In fantasy world a Paladin has powers against the undead. In general one of a paladins main objectives is to destroy all undead. I have noticed that in wow paladins have no such ability. In fact the Horde paladins interact and work with undead. I wonder why the developers ignore this aspect of what a paladin is supposed to be?
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Once upon a time, they did, and did a number on demons too. Player characters were excluded from the special abilities & buffs.
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In Vanilla, we used to have exorcism which dealt heavy damage but could only be done to undead and demon targets.
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Paladins used to have an ability called “Exorcism” that was a ranged spell. Originally it could only be used on demons and undead. Then it could be used on anyone but was a guaranteed crit on demons and undead. Then in MoP it was just a ranged spell. It was removed in 7.0.
A lot of the “flavor” was removed during the pruning era. Blizzard obviously felt they were extraneous because they didn’t add anything to a players actual rotation or they cluttered up a rotation. I disagree, and think that they should have doubled down on flavor spells and made them part of the rotation not removed them.
-shrug-
Obviously I’m not in charge.
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Agreed, can you imagine how different the confrontation at Lordareon could have gone if the Alliance paladins had such abilities against the undead?
Lorewise they still do. They were only pruned for gameplay purposes, so the “confrontation at Lordaeron” would have gone exactly the same way.
I’m astounded that you even think that player abilities in-game would have any influence over lore.
Can you imagine that? Perhaps a cinematic in which Thrall dies because the orc stun racial was nerfed?
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If what you say is true where were the Alliance paladins in the cinematic? They should been in the front casting waves of spells against the undead.
Have you not played the zone? The Argent Dawn/Crusade are everywhere in the Plaguelands. It’s been a combination of druidic magic and the Light that’s been cleansing the Lordaeron of the undead blight and corruption left by the Lich King.
But if by “undead” you mean the Forsaken race, then no, the Forsaken are not innately harmed by the Light, at least not much more than any of the other living races. In WoW lore (and this goes back to the start of WoW), the Light differentiates between those under the Lich King and those who have been freed and have free will (aka Forsaken).
Hence Forsaken being able to still be priests of the Light and be healed by it (although apparently it feels like being cauterised)
h ttps://wow.gamepedia.com/Forsaken#Faith
I miss having exorcism… and auras… and seals… paladins are a mere shadow of what they used to be. Still fun but doesn’t feel very Paladin like anymore
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Exorcism and “turn undead/evil” good times.
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I remember Exorcism, that was a fun one. Now, we have that Ashbringer artifact ability that stubs undead and demons in an AoE.
Exorcism is one of the class signature abilities that were pruned for misguided reasons.
I thought once upon a time the ability Turn Undead actually affected undead because they were “undead” type and not “humanoid” type.
I may be wrong I know that would have been vanilla and I didn’t play vanilla. Thought I heard about it.
Weren’t Forsaken briefly classified as undead at one point? Which meant they could be affected by those special abilities and powers.
During Vanilla Beta (or maybe Alpha) yes. While it made them them weaker to paladins in PvP, it also made them immune to a whole other range of abilities and effects (such as polymorphs and fears) and made balancing a nightmare, so it got changed rather quickly.
A couple notes:
- " Founded during the [Second War], the paladins were a holy order of warriors whose purpose was to defend and shepherd the war-torn populace of [Lordaeron]. The Archbishop [Alonsus Faol] had perceived that the pious [Clerics of Northshire], who had suffered such terrible attrition in the [First War], were ill-suited for the dangers of combat. Along with many of the surviving Clerics of Northshire, he sought those of only the greatest virtue among the [knighthood] of Lordaeron and tutored them in the ways of magic. Led by the crusading [Uther the Lightbringer], it now rested upon the new paladins - christened the [Knights of the Silver Hand] - to heal the wounds sustained in combat and to restore faith in the promise of freedom from [orcish] tyranny.[[3]]"
- “Amid this preparation, Lothar also began to look into finding something for all the disparate nations to rally behind, irrespective of heritage. Though [clerics] of the [Holy Light] were suited to this role, they were wholly unfit for the dangers of combat, as evidenced by events in the [First War]. A solution was presented by the [Church of the Holy Light]. Its head, [Archbishop Alonsus Faol], worked closely with Lothar in the formation of a new order of warrior-priests, the [paladins]. A handful of chosen knights and other individuals were trained stringently in both the ways of combat and the Light. Representing the highest values of humanity, this group of paladins became known as the [Knights of the Silver Hand]”
These sections imply Paladins weren’t specifically about eradicating undead, but rather converting clerics into something more combat-ready to protect and rally the people.
It just so happens that most of WoW’s Human/Paladin lore takes place in Lordaeron, which happens to have had lots of issues with the undead. That’s why we ended up with groups like the Scarlet Crusade with the sole purpose of wiping out all undead, and the Argent Dawn, with basically the same purpose but less bullcrap and more focused on specifically the scourge instead of all undead.
Didn’t have much to do with them having some arbitrary ability counter, even if they did have a couple tools at their disposal.
That’s horrible to balance though, as an expansion like Legion would have paladins be heavily desired over literally anything else, then in an expansion like BfA with little to no undead/demons, they would be benched.
Not really a fun predicament for either side is it?
We used to (speaking as a paladin player for years). It was pretty great. We had stuff that only worked on undead and demons. We had an AOE stun against them. We had undead tracking on our minimap. Etc. But, Blizz wanted all classes to be the same and have fewer abilities, so here we are.
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Personally I enjoy being able to kill non undead/demon things as effectively as other classes.
Don’t gimp me into only being good against 2 enemy types pls
Why? I play a paladin because I like playing a paladin not because it is class of the moment. It must be those class flipping people who are creating issues within the game. Especially when we see people whine about %'s and numbers and mechanics.