What Would You DoooOOOOooo… as a Paladin?

(A guide to the paladin class by Natazz)

Paladins in Everquest are a rare breed. Many tanks who want to cast spells will typically choose a
shadowknight due to the power of lifetaps and those that don’t will pick a warrior. However, a well-
played Paladin can be robust enough to tackle the toughest jobs, handle multiple raid mobs, and even fill
in as healers and battle rezzers on a whim. The class might not be able to throw out much damage, but it
can counter and prevent damage with the best of them. This guide is best read while ingesting a
Klondike bar, depending on what you have to do for it.

Spell Sets
For group content, I’ve found that I usually use 4 spell sets, but I don’t get enough practice with
the Heal set in group content because I am tanking 99.69% of the time. Heal is more of a theoretical set.
I have a Tank, Undead, and Buff set. Brells for HPs, but most dps classes will block this and prefer the
ranger or beastlord buff. Symbol is a cheap version of the cleric line, and Hand of the Dreaming Keeper is
pretty much equivalent to Righteousness. If you don’t want to use the merc Rightousness, you can stack
Hand + self buff AoUG.

Tank Undead Buff Heal

Spell Casting
When buffing, use your Divine Protector’s Unity. Some people choose to click off Silent Piety if
buff locked. I tend to keep it on. Armor of Unyielding Grace (aforementioned AoUG) is a great hp/ac
spell. Pentience will bump your AC for 6 minutes of you get the kill shot on a mob (Eye of Zomm usable),
and Wrathful Fury is a nice damage proc.

On incoming, I almost religiously (heh) cast Ardent Audacity  Protest  Mark [of the Eclipsed
Cohort] then start hitting my HEAL or M Taunt key. The difference between these is discussed in the
Macros section. I can keep myself and my group alive by just spamming on the HEAL key. Note that
Protective Revelation is in this list, but it is a slow casting spell for a 15% melee damage reduction on
you. I spam it at the recommendation from other paladins. Is 1 second really that slow? Compared to
0.25 second heal spells, it sure seems that way.

Brilliant Exculpation is and amazing spell that does damage to the target while also making your
next heal spell twincast. I will manually click this one (not bound to keys, but it is in the DMG macro) to
have more control of when I am ready to cast a heal.

Your buffs in the action spell sets are temporary so you’ll be recasting those every 6-9 minutes.

Additionally, you have cures. Slot 11 (currently taken up by Ecliptic Force) is my swap spell slot
because Ecliptic isn’t very useful. It has a 1 minute recast delay and the group heal is not great and the
stun is resistable. Splash (which will also heal) is inserted here and manually casted on events or
encounters that require a cure. Note: always cast Brilliant Exculpation  Splash of Repentance. You’ll
triple or quad-cure. You can also use Radiant Cure on others and have Purification for yourself. Like
clerics, paladins are great at curing.

Macros
I generally use 4 macros in most scenarios whether I am tanking, assisting, or healing. Most
times while tanking I do not use the ASS-N key and rather manually cast my Ardent + Protest + Mark as a
habit.

If I am assisting another tank/assist in the group.

This will assist, then Force of Disruption (nuke +
Yaulp), then Ardent (fake enchanter debuff),
geomantra then Mark.

-
 M Taunt is essentially a hate + agro + survival multi-
bind key. I have it on a macro but this could very
well be used with a mb key instead. Taunt is ability
1. Repudiate should have max uptime.

HEAL is another multibind key in macro form. Heals

bound to this are Burst, Protective Revelation,
Upraid, and Ecliptic if using the Main Tank spell set.
Repudiate should have max uptime.

DMG will use your Pious Force Stun, Crush,

Disruptive Persecution nuke, Brilliant Twincast, and
Vanquish the Fallen (undead nuke – will not cast on
live mobs)

Burns
The common thought is that Paladins cannot burn at all. Yes, their melee is weaker than the
other tanks and are generally a weaker dps class, but if there’s undead around, look the F out. Slay
Undead, buff with a 2hander and group gear, will crit slay for 3million damage and make fast work out of
even the high HP mobs. You’ll feel pretty badass, and rightfully should. If you get a chance to burn with
your 2hander out (these will also work with a sword and board setup, but slightly less effectively), I have
a couple of burn macros worth using.
 Burn1 activates Righteous Censure (20 strikes, extra 2h slash attack), Valorous Rage (base melee
+ crit + weapon delay decrease), Inquisitor’s Judgement (extra 30k {120k undead} melee proc, 30 count)
+ Holyforge Discipline (increase damage against Undead) + Thunder of Karana (spell booster). You may
want to hit Intensity or a Destruction Glyph while this is running to further enhance your damage. Note –
if not fighting undead, you can comment out the Holyforge Disc line. You may also want to hit Spire with
this burn key, or call alt activate 2019 instead of Holyforge. Once Righteous Censure has run it’s course,
you can hit Blunted Blade at this point – the two discs do NOT stacks. Hit Reflexive Redemption while
Censure is running for a bit melee swing.

Burn2 is a little different, I use it more as a defensive burn which increases how robust you are
while also bumping up the amount of healing you can do. The chest BP (30 ticks of a 30k critable heal) +
Spire (avoidance, parry, ac) + Group Armor (best used when AoI is down) + Gift of Life (can MGB this w/ a
heal). These hotkeys are probably an area of disagreement, but they work for me with group content to
make things easier on myself and my group.

Note: Hand of Tunare is also helpful on burns when healing and is useful when self-healing on a
named or boss encounter. It’ll twincast 19 heals and pump your denouncement lines.

Defensives (Survival)
The most important thing to consider with survival is the uptime your shielding disciplines. Find
an order that works best for you, but I find that clicking my combat abilities in reverse order works best
for me. So I use Armor of the Forthright  Supernal Mantle  Revered Guardian Discipline. I’ll have
Shield Flash and clickies ready to go, and frequently spam my HEAL macro, which will heal me at priority
w/ quick target-of-target heals. If there’s someone in your group that likes to take agro, make sure you
taunt before casting the heal. My burns will hit the Combat Abilities as well, but those don’t happen
nearly as frequently as I’m using my defensives.

Anguish BP – 1 minute of 40% improved incoming heals

Epic 2.0, Nightbane – 1 minute of 50% improved incoming heals

Lay on Hands – single target of target massive heal + heal over time. The Oshit button.

Hand of Piety – great to heal your group over time

Shield Flash – useful but as needed. Quick refresh.

Deflection Discipline – should be used on incoming of 3 or more or at the end of your shielding
disciplines cycle.
 Attainable clickies such as Geomantra, Spirit Drinker’s Coating, Valia’s, Fancy Feast, Necromantic
Dragon Bone should be readily available.

Balefire Burst – agro dump

Agro Generation
Stuns and heals provide a significant amount of threat, however it is often times not enough.
Additionally, you’ll want to land Ardent Audacity and Protest/Refute for Honor which will build your
threat over time. Once these have landed, you can smash your multi-bind key and throw in the DMG key
for ample threat. Projection of Piety is also useful for single-target agro generation.

In AE scenarios, or if there’s at least 2 mobs to tank you’ll want to use the normal single-target
spells listed above, but you also have Hallowed Lodestar and Beacon of Righteousness to use, which will
build hate over time on up to 8 mobs. This is very useful in high-dps AE groups.

Ageless Enmity – puts you at the top of your target’s hate list

Unrelenting Affirmation – 20 seconds of pure agro + heal + less agro by others glory

Gearing
If you’re beating up easier content like Tier 1 of the current expansion or Tier 2 or lower
expansions, you’ll more than likely be fine wielding your 2hander. Knight 2handers are very powerful,
but you do lose a significant amount of AC. Speaking of AC, this is king. The best stat you can improve is
your AC mitigation, second is AC avoidance, then health. While hDex can improve the amount of Slay
Undeads you get, you will get better results stacking hSTA for group content, or hAGI for raid content.

AC is king.

Did I mention that AC is king? That’s truly the only stat that matters since you are a tank first and
foremost. At 120, you’ll want to shoot for 10.5k / 4.4k AC with your power source equipped, shield
equipped, and AoI running (more on this under Miscellaneous).

Utility
Gift of Resurrection – 96% battle rez with a 20 second cooldown.

Splash – AE cures on targetable area

Radiant Cure – Single target cure and negative dispel

Halt Undead – AA snare spell for 1 minute.

Shackles of Tunare – AA version and a spell version – single target root spell
 (Bestow) Divine Aura – 20 seconds of invulnerability (on targeted player)

Recovery
Marr’s Gift will heal you and return about 20% of your mana bar. If you’re recovering from a
death, use this after Night’s Calming and throw in a mod rod too. Honorable mention to Staunch
Recovery, usable once per day.

AA Spending
Priority: It was pretty hard to determine which AAs to work on as a paladin after maxing
CA/CS/GS/ND in the General tab after the 110 auto grant. I found a decent method that seemed to work
pretty well. Do not max the focuses, rather get them up to the minimum rank of the current spells that
you are casting so that they are effected.

Defensives, Heal procs, Direct heals, Focus heals, melee, damage foci.

Archetype – Mental Stamina, Destructive Fury, Improved Bash, Burst of Power

Class – Armor of the Inquisitor, Valorous Rage, Thunder of Karana, Marr’s Gift, Hallowed
Lodestar, Beacon of Righteousness

Focus – Burst of Dayspring, Knight’s Synergy, Brilliant Vindication, Admonish, Extended

Preservation of Marr (up to the point it stops improving the AC benefit of this)

Miscellaneous
As far as buffs go, the Paladin Armor of Unyielding Grace stacks with Clerics’ Righteousness.
That’s your best hp/ac/mana regen combo. Don’t use Druid skin. You’ll be gimping yourself out of a lot of
AC (specifically). You will want the AA Armor of the Inquisitor up as much as possible (371 raw AC boost)
along with Preservation (self heal proc) and Stance (43k raw HP buff).