I dare say that pally is a class that suffer more if the player is not good than other melee classes, perhaps with the exeption of rogue.
But a good player with a well equipped and well built pally should be more than welcome in every group for every quest.
Barbs and fighters are a just lot easier to play
Like I posted on another thread, about rogues, the problem with Paladins is the sheer amount of people that have either no clue or no thought into what they are doing.
It doesn't take long to read some forum threads and look for a build that will be good to play. Sadly a lot of people go for the pre-determined paths and I guess for most classes they are horrendous. Never personally tried them before, so I wouldn't exactly know, but from what I've seen, I never liked the builds of people.
However, that being said, a well made Paladin is an assets to any party, a well made Paladin played a good player that knows his character, can be a party on it's own. Buffing himself/party, healing, pulling aggro, doing DPs.
Guild Leader made a Pally halfling last TR, he solo healed a Reaver Raid on hard. On a Paladin. Not sure if he was also tanking the reaver or not.
With my Paladin I got yelled at one VoD that I should stop activating my hate aggro cause I was taking away the Aggro from Sulo, I told the raid leader I don't carry that. He was like you gotta be kidding me?
I've heard of Paladins doing 650 to 700 on a crit smite. I figured with an ESoS a paladin could easily do 850-900 on a crit smite. Yet I come across Paladins that tell me they smite for 200-250.
It's all about your builds and how you play them, but saying a class is bad, is not true, yes Paladin have been gimped after the last 2 updates, be it because they where bugs that needed to be fixed, but enhancement wise they need a little more love. :P
I never play pally, I find them boring.
I don't know why.
It might be because...they are.
5Bard - rooktastic.
3wiz/3mo/2fig - Mome Wrath.
8guild - Mc Dojo
F2P
This is false in so many ways.
Let's compare:
Fighter gets:
+3 Str (+1.5 damage)
Greater Weapon Specialization (+4 damage)
Weapon Enhancements (+2 damage)
Kensai III weapon bonuses (+2-+4 damage depending on weapon)
Kensai II Str Surge +8 Str (+4 to +6 damage depending on weapon)
Haste Boost (burst % damage)
Capstone for +10% double strike
____
+13.5 to 17.5 damage from abilities gained
Paladins get:
Divine Might IV (+8 damage)
Divine Favor (+3 damage)
Divine Sacrifice +9d6 every 5 attacks or so (averages to 4-7 damage per swing)
Zeal for +10% double strike
Capstone for +1d6 damage vs. everything and +1d6 damage vs. evil outsiders and undead (+7 damage on average vs. most raid enemies)
smite evil (big burst damage)
_____
+22 damage on the low end of average
Now, these comparisons don't include a lot of variables, and are assuming fairly specific (pure) builds, but even taking some things away, the paladin is still looking pretty good, and I gave fighters their PrE but not paladins.If we include KotC, that'd be another +3d6 (4d6?) damage vs. evil outsiders (even more with the ToD set). If we instead figured in Defender of Siberys, that would be +4 Str for another +2 damage.
Paladins get solid DPS, not as much as barbarians and rogues, but solid, and you aren't turning away fighters and rangers are you?
Add to that the fact that paladins have better saves than almost anyone, self-healing, self-buffing, and some inherent immunities, and you end up with a lot of people scratching their heads at the ridiculous opinion that paladins are somehow a subpar option for a party.
Useful links: A Guide to Using a Gamepad w/ DDO / All Caster Shroud, Hard Shroud, VoD, ToD Einhander, Elochka, Ferrumrym, Ferrumdermis, Ferrumshot, Ferrumblood, Ferrumender, Ferrumshadow, Ferrumschtik All proud officers of The Loreseekers. Except Bruucelee, he's a Sentinel!
I tried joining an LFM for Church and the Cult, which was looking for paladins and rogues for their last 2 spots. My guy had a 2-fighter splash and got declined because he wasn't a pure paladin. I explained that he was a double TR, dripping with twink gear, and that 2 fighter in no way detracts from a paladin before level 20 in any way, and yet, I got turned down.
Puzzling people puzzle me.
Useful links: A Guide to Using a Gamepad w/ DDO / All Caster Shroud, Hard Shroud, VoD, ToD Einhander, Elochka, Ferrumrym, Ferrumdermis, Ferrumshot, Ferrumblood, Ferrumender, Ferrumshadow, Ferrumschtik All proud officers of The Loreseekers. Except Bruucelee, he's a Sentinel!
Divine Righteousness goes a looooong way.
My paladin 14/fighter 6 (Ferrumrym's first life) would tank the boss in ToD part 2, holding aggro from some of my server's tippity-top DPSers with no head start solely on paladin DPS + paladin hate generation, and that was 2-handed without many of the toys he could have had (no DM III, no DS III, no ES III, didn't have Weapon Specialization, or all of the dwarven axe enhancements...).
Useful links: A Guide to Using a Gamepad w/ DDO / All Caster Shroud, Hard Shroud, VoD, ToD Einhander, Elochka, Ferrumrym, Ferrumdermis, Ferrumshot, Ferrumblood, Ferrumender, Ferrumshadow, Ferrumschtik All proud officers of The Loreseekers. Except Bruucelee, he's a Sentinel!
i´ve seen alot of bad paladins in random groups so far,
most still use shield and sword, which is fine if they can survive with it
but these paladins usually agro everything with that cha skill and take far to much dmg or stand turtling in a hallway to reduce dmg....
and then there's the proper paladins, easily spotted since they'd most often wield dual weapons or a two handed weapon, who can put down the hurt, help with aura and pass out emergancy resses or heals.
It's not even Divine Righteousness pulling the agro... I only use that when i for sure want it. Like part 2 leutenants in the shroud to drag my guy away from the spaz melee pugs swingin all over.
Drop a nice 3-4-5-6-700 pt exalted smite. On top of pretty high average damage.. and that mobs gonna be after you for quite awhile. And with 10 of them.. And low cooldown + regen over time. Pally gets attention alot.
I've seen some smites in the 650 range so far. With what i think is just an average geared toon.
I don't like em enough to finish outfitting. lol
But then again i'm not a fan of melee either.
Something else that i dont know how it factors in..... 3 toons standing there. barb/fighter/pally. all lvl 20.
Monster will almost always head for the pally in situations where it should head for one of the other two first.
Unless theres a cleric around... Monsters LOVE clerics.. and lower lvl ppl.
Paladin Exalted Smite IV: Using this attack, you call on the paladin's ability to strike down evil creatures, gaining twice your Charisma bonus to your attack roll, a damage bonus based on your paladin levelx3, and +2 to your weapon's critical threat range and damage multiplier.
Don't dismiss S&B paladins as being "improper" just because they aren't DPSing. There are many varieties of every type of class and character. There are well played and well built S&B toons, and poor ones, good TWFers and THFers and bad ones. There is no reason to judge a character class by the dregs who subscribe to it rather than on its own merits.
Useful links: A Guide to Using a Gamepad w/ DDO / All Caster Shroud, Hard Shroud, VoD, ToD Einhander, Elochka, Ferrumrym, Ferrumdermis, Ferrumshot, Ferrumblood, Ferrumender, Ferrumshadow, Ferrumschtik All proud officers of The Loreseekers. Except Bruucelee, he's a Sentinel!
I don't use divine rightiness onn mine either, an have np pulling aggro, from sulu, or the guy in TOD part 2 . I am not sure if the bane from the enchanment or the tod set generates extra hate or something? All i am saying is i get aggro an hold it the whole time from top players onn the server. An yes my pali is geared out...minus the ESOS
What i run onn mine.....
34str, kotc, tod kotc set,GTHF, DM 3, divine sacrifice 2, an exalted smite 3 an spam the heck outta em lol
also use rage, an madstone
Swinging a lightning 2 falcion for norm or hard, an the house P epic greataxe for elite.
Az :P
Last edited by Irongutz2000; 10-09-2010 at 10:31 AM.
Most ppl call me Az. Captains crew on G-land.
For me that's an obvious reason not the party with that player (ever) again on any toon.
Some people just have that narrow mindset that applies in some other MMO's where you "need" single character roles to be able to fulfil a mission/raid (tank/healer/dps). As far as the pally hate is concerned, I regularly get declined for quests/raids with my pally too. I usually do not get any response either when asking the party/raid leader why he actually refused me. It becomes quite funny if the some person afterwards stalks my fvs into joining his party or raid and gets a simple "No" as an answer. I know, this is a silly and revengeful attitude but I simply can not group up with people that have that narrow mindset.
My (composed of former DDO EU players) guild recently ran a HoX/VoD/Shroud with 4 pallies, 2 fvs'ses, 1 bard, 2 rogues, 2 rangers and a monk in the 17 to 20 level range (only 4 lvl 20's if I'm not mistaken). According to the pally haters and min/max stereotypers, we should have wiped ... :-).
a pure shield and board paladin is not and should never be called a build, it is in best cases a portion of a build, as a paladin you should still have enough feats to improve two handed fighting or two weapon fighting... or for all i care multiclass to also disable traps and get evasion for example.
you have the potential to be far more then just 1 role, if you don't use that potential you are in my opinion a truly bad paladin!
I think I need to see a good pally in action. I've never seen one really excel in any particular area of the game. I've never had a pally come to the rescue of the party and save the day... I've never seen a pally romp through a quest destroying everything in sight. I haven't seen them snatch aggro and hold it. I haven't seen them lead kill counts (I know that is a poor metric for measuring, but still...)
Twice I was in raids with a pally tank, and twice I pulled aggro...with 20% threat reduction on. I won't do it anymore.
I don't play a pally, and I'm not familiar with their strengths and weaknesses. I just know what I've observed and I've never been impressed by what they bring to the game. I hear what people say about awesome pally DPS, and LOH saving the day, and other great stories about how great pallies are, but maybe the ones I've met are just horrible.
Want to remain guildless or solo, but still want to take advantage of the guild renown system?
Solo / Guildless / No Pressure / The Guildless Guild on Argonnessen
Something just seems odd to me.
I mean; being able to pull aggro doesn't automatically denote that someone's dps is that much better. When I've done that unintentionally on my pally it's been a sign that my dps is adequate... but not exceptional compared to whomever is tanking. The person tanking is using various abilities/clickies and isn't dps'ing the entire time. Doesn't seem like a fair comparison.
If it were the other way around meaning the pally was tanking and no one could pull aggro then that would hold more water as a logical argument imo.
I love playing my paladin, even with all the changes to the class recently. A few people thinking that they aren't dps doesn't seem worthy of a rant really. Mine has gotten turned down for end game raids before. And mine has also managed to steal aggro and have to hold it for the rest of the raid, so I know his dps is adequate for the task. Bottom line to me is that some people are just stuck on that level 20 game generated build that died umpteen times in their last raid.