Nemic’s Mid-MidHigh Rate WoE FE Paladin Guide
Nemicdins > Paladins.

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Introduction
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Paladins are the tanks of WoE.  Period.  No other class can absorb 100% of the damage taken by 5 other people at once.  Or any people for that matter.  Your main role in FE WoE is to survive for your guild.  If you cannot, your guild will fail when facing another opposing guild.  This guide will cover what gears you will need, the ratings of gears as opposed to what’s considered “Top-tier”, how to play your class, your consumables, stats, skills, and mechanics.  And for anyone clueless, “FE” means First Edition War of Emperium, which has a build that differs greatly from “SE”, or Second Edition.

Class Tree: Novice -> Swordsman -> Crusader -> High Novice (Through Transing) -> High Swordsman -> Paladin

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Table of Contents (Ctrl+F to “::1″ without quotes to quickjump to that spot):
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::1 -> Stat Specializations
::2 -> Skill Tree (Swordsman, Crusader, Paladin)
::3 -> Equipment & Ratings
::4 -> Items
::5 -> Hotkey Bars
::6 -> Strategies
::7 -> Conclusion

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::1 Stat Specializations
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To start off, people typically want to see stats before anything when it comes to a paladin.  This section has two different builds, one for servers with the item “Gym Pass”, ID #7776.  Gym Passes are items that can be used up to 10 times, and each time your maximum weight limit increases by 200.  Because of this, paladins are able to get +2000 maximum weight limit.  Though, for servers without gym passes you will end up allocating a few points out of your dexterity into strength.  Keep in mind, for the stats listed below, all stats are base, not total.

Optimal Build (Focuses on Gym Passes)
25 Strength
– Only base str affects weight limit. You will get +30 weight limit per str, so +750.
– Having low-mid str allows your shield boomerang to not go into the miss-range.
– The miss range occurs when your total damage is less than the target’s defense.  Your attack will miss.
1 Agility
– Agility would normally be used to recast skills a few miliseconds faster, but you have berserk potions.
99 Vitality
– Your base stat, you get +1% Maximum HP per point, even from vit bonuses.
– Potions will heal you +2% more for each point into vit.
– With >= 97 vit, you can ignore all Silence, Stun, or Poison status effects.
– For every 5 vit, you get a hidden maximum hp boost.
1 Intelligence
– For our purposes, leave this at 1.
99 Dexterity
– Cast your devotion at optimal speed.
– Boost the hit rate of your shield boomerang.
– Slightly higher attack speed.
1 Luck
– Useless.  You won’t need critical hits or perfect dodge.

Casual Build (For those without Gym Passes)
33 Strength
– Only base str affects weight limit. You will get +30 weight limit per str, so +990.
– You will have higher chances to not go into the miss range vs people with defense.
– This will not happen much anyway.
1 Agility
– Agility would normally be used to recast skills a few miliseconds faster, but you have berserk potions.
99 Vitality
– Your base stat, you get +1% Maximum HP per point, even from vit bonuses.
– Potions will heal you +2% more for each point into vit.
– With >= 97 vit, you can ignore all Silence, Stun, or Poison status effects.
– For every 5 vit, you get a hidden maximum hp boost.
1 Intelligence
– For our purposes, leave this at 1.
96 Dexterity
– Cast your devotion at decent speed.
– Slightly less hit rate for shield boom, shouldn’t affect it though.
– Slightly less attack speed. (1 point maybe?)
1 Luck
– Useless.  You won’t need critical hits or perfect dodge.

That basically covers it for stats.  You can always tweak your build a bit to adjust it to your server.  For example, if your server supports @storage or @gstorage in WoE, you may go 25 str and just @storage for your potions.  For some people, going in with less materials (25str, without any/full gym passes) would be more beneficial because you can stat into dex.  Either way, both builds matter, and you should make your decision based on what you think will help you more.

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::2 Skill Tree
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As said before, FE paladins are much different from SE paladins.  This mainly occurs in the skill trees.  This skill guide follows a linear path as to what you should get, starting from High Novice.  The guide starts after transing because crusaders are limited on skills, and don’t have everything paladin has to offer.  Also, this is a paladin guide, not a crusader guide.  The guide also assumes there are no custom skills or skill tree arrangements for your server.  Please note:  This is not a leveling build, just something you follow after reaching 99/70 and using a skill resetter if your server has one.  If your server does not have one, you will need to level with this, and have somebody leech you.

From High Novice:
Basic Skill level 10.

Below there are symbols in front of each skill name.  These indicate the priority in which you use the skill:
– [PP] Passive Priority, works automatically.
– [NP] No Priority, you do not use this at all.
– [LP] Low Priority, used only in special occasions, but not often.
– [MP] Mid Priority, used frequently.
– [HP] High Priority, used as one of your main skills.

From High Swordsman: ()
[NP] Bash level 9.
– Not used in WoE, just get the skill levels so you can put points into paladin skills.
[LP] Provoke level 10.
– Used basically just for interrupting the cast of enemies who are in devotion (from another paladin), that don’t have evil druid card.  If the target has evil druid card (undead armor), provoke will not work, and the target’s cast will continue.  Does work against emergency call.  If you haven’t figured it out, the devotion skill allows its buffed targets to continue cast ininterrupted (except from provoke), even in WoE.
[LP] Magnum Break level 10.
– Used when you detect a cloaked assassin or chased walked stalker.  It’s AoE damage can knock the enemy out of their invisibility.
[MP] Endure level 10.
– Buff spell, keep this up at all times.  You’re not using it for the “No flinch” effect, because that doesn’t work in WoE.  Its real use is the +10 magic defense that transfers through Devotion.
[PP] Increase Recuperative Power level 10.
– +100% effectiveness of healing items.

From Paladin:
[PP] Faith level 10.
– +2000 maximum hp is always nice, and the 50% holy resist helps when you’re wearing evil druid card.
[PP] Riding level 1.
– It’s main use is the +1000 Maximum Weight Capacity, but the moving speed allows you to get max speed by using Authoritative Badges.  Be sure to acquire your peco peco after gaining this skill.
[PP] Cavalier Mastery level 5.
– The regained attack speed lost from your riding skill helps reduce sprite delay after casting skills, allowing you to cast devotion again near instantly after casting it once.
[NP] Holy Cross level 6.
– Horrible damage.
[NP] Grand Cross level 4.
– Horrible damage.
[MP] Auto Guard level 10.
– This is your main shield buff, which gives a 30% chance to dodge any physical attack INCLUDING asura strike.  It does transfer through devotion, buffing your targets as well.  Level 10 is considered a priority due to the 0.1 second delay, as opposed to 0.2+ from lower levels.  This requires a shield to activate.
[NP] Shield Charge level 3.
– There is no knockback in WoE, so this skill has no effect, though the stun could come in handy if your target has low vit.  You’re better off saving the space on your hotkey bar though.
[HP] Shield Boomerang level 5.
– Your main cast-break skill.  If you see somebody casting anything, cast shield boom on them.  This will break their cast in WoE, unless they have devotion on themselves.  If they do, that’s when you use provoke, which will only work against targets who do not wear evil druid armor.
[MP] Reflect Shield level 10.
– Your second shield buff, with an effect just as good as auto guard.  It reflects 40% of all damage taken from physical damage, and transfers with devotion.  This requires a shield to activate.
[HP] Devotion level 5.
– Your skill.  This is the one thing you must keep on every designated target.  You cast this on up to five targets (that must be in your party) which allows you to take 100% of their damage, as well as give them your paladin buffs (endure, auto guard, shield reflect, defender).  Pay close attention to if one of your targets is dispelled.  If this happens, you need to quickly recast.  Note that if one of your targets gets hit while you are casting a skill, your skill will be interrupted, but your targets’ skills will not be.  Do your best to keep devo on your targets, even during the rushes of War of Emperium when it counts the most.  If you are frozen or stone cursed with devotion on at least one target, if one of your targets takes damage from anything, you will be unfrozen or uncursed.
[MP] Defender level 5.
– Defender is both a blessing and a curse.  When activated, you take 80% less damage from ranged attacks (not magic), but your movement speed is reduced to 1/3.  This also transfers through devotion.  At level 5, your and your targets’ attack speed will not be reduced.  This requires a shield to activate.
[HP] Hiding level 1. (From a smokie carded accessory)
– In contrast to popular belief, not all champs are going to tickle.  Some will hurt.  Don’t take the chance unless you know this particular champ won’t kill you.  As soon as you see that cast go off on you for asura strike, (or any other high damaging move), you better hide it.

From this point, you should have all of your necessary skills, and have 5 skill points left over.  That’s enough to max out 1 skill out of 3 choices.  The 3 skills you have to choose from are:
Pressure, Sacrifice, and Shield Chain.
I honestly recommend getting Pressure out of this.  In WoE pressure can help you more than sacrifice, do to the fact that you will do 800 damage sacrifices to fully geared players.  If you do the math, 2000 fixed unavoidable (except with hide) damage as well as 40% of the target’s current SP is greater than 800.  Though in pvp, you may want to reset and swap pressure for Sacrifice, since it can do higher damage there.  Your point in WoE isn’t to do damage, so keep that in mind.  If you have your devotions up on your target, and if you’re sitting in bragi, then you can help out instead of just potting by stealing some sp from magic-based classes or champions who rely on it.

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::3 Equipment & Ratings
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Gears are a very controversial thing.  Again, I will remind you this is war of emperium based, and not mvp or pvp.  Though pvp and woe are very similar typically.  In either case, I will give you the default equipment used in war of emperium, as well as equips you are expected to swap to when needed.  Most of these equips are “Renewal” items, available after RO’s Renewal Updates.  Keep in mind, I will not be listing refinements.  This is to be based on your own judgement.  Overupgrade items if they’re easy to get, and only upgrade mvp items if you have many.  Card prefixes and suffixes are marked with a [] to prevent confusion with equipment names.

Optimal Default Gears:
Top Headgear: Victorious Coronet [0]
– The reason for this being over feather beret is simple.  You’re focusing on tanking out other peoples’ damage, not your own.  You have a cranial and raydric, that’s about all you need. 15% Maximum HP will help you more than 10% reduction.  Think of it this way, if you have 10k health and if you’re hit for 10k (normally), with a headgear reduction gear, you would be hit for 9k, having 1000 hp left over.  Now, if you have victorious coronet on, you would have 11500 health, and have 1500 left over after the damage.  In comparison, VC is 50% better than fberet, and even more so than non-refineable head reducs such as poopoo hat, beret, or angeling hat.
Mid Headgear: [Insomniac] Sunglasses [1] (Nightmare Card)
– Sleep protection should be on your list, even if it cancels out when your devo’d targets are hit.  If you’re in a situation where you’re asleep, and a scholar dispells all of your devo’d targets, you’re going to just sit there until the duration is over (because of your low int), or wait for a status recovery from a priest, or wait for an idiot to hit you.
Low Headgear: Gentleman’s Pipe [0]
– This gives you 2% resistance from demi-humans, which is better than iron cain’s 1 defense.
Armor: [Deadly] Assaulter Plate [1] (Evil Druid Card)
– Don’t be scared of people using turn undead on you, or healing you.  Both skills will be weak.  Go with the status protection, and swap when necessary.  Fire spells won’t kill you anyway.  Bring along a fire resist potion if you’re worried about assassins with fire enchant.
Weapon: [Quadruple Dexterous] Mace [4] (4x Drops Card)
– The reason for the use of maces is because maces don’t break, period.  Not even without fcp.  They still strip, however.  Keep dex mace on priority over vital mace because of the quicker cast time for devo.
Shield: [Cranial] Valkyrja’s Shield [1] (Thara Frog Card)
– 30% resistance to demi-human, as well as 20% fire, water, undead, and shadow resistance, AND 5 magic defense.  Enough said.
Garment: [Immune] Captain’s Manteau [1] (Raydric Card)
– Raydric instead of noxious, because paladins have the defender skill.
Shoes: Battle Greaves [of Wanderer] [1] (Green Ferus Card)
Left Accessory: [Nimble] Orlean’s Gloves [1] (Zerom Card)
Right Accessory: [Hiding] Diablos Ring [1] (Smokie Card)

Optimal Swap Gears:
Mid Headgear: Sunglasses [of True Sight] (Maya Purple Card [MVP CARD])
– Use to see hidden enemies, otherwise use boxes of sunlights if available.
Armor: Assaulter Plate [of Ares] (Peco Peco Card)
– Equip after devotion to increase maximum hp by 10%.  Switch back if you’re about to be frozen or stone cursed (not after though).
Weapon: [Quadruple Vital] Mace [4] (4x Fabre Card)
– Equip after devotion to get +4 vitality, increasing hp, and potion recovery effects by a bit.

If you cannot get the sets mentioned above, here are other gear options based on maximum hp output.  Each set gets progressively worse, where the “Silk robe, wool tidal” set is classified as “Standard Tier” gear.  Note: All sets include 1 diablo ring for the +100 hp, and are just estimates on your hp using pecopeco card, victorious coronet, and quad vital mace (excluding goibne set).  With a 100vit apple of idun, you’ll have around 40k hp total if you have around 27000 hp.  Remember, your hp will be 10% lower when you swap back to evil druid.
28750 HP with full bg set
28500 HP with bg armor, diablo boots/mant
28500 HP with full diablo set
27800 HP with diablo armor, wool tidal
27500 HP with silk robe, wool tidal
25700 HP with goibne set

Also note, full bg set is better because of the 0 weight on each item, giving the ability for extra pots and mats.  The reason silk robe is listed over other armors is the same reason, because of weight limit.  You don’t need much defense anyway, anything around 35 will be sufficient enough.  If sonic blow one shots you, you’re doing something wrong.  Asura, on the other hand, bypasses defense anyway.

Top Headgear Priority:
Victorious Coronet
Feather Beret
Angeling Hat
Beret/Poopoo Hat (Even priority)
Kafra Doll Hats [1]

That basically covers it for gears.  As you can see, paladin is pretty gear reliant, and has pretty high hp output, for a reason.  Gear swapping may be a bit difficult, but if you can master battle mode, it shouldn’t be a problem.  Just play a few WoEs as a “Paladin in training” to get used to it.  People who claim “Full reducs are much better” have a good arguement, but if you gear swap at the right moments, this build is 200% more effective than the traditional 22k-23k hp paladin.

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::4 Items
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As a paladin, your weight limit must be sufficient enough to support the gazillion items you have in your inventory.  Below are the items and materials you will need, with the same priority system  as your skills, so you get an idea how many to bring with you:
(Note, .. after a priority means use the higher priority item, if available, over the lower priority item)

~Potions
[LP] Yggdrasil Berry
– Use only if your server supports it in WoE.  If it does, don’t bring too many, rely mainly on your other pots.
[HP].. Ranked Creator’s Condensed White Potion
– Best pot, heals the most.
[MP].. Mastela Fruit
– Very good potion to use, it’s lightweight, and heals much.
[MP].. Condensed White Potion
– Standard potion to use.
[LP].. White Potion
– Horrible, below mediocre potion.  Heals hardly any, and weighs a ton.
[LP] Grape Juice
– Used mainly for sp, because blue potions weight much.

~Materials
[LP] Berserk Potion
– Bring a few for attack speed.
[MP] Box of Gloom
– +3 dex and +3 agility, helps before casting devo.
[MP] Box of Sunlight
– Bring a few of these unless you have maya purple.
[MP] Authoritative Badges
– Bring a bunch, you’ll want maximum movement speed.
–optional
[LP] Fire Resist Potion
– Useful against wizards with salamander card, etc.
[LP] Water Resist Potion
– Useful against storm gust.
[LP] Thunder Resist Potion
– Mainly used against wind katar/enchant assassins.

~Foods
[LP] Fruit Mix (+3 dex food)
[LP] Clam Soup (+3 vit food)
[LP] Immortal Stew (+10 vit food)

~Misc
[LP] Butterfly Wing
– Use it to quick-warp out of WoE if you win or need to switch castles (alternative to logging out).

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::5 Hotkey Bars
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There are two basic ways to go here, battle mode, or normal mode.  If you haven’t learned battle mode, you should.  It really helps.  This section has guides for both types of players who do and do not use bm.  Keep in mind, this is a guide, and I will not be giving you a preset hotkey setup.  The basic idea I will give you is to follow what priority the skills/items have, and keep them near where you reach the most (typically F1-F3 for normal and q-r,a-f,z-v for battle mode).  Low priority items and skills should naturally appear on the areas where your fingers are not defaulted to be.

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::6 Strategies
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The FE strategy is simple, although the gears and items are not.

For offensive rushes:
Rebuff your shield skills upon getting to pre-emp room, and be sure to devotion your targets as soon as you rush into the emp.  I recommend waiting for your prof to put down a land protector before your guild rushes in.  As soon as you’re in the emp, however, try to get to a spot where nobody can hit you.  From here, quickly use devotion on your targets.  The best way to do this is to have your (max of 5) people in your friends’ list.  This way, you can cast devotion and click on their name to activate it.  Typically if you have a low-population guild, your devotion priority (for offensive) is as follows:  Emp breakers, professors, creators, priests, pro players.  The reason bad players aren’t included is because they’re going to get you killed, and ruin your strategy.  Not worth it.  Use your dex mats before rushing, and pop a water resist potion, and maybe a box of sunlight.  +10 vit food comes in handy here, as well as the last few minutes of WoE.  Keep defender off unless you’re not moving.  You will typically be taking more damage on rushes than defensive, so it’s okay to get trigger happy on your pot keys, provided you have the potions for it.

For defensive tanking:
Be sure to keep your buffs and devo up at all times.  Defender is good to keep up at this time, unless your party says otherwise.  Occasionally throw a box of sunlight to scout the area, and always use one when you know an enemy is rushing.  Keep a good eye on your hp, that’s basically it.  You want to magnum break any cloakers/chase walkers you see, if they run past you.  Otherwise ignore them.  For other skill usage, refer to the skill section for in-depth info.

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::7 Conclusion
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I made this guide for the purpose of promoting my class, and helping out those who don’t know the class very well.  Paladin can be a fun class, as well as easy, but it’s an important class so you can’t screw up your methods.  If you do, your party will suffer.  And because this guide is so huge, I will give credit to whoever deserves it.

Thanks to:
– Me: John Zierhut, for taking the time to make this guide.
– Ratemyserver.net for the item and skill database.
– Gravity, and Lee Myoungjin, the owner.
– Railgun Templars, the guild with a great paladin.

You may not copy or distribute this guide without my permission.  Thanks.

Filed under: Build (Stats/Skills), Character Guides, WoE