How useless is a Bard with a Paladin sub anyways?

[Riktan]

Right now I'm going the pld/war path... but starting to have some second thoughts. I really enjoy tanking and all, but I keep hearing over and over just how little love we paladins get post 60. And even beyond that, I'm starting to notice that I enjoy the support part far more than the fighting part. So, I started thinking, guess it's the old table top rpg fanatic deep inside me, wouldn't it be fun to do bard/paladin!

Yeah yeah, I know, I'll be gimp. But what I'm wondering is how worthless I'll be. On the one hand I will have some heals, just at the effectivness of a blind/deaf/galkan with all that -mp/+hp bling on, but on the other hand... it'd be kinda cool. A little extra defense for bcnm's, a little extra healing on the side, for whenever that get's useful, and above all, the satisfaction of knowing that I'm an elvaan pld/brd.
So what do you think? or ?

[Blindside]

one thing

The only downside I could see... Bards can't use shields.

So the Paly Shield Bash would be useless... =(

[Rekiem]

You hardly have any use for the Defense Bonus of the Paladin and it grant so little MP that you could probably not even be able to help the main healer. Theres also no offensive bonus with Paladin.. Long story short; you might as well no sub anything :p

[Riktan]

I know that lacking a whm sub, I'm essentially giving up half... well maybe not half, but perhaps a quarter of the normal bard equation. But my origional thought was that the defensive boosts would give the bard more staying power without sacrificing all healing magic. It's all probably a moot point anyways, just me trying to justify having played through to paladin with nothing to show for it (if I go bard/whm I'll have wasted my time), still, I'd think there was some benefit.

I guess it all depends on how much hate bard's generate, is extra staying power in the least useful? Even if it's only in bcnm fights It'd give me something to hold onto while the party invites work their way through the brd/whm of the world.

[Rekiem]

From my experience, Bard seems to hardly generate any hate unless you chain heal. I think songs create some sort of hate, but very little. Other than that, I only get attacked when theres a link that I turned asleep and it just woke up. I don't get attacked very often, even if Im attacking the monster and casting offensive songs on it.

[Wafflesrevenge]

its not a waste!!

but its not a waste of time. You CAN go back to pld/war whenever you want to right? I guess if you are in a rush to get level 70 and be like "oh I'm uber 1337 oh oh look at me!" then maybe you are losing. But if that is why you are playing maybe you should go buy FFX-2 or something because its not about the destination its about the trip man

Honestly I got thf 16 and was like ahhh nah and level rdm up to 22 and blm up to 10 and heck I still like going back to thf and cannot say that was a waste of time at all.

just my 2 cents

[Wafflesrevenge]

its not a waste!!

OOPS DOUBLE POSTING!!

[Niland]

stay pala =)

[subjectivist]

I'd say BRD/WHM or RDM for leveling and BRD/PAL for BCNM, because I know many bards sub warrior for BCNM so they are less likely to die.

[Riktan]

Thanks for the response. I'm not quite sure how I'll do it yet, and I know it's going to be a pain, but someday somehow I'll be a brd/pld :spin:

and before anyone smacks me with the 2x4 for running gimp , I'll be a lvling whm up after I get to 35 pld. Sure I'll be a bit back compared to some of my buds, and sure I won't have a heck of a lot to show (in the way of levels at least) for my efforts... but I'll be able to pull the brd/pld when I need it!

It may not be good for parties, it may even be crap for bcnm battles, but I figure it's not any harder to get too than drg/sam

And what the heck, games are meant to be fun, I'll go the interesting route against the cookie cutter route anyday :p