Planar Power at this stage of the game

[ZsaZsa Vavoom]

So I'm weighing where to go next with my AA's. You are welcome to check out my Magelo and make suggestions in general; I'm currently working on Delay Death. But one of the ones that I have been considering in the near future is buying the last 5 levels of Planar Power. My question is how much benefit that really gains at this point. My guess would be that the Heroic stats don't change much; if you have 67 heroic stamina, does it matter if that starts at a stamina value of X or X+25? Assuming the answer is that doesn't matter, then unless I'm missing something, it is a matter of getting
- The hit points gained from 25 more stamina
- The mana gained from 25 more wisdom
- The (minimal) AC gained from 25 more agility
- Some other incidental gains from 25 more dexterity

Am I missing or misunderstanding something? Anyone have any idea how to quantify the gains above? How much more HP/AC for spending those 25 AA's?

[Peaky]

There are at least 500 aa you haven't purchased that I'd rank much more valuable than either Delay Death or Planar Power.

This list is really long, but here are a few that stand out to me:

Force of Disruption 2
Rez
Fury of Magic/Destructive Fury
LoH/Fervent Blessing
Hand of Piety
Armor of the Inquisitor
Healing Boon

[shiftie]

I won't speak to the planar power question because I don't know if the base + heroics actually means something. I will address aa choices though

I see you don't have force of disruption purchased yet. I would make this your primary objective next. Far more important than planar power. The aggro generated is quality and at its highest rank is pretty potent, being able to cast between spell gems is rather useful.

Gift of Resurrection might be the next step. Being able to cast this during fights without having to keep the spell up is priceless.

From there I would get your mana regen aa. A lot of people look past these and purchase them later on. If I had to do things over, I would purchase these aa at the front end as I have noticed that they help a lot in the solo, group, raid game.

Quick buff. I have found reducing the cast time on steely and Preservation of tunare during combat to be high on my list and I wish we had gotten that AA sooner.

Maxing the ranks of Armor of the inquisitor and LoH would also be good choices for the boost to those situational circumstances.

From there I would max your vet wrath, and DD aa lines, fury of magic, destructive fury to help up your DPS a little.

Anyhow that should keep you busy for a little while

good luck

[ZsaZsa Vavoom]

Some interesting perspective. While I haven't bought Force of Disruption, I do have Hand of Disruption and use it regularly. Am I missing some benefit other than the increased aggro? Given that I don't experience problems holding aggro today, that seems like a lot of AA's for an incremental increase in aggro.

Some of the others I've considered and postponed just based on how often I would have used them. I keep thinking Gift of Resurrection would be cool, then I stop to think about how often I've stopped to mem rez mid-battle or wished I had it memmed, and the answer has always been... not very often. Armor of the Inquisitor I tend to dismiss because I seldom use the levels I already have. By now we have a wide arsenal of "Oh crap" tools, and that one usually doesn't get used in favor of a few others.

But by this same thought process, I have little explanation for why I haven't yet pushed forward on LoH/Fervent Blessing and Hand of Piety. Those are both spells I *do* use regularly, and would benefit from the higher levels. I should probably reprioritize those. Ditto with Healing Boon, but this one I at least realized on my own this morning heh... Relative to how much I play these days I solo a lot, and our HoT is a substantial part of the healing I do. Stupid I haven't finished up Healing Boon yet.

Mana regen... I very seldom run out of mana these days. Based on that I have trouble putting too much emphasis here. Various AA's to increase dps. Particularly given how much I solo, these make sense, I just need to figure out which to prioritize highest. Quick Buff I'll need to think about. Unless really necessary I'm usually too lazy to cast Steely (instead just using my Naggy familiar), but I do use Sustenance pretty regularly.

All in all, it is useful to get the perspective of other paladins. Even if our play styles don't necessarily match exactly, it sometimes points out blind spots (like why I keep looking past LoH/Hand of Piety...)

[Hulkling]

[shiftie]

[ZsaZsa Vavoom]

I hadn't noticed the casting time difference on Force vs. Hand of Disruption. That actually is quite interesting.

As for AotI, it isn't that there is anything wrong with it. Just between defensive disc, clicking bp, clicking epic, clicking Golem Clay, AotI, recasting Steely, etc. etc., combined with me being old and slow, I never end up using all of them, and AotI is one that I seldom end up using. Perhaps I should look into using it in place of some of the others I use more often. As for soloing, almost all my healing is heals over time, and unless I'm mistaken, AotI doesn't help with that. Am I wrong there?

[shiftie]

[Abazzagorath]

[ZsaZsa Vavoom]

Thanks. That is actually more than I might have guessed, but probably still not enough to justify it over some of the other more interesting AA's we're discussing.

re: heals
As is, I've been soloing in FC. Getting 5-6 AA's per LotD. Healing almost exclusively with HoT and Sustenance. Seldom running out of mana before the 30 minutes, and thus concluding that I didn't need more mana or direct heals (certainly not a stacked 60k heal heh). I guess the theory goes like this: today I fight 1-2 mobs at a time, sometimes 3 if I get bad timing on a wanderer. I guess the next evolution would be to up that number, routinely fighting 3-4 at a time and using big direct heals to make it work. Those of you using different strategies - any feel for what you are getting in AA's per LotD solo?

re: AotI
It seems to have enough fans that I should at least give it a second chance. I had forgotten Spire as another "oh crap" tanking tool; that one I use plenty. I guess part of what I've learned about myself (for better or worse) is I prefer the tanking tools with short recast. The ones with long recast I end up thinking too much about whether I *really* need to use it now or should save it heh Which makes me rest easier, but doesn't necessarily optimize my tanking.

[shiftie]

[Normy]

As for force of disruption, if you are not having trouble holding agro now, I would still recommend this one. I use it tons when I struggle with agro (of course) but I use it even more when I'm NOT struggling for agro, because then I can use my finite mana for other things. This is very important to me depending on my group setup because I'm often self-healing. In a steady group I can usually get away with using Challenge and FoD2 exclusively and still hold agro just fine. Stuns and crushes are great, but can be taxing on the mana pool over time in combination with self heals.

The Rez aa, honestly I feel like its useless unless you raid. Then I think its critical. If you are exclusively in the group game, you probably won't find a ton of uses for it as most of the time if you need to rez you'll do it after whatever fight you had going is over. It is true, like DA, if you always have it up, you'll find yourself using it more often. But in the group game I wouldn't put it high on the priority list.

As for Armor, this is one I do recommend. I use two different trains of thoughts on my defensive abilities. If I'm in fairly challenging content but don't expect some big burst of ugliness from a named or huge pull, I'll use my epic clicks, armor, spires, ect about as often as they pop. It just makes my life a little easier, cuts down on mana usage and needing to self heal, which in turn increases my DPS and kill rate. If I can expect a named or big ugly encounter, then I will generally hold onto them, but the point is that Armor effects stack with everything else we have. Armor + Epic + aura + Intensity = every burst is a CH. Very very useful in a oh sh*t situation (I even used to have a hotkey to activate armor, intensity, third spire, and defensive for this and labeled it "fan"). But if I'm just tanking a hard hitting named, I'll chain this after my epic to give me just that much longer of more powerful heals.

As for the rest, it sounds like you solo alot, so anything that will increase your DPS is probably a good route. I highly recommend the spell damage increasers, they work on lots of our casted stuffs, I think procs too? Either way, its a solid line.

I have all my planar power things, can't say I ever really saw a difference in my abilities from the extra 25 to stats, and I would guess thats because the way the stats are structured, the amount needed to see a meaningful change probably approaches infinity as we move along here. The increase to resistances is probably more useful in the long run.

[Brohg]

[Edivor]

[Normy]

[kolor]

Quick Buff only impacts buffs (heals are not considered buffs) that have a base cast time of 3 seconds or more

[Hulkling]

[Zanador]

Dam sexy for PoT and SS tho.

[Jests Agigolo]

Some really good information here I thank you. So Sustence is effected by heal over time spells? If so I really need to work this one higher. Yes, yes I am a goober I consider my necro my main but thanks mostly to mercs my paladin does more then watch me fight solo or group/raid nowdays. My paladin is Jests Agigolo on Fironia Vie if it helps or matters.

My thoughts on next AA line to max was healing gift to max. I really do not play my paladin much if at all solo (I drop to my necro on solo it is just easier unless it is named then I toss Jests up with 2 merc clerics and mow thru them with necro on dot the shit out of it FD detail) but he groups and raids often. I was planning on focusing on healing gift next as a result. My paladin really shouldn't be considered an alt though as I love him too much and have dedicated way to much time to him for me to want to view him as secondary. I view him more as an alter ego who really really loves pie (he is a hobbit and I sorta in my weakish way RP him) Here is his magelo and I appreciate any advice. I recently won but have not picked up yet a Crystallos earing that he is not wearing yet.

This earing which will replace the oracles barb earing on him I have listed as well. I am on FV so it is not no trade for us on FV. My primary guide in getting adjusted to being a raid paladin from my little guilds "the tank" to primary raid offtank (from dps necro) has been Kolor who has been most gracious and helpful but who I hate to pester with my numerous questions on advice for going forward.

earing link
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=74339

my magelo
http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1421170

[Tuathadendannan]

Interesting enough I was just reflecting on delay death and how bad an option imo it is to get now with how hard the mobs hit and how the devs have failed to keep up with it. quiet frankly that has become a low option for me now. it used to be nice to have but with mobs hitting and ramping for over 12k and group mobs hitting in the 9k's the extra 250 would most likely only help once or twice if that.

[ZsaZsa Vavoom]

So 2 1/2 months later, I'm back Frostcrypt has treated me well in my solo time, particularly when it was a hot zone, so since this last discussion:
- I've bought Force of Disruption 2 and 3
- I bought the rez
- I maxed Fury of Magic and Destructive Fury
- I maxed LoH and Fervent Blessing
- I maxed Hand of Piety
- I maxed Armor of the Inquisitor
- I maxed Healing Boon
- I bought a bunch of mana regen AA's
- I maxed Planar Power
- I maxed Delay Death
- I maxed Persistent Casting

So I'm back to pondering what other diamond in the rough I may be missing. From the earlier discussion, I think the only things anyone suggested that I haven't yet bought would be:
- Quick Buff. While I understand the suggested benefit, I haven't yet been overwhelmed with the idea. Do others like this as well, or is this just a Shiftie thing?
- Mana regen. I bought a bunch. I maxed out Mental Clarity, and was working on Expansive Mind until the point where the next level was going to cost me 7; I think I've bought 10 of 20 levels or something? At that point I see the benefit, I just figured it was worth revisiting cost/benefit if the cost was going up.

Beyond those, others I've flirted with:
- Mental Fortitude. Seems like a handy idea, but I couldn't think of many places it would actually matter. Of course then I got charmed twice yesterday by X the Voice in Eriak's Downfall heh
- Battle Ready. My main issue here is that my custom UI doesn't support more bandolier slots, so I have to switch to the default UI to update extra bandolier slots, so as long as I'm too lazy to fix the UI issue, I'm not that inclined to bother. Not like this is a huge need either. At most I could use 1 more, and I probably don't really need that.
- Finishing Blow. When I bought the 12 levels I have back in the day, I found it surprisingly handy. But it is expensive for what it is.
- Group ItU. I'll probably nab this at some point. It is one level that costs 7, so I can do that in one day solo and be done with it.
- Mental Stamina. More mana has to be useful. But my previous math was saying: assuming it costs 5 AA's for each level, I can spend 25 AA's for 250 mana, or I could spend those same AA's on Expansive Mind and regenerate 250 mana every 5 minutes. The latter seemed more useful, but then that math went out the window when Expansive Mind started costing more than 5. I'm guessing this is getting to where I should buy it soon.
- Quickened Radiant Cure. Sounds useful, but then I realize that almost any time I'm about to use Radiant Cure, some priest in my group does anyway, so I seldom actually end up using it these days. Mostly just when Tash is annoying me.
- Divine Stun. The only reason I use this anymore is for positioning mobs, but I think I recall that at some point the knockback on it goes up? Looking at Lucy it looks like I only need to buy one more level to increase the pushback, so perhaps I'll do that soon.
- Forceful Rejuvenation. In theory sounds useful, but in practice I'm not sure how much I'd use it. Anyone out there have it and love it? If it worked on Veteran AA's...
- Halt the Dead. I figured I would have bought this long ago, but so few undead run, and when half of those seemed to not be affected by Halt the Dead... it got demoted.
- Hastened Purification. I really like Purification and periodically still find it useful. It looks cheap, so I'm tempted by this.
- Immobilizing Bash. Sounds useful, and obviously I thought it was useful enough to buy the first 3 levels, but I have no idea how effective it really is, and it is on the expensive side of my remaining options.

Any votes or suggestions? Any I skipped completely? Thanks in advance...

[Edivor]

I got Quick Buff and Hastened Purification before any of that other stuff. Maybe Immobilizing bash after that. Hastened Purification is really nice if you raid. I don't like to be rooted or snared when kiting!

I got group ItU as a convenience, and I find myself using it a lot more than I thought I would have. I also got Halt the Dead, and I never ever use it.

Forceful Rejuvenation would be a waste. Would use it less than Halt the Dead.

Everything else is about equal as far as importance. Nothing ground-breakingly awesome.

I really like Quick Draw 2. I use all 5 potion belts. I keep heal pot, invis pot, mod rod, heal over time pot, and clarity, haste, or spider's bite in them. I click the clarity and haste ones after a battle rez, usually.

[knytul]

Forceful Rejuv is awesome when it comes to the DA spellgem. u can get MANY Da's now. Me personally ill mem Spell DA and have my AA DA available. just use Forceful rejuv then i got DA's galore when ramptankin. wpn doesnt wanna proc, hit the spell, doesnt wanna proc again, hit the aa

[Edivor]

With maxed weapon affinity, da hammer procs a whole lot. If I do get hit on ramp, a burst heal usually fixes it until the hammer procs again.

But yea, DA (or MAYBE burst heal) would be the only things for forceful rejuv.

[knytul]

especially DA. when theres situations where you need to train mobs away so your group/raid can move by to another area...2, 3, even 4 DA's can be quite useful to have around. Tower is a good example.

[Edivor]

Assuming you're able to get off a second DA before getting squished.

[ZsaZsa Vavoom]

[Edivor]

Quick Buff only works on spells over 3 seconds in length.

So Steely Stance, Preservation of Tunare, and Brells are the only ones to really benefit. I mainly got it for Preservation of Tunare.

There are other spells that get shorter too, but they're not relevant enough to mention.