Paladin --> slash or shield bashing?

[Lusse]

Heyas all... So I decided to make a paladin cause its a beloved class of mine. Alltho I thought it was like EQ and noone really played a pally, it shows that pallys are farely common. Anyway, I've met some great people and have got some great advices for playing a paladin.

To the end I decided to go S/S instead of 2h (due lots of facts and the possibility to respecc in a few months "thanx goa") but once I've chosen S/S there is another question to ask my self.

Should I go for shield bashing? or slashing? At the moment Im doing almost double the dmg with my shield than with my sword (lvl 10) and both of them are still low at 6 (maxing chant atm to get revive at 30) and before I put any more points in either of them I would like to see some opinions.

Is shield worth getting to 42 and bashing like there is no tomorrow? Or do you do overall more damage with slashing?

This is regarding both pve and pvp.

Thank you all in advance.

 

[Danya]

Having slam is more useful than very high slash due to the usefulness of stuns in combat.

 

[tilde]

NOT SLASH
NOT 1H
NOT SHIELD
---------------
Full spec in 2h
2/3 spec in thrust/crush
46 in chants
rest in parry

 

[old.Arya]

Have to agree with Tilde there.
Slash Damage = pathetic
Shield = Blocking in RvR seems to be bugged an Slam eats lots of end.

Looking forward to respec in 2 H soon, so I can use a nice Big HAmmer for all ya Tin Cans

 

[Lusse]

hmm... would it be to late if I already have 6 points in slash and 6 in shield, to swap to crush 2h? Would prefer to have one high than 2 mids... would crush or trhust be better?

 

[old.Arya]

You totally gimped your char, start a new one in HIB

 

[Flimgoblin]

It depends what you want to be...

A lot of the whining on the vgn boards about paladins is about Crusader-wannabes... they've tried to make a Paladin that can outdamage an Armsman - which isn't going to happen.

A paladin is a group support fighter... they've got some really nice chants that are ace in PVE - unfortunately in RvR the battles go by too fast to make them anywhere near as useful.

What they aren't is an angel of death dealing hideous damage, calling down holy wrath ...

A sword/board/chants paladin is a good combo if you want to do PvE... hopefully it'll eventually become a viable RvR character too (admittedly only in groups - that said you'll be ace at the keep taking with a group... mmm damage adds)

 

[Lusse]

fingoniel I totally agree with you. I posted on the pally of albion board aswell and it was very similar to what you sayed. Pallys are defensive tanks and will always be.

Im pretty sure i'll go for sword and some shield. Doing some dmg and I dont have endurance enough to do shields due the twisting of chants.

Just curious.. what do you mean with sword/board/chants paladin. Board being?

 

[Flimgoblin]

Sorry, bit of slang there - board = shield

(run around carrying a bread board strapped to your arm...)

 

[Lusse]

ah hehe
oki, off to some gaming

btw.. you got that url for that vn board?

 

[belth]

http://vnboards.ign.com - there's few categories of DAoC boards.

You should invest 7 points in shield though, to get engage. Really annoys those archers & bolt-casters Sword & shield Paladin makes the best possible tank in DAoC. You could go to the extreme and drop weapon to spec only in shield & chants, which you could both keep at maximum spec, but that'd become quite boring quickly I recon.

It's also possible that Mythic decides to put in some sort of damage-reduction or some such, to make RvR fights last longer - then sword & board is better, unlike now when first hit can decide the outcome of the fight quite easily.

 

[Flimgoblin]

A word of warning about the camelot vault...

if you thought the whines at GOA about patch times/closing forums etc. were bad....

There's some good info on there - hidden amidst the whines

 

[tilde]

slash+shield is the best for PvE, but when u hit 50 game is all about RvR- and thats why i prefer thrust or crush atleast.

And yes, we cant outdmg armsman but since shield isnt working at all why play with shield?

Parry works tho

 

[Matinex]

tilde, shield works very very well, just not when you use styles. and something that most ppl should have in mind is that level 42 shield style, slam = UBER.

 

[tilde]

U're damn right about that Mati - SLAM truly rox in RvR, but its not fun to always use that fekkin shield all time

And another reason is that 1h-thrust isnt doing that much dmg

 

[old.Zeikerd]

I have a lvl40 paladin, when I started RvR on a what bigger way (keep raids and stuff) i noticed that being a Paly REALLY sucks in RvR.
Your damage is too low to deal ALOT of damage QUICK. So you almost never kill one alone (or maybe some greens orso, which isn't cool).
I feel i'm only half an armsmen in RvR. In PvE we totaly rock, but not in RvR, so I started playing an other class, and try to make him (her) to RvR level.
You know what a Paladin is in RvR:
* Extra shield for the mages (shield chant against irritating archers).
* A rezzer with plate.
* A door basher.

But shield is totaly cool btw
Shield is crush also, so if you spec crush, your shield dam will be better also.
I have crush at 23 orso, and shield at 32, and my hardest crush style does less damage than my shield style.

 

[tilde]

We got no xbow, we do 70% of an armsman with same eq (including dmgbuff) and we got lower hp.

Tanks doesnt do the dmg in rvr - casters do - and yes we cannot outdeal so much dmg, thats why we're called support-tanks and defensive ones. But, RvR is about lvl and numbers

 

[belth]

Ask any "regular" (thrust) Infiltrator about 1h thrust-styles - if they say they're good, they're really gimped.

For me, I can do Puncture/Bloody Dance, my best thrust combo in a fight. Puncture causes slight bleeding, that's nice. Bloody Dance does somewhat more damage and that's it. With Critical Strike styles, I do Garrote/Achilles Heel, which doesn't cause bleed, but slows down attack speed and movement speed. No bleed, but I run out of endurance 2-4 style-chains with the same damage dealt as with the pre-mentioned thrust as CS styles. Thrust styles simply don't add enough damage to be worth-while.

To put it bluntly, thrust is faster than slash, but the single styles cause considerably less damage than CS/Slash (spec 29, AS) styles, so if you want to do big damage fast in RvR currently, 1-handed Crush (due to smaller penalties) is better than thrust.

Only classes I would use 1-handed Thrust currently with are Infiltrator, Scout and possibly Minstrel and Mercenary. Even with the 15% bonus against chain 1-handed Thrust doesn't cause enough damage to be as good as 1-handed slash in RvR when compared to the slash-spec 29 style Amethyst Slash with non-tank classes, as the damage-tables are much better for tanks. As an 1-handed Armsman, thrust is a viable choice, but then you should've chosen a saracen as starting class, but then you get very sucky hitpoints and strength