Blizzard to Paladins:

[acidjax]

I am at a loss... Apparently taking a player out of fight completely with fear, sheep or charm is less powerful then taking off maybe 500 life or 150 attack power off a single player. Cleanse is inherently more powerful then purge, if even for the simple fact that purge is pretty much only used against one target (the one you are trying to kill), while cleanse is used to cure multiple party members.

Purge goes more towards causing someone to die and cleanse preventing someone from dieing or allowing them to control their character. In the bigger picture you have priests already taking that reactionary role and spamming their decursive hotkey. Offensive dispelling can be powerful and classes that have more opportunity to do it are either shaman or non-healing priests.

It's a very fair comparison. What it means is that Horde has to bring several priests (not exactly most popular class) to PvP against competent players, while Alliance can split this role between two classes.

In the comparison it painted the picture of a CTF group with an optimum group makeup that also somehow starts the fight with an ambush while the horde group consists of one priest and 9 people that... didn't do anything from the start? If you guess warriors are going to single out the priest and /assist and charge/intercept why does the priest feel the need to stay in range in the first place? The further their warriors have to go to the enemy priest, the further they are from their own healer(s). That is because it needs to happen in order for the examples to make more sense. You *need* the priest to not kite warriors and you need the priest to not use pvp trinket and get out of poly range and you need group members that will allow a mage to blink in (or just walk in) and poly the solitary priest.

You are right. For some people AV is the real PvP. However, in organized AV groups, the fighting will be MUCH different from what you will see in pickup groups. It's like comparing a backyard kids game of Basketball to NBA. And in those groups, paladins and shamans have their roles, and that role is that of a healer.

I notice MJ is also on tichondrius. In the about 10 pre-made AV groups that I've been a part of (either primarily exiled or primarily notorious) they are never ever looking for more paladins. Priests are wanted for their ability to burst heal while paladins lack of group heal, good fast cast heal, and other utility severely hamper their ability to be healers. Mages are heavily desired and warriors the most of melee classes.

Since the majority of damage in AV is done through mages using AOE (and in part warlocks), paladins can also extend the lives of those mages by putting Blessing of Protection and/or Blessing of Freedom on them (it is hard to purge it if you have several mages go in at once, with warriors fearing everyone).

Priests can burst heal mages faster and frost/arcane mages have ice block/cold snap for their own immune bubbles that can work better in those mass aoe charges.

AoE is like the majority of damage and warriors are the chaos-makers and finishers. When on the receiving end, paladins can't heal the AoE damage very well. In 3 seconds a priest heals for up to around 6-6.5k with group heal while that paladin heals one person for around 1.5k in 2.5 seconds. The priest can run in, fear, renew/shield 2 people while running out then group heal.

(and in organized groups, healers don't really do DPS).

That's true but my rank1 mind flays have gotten people killed and rank1 shadow word:pain kept some rogues from stealthing. Mind Controls have taken some warriors out of the fight and mana burn has its uses when there's time for it. There's other utility besides damage.

I don't know why are you listing Auras and not Blessings. So you might have to choose between Fire resist aura (mind you, Horde version has lower range, costs mana to cast and STILL does not stack with MotW) and Devotion.

I talked about auras and seals because MJ said "But even without those, the auras and seals are still amazing and definitely outshine what shamans can bring to the table". I tried to show that most of those amazing seals and auras are not amazing at all.

So with one paladin in your party you can have only 1 aura at a time... Well what about:

Blessing of Kings
Blessing of Might
Blessing of Salvation
Blessing of Wisdom
Blessing of Light
And for the hell of it, Blessing of Sanctuary.

I didn't mention offensive buffs much because they don't compare to shaman offensive buffs. In practice it takes a long time to buff everyone when you try and buff multiple blessings on everyone. I guess you could have your 5-6 paladins spend 2-2.5 min of every 5min just purely buffing everyone. If everyone is bunched pre-fight then you can do it in under 1.5min with a UI mod and enough mana. Wouldn't it be horrible if shaman totems had a 30sec cast time and you went oom after casting a couple? You have to look at the opportunity costs you give up. Compare 6 paladins with 2 paladins, 2 mages, and 2 priests. The mages and priests bring let's say 15-20k mana for 300-350dps damage (combined) and 15-20k mana for healing per fight. In no way are paladin +stat buffs above and beyond your opportunity costs.

-Blessing of Kings-It's a decent buff but just how useful is it? For damage dealers it'll raise attack power by about 60 and add 1% crit. The extra 200-350 life they get may end up being inconsequential. For casters, having an extra AI and divine spirit is definitely nifty.
-Blessing of Might-This sounds nice... getting what looks like a large amount of attack power. The base spell will increase the DPS of melee by around 11 before target armor is factored in. Compare it to Windfury totem where you're basically getting 20%+ crit from one buff.
-Blessing of Salvation-This is an awesome buff in PvE which we're all in agreement and what sparked the Blizzard post to begin with.
-Blessing of Wisdom-This is like a more flexible mana spring and neither really shine until you take part in the long 3+ min fights.

And lets not forget Judgement of Wisdom. That alone beats Mana Tide totem, and that's a 31 point talent.

Judgement of Wisdom alone beats Mana Tide totem in overall mana gain/time for casters that have the time to auto-wand. Hunters can make better use of it of course but casters need to be auto-wanding to really get the use of it. Mana Tide is mana on call so mileage will vary.