Icantregister

Sartura healing group. Atleast that is what we are doing. 2 or more Paladins grouped in 1 group with the MT(s), one has Devotion Aura (+AC) and Concentration Aura (35% chance to ignore Spell Interrupt). You'd be surprised how well that works for us. A healer with 100% Spell Interrupt protection that can finish his casts easily on the MT even if Sartura or an other add is closing on on him.

Also don't forget that Paladins have more than just FoL; they also have a 2.5 sec cast spell that heals up to 2500 hp - which has saved my life more often than I can count.

Really, you are not giving Paladins the credit they deserve :)

 

Valen

I can't see how they could give paladin to horde or shaman to alliance. It creates too much redundancy to start with. I don't see them overhaul those 2 classes, and with the current available abilities both classes will become extremly boring in raids. Not like they have an 'active' role as it is.

Then let's assume that they will balance level 70 content based on paladin+shaman. What about 1-60 content? It's alot of work, more than the time they will need to just balance the current system.

Also from the lore and pvp 'feeling' standpoint, there will be no difference between factions, beside look and few racial abilities. That will just destroy the basic idea of having 2 different factions imo.

 

Tambot

The definiton of a paladin is one who fights for a cause. a paragon of chivalry. a heroic champion. But from ym point of view, all i have seen them do is cast a bubble, heal twice and stun their opponents. they don't actually do any real dmg. oh sure they have cool buffs, but horde has been able to get along just fine without them. Have you ever seen a pally bubble that wasn't on the pally? NO! Because they are selfish! that's not heroic! and i don't want them running aournd in org either! I'll take shammy over paladin anyday.

 

Krill

Nah, that won't happen, although it would certainly shifted whole Alliance vs. Horde "discussion" from buffs to racials. And it still doesn't solve population problem, which in the end it probably much more important. Horde will surely get some new people playing busty blondes with pointy ears, but at the same time many people will roll Draenei - for the same reason as people that like to play Tauren (big, imposing character with huge weapon).

Blizzard can do with WoW lore what they want, but in current version Draenei are basically "Light" rolemodels, while Blood Elves are magic junkies that were cast out of Alliance. First race is basically more paladinish then human paladins. Second is almost as far from ideals of light as they could be. This Draenei shaman speculation was quite amusing and making sense when all Draenei we knew were fat, ugly guys from Swamp of Sorrows and Blasted Lands, but current hollier-then-thou Draenei are simply not barbaric enough for shamanism. It's all the same with Blood Elves.

Again, it's Blizzard lore, they can do with it what they want (like "normalizing" trolls to priest/mage instead of witch doc class, or adding dwarf palas to give players a choice), but it doesn't look like they will do that considering info on new races we have.

With extra 10 levels, new spells and talents whole balance will simply go through the window anyway, so it's not that developers have to go for something as cheesy as breaking all the lore they made.

 

Amera

There is a great deal of "grass is greener" to be had here. I know a lot of horde players who have said they'd roll a paladin in a heartbeat. I doubt many would actually go through with it, and those that did would burn out do to class tedium.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my paladin. I made her on release at midnight along with a priest and warrior, but didn't really level her until I was burning out on being a priest before our class review. I'd always thought most paladins were terrible and wanted to prove I could do a better job than they did; such was my motivation. Now after a few months of raiding MC/BWL/AQ with her, I think I have a pretty firm grasp on paladin raiding.

Obviously paladins are godsends on raids. But as a previous poster said, you really don't do anything as well as anyone else, except buff. Depending upon the fight, if it were possible, you could bring 5 paladins to buff everyone, then drop 3 from the raid and insert more DPS or healing to actually participate in the encounter, leaving the last two to heal and keep up judgments. Paladins are insanely efficient healers - you can easily spam flash of light rank x (x varies by whatever gear you have) and never run out of mana. But your HPS is nothing compared to a similarly geared priest or druid, and you are flat-out bad at healing multiple targets. Also, efficiency is great on several fights, but there are a plenthora of consumables to increase your healing stamina (mageblood, distilled wisdom, etc) but virtually none that actually improve your HPS. Healing indefinately is only worthwhile if your HPS is enough to counter the incoming DPS.

Before the priest patch, I felt paladins were overpowered healers. Now it really isn't even close, especially with all druids getting innervate and possibly swiftmend in the last patch. With my priest, I feel totally in command of healing on fights. If I mess up, someone may very well die and the raid could wipe. On my paladin, that is much less likely to be the case. It's good if you want to dodge responsibility (I've heard it called the Blameless Class before; maybe shaman get the same rep), but I don't imagine many raiders at this level really want that. You are brought along for your buffs and spot heals, and that is about it. It is amazingly useful, but not particularly dynamic (not that this is unique to paladins). If you are missing your best priest for a raid, your group will probably feel it. Much less likely to be the case as a paladin unless no one else has kings.

All that being said, at this point I would rather raid with my paladin than my priest. The reason is primarily selfish: its way more fun in every other aspect of the game. Your viable raid healing specs don't gimp your ability to do anything else. Being a healing priest in a pvp setting is torture, talent changes or not. Being a paladin is awesome if you are into that type of thing. You are the healer they can't ignore, but also can't kill. And if you feel so inclined, you can even pick up a shiny new weapon and charge into the fray for some melee action. PvP is where paladins shine as support units. Raid encounters that actually *use* their utility, such as zerg fights, are probably the most fun as a paladin.

, Which brings me (at long last) to the original question in the thread: should horde get paladins? I wouldn't mind it, personally, though they should throw in some faction flavored spells, maybe Death Knight/Paladin as someone suggested, just to have some diversity. The best thing about this change is Blizzard could actually design raid encounters that utilize paladins and shaman strengths directly, like zerg fights where your plate healers are absolutely essential, as one example. One of the biggest issues with both of these classes at present is how the Devs simply can't do this because of faction concerns, so they rarely feel special or needed.

 

• sekdar

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/world...ml?sid=6154421

Looks like it's true.

So guys, about warrior scaling...

 

Malan

Yah this whole thread just became a lot more relevant suddenly.

Kudos btw to the OP who's friend is apparently 100% correct.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Darkchani

i was looking for this post hehe, you need to bug your friend more about TBC :P

 

Rogar

Adding paladins to Horde and shaman to Alliance is the easy way out. Blizzard doesn't go that route. WRU LFG tool? (/rude useless global LFG channel)

It doesn't solve problems - it just relocates them from the raid designer's shoulders to guild leaders:

- Raid limit still 40 people? Great, who are we replacing from our current lineup? Not only that, if people advertise now that they plan on rerolling when TBC arrives, the bitching about them getting loot over people that will use it for TBC raid content will be endless.

- Raid limit now 45 or 48 people? More recruitment, more people with clashing personalities to referee and more room for people to fuck around during raids. No thanks. Smaller raid sizes are better. I was excited during alpha/beta when Kaplan was targeting ~25 for raid content, using EQ1 ToV raids as the ideal challenge to mimic. (For those who haven't played EQ1, Temple of Veeshan raid content was considered by many to be the most fun in the game's history.)

Oh yeah, incoming bitching about Tauren warriors with BoK in 5...4...3...

 

Nozmordre

BoK + Tauren + vitality hmm... I’m getting the same tingly feeling as when I first saw Styleens Impening Scarab.

 

Cali

So what other titbits of info does your friend have for us?

Please remember that my 'edible hat' collection is running dangerously low so for my sake I hope he's wrong :P