Justicar or Paladin?

[Kalek]

I'm a big fan of the classic Paladin archetype, a Holy warrior invoking the power of the Light to smite his enemies. I'm looking to have a similar experience in Rift so I've obviously come down to the choice of either a Justicar Cleric or a Paladin Warrior. For this character, I'm looking for mostly solo play with a bit of dungeon stuff so personal DPS along with survivability are important to me.

I'm fine with playing with a 1hander and shield, but am also more than comfortable with using a 2hander, considering that I play a Retribution Paladin in WoW. I know that warriors can block with 2handers via a Warlord talent so a Paladin/Warlord spec immediately appeals to me. However, I don't know how viable it is at max level. And while I have a lvl 30 Justicar cleric, the damage seems low and the healing seems even lower. I don't want to level all the way to cap just to find that the situation hasn't changed much.

Obviously I don't expect to have the dps output of a dedicated damage dealing soul, but I would like to be able to level with zero downtime while killing things at a moderate pace. I'd also like to be able to hop right into a dungeon to tank without changing out any gear. So I'm basically wondering, which does more damage: the Paladin or the Justicar? Which has better survivability? Which is more viable for end-game content? And just how viable is tanking with a 2hander as a Paladin? Any insight you guys could provide would help me immensely with this decision. Thanks in advance.

[forbiddenlake]

Paladin does more damage
Both are wanted endgame

Leveling in a heavy tank spec won't be fun, unless you like wet noodles. You can (and are expected to) carry around multiple roles and switch between them as necessary. So for example, on a warrior carry around a Champ/WL spec for soloing as well as your tank spec for dungeons. On Cleric for example a Druid-based build is good for soloing.

There isn't much gear swapping to be had below cap, besides your shield. And you can always buy bigger bags (for plat).

[Kalek]

I've heard from other sources that the Paladin does more damage. Obviously both are wanted for endgame.Tanks are always wanted. I've fully accepted that leveling as a tank will be relatively painful regardless of class; I'm fine with that. I already have a lvl 60 warrior so I'm fully aware of the WL/Champ spec and I know the Druid/Justicar build is powerful for cleric leveling. But maybe it's just the role player in me that wants to stick to the flavor of the particular archetype of the Light wielding Knight of Righteousness, yadda yadda. I'm probably going to give the Paladin warrior a shot. They seem to have much more build diversity than the Justicar, among other things.

[Muspel]

I know that warriors can block with 2handers via a Warlord talent so a Paladin/Warlord spec immediately appeals to me. However, I don't know how viable it is at max level.

Not viable at all, unless you drastically outgear the content.

The point of using a shield is not so that you can block (dodge, parry, and block are essentially worthless), it's for the massive amounts of armor. Without a shield, you will get wrecked.

Personally, I would say that Paladin and Justicar are the most boring tank specs in the game.

Justicar is interesting on a conceptual level-- holding aggro via healing/overhealing threat is unique and fascinating. Unfortunately, what it means in practice is that you stand there and everything automagically runs to you, without the need for much awareness or reaction on your part. (And, as you've discovered, the heals themselves are very weak, and are only useful for the threat that they generate.) This is not to say that the soul is weak, merely that the playstyle is pretty passive.

Meanwhile, Paladin is very bland. Unlike the other tanking souls, it doesn't have any kind of cool utility-- Justicar has healing threat and a battle rez, Void Knight has summons and anti-caster tools, Reaver has corruptions, Riftstalker has extreme mobility, and Arbiter has [REDACTED]. Even Warlord had some interesting tools back when it was a tank soul. But Paladin has... nothing, really. The only thing it has that's at all interesting is Life's Rapture, and that's on a long cooldown and isn't particularly fun to use. Some people like Paladin, but it's always felt kind of soulless to me. (Pun intended.)

So... I don't know which to recommend. I guess I'd say Paladin, because that way you have the option of using Void Knight as well, and Void Summon is crazy fun.

And, like forbiddenlake said, you'll really need to learn to play and use multiple roles. If your intent is to only ever play one spec, then Rift is probably not the game for you.

[Kalek]

Thanks for the info Muspel. In regards to tanking with a 2hander, I suppose it's still an option for leveling up but I'm not sure at what point it no longer becomes worth it to trade extra armor for extra weapon damage in PvE. I do know there's a Warlord/Paladin PvP that specializes in generally annoying people so at least there's that option if I'm looking for that playstyle.

I very much noticed the passive playstyle on my lowbie Justicar, hence making this post before I leveled up any further. While not having to work too hard for threat can be a good thing, not having to work at all is boring to me. Plus the damage while leveling really started to go down thanks to Mien of Leadership. But even when not using Mien, the damage doesn't go up high enough to justify losing the survivability of Mien. *sigh*

But it's still a tough decision because I already have a lvl 60 warrior. He's a Bahmi and lore wise, that race isn't as good for the Paladin path as the Mathosians. I'm starting to think my Bahmi shouldve been a Shaman Cleric and my warrior shouldve been a Mathosian Paladin. I know these little aesthetic differences shouldn't matter, but they do to me! And unfortunately, my OCD will leave me broken down on the side of the road until I can get my cadre of characters in perfect alignment. Ugh! lol

[Muspel]

Thanks for the info Muspel. In regards to tanking with a 2hander, I suppose it's still an option for leveling up but I'm not sure at what point it no longer becomes worth it to trade extra armor for extra weapon damage in PvE. I do know there's a Warlord/Paladin PvP that specializes in generally annoying people so at least there's that option if I'm looking for that playstyle.

Doing so while leveling will get you killed. (In dungeons, anyways. I suppose you could do it while questing, but you won't be using a tank spec for that anyways.)

But it's still a tough decision because I already have a lvl 60 warrior. He's a Bahmi and lore wise, that race isn't as good for the Paladin path as the Mathosians. I'm starting to think my Bahmi shouldve been a Shaman Cleric and my warrior shouldve been a Mathosian Paladin. I know these little aesthetic differences shouldn't matter, but they do to me! And unfortunately, my OCD will leave me broken down on the side of the road until I can get my cadre of characters in perfect alignment. Ugh! lol

I don't know if this helps or not, but it actually fits perfectly in lore. See, the thing about Rift's lore is that you're an Ascended. When you play a Paladin, it's not that you, yourself are a paladin-- you're channeling the soul of a specific, long-dead hero who was a paladin. The same goes for every soul. For a lot of them, you can find books in-game that talk about the NPCs, such as Nysyr, the first Inquisitor, or Durnes, the first Ranger.

So even though the first paladin was (IIRC) Amaris Mathos, Ascended from every race can channel his soul and use his power.

[Kalek]

So even though the first paladin was (IIRC) Amaris Mathos, Ascended from every race can channel his soul and use his power.

Ah ok, that clears up and ties together a few things for me. I'm probably going to stick with Mathosian for this character anyway just because it's aesthetically more iconic. But I'm rather disappointed that Rift doesn't have the option to play as a Light wielding melee dps character. For Clerics, maybe Mien of Honor could also give a damage buff so Justicars don't have to swap to being a Shaman while leveling. I really want to recreate the Retribution Paladin experience from WoW without having to log into Azeroth to do it. Maybe one day lol

[Kedon]

But I'm rather disappointed that Rift doesn't have the option to play as a Light wielding melee dps character. For Clerics, maybe Mien of Honor could also give a damage buff so Justicars don't have to swap to being a Shaman while leveling. I really want to recreate the Retribution Paladin experience from WoW without having to log into Azeroth to do it. Maybe one day lol

Well if that sort of theme is very important to you, there is the Mage's Harbinger soul. That's a melee DPS with a fair emphasis on "Light" attacks, actually something of a 50/50 split between light and lightning.

Not played WoW so can't speak to any similarities to classes in that game, though the Harbinger's very much it's own beast if my opinion.


Edit: Muspel, I think Amaris Mathos was a woman. Just thought I'd nitpick.

[Muspel]

Edit: Muspel, I think Amaris Mathos was a woman. Just thought I'd nitpick.

Ah, okay, I just looked up the book title and didn't investigate further.

[Kalek]

Well if that sort of theme is very important to you, there is the Mage's Harbinger soul. That's a melee DPS with a fair emphasis on "Light" attacks, actually something of a 50/50 split between light and lightning.

Not played WoW so can't speak to any similarities to classes in that game, though the Harbinger's very much it's own beast if my opinion.


Edit: Muspel, I think Amaris Mathos was a woman. Just thought I'd nitpick.

I have a Harbringer and definitely enjoy it, but it's not close enough to being a Paladin for my tastes.

I forgot that Clerics are getting a new soul. If the Crusader support soul will be predominantly melee based, I think that would be close enough to the playstyle I'm looking for.

[Muspel]

I forgot that Clerics are getting a new soul. If the Crusader support soul will be predominantly melee based, I think that would be close enough to the playstyle I'm looking for.

Crusader is not melee, nor does it have any life-based attacks.

[Kalek]

Crusader is not melee, nor does it have any life-based attacks.

Why the heck is it called Crusader then? That's so misleading lol

[Muspel]

Why the heck is it called Crusader then? That's so misleading lol

All of the 3.0 soul names are placeholders that might be replaced at any time if a better option comes up (in the case of Crusader, this is almost certainly going to happen).

It originally had (IIRC) life and death based attacks, but this was changed to death and water shortly after testing began for a number of reasons.

[Kalek]

I was hoping for another melee soul for the Cleric, life-based damage dealing support soul that uses 2handers. There's practically no build diversity for Justicar and Shaman. But I guess that's for another thread. I'm still holding out for a real Crusader or Templar soul, a damage dealing soul mate to the Justicar or Paladin. But since that seems so far away, in the meantime they could make tanks not so worthless outside of tanking for groups.

[Scerenis]

Arbiter has [REDACTED].

Curse you, Muspel... Got me worked up.

On topic, I personally find Justicar to be leagues less painful than paladin (warrior tanking in general feels fairly masochistic in itself to me) and kind of sticks to the holy warrior archetype more than the paladin feels it does.

I was hoping for another melee soul for the Cleric, life-based damage dealing support soul that uses 2handers. There's practically no build diversity for Justicar and Shaman. But I guess that's for another thread. I'm still holding out for a real Crusader or Templar soul, a damage dealing soul mate to the Justicar or Paladin. But since that seems so far away, in the meantime they could make tanks not so worthless outside of tanking for groups.

And more or less, Druid fits that life-based DPS/supportish soul that uses 2-handers. It's just that the life they use isn't quite the holy stuff you're looking at.