I am just starting on the Erica server myself. I am starting over after leveling a Pally to 69 on Hindemith. I would be willing to go Pally again as I love the character, but am hesitant as I have found it difficult to get parties, particularly after NCSoft nerfed the AOE parties (boooo).
If there is a legitimate place for Pally's on Erica I would love to re-do the character. I am curious however, why is it that you prefer a Palladin ... vs a Shillien Knight or Dark Avenger, or as is becoming more popular on Hindemith, a nuker/healer duo running around taking on pretty mch anything they want?
DO NOT roll a paladin you are condemming yourself to a class of pvp uselessness and horrific pain and mental stress. Roll a DA if you want a tank with summons having SS you will level 3 times faster then a paladin. He probably wants a paladin so he can level with you with out a healer which is a bad idea. Paladins heals suck mine is max level and its still only 550hp for 1/8 your mp not worth the time. If the case is that he wants a tank that can heal himself so he just has to buff ditch em get yourself a SE instead of a prophet overall you will have less down time.
To be honest though if you want to compete in any pvp roll a archer or nuker tanks are useless and seriously starting to get ignored in groups too!
Future Cs will probably have diff classes as uber, so what is weak now may be trendy then. This, IMHO, is a reason NOT to switch classes to be trendy. Play a class you enjoy, not a class others tell you to play based on their opinions.
Oh, I hear in C6 that Bishops will get a spell to turn enemies into undead, plus an area spell doing 6500 damage to all undead within 2000 range, just fyi. Cost is 10 MP, too.
And I heared that apart from the mage imbalance paladins are quite good pvp healers... hardly ever targeted and not as squishy as their mage counterparts anyway. Yesterday I read in clanchat that one got healed for 1k HP by a pali... Iwas surprised too but why woud he lie in that point. :p And as short as pvps are these days the low mana reserves aren't really a weak point. 8k xtra HP for the party on the other hand can make a difference. ;)
They are just hard to level because people think they suck.
What do you think is more valuable, 1k HP on a proper tank or 1k HP on a soft damage dealer? :) I think it's a good deal. It doesn't make palas outstanding in PvP, but thats due to a wide range of factors... in theory the paladin has the potential to be one of the better tank classes plus frontline healer. Which is a good thing to have imho. Maybe in C8 or 9, when all the Koreans rolled mages, too. :p
With the SPS song (I can't remember which one), combined with BTB5 and the Health SA on my DLE, my 69 Paladin had over 10K HP. I loved being able to take that kind of a beating and agree that using Sacrifice to heal was awesome. The biggest problem with Pally heals are they are soooo slow.
I never learned how to properly PvP with him though because I was always being sent ahead with all the DD's, usually exhausting all our mages of their MP on buffs and leaving them to die. I knew that as a Pally, I should be hanging back and supporting and protecting the healers and nukers but never got any buy-in from the leaders.
Also, a Pally doesn't really shine until he gets to higher levels, but the higher level he gets the tougher it is for him to continue leveling. He NEEDS to be in a party. All the DD's, however, were off duoing with healers. Nukers and BD's were fast killers, and with a healer didn't need a tank. DA's and SK's had SOME attack skills so they could maybe find a friend to duo with or even solo somewhat. A Pally, being ALL defensive, can not effectively be the DD in a duo party, even spamming VERY expensive SS it took forever waiting for me to bring down a mob (well ... Elpy's were no problem :) ). And no one wanted to 'share' their XP by inviting me to join in their parties. I had SOME success being a healer in a duo (with a BD) but because of my relatively low MP it resulted in a lot of down time, as I used Aggressin and Hate as well to pull mobs also, and the party didn't last long. A BD could find a party ANYWHERE and get XP much quicker than duoing with a Pally.
I am currently bringing up a scavenger who I will use to help clothe and equip a new Main Character on Erica, but have not yet decided on what class to select for my main. I still love the idea of a Pally sub-classed as a BD though (I never got to my sub-class :( ).
Paladins sacrafice is generaly giving up X hp to heal 3/4x to another target not a great trade off and while yes a tank giving away the hps to a dd might be nice but think how much better the situation if the paladin was just another dd or nuker instead. Now while this might have some uses in small pvp this is worthless in pve seriously why wast your life to heal someone when you can use hate or shield stun to get the mob off the player and you can really only cast it 4 or 5 times before you are to low on hps to heal with. Honestly a DA with a panther using SS will drop people fast they area way better bet then a paladin if you want to roll a tank. For a paladin to become uber they would have to add such a degree of new skills as to almost completley change how a paladin currentlyis I doubt that much change will come.
Future Cs will probably have diff classes as uber, so what is weak now may be trendy then. This, IMHO, is a reason NOT to switch classes to be trendy. Play a class you enjoy, not a class others tell you to play based on their opinions.
Oh, I hear in C6 that Bishops will get a spell to turn enemies into undead, plus an area spell doing 6500 damage to all undead within 2000 range, just fyi. Cost is 10 MP, too.
Ok now are these rumor you have heard or rumors you have made up and told yourself about?
I buff up then atk, I want to lvl fast, kill mobs fast is agood way to lvl fast. a pally has passives for undead, stack HW on that and you do a lot more dmg. I'm thinking that a pally and I where to dou (added party XP boni) in DV that we can kill fast together and get good rewords, once we out lvl DV we can go do quest in DEV castle. also are undead type in GC, ToI, AL and other places.
Yes it's true that Pallys are the best tanks, but they are preatty awesome Raid tanks 76+.
I buff up then atk, I want to lvl fast, kill mobs fast is agood way to lvl fast. a pally has passives for undead, stack HW on that and you do a lot more dmg. I'm thinking that a pally and I where to dou (added party XP boni) in DV that we can kill fast together and get good rewords, once we out lvl DV we can go do quest in DEV castle. also are undead type in GC, ToI, AL and other places.
Yes it's true that Pallys are the best tanks, but they are preatty awesome Raid tanks 76+.
Ive read this post a few times, now.
I'm a pally, and like someone said above finding a party is hard, you want a tank, go with an orc destroyer, or hell a DA, but not a pally. we are more of a leech than an attacker.
but im on a decent amout, so drop me a pm. ill see what i can help u with.
C0NAN <--- yea thats a zero.
Paladins are perhaps the best tank to just tank but you are looking to duo meaning tank has to DD as well and Paladins don't have much of a damage output even with the undead skills you'd probably be better off with a DA and panther or a WS and golem or better yet find a warlock and buff the summons and fight