An Overview of the Paladin Class
The Paladin is a Holy Warrior hybrid class. Their primary role is a melee fighter and secondary healing class. Paladins have the ability to play a variety of different roles, including DPS (Retribution), Tanking (Protection), and Healing (Holy). They can cast auras and blessings that provide useful buffs for other players while withstanding heavy physical damage with plate armor.
Background
The paladins are the virtuous defenders of the weak and tireless enemies of the undead. Mixing elements of the warrior and the priests of the Holy Light, the paladin is a tough melee fighter. The tradition of the Holy Light is unique to a few of the Alliance races and the blood elves of the Horde.
The paladin is a warrior of the Holy Light. He upholds all that is good and true in the world and reviles all that is evil and sinister — especially undead and the Burning Legion. He offers succor to the beleaguered and smites his enemies with holy fervor. He is particularly potent against undead, as these creatures threaten the goodly races and the Holy Light burns them terribly. The presence of any evil is reprehensible to the paladin, but he focuses his efforts on destroying undead and demons. These warriors uphold the tenets of the Holy Light and defend the Alliance from the predations of the Horde. Found in almost every corner of Azeroth fighting the forces of evil and barbarism, these stalwart warriors of faith ceaselessly uphold their vigil against demonic forces from beyond the Dark Portal. Humans and Ironforge dwarves are the most likely to become paladins, as these races revere the Holy Light. The paladin order, also called the Knights of the Silver Hand, grew out of humanity’s culture, and its greatest heroes and fiercest proponents are humans. Ironforge dwarves possess the toughness needed to withstand the onslaught of the paladins’ many enemies. High elves rarely become paladins. Paladins are the embodiments of goodliness. They help the innocent and punish the wicked. As such, all paladins are of good alignment.
During the Second War, some paladins’ eyes glowed with inner power of the Light, such as the paladin Turalyon. This is not the case for all paladins, though it occurs in game with certain paladin armor sets. Some are Retribution Paladins, auradins, or are sun paladins. Some are known as paladin warriors (who sometimes become epic paladin warriors). Some paladins choose to become exemplars, and templars.
History
The Knights of the Silver Hand was the original paladin order, the Silver Hand was formed in the Second War and was at its height until the time of the Plague. As paladins were immune to the Plague (and indeed all diseases), many members of the order survived the initial push of the Scourge. Unfortunately, the corrupted Arthas Menethil killed many paladins upon his return (including Uther the Lightbringer), leaving only a scattered few. The Order of the Silver Hand still exists but it’s only a shadow of its former glory.
Following the invasion of the Scourge, many of the order’s paladins joined a zealous group of followers of the Light known as the Scarlet Crusade. After leaving the Crusade, some paladins decided to join the Argent Dawn.
In a World of Warcraft questline, Tirion Fordring vows to restore the original order.
Others fled south, to the Kingdom of Stormwind. The paladin order, still referring to themselves as the Order of the Silver Hand, now thrives under their new leadership at the Cathedral of Light in Stormwind City. Over time, the followers of the Holy Light spread their philosophy to the dwarves of Ironforge who soon adopted the tenets of the order as well.
The Blood Knights are a paladin order within the blood elves. The Vindicators are paladin order within the draenei.
Paladins don’t have to be “good” as seen by the Scarlet Crusade and others – however, they do have to believe they are good or have faith in a cause.
Overview
Paladins also have several Undead-specific abilities such as Exorcism, Holy Wrath and Turn Undead which make them very effective when fighting Demon and Undead targets (not including Forsaken players).
In PvP the paladin’s most well-known strength is his ability to outlast his opponent(s). With plate armor, their ability to heal themselves, and a near-complete invulnerability every few minutes, he’s a hard target to take down. They can also do a surprising amount of burst-damage and have good access to stun abilities. They also make great supporting characters, buffing and healing team-mates while being able to survive the enemy’s attention.
On the downside, most of their abilities are buffs that can be dispelled. Their plate does not help them against spellcasters and they are also quite vulnerable to spells and abilities that shut down a magic school, since all their magic is of the Holy school.
In PvE raid environments paladins are good but not great melee DPS fighters. Their DPS is not the lowest but is not among the highest either. This issue is will be addressed in patch 2.3 [1].
The paladin’s current strengths in PvE are healing and tanking. The paladin has some of the most mana-efficient and low-threat healing spells in the game, allowing them to be the main healer of the tank in a group. Their healing efficiency makes them great endurance healers, though they are completely lacking in the group-healing area (healing several group members at the same time) and healing over time. The only Paladin spell that can heal multiple targets simultaniously is the Judgement of Light, and this will not heal non-melee classes. This typically means that the tank and DPS members of the group must be more careful of aggro management when a paladin is healing.
Paladins also make good tanks. One strength of paladin tanks in raids is that they can become virtually immune to crushing blows with the right talents and skill use. They also excel at tanking multiple mobs at the same time. This is compensated by a somewhat lower durability compared to warrior tanks.
Races
The paladin class can be played by the following races:
Alliance
Dwarves
Humans
Draenei
Horde
Blood Elves
Blood Elf Paladins belong to the Order of Blood Knights, while Human and Dwarven Paladins are usually from the Knights of the Silver Hand. Currently, Draenei Paladins are members of an organization called the Hand of Argus, but this may change with time as the Draenei are now part of the Alliance and some may consider joining the Silver Hand.
Weapons and armor
Human PaladinSee also: Paladin sets, Formula:Mana regen & Shields, Compendium of the best Paladin’s weapons
From the start, paladins can wear cloth, leather, or mail armor, and can train to wear plate armor at level 40. They may use a shield. They can summon their own Warhorse at level 40 (which they can obtain for 90 silver from a trainer), which can be quested to an epic Charger at level 60. They can use the following melee weapons (either innately or via a Weapon master trainer):
1H Swords
2H Swords
1H Maces
2H Maces
1H Axes
2H Axes
Polearms
Paladins cannot dual wield. They also cannot use ranged weapons. This includes:
Wands
Guns
Bows
Crossbows
Thrown weapons
For ranged damage, a paladin has several limited options:
Taking the Engineering profession in order to obtain limited ranged capabilities such as dynamite, bombs, and trinkets.
One notable option for a paladin who specializes in Gnomish Engineering is the Gnomish Death Ray, since a paladin’s invulnerability shield prevents the player from taking the damage normally associated with using this item. (Note: Blizzard has mentioned that this will no longer work in past patch notes, although it has not been changed yet. Actually, they noted that while in blessing of protection if the trinket fails and backfires, you will still take damage, however you do not take damage while casting it, and nothing official has been stated on this topic.)
A ranged trinket such as [Linken's Boomerang]; it has a 3 minute cooldown, or [Six Demon Bag] which has a 30 minute cooldown
Non-Engineering explosives such as EZ-Thro Dynamite or EZ-Thro Dynamite II
Using Judgement in combination with a seal (see below) allows for a limited range attack similar to (but more limited than) a Druid’s Moonfire
Spending Talent Points in the Holy tree to acquire the spell Holy Shock
Spending talent points in the Protection tree to acquire Avenger’s Shield
Using Hammer of Wrath on an enemy with less than 20% of their health left
Blood Elf paladins can also use their racial ability, Mana Tap, to have some limited pulling of mana-based mobs
All information used with permission from WoWWiki, for more great WoW information, click here:WoWWiki – Paladin Guide
World of Warcraft Gametime and Account Registration Codes
Tags: overview, Paladin, paladin overview, World Of Warcraft, WoW
Some more articles you might be interested in:
Leave a Reply
