WoW: Rollin' Wit Da Paladins
I know you guys told me not to.EVERYONE told me not too.
Hell, the even manual says "DON'T ROLL PALADIN" in big, bold letters.
It's in there. Trust me.
And yet... I rolled up a Paladin today.
Yes, I played for the Alliance.
Before we get into a whole discussion about this, I don't really have feelings either way on the Alliance-Horde Controversy.
They both seem like good guys.
True... The Horde does have more people with leprosy, but you can't really hold that against them.
From what I've read, people seem to get very worked up over which side is better. Funnily enough, most people tend to argue that the side they chose is better.
Crazy, huh?
Still, I have no real affiliation with either group, so let's not get into a "[GM]Dave plays Alliance. BURN HIM!" discussion.
Anyway, as I was creating my character, I chose Human and that's when I noticed something...
All of the humans look like characters from Shrek.
Actual In-Game ScreenshotAnd then it hit me.
Apparently, the uncanny valley is just South of Northshire.
I know... I'm learning the names...
Shoot me.
I kid, I kid. I'm actually not hating playing the game.
When I started this whole thing, I was ready to do a basic "Wow sucks, Wow players are stupid" week. Then, after reading some forums, I saw how much people really loved this game.
Despite my general tendency to be a complete and utter ass about everyone and everything, I decided that something people enjoy this much at least deserves an honest attempt to play.
Yes, I will still be making cracks here and there.
That's kind of what I do.
But, I'm not going to insult the game just because it isn't FFXI. I'm trying to get a real feel for the game before I pass judgment.
In that spirit, and despite everyone in the universe telling me not to, I decided to give Paladin a shot.
I didn't hate it.
That's big for me. I hate everything.
I really expected the battles to go excruciatingly slow without offensive spells to augment my attacking. When I played Shaman yesterday, battles where I tried to conserve mana by not casting seemed to take forever.
Today though, it actually went pretty smooth.
I think the massive two-hand mace helped. Nothing speeds up a fight like hitting your enemy in the face with a giant hammer.
That's how I got through high school.
It was also nice that I could wear the good armor all the animals were dropping.
Yes, the animals were still dropping pants.
No, I still haven't figured that part out.
Still, free pants are free pants.
You know, thinking about it now, this is one of those weird things about MMORPGS, FFXI included. You're out in the middle of a field or a plain or whatever, you kill an animal, and you find a pair of pants.
And you put them on right away.
Easy, right? You just click a button and new pants.
But what about your character? That noble Paladin or fearsome Druid you're controlling...
He just changed his pants in the middle of nowhere.
Kind of hard to look tough when you're swapping pants in the middle of an ice field.
You can't do that in the real world. Do you know what would happen if you tried changing your pants in public?
Your wife, Susan, would have to come bail you out and then bitch at you the whole ride home about laws this and court dates that.
Anyway...
This is the thing I'm not understanding though... Why all the hate for Paladins?
I realize I'm new to the game and only visiting at that, but I can't say that it sucks terribly.
Does it suck later?
Are the other jobs just so awesome that Paladins suck by comparison?
I'm just not seeing it.
A couple of times, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I was actually having fun.
I know... I had fun playing WoW.
I'm just as surprised as you are.
This is starting to worry me now. Pretty soon, I'm going to stop drinking and making fun of retarded people.
And then, what's the point of living?
posted by Goblin Smithy @ 6:28 PM
47 Comments:
The problem most people have with paladins is that generally for the first 20-30 levels it doesn't really change much. Shamans get chain lightning, warriors get Berserker stance, mages get blizzard/arcane missiles, shadowpriests learn how to melt faces, and paladins.... still hit things with a large hammer. It's the lack of shiny options that clinches it for most people early on. That and level 30-40 is painful.
Oh, and if no one has warned you, avoid the barrens. It's kind of the Valkurm of WoW, just a little more stupid.
Yes, that's possible.
I can honestly see Dave playing a Hunter. Though 1-10 as a hunter is annoying as hell, once you get your pet it's smooth sailing until 80.
At level 10, Hunters do a quest where they learn to tame beasts. You can choose nearly any beast mob in the game (as long as it's your level or lower) and tame it to be your permanent pet. They also use bows and guns (which race you choose determines which you start with, you can learn to use the other later).
Think of Hunters as a combination of a Ranger, Beastmaster, and Dragoon. Just, ya know, without the awesome Wyvern. :(
paladins do learn "bubble" and "hammer of gay" which are both incredibly useful. i just dont know when
[GM]Dave doesn't hate WoW...If I had any faith in humanity, this may actually have been serious blow to it.
Now to hope that you don't get addicted to it. That would be a sure sign of the apocalypse.
No pally hate here, Dave. I LOVE the class -- I leveled a dwarf pally as supposedly the toughest spec TO level (prot) from 10 to 80 and enjoyed almost all of it. She's my favorite toon to play.
It's the warlock class that I found to be the worst level-grind, and hunters (for me) are just boring.
It's a mindset, it really is. If you have a certain playstyle, you're gonna love certain classes and certain talent trees. Those that don't have a good "fit" will find it a grind.
Too bad you're doing your trial solo, Dave, and not continuing past the trial. I'd really suggest teaming up with a holy priest -- prot pally & holy priest is one HELL of a combo. There's nothing more fun than being surrounded by 10, 20, 30 mobs...furiously taking them down while your Priest buddy frantically keeps you alive...and winning. :)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
WoW is evil. IT WILL TAKE YOUR SOLE.
BURN IT NOW.
ok rant over.
[GM]Dave enjoying wow is like walking in on your parents having sex. You know that some people do it... But when you see it happening with people you KNOW. The shock... The Shock
You mean you didn't shoot yourself yet?... I...I am crying inside... I used to think you were superior to normals humans....what happened to you?!
As a a level 80 Paladin I can tell you it is not a bad class. It can be a little tedious for the fact that combat does not really change. Seal, Judgment, Talent based attack, Consecration, rinse and repeat for 80 levels.
What I like about Paladin especially since 3.0 hit is they can do everything (Just not at once). Holy is a solid healer, Protection makes great tanks, and Retribution can really do some nice DPS.
Dave, I'm curious, when you were preparing the announcement about this week's theme, how prepared were you for people turning on you?
Mali said...
You mean you didn't shoot yourself yet?... I...I am crying inside... I used to think you were superior to normals humans....what happened to you?!
Which brings me to my follow up question... Mali's needed a tune-up, may I borrow your recently acquired hammer of facebreaking?
i could see him rolling like an undead warlock or something like that lol
I'm not surprised you're liking it. I liked it too for the first 3 days. But once you realize that the stuff that you do from levels 1-10 are also the exact same stuff that you do from levels 10-80, you start going insane.
You know...I've never understood the Alliance/Horde fights myself, but what I don't understand even more is the people who say one MMO is better than another.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not say WoW is the best, it's just the only one I've played. But when I read posts like that, as far as I know the person has never played the other MMO. It just kinda seems like the same kind of arguement.
The problem with paladins is the lack of variety. The combat style doesn't change between levels 10 and 70. It's rush in, special abilities mapped to keys 1-4, then auto-attack until dead.
Rinse, repeat.
But I can't really complain, I like paladins, I just can't stand playing them. The only paladin I ever tried was leveled to 30 before I got terribly bored and deleted her.
I took a druid to 80 because it was the only class that kept my attention - getting to chose between shapeshifting into a cat and ripping faces off, turning into a giant owlkin and firing balls of lightning at faces, or turning into a tree and healing was just the amount of variety!
I'm a paladin. Protection, to be specific.
Seal up righteousness, then press nothing but your judgement. Play like that for an hour. That's paladining for the first 30 or so levels. Your bored, and level slower than most classes. It's not slow, but slower all the same. Your more of a defensive class, outlasting the enemy rather than trying to just over power it in one shot.
When you hit ten, take a look at your talents a bit. The retruibution tree features two of your main attacks as a retadin. If you don't know how to read a tree yet look to the end of my post - I'll leave the interesting stuff up here.
Look at your 41 and 51 points. Crusader strike and divine storm. You have to wait until level 50 to reach the first of these, and they, along with judgement, make up the basic attack rotation. In the next patch, you'll put exorcism in there too. You'll find yourself putting consecrate in there too when you get it(Aoe effect), but it's a mana hog and not really worth it unless you have 3 or more things to kill.
As prot, I have a similar issue, though less obvious. I judge, make use of my holy shield and slam up using my level 75 skill(smash shield into face) and my 51 point talent - smash hammer into three faces. Rinse, repeat. The fun comes from doing that to 10 - 30 mobs at once, because you can.
If you find it slow, I recommend getting your hands onto a rogue. That's slow to start with a bit, but it picks up quickly and it's quite fun. Warlock too.. Imagine infecting a group of people for being stupid with terminal illnesses, scaring two so they run away, get some balls and come back just to be scared off again, while a gaint demon with an axe the size of the piss puddles lays into another one. Assuming your not using an imp to hurl balls of fire into everyone's face every other second.
Do not go hunter, though - hunters are the retard pool(though deathknights are there now too). Not all hunters are bad, thankfully there's a good number of decent players.. but you still find more huntards than good players, and it gets worse when you know how the class works. You don't want to be that guy.
It's not a bad game, and your going to miss out on a bit because your on a trial, but if you're having fun, who cares? Cheap shots are one thing, but actually having a hatred for a game should be reserved for runescape.
Talents:
Your x1 point talents are every x0 levels. The 11 pointer is at level 20, the 41 at 50, 51(bottom most) is at 60. Each tier is worth five points somewhere below them, so you need 10 in the tree before you can open up seal of command(The 11 point ret talent.) you might have other talents on the same tier as the 11 pointer, but this is normally a single talent point with a very noticable effect.. unless your holy.
fifty bucks on GM-dave's sudden realisation of him being addicted to WOW!
Again, I played a Paladin for four years, obviously I like the class myself.
But on the other hand, I'm amazed [GM]Dave likes it. He never struck me as the kind of guy to enjoy autoattack. On the other hand, while it really doesn't change much for the next 30 or 40 levels, the incredible level of PvE survivability IS rather nice. And if you can make it through leveling a Paladin long enough to get that #41 talent point to put in Crusader Strike, suddenly things get a lot more fun.
Now you're hitting TWO cooldowns in combat instead of just one! ;-)
Bunnies and butterflies* [GM]Dave, that's the point of life.
*shooting them
Paladins' aren't really as bad as most people let on, but they tend to be a little...dull, combared to some other classes.
The first 10 levels are pretty much all the same and classes like warriors and paladins seem to have something of an advantage. Hit things! with big weapons! ALL RIGHT!
But then as you go further, the other classes start to get some interesting spells and skills and their talents makes mana/energy/rage useage much easier to handle. And paladins...keep hitting things.
If you like smacking things with a big weapon all day, it's really not that bad. But if you'd like a little bit of variety in your gameplay, most of the other classes seem much more interesting.
TLDR: People tell you not to play paladins because they're looking back from the end of the game. You're looking forward into the unknown. At the moment, it's just not that bad.
What? Wait, let me think about this for one second.
...
No. I mean, hell! Look [GM]Dave, I had a hard time in FFXI 2 years ago. Then you stopped blogging and I thought this might be an omen telling me to stop playing FFXI. So I switched to WoW.
Now, I was having a hard time in WoW (too boring etc.) and you started blogging again. So I took this as another omen, gave my account to some homeless bum and picked up FFXI again. And now you're telling me, that you actually enjoy WoW?!? Should I also take this as an omen?
What's wrong with the world? I should have listened to that tiny voice that told me to not get up in the morning. I should have listened to it when it told me to throw myself in front of the first car I see. And I should have listened when it said 'See? I told you ...' after I spilled my coffee all over my clothes.
I guess you just gave me an aneurysma. Good lord, please make the pain go away ...
As a WoW Player who's been playing it for a few years now, Id like to add my 2 cents.
Class Selection:
At the start, you have 9 classes(jobs) available to you.
Hunter: Pet Class, standard Ranger
Mage: DPS Caster
Druid: Shapeshifting Animal Thing
Warlock: Like a mage, only they suck.
Priest: Healer, with a DPS spec, really squishy.
Paladin: Good at high levels. At lower levels, it's repetitive.
Warrior: Like a warrior, but with more buttons to mash early on, and no healing.
Shaman: Least played class for a reason
Rogue: Sort of the Mage equivalent for Melee damage, standard guy with a mask who sneaks behind people and stabs them with a dagger.
By far, Hunter is probably the easiest to level after level 10. You'll get farther, be able to see more, and I think you'll enjoy it. Just don't be a Huntard.
If at all possible, skip to the Human starting lands. By far the best starting zone in the game. If you make a Dwarf Hunter, this is easy.
On the subject of Graphics and Sound, the Graphics follow Chris Metzen's art style, which have been used in Warcraft since Warcraft 2, when there were enough pixels to display orcs as more than just a green block. For a 4 year old game, it doesn't look too bad, the cartoony look masks how bad it actually is. The Engine itself is pretty capable, if you do manage to hit a high enough level to get to Outland or Northrend, and are willing to pay for the expansions, you can see just how far the engine can be pushed.
As for the music, it's unobtrusive, and generally sets the mood if you care to get into it. Otherwise, most WoW players listen to MP3s anyways.
I do feel it's a shame that in a single week, you won't be able to get a feel for the game past the first 30 levels. You really can't knock it until you've hit the level cap, done a few raids, and participated in PvP to some extent.
That comment turned out longer than expected...
If you need help, or want a hand, feel free to roll on my server.
There's a guy in my guild who transferred from FFXI and he says he doesn't believe you exist :/
Oh my, look at the comments. This is turning into a WoW propaganda blog.
Blizzard destroys us all ...
I can clearly see why Dave likes the autoattck class like the Paladin.
It gives him one hand free to do other important things, like holding on to a bottle or can.
You can get drunk much faster that way...
If one has more fun playing whilst drunk, the game will probably become more fun too.
Raiding is more fun when you're drunk, although the other (sober) people may not think it fun when you wipe the raid. I'll still be laughing all the way though...
Paladins are just pretty boring to a lot people compared to other classes. You have your judgement. Judgement is the only offensive spell you have until Exorcism (only works on undead) at level 20. After that it's all the way to level 50 before you get your next strike.
But glad to see you're having fun Dave, looking forward to the next entry :)
Hey, I'm loving the fact that [GM] Dave is playing a paladin, human especially, ... thats my class and race. I'm not going to say much more, and I'm looking forward to the next blogs about his adventures in Azeroth ... and most especially waiting for his post about how stupid people can actually get while in-game.
Wait, you read forums, and you got the feeling people loved the game? I thought forums were only for those filled with seething hate to ridicule those that come asking questions, bitch about how x class should be nerfed and their class needs a god ability, or emoing about how they're quitting.
And yeah, humans got hit with the ugly stick. I kinda pity them.
As an avid player of both FFXI and WoW, I can never say I love one more than the other. Both have stuff the other one can't offer. If you're having fun now, you'd love it when you hit Outlands and Northrend.
By the way, if you get a chance, I believe they offer a free trial of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. I'm not sure if they still do but if they are, you should definately give that a shot. The Death Knight quests are fun as hell.
Longest WoW joke:
So those two paladins have a duel.
End of joke. Applies to Dark Age of Camelot as well.
I think this one illustrates Paladin duels pretty well...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBAoFIBrqbU
I've got a level 80 Paladin and I love it very much. She's a tank (protection) :) Retribution is the same old crap whatever level you are (run to mob, hit mob, repeat). First 30 levels are agony, nothing changes. But it's a really good class :)
Paladins used to be lame at high levels. Then the last two expansions happened. The hardest thing about playing a paladin at low levels for me was not having a ranged pull, but I got over it. Besides, only paladins and druids can play any role in game (with the right gear and talent points. Not all at once, no matter what that level 32 pally I grouped with the other day thought.)
On the even-better-hand, in my group paladins are always the ones who make the raid "exiting" thanks to one whiskey too many. And then they can bubblehearth and not face the consequences of their actions.
People give palies a bad rap but it's definitly unwarrented.
They are amazing solo healers, great tanks (done all pve content including OS + 3 and our MT is a paly) and sick dps as retardadin (sorry couldn't help one cheap shot)
Once dual specs come out they're going to be amazing as they can be whatever is needed at the time.
I can't wait until Dave does his first instance. Either Dead Mines or Wailing Caverns, either way, that's gonna be the best read ahah.
I started a pally recently, and have leveled her up to 13 (she's a tank). I'm having fun with it, though it *is* rather repetitive right now. Easier than leveling a holy priest, though, which I'm also doing. I have yet to die even once, and make things hurt a lot (at least, so long as they're level 14 or below).
Also, smashing things in the face with the big hammer is fun. :)
I agree you should get the WotLK trial and check out Death Knights. Their starting area/quests are really different and pretty fun.
You know, Dave, I do believe that all this WoW talk is having a positive effect on your number of comments. I always check your blog early in the day (like I am now), and you'll usually have anywhere from a scant few posts to a dozen or so. But every day since you started WoW-week, there've been 30+ posts by the time I checked. Honestly, you attach the words "World of Warcraft" to something and everyone just flocks to it.
...that just gave me an idea. Excuse me, I need to go talk to a tattoo artist and find out how much they charge for tattooing words on a penis.
Because you are only doing the trial you won't get to taste talents, which you start getting AFTER 10. Basically there's three trees (think of them like merits, but instead of end game, it's throughout) where you put the points. For paladin the trees are protection (tank) holy (healer) or retribution (dd). Protection you never die, but the monsters you fight also never seem to die. Same thing with holy.
But that's why leveling a paladin sucks. Unless you do retribution. Which makes it slightly better. But it still sucks.
I haven't played my Paladin very far, but the history of the Paladin in terms of solo leveling goes like this:
S
l
o
w
They're hard to kill - they can heal themselves, they get the armor that helps them stay alive, they can ... heal themselves. And Bubble-Hearth, that's always a winner. But generally speaking, Paladins haven't been known for their earth shattering damage.
I speak mainly as a player who plays with a few people who've leveled their paladins to 70 (and 80), and were grinding out levels before The Burning Crusade was roaring past, followed by Wrath. Especially leveling as a Protection Pally (that'd be the tanking flavor version of the Paladin... yes, I'm opening myself up for mockery with that sort of explanation, but hey, someone might think "Healers protect too!" which is sort of correct in that they protect you...from death, but not the pain that leads to death, which is what the tank should be doing).
Recent changes to Paladins have made them a force to be reckoned with. So much so, in fact, that it's a bit baffling. Paladins used to be the joke class, and now they're one of those classes you curse repeatedly when faced in PvP.
End game, Paladins make great healers (within their niche). Paladins do ridiculous damage, if they know what they're doing. And they can take a hell of a beating, as a tank. They can do whatever the heck they want -- except turn enemies into various forms of livestock, that's still Mage stuff (frogs don't count, they're not normal farm beasties).
My fiance plays a pally. He heals on guild raids, tanks on non-raid nights. If the guild is short a tank on raid nights, he's got the gear to tank 25s for us. Another long time friend leveled a Paladin as her main (mostly solo through classic WoW) and enjoyed pretty much all of it... it just took longer than it would have taken other classes.
And yeah, humans got hit with the ugly stick. I kinda pity them.
Kitsune -- HUMANS got hit with the ugly stick? Have you looked at Male Night Elves?
Human males are beauty pageant winners compared to the poor male NELFs.
No one wants pallies for tanks.
That's pure BS. As a pally tank in endgame, I'm in very high demand with my guild, and we have tanks to spare. And as I was leveling, I always had groups for instances, and had to stay /DND (do not disturb) whenever I was in the cities, because I kept getting too many random whispers from strangers to tank for them.
What makes a tank good or bad isn't the class -- it's the PLAYER.
As people have already mentioned, the paladin class just doesn't change much as you level.
I levelled one to 24 then I couldn't take it anymore.
10 Seal
20 judge
30 auto attack
IF mob != dead THEN GOTO 20
Every other class gets cool abilities that changes the gameplay as you level. As a mage you either learn to Frost Nova and kite or you die real fast.
As for alliance vs horde, the amount of mature player on both sides are more or less equal IMO. The amount of 12 year old mouthbreathers on the other hand...
Although I think with the introduction of the Blood Elves, it sorts of evened things out.
As for classes to try, many have already suggested hunters. I say go for it if you like pets. You can tame all sorts of weird stuff at high lvl if you go beast master spec.
Or you can roll a warlock, the class is a tad bit bonked at high levels at the moment, but you shouldn't have any trouble 1-20.
Feel free to try the other races and starting zones, even the leprosy-like jaw-free undead - it was missing when they rose from the dead, I sure most will reattach the missing parts if they could find them. :P
As for the humans ya, I could never bring myself to play one. Their running animation looks like they have a stick up their ass. ><
LOL. Someone mentioned the comment section here is turning into a WoW propaganda blog.
Well...
Blizzard really isn't a bad company, and WoW is a fairly decent game.
My biggest problem with WoW was not levelling from 1-80.
I took a break from FFXI for a few months to try out a few other games,
one of those was WoW.
I actually enjoyed levelling so much I have 3 characters at level 80...
What I hated was the endgame content.
It's repetitive, the same thing over and over and over again.
I've played both games quite a bit, and this is how the leveling system seems to go by comparison:
FFXI:
1-10: Solo play. Not hard, somewhat boring.
10-20: Begin grouping up with other players. Ohhh, the agony.
20-30: People finally learn what Skillchains are.
30-40: People finally learn what Magic Bursts are.
40-50: Wicked crazy EXP. Fun times.
50-60: People forget what Skillchains and Magic Bursts are.
60-75: Campaign/Meleeburns
WoW:
1-80: Solo play. Not hard, somewhat boring.
Don't get me wrong, you can group up in WoW, and if your friends are any decent, leveling does go faster. However, it's not really different from solo play as far as game mechanics go. I suppose this is why classes like Paladin don't get much favor, because the class doesn't get anything new and the game itself doesn't relieve the monotony.
This is totally top-end, but at level 80, Holy Paladins are commonly pegged as the most boring healer to play, because they pretty much cast single target, direct heals. So that's why people say Paladin sucks, really. Also, Retribution used to be kind of a joke but it's definitely competitive now, and Protection is a one-button tank.
The big problem with Paladin as a whole is that it's a tremendously automated, proc-based class when compared to others. This makes it pretty easy to pick up but more experienced players often say it's boring.
5 bucks says GM Dave makes a comment in his next blog about namechanging to [WhateverGMsAreInWoW] Dave
I'm a level 80 paladin and here's a list of things i've notice people whine about.
At the early stages you really don't do much except auto-hit and cast a judgment and some heals.
Paladins are well know for getting the gayest armorst in the game.
And one of their sets gave a two second decrease on the cast time of your heartstone.
Paladin were very weak before the end of The burning crusade expansion when they remade them.
Due to being weak they became know as bubbleboys. Using their Devine shield to shield them from all harm for 12 seconds and using the heartstone.
@Matt: GMs in WoW are called... GMs. I honestly can't think of ANY MMOs where they're called something other than GMs. I'm sure I've heard of one or two, I just can't think of them.
Oy...so *sigh* see i've played ffxi AND wow for a few years now. I know!...trust me...dear god, i have no life. But for what its worth, wow's not a bad game really, i mean, both have their issues mind you.
Anyway, yah..heh roll hunter, go beastmaster spec and go get yourself a t-rex to feed people too...you'll feel at home in no time!
Well, from what I see, as a long time WoW player who plays heavily on an RP server (Yes, WoW players like GMDave too, lol) Is that people inherently reject pladains because the paths they take is pre-chosen in life. A Paladin must be a decent being who understands others pain and fights for the Light, and there's not much you can do with that, whereas a hunter or Druid is a blank slate for character development.
Could just be me though /shrug
Pally for the win
"people inherently reject pladains because the paths they take is pre-chosen in life. A Paladin must be a decent being who understands others pain and fights for the Light,"
Amen Thal! Amen!
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