acidjax,Feb 28 2005, 05:45 AM Wrote:**Paladin** The paladin is a good buffer and will need to pay attention to when blessings drop. Playing a paladin well requires pre-battle thought to which blessings and seals would be most beneficial to use against the coming fights. They can offer some in the way of emergency or touch-up healing. A paladin can be the safety for the group by casting blessing of protection to save a caster from death or divine intervention to same the group from a corpse run. Cleanse will be very useful in many instances. The paladin should use an assist macro for when he melees.
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Paladins in a group with a maintank are responsible for protecting the squishy center of the party. Once aggro is gained on the paladin he/she brings it back to the main tank. Blessings are nice to figure out before a fight but as has been pointed out repeatedly things go wrong⢠- good paladins drop blessings as needed situationally. Tank tanking a heavy beating? Drop Blessing of Light for additional healing power. Healer/Mage taking aggro? Drop sanctuary on them and power up Seal of Fury to steal aggro. (This is effective into at least the fifties with improved seal of fury - I successfully kept aggro off Bolty who was using mind blast successively.) Consecration is a very good skill to have in addition to Seal of fury. It's holy damage adds threat when used with a judged seal of fury.
In line with situational blessings is the use of aura's that best fit the conflict at hand. Mobs with powerful melee effects will bring out devotion aura for better armor. Many mobs with low hitpoints will bring out retribution aura. Areas with fire attacks will require the fire aura, etc.
One thing many paladin's forget is that cleanse removes polymorph effects - highly useful not only in later instances but in PvP. :) To add to your thoughts on healing - the paladin should only worry about healing those that the main healer has designated for the paladin. Nothing worse than getting a big heal off on the main tank just before the priest lands their heal. ;)
Edit: Forgot auras.