Current state of Pally

Classes Paladin
1

Hey guys! I’ve got a question in regards to Paladins and their current state of play.

I’ve been gone for a long, LONG time! I started WoW back in the Cata days where Ret Pally was a terrifying sight to behold, and began to slowly lose my interest in the game after the huge Pally nerfs and reworks began during the following expansions where I switched to level a Mage instead. Then left the game for a few years.

I’m now back and learning a bunch of WoW’s new system and wacky loss in levels due to that rework (lmao), and would like to know the state of current Paladin. I really enjoyed Ret back in the Cata days as well as Prot and am looking to see if anyone has any insight on if an old Cata Pally enjoyer would enjoy the current versions of these two. Thank you in advance!

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What content and level of difficulty are you looking for?

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I play HOLY paladin, but from what I understand, RET is doing pretty well right now in mythic+, with huge party utility, some of the best survivability of a dps spec, and very good (and simple) aoe damage.

Their biggest PVE issues seem to be the need to spec heavily into AOE or single-target to reach their best possible level of performance in either, and the heights of their single-target potential are mid-tier regardless.

PVP they have a whole bunch of issues relating to their buffs and defensives being easily dispelled, among other issues. But I’m not a PVPer

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4

Idk pve but pvp ret is a solid spec. It has a lot of caveats and sudo weaknesses that if you are new to the spec might seem like too much to overcome at first but its an ok spec Id say A tier melee alongside arms unholy ww.

Compared to old ret, current ret has close to no offhealing or selfhealing but has more range. It also packs a punch if you get your burst rolling ret can really deal damage to most specs if you can connect.

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I do started in cata too man!

I starter at firelands last week and im a pally enjoyer since.

I will tell you something pally is great in all roles it might take sometime to get used to it but they hage a massive kit for both damage defensive and utility their gameplay its simple enought to get started and it has room for skill expression and to support your team in any situation.

Honestly this is the quick read, ah did it mention this expantion we got battle rez?

Pally its a good pick for any player and their 3 roles are great

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I’ve been maining a paladin since MoP and playing it since vanilla so here are my thoughts.

Retribution: It’s the most satisfying I’ve experienced it in all the life of wow. Very fast paced, hard hitting and great survivability. The animations and feel of the gameplay is great. Dropping a heavy Final Verdict is super satisfying. Only complaint is I want to see blessings and seals return as base spells as this was very important to class fantasy. Hero talents will help fill this but I believe these things should be baseline. Seals and blessings is what I loved about a paladin in Wotlk.

Protection: I believe it is one of the top rated tanks right now. I’m a “mid keyer” doing 10-17s and I feel very tanky. Good survivability and plenty of cooldowns. I don’t think the single target holds up to some of the other tanks but the AOE is great. The sound shield of the righteous makes is super satisfying.

Holy: couldn’t tell you, I don’t heal haha. I always liked resto shamans the most for that.

PVE: it’s easy to solo content if needed with protection and even the other specs. Paladins now have a battle rez which is great group utility for dungeons/raids.

PVP: I’m a very casual pvper, only hitting around 1400 ratings in the past but I’ve noticed I hit real heavy in BGs since the rework and even after nerfs. I have pvped mostly with my shaman and warrior this expansion and the least with the paladin and felt the paladin hit heavier, but that’s what I see, and that’s without a lot of PVP on my paladin, for this expansion.

Class Fantasy: I feel it’s improved with this expansion. Paladins and most classes haven’t had much class Fantasy since Legion. I feel like a Holy Warrior for sure now with the class spells.

Hope this all helps. Have fun.

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I’ll put my thoughts on paladins here;

Class tree: needs severe work. Choice is lacking, we can literally pick up all 3 capstones. Blizz announced that the class tree’s should not effect dps, yet there is allot of dps talents in the tree. We should be seeing talents effecting our support skills (which is what a paladin is all about) If you compare it to the monk class tree, it’s like looking at an orange and a apple here.

Holy: I never played holy, and probably never will, while it is closer to what a paladin should be, I never liked the idea of a guy in plate armor standing in the back waving his hands. Some of the spec is close ranged which is a good start, but they back-tracked on it and made a mess of the tree as far as I know.

Prot: The idea of the ability of the only tank in the game that can still use the avoidance table makes me happy. Although I haven’t played it since tbc, it seems much of the fundimentals is still there with extra toys to play with, and I may try it again in the future. The only thing I dislike about today’s tanks though is having to keep a maintenence buff up to live in content, thus adding some stress. Prot’s version is SoTR, which is easy to keep up with high haste fortunately. Templar’s spec does threaten it how ever.

Ret: It’s hard to call them paladins these days. Most of the kit is becoming ranged. We are plate users, while having some ranged finish them off attacks is fine (judgement/hammer of wrath) going to 80%+ of our dps kit being ranged we are dangerously coming close to being a ranged dps, and that is not a paladin thing. Choices in our tree is lacking, we are almost forced to take FR, an ability that in the past had been a choice to pick up. Our tree is so small, that we can actively pick up close to 80% of our final talents, which is not a good sign. 2 of our final capstones are boring, the other 1 is fun but was previously not a capstone, nor should it became one, and the other is another dps CD with a choice of do damage later after the debuff, and the other being yet another modifier to our finishers.

Paladins needs help, we need our theme as holy warriors back in ret, our class tree is weak. But despite that it can be fun to play. But we have lost our title “Easy class to play, hard to master” A while ago.

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dude pally is litelly the most powerful melee dps and the one who dethrone DH this season i invite you to look at raiderio and use the 25+ filter and look at the % of pallys that go there.

i also invite you to look at top 200 keys.

pally is hard to master in the sense you have to do your dps stuff and your rotation and in 25 and above in some mechanics like feed the weak or etch you are required to use word of glory on others.

as for talents they are bonkers, dont go to wowhead or icyveins look at murlokio see how the top 50 pallys play and what they use you will come to realize things are way different on the toplevel.

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I don’t care of we are “top leetz dps” this season, i care more about the theme in this case. Numbers can always be adjusted, theme how ever needs to hit home, if we are more of a ranged class then a melee one, then we are not paladins.

M+ is trash btw i don’t take them seriously on metrics at all.

Paladins is not easy to play period. Thus it lost it’s title “easy to play, hard to master”.

Again this isn’t a metric issue, this is a theme issue. If most of the skills is ranged, then paladins (ret at least) as a class needs a hard looking into

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but you did said, and no our class tree is not weak at all pally can cover every single affix and have all radi utility you can ask for, except blood lust it has 2 possible auras, great mobility rework and on demand damage for any encounter.

you sir are wrong.

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dude having increased range its not equal to be a ranged class, ask ferals, ask rogues.

havign ranged capabilitys enabled paladin to not be F tier wheelchair on Arenas, let me guess you dont ranked pvp either huh?

also havign ranged INCREASE enable you to do damage while dodging or handling mechanics enabling to support your raid team by handling more efficiently mechanics, and not be punished too much by the “random boss circle targeted mechanic you need to get out of the group”

let me guess you dont raid either?

i guess pally is bad for world questing huh?

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The fact that we can cover all affix is not an indication of the tree being “weak” or “strong” but rather a testament to the class being versatile as a whole, so much so that the tree inherently make you able to answer them.

It does not change the fact however that the tree IS poorly designed and lack interesting choice.
It is in fact the class tree with least nodes out of all classes and keep in mind they split Divine Steed in 3 talents and have talents like Touch of Light/incandescence that are utterly useless.

We’re the only class that can get ALL their capstone talents.
And as far as I know it’s one of the class tree that “changes” the most depending on the spec you choose while supposedly being a tree that should be consistent across all 3 specs.

I don’t know whether we can say its “weak” or “strong” but it’s definitely not “great”.

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Use the entire quote. When i mean “weak” i meant badly designed. If we can reach all 3 capstones without penalty, then yes the tree structurally is weak. It should have so much filler talents either like str up/mastery up/ 3 points for steed ect.

Don’t bring stuff up out of context.

Out of context again. I said we are dangerously close to becoming one. And if we fully become one, then we are no longer paladins.

We always had hammer of wrath to prevent escapes, steed needs to be unsnarable, but putting our spender as a ranged skill is not the answer, let alone forcing everyone to pick up FV, when it used to be a choice that people gladly did not choose.

Then roll a ranged if you want that, we also always had judgement/BoJ/HoW to cover that base, we did not need more.

I have enough history raiding in previous expansions and pvp through my years to know what paladins/DK’s needs in terms of class skills.

Not really. It has high survivability and one of the best classes to use for soloing raids. The theme for rets don’t match what paladins needs to be though.

This too, class tree is supposed to be the CLASS tree, it changing between specs defeats the purpose of it being the class tree.

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dude how its an execute not a way to pevent a lock kiting you for ages lol and its only 1 ranged execute.

sencond buddy everyone EVERYONE PLAYS FINAL VEREDICT check warcraftlogs since the talent was created its the single target choice.

you are so wrong.

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every melee need ways to deal with ranged players and mechanics and every melee have them having INCRESED RANGE its not equal to be a RANGED CLASS it just enables you to keep doing stuff when your updown on other skills is 0.

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thats wierd cause the main concern of paladins before rewokr was over reliance on CDs, bad mobility, bad survival super low damage if lose uptime.

you know whats wierd? all that got fixed on the rework sire.

its not even my words before the rework blizzard stated with thier own data “paladin dies the most in both pvp and pve as thier defensives were lacking”

the “shield of paper” got reworked into the actual shield of vengance and we got DP back.

you literally have no idea what you are talking about or you are talking about level 45 classic paladin which is ancient history.

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They give us an actual gap closer, also we have steed + freedom to counter snares when a dispel class is not around.

Yeah, now they do because it is forced on us, when it used to be a choice. There is a difference in being forced to use something to go deeper in the first 3 columns of the tree (the part that is designed to be) the FV talent prior to DF was always a choice.

Let me know when you play the game for more then one expansion before you debate me what used to be choice and how pallies worked, then you can try to mock me as much as you want.

The answer is, and should always be for melee, a gap closer, not more ranged. If your doing everything ranged, your no longer a melee.

Bad mobility is still not addressed (we wanted a gap closer) range is not mobility no matter how you argue it. Low survivabilty was due to not having a 40% damage reduction CD (addressed) and easy to remove defensives (not addressed) and funny enough, we are still reliant either on CD’s or modifoer buffs which most do not activate often.

Lies. Mobility is still bad. We are still reliant on damage CD’s or modifier buffs for our spenders to feel like a spender.

Because they could be dispelled, not addressed.

SoV is still weak alone, you need to activate the other damage reduction along side it for it to mean anything. Btw our self healing had been super nerfed to the ground too.

Also, since your talking like a new player now, i had played every expac there was. I know what i am talking about.

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check old raid logs, i mean sicne FV was created it was the defualt raid talent, you sir are so wrong.

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check my character lol i played this for a while during legion, bfa and skipped shadowlands on pally

i played all specs on mythic progression 11/12 M nyalotha, and i played other paladin on other realm since pandaria how abotu you do your research buddy? do you have mythic logs mate?

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our defensives have been adressed with devine protection and Shield of vengance on a minute Cds, without even counting bub or loh.

the mobility we have 2 charges with extended duration the horsie and freedom can be used on 1 target and both targets get speed and the general freedom benefit

they were so broken they had to nerf our word of glory cause ppl were timing keys with a ret pally as a “healer” buddy you have no idea.

you clearly dont know what you are talking about and SOV can fully eat a crushign depths debuff on a 24 tyranical and still not break dude your gameplay knowlege of this itaration or prev itaration of paladins are based on “feels” rather than raw data.

SoV can cover 3/4 of deep breath of devastation on soloshuffle and bounce back damage lol on a min Cd you always have a defensive not even taking into account specific stuff like BOP or the best defensive DS.

a question for you good sire, can you post your next reply on your “pro old school paladin so we can see your logs?” or perhaps it does not exist? cause mine do its right here.