Current state of a paladin - from a paladin player.

Title says it all so let's get straight into it. And not this could not go on the forums because it won't let me login and says "The board administrator contact page has been disabled." whenever i try to use it.

Okay, paladins, we know them and we love/hate them depending on what class you play.

I have a total of 32days and 10hours to my name on this class which should lend me a proper mic to speak on.

Paladin is currently the product of devs who do as they please and players who whine without even having touched the class themselves.

If you play paladin you understand that it is pretty defensive in nature and is mostly great at what it does thanks to its damage being holy, which cannot be resisted.

In the life time of this class on turtle it seems we lost the Reckoning, heal Reckoning and Holy Reckoning. Paired along the murder of the shockadin spec that is now brought back with half of what it used to be. Talents broken and reworked such as divine favor. And the gut punch the tier sets were given.

oh, and seal twisting is dead.

So, why?

Why is this the case?

Well I like to believe the devs seem to understand that there are proper ways to nerf a class, and they go out their way to do the opposite.

Retribution had went full circle back to the way it was in classic, a worse warrior that takes warrior gear. Making seal of command scale with attack power seems smart, but begs the question of why the tier sets are the way they are.

Tier 3 seems purest form of this joke, as it is haste stacked on crit stacked on strength stacked on agility - with the mandatory intellect and stamina. And a final tier bonus of spell power.

Tier 2.5 is contrary to this I think, having plenty of spell power and healthy chunk of stats, which makes me believe this is the best set for a paladin that relies on spell power... *wink*

Tier 2 seems to be the perfect hybrid of both of the tiers mentioned above, with tier 1 being a worse version.

Holy paladin heals HARD, with an option to either stick to the classic healer that stays away, and some fancy melee healing. Both having their moments to shine.

Protection paladin seems to be doing pretty health (PvE wise) and seems to have gotten over their issue pre-kara patch.

I won't speak of the holy and protection tier sets as i don't have much experience.

So, ret it is.

I am not really a fan of the current sole dps spec of paladins. Dare I say it had been twisted to fit the dev's liking to the game. Along changes to make them shine less and somehow refusing to undo nerfs that were made for an advantage that is not longer at their disposal.

Retribution is very basic to play, the most basic dare I state the obvious, with a grand total of 5 buttons, one of which you would perhaps only press once every 18 seconds.

Taking away seal twisting, while saddens me, can be understandable.

No matter how much turtle devs claim for this game to be "classic" it simply isn't. So classic methods to play the game being removed, that I can see.

I go in, seal of choice, holy strike, judge, seal, crusader over and over, and drop consecration whenever I can.

Now we ARE a simple class, with no grand loss if we mess up our rotation aside from maybe rebuilding the crusader and holy strike buffs if missed... which may happen often as paladins are not known to being the smartest players, nor having the best attention span.

So tell me WHY I am being out done by a paladin who is not even using seal of command????

Ladies and gents, introducing the spell power retribution paladin.

To put it simply for those who aren't in the know:

Stack spell power, get the ash bringer, get tier 2.5 and three pieces of tier 2. Get wrath of cenarius with that lovely proc, and some spell power trinkets. Throw in a WF totem in the group and you are now a machine of cleaves in raids.

Spell power ret is now the "solution" to paladins pre naxx gear, just use seal of righteousness. Get double the chance to proc anything, double WF procs, and the only price to pay is being squishy which is a not so desirable thing in pvp.

Now we got that, we understand that.

SP ret remains as the clear developer unintended means of playing a paladin.

When holy strike was critting for 5K, that was something we can all agree that should not be a thing.

Now I don't know for sure, but I am willing to bet the changes to this class are centered around the performance of naxx.... which is an awful idea to be certain of.

Paladins receive two extra spells to use in naxx, and therefore two buttons to press.

Exorcism and Holy Wrath.

At least one of those crit and scale with spell power.

You see what I am seeing?

Now this would reasonably make it clear on why the tier sets are the way they are.

But it does not make any sense if it was true. Why go for the gear and not the class? You seem to understand that... oh right, I opened this whining by stating exactly this.

So despite you making a change to a seal that clearly shows you want players to go for warrior gear, and making tier 3 for ret just warrior gear with intellect, you leave the past tier sets for SP Ret???

Do you now know what you even want the class to be played as?

If SP Ret is not intended why is it a thing?

If it was intended why is shockadin not a thing still?

Taking away half the damage of holy shock ultimately devoids what makes paladin able to fight, the holy damage.

No, I do not support a class out right two-shotting you. But Shockadin not only being taken out, but brought back with a mana issue that I can't seem to solve is also not the way.

"You are not a game developer you are spitting nonsense!" Do you need to be an artist to see that the drawing has one eye twenty times bigger than the other?

Okay but let's humor these arguments and say that you have a point.

1-druid got four specs, and is a hybrid, who's to say another hybrid cannot have a healing spec be a damage one at the cost of losing the healing part.

2-Spell-hance.

To elaborate on the second point.

You are fighting a shaman, judging by their shield they must be elemental. They chain lightning and turn your friend to dust. So you must've been correct right?

You go to melee range, and suddenly your hp is gone.

Turns out they were rocking this spec called a spellhance. Which has a variant dedicated for fire damage.

Somehow, all the strict rules to paladin are tossed out the window when it comes to shaman.

Spellhance allows: As much armour as a plate wearer with a shield. Guaranteed critical strike chance with frost band - OR - heavy burst damage with molten blast with both reliant on a ranged shock mind you. Clear casting after a critical strike hits you. Mana reduction for two abilities after ANY critical strike. Two cap stone talents that both should be at the end of the tree instead. And more crap to put on the already long list.

So, remind me which of the classes is meant to be good at something?

Just kidding. Throw a shaman in every category.

The developers understood that reckoning was a problem, so they took it out the game. They say they know when something is breaking the game.

Where is the spellhance nerf then?

I won't go into pvp excluding these few things:

Assa rogue.

BoomKin.

Arcane mage.

So I have spoke enough, I made it clear what I want, but I will list it anyways:

Give me my proper shockadin back. You know what you can do to make it better.

Change the bubble to what it used to be - or take away the full minute debuff that takes away my HoP. This is not classic wow anymore, paladins are not going around one shotting people. The entire point of bubble is being able to do everything for 10 seconds. I don't want a second HoP.

Remove the nerf on the tier sets, focus on what exactly made paladins able to do so much with spell power.

Maybe give me back seal twisting pretty please.

Extend Holy Strike's CD so you can either make it a cleave, or have a different GCD from crusader strike. Please I want a button to press.

Nerf HoF if you want, it can be pretty busted.

Remove Sanctity Aura from the holy tree, it forces every paladin to go into the holy tree and not use the actual pvp improvements in the Protection tree. Even for PvE content this is harmful.

Either nerf the boots speed enchant or make SoJ make it impossible to go beyond 100% running speed. Otherwise why do i waste 2 points in persuit of justice?

I have more. But This won't change anything even if the devs read it.

Thank you for putting up with my whining, and have a good day.