I am literally afraid of leveling a paladin up in classic because I want to dps in raids and nobody lets that happen. They will FORCE you to heal or get booted. Hell, they won’t even allow Protection Paladins. The only way to play these 2 specs is to solo and maybe 5 man dungeons but that’s it. How can players stand by and say this should not change?
11 Likes
you can dps as a pally in a raid if you find a chill guild. I will be dpsing as a shaman in my chill guild.
44 Likes
Actually … this how it was in Vanilla. Also i have to yet see a Protection Paladin successfully Tank a Dungeon. I never did in Vanilla, Mana being the main issue.
Retribution Paladins got taken … if the Heal was a Druid … i would guess same on Horde side with Shamans.
But yeah, i would more then welcome certain changes, one being the making all Specializations 100% viable … i would even like it if Taurens could be Paladins and Dwarfs Shamans … just so that they are not forced to keep some balance.
2 Likes
Just remember, your BiS gear will be blues until Naxx if you go holy.
4 Likes
I don’t allow ret pallies in dungeons and generally don’t like them in pvp. They just suck man sorry.
8 Likes
The correct term is “lolret”.
Also you can find a guild as a Ret Paladin. It happened even in Vanilla.
It’s just less likely you’ll find a spot in a guild where they want all their raiders min/maxing, since Retribution isn’t an optimal spec.
6 Likes
Well, don’t level a Paladin if you want to DPS in raids? I dunno, seems simple to me.
8 Likes
You wont just get booted, it never happened like that at all.
We had sign-ups and schedules, where you would state your preferred role and the spec you were using. The raid leaders would then select the best composition that they wanted to use.
Did this result in people with meme spec’s missing out entirely ?..yup you bet it did. If you went into a raid and lied about your spec and the role you were there for, THEN you got kicked, and rightly so.
Just because you rolled a toon and leveled it to 60, it doesn’t instantly confer a permanent raid spot for you to do as you see fit. Raiding is about team work, if your spec and preferred role isnt as compatible with that as someone elses toon, you won’t be given a proirity spot.
10 Likes
I’ve had a few. Mana was definitely an issue, and so was people not respecting their lack of taunt, but it was fine. Neither bears, nor prot paladins will every be as effective as a warrior, sadly, but they can make it work if the rest of the people playing are ok with it.
Truth be told, if it wasn’t for the extremely prohibitive respec cost, it would be a lot easier to give people opportunities to play those specs, swapping them out to heals when needed.
This is classic though, and that’s unlikely to change. A lot of things really improved over the years, and hybrid class competitiveness was truly one of them 
2 Likes
Sounds completely unfair to the point some classes should either be removed or completely overhauled so this kind of trumps the #nochanges ideology completely. This game could still be fun and good if class specs were actually good on all levels. Keeping specs as garbage is just terrible game design and ultimately flaws vanilla.
10 Likes
Who owes you a raid spot
8 Likes
I’m leveling a Paladin. A Dwarf Paladin.
Debating going Protection because it’s what I know best, but so far going Ret talents for the extra damage.
If he’s not drunk while doing the dungeon, he’s doing it wrong! Raids be damned, I’ll not be some hand flapping, back of the group Fancy Nancy!
I’ll be in the front line holding my shield or lying on it for the trip home!
13 Likes
It’s not that the specs are garbage, it’s that they’re just not good raiding specs. Retribution is still good in PvP.
It’s the same as you’re not going to see many Arms Warrior in raids either, or Sub Rogues. Some raids wont care because this game really doesn’t require you min/max, but the reality is still that those are not optimal raiding specs for those classes, either.
Not every spec gets to be good at every thing in the game.
7 Likes
They tank 5 mans and do a decent job. Priest + Pally is better sync than Priest + warrior, but people think everything is a a lvl 60 raid.
8 Likes
Yup. My first character was pally in vanilla. I got to endgame raids. They insisted that I had to be a healer. That was the end of paladin for me.
It did change.
You see, Blizzard realized Vanilla wasn’t perfect, especially for Pallies, so they improved them in following expansions.
Enjoy Classic
I told you so.
7 Likes
100% no.
15 Likes
There are plenty of guilds who will take Ret Paladins. Prot Paladins on the other hand… yeah probably not unless it’s for very specific fights… even still tho.
1 Like
Because I like healing?
This is what vanilla was like… The point was to recreate Vanilla, so I don’t know what you expected? I would have been all for something like dropping the 16 debuff maximum to help certain classes/specs out. But they were never going to overhaul anything to begin with, like non viable raid specs.
5 Likes