Been watching quite a few competitive matches spanning about a year. One thing I have noticed is that the Paladin does not get picked very often in high level play. When it is picked it’s usually as the third hero and only as a heal bot. In saying that I have seen it occasionally used as the second hero, but so infrequently…
For such an inconic character why is that?
Will be interesting to see if the devs buff or modify the Paladin to make it more desirable as a first or second pick hero.
I think because it doesn’t have impactful skills on the battlefield (when you compare to water elemental, storm bolt, or firestrike) + it’s slow.
Because it is a heal bot
i play paladin first always, just cause i am a idiot that likes to play hard. He is pretty much useless in high level, and in mid/low level too.
Because devotion is the weakest aura, and healing only does so much with limited mana. He’s not a bad hero, but AM and MK are better in most situations.
I liked Grubby’s idea of giving devotion aura health regeneration. It would put it more in line with unholy and endurance, gives it some benefit outside combat, and makes human slightly less dependent on priests and archmage.
There’s nothing to it, man. Paladin is just a 3rd hero. As Grubby said in one of his streams, not every hero can be a first pick. Some heroes are meant to be picked seccond or third.
If all of them were exactly as good viable as a first pick they’d all be too samey and boring and we can’t have that. Some will have to make the sacrifice of being less useful or more situational and therefore picked less.
wrong, every hero in wc3 was supposed to be viable, paladin is just a bad hero overall and need buff/redesign.
Some heroes are not meant to be 1st heroes or solo heroes.
Many heroes perform better as support heroes to a 1st hero.
Paladin is a great 3rd hero and is an amazing hero in the AM > MK > Pally tri hero strats.
Every hero should NOT be so good that you can randomly pick any hero you want and still win the game.
Choosing a hero is a strategic decision, it’s not like someone says:
“I’m a Paladin hero player and I pick Paladin every game… Oh no! I lost, Paladin needs buffs because he’s not as good as other heroes”
![:rofl:](https://dou48tnq0ocoa.cloudfront.net/en/warcraft3/images/emoji/twitter/rofl.png?v=6" ":rofl:")
if he keeps the buzzcut ill pick him even less.
I can understand the concept that not all heroes should be first picks. However, I struggle with the idea that the Paladin is fine because he is a third pick…if there is no viable strategy that can see the Paladin as a second pick then he needs some help.
Most games don’t even require a third hero and he is only used as a healing bot from what I can see? How is that bay fun for people who enjoy the idea of the Paladin??
IMO all the race specific heroes (iconic ones) should be good enough to be either considered as a first or second pick depending on the strategy being used. Saying he is fine as he is a last minute third pick option is a weak and terrible argument.
Archmage is a first pick 90% of the time and the Paladin is occasionally seen towards the end of the game as a third choice. I am sorry but that is total BS and just poor balance. He should be a viable second hero so he can see more play…similar to Orc where you can either go for TC or Shadow.
I agree that the paladin needs something to make him more enticing.
If you want a healer, the alchemist seems to way better, so he’s kind of in a weird spot IMO.
He’s pretty good vs undead though.
Class heroes just need one viable strategy or match-up where they are a serious contender for either 1st or 2nd pick. That way players that enjoy using them have the option. It’s jot about making them a go to every game, it’s just about making sure they are actually playable somewhere and not only as a filler for the final hero spot 5mins before the game ends.
Why not? Shouldn’t there rather be multiple viable strategies and tactics so all heroes are usable? Why should there only be one strategy that works and it works only with one hero? Also, heroes won’t be the same even if they were all equally good. I get that point, that all heroes have their own strategy, but the strategies should all be a viable way to play.
It’s a question of what works in certain scenarios. If you’re going to start down the path of “every hero should be equally good as a first pick” then you have to consider a few things.
First, it’s a bit of a slippery slope because then the next question is “well why isn’t every unit equally viable so I can make whatever army I want and have an equal chance to succeed?” That sounds a little silly, but it’s the same sort of argument. In these sorts of games some things are good and some things are bad, and the way you get better at the game is learning which is which. That’s the way it is in every RTS game, card game, action game, and shooter.
Second, it’s a question of power levels. One of the reasons that determines a first pick hero vs a second pick hero most of the time is how viable they are at level 1 at whatever stage in the game. You’re not going to see (hopefully) a blademaster or demon hunter as a second or third hero because they do very little at low levels late game and so need the time to power up. Liches, Mountain Kings, etc are good second pick heroes because they have high impact spells that don’t rely on levels to be useful but aren’t great first pick because they don’t have the support they need early (archmage’s aura in MK’s case) to really get the ball rolling.
So you either need to make it that Paladin is a good return on investment as an early game hero or make his level 1 abilities so good that he’s worth being picked as a second hero. Maybe making his heal AOE around the initial target could help with that, but even then I think MK would be more useful with his ability to pick off characters.
I think what you’d be looking at then is a complete rework of Paladin’s kit, which is a double edged sword because you want the campaign to be an introduction to the game’s heroes (“Man I really liked Arthas let’s use him in multipla- wait why are all his abilities different?”) and suddenly the Paladin isn’t the iconic character any more because he’s completely different. But without some sort of AOE heal, powerful scaling abilities, or disable spells he’s unlikely to ever have a solid pick rate. Alternatively you could try to nerf Priests into the ground so that Paladin is the only major source of healing for Humans, but then you’d probably need to buff a bunch of other units to compensate for that.
I sense foul smell of modern WOW class equality
I totally agree, I love using Paladin (Most of the time using it as my first hero) but it really is not that great against other heroes. Buffing the Devotion Aura is really something I look forward to.
I get that not every can or even should be viable as first pick, but I think it would be reasonable that all were viable at least as a second pick.
Paladin has the obvious problem that he’s only really viable in one matchup, against UD, and otherwise he’s pretty underpowered. But even in HU v UD, he’s relegated to cheese strategies to exploit his acolyte hunting prowess using boots + staff. And while that’s devastating to the unprepared when you militia creep to 3 and show up and massacre 5 acolytes while UD is teching, there’s all sorts of problems with even that usage. The buffs to bigzig strategies mean UD has plenty of reason to build 1 necropolis instead of a ziggurat and be able to build acolytes while teching- lots of necropolis buffs. If the UD scouts or suspects it prior to the game, they can wall off their acolytes, especially troublesome on maps with no zeppelins. And once they hit T2 they can counter it with a second hero dreadlord instead of lich and force you to spend 350 gold every harass instead of staff out. And furthermore, the acolyte buffs- even with the recent ms nerf- make it very difficult to kill them now. It used to take 1 whack + 1 holy light from a 320 (340 now) ms paladin to kill a 220 ms acolyte. He could even chase them without divine shield on to get in the last few snipes. Then divine shield got shorter, acolytes got HP, regen & ms buffs and +1 armor so it takes 2-3 whacks even at level 3, they can simply run away with 250 (now 235) ms. So even the old paladin superman vs UD strategy got nerfed.
And what really limits Paladin in that matchup when not doing a cheese strategy like Pally/Tower/Tanks is that even once your paladin is level 3-5, he’s still an inferior DK because of the incredible power of +20/30% movespeed on endurance aura. You can’t even chase down and kill a DK with a boots paladin to persecute him because besides being equipped with a death pact option and healing pots, he simply runs out of range faster.
Paladin is just an underpowered hero who doesn’t even do the one thing he’s supposed to be good at.
Don’t really mind what Blizzard does to buff the Paladin at this point. The simple fact is he currently isn’t even a viable second pick…so they really need to do something.
However, I don’t agree he needs a complete rework. They can buff his stats, reduce mana costs, reduce ability cooldowns, make his abilities stronger, last longer, heal for more etc.
There are lots of options with his existing kit to make him a viable choice as either a first or second pick hero. They key challenge is making sure he is a viable option depending on the strategy being used…this idea class heroes are fine as last minute 3rd picks isn’t going to cut the mustard.
Why not? There are 24 hero units in the game, they cant all be default first or 2nd pick. Paladin currently sees a fair amount of play as the go to third pick for human so he has his niche. I dont see how buffing paladin to the point he beats out AM/MK as first or second pick changes anything.
You will never have equal or even near equal representation across hero or units. The competitive player will always find which strategy is mathematically the most likely to win and that strategy will become the default meta choice that is spammed every game. Your argument is based on the fallacy that each match up has multiple equally viable builds and strategies when that is simply not the case. All buffing paladin is gonna do is make him go from being the default third pick to being the default first or second pick and the previous first/second will fall to the wayside or become the default third, which changes nothing in the grand scheme. You are still spamming the same hero units in the same order most games.