Painaid
The Immortal
Although it's quite obvious that 3.1 has brought about some sweeping changes to the 19 bracket, there is one change that I would like to get some more people's opinion on. With the 3.1 patch, and the subsequent nerf of stamina, druids may no longer be the undisputed best FCer; I think paladins may have taken that slot for premades. At first this sounds nuts since ever since the beginning, paladins have always taken a backseat to druids.
First, let me construct the typical argument as to why druids were better than paladins pre-3.1.
Now let me address each of these points and explain why things have changed so drastically in 3.1 as to why Paladins may have the upper hand now.
1. Druids have higher HP
The HP gap between the two classes is becoming less and less drastic. The recent stamina nerf (Nethercleft/Librams/Shoulder enchant/etc) has hurt the druid class far more than paladins because stamina is transferred into even more HP in bear form. Without as much stamina, druid bearform obviously has less health.
Another point to establish here is the huge misnomer that HP = survivability. A staple of Paladin flag carrying is melee defense. Paladin FCing gear will focus on 3 basic stats: Sta, Agi, & Str. While the Druid will focus on Sta, Int, Agi. The three paladin stats all contribute to more survivability, while only two stats for the druids do.
Sta: Obviously it helps increase HP. Sta is more important to the druid than to a paladin because of bear form.
Agi: Increases dodge, armor, and crit strike rating.
Str: Increases block (only relevant to paladins)
Int: Required for druids in order to shapeshift effectively. Intellect is not required at all for paladins.
Stamina obviously is the primary stat of both classes. However, stamina becomes much less important when debuff hits since overall damage is increased by 50/100%. This is a major fault within the druid playing-style.
Once debuff hits, as I said earlier, stamina becomes less important (to an extent) and agi and str becomes much more so. Why? Because these two stats actually work to prevent damage being done to you at all. Agi will help you dodge that incoming attack more often, while Str will help you block. Sta has no such defensive nature.
To explain this in a better format:
Before debuff:
10 sta = 100 health
After Debuff:
10 sta = 50 [normal]health.
Once debuff hits, stamina becomes much less valuable because attacks do more damage. However, 10 agility is still worth the same. Since paladin gear focuses on all three stats, and druids focus primarily on stamina, this works towards a paladin's favor. Now, does this mean that once debuff hits we should immediately take off our stamina gear in favor of agi? Obviously not. A healthy pool of health always going to be required. However, with debuff, your HP pool is effectively halved. Therefore, what I am arguing is that a druid with 2400 HP is not nearly as good as a paladin with 1900 HP with debuff because a paladin's agi/str stats will actually provide more overall survivability than the druid's extra 500 HP. 1900 HP is still plenty of cushion to kite an offense and for healers to get heals off.
Another thing I would like to address is the intellect issue. Druids must invest a large portion of their gear/enchants into intellect so that they can shapeshift. Paladin abilities, on the other hand, require hardly any mana at all. The class as a whole faces hardly any risk of mana exhaustion like a druid does. The requirement of druids to divert gear to intellect reduces their ability to choose gear that might help their survivability more, such as agi. As a example, a druid gets 'of the eagle' gear instead of 'of the monkey' gear like a paladin would get.
2. Shapeshifting > Blessing of Freedom
Another staple argument of why druids have been better than paladins is because druids are more resistant to purge/dispel since BoF is dispellable while shapeshifting has no such counter. However, I believe this has become less and less of an issue.
As I mentioned earlier, shapeshifting does have a counter: mana. And with the recent spirit nerf, druids are not going to have the excess mana they used to. Not only will this hurt their shapeshifting ability, but it will prevent them from wasting mana on other abilities like rejuvenation.
Another problem with shapeshifting goes straight to the core. Shapeshifting, by nature, is reactive; meaning, the druid must first be slowed before they can shapeshift. While it may seem trivial, the fact that the druid is slowed initially does make a difference. On the other hand, BoF can be applied preemptively.
Having played both classes, this is my main beef with druids. Often times I will find myself doing a jump and I will get conc-shotted in mid-air causing me to miss my target. On my paladin, this does not happen since I am guaranteed not to get slowed. Once again, this may seem unimportant to some, but it has caused many unnecessary deaths on my druid because of this, and there really is nothing the druid can do about it -- no matter how good their reaction is, the initial slow will still be applied before shapeshifting can effectively remove it. I cannot begin to stress how much this seems to be overlooked.
The other side of the coin on this issue is that BoF can be purged. While this is true, I find this also to be less of an issue. With full buffs constantly kept up, and a competent kiting defense, this is not much of an issue at all. Again, with the spirit nerf, mana is more scarce than before. This means that purging shamans/dispelling priests will not be able to be as liberal as they once have been in terms of dispels.
With paladin abilites such as the range taunt and the glyphed Hammer of Justice (increasing its range by 10 yards), along with an effective mage on D, melee combat should be avoidable for the most part.
3. Until Paladin abilities are self-cast only, they will be better off as a Support Role
The argument here is that since Blessing of Freedom, LoH, Purify, etc are all castable on other players, then Paladins would be better off as an assist to the druid rather than carrying the flag.
However, this begs the question: Paladins must first have their abilities nerfed before they are better than druids at FCing? Wouldn't the better argument be to run a dual-paladin Defense without any druid at all?
Here are an additional list of changes made to the paladin class:
So why do I think that paladins are better now?
Tell me what you think. Has 3.1 called for a reevaluation of which class is better at Flag Carrying, or am I completely missing the picture?
First, let me construct the typical argument as to why druids were better than paladins pre-3.1.
- Druids have higher HP
- Shapeshifting > Blessing of Freedom
- Until Paladin abilities are self-cast only, they will be better off as a Support Role
Now let me address each of these points and explain why things have changed so drastically in 3.1 as to why Paladins may have the upper hand now.
1. Druids have higher HP
The HP gap between the two classes is becoming less and less drastic. The recent stamina nerf (Nethercleft/Librams/Shoulder enchant/etc) has hurt the druid class far more than paladins because stamina is transferred into even more HP in bear form. Without as much stamina, druid bearform obviously has less health.
Another point to establish here is the huge misnomer that HP = survivability. A staple of Paladin flag carrying is melee defense. Paladin FCing gear will focus on 3 basic stats: Sta, Agi, & Str. While the Druid will focus on Sta, Int, Agi. The three paladin stats all contribute to more survivability, while only two stats for the druids do.
Sta: Obviously it helps increase HP. Sta is more important to the druid than to a paladin because of bear form.
Agi: Increases dodge, armor, and crit strike rating.
Str: Increases block (only relevant to paladins)
Int: Required for druids in order to shapeshift effectively. Intellect is not required at all for paladins.
Stamina obviously is the primary stat of both classes. However, stamina becomes much less important when debuff hits since overall damage is increased by 50/100%. This is a major fault within the druid playing-style.
Once debuff hits, as I said earlier, stamina becomes less important (to an extent) and agi and str becomes much more so. Why? Because these two stats actually work to prevent damage being done to you at all. Agi will help you dodge that incoming attack more often, while Str will help you block. Sta has no such defensive nature.
To explain this in a better format:
Before debuff:
10 sta = 100 health
After Debuff:
10 sta = 50 [normal]health.
Once debuff hits, stamina becomes much less valuable because attacks do more damage. However, 10 agility is still worth the same. Since paladin gear focuses on all three stats, and druids focus primarily on stamina, this works towards a paladin's favor. Now, does this mean that once debuff hits we should immediately take off our stamina gear in favor of agi? Obviously not. A healthy pool of health always going to be required. However, with debuff, your HP pool is effectively halved. Therefore, what I am arguing is that a druid with 2400 HP is not nearly as good as a paladin with 1900 HP with debuff because a paladin's agi/str stats will actually provide more overall survivability than the druid's extra 500 HP. 1900 HP is still plenty of cushion to kite an offense and for healers to get heals off.
Another thing I would like to address is the intellect issue. Druids must invest a large portion of their gear/enchants into intellect so that they can shapeshift. Paladin abilities, on the other hand, require hardly any mana at all. The class as a whole faces hardly any risk of mana exhaustion like a druid does. The requirement of druids to divert gear to intellect reduces their ability to choose gear that might help their survivability more, such as agi. As a example, a druid gets 'of the eagle' gear instead of 'of the monkey' gear like a paladin would get.
2. Shapeshifting > Blessing of Freedom
Another staple argument of why druids have been better than paladins is because druids are more resistant to purge/dispel since BoF is dispellable while shapeshifting has no such counter. However, I believe this has become less and less of an issue.
As I mentioned earlier, shapeshifting does have a counter: mana. And with the recent spirit nerf, druids are not going to have the excess mana they used to. Not only will this hurt their shapeshifting ability, but it will prevent them from wasting mana on other abilities like rejuvenation.
Another problem with shapeshifting goes straight to the core. Shapeshifting, by nature, is reactive; meaning, the druid must first be slowed before they can shapeshift. While it may seem trivial, the fact that the druid is slowed initially does make a difference. On the other hand, BoF can be applied preemptively.
Having played both classes, this is my main beef with druids. Often times I will find myself doing a jump and I will get conc-shotted in mid-air causing me to miss my target. On my paladin, this does not happen since I am guaranteed not to get slowed. Once again, this may seem unimportant to some, but it has caused many unnecessary deaths on my druid because of this, and there really is nothing the druid can do about it -- no matter how good their reaction is, the initial slow will still be applied before shapeshifting can effectively remove it. I cannot begin to stress how much this seems to be overlooked.
The other side of the coin on this issue is that BoF can be purged. While this is true, I find this also to be less of an issue. With full buffs constantly kept up, and a competent kiting defense, this is not much of an issue at all. Again, with the spirit nerf, mana is more scarce than before. This means that purging shamans/dispelling priests will not be able to be as liberal as they once have been in terms of dispels.
With paladin abilites such as the range taunt and the glyphed Hammer of Justice (increasing its range by 10 yards), along with an effective mage on D, melee combat should be avoidable for the most part.
3. Until Paladin abilities are self-cast only, they will be better off as a Support Role
The argument here is that since Blessing of Freedom, LoH, Purify, etc are all castable on other players, then Paladins would be better off as an assist to the druid rather than carrying the flag.
However, this begs the question: Paladins must first have their abilities nerfed before they are better than druids at FCing? Wouldn't the better argument be to run a dual-paladin Defense without any druid at all?
Here are an additional list of changes made to the paladin class:
- LoH now down to a 15 min cooldown
- Divine Protection CD reduced from 5 min > 3 min
- Forbearance effect reduced from 3 mins > 2 mins
So why do I think that paladins are better now?
- With the stamina nerf, a Paladin's overall survivability now surpasses a Druid's.
- Shapeshifting is reactive; BoF is not.
- Lay on Hands - Free health pool every 15 minutes now.
- HoJ > Bash. It has a longer range and Paladins don't have to face the target they wish to stun, unlike druids. This makes them vulnerable to things like Gouge.
- Divine Protection: -50% damage reduction every 3 minutes now.
- Blessing of Protection: An addtional support utility that Paladins can use to help their healer/mage if they are being mowed down by a melee class. Obviously, druids have no such thing.
Tell me what you think. Has 3.1 called for a reevaluation of which class is better at Flag Carrying, or am I completely missing the picture?
