Paladins...is it as bad as they say?

[Scalefang]

First a little history: I have putzed around on both the alliance and horde side, had every other class up to 20-30 and just recently capped an UD Mage.

So, having gotten sick of casters, I wanted to play a melee and thought it would be a good opportunity to play the one class I haven't yet: The Paladin. I don't mind healing and have a desperate urge to be on the front lines bashing things over the head.

However, I read/gain information on the paladin class only to find people who gripe/whine about the class almost everywhere I go.

The Lounge has, in my experience, never been a place for whiners but a place where things get picked apart and explained. So, my question gets posted here:

Is it as bad as they say? Is the class boring as all get out? Would I live to regret my decision to roll a Paladin? Or is this just the vocal minority instead of the majority?

Thanks for your time.


[Edit] I know that boringness is a subjective quality. I'm just looking for the knowledge to make an informed decision instead of posters saying "OMGZ REROLL NOW YA NOOB"

[Quark]

Is it as bad as they say?  Is the class boring as all get out?
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This is the only thing I have a knowledgeable response for. I know people can have fun with their paladins, but for me it's boring and a huge reason for that is my first character was a Rogue. When you want to do damage as a Rogue, you hit a button. When you want to do damage as a Paladin, you watch the screen.

This specific issue should be relieved once Paladins get their new spell that Blizzard is talking about.

[Garrin]

I love playing a pali, it can be anything you really want to play. I out DPS'd a 52 warlock yesterday in mara (i'm at 50). I can heal, I can buff, i add lots to groups. I can also solo because i have all those abilities. Some of the solo fighting can be somewhat boring, as your only really feeling involved when you're fighting things about 3 or 4 lvl's higher than you. Otherwise you click a few buttons and your done until the end of the fight. It's all a matter of how much you challenge yourself.

IMO it's totally worth everyones time to check out how a pali plays. It's uber-fun

[Tal]

Right now the biggest problem folks like myself have with Paladins is that there is no controllable DPS. As Quark said, if he wants to hurt a mob on his rogue Ramala he only has to push a button and see instant results. With Sharanna I fire up Seal of Command and hope that the random number generator likes me at that point in time. Now that being said another problem with paladins is that our main means of interaction, judging seals, is hugely mana efficient in most fights.

But that isn't to say that the class isn't fun to play. Its really the most fun in groups (raids is another issue entirely). A well played paladin will be judging seals to assist their group, healing if necessary, off tanking/intercepting mobs, and juggling auras as needed. With the proper judging of seals and use of seals/blessings a paladin can solo even and higher elites given enough time and lack of adds. :) Oh and the one piece of advice I will give anyone who plays a paladin is to save your stun. Too many times I've seen a paladin rush in and stun a mob to lead off a fight. Stuns are used to give you breathing room for healing, to intercept a mob that is heading for a healer/squishy, and in some cases to stop a runner.

Also carry the reagent and know how to Divine Intervention someone in case of a fight.

[Bolty]

However, I read/gain information on the paladin class only to find people who gripe/whine about the class almost everywhere I go.[right][snapback]84179[/snapback][/right]

Well, remember that this is subjective. Go to the Blizzard forums for any class and you will see tons of whining and complaining.

Warlocks because the class remains ridiculously buggy, and the "uberpets" are teh suck.
Priests because the holy tree is so out of whack, because spirit isn't so great as a primary stat, and because they die in seconds in any group PvP.
Mages because itemization at the end game really supports melee at the moment more than casters, their frost effects just got nerfed, and that sheep bug.
Shamans because...well, they're morons. But I'm sure they have something broken somewhere. :)
Rogues because they really are the "easy mode" of leveling 1-60 along with PvP, and thus there are 10 billion of them and they can't get groups.
Hunters because of pet issues and a similar problem as rogues.
Warriors because ...uh, what do warriors complain about? They just got some lovin.
Druids because, being a jack of all trades, they are master of none and get relegated to healing much of the time.

...and Paladins because the role they thought they'd have when they created their characters turned out to be very different from their end-game role.

Paladins are beaten out in the tanking department by warriors, a class better designed to hold aggro and mitigate damage. But I think many people who rolled Paladins expected to be the "big guy" of a group, the invincible uber-tank who can self-heal and take a huge beating. In reality, they are backup healers, buffers, and main assists.

Add to that a simplified combat system that is so much less interactive than every other class, and you get some boredom brought into it. One of the reasons I always prefer casters in these games (Diablo, WoW, just about any RPG) is because they tend to be more complex - more choices to make in every fight. Take Diablo 1's warrior vs sorceror - the warrior's typical combat move is to walk up to a mob and click on it repeatedly until it dies, while a sorceror has to worry about mana, positioning to keep away from mobs, what spells to use, how to use each spell most effectively since they work in many different ways, etc. Blizzard did a great job making melee classes in WoW just as interesting to play as casters with the combat systems in place for rogues and warriors, but seemed to come up a bit short with the Paladin. Gameplay is just too...simple with them.

Group play with a Paladin gets a bit better, since they have more to keep track of - but ye gods, solo play on a Pally is just fall-asleep-inducing click-a-button-and-wait gameplay.

The best satisfaction with Paladins is soloing elites and laughing at them, because Paladins are so invincible. Sure, it may take 2 minutes to kill the mob, but they end the fight with full health...

Anyhow, this is from someone who's played every class to at least 20, but hasn't taken a Paladin to high levels, so take that with a grain of salt.

-Bolty

[Kevin]

Reiterating what has been said.

Paladins have very little to do in solo combat. They will out DPS or keep up with DPS with a warrior up till around L45 or so. At least in all the tests I did, they have and this includes arms/fury builds. However they have little in the way of snap aggro or damage (judging seal of fury does seem to be a nice snap aggro generator) and some of the stuff they can do for that is very mana inefficient or tied into a timer that was burned for something else. But even with a the possibility of a good average DPS they just lack fire.

I've solo'd named elites that were 4 or 5 levels higher than me and came out of the fight with over 90% health and mana. Of course one of those fights took 7:40 minutes. But a paladin can be health and mana postive in a fight if the mob lives long enough, and they will.

My paladin has main tanked instances and main healed instances and been an assist in instances, been the top damage dealer in instances. I main healed Maraudon at L45-6 (turned 46 in the instance). This is the run Garrin was on so there was another paladin there, but I think he cast a total of 5 heals and all of those were out of combat. Sure some of the people in there were over leveled 48 warrior, 50 paladin, 51 hunter, 45/6 paladin and 52 warlock. But I could have main healed it with level appropriate people as well. The warlock was comfortable enough to be using hellfire a lot of the time too.

You can do a lot with blessings and seals. I got to use Divine Intervention in Razorfen Downs last night when the whole hill came running. Unfotunately a pat came along right after the priest I hit with the DI rezzed the other priest and neither had any mana left and well we wiped anyway, but I almost saved a wipe with it.

The class is more subtle and slow play than other classes, there can be a lack of interaction with the interface, especially when soloing. That being said I prefer a paladin solo over a protection warrior solo. The paladin doesn't have to go, oh #$%& time to hope I can run away from this, lets sit and eat or bandage now and they kill just as fast if not faster because seal of command procs will make up for the slight extra damage that a heroic strike, or shield slam and even the untalented execute will do. People forget a protection warriors damage, even in battle or zerker stance, because of no talent backing, is basically just autoattack with a little help here and there as well. Sure you control when that damage comes but it really doesn't add any more damage than the PRNG will give a paladin.

There have been runs with my paladin though were I did more button pressing than any other class in that instance. I had a blast as main healer in maraudon. I did an uldaman run with 2 paladins that were kinda spliting the healing so we were both in combat gear and up front smacking things with the warrior and throwing out the heals when we needed (both had the 5 points in the heal talent so heals were uninterrupted by damage with concentration up). That was a blast and we both got to do a lot of judgements and stuns to stop runners, heal here, cleanse here, stun this guy. Back out of the way to so you can heal and avoid the knockdowns. Charge in and fight while the other one heals. At the end of the instance I put my healer gear on and we did a more traditional main healer set-up but it was a blast.

But they play a lot different than all the other classes really, and the differences are most stark solo. But I find them no less boring to solo than a protection warrior. An arms/fury or fury/arms warrior is more fun to play solo but except on the test realms I've never really had anything but a protection warrior above L20.

[MongoJerry]

The Lounge has, in my experience, never been a place for whiners but a place where things get picked apart and explained. So, my question gets posted here:

Nerf Paladins!

:lol:

[oldmandennis]

^^ Agree. My paladin made it to 31 (I think) before the RL friends he trioed with had a kid. Now he's on ice until the kid can sleep through the night.

Pally solo is pretty boring. I don't know about protection spec warriors, but I wouldn't try to level that one up solo either. I'd either have a designated group, or respec at 60. Pally's don't really have option 2. Pally in a group is pretty fun.

[Rinnhart]

Is it as bad as the boards say? No.

But the class needs work.

[MongoJerry]

From the point of view of a player going up against paladins and having played with them a lot in the beta but not much in retail, here are my impressions of the class.

Paladins are annoying SOB's who can't die but can't do much damage either. Every once in a while, I get an itch to roll a paladin, because I think I'd be a very good one. In effect, I would play a paladin as a "priest wearing plate." That is, I would consider my auras, seals, dispelling, and healing to be my primary concerns in a party and would only whack on things when there's nothing else to do. Paladins played like this in group PvP are extremely annoying and I imagine that paladins played like that are beloved in groups.

The trouble is that I think most people who chose to roll a paladin didn't know that this was how they were going to play their class. I think they thought they were going to be a significant damage dealer/tank and that their auras and stuff were kind of icing on the cake rather than their primary skills. They get bored, because it turns out that they can't do the kind of dps they thought they would be able to do.

Some people are now calling for paladins to get better attack skills and spells. I am *very* concerned about this. The trouble with giving paladins better dps is that then you'd end up with an invicible character who can also damage people hard. Warriors are bad enough in this regard, but at least they can be killed. Allow paladins to deal a lot of dps and there wouldn't be any reason to play anything else.

Should you play a paladin? Basically, I think if you go in with the idea that you are a "priest wearing plate," then I think you'll have an enjoyable time. If you go in thinking that you're going to be a major damage dealer/tank, you're going to have a miserable time.

[Concillian]

People forget  a protection warriors damage, even in battle or zerker stance, because of no talent backing, is basically just autoattack with a little help here and there as well.  Sure you control when that damage comes but it really doesn't add any more damage than the PRNG will give a paladin.
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I would tend to disagree here. My protection spec warrior bounces from mob to mob at a killing rate only beaten by my rogue. I will agree if you're talking about using a 1handed weapon, but even a protection spec warrior should be soloing with a slow 2Hander and a weapon switch macro to go 1H+shield only when necessary (shield slam or to silence a caster), this should be a similar weapon to what a pally should be using with SoC for the procs to be as useful as possible.

While heroic strike damage may be pretty minimal, I never use it solo, ever because it's so horribl rage inefficient. It takes almost as much rage as shield slam but does 1/5th the damage or less. Pretty much ANY other skill is a better rage dump than HS, mostly because everything else gives an additional chance at triggering overpower. Shield slam is well over weapon damage at the levels it is offered, and is guaranteed twice per fight because of the rage you generate. This itself is more damage than SoC, and it is predictable. Plus you can dump additional rage into low damage skills like hamstring or sunder to add value plus potentially get a dodge for an overpower.

The predictability of your damage allows you to not use skills that will eat rage when a mob is at 5% and the next hit will kill it anyway. Then you can use that rage to take the next mob down significantly quicker than normal. But if SoC procs when a mob is at 5% and running away, oh well, you just "wasted" it.

You are also assuming the same gear, and likely a paladin will be focusing less on strength and more on INT than a warrior will. All of these things combine to give a signficant advantage to a protection spec warrior in terms of killing rate. If you are having similar DPS rates between a protection warrior and a pally when solo, then you are simply not playing the protection warrior in an efficient manner when solo, you're certainly not using your retaliate every half hour for an 'I win' button against an encampment of 4 or so or the elite of your choice.

[Tal]

Some people are now calling for paladins to get better attack skills and spells.  I am *very* concerned about this.  The trouble with giving paladins better dps is that then you'd end up with an invicible character who can also damage people hard.  Warriors are bad enough in this regard, but at least they can be killed.  Allow paladins to deal a lot of dps and there wouldn't be any reason to play anything else.
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No. Most players are asking for consistent dps. Not relying upon the RNG for your damage. I'm more than happy to be at the bottom of the DPS list (as I usually am) if there was at least one button I could push that would have some effect on the outcome.

[Quark]

Some people are now calling for paladins to get better attack skills and spells.  I am *very* concerned about this.  The trouble with giving paladins better dps is that then you'd end up with an invicible character who can also damage people hard.  Warriors are bad enough in this regard, but at least they can be killed.  Allow paladins to deal a lot of dps and there wouldn't be any reason to play anything else.
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From my somewhat-newish PvP experience, it seems you're concerned that Paladins will become like ... Shamans.

I've had some painful PvP learning experiences, but nothing has been as painful as just trying to figure out how to take a Shaman down, given that they have ways to slow me, knock me out of stealth, slow me again, heal themselves, have ranged and melee damage, and have better armor than classes with half their options.

[Kevin]

I would tend to disagree here.  My protection spec warrior bounces from mob to mob at a killing rate only beaten by my rogue.  I will agree if you're talking about using a 1handed weapon, but even a protection spec warrior should be soloing with a slow 2Hander and a weapon switch macro to go 1H+shield only when necessary (shield slam or to silence a caster), this should be a similar weapon to what a pally should be using with SoC for the procs to be as useful as possible.

While heroic strike damage may be pretty minimal, I never use it solo, ever because it's so horribl rage inefficient.  It takes almost as much rage as shield slam but does 1/5th the damage or less.  Pretty much ANY other skill is a better rage dump than HS, mostly because everything else gives an additional chance at triggering overpower.  Shield slam is well over weapon damage at the levels it is offered, and is guaranteed twice per fight because of the rage you generate.  This itself is more damage than SoC, and it is predictable.  Plus you can dump additional rage into low damage skills like hamstring or sunder to add value plus potentially get a dodge for an overpower.

The predictability of your damage allows you to not use skills that will eat rage when a mob is at 5% and the next hit will kill it anyway.  Then you can use that rage to take the next mob down significantly quicker than normal.  But if SoC procs when a mob is at 5% and running away, oh well, you just "wasted" it. 

You are also assuming the same gear, and likely a paladin will be focusing less on strength and more on INT than a warrior will.  All of these things combine to give a signficant advantage to a protection spec warrior in terms of killing rate.  If you are having similar DPS rates between a protection warrior and a pally when solo, then you are simply not playing the protection warrior in an efficient manner when solo,  you're certainly not using your retaliate every half hour for an 'I win' button against an encampment of 4 or so or the elite of your choice.
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I'll clarify that my experiences are with a retribution/holy paladin so I get some more damage on my paladin that way.

I'm not assuming same gear I'm talking direct comparison of my L46 paladin and my L60 proctection warrior and what I remember from the times he did solo at that stage. I also fought side by side at L45 with an L45 arms/fury warrior using the exact same weapon on the same mobs and our damage, even with me healing him or myself in combat at times so not swinging came out pretty much the same from what recap told me. I'm confident that he was not playing the warrior poorly either.

I don't really use heroic strike when soloing and I probably sunder too much solo as well so I don't save as much rage as maybe I could. I don't have tactical mastery or anger management so I have less rage generated that some people might think. Shield slam, top rank, thanks to armor on mobs, generally does about 300 to 400 damage. I've seen it as low as 180. I hardly ever get to overpower with my warrior though and I'm not sure why, things just don't dodge me. So shield slam is 30 rage and it gets you one or two swings worth of damage since my 2 hander is hitting in the 200-400 range. Seal of Command on my L46 paladin is routinely hitting for 200 - 400 additional damage without a crit. My 2 hander hits in the 130-240 range. It generally procs 2 to 4 times in the 30 seconds it is up so it generally procs more than I can shield slam in a single fight. Thanks to the precision talent the paladin misses less than the warrior as well. I solo with a Blackhand Doomsaw most of the time as well on the warrior.

Another issue that taints my soloing experience with the warrior is that I still don't have a full set of "offensive" gear. So I have this half tank (+def and +stam) and half offensive (+str, +agi, +crit) gear. So yeah you are right some of it is my warrior. My paladin does have a full set of level appropriate offensive gear as long as the full set of healing gear.

But the paladin doesn't have down time, at all, the warrior does and did at that level. I don't have to stop to drink or eat or bandage, ever. I simply may have to pick my next fight a little more carefully. You don't use a lot of mana soloing with a paladin and casting a Blessing of Wisdom on yourself takes 20 seconds to make up for the mana it took you to cast it. Judging wisdom or running seal of wisdom for a bit gets you mana postive at the cost of one or two procs for command at most. I pretty much never have to run away from a fight. The once every 30 minutes retaliation doesn't usually make up for that. I know that I'm comparing more L45 soloing vs L60 soloing, but my protection warrior is soloing -2 to -4 mobs. The paladin is soloing -2 to +4 mobs. I may be remembering wrong with Gnolack from L45 as well, he didn't solo that much at lower levels I had a holy spec priest with me most of the time.

I also know that the paladin has been slowing down on kill speed post L43. And maybe I'm counting downtime for more than I should be because it annoys me more than killing a single mob slowly. Maybe I do take mobs down faster than I think with my warrior, but it sure doesn't feel like it. I'd much rather solo with any class over a protection spec warrior so maybe I'm just attributing things that aren't there. Some if it may be that I play too much like I'm in a group as well.

[MongoJerry]

From my somewhat-newish PvP experience, it seems you're concerned that Paladins will become like ... Shamans.

I've had some painful PvP learning experiences, but nothing has been as painful as just trying to figure out how to take a Shaman down, given that they have ways to slow me, knock me out of stealth, slow me again, heal themselves, have ranged and melee damage, and have better armor than classes with half their options.

It sounds like you're a rogue going up against a shaman. Yeah, rogues are on the wrong end of a rock-paper-scissors battle with a shaman. Not every opponent a rogue goes up against should be a 2-shot clothie. Shamans are very powerful PvP opponents, I agree, and a well-played shaman is *extremely* powerful. But unlike paladins, shamans can actually be killed. With paladins, groups of 5+ players will look at a paladin and go, "*Groan!* It's just not worth it!" In a one-on-one battle, a paladin can beat all classes except priests (due to mana burn) as it is. The fights just take forever. Give paladins a significant dps boost and again, there would be no reason to play anything else.

[Tal]

It sounds like you're a rogue going up against a shaman.  Yeah, rogues are on the wrong end of a rock-paper-scissors battle with a shaman.  Not every opponent a rogue goes up against should be a 2-shot clothie.  Shamans are very powerful PvP opponents, I agree, and a well-played shaman is *extremely* powerful.  But unlike paladins, shamans can actually be killed.  With paladins, groups of 5+ players will look at a paladin and go, "*Groan!*  It's just not worth it!"  In a one-on-one battle, a paladin can beat all classes except priests (due to mana burn) as it is.  The fights just take forever.  Give paladins a significant dps boost and again, there would be no reason to play anything else.
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Mortal strike warriors, frost mages and stunlock rogues don't seem to have a lot of trouble with Shar. ;)

[Treesh]

Mortal strike warriors, frost mages and stunlock rogues don't seem to have a lot of trouble with Shar. ;)
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One of these days, Eth will duel Sharanna. She fully expects to see her own head on a platter, but she expected that with Shalandrax too so she's prepared for getting beat down. ;)

[Tal]

One of these days, Eth will duel Sharanna.  She fully expects to see her own head on a platter, but she expected that with Shalandrax too so she's prepared for getting beat down.  ;)
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First you need to duel Shal. ;)

[Treesh]

First you need to duel Shal. ;)
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But I did! *mutters* Back when Shal and Eth were in their 30s or 40s ;)

[Tal]

But I did!  *mutters* Back when Shal and Eth were in their 30s or 40s ;)
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I hurts more now. ;)