Returning Pally, w/ box

[Leigh]

Hello, I'm returning after many many years. Paladin is level 72 with Slay6 and AAs for 15% evade/mitigation. Total only about 220ish AAs. I can see the game has changed drastically and had some questions.

What have you boxers found to be the best support class for the pally? I have a 75 wiz/cleric/shm, and 70 druid/mage on a 2nd account. With a wiz merc I found I was able to demolish most mobs, barely had to heal myself with WoTunare. I'm thinking Druid box for emergency heals, teleports, DS, regen; and 2 wiz mercs.

But the fun in playing the pally is the SlaysVundead. I know I need to get my dex as high as possible to proc more, and my ATK is horrible around 1800. How can I get ATK higher? Gobo earring doesn't stack with WoTunare! I only use shm for buffs and don't often bring him along as the encounters are too easy. I'd rather buff up and use the DD casters for the wrecking ball effect. So Champion buff won't be there.

The other day I had my wiz merc and my wiz box with wiz merc ... so pally with 3 wizards ... the effect was like Armageddon! But it became quickly boring as my pally wasn't getting any slays in with those damn wizards blowing shit up like it was July 4th.

So what I want to do is try this Swarm riposte slaying everyone talks about. How do you do this? What AAs/Spells are needed?

Will I get crushed in RoI? I know to dispel all pulls, but if 75s are having trouble with healer mercs... what's a skinny HiElf pally gonna do? If you went to RoI in early 70s, how did you fare? Will I get crushed in Direwind vs. Gnolls? AC2600

Is Slay 7-8-9 worth the 21 AAs? What would you describe as your must have AAs? Which ones make me swing more and get more Slays? Knights... something?

I want to be more efficient, so is there a better weapon than Hopebringer for 1hs, and Elegant Axe for 2h?

-Leigh

[Leigh]

Well I got alot of info by just reading and searching!

So that's what I missed. Ok, back to grinding, look for my Return Journey posts. Should be fun!

[Tersur]

Yea all thouse questions are covered in existing threads. Swarming can be alot of fun once you get the hang of how much you can handle. Its also very gear/aa dependant how big a swarm you can handle. Max shield block and go 1h and shield for undead swarming is my sugestion. Most of your dps is gona come from slays and the shield block will give you some extra survival for overpulls. Non undead content 2h is the way to go.

[Leigh]

Is the Ward of Tunare line still a viable spell to use for swarming? Not sure how it works post-nerf.

It used to be triggered by any mob, so bringing a handful of greens along to proc it when taking on tougher mobs was a great healing tool. But post nerf:

- it only gets triggered by light blues and up?
- will it multi-proc? or once it's on will it block any future proc until it wears off?

I haven't tried swarming yet, methinks I'll head to the Hole and see what it can do.

[Tersur]

It procs a heal. With limited charges on the buff itself. Its very helpful swarming. Large packs will run it out fast. Not sure on the greens question.
The buff itself dosent conflict with anything im aware of. And yes you can have it proc back to back very quickly getting beat on by a whole pack. Every time you get hit it has a chance to fire off one of its charges to heal you.

[Leigh]

How many charges max? I see 24 on magelo -- but that's not reliable. That would make this spell heal for about 7200hp + ~3000 for a per tick heal assuming the round lasts 10 ticks (1 min). 10200hp heal for 545 mana. Compared to a CH: 7500hp heal for 400 mana (CLR 39). It's not bad.

Guess I'll have to put in an audio trigger for when it wears off.

Just thinking aloud here; to swarm effectively I need to:

Max Slay, Max Shield Block, Max Double Riposte, Max CS/CA. Buff hps, regen, AC.
Actual swarming:
Round up all the LB mobs and run to a corner to avoid pushback. Cast WoT and HealOverTime.
Actual fight involves more self targetting and healing (if neccessary) and letting riposte do the damage.

Final question, how do ppl tag so many mobs so fast w/o hitting them? I see in Shiftie's video that he just plows through RoI and all the mobs chase him. I've seen other videos of a mage in Splitpaw running around invis and managing to tag all the mobs which then go and attack his pet. This some kind of AA?

[Brohg]

Maybe worth a note? Proccing heals on yourself boosts your agro. Fine side benefit to enhanced survivability

[shiftie]

ward of tunare was nerfed

It used to be a direct heal fully modded that would proc on anything.

Now it is limited to lb cons and is an unmodded heal. They split the total healing power b/w a direct heal and a heal over time, the direct heal is a flat # and the heal over time can crit with healing boon aa. This was done so that when the next proc goes off the heal over time overwrites itself and you get less return on the spam heals.

It is still a useful tool in swarming but much less useful. As an aside the "ward of tunare" version has no recast and the higher level versions have a recast, so that if you use up all the charges (29) you must wait on the recast to reapply the spell. If you are swarming you will want to get your anguish bp etc. There is a lot to it compared to sks but it can be fun, but loses its value the higher in levels you go as the good undead camps with lots of undead don't really exist. Which is why places like the hole and ruins of illsalin are the best as they have low total hp and are a high concentration of undead.

In terms of aggro on mobs quickly. Most of that video was done with proximity aggro. Other than that I was using things like the old man mckenzie bellow bp click and force of disruption. That video was made before divine stun was changed to instant cast. Now you can run around tagging things instantly every 9 seconds with max rush to judgement via divine stun.

[Leigh]

Cool, thx Shiftie.