paladin is very strong but th can own him sometrick a lethal and he is down anyway this is offtopic.coming back in topic in oly u have to use ur m atk casting all debuff that u have,silence as first (for mage ofc...)
between these two i vote for 30x coz 7x is a wasting of time too much time needed to reach good level and equipment,btw 30x is too high too i would prefer a mid rate as 10-15x ,less time to lvl up than a mid rate,less noob than a high rate
a think a good spot to start is dragon valley,i placed a th and a pp untile lv 62-63 the place is very big so few ppl could discover u after that u can choose between fg or blazing as other ppl suggested