You're being shortsighted because you said,

.

This entire game is a big math problem. The instant you throw out math you throw out any basis for any rational discussion whatsoever. You might as well delete your account if you're telling people to "ignore the numbers."

I really fail to see how a +2% crit buff is going to make any meaningful impact on whether "DPSadin" will be a reserved raid spot. How many guilds specifically bring Moonkins and BattleKats for their crit buffs? Not many, huh? My money is going down on 41 Ret paladins being pegged the in a similar way.

I feel safe in claiming that TBC will bring no big change to what Paladins will be "allowed" to do - except perhaps the one guy who acts both as the Holy dmg tank and the BoK-bitch.

I'm sure there will be a few - if not many - fights where slapping on some dmg gear and going nuts with your Crusader debuff will be more helpful than just straight healing in half cloth gear (these fights exist even today) but don't expect to be up there with the Warriors rolling on dmg plate and 2handers with pink dominating the dmg meter. Also worth noting is that Paladins probably won't be in the groups with Shamans (WF+SoE+Bloodlust) which will make their dps look far worse in comparison to the Warriors and Rogues getting buffed.

That said, I'm rerolling to BE Paladin in TBC. :)

The point is demetrius is that you're a hybrid class. If you just have all the warrior dps gear you're going to make a pretty crappy paladin. Sure you might have some respectable dps numbers on some encounters, but you're still ignoring 2/3 of your abilities. Now for tanking its a bit different. A druid or pallie going into full tanking gear to do the encounter works, because they need it to even do it. But on dps'ing nothing so far seen by either druids or pallies show it is more effective to be in pure dps mode and gear rather than in hybrid gear where you can dps decently but at the same time healing/cleansing/decursing/etc. So what you want is the expac's version of Avenger or Genesis, not full warrior dps gear which will make you useless at anything other than substandard dps.

I thought you had some points there in your original post, but I see Judia is right. You do want to be a total retnoob, rolling around in no int/+healing/hybrid gear and instead just in pure melee dps gear. I somehow doubt you'll make druids jealous, because you'll be at the same level of effectiveness they are. A substandard dps class in a guild that allows any specs or back in resto/holy for serious progression raids. What I would hope is that these new talents for druids and pallies would allow them to dps in hybrid gear while at the same time having the mana pool/healing+ they need to do their other roles.

Some problems with your arguments dexteric/Rx. Yes a paladin can do those things, but surely not if they're wearing dps plate gear. They will have no mana, no + healing, and so on. It is the exact same problem druids have now if they're in feral gear and pop out to try and do much. They can't because they have no mana to sustain it. Sure they can do a few of those things, but in no way can a pallie with 2kish mana do any serious cleansing or spot healing roles.

Anyhow Redemption is the only set that Paladins have that don't have strength. It is their only healbot set. A set like judgement or lawbringer for the expac is what would be good since those sets have a good spread of stats, including strength. Or if you want something a bit more melee orientated, something like Avenger which is more on the dps side but still has good int. Or I guess you could do mix and match and wear 3-4 pieces of pure dps gear and 3-4 pieces of Redemption. But the idea of a paladin being useful to his raid in full dps gear that has no int, mana regen, +healing is pretty silly. They'll still be inferior dps and would be useless in doing anything but that inferior damage. That's what Judia and I are objecting too.

Druids are hybrids, but mainly between dps and tank or healing and magic dps. However there are some new talents that are going to bridge it. The one that allows int to fully apply to AP in feral forms. The one that allows the first spell cast coming out of feral to be nearly instant cast. A paladin in healing gear though is more useful than a paladin in dps gear. Because currently paladins are quite good healers and their new talents look to be quite good too. They are strong healers right now which is why every raid employs them as such. They will certainly be better at dps'ing in the expansion, but I don't necessarily think they're going to be dpsing all the time even if full ret for that new talent. Their healing is still their strongest role. Most likely they'll be doing what shamans do now. In there applying that buff and then spot healing/cleansing the raid.

How I figure the offspecs will work is that one or two will be useful to the raid because of certain bonuses one can bring that don't stack (like the 2% crit buff). If it comes to the point that a pallie can dps more than a rogue or a mage, the game will be completely broken because you'd just bring all pallies. I seriously doubt blizzard is bringing pallies anywhere close to rogues. I do agree warrior stacking is going to end, but still warriors aren't that broken right now with the new changes. If you look at the mage and rogue threads, people are not that excited about the new talents either, like the 41 point rogue talent in combat lowering dps. Most are thinking of going for a 31/30 ish type of build. A warrior with that kind of build will be a very effective offtank (31fury, 30 prot) or a damn strong dpser with some split between arms and fury.

I somehow don't think pallie dps is going to be optimal anytime soon, because as blizzard has stated it is their third role behind healing and tanking. Shamans will be the offensive hybrid. I think a 41 point enhancement shaman could be a good dps'er, especially with the stated knowledge that blizzard has said they're moving shamans in the offensive direction and pallies the defensive.