Pally Changes

[JustAGuy]

You're not getting one thing:  Paladins can't dish out as much damage, but Paladins don't die.

It's not that I'm not getting it, it's that I recognize that this NOT fun in PvE and generally frustrating as a damage-oriented player in PvP. This is especially true when the Paladin is, contrary to some people's beliefs, supposed to be a healing warrior. Shouldn't a warrior be able to be effective in melee? The Paladin is not, not with the skills he currently has. He is advertised as a holy warrior.

Compared to all other classes in the short time scales that involve group PvP fighting, they are effectively invincible. Mix a paladin with another character -- particularly good combinations are paladin + warrior or 2 paladins -- and the results are just devastating.

This is definitely true and irritating. I've been in many a small-scale fight with Paladin x 2 or Paladin+Druid + warrior that took forever, and every conceivable cooldown burned that you can imagine got burned. In these situations, the ones where we ended up winning, the key was to make the pallies bubble asap, but doing that is all about huge DPS... And as a Shaman, it's been noted that that takes a lot of mana.

I've also been the Paladin in the small group that beat the Horde down. As a personal preference, I do not like keeping my teammates alive as much as I do making my enemies "less alive".

As far as the Paladin being gimped, I said that they were gimped in combat, and inferior in healing, therefore making the Alliance gimped overall. That was an incorrect assessment, as the Paladin's abilities actually make the Alliance better suited to certain sitautations, and the Horde better suited for others. He, the Paladin, is definitely gimped in combat, though. There's no doubt about that. He has no offensive damage abilities except for a couple of piddly talents, and some situational PvE undead damaging stuff.

The price of effective invincibility is the lack of being able to deal out the damage.  My greatest fear with all the talk of Paladin talent revisions is that Blizzard will finally cave and give paladins some high dps skills and talents.  If they do, then paladins could then tank, heal, and dish out dps.  Why would one bother to play any other class?

This is the fear, and this is why they don't do DPS right now. That ended up being Blizzard's mis-guided attempt at balance. What they did was give the Paladin the Divine Protection/Shield skill, and then, with that in mind, built a class around it that was intentionally weaker than the Warrior. "Since they can be invincible, and yet still attack, lets make it so he can't do many attacks and/or make the attacks very weak in comparison to warrior". Boooo-ring. They made him too weak.

A healing tank that can do DPS on par with the Warrior would clearly put the Warrior less in demand, since the Pally can also wear plate and use the nice weapons. Just look at that Epic weapon quest that involves having Onyxia breathe on it -- "Classes: Warrior, Paladin". What's the point of that sweet sword when they can't do much with it. I've seen many a Paladin decked out in +int and +healing spell gear that is cloth, leather or mail, even holding a little tome or orb in his off-hand. When you don't melee, what's the use of the armor, eh?

What needs to happen is that divine shield should be removed. Oooh, yeah I said it. Remove it, or make it a talent. Make Divine Protection the only thing they can use, unless they talent spec to get Divine Shield. In addition to that, there should be more combat maneuvers that they can do (like an instant holy blast or some sort of weapon damage move), but no aggro control (no snap aggro, like a Warrior's taunt), and no AoE attacks (no cleave for you).

There are some serious issues with totems.  First, obviously, you have to be in the party with the shaman to get the buff.

Having the raid get full advantage of the totems would really throw balance off with respect to Paladin buffs. He has to cast it on everyone all the time, and the Shaman just drops one totem for the entire raid -- that'd be a bit too skewed in the Shammy's favour. So, that's the way it has to be.

Second, the range on the totems is too small.  Unless you stay clustered around the totems and make sure the fight stays all in one area (a not always realistic thing to do), your party won't get the buffs.  (One of the tier two shaman set bonuses is to increase totem range -- but why should shaman have to wait until BWL to be able to make good use of their totems?). 

The range is a play-issue. A good shaman puts the totem in range of those who need it. In most situations, the Windfury, Strength and sometimes Fire totems go close to the melee in the party, whereas the mana spring/tide (for those who have it) goes beside the casters. A good shaman recognizes the range limitations and deals with it appropriately.

Third, many of the more useful totems are in the same totem schools of magic.  For example, against Ragnaros, I ignorantly asked the shaman in our healing party why he didn't have a fire resist totem down and was informed that it's in the same school (water, I believe) as the mana spring totem.  A paladin can put up a fire resist aura and throw mana regeneration blessings on healers.  Shaman can't. 

While it's true that there are useful totems in the same category, those are game-time tradeoffs that have to be made. If you need fire-resist, then the casters will just have to do without the mana spring. Another thing to decide is Windfury vs Grace of Air -- Depending on the make-up of your party, Windfury usually wins out, but poison using rogues usually benefit from Grace more often than not. Again, good Shamans (Shamen?) recognize the tradeoffs and totem up accordingly. The same goes for a Paladin that sees the need for x blessing vs y blessing in any given situation. The Paladin should recognize that armor boosting aura means practically nothing against Ony, so fire resist is the thing to do.

Fourth, shaman typically have to use up their mana pools by dropping their totems in mid fight according to where the fight takes place for each and every fight, whereas a paladin can prebuff his or her party for several fights and drink before proceeding.  The upcoming changes to 10-15 minute buffs would make this advantage even greater.

This is definitely an advantage for the Paladin. In fast-paced raids, as a Shaman, I go through mage-water like it's nuttin'. Generally, totems get dropped early, then drink, then mid-fight, when the totems have worn off, re-cast only the most crucial, like mana spring and grounding when necessary.

But the biggest thing is that Paladins can tailor their blessings according to the needs of each member of the party and/or raid group.  Shamans have to choose.  Are they going to drop a Windfury totem that would benefit warriors and shamans but rogues (because it doesn't stack with poisons) and hunters not at all?  Or do they drop an agility totem that helps rogues and hunters but warriors and shamans very little?  Do they drop resistance totems or mana regeneration totems?  In addition, while paladins can run around with an armor buff on for free, shamans have to decide whether it's worth using up their mana during the fight to drop various totems for their parties.

Yep. Totems are all situational, and that's what seperates a good Shaman from a bad one. Take for example, the Sleeping Dragon in Sunken Temple. Lots of Shamans will drop a tremor totem to counter the sleep effect after he has put someome to sleep. This is incorrect, and a good shaman will realize that the sleep effect is a directed magic attack, and a grounding totem takes care of it before the sleep is cast.

One of the things Blizzard has stated was that they're going to look at Shamans sometime after Paladins, so perhaps this is what they'll take a look at? I've always thought the mana costs for totems are a bit all-over the place.

You say that you don't want to focus on PvP and yet you say that PvP was really the catalyst for you.  One falacy in your argument is that you make the mistake of believing that 1 v 1 dueling is somehow real PvP. 

I said that I didn't want to focus on PvP in my post, not in my personal decision to stop playing the Paladin. The two are distinct. PvP was the catalyst for me stopping Playing my beloved Paladin. I put a lot of care into him, he was my first character, I even made him ride a Ram and not that stupid mana-hogging horse. But, PvP has become my main focus of WoW, so he's, in my view, inadequate to the task. Sure, he can heal and clease, but that's not enough for me. That's a personal decision, and I hope that with the upcoming changes that Blizzard makes the Paladin more viable as a melee combatant, and not just a heal/cleanse/buff bot (without relying on Engineering that is).

Duelling is something I don't do often. I was referring to one on one encounters out in the "real world". These are not generally important battles, but they do happen. For example, I was 52ish in Tanaris, and I had just "shoo'd" a ganking rogue (that is he just ganked someone out in mid Tanaris, and I tracked him to lower Tanars and killed him). After my battle with the rogue, a 60 Paladin stepped in, and it was a good 6-7 minute battle, one that entailed a couple of potions, and every trick in the book and every timer used to survive. He hit me at least 4 times with that hammer of wrath... Each time I survived, barely, and got a heal off. At one point, I 1-second wolfed away to hide and get out of combat to drink (which I did for a moment, when he found me and continued battle). That was a very difficult experience against a good player, who had the level advantage against me, that I still won, despite both of us using all of our cool-downs.

The moral of that story? If he wasn't so gimped in combat, it wouldn't have taken that long, and he wouldn't have lost. A 52 Shammy vs a 60 Paladin should be a cake-walk. Yet, he burned every cooldown and still lost. It's an example of how inadequate the Pally is in combat.

Even though paladins do very well in 1 v 1 combat, where they really unbalancingly shine is in group combat.  I think the problem is that your personality isn't suited to playing a defensive character.  You seem to believe that PvP is primarily about dealing damage, but as someone who plays defensive characters, I know that crowd control, dispelling, and healing are equally and possibly more critical in PvP when you are trying to take or hold down a resource point or capture a flag.

I enjoy dishing out the damage. But, if I wanted to do only that, I would have played a rogue or mage, instead I chose a Shaman. Why? Because I like to be anything that's required for the given situation. I'm the utility guy. I'm not just pure DPS, although I do a ton of it, I'm a healer as well. That's why I played a Paladin to begin with. I thought he'd heal and kill, but it turns out, he just heals... If I wanted only healing, I'd play priest. But, I crave both, the ability to save lives and take them, with efficiency. In that respect, I'm primarily a Shaman now, at least until they fix the poor Pally.

Sure, healing and cleansing is just as important as the DPS in PvP. In the long-term, you need both to win. It just so happens that the Paladin isn't my cup of tea when it comes to his role in PvP and in PvE (they're both very similar). He is supposed to be the balance between healing and melee. That's what miffs me; currently, he's not. That's why I'm frustrated with him, both in PvP and PvE.