The Spirit Realm

Hi all,

I kind of took a break for about 2 years, but going to see if anything is left in the tank and maybe restart on the progression server as a pally... What's changed for us in the past 2 years, especially from a lower level perspective? (dumb question, I realize from looking over the recent posts here that there's nerfs, it wouldn't be SOE if not )

No idea on lower level stuff.

I know there have been nerfs and complaints, but from my perch things are better than they have been for a while. I'm casual group Paladin in a small guild, and have about 2500 AA. I have been able to tank just about everything I've encountered group game. With the addition of mercenaries, me and my froggy shaman bot can 2-box much of the group-game, including several named camps in the T4 zones. The return of our pacification ability and the addition of a fade ability (balefire burst) makes is much less painful to pull effectively.

Overall HoT is a good expansion for a Paladin to make a comeback in.

Not sure about the progression servers though.

The only key 'lower level' thing to look out for is a disc Deflection, but I'm not sure if you were around when that came in.

Other than that, especially on the progression side, I don't believe there have been all that many changes that have affected the lower level life of Paladins. On the current end game spectum... The class got impressively beefed in about all aspects imaginable... including magic based DDs, Burn discs, another O-sh heal, etc. as well as some of the other nice items Boleslav mentioned.

Yes, my guild was running up against the brick wall that was MMM, and just about to work on SoD tier 2 when I left... but even if I did start playing again, I would want to pick up right where I left off... I've always been about a "whole game" mentality, making sure I killed everything there was to kill in one expansion before moving on.

Good summary, Abyss, thanks. Wow, we got a fade? That alone is interesting... Of course, since I'm restarting on the progression server, I won't see that for a while...

Well, I guess it all really depends on when the last time you leveled up from 1 was. By comparison to when I was a young pally, the game has changed a ton. No more spell levels (waiting 10 levels for spells in some cases is gone), our heals are far more effective than they used to be, if the progression servers are keeping the defiant and similar lines of armor dropping, then gearing up won't be nearly as hard. Fade I think is required lvl 85, so that's a ways off, but deflection is 59 so that will come in much earlier, but still a ways off.

No Defiant armor or weapons on prog servers. New iterations of newbie armor are also nerfed. The truly classic exp penalty for being a knight is gone, but otherwise paladins there are probably right back to what paladins were then.