State of Paladin via Beta community perception

Classes Paladin
1

Community perception is a tricky thing in WoW. If something is mathematically 3% better than its competition, but the community knows this without doubt, it will not receive only 3% more representation.

It’ll be much more dramatic.

Going into things, as we are quite close to Midnight launch and I’m not sure Blizz really has time for additional sweeping changes, here is what I’ve heard on community perception for all three Specs.

Please input what you’ve heard or what you feel is right, as I’d like to come back to this and see how Season 1 actually turned out compared to initial estimations/expectations.

(There is always some element of “self fulfilling prophecy” with community sentiment in regards to the overall meta, but it’s still worth examining)

HOLY

  • Empyrean Legacy nerf very late has changed the expected playstyle to not prioritize Judgement. People are less than happy.
  • Crusader Strike fakeout was confusing and without clear design vision.
  • → Spec is not top dog in either Raid or M+, but might have some space in PvP as Pally utility is always pretty good (situationally) here.

----Overall: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Don’t doom, but don’t expect to shine.
Healers are always needed, but don’t expect to see a new influx of players or interest, either.

PROT

  • Higher tank Dmg than avg, while Bear is miles ahead - Either Bear gets left as is and Bear is the overwhelming Meta tank, or Bear gets tuned down and Prot has some value as the “big dmg” tank.
  • Some Prot players express survivability issues, especially at the top end - may keep the spec from widespread adoption except for the true devotees.
  • → Prot is still the utility Tank, so unless they really muck it up last minute you’ll still be able to get your weekly 10s in.

----Overall: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Can’t complain, unless you are dealing with the survivability issues near the top end, but it could be worse. (I am slightly concerned tho, as Blizz has stated they don’t want any tanks to kite - but if Prot has good ranged aggro and poor survivability, it might be some kiting)

RET

  • All Melee Specs currently lower on the totem pole, looking to be a ranged Meta
  • Spec has tons of dmg locked behind bugs, most existing for the entire Beta cycle. Lack of active bug fixing does not instill confidence.
  • → See the Beta Feedback forum if you need to see some of the Bugs listed out
  • → Ret doesn’t really offer anything unique compared to Prot or Holy, and the Dmg is looking like it’ll be disappointing save a last minute Hail Mary.

----Overall: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Welp… at least there’s Prot and Holy (Sorry Paladin doesn’t have another DPS spec so if Ret is lackluster you are pushed off-spec :upside_down_face: )

OVERALL
★ ★ ⯪ ☆ ☆

It could be worse, but don’t reroll a Paladin unless you like the Tmogs.

And make sure you really like the Tmogs, ok?

2 Likes
2

That is always 1 “aura buff” away from being fixed.

CSAA VS TS is still the main gameplay concern.

3

Normally I’d agree and maintain standard plucky optimism, but the pervasive Beta spanning Bugs on HoW/Judgement and consuming Procs worries me.

Blizz may aura buff Ret into some relevance, but if you have to play the Spec prioritizing bug behavior over tooltips/spell descriptions, it’ll still feel quite bad.

1 Like
4

If these bugs affect performance, it might explain why they aren’t touching the tuning.
Of course, this is worrying for us.

But for them?

They have a long list of things that needs to work for day 1 that tuning and gameplay bugs for specs (as long as it can realistically operate) just don’t get priority over.

There won’t be any meaningful competitive content for the first 2 weeks.

Now don’t misunderstand me, the fact they aren’t touching those means the top of the list isn’t done.

That’s worrying but in a different way, the bugs we have shouldn’t be hard to fix but they do need to get to them.

1 Like
5

I jumped on my ret today, tried both hero talent tree’s, and even tried bumping my haste up to 45%… That’s a lot… Ret feels clunky, slow and just plain bad. Which is sad, Ret has always been kind of face paced and fun even when it never topped the meters.

Edit: I changed tree to meter

6

i still dont see how you feel that way tbh

7

There’s a zillion people that prefer Paladin because of the class fantasy regardless of tuning. It’ll still be one of the most played classes as usual.

1 Like
8

The recent changes to EL has made judgement so weak, that I feel the LS tree either needs direct buffs or just reworked in general for Holy at least.

Right now both HotS and LS’s gameplay is exactly the same, using all the same buttons and most of the talents. The problem is HotS has buffed spenders while LS had buffed judgement to make up for the weaker spenders, but all of those got nerfed. So now you just have them both playing exactly thr same, but one actually does healing.

So what you have left is disappointing because it feels like actual trolling to use now.

9

Blizzard wants a ranged meta so bad for s1 they are smacking down any melee that comes close to ranged dps. It’s not just a ret thing. It’s pretty obvious. Then when the MDI is all ranged with a shaman healer for interrupts blizzard will go “oopsies!” And buff melee to be competitive in s2.

10

Why not? Im a Mythic+ tank player, i can play the less desirable tank by a wide margin and still be able to play the game a lot.

The perks of playing a wanted role.

I don’t care much for it tbh.

1 Like