Archive for the ‘Paladin’ Category

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Gamer

Judgement of Justice Macro

by Gamer at March 27th, 2008 in Paladin | No Comments »

A Judgement of Justice macro is required for any Paladin playing 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5 in arena. Mostly used on Druids trying to escape your teammate’s grasp, a quick Judgement of Justice will keep them slowed to normal run speed for 20 seconds allowing your warrior (or whoever) to keep dps on the Druid. With the following macro, with only one button yo can cast Seal of Justice and quickly Judge the target with the same button. It only requires you to select the target and hit the button twice. Because a Paladin’s Judgements are on a different global cooldown that seals, you can mash your keybinding twice to instantly put Justice on the Druid you’re chasing.

/castsequence reset=30 Seal of Justice, Judgement


Gamer

Healer Enchants

by Gamer at March 23rd, 2008 in Druid, General, Paladin, Priest, Shaman | No Comments »

Nearly every socket of gear can be enchanted: Back, Chest, Wrist, Gloves, Boots, and Rings (if you’re an Enchanter). There’s also your Helm (note: Thrallmar rep), Shoulders (note: Scryer or Aldor rep), and Legs (note: Leatherworking), but those aren’t exactly enchants. We’ll stick to the actual enchants in this post. I use: Back (+15 Shadow Resist), Chest (+6mp5), Wrist (+30 healing), Gloves (+30 healing), Boots (Boar’s Speed), and Rings (+20 healing to each ring). Alternatively, if you are short on mp5, you can get 6mp5 to Wrist instead of +30 healing. I wouldn’t recommend +15 resilience to chest, though, unless you’re a Priest and normally get focused: with full Vengeful gear and all the honor pieces, you should be good on resilience.


Gamer

PvE vs. PvP Gear in Arena

by Gamer at March 14th, 2008 in Paladin | No Comments »

It just goes without saying that PvE gear is better than PvP gear in arena for Paladins in most situations. First, let’s look at 2v2.

In 2v2, playing as a Paladin, you’re 99 times out of 100 not going to be focused, so having resilience will not help you. Far more important is mp5, healing, and spell crit (in that order). Given that a well geared PvE Paladin will have ridiculously high armor — my Paladin has 16878 armor in PvE gear, which I wear in 2v2 — any melee damage class will not be able to do high damage on me regardless of resilience: my armor is too high. Therefore, I wear full PvE gear and my Medallion of the Horde (20 resilience) for 2v2.

In 3v3, it’s a bit different for a Paladin. It depends slightly on what type of set-up you play whether or not teams are going to focus you or not. I’m currently playing Warrior/Hunter/Paladin in 3v3 and never get focused, so I play in PvE gear, however, in other combinations I’ve played such as Warlock/Priest/Paladin and Warrior/Warlock/Paladin, I’ve had to wear about ~200 resilience to avoid teams switching to me after my bubble. What’s different now with my current set-up of Warrior/Hunter/Paladin, we’re putting out such pressure on cloth/mail wearers that teams need to shutdown our DPS rather than my healing.

In 5v5, in anything under a rating of 1900, you can get away with not wearing any PvP gear, but as you get to higher ratings and start playing better teams, you’re to need at least 200-250 resilience to slow teams switching to you after bubble. One of the only things that separates good teams from the best teams (besides excellent crowd control) is quickly switching to a new target and killing them before the other team can react. Therefore, entering a 5v5 arena with only your Medallion of the Horde (20 resilience) is not advisable.

Until Blizzard adds mp5 to Paladin’s arena gear and/or reduces the armor value for Paladin PvE gear, it’s more favorable for a Paladin to wear as much good PvP gear as possible. In 2v2, wear as much PvE gear as you can and in 3v3 and 5v5, you’ll want to wear about 200-250 resilience to avoid being bursted down after your bubble is on cooldown.


Gamer

We’re Broken in 2v2

by Gamer at March 13th, 2008 in Paladin | No Comments »

In Season 2, Paladins could still be seen in the top 25 of most Battlegroups. My partner (Shadowborne, Warlock) and I ended the season ranked 7th on Cyclone and I also ended the season as the top Paladin. We could beat nearly any combo (Warrior/Druid, Warlock/Healer, double DPS, and Rogue/Priest) and probably could have ended the season as Merciless Gladiator if we both didn’t get trounced with work during the last four weeks of the season. That aside, while we’re still around 20th in Season 3, we now lose to any Warrior/Druid and I’m the only Paladin in the Top 50.

What has changed? Are the skills of Paladins diminishing? Are Druids and Priests finally learning how to play the game? I don’t think it’s either of those two things; I think the problem is that the weaknesses of Paladins has been finally discovered and is now being exploited by any decent 2v2 team out there. Those weaknesses being that Paladins have to stand still and cast and have limited to no form of crowd control (Hammer of Justice is a poor excuse for CC).

Now in Season 3, Druids — our counter healer class that has both heal-over-time spells and great CC — has found their niche in 2v2. You now see Druids, and Priests to some extent, as the only viable healers in 2v2. A quick look at the contrast of those two classes with us and you easily see why they’re so strong and we’re so weak. Both classes, but primarily Druids, are excellent CCers (cyclone, root, feral charge, pounce, etc.) and also have the ability to heal-over-time if they themselves are being crowd controlled. Paladins have neither good CC nor heal-over-time spells (Holy Shock is a joke) and are therefore broken in 2v2 and to some extent 3v3 as well.

How can Paladins be fixed for 2v2 and 3v3? Easy enough: give Paladins some better form of crowd control that doesn’t require us to be standing next to the target and some form of heal-over-time, some offensive dispell/purge ability, and/or an instant heal that’s better than Holy Shock (come on, 15 second cooldown and tons of mana for a 41 point talent?). I understand that Blizzard wants to havve diversity among classes, but there’s no excuse to leave Paladins — and Shamans too for that matter — broken in 2v2 and 3v3. Please help us.


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