I have a problem...

[Le0n]

I'm having some trouble being a paladin...I'm not a very good one, I don't heal people enough...using the F series keys to target is a bit difficult for me...I think I just need to get used to my keys...I dunno what it is...what does it take to be a good paladin?

[Le0n]

I'm only asking for a few pointers...I have to heal everyone if there's no whm, right? And I have to make sure to take all the damage...and cast protect when we're mageless...I'd like to know what to do...I let 2 whms die...I feel so shitty...

[Susano]

If you are still lvl 7, I would suggest solo'n till at least 10. Pre lvl 10 you don't have much ability to tank since you don't have provoke.

After lvl 10, you and warriors should share the tanking responsibilities.....treat leveling PLD like you treateed leveling war till about lvl 20.

By 20 you should ahve the mana needed to cast enough cures to make sure the mob never leaves you. Mix cures with constant provoking and you should be able to hold the agro very well letting the whm focus on healing just you. Make sure you use a shield since it is one of our A skills, you will block many attacks and you will want to shield bash to also add to hate or to stop spells/specials.

I use one macro for healing pt members:

/ma "Cure II" <stpc>

this will allow you to choose between player characters on who to heal......if the mob is hiting someone else, throw a heal on them so the mob will focus on you.

As you level more, you will learn more and become more and more confident in your ability to hold agro. Hope you start loving PLD

[Aeynrieus]

Originally posted by Le0n
I'm only asking for a few pointers...I have to heal everyone if there's not whm, right? And I have to make sure to take all the damage...and cast protect when we're mageless...I'd like to know what to do...I let 2 whms die...I feel so shitty...

Is your avatar level correct? Are you still a 7PLD/3WAR as of this post? If so, then don't even worry about it. In fact, you'd probably be better off soloing at that low of a level. Solo until you're about level 10, then try to find a group.

Also, a Paladin should never, ever be the primary healer for a group. You're a backup healer, at BEST. Your cures will mainly be used for aggro control, not for keeping your party alive. You keep your party alive by keeping aggro on you. Your party keeps you alive by healing you and killing the monster.

I'm a little confused about what you think a Paladin's role is. In your first post you comment that you don't heal enough, but is this because you're trying to be the primary healer? Then in your second post you lament that you have let two whm die, which is an aggro control problem (and not one that is necessarily your fault).

As I already stated, the Paladin is the meatshield. Use Provoke every 30 seconds. Use cures occasionally when the blm nukes too much, or your THF does a Sneak Attack + Fast Blade, or if you're particularly taking a beating. Remember that you cures create hate, so make use of them.

Now, as far as healing people goes, you should have macros set up for that kind of thing. I, in particular, like to use the CTRL set for weapons, TP report, skillchain info, voke notices, mob notices, etc. Setup the ALT row with a cure macro for every party member. If you look at the party list, you'll see each member's name listed. There is a tag (using HTML speak here ) for each party member. You are always <p0> because your name always appears on top. The other members are <p1> - <p5>. P1 is the party member listed under you, P2 is the party member listed under him/her and so on down the list. Create six cure macros for each party member.

Here is an example macro:

Name: C1P0 (Cure 1 Party Member 0 [you])

Line1: /p <Cure> <p0>
Line2: /ma Cure <p0>
Line3: /wait 3
Line4: /echo Cure Ready

Let's walk through it line by line. Line #1 is party text which tells your party that you are casting Cure on <p0>. Note that where ever you use <p0> - <p5> it will replace the tag with the person's name. This line is optional and I wouldn't use it personally because each Cure creates three lines of spam anyway and by the time your party members read it they'll have already been cured. Still, a lot of people have party text for their heal macros, so it's entirely up to you. Line #2 is the line that actually casts the spell. The /ma command is the magic command. After that you list the name of the spell you want to cast. If the spell is only one word, you can just type it in. If the spell is two or more words, you need to surround it in quotation marks. Line #3 and 4 are also optional, but some people use them, so I've listed them here. There are a few seconds delay between the point when you cast the spell and the point when it's ready again. Line #3 will tell the system to wait three seconds and then it will move on to line #4, which uses the /echo command to tell you Cure is once again ready for casting. The /echo command displays text in yellow (the same color that experience points is listed in) that only you can see. This helps to eliminate unnecessary spam for your other party members, since they don't care when you can cast the spell, just that you do when it's needed.

I hope some of that has helped.

[Le0n]

Thank you, and I'm lvl 11 now

[Le0n]

At first I was partying with no whms...then later we had 2 whms, and we got aggroed...I couldn't hold hate, so they died trying to heal the rest of the party...this was in valkrum dunes Goblin leecher aggroed...i tried using invincible...I told everyone to zone too...but yeah...they kept on attacking and stuff....and they died...thanks you 2 have been a great help

[Susano]

You need to have a place on the hate list for invincible to grab all the hate. If you have not engaged the mob, invincible will not make them lock on you. Smacking the mob once and then using invincible will even grab agro off of benediction (whm 2 hour).