Paladin RAs

Danamyr

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I've been messing around with the RA calculator, and have decided on some RAs for my Paladin up to RR5. Just posting for opinions really. Both Purge and IP will be taken to Lvl 2 eventually. I've also gone for Toughness over Aug Con because Toughness is more efficent in terms of returns.

Eagle Knight (R5 L0) Realm Points: 513,500
Total Points: 40 Unused Points: 0

(2) Augmented Strength (+12 str)
(2) Augmented Dexterity (+12 dex)
(3) Toughness (+150 hps)
(2) Avoidance of Magic (-5 % to all magic dmg)
(2) Mastery of Blocking (+5 % chance to block)
(2) Mastery of Pain (+9 % chance of critical hit)
(1) Ignore Pain (+20 % heal, anytime, 15m RUT)
(1) Purge (5s delay, 15m RUT: Dispel Negative Effects)
 

Danamyr

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Marc said:
Id get purge 2 first.

I had Purge II until last night. I resented the fact I had so many RPs tied up in one RA so early TBH. I'll try and see how I get on without it, but those 10 points represent a lot of utility overall when spent in other RAs :(
 

Megalodon

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MoB vs AoM. Why do yuo die? Because someone hits you or because of nukes? I seldom die to tanks and when I am about to I just grapple them. I prefere AoM and thoughness.

IP1 is not worth it imo, if you are in need of 20% HP and your cleric cant heal you, you probably gonna die anyway.

Purge 1 or 2? Depends in what kind of group you play in and what role yours are? If you play in a tank heavy group and your role is offensive then you need purge 2. If you play in a caster group and you play defensive, Purge 2 will probably be enough on most occations. As you dont do much on the first couple of sceonds in the fight anyway (if you are defensive).

Atm I am trying out Vehement Renewal. And its not that bad as it is on a 10 min timer. I dont heal myself but if I am the target eithere my group is already dead or the enemnies are waisting their time on me.
 

Marc

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Danamyr said:
I had Purge II until last night. I resented the fact I had so many RPs tied up in one RA so early TBH. I'll try and see how I get on without it, but those 10 points represent a lot of utility overall when spent in other RAs :(

you should get ip2 first as RPs are easier to come by at the start. If you are rr5 and have no skill RPs available, you have to do rr5 - rr6 before u can get purge 2
 

Danamyr

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Megalodon said:
MoB vs AoM. Why do yuo die? Because someone hits you or because of nukes? I seldom die to tanks and when I am about to I just grapple them. I prefere AoM and thoughness.

My reasoning behind my choices are:

MoB and Aug Dex: This will maximise the potential of my 50 Shield spec from a defensive POV. I hope to be ML8 one day, so BG will be great and work well with Guard to make sure my principal is well protected.

MoP and Aug Str: A Paladin has poor offense and always has done. Speccing these RAs will increase my damage dealing abilities by a decent amount. Certainly worth the points up to say Lvl II - III in each. I am considering supplementing this with the Anger of the Gods damage add RA, to give me that additional 'oomph'.

Toughness: I am speccing in this to enhance my survivability, and no other reason. I accept the hits this RA confers may represent one nuke or one melee swing from an enemy tank, but it could make the difference between surviving or not. It should stack nicely with the 300 or so additional hits in my RVR suit.

Avoidance of Magic: Casters are the bane of my life TBH. With capped resists, AoM is the only thing I can really do to lessen their effect. The boost to resists is more then welcome too!

I guess speccing RAs, especially at low RR, is always going to be give and take. A mighty smitz0r once told me that the accumulative affect of a number of well chosen RAs can have a greater effect then spending heavily in just one or two, and that's the approach I'm going for. Enhance my already strong defense, enhance my survivability, increase my damage and negate offensive magic.
 

Golena

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First take into consideration that I have never played a high RR paladin in rvr so I could be talking out of my arse. I'm basing these comments on how I would try to play a paladin in rvr.

Danamyr said:
MoB and Aug Dex: This will maximise the potential of my 50 Shield spec from a defensive POV. I hope to be ML8 one day, so BG will be great and work well with Guard to make sure my principal is well protected.

You've chosen to go 50 shield. This implies that you view your paladins role in a group to be about defense. Therefore upping the amount of defense you can provide is a worthwhile use of your abilities. With bodyguard and 50 shield you can provide good defence for 2 members of your group.

Danamyr said:
MoP and Aug Str: A Paladin has poor offense and always has done. Speccing these RAs will increase my damage dealing abilities by a decent amount. Certainly worth the points up to say Lvl II - III in each. I am considering supplementing this with the Anger of the Gods damage add RA, to give me that additional 'oomph'.

This is a descision I probably wouldn't of made. If you've specced 50 shield, then your damage is probably going to be fairly poor in the general scheme of things. While upping it with RA's to try to compensate may seem to make sense i'm not sure it does. As a defensive character your likely to be mainly fighting tanks as running off after the enemy healers casters will negate your guard/bodyguard capabilities (spec 2 handed!). Even with aug str and MoP, especially at only level 2, one uninterupted healer is going to outheal your damage with ease. Whether you take 10% or 15% of his life off before he's healed again is rather irelevant. The reason I would spec aug str is to raise weapon skill for slam, not to provide extra damage.

You mention anger of the gods. It would probably make sense to spec this instead of these 2 to raise damage if you want to go that way. This lasts 30 seconds and is up every 10 mins, so will most likely be up for a majority of the fights your gonna need it for. As I pointed out earlier, if you take over 30 seconds to kill someone they will be fully healed, or your gonna win anyway. This RA would also provide extra damage to reavers/mercs in your group allowing them to perform better. Pallies are about group utility, not damage, and this gives you alot more than the aug str/mop route.

Danamyr said:
Toughness: I am speccing in this to enhance my survivability, and no other reason. I accept the hits this RA confers may represent one nuke or one melee swing from an enemy tank, but it could make the difference between surviving or not. It should stack nicely with the 300 or so additional hits in my RVR suit.

When your bodyguarding, extra hits is good!

Danamyr said:
Avoidance of Magic: Casters are the bane of my life TBH. With capped resists, AoM is the only thing I can really do to lessen their effect. The boost to resists is more then welcome too!

As a paladin tanks will have a hard job taking you down fast. If you arn't being healed, you've already lost so your main threat is indeed casters. Raising resists is certainly going to help, whether 5% is going to make that much of a difference tho i'm unsure. If a caster is left free and uninterupted (and has chosen the paladin as his target) i'm not sure 5% will make a difference.

Danamyr said:
Ignore Pain (+20 % heal, anytime, 15m RUT)

I could be wrong but this seems like a complete waste of points. If your soloing alot then it could be useful for close fights to give you the edge, in a group however what i'd ask is.. what am I going to do by living for X seconds longer?
What this does is give you an extra 20% life to get a heal from a cleric, if your clerics are dead, blowing it is pointless. If your cleric is alive, is an extra 20% time going to be long enough to free up your cleric. Either your being nuked for silly damage, your probably just delaying your death for 1 cast, or your cleric is interupted. How many times have you died because your cleric was interupted when another 20% life would of given you a chance to change that. For me it's maybe 2-3% of the time, and 5 rp's is a lot to spend for this.

Danamyr said:
Purge (5s delay, 15m RUT: Dispel Negative Effects)

I'm a big fan of purge 2 or nothing, as other people have said. If you get mezzed, your demezzer should be unmezzing you in around 5 seconds anyway or your already in trouble. If your stunned, this probably only halves the effects. The real use I can see of this is if your rooted, 5 seconds is much better than waiting the 40 seconds for it to wear off. As I said at the beginning I see a paladins role as being defensive, and in the days of TOA, 5 seconds is more than long enough for the person your protecting to have been killed. Murphey states that everytime you fire it, in the 5 seconds it takes to work, someone will have used an aoe spell or a ranger will of shot you to break mezz/root anyway, so it will do apsolutely nothing :twak:

Danamyr said:
I guess speccing RAs, especially at low RR, is always going to be give and take. A mighty smitz0r once told me that the accumulative affect of a number of well chosen RAs can have a greater effect then spending heavily in just one or two, and that's the approach I'm going for. Enhance my already strong defense, enhance my survivability, increase my damage and negate offensive magic.

That's certainly a good way of looking at it, and I would agree that a well rounded character is 90% of the time better than a 1 trick pony. However you can also say that someone who has average damage (but not enough to kill anyone) and average defense (but not enough to save anyone) isn't better than someone who can kill an enemy but can't do any defense, or someone who can't hurt the enemy but can stop you getting hurt.

I'd personally consider something like:

Purge 2 (15)
AoM 3 (10)
AotG 1 (5)
toughness (3)

With lots of hitpoints, and very good resists against casters you should be hard to take down (tanks you can always just grapple). If you need a damage boost, you can provide this to your entire group, and with purge 2 you can avoid being taken out of the fight at a critical time. I've avoided mob and aug dex simply cos at rr5, (+66 shield with 50 shield spec) I think that staying alive yourself to provide bodyguard to the most important target to defend adds more benefit than a small amount of extra protection to your secondary charge. (you can't block if dead anyway).

Maybe someone with some more experience or knowledge could let me know if i'm talking complete nonsense.
 

Danamyr

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Excellent post Golena - thanks! Certainly food for thought!
 

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