Paladin -|- Metalbunny.net

The paladin is a hybrid class you either love or you hate. It's a mana-powered melee class that mixes a lot of the priest's healing abilities with the ability to use shields, plate, and mail armour. With their ability to wear the heaviest of armour they can easily act as a group's main tank. They can fight front line and help take down enemies fast and effectivly. And as a healer in plate, a paladin can heal the whole party and outlast all the other healer classes while under attack.

Some people hate the paladin for being too easy to play, because they can wear the heaviest armour and heal themselves. Fact however is that as the paladin have no ranged attack or crowd control abilities whatsoever, pulling and sorting enemies is impossible, making fighting multiple mobs at the same time a necessity you have to deal with constantly.

When mastered, the paladin can cause great amounts of damage in a very short amount of time, but it requires that you invest in the best armour, and keep replacing it with better, to keep the paladin alive for a long time. When you have to fight up in the face of the enemies constantly, having the best armour is the only way to keep you from ending up spending more mana healing yourself rather than on fighting. As a tank, specialized spells make it possible for the paladin to pull and hold aggro better than a warrior. As a healer, paladins that aren't spec'ed for healing will have to work hard to do a good job. With the recent changes to the game, lower level paladins are good fighters, but lousy healers, as the order you get your abilities in have been changed so you get fighting spells early, and the better healing abilities later.

As a soloing class, paladins are a good choice. And with the ability to fight, tank, or heal they can easily fit into most parties. It does however take quite a bit of gold to keep your armour the best shape, which makes the paladin a good choice for a secondary character once you get your main character(s) up to the highest levels.

Available races:
Human, Dwarf, Blood Elf, Draenei

Armour: Cloth, Leather, Mail, Plate (at level 40+), Shields
Weaponry: One- and Two-handed Maces, One- and Two-handed swords, One- and Two-handed Axes, Polearms.
Magic types: Holy Light

Main strengths:

Can use shields and wear the heaviest armour, and can use most weapon types.
Can heal self and party members, and resurrect fallen friends after battle.
Has auras and buffs that are useful for other players.
Can sacrifice self to save the party when things get out of hand.
Can perform multiple roles in a party as situation changes.

Main weaknesses:

Very dependent on mana for fighting and defending.
No ranged attacking or crowd control abilities, except for a limited ability to keep wounded enemies from fleeing.
Requires constant upgrades to armour and weapons to stay alive.

Typical role: Secondary fighter, Tank (main and secondary), Healer

Starting stats (level 1):


Race	Strength	Agility	Stamina	Intellect	Spirit	Armor	Health	Mana

Human	22	20	22	20	22	42	58	80
Dwarf	24	16	25	19	20	34	88	79
Blood Elf	19	22	20	24	20	48	38	140
Draenei	23	17	21	21	23	36	48	95

Paladin milestones:
Level 12: Resurrection ability
Level 40: Can upgrade to plate armour and summon Warhorse mount
Level 60: Can summon Charger mount (quest)