Every class is gear dependent. The difference in the case of paladins is that the paladin's baseline abilities are so underpowered that they need large amounts of gear (and be spec'd into the role to be filled) to even be viable, and once that is the case, they are still underpowered by the same offset, it is just less apparent. Gear is only mitigation against broken class mechanics. For paladins it very difficult to fill any "hybrid" role because they are so dependent on gear and spec to fill any one role well, except in the case of trivial content for their overall level of gearing.

You're the most gear dependent class? Seriously? More so than shamans or druids? How many sets do you actually need?

Do you actually play the game?

Actually when you get down to it, we have more gear sets than shaman and just as many as druids. Like druids we have 4 viable specs; Heal, Prot, Ret and the hybrid holy spec commonly called shockadin. To perform optimally each requires different gear, furthermore with the changes to Ret gear a shock set is getting harder to amass as spell damage disappears from plate (arena gear being the only epic plate I know of with spell power and no defensive stats.)

as Rob said we're the most gear dependent class because our baseline abilities are so underpowered. we need holy shield as well as the stamina boosting talents to tank, we need illumination and holy guidance as well as the crit talents to heal, and we need vengeance and crusader strike as well as fanaticism and the crit talents to dps. a baseline pally cant fit any of the roles as well as a baseline druid or shaman.

and as midknight said we have as many sets as a druid for tanking, healing, and 2 for dps (melee and holy). even for tanking we can have more than 1 or 2 sets: one for bosses, one for trash and one for aoe.

if we were given holy shield and crusader strike as baseline abilities and given new talents that, instead of being required to do our jobs, supplemented our ability to do them then we wouldnt be as gear dependent.

Actually when you get down to it, we have more gear sets than shaman and just as many as druids. Like druids we have 4 viable specs; Heal, Prot, Ret and the hybrid holy spec commonly called shockadin. To perform optimally each requires different gear.


Enhancement set, PVE: Check.
Elemental set, PVE (and PVP): Check.
Resto set, PVE (and PVP): Check.

That shockadin set is no different than a PVP set of us.

Either way, Shaman are in much of the same waters as a Paladin. No HoT, Instant is on a CD (Or is ES and vulnerable to a lot of counters). We also have long cast time for group heals making them horrible in arena as we also have a single school lockout issue.

I'm in a lot of badge gear and will continue to be as the itemization on DPS mail is for hunters.

For the record I have 2 Paladins. One Holy, one Prot. On weekend I spec Ret for Honor in Battlegrounds. I have 4 sets of gear for each Paladin. Holy, Prot, Ret and a Spell Damage Set.