There’s no such thing as faction balance in Classic/SoD. Horde have had better PvP racials than Alliance for 20 years. Alliance have had better PvE racials… until now. Now Horde have all of the Alliance’s PvE racials as ring runes, while continuing to have all of their stronger PvP racials.
On top of that, we’ve got Shamans on Horde and Paladins on Alliance. In a situation like this, where the factions are impossible to balance because of racials and unique faction classes, the faction that has given up all of their best PvE racials to the other faction in exchange for nothing should have the stronger unique class.
Therefore, Paladins SHOULD be stronger than Shamans in Season of Discovery PvP, and I’m not going to pay lip service to the idea that each class should be relatively equal anymore.
Not only did Shamans have multiple phases as SoD’s preeminent ‘Hero Class’, but seeing as the devs refuse to give Alliance the OP PvP racials from Horde while giving all of our PvE racials away, I am very happy that Paladins are stronger than Shamans in Phase 5, and indeed, one of the strongest PvP classes in the game in Phase 5 (so long as they’re geared).
Feel free to rake me over the coals, but I know I’m right.
here’s the thing, both classes are kinda OP in their own right in vanilla pvp.
Shamen might have had its burst OP and its dispel was annoying, but their totems were harder to reach in group settings and their mana generation was next to zero.
Paladins on the other side had almost no telegraphed burst, but were very mana efficent. Your 34 mana r1SoC could crit for 1k-1200, and was pretty potent against high armor targets. Our auras/blessings apply more consistently in group settings too. We are also the only class in the game that can remove physical debuffs on command (bop/freedom) so defensively we are OP in that right.
And this is real balance. This stuff makes for better games.
Vanilla didnt have balance from spec to spec, but if you played your classes optimal build, then every class was viable and fufilled a specific roll. Vanilla pvp actually has somewhat of a strange perfect balance because of every classes unique skillset. This is best highlighted in WSG meta
Cant say the same for sod. Horde hero class shaman is dominating BGs. In ABs with like 2 shamans max, its very playable. Once the horde has like 4+ shamans in a game, it feels awful to play against. Theyre way too hard to kill, have infinite personal mana while theyre pumping their allies mana bars up too. Theyre force multipliers in the sense they heavily swing the attrition battle in fights. I knew 60 balance was going to be a clown fiesta as soon as i saw that spell. It wasnt hard to theorycraft future balance months ago, but i guess the devs really are that incompetent. Mana is literally everything in vanilla
Nope both of them should be nerfed. Blizzard shouldn’t cater to forum whiners who suck at the game and need a crutch class to win fights (I’m talking about both classes here). I’d also argue that hunter, druid and rogue need nerfs but at least they’re squishy and are possible to kill.
You completely missing the point. Im talking about class balance, not BG favoritism. Vanilla has near perfect PvP balance between the factions. Yes horde has stronger racials in total, but if no one played human, then id call it even. Gnome is the best BG race in vanilla hands down. In SoD not so much because everyones easily breaking roots now. Also holy paladins were just extremely powerful in vanilla PvP and alliance had way better priest racials.
As far as AV is concerned, alliance loses because the game devolved into a stupid PvE base race. If people actually tried their absolute hardest to win, then alliance would never lose. The potential to defend on alliance is orders of magnitude superior to that of horde. Its just irelevant in a maximum honor farm PvE baserace. Horde is slightly favored in AB, but mot much. Not enough to tip the balance and alliance had holy pallys in vanilla wow, so they always won war of attrition.
WSG is balanced. Both sides have great jumps. Some jumps require a lot of finesse. Watching somw horde druids parkour around ToT is a thing of beauty. Same with alliance druids
Vanilla WoW PvP wasnt equal on paper, but the game was near perfectly balanced. Vanilla WoW was literally once in a lifetime near perfect, maybe totally perfect game. One of the most perfect games ever made, ever. The fact that it was achieved with the dichotomy of horde VS alliance is remarkable. The factions werent equal, they were different, but they were BALANCED
At least in SoD, some paladins are beating some shamans. Not that way in regular classic. You can literally find videos on YouTube about paladins one shotting shamans in SoD S4.
This version is way more balanced. Go play regular level 60 WoW. Pallies in that version have a next to 0% chance at killing a shaman in a fair fight.
If all paladins had a brain and would cleanse, they would have a much easier time with shaman.
Also- Paladins are stronger than shaman right now. The Natty Fire resist people are running around with make Ele shaman not nearly as strong. Enhance is just bad.
Makes me jealous. I have almost never been able to beat an ele sham in a 1v1 in non SoD Classic with my ret. Then I moved to Holy setup and could kill some but it would cause me to OOM if I did win.
Not even going to waste my time playing shaman or a paladin anymore. Those are the two classes that Blizzard nerfs the most. I’m just average at a mage so I made this toon.
Mages are average in SoD and I am an average mage. And playing something that is purely average runs a much lower chance of getting it nerfed.
Why hop in TWW and play my ret again? I’ll put all that time and effort in and then it will get nerfed to super low tier again.
Paladins and especially rets have been nerfed more than any other class in the game, ever. They will nerf ret in TWW very soon. Probably next patch. That has been Blizzard’s track record. And then I won’t be able to dps my way out of a wet paper bag.
ive been saying this since day one it got revealed: Ring rune weapon specializations was the dumbest addition to SoD aggrend came up with, worse then 2 mark losses and Incursions combined.
it was especially crazy when Alliance ahead of Phase 4 rightfully said “so uh, if Horde are getting all of our best racials as runes, we’ll get theirs too right?” and aggrend’s response was effectively “lol no”
I genuinely wonder if people who say this are dishonest or just extremely stupid. The amount of dispellable effects that you have on you take too many gcds on a gcd starved class. You dispel you might get the annoying root thing, then the flame shock, then the actual earthbind itself. It can be worth it if you get flame shock in isolation, but freedom not cleanse. All of this is assuming you’re not in a bg where you have 5 stacks of shadow vuln on you, 15 different mage effects on you, 15 different boomie effects etc.
As for Paladin vs Shaman. I agree with the OP that Paladin should be stronger than shaman for the reason he stated. Ret pallies do not get intellect on their gear and are terrible as a support class compared to shaman. The only thing ret has going is that its burst damage is actually just out of this world at the moment with seal twist double judge, otherwise it would be a failed class.