The Paladin in World of Warcraft is an odd duck. Primarily defense-oriented, you would think a Paladin could make a good tank, since he can wear plate armor, heal, and wield most melee weapons. But since that tenacity comes at the cost of offensive capability, the tank quality is dimished when you look at the inferior aggro control the paladin has. Oh sure, he has some options (Seal of Fury) but definitely not on the level of a Warrior.
However I don’t mind this. Usually when my friend and I pair up and go fight monsters, at the very worst him and his pet die, and I barely limp out of the fight in one piece. I then come back and ressurect my friend, and we can continue. However Damage Per Second (DPS) seems to be a major concern for Paladin players lately, particularly since they fixed a bug with Seal of the Crusader. Now people whine the Paladin is ‘useless’ because of crappy DSP :rolleyes:
On the other side of the coin are the (surprise surprise!) horde players who say the Paladin is overpowered, a ‘noob’ class that doesn’t take much skill to play (frankly mashing macros every 3 seconds is not my idea of ‘skill’ but your mileage may vary )
So it seems like practically everybody (except me! ) hates Paladins…the people that use them complain they’re not strong enough and don’t have a very useful role in high level instances (people would rather lean on the extremes: Warriors, Priests, Mages and leave the hybrids at home: Paladins, Warlocks, Druids, Hunters). The people that fight against them loathe the ‘3 lives’ (Divine Shield, Lay on Hands, Blessing of Protection) that the Paladin gets.
Personally, I hate them because they were designed as a selfish class.
Paladins are very personal defense oriented, with heals, their Divine shield, plate, but they lack in the damage output of other fighter types.
The big problem for me arrises when I play my Priest - Paladins don’t do enough damage to pull agro off primary spellcasters, and don’t do enough damage output to compliment the other classes. They don’t pull their own weight if you will.
Warrirors are pure damage output, and can pull agro when something is smacking the casters, hunters can attack with themselves and their pets, rogues do insane damage. Paladins don’t - and I end up dying. No fun.
They are good at keeping themselves alive, but don’t compliment other classes well. I haven’t played a paladin, mind you. So this is just from talking to other paladin haters.
I’m not terribly familiar with WoW, but in most rule systems, hybrids drop off in usefulness quickly compared to specialized characters. That doesn’t mean they’re not enjoyable to play; just that for people who want maximum power, they’re not appealing.
Well, the problem here is that if a group has a choice, they are generally going to go for the specialist. Obviously a Priest is a better healer than a Paladin, and a Warrior is a better tanker than a Paladin.
I think when my friend and I get up in levels, I’ll go out of my way to create an unconventional group, just to see how much fun I can have (hey, I’m not expecting it to work well, but I play the game for FUN, not to win)
RevCo, in a sense, a Paladin has great potential to be a soloing class, if that is what you are saying. I’ve personally had a lot more fun soloing with my Paladin than with my Priest. But they both have their strong points. Personally I like the Paladin’s versatility between fighting, healing, ressurecting, etc. Oh yeah, and I don’t have to shell out all that gold for a mount! BWA HA HA HA HA!
How easy is it for enemies to get around a battle line and “smack your mages”? In WCIII it was sort of easy, which rendered defensive characters less useful. However, if there are more dungeon-y environs in WoW, I’d say the Paladin would be most useful in a party in a dungeon, as of course a tank for the mages to hide behind.
Of course, I’ve never played a MMORPG. Am currently playing a lizardman monk in D20 though (as a 1st level monk/4th level total, when using tumble with total defense I have an AC of 30, unarmored, 31 against my dodge opponent!!!)
I’ve never played WoW, so this might be true, but it seems odd to me. In Diablo II, another Blizzard game, paladins aren’t too useful soloing, but a single paladin can typically double the effectiveness of the rest of his party. In other words, if you’re playing in a party, and can choose your classes, you want at least one paladin, if not more. Which makes sense, given the Paladin’s history in RPGs as a high-charisma do-gooder who’s always trying to help others. You’d think that Blizzard would have realized that in subsequent games.
In WoW players/enemies can walk through each other. So if a monster really wanted to, he could stroll over and stomp the mages. Since mages typically do bursts of high damage, the mage is gonna be the monster’s priority unless the tanker can convince him otherwise (through taunts, immobilization, etc).
In PvP Paladins have some shortcomings- they have no way of forcing the opponent to stay in the fight. Most other classes can thus run away from the paladin if they are losing. But the paladin does not have this luxury. If the paladin runs, the enemy can give chase and finish him off (since the paladin can’t ‘out run’ an enemy and only has ONE stun ability)
However I heard that Paladins are useful in raids against horde towns because the Paladins are so hardy and can stay alive for a long time. They could be useful in drawing off guards while other classes come in and murder all the quest NPCs
I haven’t played yet, so take my comments with a grain of salt. I have, however, tried to read up on WoW, and there’s no way to do that without coming across the Paladin arguments. So I think I’ve got a decent grasp on things.
Basically, you’re running into the standard power-gamer prejudice, which is that character worth is based upon how much and how fast you can kill things. So from a playing perspective, Paladins suck because they can’t kill things as fast as other classes. And from a playing against perspective, they suck because they can’t be killed quickly.
I don’t know how they look from a playing with perspective at all, so I can’t comment on RevCo’s comment.
Supposedly Blizzard mandated that all the classes should be able to defeat a monster their level within a certain time range. The idea is that while some classes might be more effective than others in certain situations, it all averages out in the end. But apparently the Paladin gets the short end of the stick in this department. The Paladin will take longer to level up under the same circumstances, take longer to gather loot, complete various quests, etc.
But its kind of confusing making sense of the fanbase here- nobody runs in terror at the sight of a paladin, but they hate them and want them nerfed to oblivion anyway. WTF?!
BTW, I miss Beta, where Forsaken were classified as ‘Undead’ which while it made them outrageously overpowered, allowed Paladins to function as a ‘Trump card’ (Forsaken players ripping through alliance cities, but shitting themeslves when they see a Paladin because of nastiness like Excorcism and Turn Undead)
They based Paladins off of the Warcraft series of games - especially the last one, Warcraft 3. The Paladins in D2 get area of effect abilities to raise the parties benefit. I don’t think they have any of that in WoW.
I don’t necessarily get it either. My experience is that most power-gamers want to do massive amounts of damage to whatever their target is, and they want their target to die quickly so that they can move on to other targets. I suspect that much of their thinking runs along the lines of “If Paladins aren’t going to be able to kick ass, I don’t want to play them. And if they can’t kick ass, they’re worthless, so they should die easily when I attack them.” And they get frustrated when this logic doesn’t hold true.
This seems to indicate to me that Paladins have at least one area where they really shine: kicking Undead butt.
Paladins in WoW get auras which benefit the party. Different auras also stack (so 2 paladins with 2 different auras have BOTH benefits on the party). The auras boost armor, mana regen, and other nifty stuff. I like them because they are a ‘passive’ skill you don’t have to futz with constantly.
We’ll see how they are once Blizzard corrects the bug for Seal of the Crusader. At least it will scare away the powergamers currently bloating Paladin populations.
I think it’s because a lot of people who play paladins are ultimately selfish jerks. Not everyone (I play a dwarven paladin every so often), of course, but the vast majority seem to be wanna-be kill stealers.
It is the same way in pencil and paper D&D, the players who chose paladins are usually the overbearing jerks of the group.
My first encounter with Paladin was the TV show starring Richard Boone as the Black Knight. Although operating on the fringe, he was consistently a character who stood for justice and honesty-not someone who was self-serving. A true mercenary, his services came at a price, but he was the good guy in black.
I don’t hate him, I just disagree with some of his decisions. Sending the archers to the Battle of Bywater, for one, was in my opinion a horrible misuse of his authority as Thain.
Amen Brother! Not only do people who play Paladin’s annoy the group, but usually they are pretty crummy at getting the gist. 3.5 seems to have done a good job of removing most of the Paladin’s moral obligations*, but back in the day they were a source of constant friction.
*I am saying that 3.5 D&D seems to be heavy in moral relativism, and a lot less judgemental. Even the Complete Warrior has optional CG Paladins - oy! YMMV.
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) hates Paladins…the people that use them complain they’re not strong enough and don’t have a very useful role in high level instances (people would rather lean on the extremes: Warriors, Priests, Mages and leave the hybrids at home: Paladins, Warlocks, Druids, Hunters). The people that fight against them loathe the ‘3 lives’ (Divine Shield, Lay on Hands, Blessing of Protection) that the Paladin gets.