07-26-2005, 05:12 AM
First and foremost let me say that my paladin is my favorite character i have. Where other characters have a large chance to frustrate me i find the paladin very relaxing. The class does, however, have some serious faults. Mostly issues that revolve around the fact that, in practice, the class does not play how it does in theory. Or more specifically how blizzard both describes and pidgeon-holes it by items. On to the problems...
1. Talant Trees - Where other characters talant trees have a good balance of power/sacrifice as well as synergistic qualities the paladin skill trees have no real "hard" character choices to make about how you want to play the class. Supposedly if you spec in holy you should be a good healer, protection a tank, and retribution a better damage dealer. This is far from the truth however as after the first 14 talant points in holy there is no bonus to healing ability. The lack of any agro control makes the paladin unable to tank to any serious degree. And there are many skills that just dont make sense regarding their placement. The paladin suffers from a serious case of "I want to be a protection spec but 70% of the skills i have to take to learn 1 or 2 specific abilities are WORTHLESS!" There isn't a single paladin that ever specced 31 points into protection that didn't have an involuntary vomit reflex at putting points into Imp Seal of Justice.
2. Blessings - Blessings aren't in themselves bad. they are great. BUT, they are designed to be cycled in combat to fit the situation. Thus the short timer and lower cast cost. In reality they are just a hassle. There are veritably no instances where you would need to put a different blessing on anyone except maybe a Blessing of Freedom or Blessing of Protection once in a blue moon. What really happens is that every person in your group gets the same blessing refreshed every 5 minutes. If there was any real need to swap blessings around than the low cost and timer would work well. In reality it is just a pain in the ass and in any sizable raid all you do is refresh blessings and occasionally purge/heal.
3. Back-Up Healer - Like other people have mentioned the paladin is essentially a back up healer/cleanser. This is hard for people that play the character to grasp because it's not how the character is advertised out of the game, or in for that matter. paladin players go through 90% of their career thinking that they can tank/damage like a warrior based on the fact that almost all the equipment they can get essentially tells them that is how they should play. Almost every mail item you can get up to the point you can use plate is heavy on Stam/Strength/or Agility. And when you hit plate the amount of plate you can generally find with Eagle or other Int bonuses is slim. It's not till you get nearly capped and start getting your class sets that you realise "crap, all this gear is set to be for a back up healer!"
4. Seals - again 90% of seals are worthless. Add to the fact that for a seal and judgement to be worth their cost it needs to last the full 30 seconds. and even then the mana cost of sealing up and judging is fairly prohibitive. when you get into PvP situations one of the largest skillsets of the paladin becomes unusable. nobody is going to live long enough for it to be worth judging a seal on them. which leads to:
5. PvP skills - The paladin has by far the least amount of skills that are in any way usable in pvp as opposed to other classes. If you thought upper level paladins were restricted to back up healers in PvE, this is only magnified in a PvP setting.
Are any of these items class breaking? No, but they are symptoms of a larger problem with the class, in that in reality it doesnt play how it is designed. The ideas for seals and blessings are good ideas. they just dont work that way. If paladins are supposed to be back up healers give them more items available with Int on them. Etc. Etc.
1. Talant Trees - Where other characters talant trees have a good balance of power/sacrifice as well as synergistic qualities the paladin skill trees have no real "hard" character choices to make about how you want to play the class. Supposedly if you spec in holy you should be a good healer, protection a tank, and retribution a better damage dealer. This is far from the truth however as after the first 14 talant points in holy there is no bonus to healing ability. The lack of any agro control makes the paladin unable to tank to any serious degree. And there are many skills that just dont make sense regarding their placement. The paladin suffers from a serious case of "I want to be a protection spec but 70% of the skills i have to take to learn 1 or 2 specific abilities are WORTHLESS!" There isn't a single paladin that ever specced 31 points into protection that didn't have an involuntary vomit reflex at putting points into Imp Seal of Justice.
2. Blessings - Blessings aren't in themselves bad. they are great. BUT, they are designed to be cycled in combat to fit the situation. Thus the short timer and lower cast cost. In reality they are just a hassle. There are veritably no instances where you would need to put a different blessing on anyone except maybe a Blessing of Freedom or Blessing of Protection once in a blue moon. What really happens is that every person in your group gets the same blessing refreshed every 5 minutes. If there was any real need to swap blessings around than the low cost and timer would work well. In reality it is just a pain in the ass and in any sizable raid all you do is refresh blessings and occasionally purge/heal.
3. Back-Up Healer - Like other people have mentioned the paladin is essentially a back up healer/cleanser. This is hard for people that play the character to grasp because it's not how the character is advertised out of the game, or in for that matter. paladin players go through 90% of their career thinking that they can tank/damage like a warrior based on the fact that almost all the equipment they can get essentially tells them that is how they should play. Almost every mail item you can get up to the point you can use plate is heavy on Stam/Strength/or Agility. And when you hit plate the amount of plate you can generally find with Eagle or other Int bonuses is slim. It's not till you get nearly capped and start getting your class sets that you realise "crap, all this gear is set to be for a back up healer!"
4. Seals - again 90% of seals are worthless. Add to the fact that for a seal and judgement to be worth their cost it needs to last the full 30 seconds. and even then the mana cost of sealing up and judging is fairly prohibitive. when you get into PvP situations one of the largest skillsets of the paladin becomes unusable. nobody is going to live long enough for it to be worth judging a seal on them. which leads to:
5. PvP skills - The paladin has by far the least amount of skills that are in any way usable in pvp as opposed to other classes. If you thought upper level paladins were restricted to back up healers in PvE, this is only magnified in a PvP setting.
Are any of these items class breaking? No, but they are symptoms of a larger problem with the class, in that in reality it doesnt play how it is designed. The ideas for seals and blessings are good ideas. they just dont work that way. If paladins are supposed to be back up healers give them more items available with Int on them. Etc. Etc.