Rayth's Paladin Guide
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Contents |
Introduction
I am essentially writing two guides here, one for players without a Blade of Light and the other guide is for players who can afford this luxury. A Blade of Light is highly recommended for all Paladins and Guardians but sometimes, situations do not allow players to possess one of these weapons. Informational sources have been gathered from my own experiences and those of other players who have leveled Guardians.
Character Races
Halflings
Halflings are by far the most popular race for Paladin. This stems from their exceedingly high dodge rate with their natural 23 agility. They can have a 20 intelligence and wisdom so are on par with most of the other races in both healing and magic resistance. The major drawback of choosing halflings is their extremely low endurance (17) which means that they tend to die a lot when fighting monsters. Their limited strength (18) also is a consideration but can be easily overcome with the acquisition of a Blade of Light. Halflings are known as the best Player vs. Player race for Paladin. That is, if you plan on fighting other players, this is a good race to choose. If you want to mainly use your wonderful new guardian to help level other characters, there are much better choices.
Half Elves
Elves are the second most popular race for Paladin. They have good natural agility (21) and a solid endurance (20) that makes them capable of both dodging most attacks and surviving when they are hit by powerful monsters. The slightly below average strength (19) is not a large consideration, and with a possible 20 intelligence and 20 wisdom they are on par with Halflings in both healing and damaging. Arguably, the combination of statistics that Half Elves possess make them the most paladin in fighting against players or monsters. For players who want a paladin that can handle himself in any situation, Half Elves are probably the best suited for this role.
Humans
Humans while not a popular choice, make excellent Paladins. Humans can have 20 in every statistic which makes them capable of dealing out impressive damage, high healing, great dodge, solid endurance, and excellent magic resistance, and makes them well worth having as a paladin. Players who want a more physical paladin than a half elf should really consider Human as they have no real weakness.
Elves
Elves are not bad choices for Paladins. Personally, I would not choose Elf for any combat class except ranger. The reason for this is their high intelligence and wisdom (21) provides for excellent spell casting abilities, but the low strength (18) and reduced endurance (19) makes them ill suited for combat. In my personal experience, Elves don't seem to dodge like other races with a 21 agility.
Dwarves
Dwarves are a very difficult Paladin to make. Their great strength (21) and high endurance (22) makes them capable of both dealing out massive damage and surviving most attacks. Their lower than average agility (19) means that they tend to take more hits than other paladins, and with a low intelligence (16) do not heal as well as other Paladins. Dwarven Paladins are really not suggested to combat other players but make unparalleled meat shields when leveling other characters or going after One A Days.
Gnomes
Gnomes may seem like a horrible choice for Paladin with their low strength (16) and endurance (16), people who own them swear that their natural agility (21) coupled with high intelligence and wisdom (22) make them very difficult to kill. I have not played a Gnome Paladin before and those that possess them were unwilling to their paladins abilities.
Leveling
SPECIAL NOTE:
Do not go and train in a guild until you get a message that you must
level. The exception to this is if you are using the healing strategy of
training in which case you can still heal and gain experience to level.
A new paladin starts off his career just as any other fighter class in the game. Options for leveling include arena fighting, autoquests, or making a trip to Vetra with a Paladin/Guardian to protect you. I recommend running the Terra autoquests. After about 15 minutes, you should have gained enough experience to level to Paladin as well as enough gold to equip and stock your character for further leveling. If you have the ability and the patience, I recommend gaining at least 200,000 experience off of the autoquests. This experience will get you to level 10 and will grant you both your third attack and a virtually fizzle free Curel.
For those who are unable to achieve level 10 through autoquests, the Isle of Vetra offers a host of monsters that are both easy to kill and drop sellable items. Once you get to level 8, feel free and go around the island killing monsters until you get the level message again. Once that happens, you are normally less than 15,000 experience away from level 10. Travel to Trollhiem, Duskan, or Elmarae and level to 9. Go into the arena, fight one or two monsters, and level to 10.
After attaining your third attack and buying your first cure spell, you again have a couple of options to level. At this point of your career, it doesn't matter if you possess a new Blade of Light or not, you most probably won't be relying on your martial strength. Have a friend or alt go with you and face a creature with loads of hit points. Have your friend attack the monster and you use your wonderful Curel spell to heal it and keep the two of you alive. This means that you will be leveling like a cleric but at this level, experience from Curel is more steady and reliable than trying to master your weapon and level. Continue with this process until you attain 1,180,000 experience and are capable of going to level 14. If you have a higher level paladin or guardian at your disposal, you will want to have them protect you and have them fight monsters of high level for you to heal.
After attaining level 14, I suggest taking this time to master your
weapon. By the time you gain enough experience to be level 16, you should
have attained master proficiency with your weapon. This is a good time in
your adventuring life to spend attacking monsters for experience. You will
want to train on creatures that you have divinity over.
| Targos has divinity over Nallyssa |
| Nallyssa has divinity over Hommet |
| Hommet has divinity over Valkyzar |
| Valkyzar has divinity over Alustria |
| Alustria has divinity over Targos |
Those with the Blade of Light should descend on either the Castle of Darkness, the Ruins, or the Graveyard and use the holy weapon to slay these creatures. Alternately, fighting the Demon Hounds and Demon Specters in the Cave of the Ancients also is a good experience gathering exercise since the BoL gains it's bonus damage to Demons as well. Divinity doesn't really matter as long as you are attacking undead creatures or demons.
Characters with a Blade of Light will level differently from those without. Characters should actually fight monsters that have plenty of hit points and give a lot of experience per point of damage. Good monsters to fight are Death Knights, Disrupters, Skeletal Beasts, Skeleton Lord, and Nomad Specters. However, due to the power of the Blade of Light, any undead or Demons are good choices.
Characters should use their Blade of Light and get the monster to grave or lower and then reserve the kill shot for Deathbane if possible. Using this method, the character should gain all the experience for damaging the undead monster as well as the bonus experience Deathbane gives for killing the monster. It has also been theorized that using the spell to gain the kill shot experience prolongs the length of time a character can gain experience without getting the level message. (I have been unable to verify this.)
Over the course of a month, I used a new BoL to level (or help level) a total of 9 paladins to level 21 through 24. It is simply the best leveling tool a paladin has available. Using just the Blade of Light, I took a level 16 earth paladin into the basement of the Castle of Darkness to master the weapon and by the time I had mastered it, I had leveled 4 times and had enough experience to go to level 21. The usefulness of this tool can not be overstated for leveling.
Upon attaining level 16 in your training, your future progression will depend on equipment and opportunity. Those without the Blade of Light will continue the same strategy as before but use Jurgen instead of Curel and simply fight stronger monsters. Using this "healing" strategy, the character should not actually go to buy training until they have reached 25,000,000 experience, enough for level 20. Optionally, have another character with you and simply overpower monsters with your combined martial ability. If you choose this option, fight monsters that are more powerful than yourself so the gain is worth the effort.
Upon reaching level 20, the character gains limited use of the spell Deathbane. Before level 20, the spell is too unreliable to attempt often. Characters should use a combination of martial skill and Deathbane to attain the 17 million extra experience to reach level 21. Some people say that training at level 21 is a waste but I have found the increase in Deathbane reliability is well worth early training.
Players who do not have access to a BoL will want to find undead groups and use Deathbane to gain quick kill shots via the spell. Deathbane does not give experience for damage to undead so it is often better to find undead with few hit points such as skeletons and skeleton guards instead of those more powerful undead. A group of four skeletons can be killed with only one or two castings of Deathbane and will give comparable experience to casting the spell ten or more times to kill the Skeleton Lord. (i.e. Skeleton Guards and Zombies give virtually the same experience when killed with Deathbane but Zombies have twice the hit points of Skeleton Guards and require more castings of the spell. Hence it is quicker to level on the Skeleton Guards.)
Characters can gain enough experience this way to be able to level straight to level 23. Characters should not go to train until they have reached at least 118.000,000 experience. If you get the level message sooner, simply go ahead and train and continue training until you hit level 23.
Leveling after level 23 is much like leveling from 21 to 23. The character should use their enhanced hit points and reduced fizzle rate to great advantage and should be able to clear out mass amounts of undead rather quickly. Upon attaining this level, the player will find that it is much easer to stay alive even when fighting large groups of undead or some of the larger undead monsters. Characters using Deathbane exclusively to level to this point should shift to the strategy that users of the Blade of Light have used. The experience gained for damaging the monsters will now be the major source of experience for the character. Using Deathbane on large groups of weaker undead is no longer as lucrative as slaying one or two powerful undead. Some Paladins who do not have use of the new Blade of Light often forgo leveling on undead completely and will fight everything from Fishermen, to Griffons, to Undertakers. Above all, I would suggest for players to train in a way that they are comfortable and don't be pressured into fighting something that they feel they are ill suited to kill.
