Paladin Concern Summary

[nobbie]

Clicky!

I will continue to bump this for a few weeks. My apologies to those of you who will get tired of seeing this
EDIT: If, by some strange chance, you delete this post as you did on the general boards, you are sending a signal to paladin players every where to , as the vernacular is used, go screw yourselves.

Paladins, brothers and sisters, copy this first post and save it in the event that some of the powers-that-be decide to excersize their powers and delete the heartfelt message presented here. Re-Post it and keep the flame alive.



Dear Blizzard and Paladin Forums,

I had received a week long ban after posting blizzards corporate information, including fax number (which is all easily obtainable if you search the web), in an effort to give paladins the ability to contact you directly.

Why did I do this? Because, and I still hold to this belief, the paladin revamp is a complete fiasco. Some of you may ask "Okay, asshat, why is it a complete fiasco? You deserved your ban for a week" Regardless of the availability of the content of Blizzards contact information, posting it and telling paladins to fax in their concerns was a violation of your rules. I accept my punishment with dignity and grace.

I did this because the paladin talent revamp is being fixed from the back-burner during a patch that contains a massive content update, two new instances, quests being put in, tweaks to the general system, and things of that nature. Simply put, the paladin talent revamp is being poked at with a stick like it were a dead animal being investigated by children who want to see the insides without actually touching the thing.

During my week long ban, I made several observations and spent my week reading ....really reading what is going on. You have done some good in regards to the talents, you have done some bad in regards to the talents, and you have some serious skeletons in your closet (and I’m sure you know damn well what I’m referring too, but that’ll be covered later). And, unfortunately, you have made no real change to paladin combat. We have heard from CM’s as to this and that concerning paladins. NOT ONCE have we heard from a dev or a class designer who has religiously played a paladin as to whats good , whats bad, and what needs to still be fixed.

Not once have we heard from someone at blizzard who truly knows what it is to play a paladin. Who at blizzard knows the paladins problems like his own heart? Dare I say no one from your company wholeheartedly understands the problems this class faces.

And by wholeheartedly I mean the following: A dev or CM or employee with direct feedback and influence to the class designers who has played his paladin to 60. A person who has TRIED to tank and felt the frustration of chasing a mob around, trying to gain agro again. A person who has TRIED to be a force to reckon with in pvp and simply been viewed as an annoyance due to our infamous shield-heal tactic…fully knowing that we HAVE to rely on it because we simply cannot do real damage on par with other hybrids or melee characters. A player who has run his paladin in end game instances and has had to suffer the indignation of wearing cloth only to function as a better BACKUP healer.

You do not have such a person. You have the players, sure, but you don’t have such a person at your company.

The problem here is that you don’t listen to your players worth a damn.
And if you DID have such a person, why for the love of god haven’t we heard from THEM??

But I digress…


… there is so much more that I’ve realized during my week ban from the boards.
What did I learn?

Let me share this with you.

First, let me start off by saying that the paladin community, in general, is in a state similar to that of a trapped dog gnawing its leg off. Now, there are plenty of happy 3-legged dogs out there, but since we have problems catching folks as it is, I prefer to have all my limbs for movement intact and properly working


Those of us who have tried other classes know what a proper talent tree looks like. Druids for example, and I use them as an example because their talent revamp was the most current to date, makes wondrous and perfect sense. It flows well; it allows players to really do what they like if they invest enough points into one tree. I have a druid alt. The druid can do what I could only WISH I could do with my paladin. Druids are more liable to be in the front lines and be accepted there more than a paladin is. This is lamentable and pathetic.

You have yet to properly redesign the paladin trees. I have said this several times during my previous posts, but I am old enough to recognize half-assed work when I see it.

And I'm seeing it.

And, from my readings, others are now realizing it as well.

I implore you, push the paladins back another patch. Hell, push them back TWO patches if you have to in order to get things right...but for the love of god, GET IT RIGHT! You have listened to some of the paladin concerns and addressed some of the issues of the class, yet you have yet to do a satisfactory job. You have still delegated us to our pigeon-hole of backline healer and buff bots.


SOME GOOD

Now I will give you some kudos for the new talents you DID put effort into. You have made a 31holy paladin something to be desirable again. I commend you for that. You have given incentive for people to invest talent points into holy. Making divine strength and intellect first tier holy talents is a grand idea. Unyielding Faith is a nice flavor talent to Holy. Increasing the spell crit of a holy paladin is a beautiful thing when combined with Illumination. And even consecrates move to holy, while confusing and its reasoning by certain CM’s was lame, makes sense. This ability needs to be buffed however. Either make it an area heal as well, similar to holy shock but not as potent, or add a slow effect to it. After all, this is now hallowed land for the time being.



You have made good steps into retribution as well. With a full 31points invested into retribution, regardless of the decreased damage from SoC procs, a retribution spec’d paladin or critadin CAN dish out a fair amount of damage if spec’d correctly. Retribution has received four new talents. Some are still buggy and need to be reworked, like the non stacking pursuit of justice. Some talents that are ALMOST worthy of being on the front line just to get a debuff in on a boss, vindication and eye-for-an-eye for example.


However…..

SOME BAD

You have made minor improvements to the protection tree. I do not know where you went wrong here, or perhaps your paladin dev team was just having a day off, but no where do I see new talents. I see revamped talents and I see a game of talent-shuffleboard going on. In reality, the only reason anyone will spec protection now is for Blessing of Kings and Reckoning. The delegation of Holy Shield, without a SERIOUS buff to damage or agro generation, as a 31 point talent still boggles my mind. The protection paladin should be able to tank, be able to hold agro equal to or better than a druid in bear form (but not as good as a warrior), and have abilities that actually make sense. Subjecting the paladin to critical hits in order to gain access to some of our abilities just seems completely backwards.


It can easily be summed up as this. Paladins would like to be considered as the following, provided they have 31 points devoted to a single tree

31 in holy : a group can say “Okay, we have our healer”
31 in protection : a group can say “Okay, we have our tank”
31 in retribution : a group can say “Okay we have dps”

Do note the following though. These are general feelings that I have seen.

31 in holy : we will NOT be as good as a priest, but are a good substitute, just like a druid

31 in protection : we will NOT EVER replace warriors as main tanks, but would like to be able to hold agro and soak up damage equal to or better than a druid in bear form. After all, you’ve given us tank like abilities but no ability to get agro to reliably stick to us.

31 in retribution: we will not EVER be as good as rogues,hunters,mages and arms/fury warriors, OR feral druids at flat-out dps, but by god we’d like a chance at getting close!

While this may be somewhat true for holy and retribution, protection tree talents and our ability to hold agro effectively without sucking our mana pool down to zero leave much to be desired.

Please don’t think that we are asking you to make paladins godlike. Perhaps we might be asking you to overpower us, but this is only because overpowering the paladin class will probably make us equal to other classes in desirability and viability in groups. A quality job, one where you actually take your time and focus entirely upon the paladin, may even result is changes that might make us rival our horde counterpart in many respects.


SKELETONS

I do not know how many individuals have read this thread (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...mp=1#post706366), (EDIT: GG blizzard. delete the thread. What lovely faith you inspire) but the history behind the existence of Furor as a dev and his ties to blizzard, regardless of the fact that he is a quest designer, makes me seriously wonder what the hell was going through your minds. An infamous and known EQ-paladin-hater who went to such extremes that Sony finally took action and made warriors something to be feared, now working for blizzard with the possibility of having feedback and conversations with class devs? This is a seriously questionable association that makes me wonder if this lack-luster revamp of the paladins has been tainted by old blood.

Some people may not agree with the fact that this Furor individiaul is a problem. Let me put it in terms you might understand.

A congressman from the south is known to harbor racist ideas and prejudices. He does not come outright and say them, but goes through every means necessary not to associate with minorities and endeavors to pass or lobby for laws that benefit the upper strata of society, namely rich white folk.

One day this congressman is seen eating lunch with a presidential aide that works closely with some bigwig folks that are passing a few bills that are being worked on for more minority rights.

Then these lunches become more frequent.
Then there’s “minor” revisions to the bill

…this then makes one wonder…has this congressman influenced this presidential aide?

The same can be said for blizzards relationship with Furor.

But now some of you may say “But we’re talking about paladins here, its not the same!” Untrue. It makes sense. How does this make sense? A very intelligent paladin on the pally boards by the name of Thews posted this bit of insight http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...in&T=706366&P=3 (scroll to the bottom of the page)
I have included the post incase this thread is deleted for odd reasons, like its predecessor was.

   

Q u o t e:
    Here's the thing, while this thread fails to deliver on links with actual comments by Furor, the people who are saying that a raid designer has no effect on class balance couldn't be more wrong.

    Someone who is writing the "script" on how a particular instance will unfold has a huge effect on the pve viability of the classes who will be participating.

    For example:

    If endgame instances had a large amount of mobs who debuffed and caused aoe damage, that would tend to force the paladins who attended that raid into buff/cleanse/healing roles for the duration of that instance, as that would be the most optimal use of their talents.

&nbsp; &nbsp; It would even be possible to design instances so that every boss mob <must> be tanked by a warrior, as long as you designed the boss mobs to play favorably compared to a warrior's skills and detrimentally compared to a paladin's.

&nbsp; &nbsp; That situation is the one that exists now, and it is not only due to paladin talents, but to how the bosses and encounters are designed.

&nbsp; &nbsp; In BWL/MC you can run with the following:

&nbsp; &nbsp; No Priests in your raid group. Druids and pallies only.
&nbsp; &nbsp; No Mages in your raid group, Warlocks substitute, majordomo is a nightmare.
&nbsp; &nbsp; No Pallies in your raid group, druids/priests sub.
&nbsp; &nbsp; NO Druids... priests/pallies cover.
&nbsp; &nbsp; No Rogues... warrs dps melee, other classes dps.
&nbsp; &nbsp; No Hunters... plenty of ranged dps options, but no tranq shot will hurt alot in exactly 2 encounters.

&nbsp; &nbsp; No Warlocks... BWL demons are a pain, so are garr's adds, both can be kited or offtanked.

&nbsp; &nbsp; BUT:
&nbsp; &nbsp; No Warriors... there is almost no boss fight in MC or BWL that you can complete without warriors. Either the aggro or the damage mitigation for paladins or druids will doom you on every fight, Based solely on the amount of hitpoints and damage and aggro-sheddding abilities of each boss.

&nbsp; &nbsp; The lack of other tank classes' skills and gear excacerbates this, but if they wanted to, a Blizzard dev could redesign the boss fights to allow druids or paladins to MT all the way through endgame.

&nbsp; &nbsp; But they don't.
&nbsp; &nbsp; Warriors are the only irreplaceable class in the endgame PVE.
&nbsp; &nbsp; Hmmm.

&nbsp; &nbsp; Tell me again how a Raid-instance designer cannot affect class balance?

NO CHANGE TO COMBAT

Once again, you are playing shuffleboard with how a paladin approaches combat. You have polished the judgment system, which honestly should have been done ages ago, but that’s not here or there. Paladins have always been asking for a form of attacks that do not rely on mana.

In other words, some of us wanted real melee attacks.

Why does this matter? Paladins have all their attacks linked to the holy tree. A proper kick/bash/counterspell negates ALL our trees…all at once.

Imagine if a rogue could kick a mage and wipe access to ALL their spells, or if a mage could counterspell another casting class, killing ALL their combat abilities.

That’s what we as paladins face.

Some of the paladin community, and from reading over the past week for hours on end…it seems like a good majority, would like some form of melee attack. There are threads that link to talent trees similar to this (http://mornpaladin.tripod.com/PaladinTal...lents.html) that are more similar to what SHOULD be done with the paladin class. A shield bash for protection perhaps? A smite ability that does holy damage + generates agro? How hard really is it for you to develop something like this. Seeing as how you have put lackluster effort into the revamp already, a simple combat skill such as this is well within your means.



Thank you for your time and patience in reading this. While it may come across as bitter medicine, I feel that negative feedback is better than positive feedback. After all, if you've got something wrong with your game, but everyone smiles and nods happily like nothings going on, then you never learn from your mistakes and change for the better.

[Xukuth]

Unfortunately, the Public Testing phase of 1.9 is over, so it looks like we're screwed.

[oldmandennis]

Don't have time to go over all of it, but his little substitution in raid thing falls apart. Obviously there are no encounters that mandate pallys, the entire horde would fall apart. Interestingly, on the horde side priests are completly indespensable for Geddon.

Also, I don't know if Garr is concievable without any locks. At some point he starts blowing up his adds, if they aren't banished. Once they are all gone, he summons mini adds that immediatly explode, knocking the MT all over the place. Unless he is close to dead, its probably game over.

[Quark]

Also, I don't know if Garr is concievable without any locks.&nbsp; At some point he starts blowing up his adds, if they aren't banished.&nbsp; Once they are all gone, he summons mini adds that immediatly explode, knocking the MT all over the place.&nbsp; Unless he is close to dead, its probably game over.
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No, it's not. In a bad set of luck one day we had Garr at about 35-40% and the last (of 3 originally banished) Firesworn blew up. Garr went into his super mode, but I don't think anyone died afterthat. DPS was slower, healing a little stressed, but we came through without much difficulty.

[Kevin]

No, it's not.&nbsp; In a bad set of luck one day we had Garr at about 35-40% and the last (of 3 originally banished) Firesworn blew up.&nbsp; Garr went into his super mode, but I don't think anyone died afterthat.&nbsp; DPS was slower, healing a little stressed, but we came through without much difficulty.
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In addition a well geared tank and a single healer can off tank the firesworn for a long time as long as Garr doesn't decide to blow that add up. So you could still kill 4 or so of the adds quickly to free up more healing and DPS and then tank out the other ones and hope he doesn't pop them all.

Now the night we did it with 6 warlocks was insanely easy. So warlocks make the encounter simpler but I believe it could be done without them.

[Drasca]

Now the night we did it with 6 warlocks was insanely easy.&nbsp; So warlocks make the encounter simpler but I believe it could be done without them.
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Pretty pointless to be a 60+ lock right now... at least the new locks continually get class quests. Neener neener neener!

[Dozer]

Without getting too much into Paladin flame wars, this guy is completely offbase. He wants the Paladin to have its cake and eat it, too; no class gets three different roles viable at the endgame level (certainly not Shaman, and not even druids.).

[Chesspiece_face]

Unfortunately, the Public Testing phase of 1.9 is over, so it looks like we're screwed.
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Couple posts taken from the WoW forums describing how Paladin heals were nerfed in 1.9:

I was doing some testing with the holy spec last night and I found some disturbing results.

First things first. My healing build is +247 healing.

The follow is all done with blessing of light.


In 1.8 my flash heals crit for 908max.
They cost 123mana with the FoL talents.

In 1.9 we lose the mana reduction. And we gain a 12% boost to our flash of light.

In 1.9, my flash heals crit for 981max.

At quick glance, you might think (as I did) that in 1.9, my flash heal crit would be 908x1.12=1016.

But, the 12% buff is only to the base spell. So, the more healing gear you have, the less significant the +12% is.

My mana efficiency in 1.8 is
7.4hp/mana

In 1.9 it is
7.0hp/mana

And the more healing gear I get, the worse that spread of ratios becomes.

Because the affect of the 12% mana reduction applies to the whole spell (healing gear and all), where as the 12% buff applies only to the base spell.

So, as you better your healing gear, you will become less and less effective compared to a 1.8 paladin.
- Laurelyn

On a Rank1 Flash of Light, the talent will provide an extra 9 hp per heal, or the equivalent of +20 healing.
On a Rank6 Flash of Light, the talent will provide an extra 46 hp per heal, or the equivalent of +107 healing.

The 12% mana reduction reduces mana cost by 4mp for Rank1, or equivalent to 13 mp/5sec mana regen when chain-casting.
It reduces mana cost by 17mp for Rank6, equivalent to 57 mp/5sec mana regen when chain-casting.

Let me put it another way:
When you're spamming Flash of Light during battle:
- Would you rather have +20 healing or 13 mana regen?
- Would you rather have +107 healing or +57 mana regen?

I'll break it down even further using Blizzard's own itemization formula they use when determining the balance of stats to put on loot (1 healing ~ 0.45 points, 1 mana regen ~ 2.5 points):

1.8 talents:
Rank1 = 13 mana regen = 32.5 points
Rank6 = 57 mana regen = 142.5 points

1.9 talents:
Rank1 = 20 healing = 9 points
Rank6 = 107 healing = 48 points

1.8 Rank1 is 32.5/9 = 3.6 times better than 1.9.
1.8 Rank6 is 142.5/48 = 3.0 times better than 1.9.

I hope this has made the point clearer for those still skeptical: According to my calculations, the 1.8 Flash of Light talent is at least 3 times better than the 1.9 Flash of Light talent!

In addition to the above empirical point: The even more powerful reason this can be considered a nerf to the mana efficiency of Paladins is because the old mana cost reduction provided a -scalable- 12% hp/mana efficiency boost, while the healing power boost in 1.9 increases our hp/mana efficiency by 12% only with zero +healing

- Lavabolt

[Tal]

Without getting too much into Paladin flame wars, this guy is completely offbase. He wants the Paladin to have its cake and eat it, too; no class gets three different roles viable at the endgame level (certainly not Shaman, and not even druids.).
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I disagree here. As a tanking paladin I would like, if specc'd for protection, to be on par with a feral tanking druid. As it is now in 1.8 and especially in 1.9 there is absolutely NO reason to choose a paladin over a druid.

If I spec as a holy paladin I would like to approach the viability of a druid specc'd for healing but I cannot. The closest I can come would be to be as viable as a feral druid. Even then I'm at a disadvantage due to heal over time spells.

If I spec retribution? I still won't approach the dps of a feral druid.

I don't want a uber class. I want that if I make a choice and spec a certain way I WILL be more effective than another paladin who specc'd differently. They helped a little bit with regulating dps. They made the protection tree a joke and retribution is only slightly better. Most paladins view the "awesome" changes as the sign to re-roll or spec 31 holy. Though from what I have seen of talents there is little incentive to even allocate talents in 1.9.

[Treesh]

If I spec as a holy paladin I would like to approach the viability of a druid specc'd for healing but I cannot. The closest I can come would be to be as viable as a feral druid. Even then I'm at a disadvantage due to heal over time spells.
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I don't want the pallies to be as good of a healer as a druid specced for healing. Druid's specced for healing are really damned good. The holy pally and the restoration shaman should have about the same healing power, which is less than the druid. The druid needs more healing oomph because of their res issues. Paladins and shaman can res anyone who dies after the fight without having to worry about a timer. Their heals should be worse than someone who can only res once every half hour (or is it hour?).

[Legedi]

The thing that really gets me between the paladin and druid talent revision is if you look at a 60 paladin and druid with zero talents they are about the same in DPS/tank/healing ability. But the druid talents are amazing, and let you really focus on being great at one thing, or pretty good at two. paladin talents let you be pretty good and one thing.

The paladin talents just don't have the umph like every other class, and this patch is not doing near enough. There just aren't any of those "must have" talents.

[Quark]

The thing that really gets me between the paladin and druid talent revision is if you look at a 60 paladin and druid with zero talents they are about the same in DPS/tank/healing ability. But the druid talents are amazing, and let you really focus on being great at one thing, or pretty good at two. paladin talents let you be pretty good and one thing.

The paladin talents just don't have the umph like every other class, and this patch is not doing near enough. There just aren't any of those "must have" talents.
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You know, thinking about it more, the biggest reason for this (with druids) is that their talents give them unique abilities. They don't just add to abilities you already have. Feral Charge is awesome to have as a bear, it's like intercept without having to stancedance. Last night against The Beast, people said they didn't even see me get punted (I was showing about halfway up on my screen before I charged back in). Faerie Fire (Feral) gives the druid pulling. LotP gives druids an aura.

There's additive talents, sure, but there's also more talents that give new stuff instead of just making current stuff better. I guess it just boils down to my belief that, among other things, the Protection tree needs a taunt talent.

[Kevin]

You know, thinking about it more, the biggest reason for this (with druids) is that their talents give them unique abilities.&nbsp; They don't just add to abilities you already have.&nbsp; Feral Charge is awesome to have as a bear, it's like intercept without having to stancedance.&nbsp; Last night against The Beast, people said they didn't even see me get punted (I was showing about halfway up on my screen before I charged back in).&nbsp; Faerie Fire (Feral) gives the druid pulling.&nbsp; LotP gives druids an aura.

There's additive talents, sure, but there's also more talents that give new stuff instead of just making current stuff better.&nbsp; I guess it just boils down to my belief that, among other things, the Protection tree needs a taunt talent.
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Yep. The protection tree needs a taunt of some kind.

There are a few transformative talents for the paladin and most of them are now in holy. And if you consider what was done for the druid with some similar talents the paladins are even more screwed.

- Consecration is the only AoE that paladins have for non undead. Druids had a hurricane as a 31 point talent as the only way for them to get AoE but it was moved to a base talent. For paladins this ability was moved from a 21 point retribution talent to an 11 point holy talent.

- Spiritual Focus + concentration aura makes paladins the only healers that can cast heal spells through damage until the mana pool runs out. Priests with focused casting can do this for 8 seconds out of every minute. This is a transformative talent for a healing paladin though, or at least for how you can play the game solo.

- Divine Favor + Illumination is kinda transformative. A free on demand crit heal every two minutes is nice. This was moved from needing 11 points in holy to 21 points in holy. However druids and shaman that spec for it can get nature's swiftness which is an instant cast heal every three minutes. Priests that spec for it can get inner focus that is a free heal with 25% crit chance once every 5 minutes. The other healers had these talents at 21 points, which is why the paladins was moved. The location of the priests talent is also part of what is wrong with the holy tree. That should be a holy tree talent just like it is for all other healers.

- Holy Shock being the only ranged attack that paladins can use on all mobs is somewhat transformative as well. It is a 31 point holy talent but is still rather weak (it is now a bizzare targetable single enemy holy nova)

- Blessing of Kings is a new skill via talents and while it is a helpful blessing and potentially as powerful as blessing of salvation in raids, if they want a blessing to be talent based, it should be salvation in the protection tree as keeping your party members from getting aggro is powerful tanking tool. The new shaman totem should also be a talent choice in the enhancement tree. Of course the issue with this is raid guilds forcing specs to get this on their shaman and paladins.

- Blessing of Sanctuary is a new skill via talents but again it isn't transformative. It does help the tanks becuase of returned damage on blocking, but so does a shield spike. The damage mitigation is not significant enough.

- Seal of Command is a new skill but in all honestly because of proc rates and the way it and seal or righteous scale, the do essentially the same amount of damage over time even with the new judgements (since command needs a stun). It is also subject to the whim of the PRNG

- Vindication sure it's a new ability via skill, kinda like vengenance but again subject to PRNG and really not much different than the other stuff like sword spec for other classes or reckoning in the protection tree.

- Eye for an Eye see vindication.

- Repentance gouge for a paladin essentially. Not worth 31 points as it doesn't do much for the character.


Where should a paladin be? Well it has to be compared to a shaman as the faction specific class and it should be compared to the druid as a hybrid class. There are 4 main roles a hybrid can take. DPS, Healing, Tanking, and Buffing/Curing. Let's look at the 3 classes for this.

# Healing: Druids are better than both shaman and paladins in PvE healing. Paladins and Shaman spec'd or unspec'd are pretty much equal in the PvE. Shaman have some good ways to mitigate incoming damage via totem usage (resistance totems, stoneskin totems), they have heals that are equivalent to a priests flash heal and druids healing touch. Paladins have good ways to mitigate incoming damage via aura's and judgements and blessings (judgement of light is more a damage mitigator to me) Blessing of protection if great for AoE casters, blessing of sacrifice can slow incoming damage enough people to keep them alive and allow you to heal up after the encounter. Mana pools in healing gear are similar for shaman and paladins. Ability to heal through damage are similar for shaman and paladins (but greater for druids). Heal spec paladins and heal spec shamans are very likely better healers than feral or balance druids, assuming all classes are geared for it (which in the case of all three means they are likely wearing leather and cloth)

In PvP it's trickier. Shaman have a more powerful fast heal, along with an instant cast big heal every 3 minutes if they spec for it. Paladins can heal through damage if spec'd for it and all paladins can bubble to heal once every 5 minutes these both make them pretty powerful healers in PvP. Druids have an insta cast HoT and other slow heals, they are not as good at PvP healing though they do add to healing power and have some tricks, but you are better off with other classes main healing and druids doing other things.

Though healing through damage and the bubble when used correctly make a heal spec paladin a more timely healer in PvP (note I didn't say more powerful and I can't make that judgement without more PvP experience with both classes) but a shaman that uses their tricks to heal in PvP is pretty tough too, as alliance I'm glad that a lot of them don't. Without spec to heal the shamans fast cast good healing level heal is excellent if the shaman has a little protection or other players. If spec'd for healing a well placed natures swiftness heal can turn the battle. Paladins without healing spec can bubble and heal wich can turn a battle and if they haven't done so in the last hour can lay on hands and turn the battle but the timer on that heal makes it not reliable as a tide turner in PvP. They also have weak fast cast heals. If spec'd for healing they need less protection (they still need it like other healers to stop stuns, silences, etc) to heal. Keep in mind that druids and priests need protection to heal as well. Though druids, like shaman, if spec'd can turn the battle with a well timed nature's swiftness heal. Because of the nature of PvP I would say that paladins "shock healing" may seem more effective because they are better able as a healer to turn the tide of battle. But then again that 1.5 sec cast heal that saves someone in a small skirmish on the way to a flag can be just as important in the overall outcome and the shaman's faster healing is more likely to do that, it's just not as noticable. Regardless both are better PvP healers than druids.

# DPS - With no talent points spent all three classes are going to be about equal. The druid and the shaman will have more control of their DPS though and if they can't heal they are able to switch to DPS mode more easily. If you spec for melee DPS it goes druid > shaman > paladin. If you spec for castable/ranged DPS it goes druid > shaman > paladin. Shaman and paladins both need to use mana to increase DPS if a shaman doesn't burn some mana when in melee range they are not going to beat paladin DPS. Druids choose if the DPS is via mana usage or not. Shaman get talents that transform playstyle in how they can deal both melee and castable DPS (2 handed axes and maces is a talent otherwise only 2 hander is a staff), flurry and stormstrike also change melee DPS delivery via talents. Like other casters than can lower cast times and mana costs and up critical damage and chances of spells they do not have any transformative talents but the additive properties, like mages and balance druids add up nicely. Paladins deliver DPS in one fashion and as mentioned their talents don't transform the ability of how they can do it or even really how much they can deliver.

# Tanking - Unspec'd it is druid > paladin > shaman. This is an overall evaluation of taking a beating and holding aggro. Without talents the shaman due to better damage control, pulling, and aggro abilities can control things better, however without talents they can not sustain the beating nearly as well, really no better than a hunter because the hunters ability to parry along with higher dodge rates make up for the lack of a shield (remember shamans have to spec to learn parry). When spec'd for tanking it becomes more interesting. The druid becomes better at aggro control and damage mitigation from talents. The shaman can pick up parry, imp shield block, and anticipation for extra damage mitigation and they do make a noticable difference in how well they survive, they will also pick up some more DPS skills (flurry, better weapon buffs) on that path which will help with aggro control a bit more. The paladin can pick up even more damage mitigation skills, on par with what a warrior can pick up, however they don't get a lot more in aggro control skills and some the mitigation and aggro control skills (reckoning is an aggro control skill via higher DPS) require the paladin to take a crit hit to kick in. As a main tank with a party working with them the paladin is better than the shaman. Both can MT the high end 5 mans but the party has to be more focused and in tune with them, both need CC, paladins to help with aggro control, shaman to help with damage mitigation. As off tanks though the shaman wins due to superior aggro skills (shocks, stoneclaw, rockbiter weapon) since damage mitigation on an off tank is not as important.

# Buffing/Curing - Druids bring a powerful buff to the table and can clear poisons and curses. Paladins bring powerful buffs to the table and can clear poisons, disease, and magic effects. Shaman bring powerful group only buffs to the table and cure poison and diseas and clear their group of some magic effects (like sleep and fear). In 5 man it goes paladin > shaman > druid. In raids it goes paladin > druid > shaman. All druids and most paladins abilities are cross party. Most shaman abilities are party only.

# Fluidity/Utility to all groups - Shaman are the most fluid, they are best at performing all the roles at the same time they can get a gear set with decent defense and weapon damage that adds mana to give them healing, they will have to burn more mana in this gear set to keep up DPS which limits healing but sets can be made. Druids can get gear that will allow them have a decent mana pool and still do decent damage in feral form or tank well enough on damand or deliver ranged DPS on demand at cost of mana pool they are not as fluid because doing one job locks them out of other jobs. Paladins since a huge part of their DPS is gear based even with the 1.9 changes have a much harder time getting a gear set that can keep DPS reasonable while allowing them to effectively heal. They can get DPS and tanking combo gear pretty easily but the mana pool hit is huge. Since druids and shaman can use mana to create DPS they are not as affected by this. Paladins if they could get the gear would be as fluid as shaman but since the gear is harder to do, because you need str, agi, and int along with armor (shaman can get away with just int and armor to be effective). Paladins can get all purpose suits but they are not as effective as what shaman and druid can put together because of damage delivery mechanisms. All gear choices will limit effectiveness at any roll of course and my early evaluations assumed gear choices to maximize the job they are doing.


Summary
Healing- Druid > Paladin = shaman
DPS- Druid > Shaman > Paladin
Tanking- Druid > Shaman > Paladin
Buffing/Curing- Paladin > Druid > Shaman
Fluidity/Utility- Shaman > Druid > Paladin

So on the things that most people feel matter the most the druid wins, spec'd for it or not. The shaman however is better at or equal to the paladin in most everything else. Tanking is tricky area, I put shaman ahead because generally you only ask your 3rd best tank choice (and warriors and druids are better) to be an off tank or you are expecting to move slower have more inter party dependencies and the shaman and paladin are pretty equal there, but shaman are better with aggro control making better off tanks. The only thing paladins are better at is tedious role that most don't find a lot of fun in. They are worst at the role that most people find most appealin in a hybrid, utility and fluidity.

Shaman and druid talents also give them more ability to specialize the class than paladin talents do.

I don't think healing abilities of any of the hybrid healers are out of whack. Druids can be priest replacement without spec'ing for it, and paladin and shaman, if spec'd to heal can be a priest replacement in all the 5 mans at the very least and quite possibly even in raids for just healing power. Though I think the shaman heals are better in raid situations than a paladins but paladin curing is much stronger. Shaman do need a rework of their restoration tree though no other hybrid gets as little out of the healing spec and sacrifices so much else as the shaman.

Tanking Druids are fine with talents to go for tanking (though they get both DPS and tanking from one talent set). Paladins should get some form of ranged attack and some form of snap aggro, prehaps the same skill a high aggro instant cast 20 yard ranged ability at 31 points? It will take mana from you but like an earth shock for shaman (the improved threat skill is pretty close to improving rockbiter for aggro control). Shaman also could use something that will help with damage mitigation to make them more viable as tanks on instance bosses. I keep thinking a stance like ability or a 5 to 10 minute self buff that ups armor and threat but lowers damage like defense stance. If you give paladins an instant aggro taunt, you would also have to give one to shaman. Paladins though need a way to generate faster aggro than they have, but you have to keep it balanced with the shaman and the method of better damage and aggro control vs damage mitigation trade off they have now doesn't work.

DPS wise the paladins still need a better way to convert mana to DPS though I have no problem with these methods being buried more deeping in retribution or holy, especially if you have a deep protection talent for ranged and aggro. Holy paladins kind of have a way to do this with holy shock it helps to allow them with the new judgements to use one gear set and do alright at the healing and DPS roles (this is part of the reason I'm thinking of going 31 holy now). But a retribution spec paladin who will not have the tanking or healing abilities of enhancement or elemental shaman, needs to be as viable a DPS choice as the equivalent build shaman. DPS shaman can be very close to DPS druids (though I don't see them as well off) a DPS paladin needs to be as well, and 1.9 a DPS paladin has been worse than a DPS paladin in 1.8 for me because they haven't quite balanced the control vs the damage curve yet. I actually wasn't all that upset with 1.8 DPS for a DPS spec paladin though I would like to see a few more ways to turn mana to damage to help with it, like shaman have. Heck putting seal of command deeper upping the damage bonus on swings and upping the damage it does when you judge it would fix a lot of that. With the way it and righteousness work now they are not really different talents. So give the damage paladins their better DPS, put it at 21 points to make it choice for the builds. I think they thought sanctity aura was supposed to really help with the pally DPS but it's not good enough and since it can help priests out too they are afraid to make it better (though a holy damage spec priest is a rare thing but I can see some some set-ups that could make the 21 point retribution paladin with this aura and holy priest not fun in PvP). So make it a self buff that ups holy damage by 20% and cuts healing by 20% or something and make the mana cost enough that just shutting it off to heal is a real choice if want to get it back like a druid shapeshift cost, some percantage of total or base mana, that would up retribution paladins DPS by about 5-6% (since only about 30% of their damage is holy damage even with the new changes) and you don't have it helping the few other sources of holy damage in the game. It makes paladins that burn mana via judgements better at the burst DPS too (the repentance -> judge crusader, stun - judge crusader is supposed to help with this which is a mechanic that players don't really find works well).


So if you have read this long long post I thank you. I do believe the paladin class can be fixed and stay with the same kind of play style that 1.9 will introduce and make people happy and I think it can be done through talents, but again they need to put some new talents in the protection and possibly retribution tree. Consecrate should probably be a base skill especially after what they did with druids AoE. I'm not sure about kings going to a base skill it's a powerful raid blessing that ups survivability via HP and MP and adds a little DPS via the AP and crit chance it adds. It makes a difference and shaman have nothing that is remotely equivalent. So having to choose to get it makes sense. I like it as an 11 point talent because holy paladins that up their healing will have a hard choice in getting it because some of the retribution talents can help them with solo DPS as well.

I'm not saying the changes don't help things but they also hurt some things without enough compensation. I've been looking at it a lot the last couple of days and they are not as far away as I once thought they were. They need to make a choice on how well they want paladins and shaman to be able to tank though because I think they are making decisions based an a bizzare way to balance that out, which makes the shaman more fun to play and the paladin less.

[oldmandennis]

Woof!

Another long one GG, but well thought out.

I think you overestimate the viability of a Shaman tank, though. There's just not a lot of +def mail out there, thott only shows 2 pieces and both of them are chest pieces. Maybe I'm underestimating myself, but I'd be suprised if a Shaman can realistically do anything past DM east.

It sounds like Pallys are a tweak or two and a talent away from tanking everything short of UBRS comfortably, is that your feeling?

[Kevin]

Woof!

Another long one GG, but well thought out.

I think you overestimate the viability of a Shaman tank, though.&nbsp; There's just not a lot of +def mail out there, thott only shows 2 pieces and both of them are chest pieces.&nbsp; Maybe I'm underestimating myself, but I'd be suprised if a Shaman can realistically do anything past DM east.

It sounds like Pallys are a tweak or two and a talent away from tanking everything short of UBRS comfortably, is that your feeling?
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If they get better aggro control yeah I think they could tank even tank UBRS and be back-up tanks in Molten Core like druids. I know that shaman can not even think about tanking in Molten Core right now because of damage mitigation issues.

And yeah I may be over estimating shaman tanking. But if my beast master hunter pet has been able able to tank up to UBRS I don't see why a shaman can't (yes I have tanked on pulls not just off tanked, the pet was hold 3+ mobs). It is harder on the healing for sure but I do still think a good group can work with a shaman tank for all the 5 man instances. But yeah like I said I do think shaman need help in damage mitigation and that paladins need help with aggro control and that Blizzard is trying to balance one vs the other and that is where the problems come from. I want shaman that spec for it to be viable tank choices in MC but like a protection paladin is now they have to give up DPS and healing. I do not have faith that Blizzard with do any of this though.

[oldmandennis]

Probably not on the MC tanking. It seems that they want an array of class choices to be viable up to 10 man, but after that assume at least a couple of every class.

[vor_lord]

I think you overestimate the viability of a Shaman tank, though.&nbsp; There's just not a lot of +def mail out there, thott only shows 2 pieces and both of them are chest pieces.&nbsp; Maybe I'm underestimating myself, but I'd be suprised if a Shaman can realistically do anything past DM east.

It sounds like Pallys are a tweak or two and a talent away from tanking everything short of UBRS comfortably, is that your feeling?
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I think GG was giving the edge to the paladin because he thinks as an offtank they are superior. I'm not sure I agree--as a healer saver or add handler the shaman is definitely superior due to snap aggro. But on fights where you know from the start a mob needs to be offtanked I don't think you can beat the paladin. Not sure exactly how the 1.9 changes will affect it, but Concentration Aura, BoW + JoW mean a paladin can solo a dangerous mob for a very long time without burdening the healer at all.

[Kevin]

I think GG was giving the edge to the paladin because he thinks as an offtank they are superior.&nbsp; I'm not sure I agree--as a healer saver or add handler the shaman is definitely superior due to snap aggro.&nbsp; But on fights where you know from the start a mob needs to be offtanked I don't think you can beat the paladin.&nbsp; Not sure exactly how the 1.9 changes will affect it, but Concentration Aura, BoW + JoW mean a paladin can solo a dangerous mob for a very long time without burdening the healer at all.
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That is only if they spec into holy. Concentration aura alone will not save you from stutter. If a shaman specs into restoration they are not much worse at it than a paladin. A paladin the protection specs generally doesn't go into holy, and in 1.9 the interrupt prevention talents are the same depth. Most protection spec paladins will go down retribution (and I see this even more so in 1.9) to try and help hold aggro via higher DPS. But yeah the mana regen a paladin can do off tanking is very nice.

Of course there are not a lot of situations where you know you are going to off tank mobs from the beginning, and yes I do give the paladin the edge there and in main tanking when you know they are going to main tank as well. Though in a raid (I've tanked UBRS with my retribution/holy paladin) I can't be expected to hold more than one or two mobs because if you stop hitting the focus fire mob, it's gone, my warrior can do it relatively easily though as long as there aren't too many crits behind me. But with additional DPS tanking isn't as important. Shaman can either get back or slow down a mob that gets away from them. Paladins lose a mob and it's a fight to get it back before it does too much harm to the group.

So I still put them as pretty even when the group is working with them, but I put the shaman ahead becuase of the situations where you are more likely expecting someone to grab a lose mob if you don't have a druid or warrior that can do it.

[vor_lord]

That is only if they spec into holy.&nbsp; Concentration aura alone will not save you from stutter.&nbsp;
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But I thought only Sharanna didn't take Spiritual Focus! :o Being a first tier talent, and transformative, I just made an assumption.

Your point is particularly well taken with 1.9 when the talent moves down the tree.

[Tal]

But I thought only Sharanna didn't take Spiritual Focus!&nbsp; :o&nbsp; Being a first tier talent, and transformative, I just made an assumption.

Your point is particularly well taken with 1.9 when the talent moves down the tree.
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This is Sharanna's build:

Protection
Redoubt - 5 points
Toughness - 5 points
Improved Seal of Fury - 5 points
Shield Specialization - 5 points
Reckoning - 5 points
Holy Shield - 1 point

Total Investment - 26 points

Retribution
Improved Blessing of Might - 5 points or Benediction - 5 points
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization - 5 points
Vengeance - 5 points
Seal of Command - 1 point
Anticipation - 5 points
Improved Retibution Aura 3 points
Consecration - 1 point

Total Investment - 25 points