#0 - Aug. 24, 2006, 10:08 p.m.
* Ability to heal, even when being attacked.
* Ability to buff themselves and others in a variety of ways.
* Ability to cleanse poison, disease, and magic debuffs from themselves and others.
* Ability to be a front line fighter (i.e. 'tank')
* They have some of the best (but certainly not the fastest) soloing capabilities of all the classes
Paladin Weaknesses
* No universally useful base skill ranged attack. At all. Ever. Okay.
There are ways around this, however. Trinkets such as Linken's Boomerang, a reward for quest series in Un'Goro, the engineering profession, for grenades and other ranged trinkets, by getting EZ-Thro Dynamite from an engineer or items such as Magic Candles. Also the Talent Holy Shock is a 20 yard ranged ability. Holy Shock is on a 30 second timer, and has a lowered mana cost as of 1.9. Holy Shock may be a better pull than dynamite because usually dynamite has a an area of effect while Holy Shock targets a single mob. Exorcism and Holy Wrath can also be used as a ranged/pulling attack, although only against undead and demon targets. This spell is the best source of damage that a paladin has, so use it when you get the chance. It is more useful in areas such as Duskwood and Desolace, for the high number of undead and deamons, respectively. However, for PvPers, remember that Horde "undead" are Forsaken, not really undead, so this doesn't actually work on them.
Hammer of Wrath sort of counts, too. Though it is only useable when your opponent is at 20% or so health. You can learn the first rank of this spell at level 44.
* A paladin's ability to stay alive is directly based on mana... so cherish it, love it, keep it coming, and be thankful that paladins have great tools for gaining mana: Blessing of Wisdom, Seal of Wisdom, and Judgement of Wisdom. Not to mention the standard mana potions. End-game, there is also +mana/5 sec armor. The amount is low, usually 5-25, but it does stack up.
* Certain abilities have long cooldown, which means they can only be used once in a combat instance or longer, and must be used very strategically, lest they be wasted. These are: Divine Protection (5 minutes), Divine Shield (5 minutes), Divine Favor (2 minutes), Blessing of Protection (5 minutes, 3 with talents), Lay on Hands (1 hour, 40 minutes with talents), and Repentance (60 seconds).
* The paladin is very susceptible to anything that counters spells and being killed as a result of a Holy Light cast being interrupted is common. Getting below 30% health as a pally is a quick way to die. Keep your health up and outlast, that's the pally way.
* Due to their incapability to dish out ranged damage, if an enemy wants to get away there is little a Paladin can do about it. They have Hammer of Wrath/Justice but they have long cooldown timers. Also they have no movement slowing moves, like the Warrior's Hamstring move.
What stats affect my damage the most?
There are two basic stats that are important for a paladins DPS. Those two are attack power (AP) and +spell damage. And then melee/spell crit as appropriate per ability.
Seal of Command does its holy damage based on what your weapon output is: SoC DPS = (Avg. Weapon Hit x .70) / 8.5 Seal of Command does have a +spell power coeficent (29%), but if you are a retribution paladin, then you will most likely want to forgo large amounts of +spell power for AP and melee crit. Judgement of Command and Righteousness both benefit from +spell power a lot more (43% and 50%, respectively) so if you plan to be judging either a lot, you may want to pick up a little +spell power.
As a holy paladin, you will want to go straight +spell power. Even if you use Seal of Command, the fact that +spell power will add onto every damage ability that you have will benefit you more overall than AP.
For a list of the best weapons to use for Seal of Command, go to: http://www.wowwiki.com/Compendium_of_the_best_Paladin%27s_weapons
Basic Solo Strategies
Always make sure you activate an aura appropriate to your situation. Change as the situation calls for it because it's an insta-cast and free. Make sure you always have a blessing active. The 5 minute timer is easy to overlook and forget to recast. But remember that it is an instant cast, so even if you're in combat you can use go ahead and bless yourself. It costs very little mana, too, so don't be afraid to change blessings if the situation warants it.
Judgement/Seal Combinations
Crusader/Righteousness or Command
Judgement of the Crusader, which increases Holy damage taken,
then seal of righteousness or command, which deal holy damage. Note that seal of command does not deal holy damage every strike.
Light/Crusader
Judgement of Light, which gives a chance to heal the attacker and
Seal of the Crusader, which increases strike rate, decreases per-strike damage, and provides a buff to attack power.
For long solo battles use this combination with a fast one-hand weapon and shield. This will heal for small amounts with almost each strike. This works very well against mobs who are even 3 levels above you. The faster the weapon the better and remember to keep Seal of the Crusader on and judge Light if you stop hitting it for long enough. Usually it will take more than a minute to bring down a mob this way but you will walk away with full health and most mana. Also note that seal of the crusader does raise your DPS overall.
*Light/Light
Judgement of Light, which gives a chance to heal the attacker
Seal of Light, which gives a chance to heal upon striking any target
This combination also works well against fighting multiple mobs at once.
*Justice/Light
Judgement of Justice, which prevents the judged from fleeing
Seal of Light, which gives a chance to heal upon striking any target
This combination might work well in certain circumstances.
*Justice/Command
Judgement of Justice, which prevents the judged from fleeing is
ideal in PvE versus humanoids who generally flee when their health
is low. Combined with Commander for near double damage when it procs
*Wisdom/Crusader
The same basic idea here as with the Light/Crusader combo, but for mana instead.
*Wisdom/Wisdom
And again... mana regeneration. When you need your mana back. This is great for when you are mainly healing and your out of mana. With spiritual focus, you can offtank one mob and still heal decently.
These are a sampling. Obviously one of the great strengths of the paladins seal/judgement abilities is the flexibility.
Use Holy Light early and often. Once you have Spiritual Focus and can heal fairly fast in combat, make sure you still heal early so as not to get caught in a situation where you simply can't heal fast enough.
If you do manage to get caught in that situation, (We all do sometimes... it sucks!), there are several ways out of it. If you are fighting just one target, you can use Hammer of Justice to stun it. The length of this stun is variable depending on the rank you are using, but it will always allow you to get at least one heal off. If you are fighting multiple targets, then you can use Divine Shield/Divine Protection, whichever you have. Again the length varies with the rank, but you should be able to get at least one heal off with it. Keep in mind though, that these two shields are best used when you are out of mana. If you can, use all your mana healing with spiritual focus, and then use your shield and bandage yourself. You do know first aid, right? Also, by the time the shield wears off, if you had blessing of wisdom on yourself, you should now have enough mana to heal yourself again. The second to last ability, blessing of protection, protects you only from physical attacks. This can be used to apply a second bandage, if you are only fighting melee enemies, and if you have not used another shield or bandage on yourself in the past minute. Try and space your use of these shields out.
The last thing to be mentioned here is lay on hands, which of course, is a full heal that drains all your mana. This is always best used as a last ditch effort: The second wind, as it were. Also, later ranks in the spell will give the target some mana back, which makes it even more useful when you get worn down.
Don't worry so much about DPS as how long you can stay alive. If you get into a sticky situation, and keep hitting something for 4 DPS over the course of 3-4 minutes it will die. The counter to this is that if you cannot keep yourself healed, you better run because that is your strongest ability.
When it becomes available Blessing of Light significantly increases the mana effectiveness of the paladin healing spells Holy Light and Flash of Light. Flash of Light is more mana efficient than Holy Light and is a shorter cast; use early and often.
