Paladin Class Guide (Classic - Prophecy of Ro)
This guide will cover the Paladin Class from Classic EQ all the way until the end of Prophecy of Ro. I consider this to be the end of the Classic era in this game, so much changes from PoR onward as the devs balance the various classes and the game. Paladins go through a lot of changes during this time since they start out as very mediocre during Classic and slowly improve in usefulness throughout this whole era.
Paladins are a hybrid tank just like Shadow Knights, they suffer like SKs a lot during this era too. On raids you will almost never be tanking, that will be a Warriors job. You'll be doing ramp tank duties or healing/buffing once you get your brells line of spells. As time goes on you will eventually be able to be a solid raid tank but this isn't until the future eras.
As far as soloing and grouping go - that can be a different story for Pallies. You will do fine as a group tank, use your Stun spells to build threat and Root to help with crowd control when needed. When soloing you will want to focus on Undead monsters primarily since they will be susceptible to your Slay Undead AAs. Slay Undead is basically your version of Ranger's Headshot or Berserker's Decap; it will let you deal a massive strike to undead targets.
Slay Undead is basically your ticket to being able to solo. All in all, I don't really recommend you play a Paladin during this era unless you like playing the class that no one else does. In my experience this is typically by far the least played class on the TLPs during this era. Funny enough, I was playing this class on Teek as I wrote all of my class guides. So I have a moderate amount of experience on this class.
Important Stats & Focus Effects
Increasing your stats will give you the biggest benefits until you start maxing them out in Velious and Luclin. Once you max out your stats the only way to raise them is with AAs, you can also gain some benefits from Heroic Stats though, which we'll talk about in a bit. Paladins are tanks so your most important stats will be Stamina, Agility, Strength and Dexterity. You also need some Wisdom too since you're a Wis caster.
The Stamina and Agility is for tanking, Strength and Dex is for dealing damage and holding threat. Wisdom is for your spells. Basically all of these are important for you, depending on what role you primarily play one may be more important than the others. Since you're a tank you'll also want to make sure you get as much AC and HP as possible too.
For secondary stats you'll want to get some Attack on your gear as well as Flowing Thought (Mana Regen). These are a lot less important and shouldn't be a concern until your other stuff is max.
Strength: This increases your Attack and weight limits.
Dexterity: Increases chance to proc during combat and accuracy.
Stamina: Gives you HP.
Agility: Increases AC.
Wisdom: This gives mana, it scales as you level. At level 1 you get 1 mana per wisdom and at 60 it's about 10 mana per wisdom.
Once PoP is released you'll start to notice Heroic Stats appearing on gear. This will become more and more common until eventually every piece of gear starts getting HStats. You will get benefits kinda similar to normal stats with the HStats, just slightly worse. The nice thing about Heroic Stats though is they have their own caps independent of the normal stats.
Each Heroic Stat will start to give diminishing returns past a certain point, this is known as a soft cap. Therefore it's typically best to get a mixture of HStats instead of dumping them all into one. As a Paladin you'll want Heroic Wisdom, Heroic Dexterity, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Agility.
Heroic Dexterity (Accuracy/Proc Chance): Heroic Dex increases your accuracy and proc chance during combat; it has diminishing returns later in the game once you start getting a lot of it.
Heroic Agility (Avoidance/Strike Through): Increases AC, Dodge, Block and Many of the most important Mod2s. Use my Heroic Stats Guide for more information.
Heroic Wisdom (MP/Regen): This increases your MP, Mana Regen and Max Mana Regen for Casters. Once you cap Flowing Thought, you'll need more Heroic Wisdom to increase your potential cap.
Heroic Stamina (HP/Mitigation): Increases HP, HP Regen, and HP Regen Cap. It also gives you some Mod2s which help with damage and stun mitigation.
Want more information about Heroic Stats and what they do/how they're beneficial? Curious what Mod2s are? Take a look at my Heroic Stats Guide for more information about what each stat does and why we're getting the ones that we're focusing on.
Important Focus Effects
Starting in Luclin and becoming more common as the game goes on certain pieces of gear will come with Focus Effects. For melee classes you don't start getting tons of Focus Effects until OoW and beyond. Below are the main Focus Effects that you want to get on your gear when they become available.
****Haste: Not really a focus, but this is the most important secondary thing you should get on your gear. Eventually it becomes a staple on your gear in the future and you don't have to seek it out anymore.
****Cleave: Increases your chance to crit with all combat skills by a significant amount. This is the most important focus you should seek out once it's available.
***Ferocity: Your chance to double attack is increased by a small amount. Your second biggest melee DPS increase will come from this.
***Improved Dodge: Chance to Dodge is increased by a moderate amount. Pretty much gives you a bit more survivability.
***Improved Parry/Block: Chance to Parry and Block is increased by a moderate amount.
***Mana Preservation: Reduces the amount of Mana consumed with each cast.
**Improved Healing: This increases the total amount that you heal for with each cast.
**Spell Haste: Reduces the cast time of your spells (makes your spells cast faster)
**Extended Enhancement: Increases the duration of your buffs.
**Extended Range: Increases the range of your spells.
**Improved Damage: Increases the damage your DD spells do. This is very important if you plan to deal direct damage (with nukes).
Important Spells, Skills, AAs & Disciplines
Paladins are half Cleric half Warrior which means you get many different Cleric spells. In Classic EQ you won't get very much but more is added into the game with each expansion for you. Just like a Cleric you will get some heals, buffs and Stuns. You'll want to primarily use Stun for agro, Root will be helpful too early on. Use it on all the mobs you're fighting to keep them in front of you.
Level 25 is when you will get Soothe which is your first Pacify spell. This will be very useful for pulling enemies out of groups. I also recommend you use the Yaulp line on your Pally since it is very beneficial. You get Valor of Marr in Luclin too which gives you a self only Attack Speed buff.
Starting in PoP you will begin to get more and better spells with each level. This is when you get Pious Might and the Fury line of self buffs. During PoP you'll start to get your own healing spells different from the Cleric ones, this is becomes true for other spell lines too. Apparently it was too hard to balance old Cleric spells!
When it comes to playing a Paladin your most important spells will typically be Pacify, Stuns, Heals, Roots and all of your buffs/self buffs. You'll be using your Stuns for agro and your heals/buffs are the main utility you get from your Cleric half. Below you will find a bit more info on your important spell lines.
Good Self Buffs: I will talk about the various self buffs you get that don't have many stacking issues. Valor of Marr is a self only Attack Speed added in Luclin, Aura of the Crusader is an HP/AC buff added in PoP. You also get Blessing of Austerity which is a self only HP/AC buff in LDoN. Guard of Piety is a melee absorb added in DoN, there are a few different ranks of this as you level.
Brells: The first real example of this spell is Brell's Mountainous Barrier in Luclin. Brells is the one buff you get that will stack with the buffs every other class provides. What that basically means is on raids this is the one buff you're useful for.
Pacify: You get this line early, it will allow you to single pull a mob out of a group of enemies. Extremely useful in certain dungeons, especially with weaker groups.
Stuns: Like I said earlier, this is the main line of spells that you will be using to increase your threat while tanking.
Divine Aura: This spell is commonly called DA and it will make you invulnerable for 18 seconds. You will be using this on raids as the ramp tank.
Pious Might/Fury: During PoP you get Pious Might and Holy Order for the main line and Ward of Nife for the Undead line. This becomes one of your more important self buff lines
Blessed Aura: Almost every class gets an Aura during Ro, this is the Pally Aura. Blessed Aura increases how much healing spells land for and it's amazing.
As far as skills go on your Paladin, the first thing to note is that Lay on Hands was moved into the AA window, you can find it in there at level 1. Taunt is the main skill you will be using since that will help you get agro, when you're using a shield you'll also want to use Bash though. If you are playing on the official servers use /autoskill Bash to make your life easier. This will automatically use the skill every chance you get.
AAs
Like I talked about before, you will get Lay on Hands at level 1 in Classic, it's now found in your AA window. Once Luclin is released you can pick up Act of Valor which will transfer all of your remaining health to your target and kill you. Cute AA but I can't see ever using it. Divine Stun is a pretty good AA if you don't mind the knock back. It will help you generate threat.
You'll also get MGB in Luclin which lets you turn any group spell into a raid AoE. Starting in PoP you'll get Hand of Piety which will heal the entire group, it comes with a long cooldown though. Gates of Discord adds Purification and Radiant Cure, the first one is self only and the second works on the entire group. Both of them will cure Disease, Poison or Curses (Purification actually works on a lot more).
During Omens of War you'll get Bold Attacks which increases the threat you generate, this is an important one for us since we're a tank. Last but not least, you'll get Cloak of Light in DoDh which works as an IVU, basically saves you from memorizing a spell.
Disciplines
Resistant Discipline (51) - Classic (Allakhazam, Lucy) My advice for finding Classic era discs is to check Warrior Tomes merchants; Teniyu Emua in West Freeport is my choice)
Increases your resistances by a lot temporarily.
Fearless (54) - Classic (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Fear immunity for 1min.
Holyforge Discipline (55) - Velious (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Increases chance to crit by 200% with all skills (works on all mobs). Chance to Crippling Blow increased by 20% and Slay Undead (140).
Sanctification Discipline (60) - Velious (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Your chance to resist spells is increased by 10,000%.
Guard of Humility (61) - DoN (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Mitigate 25% melee damage up to 6000 in total.
Guard of Righteousness (69) - DoN (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Mitigate 25% melee damage up to 10,000 in total.
How to Play: Paladin Basics
Playing a Paladin is almost mind numbingly basic during the early eras of the game. Until Luclin you don't get many spells at all, you'll get a bunch during PoP and another bunch during OoW. From then on you'll start to get upgrades to your main spell lines with each expansion to come.
While leveling up the most important spells for you to keep on your bars will be Stun (Threat), Heals (just incase), Root (CC), Pacify (Pulling groups) and self buffs or whatever else you'd like. Typically I will use both Stun to pull enemies and to generate threat, it can be a little annoying sometimes though when pulling but it gives you very solid threat. Don't forget that if you're playing on live servers you'll have to go into your AA window to get your Lay on Hands skill now.
It doesn't seem like much, but that pretty much covers all you need to know about playing a Paladin from 1 - 60. You will get many new spells and buffs starting in Luclin all the way until Prophecy of Ro but your playstyle will not change. During Velious you will get Holyforge Discipline, this is a disc you'll use to buff your damage. It works on both undead and normal monsters.
Next, you have Guard of Humility and Guard of Righteousness. Both of these are added in DoN and they will provide you with some melee mitigation. During this era of the game they are the only discs available to you which will help with tanking. As far as tanks go, you don't make a great one in this era. In groups you'll do fine but when you are on raids you're stuck with casting Brells and ramp tanking which is basically the only useful thing raid leaders could find for you to do.
Brells is the only spell line you get that stacks with every other buff in the game so it's the only buff people on raids will ever be asking you for. On some raids you'll get to do a bit more than ramp tanking, especially later on when raid bosses come with many different adds. However, it does kind of suck but we're a rather useless class on raids until at least PoR when we get Blessed Aura. Then we become slightly more desired on raids, over time we get more useful stuff too but not really in this era.
My advice is if you're planning on playing a Paladin during this era of the game, expect raids to be boring for you. There's a lot for you to do in group content and when soloing but not much on raids. If that isn't a big deal for you then feel free to play a Pally!
More Tips & Tricks
Paladin BiS Lists
I have BiS gear lists for this class which include both Tower and Pre-Tower BiS items. For those of you who care less about a BiS list and just want a list of good gear options, I have included that at the bottom of each page too.
Kunark Paladin BiS Gear List
Velious Paladin BiS Gear List
Luclin Paladin BiS Gear List
PoP Paladin BiS Gear List