So one of the things I really love as a Paladin is the whole notion of being a knight engaged in brutal combat, holding back the enemy from my softer (but more potent) counterparts.

I’ve also posted previously about my attempts at balancing my gear being full defensive (turtle) and damage dealing.

I thought I had a pretty decent set up.  I’ve focused on +attack gear, with decent defense, and eating food that primarily improves my accuracy.  Using this strategy I’ve been able keep hate with a minimal amount of healing (MP lasts longer), and continue building enmity through damage (better hate management).  The added bonus is that I’m actually contributing to making the fight go faster (moar XP!).

Then there was last night.  We decided to go to Kuftal Tunnel and attack Robber Crabs — which were checking at low IT.  I had enough defense to survive, but at times I was using my Cures as much for survival as I was for hate build up.  We weren’t doing enough damage, so TP build up was slow.  That in turn didn’t allow us to set up our Skillchain + Magic Burst very often, nor did it allow our Dancer to be able to heal much.  All this means fights lasted far too long, and XP was slow, and there was more downtime.

There wasn’t much to do about this camp — the simple fact was that our party wasn’t optimal.  Although we had PLD, SAM, and WAR on the frontline.  DNC and COR in the support positions.  This left our backline alittle anemic — the mighty Flick was covering the entire backline with his SCH.  It’s not a bad set up at all — but we shouldn’t have been in Kuftal Tunnel.

So we decided to move along and tackle Lizards in Kuftal Tunnel.  Suddenly we’re doing plenty of damage, but so are the Lizards — to the tune of 140-200 damage a strike.  TP attacks were in the 500 damage range.  In short I was getting torn through like wet paper bag and turned into a MP sponge.

So lessons (re-)learned.  I’ve really got to start carrying around a full turtle set up as well as my damage dealing gear.  If I had, the higher defense could have made the crabs slightly less edgy, but would have definitely made the lizards far more doable.