Class Q&A: Paladin
by Eliah Hecht 
Jul 9th 2009 at 2:00PM
Once again, it's time for a Class Q&A with Ghostcrawler! Today Paladins get their chance to shine (previously: Shaman, Mage, Death Knight, Warlock).
As with the other Q&As, this one starts with a bit on what the idea is behind paladins, with a glance at their history and at their present.
- In the beginning: paladins were a "defensive buffing class...buffs were pretty much the entire reason you'd want to group with a paladin."
- End-game classic WoW: paladins were healers only.
- BC: paladins could tank, but were still mostly OTs.
- Wrath: "finally embraced all three specs."
Paladins still have several unique facets: bubbles, strong dispels, plate armor as a healer, and the Seal and Judgment system.
Itemization: so far in Wrath, MP5 wasn't particularly valuable, and they claim it wasn't inteded to be. They still think MP5 is undervalued right now, though, hence the buffs coming to it in patch 3.2. They also think Int/Crit based mana regen is a bit out of control, and furthermore than in patch 3.2, some Holy pallies might look into taking Haste.
At this point they drop a hint that is interesting for all caster classes: they're considering collapsing MP5 and Spirit into one stat. This is for the farther future, though.
Paladins can expect to see "other interesting healing spells" later on, but not in 3.2, and don't expect "something that looks like Prayer of Healing or Wild Growth." Flash of Light should be more valuable now with the Sacred Shield changes, and the Beacon changes should make paladins "an exceptional dual target healer" (is that a valuable role?).
Ret PvE DPS is too low right now; they're buffing it with the new Seal of Vengeance/Corruption. SoV is aimed towards boss fights, since it works best once the pally gets five stacks up; Seal of Command is for short PvP or PvE fights.
The change to Exorcism (adding a cast time) means Rets have to pay a bit more attention to their rotation - you want to use Exorcism with Art of War procs, most of the time. To compensate for the nerf to Prot that his change brings, they also buffed Hand of Reckoning.
On the topic of Avenging Wrath and possible dispel immunity ("possible but not probable"), they mention again that they want to redo the entire dispelling system. One method they suggest is to give defensive magic dispelling to all healers, but prevent offensive dispelling entirely, or at least for most buffs.
They would like to add a "stand-alone interrupt" to pallies, although they need to get Ret burst down a bit still first before giving them more tools. As far as escape and gap-closer abilities, Judgment of Justice is meant to be pallies' gap-closer.
Finally, they would like to make Librams visible on the Paladin models, but this might take a while. The same goes for Shaman totems and Hunter quivers (but I thought they were getting rid of quivers).
Is it just me, or is this Q&A even fluffier and more content-free than the ones we've gotten so far? I guess they just don't have a lot of Paladin news to talk about that we haven't already seen in the patch 3.2 notes.
Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
reno_alexisonfire Jul 9th 2009 2:05PM
This answered more questions about upcoming game changes, rather then paladin concepts and changes...
Heilig Jul 9th 2009 9:15PM
Are you surprised? Blizzard hasn't had a clue what to do with paladins since launch. Why should now be any different?
Scott Jul 9th 2009 2:11PM
I would love to see librams on my paladin in the future!
Naku Jul 9th 2009 2:17PM
Nerf to the ground, baby! just kidding :) but i still cant beat a paladin face to face, and pls dont say im a noob. its a fact: paladins are Overpowered now.
Eternauta Jul 9th 2009 2:40PM
Just Ret PvP is OP, not the class as a whole.
Ret PvE is ok, it'll be better in 3.2 with the seal changes (emo seal of blood FTL) and the changes to exorcism and art of war will reduce the burst every other class is complaining about.
Prot is very good right now, and only getting better with the buffs in 3.2.
Beacon of Light is getting the buff it needed, now it won't penalize overheal.
TL,DR: less QQ more PewPew
jam Jul 9th 2009 4:59PM
Correctly build Prot PvP is a killer too.
Taladan Jul 9th 2009 8:16PM
@Eternauta: I'd agree with the "emo seal of blood"... till I saw that, in 4 heroics, the amount of damage I took from the recoil of seal and judgement of blood could've killed me 5 times.
We usually don't care about the recoil in raids and such, but when you see that you keep putting pressure in the healers all the time 'cause there is no way to avoid it (sacred shield can absorb part of it, but first you need to get hit to get the "bubble" 'cause the recoil don't trigger the effect) then you see that it was a big deal.
[Naxx25 recoil is 50x my health -- and that's only 1 run.]
Adrian Jul 10th 2009 3:57PM
I hate to tell you, but your anecdotal evidence of a 1v1 situation doesn't mean anything in the context of game balance. Classes have NEVER been designed to be balanced in 1v1, because that is effectively impossible given the number of classes and specs out there. Classes with snares are very good at beating ret pallies, classes without or that are also melee tend to have more trouble. I could sit here and say that frost mages can always beat me one on one, but that would be pointless, since they are a spec that is based around snares and such, which are deadly to ret pallies.
Robert M Jul 9th 2009 2:25PM
An entire Q&A of nothing...
Now I know what it's like to feel like a mage.
/frown
Clevins Jul 9th 2009 3:00PM
"Now I know what it's like to feel like a mage."
Whiny and pouting?
MazokuRanma Jul 9th 2009 4:45PM
My feelings as a mage about our Q&A were kind of mixed. It is kind of disappointing not to get a bunch of new changes, but on the other hand I feel like my mage does reasonably well in both PvE and PvP now. I do believe that Fire is unbalanced right now for PvP, but since I enjoy Frost and Arcane so much more anyway, it doesn't really affect me.
At this point I'm just happy there are no nerfs.
I'm also leveling a pally alt for tanking though and right now (Level 61) the burst seems pretty insane. Is this because the coefficients on my spells scale differently at that level? I burn down some mobs by popping two spells sometimes, and I don't remember my priest or mage being that OP at that level. I assume this balances by 80? Not that I'll mind if they're OP once I have one... ;)
Lemons Jul 9th 2009 9:49PM
No...your Paladin's burst doesn't balance at 80 -.- he'll continue to OP...don't worry. In fact I wish blizz would do something about prot pallys damage! I run uld with a prot pally and she ends up 2nd or 3rd on the meter in damage done pretty much every raid. It's a little absurd that a tank could even come close to the DPS as far as damage done in a raid enviroment, even with pallys being the aoe tanks that they are...now that's unbalanced.
Speaking of unblanaced...when you say Fire Mages are "unbalanced" in PvP I assume you mean they're UP, but, just to let you know, usually when people say a class is "unbalanced","imbalanced", or "broken" it's a good thing.
Otome Jul 9th 2009 2:25PM
My own Paladin has been prot since that first talent point and, while I can't speak for everyone else, I'm fairly happy with where they are.
Robert M Jul 9th 2009 2:33PM
I agree, but block needs some improvements (as Blizz has admitted).
I think the comments about the interrupt are a weak response. If they were worried about rets, they could have put a deep one point talent in the prot tree instead of making us spend 4 talent points (2 in improved hammer of justice and 2 in judgments of the just) for a viable interrupt that's still on a 20 second cooldown.
DeepRoller Jul 9th 2009 2:29PM
Since when did they make Seal of Vengeance viable for Ret? Oi. 3.2 is going to make me learn my class again.
Robert M Jul 9th 2009 2:38PM
LMAO, changing one 30 min seal is hardly going to require you to relearn your class. If you are concerned though, you might wanna check out patch notes every now and then. They have them here on wow.com enough that there's little excuse not to.
DeepRoller Jul 9th 2009 2:45PM
Yeh, I know. I'm just joking. I only thought SoC was going to get buffed, which is why I was surprised. :P.
Nasgoul Jul 9th 2009 2:32PM
i mean there is nothing to say because this currently is the best class in wow..ret did get hit with the nerf bat last patch... before that.. they were the best heals, tanks, and dps in the game... now they are just the best heals and tanks..
pallys are half the reason they tried to get rid of 2's arena... pallys and dks were so op that it was impossible to nerf them down to the rest of our levels that they just had to get rid of the bracket
Robert M Jul 9th 2009 2:36PM
"pallys are half the reason they tried to get rid of 2's arena... pallys and dks were so op that it was impossible to nerf them down to the rest of our levels that they just had to get rid of the bracket"
And yet all that time the resto druid/ms warriors were dominating 2v2's no one flinched. Wonder why Blizz sees a problem with 2's now.
Angus Jul 9th 2009 4:04PM
"And yet all that time the resto druid/ms warriors were dominating 2v2's no one flinched. Wonder why Blizz sees a problem with 2's now."
You mean 3 FULL SEASONS?!
Nah, if a druid is OP, they ignore it until a new expansion.
If a Paladin MIGHT be OP, they hear "TO THE GROUND BABY!"
Nevermind that the paladin will not scale in the next 10 levels like other classes and so get behind on DPS...