I read the official paladin forums, and everything with the paladin seems so negative. Healbot or die, basically. And then I go raid with my guild, and I enjoy my role.
Take today's Karazhan raid, for example. There were two pallies in the raid, myself (Protection) and T (Holy). T got to buff Kings, I tossed up the other buffs. I spent most of the raid in my hybrid gear. Both of us melee'd and spot healed on all the trash. I put up Judgement of Light, T put up Judgement of Wisdom. We got to Attumen, and we pretty much did the same thing, both of us melee'ing, healing and keeping Judgements up.
When we did Moroes, I swapped into tanking gear and off-tanked the retribution paladin. After he died, I went back to melee-healing on Moroes, keeping up Judgement of Light and running Seal of Wisdom (no mana in tanking gear :( ) to fuel the spot heals. T was melee'ing Moroes as well (I think he was healing more earlier in the fight). So melee, heal, and watching for Garrotes so I could BoP people.
For Maiden, I switched to healing gear, and we did the standard Blessing of Sacrifice, then keep the tank up. Quick and easy. Just healing and decursing. I like Sacrifice, and I really wish I got to use it more.
Down to the Opera event, where we got Big Bad Wolf. This was the first time I have seen this fight. I tried melee'ing for a bit, but got tired of chasing the Wolf so I mainly healed, and only melee'd in the spaces between Red Riding Hoods. T melee-healed a bit, but spend most of the fight running away as Red Riding Hood. (Seriously, he got the debuff more times than the rest of the raid combined.)
Tomorrow we get to try Curator, which is a new boss for us. I'll probably be mainly healing, as I don't feel like getting chain-lightning-ed to death.
Anyways, it was a good raid. We killed bosses and got epics. I got a [Ribbon of Sacrifice], heh. I also picked up a [Signet of Unshakable Faith]. I actually thought it was a ring at first, and was very confused when I tried to equip it and it disappeared. Thankfully no one else wanted it, so it wasn't wasted.
I melee'd, I healed, I tanked. I got to play a paladin to the full extent of their abilities. To be honest, this is pretty much what I imaged playing a paladin would be like.
Now, maybe my guild is not at the cutting edge of content. But we are progressing steadily, and I am having fun.
Those paladins who are unhappy with standing in the back need to ask themselves why they are standing in the back. Our class actually works fairly well when melee-healing. There are guilds out there which will let you melee, which trust you to know how to play your own character. You may have to look a bit to find them, but it's well worth the effort. You will enjoy playing your paladin once more.
I really like your blog!
ReplyDeleteFinding the Guild that doesn't mind trying new things is the hard part here. So many "Epic Raiderz" have to creativity at all to them. It's funny because usually the players who offer creative alternatives are usually the ones who know how to play their class the best...
ReplyDeleteLink me if you would like- I've liked you:
http://northwatchhold.blogspot.com/
So... I've got a level 16 Pally (I'm Horde so this is my first one) and I'm finding myself confused whenever I play her, because the blessings and seals and skills in general haven't clicked in in a logical way in my mind yet.
ReplyDeleteDo you have an entry that is aimed towards completely noob Paladins who are advancing their first toon and finding it not as intuitive as some of the other classes?
Valdesta, aka Elvenfire, lvl 16 Horde Pally
WoWGrrl player blog
Sometimes I wonder if the forum winers actually are the same people. They started out as rogues in the beginning, later switched to warriors, then over to warlocks and now to paladins.. they follow the flavor class of the month mostly for PVP reasons.. and they realize they need raiding for that hard-core gear which forces them into other roles than DPS... =)
ReplyDeleteI think it's safe to say many of the people complaining the loudest on the forums have the least experience. I'm so tired of reading how Priests can't heal and we're being passed up in favor of pallys and druids. Yeah, some kid that can barely put a sentence together whining on line, hmmm.. something tells me they are either repeating what they heard, or there might be other reasons they were passed up.
ReplyDeleteyunk, the current complaint is that paladins heal too well. That we surpass the priests in healing. This makes the priests unhappy, and the paladins who want to hit stuff unhappy, as their guilds are all pushing for paladins as healbots.
ReplyDeletehenrik, I would actually say that the large marjority of complaining paladins are the older paladins. A lot of people (especially horde) who rerolled paladin did so to make a healer. They are happy with the current state of the paladin.
valdesta, what would you like to know about the first paladin? Is it just the Seal/Judgment system that is not intuitive? I'll think about writing something.
You know...I hate to sound like a traitor...but in Warhammer Online the solution to this they came up with was having Warrior Priests (Paladins) not have mana, but instead essentially have Rage, known as "Righteous Fury".
ReplyDeleteThis means your whole ability to function rellys on you being in the thick of things smacking stuff.
It also means that, since both your damage abilities, very short term buffs, and heals all use this Fury, your combat style is very fluid and adaptive. You can smack away, throw a couple heals, then a buff, then pour the remaining Fury into more damage, repeat.
Its designed so that if the paladin used every single scrap of Fury they had on damage abilities, their damage output would be roughly the same as a "DPS" class going all out, but at the same time they sacrifice the ability to do anything else.
sounds rather like what you see in your paladin.