Paladins and 1.9

[Chesspiece_face]

Frome Caydiem on the WoW paladin boards:

You've asked for the philosophy and reasoning behind the Paladin changes; after speaking with the developers, I've returned with some notes on why the talent trees were changed.

Now, each tree has an overall theme for what it's meant to accomplish: Protection is the defensive tree, upping survivability and defense; Retribution is the damage tree, increasing the Paladin's capacity to dish out DPS; and Holy is the "holy magic" tree, increasing both healing and damage spells. Now, these are the overall ideas behind the trees, but they aren't completely specialized towards these goals -- creating a tree that's completely specialized in one direction causes players to be pigeonholed even further, which is something the designers want to avoid. As such, there are some diverse elements in each tree, such as Blessing of Kings in the Retribution tree. (A similar effect is seen in the Druid talent trees, with both beneficial feral and casting abilities spread throughout.) With a hybrid-like class such as the Paladin, it's important to promote that diversity rather than shun it for over-specialization.

Now, to go over a few specific questions you had regarding the talent changes:

Consecration was switched with Sanctity Aura to put more low-mana DPS in the "damage" (Retribution) tree and more utility in the Holy tree. The Consecration spell benefits more from being in the Holy tree, as Paladins specced towards that tree are likely to have more mana and thus be able to make better use of it. In addition, it has been shifted to an 11-point talent, making it more accessible to a variety of builds (thus making it easier for Retribution Paladins to take it if they choose).

Many of you have asked about the ability to tank or otherwise be on the front lines. The Protection tree is definitely more of a "front lines" tree (defensive-wise; retribution is obviously the offense tree), and with certain group makeups, Paladins certainly can fill the role of tank in a 5-man group. There are no plans to make Paladins tanks in line with Defense-specced Warriors. There are differences in the way Paladins can tank as compared to Warriors; this is intended. Their tanking styles are not meant to mimic the Warrior, but rather complement their particular group makeup in the right situations. As for Retribution, it's certainly meant to give the Paladin more damage output, but there are no plans to make Paladins a primary DPS class.

Lastly comes the question of class role. I covered this earlier, but we are not going to release a detailed role description that makes your guild only pigeonhole you further. The ever-present "class role" request is often a quest to find what the developers think your class should be "best" at, and go from there. The issue here is that World of Warcraft's classes are all "best" at what they do in various situations, but no one class is king. The mentality that someone simply must be the "best" at something is common but incorrect in terms of how the game is designed. It's all situational; everyone has their chance to shine.

Lastly, don't be afraid to experiment with the class as a whole and find what works best for you. Learn the breadth of your class abilities -- you might find there's more to be had there than you first thought.

Original Post.

Edit: I think this concept that keeps coming from the devs about "not pidgeon-holing" characters and not trying to define what a class should do best is a complete cop out. Whether they conciously want to make a class best at one thing or not is completely besides the point. Each class is best at one thing or another (well maybe not the paladin!) I guess during all the revisions of this post above by caydiem the devs missed the complete irony of the fact that they don't want to make one class best over another class but then they go and state that they don't want to make paladins as good of tanks as a prot warrior. Inherant to that statement is the fact that they want protection warriors to be the BEST!!!! MORONS!

All in all i think 1.9 and the responses i've seen from the CR's and Devs only goes to show that they have no place reserved for the paladin class nor do they have any interest to define one. And since they really don't care to deal with the situation they go and hide behind this blanket "we don't want to make any class best" statement. well excuse me blizz but i call Bull$#!%.