D&D Online

Hey, short history: I played DDO a few years back up to about level 5 or so, which was enough to have me buy WF, monk, several adventure packs, veteran status, and 32 point builds. Took a long hiatus, and with the christmas specials returned, buying both expansions plus the starter pack after playing for a week again. I've since created toons on all the servers, to feel them out, and to experiment with builds. However, this leads to a two-fold conundrum. On my current toon on Ghallanda, I ate my greater tome of heroic learning on a build where I focused on summons (augment summoning, harper tree +4), and am sitting on Cl3/Ftr1/Pal1 right now...and, newbie that I am, I realized that when I want to actually play with other people, odds are my hirelings will not even get into play, and the bonus to summons is limited to my monster summons, instead of leading a pack of superpowered minions into battle (starter pack permanent hire, regular hire, plus summon spell). So, I realized I might be better off rolling pure paladin, and just going vanguard/defender for good survivability, soloability, and party utility, but I realized that I'd either have to buy a +3/+5 lesser heart of wood, or a new greater tome of heroic learning if I wanted to retain that bonus (in case I decided to roll a new toon). So far, I have chosen not to roll iconics (the rogue, cleric, and warrior iconics came with the expansions)...I'd prefer to level at least one character up to those levels the regular way in order to learn how to play at those levels. So, damage control. What would be the suggested course of action? 1. Keep leveling as cleric, and TR? (not sure I want that expectation of being the group's healer on me) 2. Bite the bullet, and buy that Heart to LR, or that tome for a new toon? 3. reroll a new toon, and do without the XP bonus? 4. go to a different server? 5. any suggestions for a paladin build that will be able to work with my current cleric and fighter levels, without being completely crippled, until I can TR him? Something like Pal 15/Cl3/Ftr2, Pal 16/Cl3/Ftr1, or whatever makes sense? I haven't used my lesser heart, yet, so I can at least reroll without changing my current classes. If possible, and if reasonably good builds exist for 5., I'd love to hear them. I'd also prefer a melee build over a caster build. Thanks for any help.