about 3.5 D&D is that you can build any class to handle different roles. I made my WF paly to be combat heavy and i will likily stick with the class from here on out. It was nice to pickup PA and cleave right out of the gates though. Have nothing bad at all to say about the paly class.

Have to ask though, whats the big deal with staying a pure classed as paly? Is it the no MCing rule from PnP(which I did stay true to)? Or just the MMO crowd who are all hung up on the idea that pureclass anything should be superior to MC in some way?

[Zenako]

It is the tradeoff of Access to better/more powerful Enhancements and access to 4th level spells and more spell slots (plus the incremental changes on level dependant spells) vs the benefit of the other class you take. For some builds/playstyles the benefits of the extra feat(s) and low level enhancements are worth it, for others it is not.

[Jondallar]

Excellent points Gang, In my experience however, the only useful thing a pure pally offers is Deathward. I have as of yet found the true need for 30 point resist required usually its for burning blood/ acid rain that I need resists for, or on those rare times the party needs 30pt resists the mages/cleric usually have budgeted for the mana consumption, or I just use a nice lvl 12 resist energy wand and a lvl 10 prot from energy wand (easily purchased for a reasonable price on the AH) with UMD, because its maxed because I took rogue levels, and can evade many AOE damage spells.
UMDing Heal scrolls trumps 70 pt heals, I have better gear, and see better gear than +5 holy cold iron sword on the AH. Pure Pally's are not gimped by any means, they just dont have hi end advantages as of yet, that out weigh IMO the benefits of multiclassing (which is not allowed in PnP because it would be over powering and unbalancing).

One thing I will say, having a pure Paladin in your group when new content comes out is definately a bonus, because you are prepared for everything. However after a couple of runs I know what to expect and can bring the right supplies to compensate enough and even out perform in other area's. Now if I could only pull a darn set of Flesh render gogs after 10+ runs of tangleroot on my mains. Also Pure Pally is very handy for shortmanning things when no cleric is available.

[Gangwulfe]

Jond, one of the main reasons you always seem to miss, that actually occured to me over the past few months is that by me being basically IMMUNE to any and all sorts of damage, AND have the mana / healing that if I do happen to take damage along the way in a quest... I can self sustain myself with basically zero mana needing to be spent by the cleric. Basically what this means is my character is the very best "team player" that she could ossibly be.

You have any idea how much players who are clerics like to hear things like... "oh by the way, you do not have to heal me unless I am in citical condition, and I am immune to everything cause I can buff for any situation". "Oh, and I can also got enough mana that I can do in combat healing also to help you out".

It is usually a good way to get on cleric's friend's lists.

So basically, what my character brings to the table is the direct ability to make a group stronger, via being so self sustaining, and usuful utility wize, that just haveing me around allows the group to get better overall useage of thier mana recources.

Not that I like DV's, but giveing me DV's is a much better idea than say, that oercasting wizzie also.

And last but not least, I doubt you or anyone else has a better weapon currently than holy sword. Let's break it down.

+ 5 wep = lv 8
Holy = + 4 levels
Cold Iron = + 2 Levels
Persistant Prot Evil = + 2 levels (although I think it is worth more than that)
--------

Minimum lv 16 AH item.

Now, don't get me wrong, I know there is probabaly some nice raid gear, but I doubt everyone and thier brother is running around with more than lv 16 weapons that they could choose what they want it to be, depending on what they are fighting and their speciality.

Gang

[Cowdenicus]

Clerics > Pallies.

WF Pallies though rock pretty much.

[RTN]

If you're using Holy Sword, then you're not using Cure Serious Wounds or Deathward or Restoration. A lvl 14 pure paladin can memorize one of them. Your logic is flawed as you keep on switching up what you can bring to a party. If you're bringing big healing spells, then you lose the Holy Sword, Restoration or Deathward.

If I understand things correctly, moving the cap to 16 will give a pure paladin one more lvl 4 spell. I'm not sure that's worth it and I have a capped pure paladin that I like. Two levels of Rogue will give you evasion (if you have the armor for it). A single level of fighter gets you Towershield (free feat) and another feat and cheaper access to fighter skills (ex. Intimidate) and new enhancements (like an extra pt of STR). Two levels of fighter gives you an effective 3 more feats than a pure paladin. Compare the 14/2 Paladin/Fighter or Paladin/Rogue. Is one more lvl 4 spell and some mana worth more than those things? I doubt it. That's why people are complaining.

If you're roleplaying (which you say you do some), then keeping a paladin pure might be worth it, but most people aren't rping.

Survivability, something Paladins excel at, like you wrote, isn't really affected by several levels of another class and Evasion might even improve it with our high saves. I think a couple levels of another class once you hit 11 doesn't even really affect your usefulness to a party as a buffer or secondary healer. However, that's about all you'll do very well. DPS really falls behind, AC is better for fighters (and the ACs we can easily reach aren't very useful at higher levels, especially on elite), Intimidate isn't a class skill, etc. etc.

Regarding Holy Sword, I could care less about the ML of a weapon. That's a really artificial measurement of value. I'd take a high plus holy burst weapon over it any day and with a few exceptions, out DPS it. +2 AC is largely meaningless at higher levels and you can do more damage with other weapons quite easily (using bursting, bane, or a combo of the two). DDO is monty haul, so Holy Sword isn't that great by comparison.

The thread in the development section has some cool enhancement ideas for things they could do to make continuing with pure paladins worth it. Or they could put out a general roadmap of prestige classes they're toying with that might have something cool you'd need to be pure paladin to take.

Otherwise there is little beyond PnP loyalty to the ideal of the paladin that is lost by taking a couple levels of another class after lvl 11 or especially after 14. Another spell and some mana, that's all.

I sure hope some devs are reading these threads!

[Gangwulfe]

Paladins do not need evasion. My evasion is called makeing every save on a 2+ and haveing 30 point resistances to everything. If I roll a one, I have the same damage comeing in as a rogue who missed the roll.

Yes, you only get 1 slot and I was merely pointing out that ever spell was worthwhile, so this is why you need to stay pure to get as many of them as you can.

Gang

[wiglin]

Paladins do not need evasion. My evasion is called makeing every save on a 2+ and haveing 30 point resistances to everything. If I roll a one, I have the same damage comeing in as a rogue who missed the roll.

Yes, you only get 1 slot and I was merely pointing out that ever spell was worthwhile, so this is why you need to stay pure to get as many of them as you can.

Gang

Evasion also means being lazy when running through spike traps.

In all seriousness. Evasion will become more effective against spells, because 30-point resists will only block...well 30 points. As we gain levels the damage from spells will increase, so evasion will maintain its effetiveness when 30-point resists lose some of their ump.

Evasion is nice, but your right it is not needed especially under the current cap. Damage from most spikes and traps can be negated by good twitch skills. I like evasion though.

If money isn't an issue then umd'ing heal scrolls makes up for all those 70point cures.

Deathward has a farmable clicky.

I would rather use a "bursting of element damage" over a "+5 holy cold iron". By level 14 the full bab classes shouldn't be having an issue hitting things, so a +5 holy isn't more appealing to me than a +3 holy of righteousness or +3 holy cold iron.

[MrCow]

I sure hope some devs are reading these threads!

I sure hope the devs are only reading threads that truly require attention and are picked out by people not assigned to development tasks (like Quarion). I would much rather have the devs... develop!

[wiglin]

I sure hope the devs are only reading threads that truly require attention and are picked out by people not assigned to development tasks (like Quarion). I would much rather have the devs... develop!

I don't know.......... Some of what has been developed lately, I could have done without.

[Riekan]

Not that I'm advocating multiclassing paladins, and I prefer to stay pure myself in the hopes of better things to come, but your logic here is a little flawed. You say your evasion is 30 point resists and that you'd take the same damage as the rogue who fails a save. However, 30 point resists come at level 11, so the 12 paladin/2 rogue also has 30 point resists. If they roll a 1, they're taking 1/2 damage - 30 which pretty much means no damage. Even if they were only at 20 point resists, they'd still probably come out ahead with evasion. This doesn't seem to be arguable, but a simple matter of math.

As much as you are advocating staying pure, the ONLY current reason to do it in today's game is for flavor. There are no game mechanics currently in DDO to warrent taking more than 11 levels of paladin. Yes, the level 4 spells are nice, but not necessarily better than a multiclassed plan. Now, as I said earlier, I too am staying pure, but it is a matter of personal choice based in no part on being better in the game.