Play what's fun! There's plenty to do and learn and I think you'll find rewarding play styles for any class, especially the ones discussed (straight up melee classes have a little less optionality)
There are so many more important AA than 2H Bash ability for Paladin. Divine Stun is great for interrupting spell casters, same with the spell Quellious Word of Tranquility. Maybe around 150+ AA 2h Bash starts becoming worth the expenditure but it won't really be until then.
I really wanted Slay Undead first, but you know, gating Eoms in VT are quite the bundle of joy aren't they http://lucy.alkabor.com/spell_2190.html - Level 68, #winning
Depends if ur in vex thal. Soloing a dwarf pally to 60, should be plenty of work already. Wont have to worry about AAs for some time.
Either Bard or Beast is probably good to pursue if solo player. I'd think about the perspective of how when you do role into a group it will probably be with one or two players playing more than one toon you can really add a lot to the session. Often I'll bd slogging away with my trio and see someone LFG solo , a bard coming along to all of a sudden chain pull & bump up haste DPS or a beast to buff with their handy buffs & spells and add IMO a LOT of melee DPS. SIngle players can really help an XP group get rolling. Nothing again pally's but a solo pally rolling into an ongoing XP group doesn't add that same boost.
What is a beastlord's dps compared to a bard's? They get kick, and a higher riposte skill (which only comes into play when tanking, but would also mean getting stunned *unless it's an ogre bst - so you gain riposte dps, but lose dps from stuns), but otherwise their offensive skills have the same caps (post-50) if I'm not mistaken?
a) don’t worry about Haynar, he is actually a dev that is not let out of his closet b) Overking Bum does not approve of your name since all of the economy sits in my bank c) bst > bard, cause all bards are good for is autofollowing with mana songs. Only crappy people play them like Faults and Spaide.
Have to look at the whole equation- bst by them self is meh but they have a pet and together they form Captain Planet
Soloing a paladin is doable, but that is a long lonely road to 60 compared to a beastlord or bard. Beastlord dps here is pretty good when adding in the pet. When soloing they can share tanking with the pet, and act as the slower/healer too. Very versatile. Bard soloing is doable without swarm. Early on some fear kiting works decent. Fear + dots also isn't bad. Charm soloing has options as well. Best thing about bard would be the ability to join a 3 box and pull plus Mana song. Any group would take that with the exp bonus.
Little rusty here, but as an AK bard with some PoTime gear, the only time I would melee for DPS was when in a tight spot that didn't allow me to run. Even then, it was never straight melee dps, it was always a brass instrument in hand for max DS (which is considerable) and something charmed nearby to add just a little more dps to the fight. I typically had a pocket druid for heals. Fun alternative to running in circles.
I can with some experience on the issue say that yes, bard melee is a real thing. It also feels way more impressive if you've never played a real melee class at high levels! Also, bard & wizard duo is a wild combo. It forces you to get good at rotating charm & mezz on ugly pulls, using mezz to interrupt caster mobs (awesome skill to have for trash mob gaters in VT), and wizard damage helps you burn down bad pulls to manageable levels. And evac. And teleporting & selo's is the only way to travel. Wait, why did I roll an SK this time?? *also, by bard/wiz duo and meleeing as a bard, I meant I could wreck older content like Sebilis and Velious zones, and get by melee/tanking in tier 1 Pop/Ssra mines/etc as a two box. Tanking as a bard is far more accurate to say than melee dps'ing as a bard. The melee damage is light years better than caster melee damage, but it pales in comparison to monk/rogue/ranger/beast dps. The class is really about knowing how to use your entire bag of tricks, staying on your toes, and keeping an eye on what you're fighting as well as potential adds (and having a plan for dealing with them).
Bards are awesome and I played pretty exclusively as a Bard until about level 50 where bard dps tops out and doesn't really give you much more utility out of a group. I then also started up a Beastlord, Cleric, Druid combo until the early 30's where I could drop the druid and add the bard back in. BST are great tanks, can take damage, can slow reliably and can buff. Honestly I wish I had started with the BST, it would of made my life much easier. If you want solo over boxing I would highly recommend the Beastlord over the Bard.
Beastlords are also great as first characters because they have cheap spells, and their pets can tank early on when gear may be scarce.
Okay, you were right, I don't like the client for this server, no mouse scroll and it's inexplicably choppy, with an inconsistent framerate that I just can't figure out. Even in simple areas like Kaladim my FPS drops into the teens for seemingly no reason. Is there no other client to play Al'Kabor with? I really like this server, am enjoying my time on it, but this client is hard to play with being that I'm used to Titanium.
Yeah, this client is fantastic. As for framerate you need to either play on a Mac (as intended) or run a framerate limiter to keep it steady.
The PC client is from Feb 2002. At that time it used dx8 and only ran fullscreen. You likely need dgvoodoo2 and to install the v3.4 updates to run windowed better. Still no mouse scroll wheel support.
p99 client is closer to the first classic EQLive progression servers (2006 when The Combine/Sleeper came out) than to the classic Velious era (2001) I'm surprised they haven't re-enabled the Marketplace button as a way of getting 'donations'