Resources for beginning paladins
by Jennie Lees 
Dec 19th 2005 at 9:00PM
Defenders of the Light, mace-wielding upholders of justice, and hard to kill; paladins are the only Alliance-specific class, and a
great newbie class to play. A paladin can take damage, dish it out (although more slowly than DPS classes like the
rogue or mage), all the while healing, resurrecting and buffing their party. With the upcoming 1.9 patch, paladins are
going to see some changes, but the first few
levels won't change much, so here are a few things to get newbie paladins going:- Infoceptor lists all the paladin's spells, including costs.
- Rampage's guide has a lot of general discussion of paladins, but also walks you through the first few levels as a human pally.
- WoWHealers has a basic FAQ covering race, talents, acronyms and more.
- TenTonHammer's guide is a good overall resource and promises a 1.9 update.
- Hester's PvP guide is useful, although you may want to try different strategies as well.
- The official forums are rich with 1.9 information and the European forums feature a guide.
[[Previous classes: Mage, Priest, Druid, Hunter]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
L'Emmerdeur Dec 21st 2005 4:34PM
A few points of clarification:
1. Most of the positives mentioned here relate to paladins until around level 40 or so. After 40, you will see your gameplay deteriorate until 60, when the gameplay becomes absolutely boring. Your dps at level 20 compares favorably to that of a mage or rogue. At 60, it is laughable. In fact, my 60 paladin has about the same dps my mage did at around level 38, and mage dps increases astronomically after 45.
2. In end game, you will be a buffer and a backup healer. Paladins who try to spec in dps are referred to as retardins. One of the Blizzard game designers was a famously anti-paladin type hired from the Everquest world, and it is pretty well known that he influenced endgame content design to marginalize the role of the paladin. Furthermore, while the major overhauls of hunters and druids made them awesome classes, the 1.9 patch updates to paladins are tweaks at best. Blizzard has created the paladin class for noobs (they have actually said this), but if you intend to graduate from noob to something more, stay away from the paladin.
2. When plate items drop, unless the item has intellect, you will be chastised or worse if you roll. Plate armor that has agility, +%hit or +%crit is seen as dps warrior only, and +Stam, +Strength and +Defense plate is seen as tanking warrior only. Cloth wearers do not have this issue - items are either class-designated, or the type of damage limits the cloth wearers who can use it (i.e. Shadow damage is Warlock/Priest only), otherwise all cloth wearers can roll. Since there is very little plate with bonuses that help a healadin, you will end up rolling on mail, leather and even cloth - and pissing off a lot more people in the process.
4. The paladin being a noob class is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I started as a pally (it was my first time in an MMO) to deal damage and cast the occasional heal, not to be a priest in plate. When I got tired of the healing thing, I rolled a mage, and now I only use my pally to make Mooncloth, which I sell to augment my mage's finances. Most people who play pallies still insist on dealing damage, even though their damage output is far lower than that any other class. Such paladins are seen as noobs, because they do not know how to play their class. Therefore, self-fulfilling prophecy. This is especially true in Battlegrounds, where a paladin is generally ignored by the Horde until casters and Rogues are dealt with. Paladins are hard to kill, but they also pose little threat to others, unless they are standing back and healing their teammates, at which point they can make all the difference in a BG.
So, if you want to be a BG healer who
just. won't. die.
then the paladin is perfect. You will be a very sought-after asset, as most paladins refuse to heal in BG - and this is why the Horde usually dominate in PvP.
jennie Dec 22nd 2005 9:54PM
Thanks for the additions. This "resources for.." series is focusing on new players to the class, but it's great to hear about endgame problems if you're rolling a new main and want to know what it's like at the end of the tunnel.