Good morning everyone! I just returned to enjoy the paladin changes that took place several months ago. I've caught up on the forums and the wiki about our changes.
So I'm primarily a "physical" paladin. I prefer the role of "tank". For me, the easy aura choice is 1609 because it fits my vision of the character. I'm sure I'll play around with 1617, but 1609 is my cup of tea.
I'm 66th train for reference, and I have 100's of training points that got freed up, and I'm not sure yet where I want to put them. I really absolutely rarely (like maybe 1% of the time for funsies) cast 1615 when in combat, and I honestly don't see that changing. I'm a holy warrior, not a holy mage if you know what I mean. I say this to mean that I don't feel moved to raise my SMC. I'm thinking about bringing my spells to 1x per level. That's 6 trainings in spells (and I'll go the paladin route until 50 ranks, switch to MnS to 40, and finish at 60 paladin). I feel like my next priority will be to get my spiritual lore up, but I'm not sure how I want to balance that out. I like blessings because of the passive benefits it provides, but I also like summoning lore for the same reason. I don't feel compelled to put any points into religion. That will probably be a post cap goal (or I'll just put all my points between summoning and blessings).
I'm not sure if I want to lower my armor ranks to 130. I don't think raising my armor use to reduce the action penalty is a pre-cap goal, although with 1608 I'm now just ten ranks away from the first drop in AP - is there an argument that it would be worth the PTP pre-cap? If I lower armor use, should I push physical fitness more to 2x earlier? I'm set to be 2x by about level 80 on my current training plan. Should I train another physical skill?
Now that I'm back, and been playing a bit, boy wind wraiths are making me poor! At 66 trains I'm going to be looking for a new critter ASAP, but I'm a paladin of Voln so I do have a preference to fight undead although if I'm being honest, I don't feel compelled as strongly to hunt ONLY undead on my return. I'm not as young as I used to be, and about 18 months ago I suffered a health scare that left me with limited use in my left hand. Macros and scripts have been a life-saver for me to enjoy Gs4. I say this because the things I fight against generally need to be limitedly complicated so that I don't have to try to type/react too quickly. I've been playing Gemstone since 1997 so I know what people think of that, but life is life and I've loved this game for more than half of mine and I hope to continue enjoying it as long as is possible even if some of you don't like people who use scripts/macros to hunt. I don't mean to offend anyone, but I also won't apologize for my inability to type accurately or quickly. It has taken me over an hour just to compose this message.
Here are my skills and stats for reference:
(at level 66), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 270 170
Shield Use.........................| 234 134
Combat Maneuvers...................| 167 67
Blunt Weapons......................| 234 134
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 155 55
Physical Fitness...................| 207 107
Harness Power......................| 166 66
Spirit Mana Control................| 105 25
Spiritual Lore - Blessings.........| 156 56
Perception.........................| 167 67
Climbing...........................| 150 50
Swimming...........................| 150 50
Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 20
Spell Lists
Paladin............................| 40
Training Points: 27 Phy 485 Mnt
(Use SKILLS BASE to display unmodified ranks and goals)
your Shield Specializations are as follows:
Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Tower Shield Focus tfocus 5
Shield Bash bash 4
Prop Up prop 3
Protective Wall pwall 2
Available Shield Specialization Points: 28
I actually untrained my Cman ranks just before I canceled my subscription (ironically at Thanksgiving - just a couple of weeks before the paladin changes went live!) so I'm open to Cman training advice. I was just waiting until there was something I needed.
Thanks for looking me over and offering any advice!
ALPHA-OMEGA1
MOUNTAINHEART
Re: Newly returned training advice
07/09/2021 07:14 PM CDT
Well, the short version is you can do just fine as a melee-focused Paladin.
It's mostly what I do too.
Try prepping a spell and INFUSE <WEAPON> <# of charges). You should be able to get 1602, 1603, and/or 1614/1615 in your weapon to use at the beginning of a swing. It gives you something to do with your mana if it's full.
I also routinely use 1602 on groups of mobs or bandits to slow them down and make them easy pickings, and 1614 or Sigil of Distraction to drop their Evade/Block/Parry chances.
Once in a while, I throw out 1615 or 1630.
Beyond that, I mostly MSTRIKE (open or focused depending on the room) and AMBUSH HEAD.
---Spells:
In terms of your training, I would try to single train spells now. Get up to 120 and then put the rest in Paladin. Every rank gives you more AS/DS/CM ranks from 1610 and 1611. Just check out the details on the wiki for those. Single-training in spells will also help your CS a bunch.
---Lores:
You probably want 20 ranks in Spirit Summoning, 25 or so in Religion, and 15 or so in Blessings, for Lores. I used to advise 33 Blessing, 28 Religion, 40 Spirit Summoning, but the requirement to Aid yourself to town when dead has dropped from 40 Spirit Summoning to 20, so that's a bit cheaper now.
---CMAN and SHIELD:
For CMAN, do whatever, but Feint, Disarm, Bullrush, etc are your main ones. Here's Fulmen at 202 ranks:
>
Fulmen, your Combat Maneuvers are as follows:
Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Combat Movement cmovement 1
Combat Focus focus 1
Dirtkick dirtkick 1
Disarm Weapon disarm 4
Feint feint 5
Subdual Strike sstrike 4
Specialization I wspec1 5
Bull Rush bullrush 4
Cunning Defense cdefense 5
For Shield, I do this:
Fulmen, your Shield Specializations are as follows:
Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Tower Shield Focus tfocus 3
Shield Bash bash 5
Shield Charge charge 5
Prop Up prop 3
Shield Spike Focus spikefocus 2
Shield Spike Mastery spikemastery 2
Block the Elements eblock 3
Protective Wall pwall 2
Shield Strike strike 1
---ARMOR:
For armor training, it just depends on your TPs. 2x is good, 3x is too expensive. Get into full plate and do whatever you want. 1612 makes things pretty easy these days for spell hindrance and you can always recast if it gets dispelled. The more armor training you have, beyond what's required, the more maneuver bonus you get, but it's relatively small, so don't worry about it. Here's my note:
Get to 330 ranks (303 + 20 on 1612 + 7 points from Ascension) to reduce action penalty / maneuver hindrance to 19. (That's basically like wearing hauberk, which is 18).
Short Version Armor Calc: 130 base ranks is -35 action penalty. 180 is -31. 230 is -27. 280 would be -23. 330 is 19.
So it's 100 extra ranks of armor for +8 to maneuver rolls.
Feel free to double check my math, but don't worry about that unless you have free points and you're past 2x cap.
---GEAR, ENCHANT and ENSORCEL:
What you should consider doing first is getting into the best damage padded full plate you can, ideally with 6 CER or more of crit padding too. Then enchant it up and ensorcell it for -2 TD per Ensorcel rank.
You can and should also Ensorcel a shield.
With a Tier 5 Ensorcel on both, you get -20 to your CvA, which is like having an extra +20 versus spell CS.
Enchanting and Ensorcelling is fairly easy these days. Just a bit expensive. Up to 7x and T3 is fairly cheap.
---SMC:
Besides that... SMC is useful for 1650, but don't worry about it yet. Just get 24 at least, if you ever want to use 1640.
---SOCIETY:
Depends on your flavor. I like GoS because of the padding, weighting, Distraction, Determination, etc.
Voln is the next best in my book, but I got bored of Undead and not needing a bless.
If you do stick to Voln, just hunt whatever you want and go run REIM once a day (free if you're Premie), which will be plenty of favor to keep you going.
That'll free up your options. REIM is by Icemule, but once you get some REIM (that's a verb too), you can teleport there from anywhere.
---SCRIPTS:
Tons of people use them. Just don't use them and walk away.
---BALANCING:
Everything you do before cap is a tightrope when it comes to TPs, so you'll have to make some changes. Like, I started with 3x armor a long time ago, and then balanced it back down to 2x around 130-150 ranks. I also trained MOC to 101 eventually, but only when I was able to get the next breakpoint. I didn't let points sit in it that wouldn't do anything. Look it up on the wiki and you can see where those are for using MSTRIKE.
Spells are the same. You might be able to get one every level and half, for example, or whatever. 0.75x is quite decent still.
Don't bother with DODGE until post cap, since you're using a shield. It's very useful DS (about 3 ranks per +1 DS if you have a tower shield), but too expensive pre-cap. Just train shield instead and spend some money enchanting it.
Stuff like that!
~Player of Fulmen Soulforge, Hammer of Eonak.
It's mostly what I do too.
Try prepping a spell and INFUSE <WEAPON> <# of charges). You should be able to get 1602, 1603, and/or 1614/1615 in your weapon to use at the beginning of a swing. It gives you something to do with your mana if it's full.
I also routinely use 1602 on groups of mobs or bandits to slow them down and make them easy pickings, and 1614 or Sigil of Distraction to drop their Evade/Block/Parry chances.
Once in a while, I throw out 1615 or 1630.
Beyond that, I mostly MSTRIKE (open or focused depending on the room) and AMBUSH HEAD.
---Spells:
In terms of your training, I would try to single train spells now. Get up to 120 and then put the rest in Paladin. Every rank gives you more AS/DS/CM ranks from 1610 and 1611. Just check out the details on the wiki for those. Single-training in spells will also help your CS a bunch.
---Lores:
You probably want 20 ranks in Spirit Summoning, 25 or so in Religion, and 15 or so in Blessings, for Lores. I used to advise 33 Blessing, 28 Religion, 40 Spirit Summoning, but the requirement to Aid yourself to town when dead has dropped from 40 Spirit Summoning to 20, so that's a bit cheaper now.
---CMAN and SHIELD:
For CMAN, do whatever, but Feint, Disarm, Bullrush, etc are your main ones. Here's Fulmen at 202 ranks:
>
Fulmen, your Combat Maneuvers are as follows:
Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Combat Movement cmovement 1
Combat Focus focus 1
Dirtkick dirtkick 1
Disarm Weapon disarm 4
Feint feint 5
Subdual Strike sstrike 4
Specialization I wspec1 5
Bull Rush bullrush 4
Cunning Defense cdefense 5
For Shield, I do this:
Fulmen, your Shield Specializations are as follows:
Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Tower Shield Focus tfocus 3
Shield Bash bash 5
Shield Charge charge 5
Prop Up prop 3
Shield Spike Focus spikefocus 2
Shield Spike Mastery spikemastery 2
Block the Elements eblock 3
Protective Wall pwall 2
Shield Strike strike 1
---ARMOR:
For armor training, it just depends on your TPs. 2x is good, 3x is too expensive. Get into full plate and do whatever you want. 1612 makes things pretty easy these days for spell hindrance and you can always recast if it gets dispelled. The more armor training you have, beyond what's required, the more maneuver bonus you get, but it's relatively small, so don't worry about it. Here's my note:
Get to 330 ranks (303 + 20 on 1612 + 7 points from Ascension) to reduce action penalty / maneuver hindrance to 19. (That's basically like wearing hauberk, which is 18).
Short Version Armor Calc: 130 base ranks is -35 action penalty. 180 is -31. 230 is -27. 280 would be -23. 330 is 19.
So it's 100 extra ranks of armor for +8 to maneuver rolls.
Feel free to double check my math, but don't worry about that unless you have free points and you're past 2x cap.
---GEAR, ENCHANT and ENSORCEL:
What you should consider doing first is getting into the best damage padded full plate you can, ideally with 6 CER or more of crit padding too. Then enchant it up and ensorcell it for -2 TD per Ensorcel rank.
You can and should also Ensorcel a shield.
With a Tier 5 Ensorcel on both, you get -20 to your CvA, which is like having an extra +20 versus spell CS.
Enchanting and Ensorcelling is fairly easy these days. Just a bit expensive. Up to 7x and T3 is fairly cheap.
---SMC:
Besides that... SMC is useful for 1650, but don't worry about it yet. Just get 24 at least, if you ever want to use 1640.
---SOCIETY:
Depends on your flavor. I like GoS because of the padding, weighting, Distraction, Determination, etc.
Voln is the next best in my book, but I got bored of Undead and not needing a bless.
If you do stick to Voln, just hunt whatever you want and go run REIM once a day (free if you're Premie), which will be plenty of favor to keep you going.
That'll free up your options. REIM is by Icemule, but once you get some REIM (that's a verb too), you can teleport there from anywhere.
---SCRIPTS:
Tons of people use them. Just don't use them and walk away.
---BALANCING:
Everything you do before cap is a tightrope when it comes to TPs, so you'll have to make some changes. Like, I started with 3x armor a long time ago, and then balanced it back down to 2x around 130-150 ranks. I also trained MOC to 101 eventually, but only when I was able to get the next breakpoint. I didn't let points sit in it that wouldn't do anything. Look it up on the wiki and you can see where those are for using MSTRIKE.
Spells are the same. You might be able to get one every level and half, for example, or whatever. 0.75x is quite decent still.
Don't bother with DODGE until post cap, since you're using a shield. It's very useful DS (about 3 ranks per +1 DS if you have a tower shield), but too expensive pre-cap. Just train shield instead and spend some money enchanting it.
Stuff like that!
~Player of Fulmen Soulforge, Hammer of Eonak.
ALPHA-OMEGA1
Re: Newly returned training advice
07/09/2021 10:09 PM CDT
Fulmen, your advice is excellent. I thank you very much for taking the time. I can't infuse 1615 with my current skill - I thought that'd be cool if I could. I didn't try 1614, because I don't need it currently, but I'll see if it's within my skill range. I have been using 1603, but 1603 was just a toy. It didn't seem to add anything significant.
Ok, thank you for the advice about the spells. That's what I'm going to work towards. It'll be easy to do. I have almost 700 unused MTPs, and I'm only behind 7 spells right now. I'll still have a ton of MTPs left over. I think I'd like to put those into lores. Right now I've got everything (56 ranks) into Blessings lore, but was going to add some ranks to summoning. Do you put some into religion lore for the DF increase to 1605?
Thank you for posting your combat manuever and shield training. I'm guessing you went 3/5 tower shield spec to save points for other stuff you wanted. Just out of curiosity, why shield strike? Do you ever find yourself using it?
Thanks again for all the advice. It makes me feel more comfortable that I'm doing alright in my return, and not messing anything up!
Ok, thank you for the advice about the spells. That's what I'm going to work towards. It'll be easy to do. I have almost 700 unused MTPs, and I'm only behind 7 spells right now. I'll still have a ton of MTPs left over. I think I'd like to put those into lores. Right now I've got everything (56 ranks) into Blessings lore, but was going to add some ranks to summoning. Do you put some into religion lore for the DF increase to 1605?
Thank you for posting your combat manuever and shield training. I'm guessing you went 3/5 tower shield spec to save points for other stuff you wanted. Just out of curiosity, why shield strike? Do you ever find yourself using it?
Thanks again for all the advice. It makes me feel more comfortable that I'm doing alright in my return, and not messing anything up!
MOUNTAINHEART
Re: Newly returned training advice
07/10/2021 11:06 AM CDT
Sure thing!
I would put 1602 or 1603 in your weapon for ease of use, if you're infusing. Remember that you can also infuse scrolls, but then you need a scroll.... You do get a CS boost on the casting when you do that.
1603 doesn't add a ton of damage, but another 20-30 isn't terrible. Your CS will make it better if you're singled on Paladin spells.
For lores, you should just read through the spells on the wiki and see what you want to do. Here are the main ones:
Blessing gives you more DS on 1601. On 1604, it lets you unspoil food, add more swings to your Guiding Light flares with 1604, and increase bless duration up to 100%. On 1607, it adds some rejuvenation boosts. On 1609, it increases Block chance. On 1611, it adds CM ranks. On 1616, it adds more health.
Summoning adds Damage Factor (you hit harder, basically) on 1605. On 1613 now, it lets you self-teleport (BESEECH) yourself to town when dead at 20 ranks, if you have set an anchor. On 1614, it decreases mob EBP more.
Religion does Kneeling chance on 1615/1630, adds AS to Zealot, increases the number of daily uses on 1640, adds DS from 1610, and so on.
---
SMC adds more mobs on 1602 OPEN (room cast) now. It used to be under lores.
---
You might find that post-cap, like 10m+ exp as you get more Dodge training and increase your DS, that 1617 is more useful to you than 1609. But 1609 is better for leveling up safely.
---
Yah, tower spec 3 was just a pre-req. I'd do more if I had points, but it's not important. I don't actually use Shield Strike much at all. With 1609 now, you'll notice that you're getting shield boost notifications, which let you use a shield skill in 1 sec. That gives you an instant bash or strike, basically. Strike is better in general, because it's a bash + a weapon attack.
But in general, I just MSTRIKE things. Nearly everything dies in 1-3 hits.
I also focused on passive SHIELD/CMAN things over active, because I don't remember to use them. I'd rather have a permanent passive feature than things I have to trigger.
~Player of Fulmen Soulforge, Hammer of Eonak.
I would put 1602 or 1603 in your weapon for ease of use, if you're infusing. Remember that you can also infuse scrolls, but then you need a scroll.... You do get a CS boost on the casting when you do that.
1603 doesn't add a ton of damage, but another 20-30 isn't terrible. Your CS will make it better if you're singled on Paladin spells.
For lores, you should just read through the spells on the wiki and see what you want to do. Here are the main ones:
Blessing gives you more DS on 1601. On 1604, it lets you unspoil food, add more swings to your Guiding Light flares with 1604, and increase bless duration up to 100%. On 1607, it adds some rejuvenation boosts. On 1609, it increases Block chance. On 1611, it adds CM ranks. On 1616, it adds more health.
Summoning adds Damage Factor (you hit harder, basically) on 1605. On 1613 now, it lets you self-teleport (BESEECH) yourself to town when dead at 20 ranks, if you have set an anchor. On 1614, it decreases mob EBP more.
Religion does Kneeling chance on 1615/1630, adds AS to Zealot, increases the number of daily uses on 1640, adds DS from 1610, and so on.
---
SMC adds more mobs on 1602 OPEN (room cast) now. It used to be under lores.
---
You might find that post-cap, like 10m+ exp as you get more Dodge training and increase your DS, that 1617 is more useful to you than 1609. But 1609 is better for leveling up safely.
---
Yah, tower spec 3 was just a pre-req. I'd do more if I had points, but it's not important. I don't actually use Shield Strike much at all. With 1609 now, you'll notice that you're getting shield boost notifications, which let you use a shield skill in 1 sec. That gives you an instant bash or strike, basically. Strike is better in general, because it's a bash + a weapon attack.
But in general, I just MSTRIKE things. Nearly everything dies in 1-3 hits.
I also focused on passive SHIELD/CMAN things over active, because I don't remember to use them. I'd rather have a permanent passive feature than things I have to trigger.
~Player of Fulmen Soulforge, Hammer of Eonak.
JARHEAD
Re: Newly returned training advice
07/10/2021 11:58 AM CDT
<<I also focused on passive SHIELD/CMAN things over active, because I don't remember to use them. I'd rather have a permanent passive feature than things I have to trigger.
I'm a firm believer in this. While some of the active things are pretty neat I find that if you are properly trained then things like disabling CMan's or RT inducers really aren't needed (and I too forget to use them most of the time. The only exception was sweep when I hunted the bowels with my ranger).
General Radeek Andoran
Drakes Vanguard
Defender of Wehnimer's Landing
Black Raider of the Mir'Sheq
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato
http://radeekandoran.blogspot.ca/
http://thetehirchronicles.blogspot.ca/
I'm a firm believer in this. While some of the active things are pretty neat I find that if you are properly trained then things like disabling CMan's or RT inducers really aren't needed (and I too forget to use them most of the time. The only exception was sweep when I hunted the bowels with my ranger).
General Radeek Andoran
Drakes Vanguard
Defender of Wehnimer's Landing
Black Raider of the Mir'Sheq
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato
http://radeekandoran.blogspot.ca/
http://thetehirchronicles.blogspot.ca/
ALPHA-OMEGA1
Re: Newly returned training advice
07/10/2021 03:16 PM CDT
Alrighty then, that certainly helps give me confidence in my decisions and direction. I will keep on trucking forward! Thank you!
