Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Why play a paladin? Or Why not.

Q : Why play a paladin?
A : Like a buffet, a paladin can give you a perspective of every role in WoW. However, like a buffet, the quality of your experience will pale in comparison to what other "more specialized" classes can do.

A paladin gets to do everything in the game. They can heal, tank, and dps. Some will tell you that because you have no "forms" you can do this all at once. Very much false. Attempting to perform a role that you are not specced for is futile, and druids(the only ones who really try to push this point) need to cry more.

As a paladin you get your watered down healer with two heals. Your itemization is awful, people will claim you are OP while arena numbers show otherwise, but at least your peers will accept you for who you are. That is, until you try other specs. The biggest downside of a holy paladin is you're never sure if your friends are loyal to you or just because of what you've specced. And maybe that healing as one is a two button chore.

As a paladin you can also be a watered down tank. You have terrible tanking mechanics, strange scaling with practically no 10 man gear to assist you(spell damage tank plate?). Everyone loves you because you can run their alts through farm content easily, but when push comes to shove they'll blame your class before they'll blame healers for MT deaths(you). This is okay, because you'll need a lot of badges to supplement your poorly itemized pieces as warrior gear doesn't really help your threat. Your badge gear has lolspellhit, even after the change of taunt to melee hit(warrior change that trickled off to paladins). The advantage of prot is it shows you who your true friends are, as you aren't holy and therefore don't implicitly make their game experience more fun through healing.

You can also be a watered down dps. You can mash a button to deal damage like any other class, but have no viable way to competitively DPS without a non-retarded shaman in group. Like many other hybrid dps'ers, you have no aggro dump. This will prove frustrating when trying to pug to get gear, but divine shield will save you from the horrors of awful pug tanks. That is, assuming a pug will even take you over a green geared 6k HP mage that isnt even 70. Also, every player will tell you that you rolled a healer and are foolish to want to dps. Those players will also typically be shadow priests, balance druids, feral druids, enhancement shamans, and elemental shamans. LOLRET lrn2reroll.

So, while a paladin CAN be one or two more things than other classes, he is at the bottom of the barrel for functionality in those roles.
1 Role Classes : Mage, Hunter, Warlock, Rogue - Top of their role, game philosophy and scaling makes these classes the highest DPS. Warranted, as they can only deal damage. All these classes have aggro dumps.
2 Role Classes : Shaman, Warrior, Priest - Utility based classes, can perform well in either role and are exceptional in both. Note that the warrior is the only 2 role tank class, and thus is the prime tank.
3 Role Classes : Druid, Paladin - Mostly frowned upon due to weak offspec performance, doomed to heal barring some gimmick fights(druids on Brutallus, Paladins on felmyst/hyjal trash).

It should be fairly obvious then, why druids and paladins are practically the worst in their roles. They "can" do more but have to respec to do so. Unsupported by gear specifically tailored to them, the 3 role classes quickly fall short of their 2 role counterparts. Is this fair? I dont think so. If I am doomed to have to respec every time I want to do something different(just like any 2 role hybrid), why should my performance suffer so greatly? In a raid environment I can still only be one role. I should be able to compete(with individual class flavor), against other 2 role classes.

Some would argue that this would be fixed if priests and shamans could tank. A flawed argument, as tank classes were from the getgo advertised as paladins,warriors, and druids. Even then, tanking is just a necessary spec to include just for PvE functionality. The entire concept of aggro makes little sense, Ragnaros should not be so retarded as to tunnel vision onto a tank instead of one shotting cloth with his ranged attack. If priests want to tank, by all means try. I suspect a shadow priest could manage to run at least a few heroics with an overgeared group with CC. Rogues, shamans, and moonkins already tank, its just a matter of exploiting the hit table and gearing appropriately.

In conclusion, if paladin spec viability is really to be gimped because we can "do more when spam respeccing," then a tree should be removed. Or two trees merged so that we can do poorly in two roles but perform them at the same time.