Pally Changes

[Kevin]

See, a post like mine always generates a response like "Shaman is better than Pally" or "Pally is better than Shaman", but that's not what I wanted to discuss (you didn't say that, but it's something that gets said). I actually just wanted to point out that the Paladin SHOULD play more interestingly than he does now, and in order for him to do so, the class must be recognized as borked so we can move forward, toward a bright future of Pallies completely owning in PvP and so forth.

I wonder why that is when you came out and said that shaman were better than paladins. Odd how that can get those type of responses.

And yes pretty much all paladin players agree that lack of control of the DPS (which is what makes it pretty uninteresting) is the biggest issue with the class. So your next paragraph that I'm not quoting is pretty standardly known.

The argument can be made that a Paladin is also inferior in healing, thereby making the Paladin, in his two areas of "expertise", inferior overall. This means that the Alliance is gimped because they have a weaker faction-specific class.

First in mana/HP the paladin has the most efficient heals. In HP/sec they don't. In a 20 or 40 man end game raid the paladin is either filling in the gaps for other healers with the mana efficient 1.5s heal or they are spot healing people that take periodic damage and don't really need a right away heal. Those people generally get healed by a nature's swiftness from a druid or flash heal from a priest. Though the paladins 1.5s heal can buy enough time for the other heal to land.

You start out with raid examples in your first post (the the post I'm replying to), then you descibe the issues with Blessing of Light from basically a 5 man situation. In a raid you will have 2 to 8 paladins. That generally means that everyone in the raid has 2 to 6 blessings on them at all times depending on class (salv, wisdom/might, kings, sanctuary, light). Those are pretty much kept up constantly and the pallies can drink before you move on. That of course means you only have about 2 minutes of use per blessing before you look at the mana. But in a raid you aren't changing a blessing on someone before you heal them. In 5 man if you are the only healer you won't be using flash of light much, you'll be using holy light so that is what you need to look at to compare the effectiveness of healers and in 5 man you are again more worried about HP/MP than HP/s since the damage should be controlled to a few targets. As you mentioned Blessing of Protection is the paladins "oh #$%&" saver, not a quick heal usually.

I'm not convinced that a shaman is a better healer than a paladin. I'm not convinced a paladin is a better healer than a shaman. I do know that most paladin builds have some boost to healing. I've seen many shamans that don't have anything in restoration.

As far as taking a well played Paladin over a Shaman, that's a preference thing. I'd take a well played Shammy. The blessings are the trade-off; the nice thing about totems is that there are so many of them, and you can have 4 at once. With blessings you get one thing per person + aura, whereas you get 4 seperate things all at once, easily castable for any situation with Shammy. For the Paladin, there are a lot of things that the Shaman can't bring to the table, such as Salvation and Freedom. The Paladin can't AoE slow and clean poison off of 5 partymates at once, though. These trade-offs were supposed to be what make you attracted to either Paladin or Shaman.

You also aren't looking at raid vs 5 man here. In a 5 man the paladin brings stronger tanking. They all have parry, dodge, and block, along with the ability to wear plate though like a shaman depending on the role they are filling they could be wearing mostly plate or a mix of plate, mail, leather and cloth. Most have one of those at a higher percentage from talents or they have more armor from talents. Paladins can survive longer without needing healing than a shaman and most can heal without any interruption at all while taking damage though there are some builds that don't take that talent. In a 5 man sure you only get one blessing + aura. But with the totems most party members are only getting a benefit from just one of those totems anyway. Windfurry or strength of earth do nothing for that hunter shooting his bow so is it that much different than putting might on the warrior, salv on the rogue, wisdom on the mage, etc (and if the pally isn't main tank I rarely use salv in 5 mans).

I a raid if you only have one paladin or one shaman the paladin wins the buff contest because the people in his party can now get buffs and the shaman only helps those not in his party. As you add more shaman and more paladins it still stays tipped to the paladin as you start adding more blessings that everyone can have and you can start synergyzing them. A rogue with salvation, might, and kings will do more than a rogue with any totem combo one shaman can drop, if you have enough shaman to get more than one in a group that changes a bit but then you will suffer on DPS because even if that one shaman is burning the mana pool to do DPS another rogue or a hunter or lock or mage or even a fury warrior will most likely do more damage. I don't see most raids wanting 9+ shaman.

I agree there are trade offs but generally I think the paladin wins in end game raids and maybe, maybe even 10 and 15 man loot raids. I think the shaman will do more for you in a 5 man though the paladin is a better warrior replacement in my book. Both of them can heal 5 mans without any real issue all the way through BRD even as the only one with heal spells.

I want to make it clear, though: I'm critical of the Paladin because I like him so much. I played him throughout the beta, and I played him at retail, but "click... wait..." has become not enough to hold my attention, especially when I see how well balanced the Shaman is in terms of Talents and over-all usefulness. I can switch from DPS to healing in the blink of an eye, and be effective at both.

I agree that the paladin needs love (and I didn't see anyone argue against that in this thread) of course so does the shaman. Mana tide is only an OK 31 point talent but when you look at what you have to give up it gets much much worse. The paladin gets quite a few good talents on the way to blessing of kings (buff spells they are the only real talent comparisions between the two of that type) at least if they want to solo or if they are just a secondary or tertiary healer in smaller raids. Those talents become pretty much a complete waste in a 40 man.

A paladin can switch between being a damage sponge and healing in a blink as well and be effective at both. But a shaman that is really doing DPS is going to burn a lot of mana. Whereas if the mob lives long enough the boring pally DPS which is probably lower (though a shaman without the talent to get a 2 handed weapons might not be up as high if they still want mana to do serious healing) doesn't take a lot of mana. Rank one seal of command or a higher rank seal of righteousness you'll generally bless light or wisdom if you are off tanking/DPS or not judge at all. To be a truly effective healer or DPS with either means different gear sets. But I do still give the DPS edge to a shaman, easily, but DPS + healing isn't that clear cut for me because of the mana use the shaman needs to put out.

PvP was the catalyst really. I crave it, I enjoy it, gotta have it. With the Paladin, having to rely on trickery instead of skill sealed it. Timing your stun and being basically a toothless animal when that Shaman casts purge on ya... If you're 1 on 1 with a Shaman, and he puts down a grounding totem and Earthbind, you put blessing of freedom, and attack the grounding (lest your stun be grounded). This is time that the Shammy loads up a lightning bolt and/or shocks and purgs you. Then you get to run up to him and stand there while you wait for a Seal of Command proc. What fun. You can understand, that for purposes of PvP, I went Horde and I'm not coming back until the Paladin gets fixed. Oh, and Windfury puts Seal of Command to shame. To shame!

Yep the shaman wins in heads up PvP and small group PvP easily. The paladin as a tough to kill healer can help group PvP a lot. Shaman are easier to kill than a paladin and their heals will be stuttered if they take damage. A paladin can still heal while taking damage with concentration aura up so they are still an issue in group PvP. But you are right they are not exciting at all (they are most exciting to play when tanking for a 5 man as you have to a lot of button pushing mob switching, etc but they are still a pretty click wait class).

For people who say, "ah, it's not that bad," you're really fooling yourselves. The class should play better than it does. It needs a LOT of improvement. Play a warrior or rogue and see how fun and varied combat should be. Play a priest or healing druid and see how effective your healing should be. Now combine them, and tone both down a little, and that's how the Paladin should be.
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I agree that the paladin should be better. I have a 60 druid and a 60 paladin. Both have done extensive healing as the only healer in 5 mans. My druid was restoration/feral. The paladin is retribution/holy. As far as healing effectiveness goes, once I got a feel for how they both healed, not a whole lot harder to heal a 5 man with either class. My druid was easier to tank with thanks to snap aggro. I have a 60 warrior as well so I know about tanking with a warrior. Really though tanking with a warrior vs a single mob is pretty much as boring as it is with a paladin, druid, or hunter. I push more buttons but I really don't need to the outcome is still the same. Against multiple mobs the warrior has a lot more options and skills to hold the extra mobs but I've tanked with a paladin and held 3 or 4 mobs as well and while I don't get to use as many skills it's still exciting, though it's more of a terror type of exciting since you have a lot less control. A druid tanking multiple mobs is a lot of just hit one button when the cooldown is done too (maul with swipes on multiple mobs). Solo combat is more varied and yes I do wish the paladin had more of that but I still prefer to grind with my paladin over my warrior because of self heal. Grinding mobs is boring regardless so I actually prefer the I don't have to pay any attention at all method of the paladin. :) I've also played Treesh's L57 shaman a few times and her L60 priest (and the priests really have it easy on healing good lord) as well as my own L21 shaman (getting him bigger he ended up as my auction alt for a bit but I'm changing that) so I've got some first hand knowledge of that as well. Paladins don't have it that bad. They should be better and I'm hoping they get a lot better in being able to have more direct control on what they do. I would like some changes to their healing and changes to their tanking no arguments but you can't ignore that they do bring some things to the table that are unique and powerful. It's just as you said they aren't a lot of fun.