Tier 16 Armor Set videos: Paladin, Druid, Rogue, Death Knight [Updated]

Adriacraft are back with more tier set videos. This time we've got the tier 16 armor sets for Paladins and Druids, with Rogues to follow later. What do you think of the sets? Here at WoW Insider we're unsure, both these tiers look rather similar, and there seems to be a recurring theme of basic-colored armor with some unusual, even bizarre, frill detail.

As previously, the tiers' different colors will come from different difficulties. You can also remind yourself of the previous datamined tier sets for the Warrior, Priest and Hunter. Hit the break for the other two sets! And do check out Adriacraft on YouTube for all the latest patch videos!

Tags: breaking, druid, paladin, patch-5.4, rogue, tier-16

Filed under: Mists of Pandaria

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Should you play a paladin in WoW?

If you're just getting started with World of Warcraft, the range of class options available to you can be a bit daunting. Which class is the best? Which class is the most fun? Which class will you enjoy? There's no answer that's right for everyone -- and you may wind up trying a few classes before you find the perfect fit. But where to begin? Today's class run-down will cover paladins, WoW's holy warriors.

As Blizzard puts it, paladins are called "to protect the weak, to bring justice to the unjust, and to vanquish evil from the darkest corners of the world." But your paladin may have its own motivations -- indeed, within the game you're certain to meet paladins with motives less pure. In fact, one of the interesting things about the paladin class is how different various paladins are: while alliance paladins very much fall along Blizzard's class description, the blood elf paladins, who style themselves Blood Knights, haven't always been particularly good guys.

But enough of that: what you want to know is how paladins play, so read on for more.

Just what is a paladin?
Paladins are a hybrid class that can heal (holy specialization), tank (protection specialization), or do melee DPS (retribution specialization). They wear heavy plate armor and can equip shields, which makes them very durable -- even the healers, who can take more of a pounding than any other healing class. All specs of paladin use mana to power their abilities but some abilities require a secondary resource called holy power, which is like a monk's chi or a rogue's combo points. You generate holy power by using certain abilities and other abilities require holy power to use.

The class has a decent selection of weapons available to them and can wield one-handed axes, one-handed maces, one-handed swords, polearms, two-handed axes, two-handed maces, and two-handed swords. However, can doesn't necessarily mean should: if you mean to tank, you'll want a one-handed weapon and a shield; if you intend to DPS, you'll want a high-damage two-hander; and healers can go with whatever gear gives them the best stats, though they often go towards one-handers and shields. Paladins, which used to be an alliance-only class, has a very restrictive selection of races, only open to draenei, dwarves, humans, blood elves, and tauren.

A class built around versatility
How a paladin plays is very dependent on your current specialization: Holy paladins will typically stay to the back, where they have a clear view of the action and can keep their targets healed. They can heal both single and multiple targets and they have the survivability to wade into the melee -- which they sometimes will, to generate more holy power or regenerate mana in combination with Seal of Insight.Protection paladins will be front and center, absorbing hits with their heavy armor and shield and using holy magic to reduce their damage taken and keep their target's attention.Retribution paladins will be in the center of the action, smashing their foes with heavy weapons and holy magic.
All paladins have access to a variety of buffs that they can use to aid their party. While you might consider this kind of thing the domain of healers, any savvy paladin can provide a lot of utility to their group -- or just themselves, if they're soloing. Blessings: You can only have one of these buffs per paladin -- so if you're in a group with two paladins, you can have both, but otherwise you have to pick. Your choices are Blessing of Kings, which is a good all-around buff, though druids, hunters, and monks have similar buffs that won't stack with your blessings; and Blessing of Might, though shamans and hunters have similar buffs that won't stack.Hands: Each of these spells provides great utility, though on a cooldown. Your options are: Hand of Freedom, Hand of Protection, Hand of Sacrifice, Hand of Salvation, and Hand of Purity (which is a talent).Healing: Though all specs have healing abilities, paladins who aren't specced holy probably aren't interested. But they'll still appreciate Lay on Hands, an instant-cast, zero-mana heal which heals any target for the amount of health you have. With a 10-minute cooldown, this spell is easily one of the best panic buttons in the game.Crowd control: If you want even more utility, paladins can pick up the talent Repentance, which CCs demons, dragonkin, giants, humanoids, and undead for 1 minute.And this is a long way from everything a paladin can do: whatever the spec, a paladin is versatile, with the ability to heal, protect others, take hits, and dish out damage. They're the multitool of WoW classes -- and we mean that in the best possible way.

Who should (and shouldn't) play a paladin?
We think you'll like paladins if: You're looking for a class with high survivability: you can't do much better than a paladin! However, hunters also get good marks here because of their pets.You want to be able to switch between different class roles easily (though keep in mind that druids can do this just as well).And you might not like the paladin if: You really want to play a race other than the scant five available to paladins. Blizzard has added new race options to the class since the game's release and they might add more in the future... but we don't recommend holding your breath.You're interested in doing ranged damage or you want to play a caster class. While paladins do wield holy magic, they aren't ranged casters like mages, warlocks, are druids -- attacking from a distance is not their speciality.You just want to hit things. Retribution paladins can do this, and well, but if you don't want to deal with all the other things paladins can do, you may be more interested in a pure DPS class.
Want to know more about paladins?
Here's where to get started: Hunter not for you? Then be sure to check out our guide to druids, hunters, monks, and warlocks -- and look for more newbie class coverage coming soon! Just because you're a newbie doesn't mean you can't bring your A-game to World of Warcraft! Visit the WoW Rookie Guide for links to everything you need to get started as a new player, from the seven things every newbie ought to know to how to get started as a healer or as a tank. Tags: featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, paladin, paladins, rookie-guide, should-i-play-a-paladin, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-paladin, wow-paladins, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft

Filed under: Paladin, WoW Rookie

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Fearsome paladin collective crusades for the Light

Knights in shining armor or divisive zealots? The roleplay opportunities for a group of paladins in Azeroth are fierce, either way you look at it. The catch is how they are perceived and manage to interact with their fellow players. Are they protectors of the faith and guardians of fellow citizens, or a fearsome hammer of intolerance to be brought down upon anything that deviates?

Amelas Langston of Caelestis Templares, a guild of paladins on Silver Hand (US-RP), walks that line regularly with a guild of roleplayers who've become known for their devotion to eradicating any opposition to the Light. Has its hardline approach made pariahs of its players? Or has its stalwart stand against the forces of evil made heroes and saviors of its characters?

WoW Insider: Most readers will probably assume that a guild of paladins is portraying a knightly, noble mission, but in fact, your roleplay focus is quite different. A recent recruiting post on the realm forums noted that many of your members roleplay "gruff, jackass characters," and the words "zealotry" and "intolerance" have been used to described the group's approach to its roleplay. Does your mission cast guild members in danger of becoming pariahs among the Silver Hand RP community?

Amelas: It's a fair thing to assume. I've found that the majority of people that role play as paladins have that sort of a character. The Caelestis Templares, however, are dedicated to a goal, that goal being the eradication of all that stands in opposition to the Light. Intolerance and zeal are actually key virtues of our guild, so to describe us as zealots would be pretty accurate.

If our characters encounter something that the Order dictates is heretical, then they are obligated to take action against it. It becomes a bit of a drag when the actions of our characters make people think that the player behind them are as hard and unfriendly as they are.
Main character Amelas Langston, human protection paladin
Guild Caelestis Templares
Realm Silver Hand (US-RP)

Combined with activities such as preaching in Stormwind and Goldshire, do you find that your characters' intolerant attitudes lead to difficult relations with other players and guilds on the realm?

Preaching usually just brings hecklers out of the woodwork, but our penchant for attacking death knights and warlocks on sight has led to some issues. Our style of play is sometimes seen as pushy since we tend to start a lot of fights. All members are told, however, that if somebody makes it known that they do not want to participate then they are to drop it and go their separate ways.

Of those that enjoy interacting with us, there are a great many ways that somebody can be deemed a heretic in the eyes of the Order, so we end up making a lot of enemies. Your web site is absolutely gorgeous! That said, I must admit that the sheer number of rules and regulations is more than a little intimidating. Do members have to learn and follow all of its guidelines?

Yes, all members of the guild must adhere to all laws of the Order. Every law, just like anything with a list of rules, is there because somebody did it in the past. Violation of the primary laws are grounds for immediate dismissal. Any violation of the many secondary laws is typically taken on a case by case basis, and most often the offending character is given some act of penance and one of the officers will have a discussion about it with the player. Most of the secondary rules are just common sense and good roleplay issues that, chances are, if a person makes it into the guild, we assume that they already are following most of the rules on the books.

How does CT interact with its sister guild, Caelestis Inquisitores? What are the differences between the two groups?

If the Templares are the right hand, then the Inquisitores are the left. The Templares' primary goal is to do battle with heretics, but how do you know who is a demon worshipping fiend and who is just another bystander?

The Inquisitores are mainly an information gathering group that passes along heretic identities, infiltrates hostile guilds, and finds all other sorts of inventive ways to point the strength of the Templares in the right direction. Tell us about any particular traditions or holidays you follow as a guild.

As a guild, we have only two traditions, really. Our weekly meetings have a strict dress code, but two times a year we break that. We hold a Halloween meeting where everybody is supposed to come in costume, and we all vote for who has the best. The top three costumes win sums of gold as prizes. We also hold an April Fool's meeting where we will change up our tabard as well as our playstyle along whatever theme the officers come up that year. Both of them are an opportunity to get away from the strict rules and act ridiculous in character.

Does the group's roleplay focus have an effect on how you approach game content? For example, are there certain PvE storylines or content you avoid because it's contrary to with the mission of the guild?

We never tell our members that they cannot participate in any game content, but there are some that decline to do certain things that go against our Order's beliefs. For example, there are a few members right now that refuse to participate in the troll rebellion quests, because aiding any members of the Horde would be seen as heresy.

Other events in the game, however, play right into our guild's purpose. The Scourge invasion events before the opening of Naxxramas and before Wrath of the Lich King were fantastic for us. During the entire event, all CT online were patrolling Stormwind repelling the undead attacks. People ran to the cathedral for protection from the ghouls, and the CT were celebrities for all of about three weeks. The paladin class has been notable throughout the history of World of Warcraft for its extreme versatility and ability to succeed at extreme soloing. How far does the guild push as a group into current PvE content?

Since we are not a raiding guild, it is difficult to have enough people on to do endgame content as a guild. We are able to get through heroic dungeons though with full guild groups and have even managed to down a good many bosses in 10-man raids with a full group of paladins.

What have you found to be the primary limitations of bringing nothing but paladins to the table?

Well, the only limitations I've found have been in game content. On the one hand, we have an entire guild of all three roles in a raid, but things get awfully hard when you need some ranged damage. The lack of class diversity does make certain things more difficult.

What activities might be included in a typical week for the guild?

Typical week might be a couple guild heroics, battlegrounds, and our weekly meeting. Sometimes higher ranks will hold lessons for members on the beliefs of the Order, but most events are off the cuff. Somebody wants to do something and just shouts our for anybody that wants to come. Coolest thing you never get tired of in game that's related to being a paladin?

Bubble-hearth!

Most tired thing you're sick of newbies or others saying or doing in game that's related to paladins?

What has always driven me crazy is when somebody encounters us for the first time and they act in a way that immediately brands them as heretics. When we go after them, they start screaming and yelling about how we're crazy Christian nut cases. They get ignored immediately at this point, but it's strange -- I don't seem to recall Jesus existing in Warcraft ...

Read more in our series on class- and race-exclusive guilds:

Blood elves continue their people's story with self-deprecating humor
Death knights squeeze WoW in ice-fisted death grip
Druids shred raid content by tooth and claw
Draenei inject ancient culture into mainstream Azeroth
Dwarves indulge in rollicking good world PvP
Gnomes ratchet to guild level 25 on steam-drive gnomish power
Goblin roleplay campaign inspires goblin NPC
Hunter collective takes aim across Azeroth
Night elf guild brings Darnassus to the fore
Orc clan leader offers fierce perspectives on RP, world PvP
Rogues stealth and stab their way into friendly player antagonism
Tauren guild stampedes beyond roleplaying
Trolls savagely roleplay the revenge of the Zandalari
Worgen run wild across Azeroth "I never thought of playing WoW like that!" -- and neither did we, until we talked with Game of Thrones' Hodor (Kristian Nairn) ... a blind ex-serviceman and the guildmates who keep him raiding as a regular ... and a 70-year-old grandma who tops her raid's DPS charts as its legendary-wielding GM. Send your nominations to lisa@wowinsider.com. Tags: all-paladin, amelas, caelestis-templares, facebookfeed, featured, paladin, world-of-warcraft-interviews, wow-community, wow-interviews, wow-people

Filed under: Interviews, 15 Minutes of Fame

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Two great things about the contemporary ret paladin

Patch 5.3 has turned out to be a great time to be a ret paladin. Well, in my opinion it's always a great time to be a ret paladin, but this new patch and the changes it brought with it really drive the point home. Granted, the only change we saw was a buff to our weapon-based damage via Sword of Light, which, while being a welcome boost to our DPS, isn't necessarily the most earth-shattering, game-changing thing in all of Azeroth. Still though, it opens some doors and allows us to be more competitive in the DPS game.

I have to admit, my inspiration for this column came from reading Matt Rossi's warrior column, The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Survival and the modern warrior. As I was reading through the piece, I found myself unconsciously caressing my keybind for Divine Shield, no doubt a realization of how blessed we paladins are when it comes to self-preservation mechanics and abilities. Some of the troubles that Matt detailed I have either sidestepped or easily handled with our generous toolbox, and his angst has given me a newfound appreciation for the veritable arsenal of useful spells at our disposal.

This week I'll be touching on a couple of our newer abilities that have proven time and time again to be so valuable and effective that I can't imagine playing a paladin without them.

Unbreakable Spirit

Immunities are powerful things. Divine Shield is a spell that provokes very heated responses from anyone who has faced a paladin in PvP combat and draws the envy of nearly every class for its incalculable uses in PvE content. Even though our damage output is cut in half for the duration of the spell, being immune to all forms of damage for eight seconds is incredible.

The devs, however, thought that eight seconds of damage immunity wasn't enough and gave us the wonderful talent Unbreakable Spirit. In short, US allows you to reduce your Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Lay on Hands cooldowns by 50% simply by spending holy power. As ret we're usually bursting at the seems with the resource, and spending it is in our best interest regardless of whether we spec into US or not, so this talent basically allows us to have DS available every two and a half minutes.

Now, I know what you're thinking: if you're in a position to need an immunity every two and a half minutes, you must be doing something wrong, right? Well, there's another use for our bubble that Rossi discusses in his article -- preventing debuff applications.

Say you're just starting out on heroic Jin'rokh and your healers are having a hard time finding enough magic dispels to cleanse Ionization from everyone in the raid. With DS, you can prevent Ionization from even touching you. Not only will this help your healers immensely, but you can also remain in the damage-boosting puddle for its entire duration. Thanks to US, we can do this on the first and third puddle phases, meaning you will most likely only need a single dispel for the entire encounter.

Hell, toss in a /cancelaura macro for good measure and you can ensure that you only lose a couple GCDs of potential damage on the boss; I like to use a shift modifier macro so I don't accidentally clear my bubble when I inevitably spam my keybind:

/cancelaura [mod:shift] Divine Shield;
/cast Divine Shield

Mass Exorcism

I didn't truly "get into" Mass Exorcism until 5.2, at the behest of a friend. I was quite hesitant to sacrifice the ranged nature of Exorcism for some AoE damage, but she insisted that I glyph Mass Exo for a week and get used to it. Reluctantly I grabbed the glyph off the auction house and scribbled it into my spellbook. Three raid days later I was as pleased as could be at the boost to my DPS, but I think the larger change occurred in my perspective.

One encounter for which I thought I needed an at-range Exo was Lei Shen. The tanks kite the boss from corner to corner, adds pop up in different quadrants during transitional phases, and winds push you every which way near the end of the fight -- all of these seemed to beg for more ranged abilities to be able to handle them. As it turns out, though, I was thinking of it the wrong way. Instead of seeing myself forced out of melee range, saying, "Well, if I have to be out here I should do as much DPS as I can until I can get back," what I really should have been thinking was, "How can I get back into melee range as quickly as possible?"

We are a melee class; as much as some of us want shockadins to be real and viable, the bulk of retribution's damage comes from hitting things really hard with a two-handed weapon. Therefore, instead of focusing on how to maximize DPS during those few moments when I was punted away from a boss, I should have been trying to find ways to minimize the time I spent away from the orbit of my foe.

Of course, encounters with only one target do not quite necessitate the use of Mass Exo, but I have found that unglyphing it only to avoid the cleave (on Primordius or Twin Consorts, for example) helps me focus on what's important.

I bring these points up not to taunt warriors or other ill-equipped classes and specs, but as a roundabout way of saying that I can sympathize. These abilities didn't exist before Mists, which to me shows that things can and will change. Exorcism hit like a wet noodle in Wrath, and there were many, many instances where using your Art of War proc to cast a Flash of Light instead would be a better use of your time. Look at Exorcism now: its damage is second only to Hammer of Wrath, and when glyphed it can be an amazing source of AoE DPS.

As such, Matt, my advice to you is "be vocal, yet patient." Just don't get us nerfed, okay? The Light and How to Swing It teaches you the ins and outs of retribution paladins, from Ret 101 and how to gem, enchant and reforge your retadin, to essential ret pally addons. Tags: featured, guide-to-paladins, guide-to-pallies, guide-to-pallys, mass-exorcism, Paladin-Glyphs, paladin-guide, paladin-info, paladin-talents, pally-guide, pally-info, pally-talents, retribution, retribution-paladin-the-light-and-how-to-swing-it, unbreakable-spirit, wow-paladin, wow-paladin-info, wow-paladins, wow-pally, wow-pally-info

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

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Level 80 paladin solos some Mogu'shan Vaults bosses, gets Vengeance hotfixed

A great video is making the rounds right now of an exceptional player using some unintended consequences to solo multiple bosses in Mogu'shan Vaults -- and as a protection-specced paladin no less! He apparently downed Stone Guard, Feng, and Elegon before Blizzard caught wind of the escapade. You can see a video of the Elegon kill above.

How he pulled this off was by taking advantage of a series of design choices that Blizzard made, combining them all into a hilarious example of the law of unintended consequences in action.

To reach a decent item level, the paladin equipped various bind on equip rares that drop in Mists zones which all had a required character level of only 80. And because he was only level 80, he was avoiding the combat ratings drop-offs for levels 81 and 86 that a normal character wearing those pieces would be subjected too. This would allow him to get an insane amount of secondary stats like haste (I've seen that he had 95%!) and mastery (88%, apparently).

Watching the video, it's crazy to see the numbers that he was throwing out. With amount of damage he was taking, the paladin was easily rocking between 2 and 2.5 million attack power from Vengeance. And because Vengeance did not have a cap, there was really no upper limit on how much attack power could be generated, other than how much damage the boss could deal out.

As a result, this was making every Seal of Insight tick heal for at least twice his maximum HP, and Sacred Shield was fully absorbing any attacks he took. Likewise, it looks like with all the haste he had, the actual absorb effect from Sacred Shield was constantly up and constantly being refreshed. Not to mention the damage reduction boost his Shield of the Righteous was getting from all that mastery.

Perhaps the most important cog in the whole enterprise was the use of a bug in the code with Shield of the Righteous. There is a lot more than I care to detail (because it seems to be an overly clever use of mechanics) but one can game SoTR in a way that would result in a ton of Vengeance and, combined with the paladin's obscene mastery numbers, he was getting Vengeance numbers that shouldn't normally be possible. Uncapped -- of course -- thanks to a pre-Mists change to Vengeance.

Since this first appeared a few days, reports have surfaced that Blizzard appears to have responded by nerfing Vengeance with a hotfix, capping it at max health. They seem to have no plans to go after the 409 iLevel gear that aided and abetted this caper. Action is sure to come on the Vengeance calculation bug. Tags: breaking, elegon, Feng-the-Accursed, hotfix, Mogushan-Vaults, paladin, protection-paladin, solo, soloing, stone-guard, vengeance, vengeance-nerf

Filed under: News items

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