My grandma does better DPS than a Pally

[MiniChu]

Now that I've gotten your attention, sorry for the headline

First off: This thread is about normal DPS - not SU/Undead whatever. Normal group DPS in SoF.

I play a ranger - and I was grouping with a fellow guild Paladin in Crystallos yesterday. I'm one of those morons, who always parses every fight to optimize what I do best. However, I don't bug the group with it, and as such I have a private channel I post parses in, for me to review after each fight. Those whom I often group with, usually joins this channel which of course leads to DPS talk in the group. Well, the paladin got curious, and joined too - only to realize that while I was a comfortable bit beyond the 2k mark (I box my shammy, so I have it easy to time my disc with RuChu etc. + I don't get lazy with the Champion+cougar), the Guild SK (who was also tanking) was steady at 8-900 (with 2k+ bursts every now and then), he himself (the pally) was scrounging up around 2-300 dps. SK was using Eulogy, and we were all Champ'ed, RuChu'ed and Cougar'ed (and I was looking stunning!)
He asked me, how it could be that the SK was always 3 times his DPS (and I rejoiced - this guy never bothered much with DPS; and I am running a "Guild-optimize-your-dps-campaign" atm) and I started investigating his gear, aa's etc.

Well, it turned out he is just starting on his tripple attack AA's. That's a factor I am sure; however, the more important thing was, he was using BoFF as "That was his best DPS weapon". This is where I replied (and I might be jumping my gun here - I am not a knight afterall): 1HS are for tanking! Use 2HS for DPS, going in to the argument, that your Epic is 2h, the best damn 2h's in game are reserved for Pal's and SK's and you guys have a 2h AA line for this purpose. Also, it makes sense - you wanna use a shield when tanking; thus to do DPS you have to give up some of that tanking comfort and loose those 600ish AC or so; meaning either you tank or you do DPS. It's a choice. (like me: Either I do DPS or I die... simple)

Again; I could be wrong - but I think that is the general idea. (of course, comparing weaponry from same era/tier).

So; my questions to you guys is:
a) Am I right i my understading of Pal DPS ?
b) What would be a decent upgrade for BoFF ? (we're abit around, doing well in DP/DK/halfway through FC/starting AG)
Note; I am not saying BoFF should be ditched (Except maybe for Eulogy if we get that lucky) but I am questioning the DPS capabilitis of said weapon, thinking even "Cauterizing Greatsword of Agony" out of Crystallos would be a decent DPS upgrade due to the AA line, while still keeping the same SU rate.


Or, you could all just throw this stupid ranger out of your forum, throwing the occasional tomato after me, while politely informing me that Paladin's should be happy to do more than 300dps (which I honestly doubt).

Thanks for you time!

[Genadinee]

You are 100% spot on that a Paladin doing DPS should be using a 2 Hander weapon. You are also correct in that Paladins have along line of AA's to improve our DPS using a 2 Hander.

As for Upgrades over BoFF taking into account where you said you raided then the 2 Obvious choices are:

Eulogy from Hatchett, not an uncommon drop and as you have to clear Tier 1 to get to Tier 2 you will be killing him weekly I would assume.

Frost Runed Blade of the Wraithguard from Lorekeeper Grenwald in FC1.

Both weapons are good and picking one over the other would be dependant on your gameplay style, as Eulogy has the Rune Proc for Aggro and the FRB has a Heal Proc similar to BoFF.

For a more indepth discusion on your Guilds Paladins they would be better off coming here and reading and if they wanted link their Magelo / EQPlayers Profile and ask for advice on Equipment, Weapon, AA Choices. As has been said before their is no such thing as a stupid Question, if you don't know the answer then ask and someone here will respond.

[MiniChu]

Thanks for your reply!

Both of your upgrade suggestions are well within our reach - my initial advice to him, was the Eulogy. The other one looks good too.

What would be a nice 2H upgrade you'd say? For now, I told him to camp that http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=101340 2Hander from Alkaa - that has roughly the same ratio as BoFF, and if anything, would serve to prove my point that 2H dps is better for him. (When DPS'ing of course; by all means, if he is tanking, his mind should focus on staying alive :p )

Oh; and trust me - I try to get everyone read class-specific forums. But for some, this is not so compelling. We are a family guild full of old people that prefer to just log in and play But, it's all part of my DPS-Campaign; posting links and links to their class fora - it's slowly starting to help

[Normy]

Considering where you said you were in progression, your SK is actually hauling ass. I would assume he/she is very well AA'ed, but to be doing that with 1hs weapon is.... disappointing to me. One of the main reasons I say we need a DPS overhaul as a paladin class.

Anywho, this has already been answered, but yea, 2h weapons are where our limited dps comes from. I am decently geared with mostly FC/AG/DK gear, using our epic 2.5 with two damage augs in it. Its in my magelo link if you want to see it. On average, I typically parse 500 - 650 range on non-undead mobs, a little higher with a shammy, alot higher with a bard.

Tanking with a Eulogy, I'm more down to 350-450 range depending on luck.

The BoFF might be his DPS weapon because he doesn't have a decent two hander. There are plenty to be had group wise now, even a decent one from CoA if he's not interested in doing his epic. Also make sure he's using his self weapon procs, that can make a difference. Tribute can help as well, since increasing attack and the occasional quad attack never hurts and trib is fairly easy to come by.

I've been paying alot of attention to DPS lately, since we are learning events in Solteris and DPS is very important. On the great side though, I just had a fantastic night with the RNG and pushed over 2k DPS on Wulfnor in FC2. Yay for slay.

[Brohg]

The SK is likely being attributed his pet skeleton's damage as well, along with that skeleton's Cougar procs. The OP mentions keeping that on full time. Marking him down for those makes him right in line with the 500-650 (wtf range) dps you get with about the same level of progression. Clearly, the SK has just cared more about his dps, getting all the AA and auging up a decent 2h much like you have.

[MiniChu]

Not getting myself into the SK vs. Pal debate, as I can imagine that being a heated one, however I just want to add, that the SK DPS mentioned above is his own (including spells etc.) but excluding pet and it's proc's.
That being said, the SK is a skilled player, maxed out in AA's and greatly working on always maximizing his DPS - so he is in the highend extreme for our level of progression.

And you are right, Normy, his BoFF is his main DPS because of lack of (interest in?) a good 2hander. Armed with you guys' excellent input, I have the tools to force him to go 2h and try it out for himself - that will hopefully make him see the light

What's this selfbuff ? A proc type like ranger's get or ? I remember at one point (back in luclin?) you guys got a 25% selfhaste - I am assuming that is is normal spell haste and not V2 ?

[Hulkling]

if that paladin is an active raider in your guild, then he/she needs to get the Epic 2.0. Thats better DPS than any group 2 hander from Crystallos.

[Normy]

The 25% self haste is generally a waste of time. Its straight haste, and made a small difference in solo ability before haste potions were so easily aquired.

And the damage output was coming from a 1hs weapon Eulogy, which is a good weapon, but 900DPS from it is incredible in my book. Thats over what I can usually do with my 40 delay, 116 damage weapon.

I don't consider the debate between pallies and SK's to be all that heated, I just wish we were closer in damage output to our SK brethern.

[dindaur]

my opinion, who gives a shit about what our dps is on non undead. we're a specialty class when it comes to dps. and then, lets say they gave us dps, where the hell would it even help us. dps for paladins would just kindof be a waste of time for the developers. i mean what would they really even be able to do. anything they did would probably end up being pretty weak. couple extra ranks of triple attack, yeah give me a 1-900-MixALot break. there's no way they can actually make us a dps class. and if they don't go that far then you know 1-900-MixALot these little incrimental changes as well. either give us a reasonable dps ability which they wont do, or dont even dip into the pool whichs what theyre doin. i mean thats what itll come down to. theyll look at it, and come up with some absolutely ridiculous thing nobody really wants. best say forget it and either maybe make a berserker to 1-900-MixALot around on or you know maybe some bot to give yourself the dps you need. for me it basically breaks down to soloing. thats the only time our dps means the absolute pinnacle of importance. and when does anyone solo. you can get xp yeah. but you cant do yer faction tasks. and it evne with those tasks makes sense to do it in a group. its because its just faster with more people. and they designed it so every single person around is gonna need the faction. now maybe not today, but on day one yes. so lets say youre behind the curve. most people've already gotten their faction done and they wont touch those camps again. however you for whatever reason really want your rank two. so you go to try and do it and easily the biggest problem for paladin soloing is dps. to me thats like the only time that you have to rely on your own dps. in any other situation have at least the oppertunity for there to be a dps class. now when people start whining about sk dps and shit i mean well they cant heal themselves. and then when people bitch about taps and shit, well taps, do they equal out heals? i dunno i havent looked at the parses. but if sk taps were close to paladin heals then theyd cancel each other out. at least if you had a hardon for the knight classes being more or less mirrors of each other. but i mean we're not the same. ae aggro slay undead. those are two really different and hard to compare abilities that the other doesnt have. id say for the most part weve got what they have. now you can go and say hey dind we cant fd, and id say we can da. you might say wow these shadowknights can 1-900-MixALot dot and dd, id say dot heal group heal BURST what more do you need. we've always had shitty dps for like eight years. now if youre still playing the class after 8 and a half years and wanting dps id say try a different 1-900-MixALot class.

what robe wearers are to tanking we are to dps. in the case of slay undead the gods are granting us the power to smack around aboninations. we'll 1-900-MixALot own most people on healing. the root i used to use to negate the need for enchanters. then we can tank because... we're smart enough to gear ourselves to tank. i dont really count tanking as a definable ability of paladins anymore. id pretty much include all melee into that realm. and most casters. the only reason it would make sense to call paladins a tank is when youre low level. the second you level up anyone can gear up to be a tank. we've all seen tanks of all classes more or less. wizard chanter necro mage they can all do it heh. necros probably the best robe wearing tank that ive seen. its a bit of a waste of time to talk about who is a tank and who isnt a tank without talking about circumstance. its all about the softcap and how overgeared the caster is to the content. and yes atk and all the other bullshit. its based on numbers which can be gotten through expansions as well as through hard earned game techiques. but yeah, they do make a point where TODAY a caster cant tank, but they will be able to tank it tomorrow.

if we had dps it'd just be another reason to solo. now if it was a shitty increase in dps then it just wouldnt matter. there is no middle ground it'll either be overpowering or it'll be too weak. what they SHOULD do is start stating that paladins as their official stance are supposed to be shitty dps. then we could focus on getting some decent heals and better undead shit. now i dont see people saying we've got too much dps for undead expect people who dont play the class. and then you could just call them hateful 1-900-MixALot haha. but the paladin community doesnt consider slay undead to be overpowering.

lets go back to this soloing idea. if they had some kind of thing you could enable while soloing that could be cool. i brought this up oh god a couple months ago. some kind of mode where we hit for more while in some other area we do less. maybe less healing weaker tanking less mana or hp or even ac. maybe a double or a triple in dps. like a battle stance that you see in world of warcraft. toggle it on and you do more dps and cant heal very well cant tank very well. now this thing would only really help on solo content that you were so overgeared for that your gear would even outdo the penalties of the ability which might make it a bad idea because it would help geared people more than ungeared people but maybe thats how we want it to work. its a simple idea a billion games use it i havent created the idea. but its something that most of us have come across that have played other games. and i think a stance could be the answer to the paladin dps being low. and i want to specifically say its too low to make for faster paced soloing. now the thing is if you were anti solo you wouldnt want to improve soloing. any improvement to soloing would be a bad thing. i mean you hear that kindof stuff sometimes. people say "the games designed for gruops and only groups". i mean teh fact is people do solo though even without this thing int he game. i mean ive even soloed non undead things before. what we're going to see is as the game gets weaker our gear is going to be able to achieve more. what that means is when you get a piece of gear thats 600 hp then you can beat all content thats sub 600 PROBABLY. when we started out and maybe we had 300 hp gear that was capable of beating a set number of zones. now when we get gear today we're able to beat an infinately larger number of zones. now sony likes to say that we dont really play in these old zones. and for alot of these old zones we dont because theres not any remaining rewards. the only zones that i can think of that have more longevity are zones with augs. and im not talking random augs im talking good augs. rss dsk. you know the list. if youre reading this youre probably a paladin and youve memorized them all. but... and then of course the epic. but besides augs there's no reason to go to these old zones. unless you need xp. and here we come to soloing. the only time youre going to be killing mobs in a zone which is weak is when maybe they give you some kind of reward and that reward can be xp items or whatever but there needs to be a reason to be there. so lets say youre in a zone and your ekilling mobs for xp, so youre sitting there xping, by yourself, alone, in a probably empty zone, and i would bet you would probably be bored. see to me i would avoid a solo situation. so lets say that ive got my guild and my fellowship and my friends list. and i wanna do something so i contact some people we put our group together and we head off. see to me thats infinately better than soloing. and the only time a person like me would solo is if it was the only option. now i have boxes ( 3 ) but i dont like boxing so i could see myself not wanting to box if i needed something. id be way more likely to contact a couple friends and try to get it done that way. now im never in a situation where im sitting there thinking i wish i had more dps. the only time that i feel that way is when im soloing. but the only time im soloing is when i just lterally cant find a single person to group with. and most times when im in that position i would rather log than solo. when im on a raid i dont really find myself wishing i had more dps. definately not when im KITING. or when im in charge of HEALING my group. And not when im TANKING mobs arent supposed to be dpsd. and i do look forward to when we hit frostcrypt because i like having those battles for the top parse. and i could someone wanting to be a part of that battle every fight. and maybe they could do something to make paladins a contender on parses. maybe they could make a chance based ability for sks to give them the chance to score big. one things for sure parsings definately become big in eq much like boxing and everybody wants to be able to brag and everybody wants to be able to participate and maybe the devs cuold do something to allow that to happen. see the problem i see with our dps is its too luck based and when you brag about a top score on a slay run youre basically just saying wow i got really lucky that time. and the reason i bring that up is because youre NOT saying wow i was very skillful that round. slay undead is a skill that doesnt take any skill at all. get the aas. swing on the mob. if slay undead was an active ability, and im not talking a single button with a reuse timer, but a colelction of smaller abilities that could be used together in combos or in different circumstances to make it interesting then parsing well on undead might begin to have a bit more meaning.

but we're getting off course because youre talking about dps on things that arent udnead. so mobs we're not specifically good at killing. i just feel like there's a billion problems with this. if our dps was too good we would take the place of current dps players. to the people who make decisions regarding whose in and whose out a minor increase indps wouldn t make a difference. our dps would never be a bargaining factor as entrance to a raid. and i say that because basically the raid is basically people who do the best at what they do doing what they do. thats why it shifts to groups. thats why my focus is not on raids. then youve got soloing which we've already talked about. and then youve got groups. i can honestly say ive never said i want more dps as a paladin in a group. and the reason is im too busy stunning healing and chatting. now i think i might go back on that. i think i could say ive been sitting there wishing i could do as much dps as my monk friend. and i mean in a perfect world it would be nice , but then you remember that if you did as much dps as them they wouldnt have a group. but then... is that true. no, because you get the monk for the pulling not the dps.

i mean, if everybody had roughly the same dps, then you could just pick random people up and know they would do about the same dps. now your gear is gonna be the real contributer to your dps at that point. your weapon wepaons your spells focus etc. what im wondering is would it hurt the game if everybody did the same dps. see the thing in my mind is that if everyone did the same dps then each class would kindof need their own special thing that they do that defined them as their class so that people werent just carbon copies of each other. obviously the peope who were the best at dps now wuold be whining. what if the playing field was leveled. i mean i think in a sense id enjoy a situation like that but at the same time it would destroy everquest as we know it. it would eliminate an entire column of classification. and is that something that is worth doing. even if it was worth doign would the community let it happen. i mean youve gotta kinda work with what youve got here. and the games old the people who play it stubborn the people who code it are cautious, well not code, DESIGN it. aka the eq devs. so... yeah. i would say everything ends ina stalemate and eq remains mildly dissatisfying and the online roleplaying social club that its become.

i wrote a 1-900-MixALot paper and i still have things to say about this shit. why? because... ive played with shitty dps for 8 years and of course its been annoying and 1-900-MixALot up i dunno mayeb there's a solution maybe there's a way we can also get satisfied in the dps department of this game.

[MiniChu]

[shiftie]

[MiniChu]

Thanks Shiftie - right on the spot. We share mindset regarding this

[knytul]

First of all, Dindaur....this will be the first and hopefully only time i have to say this: Ur an idiot. There are no such things as "Specialty DPS classes". Everybody's DPS matters in ANY Solo, Group or Raid. Everybody's DPS is individually calculated into the total whole of the group/raid. Having said that:

Our regular dps is atrocious. We have the lowest innate accuracy of any class in EQ. Even maxing out at 150 acc on gear doesnt get us equal to anybody. Our only offensive disc is a joke. And our spell dps is all linked to where we can only use 1. Now, on that note:

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts ... _id=138112

Yes the thread is named Offensive?, but in no way will it be complete at 2 pages and no chance in hell will it be limited to just "disc's". If others want to parse our normal attacking and find all the flaws in it, AND post them AND show some possibilities (Including Numbers) on how to increase us without going overboard...yall are more than welcome.

[Normy]

Problem is Dind, not everyone plays their character the same way. For you, your DPS may not matter. I do actually solo alot, and I do solo faction tasks. I take groups when I can get them, but sometimes my play time puts me without a group.

Also, I raid. We are moving and learning in Solteris. There, everyone's DPS matters. We cannot beat even the first fight without all of our knights hitting and doing their best. If 8 people stand back and let the "true" DPS people do it all, we will be stuck repeating the same event all night. 8 x 900 DPS = 7200 for 5 minutes. True, 2 more well geared zerkers in the raid could probably do that. Problem is, we don't have 2 well geared zerkers sitting out that we can bring in.

As far as tanking goes, perhaps your style of play just allows for that, but mine does not. Its more about agro control that just having HP. If I lose agro to the ranger hitting a mob, its usually a dead to near-dead ranger. He can even have more HP than me, I know some zerkers that have more hp AND ac than I do, and have seen them go splat on a Crystallos named. Maybe they will be able to tank it after the jump to 85, but then will there still be the interest there? I've even tanked some raid content in a pinch, like Beltron in FC2 and Aprosis from Solteris 2. Those are things that do require tanks, and not every melee can do it.

And in no way would I call for a nerf to SK's, I think they've already gotten the raw end of the deal too much. I would just like to start hitting harder than a kitten with aids. Our slay is great, but it will be adjusted eventually. I would just like some kind of temporary thing that I could fire off from time to time that makes me useful when I'm not offtanking or healing. In a burn fight we are just above chanters unless they can charm a pet. In a group setting with a warrior and healer, I'm eye-candy unless we pull mulitples.

Hell, I'd even accept our crappy DPS if they would give us some AA ability or something that would allow us to throw our endurance to other people, like an endurance heal that draws from our large, mostly useless endurance pool. At least then we could feed the DPS or warriors and have a secondary impact on DPS.

[varutia]

The dps is somewhat a sore point, somewhat more would not hurt. However that being said gear and aa make huge amount of diference, max accuracy, max offensive aa, max attack, plus one huge ass 2 hander will make a lot of difference. I still say personally that we need some more dps. Slay undead is situational certainly not as good as all around dps.

[Genadinee]

A High End Paladin with all AA's and Mansion level 2hander with 7 Dam Aug and I parse at 1K DPS on Trash Clearing, yes we could use more DPS but I would settle for a Burst DPS Disc. Nothing worse than Main Mob at 20% and RL calls burn, I just laugh and make a point of hitting Bash just as often as it pops.

[dindaur]

[dindaur]

[Linc]

Point is we are meant to be an archetype of the warrior class, so lets look at a comparison.

I have max aa, close to 150 accuracy and Fero/Cleave 7 I use an augged weapon with 107/29 ratio and I am lucky to hit 0.8/1k hitting a mob in the ass......frankly its pathetic when I see warriors wielding similar ration 2h's doing 1.5k/2k dps sustained on live mobs and SK doing 1.2/1.3k (plus pet at 250-300dps).

I think as a subclass or warrior our live dps should at least be 75% of the parent class, they already tank much better than us, with benefits such as the innate DI, gaining more hps per level, more hps from stats and can purchase more hp's via aa before you even start looking at there discs.

Tuning things to this level means a Pally with high end TSS/low end SOF wep should be parsing 1.1/1.5k (not exactly game breaking) and would restore some balance. Kinda makes me laugh that a warrior can match my undead dps on live mobs. Don't let the big (but patchy) slay numbers fool you in to thinking that Pallies are anything like rogue or Berserker dps on undead mobs, I parse a fairly consistent 2.2k when swinging my wep in say......Isalin.

So briefly -
* I would like more live dps on for Pally (but its not that high up the list)
* I really really want more slay aa of some type to increase frequency or strength of slays (been almost 2yrs now)
* Would like to continue to be a useful healer particularly extending our group heal functionality on raids

Linc

[Normy]

I guess my opinion might be in a bit of jealousy. It is really annoying to see a warrior out DPS me on an undead mob, yet our slay ability is constantly being put on the chopping block. Its annoying to watch an SK solo a mob that I can solo, but it takes me 75% of my mana pool because it takes me that long to kill it, meanwhile randomSK_01 is pulling again. Its annoying knowing that if a group has a dedicated healer (IE, not a bot or a lesser geared druid or shammy) that the paladin is the least desired tank they will take if no one else speaks up, since kills go alot faster with any other tank.

I want to see a general increase in our DPS, not anything drastic, just enough that we can get closer to the SK's without pet damage. Besides that, I don't really care. A burst DPS disc or soemthing would be cool, but only if it came with a downside or drawback. Something like a good increase in DPS, like twice as much maybe a little higher for a minute, but no slays and all spell casting locked out during it. Like a paladin beserk disc and have it take all our endurance so we can't use defensive right away. Usable every 60 minutes, able to be brought down to 45 minutes with AA's.

[Brohg]

I think the presence of Slay hobbles the advancement of general paladin dps. It has definitely warped weapon design.

[Genadinee]

Personally I would be happy if SU never got another upgrade as it is the single biggest anchor round our necks when it comes to DPS.

Now off topic

What the Paladin class does need is a big boost on SINGLE target Aggro, let SK's have the AE Aggro but give us something that will pull a mob off a caster on a single cast.

Make it an AA thats 10,000 Hate insta cast 60 sec reuse.

[Ssixa]

[knytul]

@ Ssixa................Yeah

[Normy]

[MiniChu]

Boy, did this thread ever take a wrong turn :p

Note to self: Be more careful naming your threads next time

Anyways - interesting discussion, and thanks for the responses. (Ssixa: Thanks; but those are the obvious stats that needs raising for any melee; I have no issues figuring that out - was more looking for specific Paladin 2Handers...)

And now, for my 2 cp on the new topic here: Paladins are no different that any other class in this game - we all have issues (Heck, try being the ginger-haired step-chield of SoE for 9 years and you'll see what I mean - ok, maybe PoP days were cool; but we took plenty of punishment for that glory year long after). Not trying to diminish you guys' concerns here though - I am sure they are fully valid. However, my experience with paladins is that I love grouping with them, both in group content and even more so in raid content. Why? Simple; I feel safe. Havng a cleric in group is needed in most content, but having a paladin next to that cleric makes me feel close to invulnerable. You guys have amazing heals, and the application of those is very good. With your LoH's, heals and in particular your group heals you all fit very much in the vision (uhhh..dangerous word) I have of the Paladin. Even the res comes in handy - more often that not, being a Ranger
I'm not debating which classes are better or worse, or which I prefer to have in my group - but any hard content I am building a group for (group or raid) Paladin wont be the class I leave sitting on the bench for sure. These are your forces, opposed to the SK I guess - who does some better damage, ae taunt and can FD pull - and a force not be frowned upon.

Obviously, you are not DPS - but maximizing DPS while not fullfilling your primary role (tanking in my book) is important (again, in my book) and I would support any idea along the line of Cleric WoV - not that particular implementation obviously, but the notion of being able to change role some to a more DPS'ing class, by giving up abit of your primary role. IMO I think that is what the devs have been trying, with your 2H AA line: You give more DPS with a 2hander, but tank worse. Perhaps elaborating that difference to be much more notable would be the way to go for you guys: Maybe an all-type Slay ability, useable only with 2handers, and a boost to your healing power when using a shield. The traditional knight was also a good swordsman - why shouldn't you be ?

[knytul]

Heres the scoop: We know were not "DPS", but we dont wanna be DPM or DPH either...

[Abazzagorath]

A level 80 paladin doing 200-300 dps should be ashamed of themselves. Period.

What is this? 2003?

I'm a paladin, I'm not in the best gear around. My dps is secondary to my ac and defensive mods. I do 900-1200 dps versus live mobs and 2200-3800 dps versus undead. Consistently.

I'm going to copy and paste a post I did on my guild's paladin forums in response to another paladin asking how some of us did so much more dps than him (his post was specifically about slay and undead fights, so can ignore the undead aspects):

"Speed of the Knight maxed
Knight's Advantage maxed
Slay Undead maxed
Combat Fury maxed
Veteran's Wrath maxed
Two-hand bash aa
Burst of power maxed

Overhaste clicky item

Accuracy tribute effect
Flurry tribute effect

Accuracy mod2 maxed
Worn attack maxed

Ferocity focus (Fero 7 is by FAR the best one due to the increase in min hit portion the rest lack)
Cleave focus

Those are the primary things you want to max melee dps. You want the dps aa maxed, the dps mod2 maxed, overhaste, tribute, and you want to bash constantly with 2hbash.

You also want:

Fury of Magic maxed
Magic nuke foci
Combat effects maxed (assuming you have a proc that does dps, it doesn't affect spell enchantment proc self buff or panther).

If you have demi belt, you may want to bag it if you are only DPSing due to the aggro issue. Its a huge difference.

Other things you want to do, make sure to use the undead proc buff instead of the all purpose one, if you have a circle of power clicky effect be ready to use it (and not waste it if someone else already has it going). Champion helps a lot, the beastlord attack buff helps also by raising average hit value. You can use a glyph if you have them and have the aa to waste on them, they don't have a huge impact on us compared to other classes though. Intensity of the resolute vet aa will help a LOT especially on short fights.

Chain nuke benediction rk2, chain bash, attack from the back, use 2her when dpsing. Hit holyforge. That's about it.

Unless I do something dumb like last night when I didn't realize I was golemed by Veldyn for the first part of the fight, or am dealing with adds, I am 95% of the time the top paladin dps on undead burn fights, often by a large margin, even compared to other paladins with the same weapon and using vets/glyphs. Why? I don't know. What I stated is what I do and I'm maxed on everything, I don't have 7th year vet reward and rarely use glyphs.

Other things that can help:

Make sure to have beneficial spell haste item and cleric buff, and time your group heals to lose the least dps.

Make use of purification aa on a fight where you get spell slowed to get a get out of lowered dps free card one time.

The biggest thing is to max the dps aa, get a damage aug for your 2her, chain nuke, get champion if you can, use tribute, chain bash. That's the best advice I can offer."

Unless the content is difficult, you should always be using your 2her for dps. The moment survival becomes trivial, dps matters more than anything else. I use my 2her about 75% of the time on raids and 98% of the time in groups.

[Carmaris]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but with Accuracy mod2 maxxed, the tribute Accuracy shouldn't be adding anything. My understanding is that tribute effects = worn effects; I know this is true for worn attack, at any rate.

[Normy]

[knytul]

u may not agree with the demi belt part, but i sure as hell will. Knights can take agro from warriors easily if they want to, Esp going ALL out. Sk's can take it easier than pallys tho. Point is, taking off that 20% agro modifier opens the door up for you to do more. Me for example, i got 2 dps clickies and 8% overhaste AND Circle of Power 2. Using Blade of Pure Light (2 gods 2her), if i put on Growth Orb (gives me LIfe Sap 4), i can go buck wild w/ no reprocussions. If i put on Metal Orb (Chaotic Strike V), With the belt on i can gank agro easy, taking it off i can keep agro off me just enough to were if i need it, i just equip belt and im g2g to tank.

[davewe]

Sorry i'm with Dinadur on this one.

Unless ur recruited as an extra spot and NOT the main tank (virtually unheard of) ur DPS is totally irrelevant your there to tank and aid keeping your group alive.Your not, and NEVER will be a DPS.

Dinadur is spot on we ARE a specialist DPS class, against undeads we will by in large out parse any class bar maybe Wizards/Berserker's and rogues on short undead fights, outparse ANY class on much longer drawn out undead fights.It exist's also to aid you solo better wehn you are unable to find a group.

If you guy's honestly think our DPS matters you do not understand this class one bit.

In a group i will average around 1000-1200 DPS with my Blade of Fanatic of legion, although i am capable of close to 2k-2k5, potentially more,with my 2hs.Do i use my 2hs?nope course not cos i am there only to tank and stay alive and help keep group alive (unless of course i'm doing a easy zone and can prob even self heal it).

Even at virtually the max paladin is capable of DPS wise i still don't give one stuff about my DPS in a group nor do i in raiding, our spell's are the key to our power not our lame and rubbish DPS.

If you guy's really care about how much DPS you do, change your class, because it's not relevant at all to this class's job description in a group or a raid.

You also have to remember this is a game balancing act as well.IF we did indeed ever get DPS abilties, this class (which is already HUGELY overpowered to almost every other EQ class)would become absurd.How do you think rogues and Zerker's would feel if they 'upped' our DPS.Whilst i'm off soloing 2k hitting vampies in Loping plains getting 12 percnt AA and gaining ally in 3-4 hours these poor bastards struggle to even beat Light blues.And ,yes i can also do equivalent live mob's just it takes FAR longer and i have to generally med a few times as i go thru far more heals.

It's a difficult debate because the gap between low end and 'high end' within this class is one of the biggest gaps of ANY class and boy i know how annoying it is to solo with poor to low gear on this class, particulary in the early day's of EQ.But unfortunately in this late era of EQ it will alway's be tougher as there is less groups/less ppl etc, but you have to appreciate there is now literally hundreds of high end paladin's who already solo better than ANY other class in all EQ, even more so than cleric's on really high end group end nameds.Any changes to this class would cause outroar by almost every other class type in EQ.

[davewe]

"I guess my opinion might be in a bit of jealousy. It is really annoying to see a warrior out DPS me on an undead mob"-Quote by Normy.

And what about the warrior when he see's u heal yourself for up to 33k inside 0.3 seconds?How does he feel?

Honestly some of you paladin's seem to want it ALL.

[varutia]

I'll trade 33k in 0.3 seconds for warrior's higher all around dps including live mobs, average dps is the key in this game, eye candies just makes it fun. In group and raid situation undead is only a relatively small percentage, so whatever dps increase we get from slay undead is highly diluted on average.

One issue with Paladin class it is a hybrid with three main aspect, tanking, healing and dps. This leads to a lot of option on how people can go out playing it, some people want tanking better only, some healing, some combination of two or even three.

[Normy]

[Linc]

We all know Paladins are not a DPS class its a secondary function for the class BUT the bottom line is all classes in EQ are required to do dps at some time be it to generate aggro or solo or grind aa and you cant just brush it off and say it does not matter.

As a general rule of thumb assuming equal gear and aa's (at an end TBS start of SOF level) you will see Pallies parsing 1k sustained on live mobs (approx 2k dps on undead) but an SK will achieve 1.2k and a further 0.2/0.3k with a pet, a Warrior will output 1.5/2k no problems.

Personally I don't see why our dps should be so damn low when compared to other tank classes, yes we have spells but warriors have discs, more hps, better di, access to wider ranger and stronger equipment, SK's have spells and pets, lifetaps and AOE aggro - all of these are in balance so why do we get penalised with such utter piss poor dps.

The people that say Slay hobbles our overall dps need to wake up and smell the damn coffee - its the only thing we have and while we are slaying and doing some dps don't look over your shoulder to long because you will see the warrior doing not only the same dps as you on undead but also on the other 90% of mobs of the game consistently. Even slay has become outdated and degraded with no upgrades for the last 2 years its a bloody disgrace, I would push for more dps on undead mobs because at least it gives us something and quite frankly its more realistic than an overall increase in dps for the class.

As a class we desperately need some more dps or we will become more an more of a liability to raids and groups and our solo options will become slower and slower and even more painful than they currently are, I cant believe people are posting here trying to say that everything is fine.

Linc

PS, With Crystallos weapons I would hope to see my live dps climb to the heady heights of 1.5/2k dps when wielding a 2h, this is in the environment where Berserker's are kicking out 7k dps with the same tier weapons and Rogues 10k dps, that kinda puts things in to perspective. Yes I know they are dps class's and this is burst not sustained and in no way am I even asking for close to equality but would even 25% of that be to much to ask for?

[shiftie]

I think Dind started another toon just to agree with himself... because for anyone else to agree with him on this topic is kinda funny. For the most part I think he just likes to get a rise out of people and that's why he always disagrees with most everyone on the boards as of late.

Everyone in a group or raid contributes, whether it is eating heals or casting heals... One common thread among melee classes (straight melee classes, hybrids, pure tanks, etc) is dps. We are all standing there mashing kick, bash, backstab... having a disc would make auto attack a little more interesting at the least and god forbid a little fun.

I don't want to hear it from other classes - WTFmend and healing potions ... I suppose Monks should be able to heal so well while maintaining dps and lets not mention they are on the same ac scale as knights... o.O wait how about rangers doing 45k rounds of damage every 15 seconds. I know a lot about this class... and lets face it adding a dps disc isn't a mandatory thing but it is something to look into and something we shouldn't ignore just because we are tanks. We have a lot of functions in this game and I don't think it is too much to ask to have our dps output looked at a little closer. Ignoring it completely seems more like a lack of understanding then asking someone to take a more in depth look.

[davewe]

No Linc it's garbage, if you ask for more DPS what's to stop those classes saying well i want to be able to root,stun and heal and have instant useable heals ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC.

The paladin is low DPS for a reason because they are exceptional in virtually EVERY other field of the game, i'm sorry but if you did'nt realise that when you created this class that's your lookout.

This class is already absolutely fine, infact no far more than fine in it's current state.The Berserker's and the rogues and the wizards etc who lack everything BUT DPS abilties almost,are there to DPS, your job is to help keep your raid/group alive, watch for adds/tank aid CC with the EXTREMELY powerful shackles of tunare (oh yes i bet you don't even use it!!),cure, help ressurect, god where do i stop, but don't EVER ask also for DPS because you risk turning this class into a total and absolute joke.

My toon is already ridicolously overpowered as i am sure there's other's who feel the same way, just because your completely hopeless at this class/undergeared/don't have the AA's/ALL of the previous, don't think it's truly representative of the state of this class.

[Normy]

[MiniChu]