PALADIN in Burning Crusade Classic: Is It Any Better Now?

[Music] hello ladies and gentlemen willie here with tbc confirmed it's about time we did a little bit of a class update let's take a look back at each class in the burning crusade the performance overall and hopefully help you make your choice moving forwards we will be looking at what's new in terms of talents and abilities leveling pve who's the new king of the meter pvp has much changed and tier sets which actually exist for every specialization now and through this i hope to answer is your class any better now and today we have the other half of the new race class combo to come with the burning crusade if you think shamans are going to be hype on the alliance side wait to see how many paladins there will be on the horde and not just because it's a new class either people it turns out to like elves a lot and well blizzard were very much onto this fact too it's exciting about the blood elves is they're kind of the first pretty race that the horde has gotten a lot of the horde characters are very monstrous which turn off a lot of players we a certain demographic only likes to play really attractive looking characters so the blood elves also bring a prettier face to the horde but i don't think even they could have predicted how swaying a pretty hauled race would truly be over time but we aren't here to fawn over elves we're here to talk the paladin paladins have without a doubt come a very long way from classic being considered a class with a very narrow scope of viability within any competitive scene blizzard finally gave them the tools to escape another two years of wearing a blue dress they fleshed out and really made the other two specs that had been so long neglected by the majority of the community have some real tangible strengths this is a class with a huge amount of debt so we better make a start you know the drill by now first up what's new baseline and then we'll get onto the spec specifics afterwards righteous defense a taunt the mad lads of blizzard actually gave paladins a taunt this was the key tanki mechanic protection was ever so desperately missing in classic that simply just made them struggle enormously in raid content sure there was the whole blessing of kings spam that actually did good consistent threat but if a dps rips it off you well you don't have a button to instantly get the target back onto you righteous defense is a little different from your average taunt too in fact most of the time it's just a better it's actually cast on a friendly target taunting three enemy targets off them at once and it has a 40 yard range too as if it's melee range on a friendly target well everybody would have to be sitting on top of the tank you'll want to have a target of target macro to just allow you to hit taunt and not need to mess about trying to find who the mob's going after regardless though this is a real game changer for protection spiritual achievement is a new passive that goes hand in hand with righteous defense to make paladins a great tank pretty simple and how it works 10 of friendly heels are given as mana meaning the paladin will have enough fuel in the tank to be able to press their buttons even on longer boss fights it only works on heels that actually gain you health as well it used to work from overhealing for a period of time people had paladins in a group with a shadow priest and they could literally not go home no matter how hard they tried it has a lesser use for rhett 2 which we'll get onto later avenging wrath aka wings the big iconic dps cooldown for the paladin is probably a little different from how you remember it however 30 extra damage no bonus healing for 20 seconds also causes forbearance so it's kind of an all-in type spell in pvp since this debuff will stop the use of bubble also it is a magic buff so watch out for mages and spell steel even still it's a great cooldown to stack with heroism trinkets potions and gives your protection paladin a nice extra amount of threats are generated for its duration crusader already not quite as exciting as the other spells so far but 20 extra mounted speed for you and your party it doesn't stack with similar effects however like riding crop it's something i guess you'll have a weak aura to say remember to press the button when you mount turn evil i forgot this one existed to be honest it's like an upgraded turn undead now works versus demons too which is pretty handy since demons aren't too hard to find in outland and finally there are two new seals seal of blood and seal of a vengeance so you know how both factions get paladins and shaman now i'm guessing blizzard wanted to keep a little something function specific shamans get different flavors of heroism or bloodlust but they both do the same thing so no issues there seal of blood and vengeance however don't do the same thing and all data from back in the day from the likes of elitist jerks to people on fan servers perfecting and optimizing the paladin points towards sealer blood being better the majority of the time but i'd like to carry on for now and we can talk more about this in detail in the red part of pve leveling wise palden still does paladin stuff for well quite a while which is uh this spiritual achievement actually has a rank learned very early on to make prot more interesting even for low level dungeons which is super nice once you are in outland though you have your crusader strike most likely if you're red you have your exorcism which is going to be seeing a lot of action and is a great albeit rather expensive extra button to add some punch to your single target aoe farming has become an even better option for paladins now providing you can get your hands on some nice spell power gear early on due to their infinite aoe scaling through consecration also protection paladins are without a doubt the kings of smaller group content i'm talking your frequent pulls of multiple mobs in heroic dungeons and kara or in za their aoe threat is just the best and the most consistent they have a ranged taunt and all the standard blessings you can expect from the paladin solo levelling they are somewhat improved upon classic but if you take the dungeon or group roots as propped i think you're going to have a very good time with that out the way let's get on to the interesting stuff pve let's start with what most of the paladin population will be playing at the moment holy now play style wise what holy was good at in classic is still what they're good at in tbc and indeed has really become their niche over time very strong and efficient single target healing here is the type of spec you may see in pve content and it's very useful that holy can easily fit all three talent upgrades for blessings into their standard build those being wisdom kings and might and i suppose i should mention that ideally you would like to have at least three paladins in your raid group solely for blessings if nothing else because they offer such great bonuses overall the main ones you want to see are salvation kings and might or wisdom and one paladin can only do one type of blessing per player some classes of course like both might and wisdom like enhancement or rest so there's some decision making to be had there but just know that you'll have a job of making sure everybody has the right blessing running all the time and don't worry i'm sure they will let you know if they don't i won't be glad you never had to deal with 5-minute lesser and 10-minute greater blessings the durations have thankfully been buffed up a little bit more anyways talking about holy i guess the big news for this spec is consecration is now baseline for paladins this is just such a great addition i don't think there's a paladin spec out there in classic that doesn't aim to pick this town up it's just too useful to the class overall we have some extra aura range from the aptly named aura mastery holy shot cooldown has been halved as well as given a much better spell damage coefficient as of a later patch tbc is the real rise of the shockadin which we will definitely be talking about in pvp light's grace and holy guidance are the real two talents that change your playstyle in classic you more or less just bash flash of light non-stop because damage tends to be pretty bursty even if no one's taking damage you just press the button for holy palace thanks to these two talents it becomes much more attractive to just holy light and stack intellect as high as you possibly can also yes down ranking is still a thing blizzard did try to nerf it but i guess they didn't quite do a good enough job divine illumination is your new end-of-tree talent 50 reduced mana cost for 15 seconds which is pretty strong and lets the paladin be the mana efficient healer you are used to which they sort of needed because illumination gets nerfed pretty hard at that this was the talent that made palin's quite literally just not going once you started to hit late game gearing classic especially stacking that up with well buffs here it's down to 60 mana refund it used to be a hundred percent and yes it was pretty overpowered as a passive effect so now paladins actually have a bit more of a mortal mana bar which is a pretty big change i guess next up protection so as we've mentioned protection actually gets the tools it needs to be a real tank but were they actually any good at it let's have a little luck to start off with here's a very defense oriented setup for content where you will be expecting to take some pretty heavy damage 25 man raids pretty much reckoning changes it's no longer this mysterious invisible buff that disappears when you mount up for unexplained reasons this talents always confuse me a bit instead it's like this when you get hit by anything you have a percentage chance for your next four swings to generate an extra attack meaning it's a pretty decent one point wonder talent for most content protection scales very well as the expansion goes on through stamina stacking on talents like sacred duty combat expertise as well as a nice bit of extra damage reduction from improved righteous fury improved holy shield makes paladin a lot more sturdy very reminiscent of how improved shield block works for warriors extra charges more threat less damage incoming and should have a very good uptime unless you're taking damage from a great number of enemies at once as in over 12 attacks within the space of 10 seconds avengers shield the iconic end of tree ability for the paladin though i'm betting it will be different to how you remember it because it has a one second cast time of course you can't dodge block or parry wells casting then it will chain to three enemies nearby maximum it also applies a daze which is a 50 slow so it's pretty much a good snap threat ability at the start of a fight or to be used as a tool to pull mobs which paladins were really missing in classic just make sure you don't accidentally chain pull or the daze doesn't split up the mobs too much as for the tanking performance for protection paladins there are some great guides out there to really get stuck into the subject but just to give you a brief mention as they work very differently from other tanks they have very few abilities with threat modifiers on them like the likes of lacerae or heroic strike the vast majority of their threat is more or less entirely from holy damage dealt this means their itemization to build threat is how much spell damage can i put on without dying as their defensive gearing can cut into that threat generation heavily especially when you're aiming for defensive caps early on this means protections are more often seen as off tanks to late game gearing saying that it all depends on the content difficulty and there's some content with the protection paladin feels too good to ignore like basically the entire trash phase of mount hyjal or morogram and ssc to name two and you know i can't just leave prop there because they're a lot more than just a tank in tbc they are now the best aoe farming or boosting class in the game thanks to the aoe damage caps putting a stop to the tyranny of the mage that is consecration wasn't aoe damage capped why don't no but it wasn't as for exactly what build you'll want it's all about striking a balance where will be the best spots to farm how is your gear are you not dying but you're going slow or fast but you don't make the runs consistently a more defensive build might look something like this key points are making sure that we go far enough into red to pit up thanks retora isn't worth it anymore due to how consecration scales so exceptionally well and you can even bubble and throw up a holy wrath if you are mass pulling or dead or demons too something along this line might even be good in dungeons due to its extra damage if you aren't at the risk of dying or maybe there's so little risk in the dungeon or boost you are doing you can just go full on with some ridiculous spec and get as much damage as possible out of the class you've heard of prop fury but what about prot rhett pretty much going deep enough into breath for vengeance which means your crits increase holy and physical damage by 15 at three stacks build stacks faster through reckoning more move speed from pursuit of justice and with full vengeance stacks that would be 25 more holy damage dealt it sounds pretty good or maybe just insta died to anything because you're so squishy it's just an idea and it sounds like something that could be fun to try out well that leaves us with one speck left retribution so rats in classic were um you know a little bit lower down shall we say and for tbc they get some amazing buffs to make them a much more competitive class and as we will see bring some very strong raid wide buffs too all the same they don't go from one of the bottom dps too sunny near the top you need to wait one more expansion for that they can however do some very respectable damage by later phases of the game too with some more gear in their inventory and assuming they are hitting a demon or undead which are in no short supply however as with like a few other specs we've seen so far they are largely more there for their utility like your enhancement shamans or your boomkins blessing of might now affects all attack power not just melee improved seal of the crusader gives three percent crit against a target making it a great raid wide buff improved sanctity aura also gives members of your party a flat two percent extra damage it's these combined reasons that aret is really nice to have about sanctified judgments helps out with those mana issues and crusader strike right at the bottom of the tree an ability that oh so nearly made it into vanilla for paldens but was replaced with the seal and judgment system not only another button to press for some nice damage but also refreshes all judgements on the target which is actually extremely useful especially so your holy pally doesn't have to stop what they're doing to run over and melee the boss to keep their judgement running so i guess i have to talk seal of vengeance versus seal of blood now right i did do a full video on it a while back and i'll link that because there really is that much to talk about in the subject seal of vengeance is what the alliance gets stacking a wholly damaged dot where the judgment does more damage per stack up to five stacks maximum ord got seal of blood that does bonus damage with each melee swing and a small amount of reflect damage back to the paladin the judgment does something pretty much the same along that line which can actually be beneficial that they are taking damage because they will then be able to restore mana through being healed thanks to spiritual attunement so the short version is since sealer blood scales off weapons and with haste that lower your swing timer it will do overall more damage than the alliance reps will be able to do with their combination of seal of vengeance and command seal of vengeance is better for protection until later on the game when this celebrum comes out and alliance rats still have seal of command which is decent early on but does not compete with the haste scaling on a blood saying all of this and as of writing this blizzard are testing seal twisting on the classic ptr and i've heard you can twist different ranks of command which to be honest doesn't quite sound right to me so we'll have to see how things develop so that is a brief look at pve for you how's the paladin looking in pvp then well first things first protection specs and this just goes for all of them actually are not a thing in arena which i'm sure you are glad to hear if you've been playing shadowlands from launch they simply do not do any kind of damage which is threatening their just damaged sponges themselves as for the other two specs they do see some representation though in a somewhat narrow variety of comms but we've gotta start with the meme because it really came to life in tbc the shockadin here is a random spec i threw together i couldn't really find any resources online so i've no idea how bad this is don't judge me okay so holy shock would have a 25 crit modifier baseline through holy and purifying power better spell damage scaling through holy guidance and of course thanks to tiara instead of divine illumination because we need damage not mana efficiency i also picked up eye for an eye might as well be doing something useful between shot cooldowns this is very much all in on the shock though not what you would be seeing from a serious holy pvp build though holy can actually do some surprising burst very much at the expense of some of their larger cooldowns though as for a holy pallor that isn't living the meme here's something more like it deep holy with most of the standard talents that we saw for pve however new more pvp oriented choices include unyielding faith stoicism for some dispel protection and improved concentration aura and spiritual focus that make your spells immune to pushback as well improved righteous fury is decent when it doesn't get dispelled as it's a three six percent less damage taken holy paladins are somewhat in a similar spot to resto shamans really they need to cast to get their big heels off though i'd argue despite their hierarma values they are overall more vulnerable to the meta gaming in tbc the real big strong cooldown bubble is pretty much their only consistent line of defense against getting bursted out and even then blizzard decided to give priests the ability to remove this through master spell and you aren't going to be seeing a shortage of priest in pvp as for arena representation they see some play in twos mainly with warriors which has more or less always been a good two's combo with likes of blessing of freedom and even sacrifice which can't be ignored to prevent cc chains from setting up on the paladin reasons where holly couldn't really struggle due to being easily shut down by aggressive comps though they are seen in fives due to their overall great utility retribution also sees play in high level arenas though once again in quite a narrow scope of comps you more or less don't see a rhett without a shaman somewhere usually resto why wind fury is why rhett actually has a very strong burst it just needs a little bit of luck in the mix to truly pop off here's an idea spec quite similar to your pve rex really though with more points into protection for things like improved hammer of justice 45 second cooldown on an instant cast 6 second stun is pretty good as well as repentance being another six second cc on a 20 yard range also your seals are practically immune to dispels thanks to stoicism and sanctified seals interestingly there is another popular build that doesn't even take crusader strike i know madness all this time waiting for this ability and not even using it what's up with that then well it's kind of mana intensive to use on cooldown for a start and your damage is already burst reliant to begin with so why not relive some of the reckoning dreams from classic this moves some of the talents from deep into the retreat back over to protection with any attack against you having a 10 chance to grant your next four swings an extra attack if getting trained by the likes of a rogue for example that's gonna be a pretty solid up time combine a little wind fury totem and you can really delete people with cooldowns running speaking of cooldowns and about wings though as mentioned earlier they do cause forbearance so make sure you're in a position to all in or they can be quickly dispelled or leave you open to a hard swap whilst you can't bubble retribution sees a lot of playing twos mainly with resto shaman same deal in threes along with a warrior as the third class paladins definitely have a few top tier arena teams just not in as diverse of a cast of comps as other classes are so let's finish this up on tier gear if you can say one thing about palden tier gear is there at least winners when it comes to appearances for all three raid sets tier 4 the justicar armor protection more damage on a few seals funnily enough blood is the least useful one here for prop pallas between both factions but it's a nice bit of extra damage for the alliance props all sets a bit more damage on holy shield stacks up with your talents not bad retribution two set more damage bonus on the judgment of the crusader i went to check and it's about 32 bonus holy damage so yeah not exactly the best the full set more damage on judgement of command take that blood elves and your fancy new seal the two set more heals from your seal of light not bad your whole raid will benefit from this the four set less cooldown on divine favor again it's okay a guaranteed grit on a bit of a smaller cooldown tier 5 the crystal forge armor protection 2 set 50 more damage on retribution aura does that make it better than sanctity for damage i'm thinking that it won't know the force that is a big bonus to block after the first attack hitting your holy shield depends on the encounter i suppose and issues the reps 2 and 4 set are both uh not contributing much let's put it like that maybe i'm underrating the group wide heel holy similar tourette doesn't seem great 50 mana isn't anything to write home about and a shorter holy light once per minute tier six light for drama thankfully things turn around here and there are some very nice bonuses to be had the prop 2 set 10 more mana from spiritual achievement i'm assuming this is a percentage of what spiritual achievement is baseline that being 10 so this is a bonus one percent extra though if it is a flat 10 that is insane but if it's what i think it is it's okay the force that is 10 more damage on consecration which is amazing this is your best spell for pretty much everything and you will definitely want to get your hands on this retribution 2 sets and mana return on your melees that's ok the 4 set would be great if hammer of wrath didn't reset your swing timer it still has a cast time so it's not worth using as far as i'm aware only 2 set 5 more crit on holy light this is again fantastic it's your main heal you're going to be stacking a huge amount of mana by tier 6 so this is really great all set more heals from flash of light it's sort of about done by holy light and tbc by this point though so there we have it a quick little rundown of the paladin in tbc but is it any better now for all intents and purposes yes protection is now a real tank thanks to the new abilities they get retribution are very much wanted as part of a raid group and have their place in arena too holy i would say struggle the most when compared to classic a 40 nerf on illumination just isn't anything to gloss over they can still do very well in raid content and have a few solid arena comps too no doubt there's going to be a huge amount of people waiting to live the red dream without being a meme and i'm kind of hoping that prop being a proper tank now is going to be sort of like when death knights came out at the start of wrath where there was this sudden huge influx of new players who actually want to play a tank class and gear them up beyond the first few weeks i mean with how good they are at farming gold it makes sense to have one as an alt as well i'm personally planning to continue playing my paladin as my main alt however i'm making the swap over from holy to prop for sure it looks like it's got a lot of potential and should be a fun class to play when i'm not my main that about wraps up the paladin do let me know if i missed anything big out or that you would have liked to have seen included and as always thank you so much for watching and listening in and i'll see you in the next one very soon [Music] you

Channel: WillE

Views: 212,268

Rating: 4.9178667 out of 5

Keywords: burning crusade classic, tbc, tbc beta, WoW Classic tbc, World of Warcraft, paladin

Id: sxByy1R34ls

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/_faraleth_]

tldw: yes

[u/ThaLemonine]

Too bad about holy in TBC

[u/hansjc]

The great thing about TBC is the answer to every class is yes.