Some Groundwork! The Paladin!

The Paladin!

Those holy crusaders of light, those knights in shining armor, the paladin is a hybrid class much like the druid. While alot of a paladin's moves may seem like spells, most of them don't really feel that way. You've got your hammer of righteousness, which throws a hammer at 3 (or 4 glyph'd) mobs, your shield of righteousness, which is the paladin's answer to shield slam (I call it shield slam anyway). Paladins are all about righteousness in fact, with some righteous fury to increase your threat from holy damage, and it gives you some damage reduction when you're protection, you are protection right? Really, when you get down to it, paladin moves are very similar to a warrior. You're up there in their face, throwing holy fury in the face of your enemy instead of steel. Well, there's still steel in there, but it's HOLY STEEL!

Lets look at the paladin's moves. Paladins have a pretty inventive rotation, which is called the 96969 rotation. Basically, your rotation starts with a 9 second cooldown, then alternates with 6 second cooldown moves. So you pull the mobs with Avenger's Shield, which hits 3 enemies and silences them and dazes them. Here they come! You can start your rotation before they get to you with Holy Shield, which increases your chance to block and also causes alot of damage to the enemy who you blocked. Then you hit them with your Hammer of Righteousness, which hits 3 enemies. At this point if you're fighting 3 enemies, you've got a significant amount of threat on all of them, might as well help yourself, Judgement of Wisdom will help you get some mana back on every melee swing, kinda like rage! So now you'll wanna put some hurt on the main target, and Shield of Righteousness is just the move. Swing your shield at their head for bonus points! Then finish off the cycle by throwing down some holy ground with Consecration, which does damage every second to all mobs around you. The ultimate paladin ability, but it sure does use alot of mana! If you're fighting a boss you can usually leave this one out unless you are expecting company.

Paladins also have some other utility spells that are unique to them. Besides the multitude of buffs, they also have Hand spells, which provide the target with certain abilities, like immunity from melee damage, snares and roots, or even lower their threat. You can even share the damage they take. Also, originally a holy paladin ability which was converted to help tanks when they nerfed blessing of sanctuary, Divine Plea gives you a good chunk of mana back as long as it's up. Protection paladins get a talent that refreshes its duration whenever you hit something, so it's possible to keep it up all the time. In fact, there's a glyph that gives you some damage mitigation if it's up! The only downside is your heals are halved, which isn't a big deal since you're taking the hits, not healing them. As you can see, paladins are very far from druids when tanking. SO MANY BUTTONS! This could be seen as an advantage or disadvantage. If you're looking for a tank with alot of options while tanking, you may want to give the paladin a look.

Paladins certainly can dish it out, and have been dishing it out to AOE packs since Burning Crusade, but they can take it too. The Holy Shield ability can allow you to block every hit once your gear gets good enough, and with talents and glyphs you can get a pretty hefty percent of damage reduced. But they certainly are lacking in the defensive cooldown department. You can try your luck with the bubble/taunt combo, which makes you immune to damage, but the mob will only like you for as long as you've got him taunted. Be ready to click it off when taunt wears off or hope another tank can grab it. The only real CD that a prot pally has is Divine Protection. It gives a pretty hefty chunk of damage reduction, and is on a respectable 3 minute cooldown. It's pretty boring, just like a warrior's Shield Wall, it's good for a tight spot in a fight. One last move I'll mention, which because of its long cooldown does not make it viable to rely on, and that's Lay of Hands. Probably the only ability that's lasted from the very first time anyone ever thought of a paladin in ye olde D&D. It heals the target for a huge amount, equal to all of the paladin's health, and also grants some mana. This can be useful to use on yourself if you're about to die, but the 20 minute (!) cooldown means its something you may not have available every boss fight. Use it only in dire emergencies!

Finally, I want to talk about another main attraction of pallies, their versatility! Like the druid, a paladin is capable of healing, tanking, and doing damage. They can't do ranged DPS though, so if that's one of the things you like, you may want to look at druids more closely. And another advantage of being a paladin tank... your offset holy gear will rain down from the mobs whether you like it or not! It always seems like all the spell power plate you could ever want will drop when you're tanking, and wouldn't you know, not another paladin around for miles. Grats! I think I got 6 healing epics my first naxx10 run and only 1 tanking item. And the tanking item was a set piece... so yeah.

Thanks for reading, next up is Warriors, so don't touch that dial!