Paladin Chronicle by Gixander Part III

Spells and Abilities
Between 7 and 9, you only get one new spell. No new abilities are granted at this point, either. However, the spell in question can be very useful: Banish. You get Banish at level 7, and you should start using it immediately. As much as possible, try to keep this capped out (Divine Magic). There are a few reasons why you would want to keep your Divine magic skill capped. The first reason is that they are very useful against undead. You get Banish II at 34, but Divine is most important because of Flash. For those of you with higher level jobs, you know that Flash is a Paladin's best friend. And it's also part of the Divine Magic family, so it's effectiveness (and therefore it's enmity generation) is based off your Divine skill.

Here's a trick that you can do if you have a power-leveler, and it works especially well if you have a Red Mage as such. My friend's character is a 75 Red Mage, and the two of us got in a party at 29 and headed into Qufim. I know, this means I won't get any experience, but you can still get the skill ups. I attacked everything with nothing but Banish, my friend keeping a constant Refresh on me. With the fact that Banish is a 15-second recast timer, by the time that you have casted the spell, you will have been refreshed for all of the MP you used to cast Banish. If you can do this, it will keep your skills maxed. From what I've heard, this early stage is the only part of Divine magic that will be hard. After you get Flash, you'll be using that pretty much every battle, which will keep it leveled without a problem.

Weaponry
Swords

By now, you should have enough in your pocket to drop on a Xiphos. Out of the two swords in this level range, I wouldn't suggest trying to obtain a Spatha (you might still have the one you received from the first quest, A Squire's Test, of the chain which flags Paladin). with the Royal Footman's Sword one level away at 10, there's no reason why you should go after the Spatha. However, it is entirely possible to keep using your level 1 sword. In a way, I would suggest using this if you find yourself leveling ahead of your cap. You'll do less damage and therefore require more hits, which can turn into more skill ups. As long as you can keep yourself alive, feel free to do this.

Daggers

At early levels, Blind can save your life more often than you think. To skill up faster, you should keep going after Sheep, and Blind may help block some of the bad things the Sheep can throw at you. At this point you can move up to take on Crabs at the lake in West Ronfaure, whose high defense can make battles long and drown out. Inflicting Blindness on them can help increase your survivability.

Polearms

Getting polearms would be better for us if Paladins didn't have such horrible skill in them. With a lower skill cap comes a lower amount of attack dealt, so having the level 7 Gimlet Spear helps. With an enchantment of Attack+3, this helps increase the damage output by a lot in the early levels. If you want to level Polearm, find someone with Woodworking 21+. The recipe can be found at Gimlet Spear.

Shields
I personally equipped the Shell Shield due to the VIT+1. Unfortunately, I started to notice a drop in Shield blocking, which of course is due to the AGI-2. Shields are good for Paladin, especially with "Shield Mastery" as a later job trait. What I found out was best for Paladin is to get one of the size 1 shields (the Aspis at level 9 or the Marine Shield from level 1 are both type 1) early on, and stay with them. Size 1 shields block more often but block less damage. As the size goes up, they block less often but for more damage. My suggested thinking is to have a lower size shield at the beginning, then gradually shift toward the higher level shield by endgame.

Shell and Maple Shields are both size 2, so they still block quite a bit of damage quite a bit of the time. Nothing wrong with grabbing one of those.

Head
You only get one new headpiece, the Leather Bandana (DEF: 3). Get it at the Auction House or the Armorer.

Body
The only thing I hate about tunics is "Cannot Equip Headgear". At this low level, you could sort of start gear swapping. Need some quick MP recovery? Swap in the Mana Tunic, use the Enchantment, and then switch back to the Leather Bandana and Leather Vest. Doable, but you'll be moving so fast through this section that you won't have time to worry about recovering MP from a Mana Tunic.

Hands
Between the Leather Gloves and the Mitts, you should notice only one difference in the statistics: the Level. Leather Gloves are a front-line equipment (front-line being any job being used as damage dealing without magic, tanking, or just doing damage by standing against the monster). Mitts are for back-line, which is commonly attributed only to "mages". While support roles such as Corsair or Bard will get a mix of the two, as a Paladin we are concerned with front-line. However, since Paladin can equip both, if you find yourself short on gil for the Gloves but can buy the Mitts, feel free to do so.

Rings
With only one choice for your Rings, the Brass Ring (Level 7, HP+2, MP-2), I'm not certain anyone should think about switching. Plus, at level 10 when you've started working towards your tanking goals, you are going to want to pick up Safeguard Rings. No real reason to switch here, unless you are a Tarutaru and need 4 more HP instead of 4 MP. Up to you.

Legs
Similar to the handgear above, your two choices are basically front-line versus back-line equipment. Front-line, which of course is where the tank should be, demands the higher defense earlier. So, the Leather set is the way to go. Basically, I would only grab the Slacks if you didn't have the money for the Leather set. Sometimes, on the AH, you can find the back-line items at a cheaper price than the front-line items. Drawback is, of course, that you have to wait a level or two to equip them.

Feet
This is another one of the main slots (Head, Body, Hands, Legs, and Feet) of a set that gets front-line and back-line equipment. Take whichever comes cheaper for you if you find money is a concern.

Locationx3
Still in West Ronfaure, we are about to find our way out into the lovely La Theine Plateau. While levels 8 and 9 can be experience in the Plateau, I would suggest being very careful. I continued leveling in West Ronfaure, killing Crabs and Gobs at the lake in West Ronfaure

Level 7
After you come back out of town looking nice in your Leather Set (and anything else you may have picked up), it's time to get back to work. Head down towards the outpost (halfway down the map on the left, or west, side). You can set your home point here and use it as a base of operations. Another possible location to use as a base of operations would be the home point by the zone point between Ronfaure and the Plateau. If you feel you can make it down to the zone home point, go for it. It's a much more viable location from which to kill things.

At this level, you can easily start fending off gobs and some of the crabs. Be careful of the cabs since, as Paladins like you, they have quite a bit of vitality about them. You get more skill ups on Crabs than other monsters due to the increase defense. That is always nice, since you'll want to get your statistics as maxed out as possible before entering the dunes. <br.

You might ask why. Every so often there are breaking points (10 when you head to dunes, 20 to Qufim, 25 to Jungles, 32 to Crawlers, etc.) at which to attempt to cap out your skills. Between 7 and 9 is a good place to try to cap them out.

Level 8
This is the same old thing as level 7. Nothing new except focusing on keeping those skills maxed. Crabs, Gobs, and some of the sheep down near the Plateau are your best bet.

Level 9
In an attempt to make level 9 seem to go by as quick as possible, one thing you can do is to cap out your skills. Once that is complete, feel free to rapidly kill Easy Prey and Decent Challenges (you may have to zone into the Plateau in order to defeat some rabbits or saplings for Decent Challenges).

And once again, ding to 10 and we're onto the next section of the guide.