08-02-2005, 06:31 PM
Hail!
Figured that I would add my experience with the Paladin into the mix.
I've been "doubling up" my Pali named SaxyCoo with Bolty's warlock named Boltie. We started together, and we play these characters together.
At first, I was going with the s-h mace/shield combo, since it was something that I always loved doing (not to mention that I thought it looked cool), and was Protection spec-ed. This wasn't a problem, since we were going from lvl 1 to approx lvl 35 this way. I'm not sure how Boltie was spec-ed out, but I know that it wasn't Destruction based. All seemed well.
At about lvl 30 or so, I went and coughed up the cash to respec. Looking through the talent tree, I saw that just about everything that I had to look forward to in the high-end Protection tree really sucked. The only thing that looked like the high-end talent was worth getting was the Retribution tree. So that's what I went with.
Once I changed to the Retribution tree, it was nice to have single mob fights back down to a 30 second kill time. Then when Boltie was forced to respec after the last patch, he went with the Destruction tree. I later found that it was increasingly harder for me to keep the aggro off of him, since his DPS was a heck of a long way beyond mine.
At that time, I was forced to switch to a 2H Mace, foregoing the shield. Sometimes, it's still difficult to keep the aggro off of him, but I can usually pull mobs off of him with a SoC Judgement and the Seal of Command number generator liking me. I've found that I will crit somewhat often (thankfully). There have been times though where I couldn't due to one of this Shadowbolts getting a crit on top of the damage that his pet is doing, and the battery of curses that he places on the mob.
We did go through SM in some pubbie groups, where I was the main tank as well as the primary healer. There was another time when I was the secondary healer and off-tank since we had a lvl 38 druid along who took up the primary healing.
As for equipment, I have noticed that all this while, I've been running with a mixture of STR/STAM and SPI/INT. Some items would be good for a Pally, and others would be good for a Warrior. I have noticed that I am starting to lean more towards the cater's equipment, and looking for weapons that will give me the strength bonuses.
However, when I do run around alone working on grinding my smithing or grinding for ore. I'm able to keep my fights down to about 15-20 seconds for green mobs, 30-45 seconds for yellow, and about 1-1.5 minutes for red.
But I'm level 47 now, and the training wheels are off (and have been for the last 7 levels). Mobs hit me for a heck of a lot more, and my DPS hasn't really increased as exponentially as it used to, which is forcing me to change the way that I play the character. One good thing though is that when I'm playing with Boltie, if I can keep him from getting aggro, it's a perfect excuse for me to go all out, and just hammer away at anything that comes our way.
I have learned that when we've done instance runs, it's always been good to ask the party what kind of Blessing they would like. I know that Boltie prefers BoK. Zippy (when we did Uldaman) wanted BoW, as do most other casters. But I think that what blessing that a person gets is purely subjective, as they should know (imo) which blessing would better fit their playing style.
-SaxyCorp
Figured that I would add my experience with the Paladin into the mix.
I've been "doubling up" my Pali named SaxyCoo with Bolty's warlock named Boltie. We started together, and we play these characters together.
At first, I was going with the s-h mace/shield combo, since it was something that I always loved doing (not to mention that I thought it looked cool), and was Protection spec-ed. This wasn't a problem, since we were going from lvl 1 to approx lvl 35 this way. I'm not sure how Boltie was spec-ed out, but I know that it wasn't Destruction based. All seemed well.
At about lvl 30 or so, I went and coughed up the cash to respec. Looking through the talent tree, I saw that just about everything that I had to look forward to in the high-end Protection tree really sucked. The only thing that looked like the high-end talent was worth getting was the Retribution tree. So that's what I went with.
Once I changed to the Retribution tree, it was nice to have single mob fights back down to a 30 second kill time. Then when Boltie was forced to respec after the last patch, he went with the Destruction tree. I later found that it was increasingly harder for me to keep the aggro off of him, since his DPS was a heck of a long way beyond mine.
At that time, I was forced to switch to a 2H Mace, foregoing the shield. Sometimes, it's still difficult to keep the aggro off of him, but I can usually pull mobs off of him with a SoC Judgement and the Seal of Command number generator liking me. I've found that I will crit somewhat often (thankfully). There have been times though where I couldn't due to one of this Shadowbolts getting a crit on top of the damage that his pet is doing, and the battery of curses that he places on the mob.
We did go through SM in some pubbie groups, where I was the main tank as well as the primary healer. There was another time when I was the secondary healer and off-tank since we had a lvl 38 druid along who took up the primary healing.
As for equipment, I have noticed that all this while, I've been running with a mixture of STR/STAM and SPI/INT. Some items would be good for a Pally, and others would be good for a Warrior. I have noticed that I am starting to lean more towards the cater's equipment, and looking for weapons that will give me the strength bonuses.
However, when I do run around alone working on grinding my smithing or grinding for ore. I'm able to keep my fights down to about 15-20 seconds for green mobs, 30-45 seconds for yellow, and about 1-1.5 minutes for red.
But I'm level 47 now, and the training wheels are off (and have been for the last 7 levels). Mobs hit me for a heck of a lot more, and my DPS hasn't really increased as exponentially as it used to, which is forcing me to change the way that I play the character. One good thing though is that when I'm playing with Boltie, if I can keep him from getting aggro, it's a perfect excuse for me to go all out, and just hammer away at anything that comes our way.
I have learned that when we've done instance runs, it's always been good to ask the party what kind of Blessing they would like. I know that Boltie prefers BoK. Zippy (when we did Uldaman) wanted BoW, as do most other casters. But I think that what blessing that a person gets is purely subjective, as they should know (imo) which blessing would better fit their playing style.
-SaxyCorp