by Stix on Mon Feb 21, 2005 10:10 pm
Since release, I've heard people talk about how paladins have great DPS for a tank. Sub-40, there is no doubt that a paladin has great DPS and tanking abilities (even after the recent seal of the crusader "fix"). However, at level 60, a warrior owns the shit out of a paladin's DPS and ability to take damage, even a paladin specced in retribution. Yes, they can have holy shield, but in order to make decent use of it they have to hold aggro, something that is difficult to do without consecration. And holy shield is a huge mana drain. They also have seal of command, but the proccing is based on luck and the damage still doesn't compare to a warrior.
So what role does a paladin play? End-game, paladin is a support class in both PvE and PvP... tride and true. Yes, they are still excellent duellers in the end-game, but that's not the main focus of the game for most people. If you're into the dueling scene and think paladins are too overpowered in that area, then just don't duel them. Anymore nerfing to the paladin for the sake of what you experience in dueling one will make them below the level of a shaman and create an imbalance (population imbalance considerations aside).
Anyhow, I will speak of the PvE side first. Our buffs can help a group ten-fold. I would say we are even on par with a priest in the buffing department for PvE. Giving your healers and high-DPS, non-tanking groupmates a blessing of salvation (-30% threat) will lessen the chance of wiping ten-fold. As long as classes that need to avoid aggro are allowed to deal more damage and/or do more healing without acquiring aggro, the group is much more powerful. Giving your warrior a blessing of might or blessing of kings can provide him or her with a boost in DPS (and more for blessing of kings), as well, providing them with a better chance to hold aggro. Judging with a seal of wisdom allows your casting classes the ability to leech mana off of something during times when they aren't casting or when they are low on mana. And judging with a seal of light can provide decent healing for melee classes, though I tend to use seal of wisdom exclusively in groups because it provides me and my main healer (if we have one) with more mana for healing. Having the ability to throw heals around in emergency situations is a good help for when the main healer cannot keep up or for when he or she would take the aggro if he or she healed anymore than they have already. Blessing of protection can be used to save your main healer from death and can allow an AOE caster, especially mages with talents that give them an instant cast arcane explosion, a chance to go nuts for 10 seconds without taking physical damage. Cleanse is one of our greatest spells--it can dispel one negative magic, poison and disease effect in one cast (if someone has one effect of each type, it'll dispel all of those). Additionally, you can prevent a wipe by using divine intervention on a rezzer when death is certain for everyone in the group (if you time it right and they are standing away from where the mobs would stand out-of-combat).
Solo-wise, things get tougher later on. Sub-40, it seems as though paladins are god-like. But at 60, it's not as easy. A paladin can take a fairly long time to kill things, compared to other classes, especially if you are not specced in retribution or don't have holy shield. You rely on healing yourself a lot. We still do excel at escaping when things get too rough, though it is nearly impossible to escape caves, dungeons and buildings with a lot of mobs.
PvP-wise our role is more awkward. I find myself sitting back, healing, cleansing, casting blessing of freedom and blessing of protection and fending off people that come after our cloth wearers. Blessing of salvation is obviously useless in PvP, so blessing of wisdom, blessing of kings and blessing of light are the only benefits to our casters. Blessing of wisdom is decent, but it only provides 360-432 extra mana per minute (depending on if you have improved blessing of wisdom)--and with fights that can be decided in very little time, that's not that much help. When we are the target of attack, divine shield is an excellent thing. However, hunters, mages, warlocks, shadow-specced priests and especially elemental/combat shamans have great offensive abilities against paladins. Our best bet is to stay out of their range, but that is a hard thing to do. While we can dispel a lot of their debuffs, it's still hampering to be affected by them for any amount of time. Curse of exhaustion is the most annoying thing ever if a mage does not remove it when it's on us, however. And having limited range abilities (none without holy shock, which is at the end of the holy talent tree) makes actually venturing into battle difficult, especially against ranged classes. The only time I will charge a decent-sized group is when my shield isn't in cooldown mode. And my objective for that is usually to try to stun a priest or druid and take a little bit of health off them so whoever I'm with can take them out as fast as possible. The strategy is a lot more difficult than people make it out to be when the levels are balanced. People who think paladins are gods with insane damage and constant god-mode are below level 40 or don't take the time to actually compare a paladin's abilities at level 60 to other classes in PvP situations other than dueling. Most people don't even know that our judgments can be dispelled from our enemies and that even active seals on a paladin can be dispelled by certain classes.
Anyway, those are my observations at level 60. Hope there's someone here still playing that'd be interested in my assessment of the paladin.