Hey all,

I've been on this forum, on and off about which class I want to play. I've made posts about Warlocks, Hunters, Paladins and maybe even Warrior for a while, but I've finally (think I) settled on Paladin. Retribution Paladin to be exact. I love the fantasy of the Ret Paladin, but the stigma on the forums (not this forum however, you guys are chill) has been what's keeping me back. My main used to be Ret back in the day, I was either young and naive and never noticed people didn't like Ret Paladins or the stigma wasn't around back then.

I decided for Classic that this is what I'm going to roll, and since I'm going to roll EU RPPVP (Zandalar Tribe, represent!) I hope/expect to run into more mature people that aren't as focused on optimalisation/minmaxing and will leave me be.

Not really a question, not really a discussion, not really a point other then: Follow the light brothers!

Cheers,
Pluuf

Well, you have definitely bumpy road ahead of you, but if you can pull it of, I don't see why not. Just do not expect to be easy and you probably would have to improvise. God speed!

I wouldn't let the stigma get in your way, play what you would truly enjoy playing. Pick what you want and have fun! Screw the min-maxing gaming mentality of 2019.

I think picking an RP-PvP realm would still be a wise choice though! Playing on RP-PvP in the past I'd say you will meet more like-minded people there. You should make a paladin only guild/brotherhood

@lewhop that's a great idea! A friend of mine is picking Priest so we can even extend to other lights worshippers and organise crusades on Horde cities

I would love to play on a RP server but all my friends are gonna roll on a PvE one, so maybe I make an alt over the EU RP server to see. Hell maybe I roll Alliance to see things from the other side of the fence. So many options..

Any healing class can play dps, but you should sill take into consideration healing in dungeons/raids. You can heal with ret, especially if you go for a 20/0/31. All you need is int (and maybe some +healing).

In dungeons you can get away with doing dps, raids not so much.

Pluuf wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Follow the light brothers!

Cheers,
Pluuf

Thanks for the kind words Ganus, together we shall Purge the heathens brand from our lands!

You SHOULD do it and you SHOULDN'T waver on your decision just because some people have a stigma. You probably won't get as much flakk on an RP-PvP server as you would a pve/pvp server, which is good.

I 100% support this decision!

We, the Orc People will show https://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=82673 against the https://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=52955/tyr ... -the-light, your reign is over.
We will Wipeout! every single one of you until the last https://ptr.wowhead.com/achievement=6928/burning-man fall into the ground.

/spit

Hey folks!

To OP: absolutely you should play what you want, especially if you going for RP-PvP server. Me and my friend are planning on rolling dwarven characters to have racial RP there. Of course it's not a downside that dwarven race traits also fit our class and we aren't making too much of a hipster build either, but I really don't understand why people should expect min-max mentality from others. Diversity is fun!

Play a class and spec you like thats what its all about!
Enjoying your time and having fun!

Nyxt wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Play a class and spec you like thats what its all about!
Enjoying your time and having fun!

It’s fine to play what you want, just don’t expect too much from the endgame pve side of the game.

Endgame pve is a team effort; the effort being to clear the raid, not to carry sub-optimal dps specs.

I mained both a druid and paladin throughout vanilla. Mainly played druid but had a paladin alt that I played more heavily in TBC and WotLK.

The vanilla paladin is so vastly different from TBC and WotLK iterations of it.

I thought I wanted to roll a paladin as well because I love the class fantasy and being an unkillable holy warrior is cool.

But I played on a couple different private servers to try it out to make sure I didn't waste my time to 60 on live classic.

Boy am I glad I did that. I rolled on an instance 60 pserver and end game paladin just was not for me. Even leveling a paladin was not for me. I admit it definitely can be fun pulling a bunch of mobs and seeing if you can survive the fight. But overall it's just too boring for me.

I would advise you do the same, unless you are 100% certain this is the class you want then all the power to you. But I know if I played a paladin to 60 and had that be my end game I might be a little miffed that I wasted my time.

It's druid for me all the way baby.

You will regret it.

I would follow @Justbe's advice and check to make sure the class is interesting to you more than just in theory.

This is not an exclusively Paladin problem mind you. I am expecting a lot of would-be Warlocks to reroll after getting partway through, though for entirely different reasons.

@Justbe thanks for the solid advice; I did just that the last few weeks and Retribution Paladin is just what I want!

Good words to be had from above users.

I just wanted to posit my 4 requirements for picking a class in vanilla:



Can you level with it and not get tired of it? This is massively important. For some people, this is difficult w/ Paladin. I know a bunch of dude-bro's who wanted to level warriors on private servers to do big dps and own in PvP. And they burned out at level 25 and hated leveling a warrior. If you can't level it, then why worry about life at 60?

Do you understand what you can and cannot do well at level 60? Because these are realities you have to cope with. And life at 60 is deeply linked to what you provide to fellow players in group content.

Will you find your life at 60 to be boring/not fun? Similar to the leveling question. If you hate what you're doing at 60, then what's the point? You should also factor the above question into what you perceive life to be like at 60.

Will your playstyle impede the enjoyment/gameplay of your fellow players? The most important content in this game is group content. If you are holding your fellow players back, that's a problem. Especially in classic where your reputation on the server is a tremendous asset or a tremendous hindrance.


Ret is fine if you can clear all four of these. I'm not going to say, like others on here, that you definitely will regret it. You might not. You might love it. But just understand the realities of the game, what you can and cannot contribute to fellow players. Ret paladin is debatably one of the weakest PvE specs in the game. It can scale well with gear, so if you want to heal for a raid guild and pick up ret pieces on the side for later, then that might work. But just make sure that you're going to love it and that you know what you're signing up for.

That's the TL;DR of the three rules: make sure you know what you're signing up for. 50/50 chance I'm playing a bear druid for Classic. There are benefits and drawbacks of this decision. But I know what I'm signing up for.

Pluuf wrote: ↑

5 years ago

@Justbe thanks for the solid advice; I did just that the last few weeks and Retribution Paladin is just what I want!

Playing what you want to play is the only way to play. If others don't like it, who cares.

Zacheous wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Playing what you want to play is the only way to play. If others don't like it, who cares.

Apparently the Spelladin is a worthy and awesome way of build a ret paladin. I know as a guild leader on an RP-PvP server that I'd be happy to try a Spelladin Ret Pally out in my raid group - especially if they have the dedication to realize true heroic greatness on their holy path.

God some of you guys are ridiculous sometimes.

Play whatever your heart desires and when you are online always strive to learn and better your gameplay.

You can do whatever you want in this game and still complete the same content as everyone else.

Only nerds care about Min/maxing, ignore them. They for some reason think gate keeping a game gives them e-points.

Are you going to be on the same level plain as top guilds? Nah. But are you going to find a guild that'll eventually clear all content? Yes, so long you keep at it.

Are you going to be topping meters? Nope, but who gives a shit. Only nerds care. Don't listen to nerds. Just be friendly and helpful to others and have fun is my only advice. People will like you and be friends with you regardless of what you play. How do I know? Because i've had a really good friend who played a smite priest, a very memey spec and he was loved by the server (A small example)

I know a lot of ret paladins that have cleared to KT and have been given might of menethil, etc. You won't be treated like shit for what you play.

Put you and your enjoyment first (If your enjoyment is to be a dick then /shrug, a consequence of that is you won't make a lot of friends but you do you.) It's a game and always treat it like that.

I hope you get after it and have fun!