The Spirit Realm

Hi all,

I am currently using the blade of disruption and Dain's MM shield and am looking for opinions on a non-raid "end game" goal for replacement.

I play with a few close friends only. I play the pally and my brother plays a shaman. We also have a ranger with us most of the time and a monk as well. The last two spots are rarely if ever filled, but they would be with a beastlord and a bard.

I have access to allakhazams website (the paid option) so I can do some looking up myself and have, but I want opinions based on experience from other players.

Should I focus on sword / shield or two hander? Epic 1.5 will probably never happen for our group and we have no intentions of ever going outside of just us. I am obviously the tank and as such I assumed the sword / shield approach to be most beneficial, but I am not so sure after looking at Alla's. We do not rely on my dps obviously, so that is not as important as other factors such as agro / survivability. But on the flip side when handling undead content it is nice to get the big dps hits in.

I saw the Faraday Stormrider's Fiery Avenger which looks like it would be the winner in terms of "getability" by our group (at some point) but it made me think. It has 60 ac on it, which seems to be a lot on a weapon and a two hander to boot so I assume that is a bonus, but does a 2 handers ac work the same way a shields ac works for the raw ac boost? or am I better off still using a sword / shield combo for tanking?

Should I be looking into the TBS weapons instead? The 600 orum ones?

Is there a one groupable weapon that procs a group heal, either HoT or not? Would that be a better choice?

I guess I have too many questions, so let me rephrase.

My goal is to be the best tank I can be for our group, while at the same time providing additional survivability, either in terms of a group proc heal, or additional agro procing, or additional dps etc etc.

haha Help =)

This is a shield to aim at:

Done through this quest:


I dont know of any groupable shield in between tbh.

As for a weapon the TBS one is one of the better group options out there.

From your post I take it you are always the tank. Focus on 1hand+shield when tanking. When you are tanking easy stuff/dps-ing you can go 2-hander for more dps. I play a sk myself so am not sure how 1 hander and 2 hander effect your slays....

As for your AC question, search some of the AC threads here. Basically shields give overcap on your base AC (which is about 1300-1400). Ac augs on shields will up this even further. AC on weapons do not count as shield AC, so wont overcap your base AC.

False. Ranger melee dps exceeded bow dps as early as +. (that's the same expansion AM3 & EQ came out. before then archery didn't even compete) When elemental bows became the fashion, any melee weapon from the elemental planes on up beat them.

Furthermore, the ranger epic 1.5/2.0 was a bow as originally concepted. The art was commissioned, the model for the weapon made. It's now on because there was UPROAR from the knowledgable ranger community over being potentially saddled with a totally useless epic since the damage could not be made competetive due to the design constraints on ranged weaponry.

Brohg is correct as my memory serves. My main during the Luclin / PoP years was a End-Game Raid level ranger and that is how I remember it.

I didn't mean to make this a "let's bitch about poor dev - design". I just didn't grasp the logic for the 2-hander pally epic. But the walk down memory lane provided the answers. Today's understanding coupled with today's game mechanics were not around when the pally 2 hander weapon progression story arc was developed. I think it may be interesting to consider allowing ac on 2 handers to work the same way ac from a shield does, although it is probably a function of coding the secondary slot or some other such thing. Or perhaps there is no need and it is enjoyed having a 2 hander for dpsing and sword / board for tanking, as it provides some variety in game play. I don't know, I am new to playing a paladin.

On the flip-side, thank you for all the replies, the information has been most helpful. If for no other reason than to get me excited about what our group can look forward to.