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It wasn’t long ago that I brought up the loveable Paladin, a character class in the World of Warcraft (WoW) loved by people who can’t play the game. When word came out that in upcoming WoW patch 1.9, the Paladin would get an overhall, every 13-year old who already played a Rogue jumped on the bandwagon. It seems that these pre-pubescant teens are quite eager to see whether or not Blizzard will make the easiest-class-in-the-game-to-play just as “powerful” as the Shaman, effectively making an unstoppable plate-wearing beast.

Looking over these changes, I’m not quite sure what to make of them yet, and considering I don’t have a high-level Paladin to test them out on, I can only comment on the theoretical bonuses, and those alone make me wonder what will happen balance-wise. For example, I see at least five instances where Paladin abilities are getting “significant” damage improvements, and at least three in which Paladin abilities will increase holy damage threat. Interestingly, with no taunting abilities available to a Paladin, both of the aforementioned buffs are important for the only plate-wearing class in the game aside from the Warrior, assuming the Paladin actually wants to benefit his party from wearing plate.

Firstly, an increase in overall damage will allow the Paladin to better hold aggro. This is good for the Paladin in theory, but the real question is whether or not the Paladin’s damage will be high enough to compete with other damage-dealing classes in the game. If it’s not, the Paladin can’t hope to tank in a group, unless the Paladin’s increased threat from holy spells is enough to turn the tide in his favor.

While this may be great for up-and-coming Paladins, the question it raises, if true, is how this will affect balance with the Shaman, since the Paladin effectively offsets the Shaman by replacing her on the Alliance side. That is to say, in theory, the two classes should balance fairly well, which we know from my earlier post has not been the case. However, since Blizzard is “fixing” the Paladin class, their intent must be to bring the Paladin up to par, rather than make the Paladin vastly exceed the Shaman’s effectiveness in a group setting. As we know, both the Paladin and the Shaman are designed with group functions in mind, be they buffing, healing, or off-tanking.

The issue with a major threat/damage increase for the Paladin is that it would actually make the Paladin useful in an end-game setting. Effectively, if a Warrior or Druid needs to stop tanking because they’re taking damage too quickly, the Paladin can take their role by spamming holy spells rather than taunting. Even if this does not result in an automatic shift in aggro, a smart Paladin can predict damage taken to the group’s tank after watching the tank’s health bar, and proceed to spam holy spells accordingly. If the tank plays her game right and stops taunting accordingly, the Paladin becomes an effective off-tank, even without taunts, or even sans a significant damage increase after patch 1.9.

So how would this balance out with Shamans? My guess is that by making the Paladin a better tank by increasing holy damage threat, thus allowing the Paladin to capitalize on his plate armor, Blizzard won’t drastically increase a Paladin’s actual damage-per-second (DPS). By doing this, Blizzard continues to reserve the Shaman for playing a DPS role, in line with a Shaman’s inability to tank effectively because of her inability to wear plate.

Such a change would make the Paladin far more useful for group play, and yet still keep the Paladin balanced with the Shaman. Sadly, for all the kiddies who recently rerolled characters and made Paladins, they’ll simply have to come to terms with the fact that the Paladin will remain a mediocre DPS character, and will have to learn to gauge group damage to better determine when to use which attacks. This may be the first step in making the Paladin a more complex character, which will make me quite happy (as I’d see fit to develop my Pally further), though annoy me all the same, seeing as I wouldn’t expect the majority of Paladin players to learn how to off-tank effectively without having taunts available to them.

Assuming the aforementioned does happen with 1.9, I’ll be interested to see (albeit well down the road), when Blizzard takes a second look at the Shaman. Unlike the Paladin’s historical problem of not being able to hold aggro, the Shaman suffers from the problem of pulling aggro off the tank too quickly on account of her high damage. A decent fix would be give the Shaman some form of lesser cower or fade, such that they can force aggro off themselves, albeit not to the extent Rogues and Priests can. Even a fear effect would serve this purpose fairly well, though a cower/fade wouldn’t be as powerful and still get the job done. Patch 1.9 does bring a new air totem to the Shaman that reduces overall party threat by 20%, but I fail to see how that will be useful at all, seeing as it won’t reduce the Shaman’s aggro any more than anyone elses in the group; if the Shaman pulls aggro off the tank, and drops this new Tranquil Air totem, his threat will still be more than everyone elses. About the only argument I can see in favor of this new totem is that should a tank’s taunt fail to pull aggro off the Shaman, then the totem can “reset” overall group aggro, such that the Shaman can then stop attacking such that the tank can build aggro up again. While this silly notion may work, it effectively removes the Shaman from the fight for some period of time, which is contrary to the purpose of a high DPS character. Like the Rogue, the Shaman should have a way to reduce aggro and remain in the fight.

The more I think of it, the more it makes sense for the Paladin to serve as the defensive component to the Shaman’s offense, and the Paladin’s abilities further this very concept - the Paladin can stun an opponent before healing himself, the Paladin can shield himself if the going gets tough, and his plate armor serves as excellent defense. I’m all for the Paladin getting a bonus to his ability to tank to better utilize his existing skills, but I expect to see the Shaman get something accordingly; the Shaman needs some sort of shock or spell to reduce aggro, such that his high DPS makes sense considering his inability to take hits like a Warrior, Druid, or Paladin.

Unfortunately, I don’t expect to see any Shaman class changes for some time to come. In the meantime, I think the Paladin’s usefulness just rose significantly, possibly propelling him beyond the usefulness of a Shaman in a group setting.

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