I was going to write a little about healing on the new resto shaman, but I didn’t really play the resto shaman any today. Well, I did one wintergrasp, but it doesn’t really count towards getting a grasp on my class and spec. I have a different topic in mind, inspired by a post made by a guild member that you can find the link Corath’s Blog – Melee State of Mind. I started to wonder, since it’s been a few years now, why a Paladin?
My very first Warcraft toon was actually a warrior, who since has become my 6th and most recent level 80. I played him to about level 26 back in the middle of Burning Crusade and quickly lost interest. Despite the heavy armor, I took a lot of damage and had to stop and eat often or waste gold on potions. I don’t much like stopping or wasting gold so I moved on to a class that felt like everything my warrior was – with heals. I tend to play plate-wearing burly monstrosities of power when I can in a game. Now I had a character that could not only wield a great 2 handed weapon, he wore heavy armor, hit really hard, and could keep himself alive. Perfect. This Paladin became my first max level character shortly after Wrath launched. I played him almost exclusively for a nearly a year, dabbling only occasionally in alts.
Naturally I ended up healing in raids, somewhat forsaking my goals of the indestructible damage dealer. Though, at that point I still enjoyed the Holy spec as a result of having the biggest single target heal in the game. I like big numbers. I also still got to wear plate. Before 4.0.1, with my 1100+ resilience, I enjoyed taking the Paladin in ret spec into battle grounds and ignoring the odds stacked against me going up against 3 or 4 enemies alone. Fierce, oh yeah.
If we take a quick summary of my max level characters we’ll see the trend continue. After the paladin we had :
Second 80 – Death Knight, also plate wearing damage dealing beast. I rolled blood spec main as dps for the self-healing. Notice a trend?
Third 80 – Hunter. He leveled BM for the pet tanking of course. Also, mail wearing, no squishies.
Forth 80 – Druid. Bear form anyone? And it can heal, shocking.
Fifth 80 – Enhance Shaman. Highest armor except plate, also that self-healing thing. It does somehow feel like the enh shammy dies everytime an instance mob or boss is even aware that he’s in the room, regardless of armor type.
Sixth 80 – Warrior. Finally the warrior got some love. Big beastly dual 2-hand weapon wielding damage dealer. I refused to go Arms spec even while leveling or when my gear couldn’t support fury. My warrior is a barbarian, not a calm trained solder. I use rage for a reason.
All-in-all, possibly because of my first leveling experiences, I roll classes that I feel can take care of themselves well. I have the best classes for solo content, in my opinion anyway. Outside of the druid, I’ve never gotten a class that doesn’t at least wear mail over level 70. In writing this, I also notice that all of my classes are hybrid and dual spec into a utility spec (heals/tank) except the hunter. So why a Paladin? I have options to dps, heal, or even tank. I might not beat a rogue on the damage meters, but I should beat one in a duel. I guess, I just like the flexibility and the options that rolling a Paladin brings.
Feel free to comment your reasons for your class choices. Go ahead and link a related blog post in the comments here if you’d like.
I have three 80s, all are hybrids. Self-healing is definitely for the win.
I play a holy priest, an elemental shaman and a balance druid. All can heal themselves or others as needed. I hate feeling totally dependent on others (or pots) to keep me alive when soloing or questing.