I thought I'd get the ball rolling on this although I'm by no means an expert

First principles

- you need to form one raid. I've been in several CTF matches with no group, two groups, a raid with only half the players in it. We always get hammered.

- you need someone telling people what to do. If there is a lack of clarity people will solo. Soloing does not win matches, unless the opposition is terrible and you get lucky to boot. When I've been in raids where the raid leader says nothing all match we lose. The job is not simply inviting

- five people telling the raid to do different and conflicting things is quite possibly worse than no one telling people what do to. This is why you need it to be the raid leader making the calls. If he keeps quiet and someone who isn't the leader starts shouting then invariably some other squaddie will start shouting conflicting orders

- all classes have fantastic contributions to make. If you're a hunter track the flag carrier and keep your team posted. If you're a healer, heal. If you're a rogue support other players by applying your surprise attacks at decisive moments

- the flag is more important than the players. Keep moving towards your objective at virtually any time except when you're regrouping

- killing people off is sometimes not an effective move. There are many times in battle when players would much rather respawn ahead of your flag carrier on full health and mana. A snare can be better than a kill

- hunt in packs. Most classes work much better in a group. Even Rogues should sneak along with the pack looking for decisive moments to contribute

- organise groups sensibly. Expecially split up the healers. Don't assume people have RaidAssist or some such mod.

- if half of you are on Teamspeak then type. Teamspeak makes people lazy. If you don't bother to type crucial information and instructions you are a well-organised group of 5 plus 5 solos. Any organised group of 10 will wipe the floor with you

- fragging. If you want to get the most contribution points from a battle you undoubtedly are better off refusing to join the raid and just stalking along getting easy kills while the opponents are engaged with other team-mates. You aren't helping the team. Many many teams we've beaten have a Rogue who is streets ahead of anyone else on either side in terms of HKs. They still lose. Being as how WoW is an MMO game and reputation matters you may want to avoid doing this. It's hard enough for level 60 Rogues to get raids without developing a reputation for selfish play. Then again, if you can hit the top rank by doing this maybe you won't have to care about MC drops

7, 8, 9, 0s - as you near the top end of the level range for your battlefield you become a much more effective player. It may be wise to do a lot of bg at level 29-30, 39-40 etc, get your fill for a while and then concentrate on levelling and instancing as you pass to the next tier.

Classes

Rogue - great flag carriers simply for the ability to snatch the flag at surprise moments and then Sprint. Very vulnerable to being intercepted in the middle unless you work with the team. Stun and crippling poison makes you very good at stopping or slowing other players. And killing people helps too

Druid - the best flag carriers. Stealth, be patient and at the crucial moment (perhaps just after a recapture) grab the flag, cat form and dash out of the base, cheetah and run off home. The ability to change and use instant heals is great so don't persist being a cheetah if you look like dying. Most snares are broken by changing shape, also you can break Rogue snares with Cure Poison. If there's more than one druid have them both do the same job - one is a backup. If the role palls then you have great utility as flag carrier support with speed, heals and entangling roots. In a running fight entangling roots is a one-cast eliminator, possibly the strongest spell in the game. Please don't run around the midfield spamming Moonfire though

Hunter - natural defenders. Aspect of the Cheetah is great for chasing people but not great when you're being chased. Tracking is great if your team has lost sight of the carrier - find him and tell the raid where he is. You may need Track Beast if you're after a Druid. Feign Death is very effective in the hectic atmosphere. Freezing Trap on the flag is a great defensive move, so is Survival tree specialisation for those rare Hunters who take that path

Priest - great in a pack of players working together. If everyone spreads out and does their own thing then Priest players tend to be especially victimised. The natural place for a Priest is in the middle of an alert aggressive group. AE fear is a very strong ability and is useful for clearing oppostion packs, notably in the flag room

Paladin - another great pack player. Paladins are usually bottom of Horde players' priorities simply because they're so frustratingly hard to kill. Stay close to others and use your heals to keep them alive and your group will roll over anything even remotely disorganised and will beat same-sized horde groups that can't match your group's healing power. In a wierd way that fact that shamans have so many interesting things to do with their mana is a Horde disadvantage in pvp since they will often drain themselves spamming marginal damage spells. Turn the screw on any such naievity by making sure no one in your group dies

Shaman - good flag carriers, good pack members, a shaman is a well rounded class which can support anywhere without being outstanding anywhere. Use your snares well and you'll win matches

Warrior - very much a pack player. From a healer's perspective nothing keeps you safer than a Warrior because if they target you the Warrior will rip them apart while you self-heal and if they target the Warrior they will do poor damage which you can easily heal. Warriors work so much better in packs than alone, perhaps more so than any other class. Key skills are Charge Intercept and Hamstring plus Hitting Someone Very Hard ™

Mage - a devastating class. First you have a great ability to control movement, accelerating your own with Blink and slowing others with Frost Nova and chill effects. Next you do good damage. And finally area effect is fantastic against clumped players. Played with agility a mage often attracts people to try for a kill without them being able to quite kill you. Make sure everyone has drink at the start or before, people get a lot of chances to drink during these matches.

Warlock - The main things I found to do with my warlock on the test server were running around dotting people, disrupting people with Fear and Seduce, hitting the flag room with area effect just as our flag carriers go in (they will all focus on you) and sending pets off to harass distant players from a position of safety.

Winning strategies

5 attack 5 defend One of the simplest, 5 of you wait to mob whoever comes into the flag room, 5 of you run up the side of the map, avoiding fights and burst into the enemy flag room as a unit. This is the quickest way to beat disorganised opposition. From the Horde perspective I'd suggest running up along the east edge of the map since the ramp up is that side. Defenders, if overwhelmed, usually respawn soon enough and far enough ahead that they get a second bite. Remember to run towards the middle when you respawn though!

10 attack I've seen this a lot in 51-60 battles. I think the idea is that this strategy beats the very common 5/5 formation - you will easily grab the opposition flag and you may be able to meet a 5 strong flag carrying group with your 10. In practice it always seems to result in both sides getting the opponents flags and then a long drawn out hunt for the flag carrier (who is always very near their own flag room waiting to drop in and win). I'm unconvinced that this beats 5/5 but it's very popular with high level players so I guess people feel it does

9 defend one stealths. Boring but very effective. Your 9 back at base will marmalise the opponents until they get frustrated enough to attack with everything. I've only actually seen this done a couple of times and it's worked both times.

Boy oh boy, Brista! Thanks for this! I'll keep this handy till I get it down cold.

Very nice class breakdown. It describes exactly what classes should be doing in Warsong Gulch.

The most important thing I've noticed in my experience is healing. I am currently 0-7 (Alliance is pretty much composed of bitchy 13 year olds on my server) but the only close match I've had was when we had a good Priest. One good Priest. Not two, one. He kept our defensive team alive and kicking and it made all the difference in the world. The most important member in a PvP party is the healer. Hands down. Without him/her, you're toast.

On a sidenote, Druid and Shaman's ability to shapeshift while carrying the flag sucks. It is virtually *impossible* to chase down a 40 Druid that has half a brain. If he has a 2 second headstart on you; you just gave up a cap. Quel dommage to Alliance as they have half as many flag runners as Horde. Not even half as Druid is one of the least populated classes and Shaman is one of the most populated classes. Yet again, I wish I had made Horde...

Awesome! My comments on classes after quite a few matches:

Classes

Rogue - Better defending than attacking simply because you can wait for them to come to you. Crippling Poision is great for runners.

Druid - the best flag carriers, hands down, but also decent as a midfielder - Entangling Roots is great, and Hibernate can defend against other druids.

Hunter - Agree with everything you said

Priest - Great on defense and offense - AoE fear FTW! Keep Renew on your flag carrier too.

Paladin - Not a bad flag carrier, but not fast enough even with the bubble advantage. A devestating defender though - you won't go down before the flag gets picked up, and then stun the flag carrier to delay them.

Shaman - A Shaman's snares are his/her most effective tool - learn the range of your Eathbind and you'll do well. Don't forget Purge either - you can Purge Priest's shieds (but not Paladin's bubble ). You probably won't do as much damage as other classes but if for some reaon it comes down to a one-on-one fight, you'll devestate casters.

Warrior - Not enough experience with them to say anything.

Mage - A horrible spell in PvE and general PvP becomes amazing here. Properly Talented, a single Blizzard can put a 7.5s-long snare on everyone in a decent area (like say, the flag room, a pack of defenders chasing your flag carrier, or a group running off with your flag). I say snare, but at 15% of normal speed, they might as well be stopped dead.

Warlock - Fear and seduce. DoT those Rogues so they don't dissappear on you. Best of all DoT a running flag carrier - every bit of damage counts when you are desperate to catch them.

A few warlock tactics:

Enemy distruption defense with howl. Jump from up top onto your flag and howl. Howl at tunnel entrances, howl near corners as enemies come.

Felhunter: Watch the enemy healers for spell lock. Drain mana if you've got time to, and always devour that bubble of love on the run.

Succubus is nice, but felhunter owns.

One of these days I'll have a doomguard out and cripple on enemy carriers.

Summon infernal when the battle is even, and it'll scare the bejesus out of enemy priests.

Hunter / lock defense, Druid / lock offense combinations work very well, as lock fears rogues and other enemies off the hunter/druid, and Hunter can scatter while druid can heal high hp lock if on defense--or just run on offense. Lock follows druid with howl in tow.

Don't be afraid to hellfire. It'll likely be interrupted before it kills you, and if you are being pounded, you were going to die anyways.

If mages are on your team, start CoEl'ing everything. Chances are, it won't be removed, and pyroblasts, and fireblasts will start racking up damage.

If you invested in CoEx, you'll own CTF. Spam Exhaustion and watch as you win.

Can I just say that Shamans make the most annoying defenders in the list? Earthbind totem on the flag is just HARSH.

I bubble I drop the flag.

I could add some extra tibits:

Priests - Mind vision is an alternative way of finding flag runners who are trying to hide. Targeting range is so big in CTF, that it allows you to do this, sometimes even better then Hunter/Druid tracking.

Druids - Bear form is very useful as well for flag running. If you have to fight through the other team to get to your base, it's much easier to keep the druid alive in Bear form

Warriors - they actually make good flag carriers, especially if you are running 10 man full assault, in part because they are hard to kill, and in part because trying to kill a warrior just gives them lots of rage to work with, in addition to probably giving them enrage buff. A warrior with enrage and full rage bar = world of pain.

In addition to the above, warriors also bring a few other things to the table. AOE snare in form of piercing howl can give enough room for that druid to run ahead and score. AOE fear with unlimited targets in crucial situations can make a huge difference. And Mortal Strike debuff makes healing difficult to say the least.

I think Purge does remove Paladin's shields. I remember my Paladin friend whining about that at some point.

Paladins and Hunters are excellent defenders. 2 Paladins, 2 Hunters and a Priest is the best Alliance defense group I can think of. Two traps, plenty of healing, plenty of snares/stuns and AOE Fear to boot.

It doesn't. Nothing in the game removes Divine favor. Seal of protection MIGHT be purge-able but I would need to test it.

Blessing of protection is Purgeable.

Thankee.

One of the most fun CTF matches I've had lasted about one and a half hours, 9 'hey-who-wants-to-go-CTF?' guild members and a pickup player, most 60's, one or two high 50's; hunters, warlocks, warriors, druids, one paladin, one rogue. None of us were really spectacularly geared, and the opposition looked like a pickup horde group consisting of warriors, rogues, mages, and shamans. I'm not too sure about their gear, but no obvious epic items that were easily visible. No priests around, so for healers, it was 2 druids on our side and a paladin vs their 3 shamans.

We settled on a 7 offense 3 defense strategy to start, figuring the 2 hunters and warlock would be able to slow any flagrunners down long enough for the main group to come kill them if necessary. Charged through their 5-man defense for the only easy capture of the game. After that, both sides started using 7-8 packs in the midfield back and forth as necssary, and leaving a minimal amount on guard at the flagroom, counting on the mobility of the main pack to handle the offense and flag chasing, whereas the flag room defense was only to slow them down as possible. Lots of flag grabs and returns (probably 20 or so for each side). Horde totally blew us away in kills (close to double I think), thanks to their arcanite-reaper wielding warriors, rogues and mages, while our reliance was more on speed & snares, and separating people from the pack to pick them off.

So a few more comments about the classes:

Shaman - Agree with the all-around role. Earthbind & Frost Shock on defensive, wolf form for flagrunning. Heals where needed. When they had their warrior with the flag surrounded by their shamans, it was VERY difficult to get the flag back. Not as squishy as the priests so couldn't bring them down quite as quickly, and even though they don't have the same mana pool or big heals as a priest, a few of them in the mix made things difficult.

Druids - Stealth entrance and tracking to assess their defensive layout. Dash to escape, travel form outside. Shapeshifting to break snares (except frost shock and frostbolt ... supposedly supposed to be fixed for months now, but still no luck). I played more midfield roamer while the other druid did the running, so use my mobility to keep up with the other druid, keep them healed. Root the guy on the mount who's chasing the flagrunner, feral charge the other guy to stop them for a few seconds, and bash a 3rd guy who's running after your carrier. Hibernate on druids in forms or shaman in wolf forms is another great stopping tactic. Slow the other group down so your group can come for the kill. As flag carrier, one can hunker down into bear form for extra surviability, especially if supported by healers (8000 bear armor and near 5000 hp unbuffed is nice...)

Rogues - Saps for taking people out of the fight before it starts. They had 3 rogues, which made for a real pain at times. Can make a good initial flag stealer with stealth & dash, though he often handed it off the the shaman or warrior once they got to a safer place. And of course, ambushing the one guy who got separated from the pack, or just plain taking someone down.

Mages - Polymorph annoyance to no end (at least for non druids). Also make a nice initial flag grabber. One mage had a particularly nice tactic of blinking into the flag area, and immediately ice block to let cooldowns happen. Then he'd cancel the iceblock, grab the flag and run and have another blink available soon. On a few occasions outside, he'd iceblock as soon as we came in for killing hits (which drops the flag), and then immediately cancel the iceblock before we could return the flag, grab the it and blink away. Not sure how he did it so quickly. Frost nova snares as well. Typically handed off to shaman or warrior again after getting away with the flag. And of course, hard hitting spells to take people down.

Warlocks - Fear to scatter groups. Curse of Exhaustion to slow people down, and dots as possible. Succubus for charming as well. We kept one on defense to scatter offensive groups, and the other with the roamers.

Warriors - Well geared defensive specced warrior holding the flag with a few healers on him... hard to kill. Mass fear to scatter groups. Charge/Intercept, hamstring to slow people down. And properly geared (and specced), can hit very hard. Arcanite reaper wielding warriors are scary, especially the arms/fury specced ones.

Paladin - Typically ran as a support guy to the offense. Cleanse magic slowing debuffs, Blessing of Freedom on flag runner. Heals as necessary. One stun to use wisely (talent though, I believe?).

Hunters - Great defensive. Tracking. Traps. Concussive shot, scatter shot, wing clip. Nice ranged damage as well to take down those slowed down.

PvP trinkets on 5-minute timers ... used where possible, but typically the game was much too fast paced to make much use of it.

Epic mounts. About half of both teams had them, and for the mobile midfield pack, makes a big difference for running to support offense or defense. If chasing down a druid or shaman runner, the extra speed of a mount is absolutely necessary.

Group formations: 5O/5D is the 'standard' formation, and as mentioned, full 10-man mobile group is common as well, but again, leads to both sides holding the flag. I think that's why we settled on the 7/8 mobile group, leaving 2/3 at the flag. If they come as a 10-man group, our mobile group can meet them along with the defensive. Can take out most if not all of a 5-man offensive group if we run into them, while not leaving our flag room bare, and have enough to push throuhg a 5-man defensive group, or at least enough of a distraction for a stealth runner to get in and out. At one point in the game it did devolve into the 10v10 formation ... we had each others' flags, everyone grouped around to defend it. Should keep it flexible though, have people peel of to help on offense/defense as needed. Coordinating when to do that is left as an exercise to the reader

All in all, great game. The other side pulled their organization together admirably. 1-0 first cap for us. Then 1-1, then down 1-2. Tied at 2-2. At 2:30 in the morning, half our group was saying "we have to get up tomorrow morning, let's quit", and we decided on one more push... druid got their flag just as we broke up a stealth group tryijng for ours. we snared their chasers ... ran for the capture just in the nick of time. And of course, too pumped up to sleep afterwards, oh well...

(Edit: added a few more points to each class which came to me, spelling and grammar issues.)

Excellent post about CTF, I agree on most of your points, but want to expand a bit on a few. most notably the bit on mages as an offencive strike force =D

One of the more efefective flag groups I've been in contained three mages, one for the flag, and two to distract/ set off the frost trap/ wreak havok with the offence. We'd go up to the second or third story where people hardly go, target the defenders, cast ou Mana shields (left down because they draw attention) and charge in. save the frost nova for the run out, and polymorph on the way in, also have to target the earthbind totems that are usually there with fireblast. and use improved counterspell to silence a defending caster. The best part is thatthis can all be done while running full tilt, even the sheep if you have presence of mind.

On defence a frost spec mage is amazing, even with only a few points of permafrost you can run alongside the flag bearer not actually doing damage, but keepig him at a crawl untill your friends show up, or you can blink ahead and sheep him if they are not a shapeshifter.

Mages are also far more durable than most people percieve, as long as you have MP you will survive. use every trick you can to regain MP, from potions, to the conjured mana agate, I went engineering and have a minor recombobulator which gives me ~200 HP and MP. all these can extend the long run with the flag. Or long walk as it usually turns out to be.

I'll chip in with some Warrior theorycrafting. All CTF-specific experience is based off of my leet UT skillz, not Warsong Gulch -.-

My preferred ten-man setup is seven offense, three defense. The idea being that the best defense is a strong offense, but someone can slip past your death squad and steal your flag, so you want some people there to kill that particular spook

As for Warrior skills, it really depends on their talent builds. Each is particularly good at different things.

Protection Warriors would do very well on offense; zip in, AE fear, stun one, silence another. Stun people chasing your flag carrier and silence priests and warlocks to prevent them from getting a Fear off.

Arms Warriors would do pretty much anything very well, but would be better at defense, due to the fact that the 50% healing debuff on the enemy flag carrier would expedite their demise

Fury Warriors would only do well if they had their Blood Guard's boots, bringing their Intercept cooldown down to 15 seconds (vs. 25 seconds for Arms and Protection Warriors), making it pretty easy to stay with the flag runner.

The Equipment Factor

Can be a big big factor. Our lil' guild group of 60's, many who are just starting to collect their blue sets, got torn up many a time by pickup opposing groups with a few players decked out with epic gear, Quel'Serrars, whatnot. A little bit of coordination with the healing and focus firing on their end (easily done with /assist) and they mow right through us... kill off our healers before we kill theirs off, the rest fall soon after...

My tiny bit of CTF strategy. Any form of protection or stealth causes the flag carrier to drop the flag. So one fun way to get the Horde to drop the flag is to have a priest mind control the flag carrier and have a pally drop blessing of protection on the Horde player as soon as the mind control takes hold.

This is lots of fun when it works.

-DC

And is a cheap trick as well. Why? A single engineer paladin can take the flag from the opposing team. Mindcontrol Cap (instant, nondispellable), BoP, pick up the flag. You can't stop it either (Divine shield = immune). You shouldn't rely on this a lot, as it will probably will get fixed. You might say that this is a smart use of class skills... But consider the following strategy.

This is similar to the above - catch an opponent player near the exit gates, and Mindcontrol him with a priest through the gates, so the player exits the CTF arena. This will also drop the flag as well if that player was carrying one. Again, this is completely legal use of skills, right? But it doesn't make it less cheap.

This reminds me of another bug, that allowed flag carriers to be summoned by Warlocks! Again, while it used legal class skills, the result that it produced was unintended. So it was fixed. And so I think will the above two methods as well.

What about shamens? in the level 21-30 bracket they can drop an earthbind totem, shift into their ghostwolf form with the flag, and take off at accelerated speed with being nearly invisable. My opinion is that shape shifting should cause you to drop the flag, like activating a divine shield, of mounting of going invisable. (and they're doing two out of the three with that =P)

-Nefera of Shadow Council

All very good tips. In my experience (Horde), the 7/3 O/D ratio works the best. The job of 3 people on defense is not to stop an incoming 7-10 man zerg, it is to prevent a single person from getting the flag, and to wound an incoming 3-5 man offense force.

When it comes down to it, Attack vs. Defense is basically a matter of managing attacking healers. An attack force without healers is screwed; a much smaller number of players can easily suicide the flag carrier and get the flag back. As long as an attack force contains several healers with adequate mana supply, it is very difficult to kill the flag carrier. Once their healers die or run out of mana, the flag carrier dies in short order.

So the job of a defensive force isn't really to kill all the attackers, just to kill or run OOM all their healers. Rogues, Mages, and Warriors are great at dumping DPS on healers and killing them quickly. Whereas Hunters and Priests are very good at mana draining healers, particularly Pallys/Shamans that don't have a huge mana pool.

It is very important to note that, when in an attacking group, crippling a defending player is much better than killing him. Kill him and he will respawn within seconds with full HP and Mana. Sheep or freeze him somewhere where there's no one to dispel it, and he is taken out of the battle for much longer. Drain a spellcaster's mana and he is out of the battle for an extremely long time. (granted, it is rather difficult to actually drain a defender's mana)

Although Alliance players often complain about the Horde shaman imbalance (which is indeed a -terrible- imbalance at lower levels, when ghost wolf > all), in games between well organized teams, Paladins really give the Alliance a slight edge. It is awfully hard to kill a flag carrier when there is an army of invulnerable healers keeping him alive.

The key in what you said is the balanced teams, which rarely happen.

The other day our balanced team had to face a team made up of mostly shamans, it was very frustrating trying to hunt down packs of ghost wolves (we actually won because they went the 7 O 3D and we grabbed their flag every time they grabbed ours, and they just ran our flag around the field untill they could kill our flag carrier. That left them too far from their return point, and they fell into a routine of running, so I waited at one point and smashed their carrier). I think it's mostly the level range where Shamans are so powerful, which is why I've leveled up to 36 and will try again tonight and see how it goes.

I had'nt had much luck with my paladin, but will try it again with your advice (invincable healer, I like the sound of that).

What about some thoughts on stripping insignia's off corpses. I played some WG for the first time last night, and had a blast. I wondered if I should take the insignia off the corpse, and decided that I only would if the kill was near the horde base. That way, they either have to wait at the GY, or run back, both of which keep the player out for a bit. If you take the insignia off someone in their base, their ghost can get back before the GY timer.

Anyone else's thoughts?

I have not seen, in any battleground, anyone run back and resurrect at their corpse. Doing so returns you to life with under half health and mana, easy gankfodder for rogues, while waiting just a bit gives you a full recharge. Furthermore, after a few deaths, your conventional resurrection timer will be be 5+ minutes, whereas the spirit guides never take longer than 30 seconds to bring you back. I don't consider grabbing insignia to be of any real use, though you can loot a little silver off opposition corpses in Warsong and a whole host of interesting items in Alterac.

Great guide, Brista! Here are some comments on specific items:



Absolutely. So many people don't understand this.



Rogues are OK flag carriers in a pinch, but shouldn't be considered primary flag carriers. It definitely helps if they are specced so that they can sprint twice quickly. However, if there's any opposition around that can snare them with anything, rogues are just too easily taken down.



Yep, druids are just awesomein CTF. Don't forget to mention that while they're being pummeled on, they can switch to bear form and take a real pounding like a warrior (and they can heal themselves somewhat in bear form, too!). This is good to do while your teammates are there to heal you and disrupt the opponents. Then, when the opponents are cleared, it's travel form for the win!



You forgot two of the hunter's best abilities -- scattershot and consussion shot. Those ranged stuns that hunters have are just nasty. And, yeah, hunters make fantastic defenders. Forget hanging out in the flag room (flag room defense is largely pointless). Since a hunter can track people, the hunter can join the group in the middle to help in the general fight. Then, when an opponent or group of opponents breaks off to go for the flag, the hunter can break off to defend much more effectively by hitting and slowing opponents before they get to the flag room. And if an opponent does get the flag, then the hunter can track the person and give running updates to the raid on where the flag carrier is (while at the same time slowing the flag carrier with concussion shots and scattershots -- and maybe even a freeze trap).



Equally important as heals is Dispel Magic. Priests can dispell a lot of crowd control items like polymorph, freezing traps, paladin stun, some fears, frost nova, entangling roots, as well as dispell dots dealt by priests and warlocks. Regarding Psychic Scream (aoe fear), it's not that great in the flag room, actually, because it has a limited range (something non-priests never appreciate). It only works at melee range, so you have to get right next to a person to get it to work and people are usually too spread out to have it work on more than one person at a time unless people are charging right at the priest. I do use it in offensive situations like in the flag room, but mostly to disrupt a single target, like the opponent's healer, while my team is focusing on someone else.

However, Psychic Scream plays a much more devastating role when the priest is escorting the flag carrier. In fact, I would say that flag carrier escort is the most powerful role a priest can play. My preferred escort position is *in front* of the flag carrier. If a teammate grabs the flag when I'm in the middle, I'll ask which direction they're leaving and meet them at that exit and run slightly ahead of him or her. If I'm in a charge into the opponents' base, I'll position myself so that when our designated flag carrier grabs the flag, I will already be in front of the direction we're going to go.

Why in front? First, when more defenders show up to intercept the flag carrier (they ran back to help or rezed at the graveyard), I can immediately run up to them and Psychic Scream to clear the way for the flag carrier. The main goal of the opponents in front of the flag carrier is to slow the flag carrier so that teammates left behind can catch up. If I can prevent them from doing that, then that's a big win. Second, being out front, I'm less in harm's way -- less likely to be stunned, frozen, or otherwise snared -- so I can stay with the flag carrier more easily. Third, if the flag-carrier is faster than me -- a druid in travel form, a rogue sprinting, a shaman in travel form, or a mage blinking -- then by starting out in front, I can escort the flag carrier longer. Finally, while I can Dispel Magic, Renew, and PW:Shield on the run, if I have to Flash Heal to keep the flag carrier alive, I have to stand still to do it. By starting off in front of the flag carrier, I won't get left behind when I have to cast a Flash Heal.

And when I'm well positioned, I can choose to use Psychic Scream at the most devastating moment. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen: Our druid gets the flag and is being pummeled on in bear form by a warrior and a couple of rogues, and the defenders think they just about have him killed. I run up, cast PW:Shield and renew on the druid on the run, and then cast Psychic Scream when I'm on top of them. The rogues and warrior scatter, our druid switches to travel form while I pop a flash heal on him, and the druid zips out of there free and clear. Simply put, Psychic Scream is an amazing flag escort tool, because of opponents (understandable) propensity to bunch up while they try to take out the flag carrier.



The most devastating paladin skill is their ability to dispell just about everything while being invincible themselves (I use the word "skill" loosely here). This is a major advantage to Alliance teams. Horde teams absolutely have to have at least two priests just to make sure they can cover the dispells on various crowd control abilities. Alliance teams on the other hand can walk around with pally's and have all their healing and dispelling taken care of by players who can't be killed. Meanwhile, Horde has to protect their very fragile priests or else see themselves get decimated by all the crowd control and damage spells of the Alliance team. I'm always happy to see paladins actually trying to attack, because their damage is so feeble. If they would just step back into a priest-who-wears-plate role and throw a stun out once in a while, they would be much more effective.

Someone mentioned below that pally's make decent flag carriers. Not really, because they drop the flag when they noob bubble, so that takes away one of the critical skills that pally's use to survive. I would in fact say they are one of the worst flag carriers -- just barely above priests in the scheme of things.



Shamans are definitely well-rounded. They can be OK flag carriers if they get out in the open. Earthbind totems and Frost-shock are certainly effective snares. Also, they have a lot of skills that are good anti-caster skills, so they're good fighters. Plus they can heal. And actually, they can deal quite a lot of damage with their various shocks. They're good all around, and I think a Horde team benefits by having one in their team -- if nothing else than to scare the Alliance, because so many Alliance players have irrational fears when it comes to shamans.



I've seen warriors used as amazing flag carriers. The times I smile the most is when our team captain says, "Forget this, let's power our way through." I especially remember this time when Sabik, a defensive spec warrior who has tons of Molten Core epic items, was on our team. Sabik grabbed the flag, went defensive stance, hit shield wall every time the cooldown wore off, and marched straight from the enemy flag room, down the tunnel, across the field, and straight up our tunnel to cap the flag. Meanwhile, the whole enemy team tried desperately to pound him into submission while our whole team did everything to disrupt them with fears, snares, or just killing them. And of course, the healers on our team kept Sabik healed and dispelled. On IRC after the fight, the opposing Alliance rogues yelled, "OMG! I critted Sabik for 50!" (probably while he had shield wall up, of course). We've used this tactic several times (with other warriors, too), and seen opponents try it against us. Man, those warriors can really take a beating if they have any reasonable support.



Definitely, frost mages in particular are just devastating. You forgot to mention polymorph, which is incredibly powerful. The best team on Tichondrius is the notorius "frost mage team" from Exiled that uses three frost mages who rotate their frost novas to root all melee opponents and also keep three opponents polymorphed, while the rest of the team kills the opponents' healers. That team always plays together and just has the system down. They're really amazing to watch.



I see most hardcore warlocks using felhunter to attack spellcasters -- priests, in particular -- and they can be quite annoying. Obviously, a warlock should use fears as often as possible. Know when to use your dots. If your opponent dispells dots quickly, then don't bother. In fact, I think that's why Alliance warlocks focus on priests so much -- so that after the priest dies, he or she can actually use his or her dots. Until the opposing priests die, do other things to disrupt the other team like using curse of tongues and fear -- and send your felhunter after an opposing priest.




5/5 is OK to use when you're in a pickup raid, because it has the advantage of being easy to organize and understand. Hopefully, the defenders start their defense in front of the base and not in the flag room, or else they'll be in trouble. However, against a well coordinated raid, 5/5 will be run over by larger groups using 10/0 or 8/2.



It will always beat 5/5, because the 10 will always quickly roll any 5. However, I prefer an 8/2 strategy.



Depends on where they're defending. If they're defending the flag room, a team like this can be destroyed quickly. (An aoe fear from a warrior combined with snares from other people holds the defenders down a few seconds. A druid then picks up the flag and is gone before the defence can do anything). If they're defending in front of the base, then, yeah, this could work, although it'd be very boring.

My preferred tactic is:

8/2 Control the Middle

In this configuration, it at first looks like 10/0 in that all ten players quickly run up to the middle to engage the enemy. The difference is that if the opponent has a small group break off to go after your flag, then two people are assigned to pull back and defend, delay, and track the flag, while the other eight people continue with what they're doing. What the other eight people do depends on the situation and what the opponents do. If they opponents are using a 5/5 tactic, then we quickly roll their offensive team and charge their flag (maybe including the two defenders, although they might hang out in the middle just in case an opponent tries to do something funny) to get the quick flag capture and the win. If the opponent is coming with 10/0, then we might send a small one or two person force to capture their flag while the rest fights in the middle and tries to slow down and bust up the oncoming charge.

Basically, the tactic is one of flexibility. In general, the default is to control the middle and take advantage of opportunities that the opponent gives us by either being too aggressive or not aggressive enough. The tactic also has the advantage of keeping an opponent guessing as to what we're going to do. Sometimes, we're only attacking with one or two players. Sometimes, we're charging in with 6-8 players. Sometimes, we have a strong defence. Other times, we chuck it all and brute force take their flag with the intention of meeting and taking down their flag carrier on our return trip. It works very well, but of course, it has a big disadvantage in that it requires quick communication. It's pretty much one that requires most of the team to be on teamspeak.

There are times when it is advantageous for a paladin to "noob bubble" when carrying the flag. I've used it to good effect with a warrior ready to scoop up the flag as it always takes at least a few moments for the horde to switch from trying to hit me to the new warrior target. This also puts me in position to not only heal myself but to heal the warrior through the finish line. Though it begs the question as to why a class skill would be characterized as "noob". We can only use the skills we are given...

All paladins are noobs. If they weren't a noob, they would pick a more challenging class to play. One must understand that this is coming from a Horde perspective. I hear these kinds of comments frequently while playing: "He's level 40, let him go." "He's a paladin." "Oh, kill him then." It's like Horde players find killing paladins a duty just to make sure that paladins know what it is like. So many paladins must be shocked and amazed when death actually happens to them.

Regarding your comment on paladin flag carriers, you just proved my point. The only reason to have a paladin carry the flag is so that he or she can drop the flag for someone else to carry it. Such a switch is pretty dangerous, because it's just as easy for an opponent to hit the flag as well, so this isn't something one wants to do often. Sure, there are desperate times when it's OK for a paladin to pick up a flag -- heck, I've picked up a flag out of desperation, too, even though I think priests are even *worse* flag carriers than paladins. But in general, I'd rank paladins pretty low on the list of flag carriers. They're much better as flag escorts.

Edited - Never post when angry kids.

Then make it even. Let a paladin kill you, so they know what doing damage is like.

Good warlocks do use felhunter. Devouring priest bubble or magic CC's is extremely important, so's spell lock on heals, pet-heal from devour and paranoia's increased stealth detection just gravy.

DoT spam is low priority except against rogues and runners. Never underestimate the usefulness of Rank 1 ICorruption. Useful for nightfall procs and wasting priest time. You generally don't have time to check what rank corruption is being used against you, and every moment dispelling is one not used for heals. Curse of Exhaustion spam takes highest priority when available, then Curse of Shadows/Elements, Tongues for Healers (sometimes), and CoA last.

Good point. I'll use warlock suicide abilities more often.

Paladins past level 45 are so are one of the most challenging classes to play in the game. You don't do damage and can't heal well, either. All due respect, Mongo, but play one to 60 or STFU.

Welcome to alliance, just replace "paladin" with "shaman". *sigh* oh well, guess people will always favour either horde or alliance and continuously bash the other side without trying it out.

Alright, I'm sorry. I should have put an emote or some brackets to indicate that my comments were jests. You have to understand that I've been playing intensively on a PvP server for months now and certain things get ingrained in one's subconcious. Paladins noob bubble. Gnomes should be punted. All night elves should die. It's wierd to play Alliance on Stormrage after all these months playing Horde on Tichondrius. Just today I was killing some skeletons in Duskwood and turned to see two night elves. My heart started racing and I prepared to PW:Shield and SW:Pain. Then I realized I was playing Alliance, I wasn't on a PvP server, and I wasn't playing a priest. The intensity of the game at times elicits a Pavlovian response.

I do actually think that the paladin as a class tends to attract more noob or clueless players to it than other classes. I certainly saw a lot of that in the beta. But I also saw a few players who were actually good at playing the class, and I definitely grew to respect those particular players.

Actually, I would consider shamans to be among the more difficult classes to play well. There are just so many options available to them that it takes a lot of skill to learn which ability to use in the right situations. Of course, the majority of players solve this problem of complexity by ignoring half their skills and totems and therefore get relegated to the "noob" level. But to play a shaman well requires a lot of skill -- and I think more skill than playing most other classes well (yes, including priests).

Anyway, back to the original topic, I realized I forgot to mention one of the nasty skills that rogues have at their disposal: sap. I've seen it used many times to devastating effect. One way would be to solo capture a flag against a solo defender. Just sap the defender, grab the flag, and zip away! Another use is more incidious. If an enemy flag carrier gets away from his or her opponents, he or she will often get out of combat. A rogue can then sap the flag carrier and wait for his or her teammates to catch up. With improved sap, a rogue can even chain sap the flag carrier if the flag carrier's teammates can't find the rogue.

This cracks me up. Play with Sharanna, Triarius, Megwynne, Katrin, or Altrius at your back when you're a healer and then tell me how noobish they are. They'll save a priests ass - this priest's ass, at least - every time.

It's a damn hard class to play. Period. I tried it to level 25 and wasn't enamored because keeping the talents straight is near impossible in my mind, and I'm no dumb bunny. Too many seals, blessings, and other blinking flashy crap to keep straight.

When pallys are played well, they're damn near unstoppable. I'm pretty much THE ONLY class that can stop them with any regularity in duels and pvp thanks to the blessed mana burn. Outside of that? Yeah. They OWN the other classes.

That's not noobish, it's not easy mode. It's hard to play a pally well.

Even though my pally is still young, very young, but playing a pally well is just as complicated as playing a shaman. In fact, because of having to rebless constantly (Skan, I so understand not blessing anyone through the cave run after you've been buffing the whole raid through UBRS yesterday. I was fed up with buffing just a small party yesterday after about a half-hour of play. ), and using the seals and judgements so frequently, I would say in ways they are more complicated. Or at least they take more attention to maintain playing at a high level. If a shaman pops totems as much as paladins judge and seal and bless, no shaman would ever have any mana to heal. Yes, shaman have a lot of options for what totems to place and when and trying to position yourself so the group gets the maximum benefit from the totems (since the totems just land at your feet without your control over placement), but except in PvP and long chain fighting, you won't be switching the totems up as much. You place them at the beginning, refresh as needed. When you take down say, a frost-based enemy mage critter, yeah, put up a different fire totem than the frost resistance one, but it's still nothing like the constant seal, judge, bless, seal, heal that pallies do. Well played paladins never get the credit that they so deserve.

Actually, the primary reason why Pally's are considered noobish and "easy mode" is because of how easily they win duels with so little effort. It doesn't take much skill to win a duel as a paladin. The complaint from other classes is that any schmuck can join the game, start a paladin, and go around thinking they're awesome, because they can win duels against other players. And this very thing happens all too often.



And paladins as a class are so rarely played well. You're looking at the world from the eyes of knowing a few good paladins. I'm surveying the landscape and seeing very few well played paladins. Count yourselves lucky that you know a few of them.

I do. I really do.

Certain classes attract certain types, and those types can be reinforced by stereotype.

Many (not all) rogues are antisocial ganker/ninja types, and since there are so many and they have limited group utility, I think it puts a chip on many of their collective shoulders. I can't find a group, so I have nothing better to do then corpse camp this guy for an hour. This the only instance I've gotten into since lvl 20, so I don't understand loot rules and feel compelled to grab everything I can since I don't know when I'll get another group.

Mages who feel compelled to blaze away with everything they have.

Paladins definatly appeal to people who, well, want to run and hide. If you see those bubbles go up and say "DPS be damned, I gotta reroll and get me some of that", you are probably going to stay a n00b. The good paladins that juggle auras, blessings, seals, and judgements aren't obvious, and are probably in pretty short supply.

And maybe I'm not a very good shamen, but I think they are one of the easier classes. There aren't really that many totems, once you weed out the useless and highly situational ones. War Stomp + Ghost Wolf is almost as good a get out of jail free card as a bubble. NS + Heal is almost as good as Bubble Heal. And in any well balanced group, you spend most of your time twiddling your thumbs and hoping you don't wipe before your ankh timer is up.

Just throwing it out there, in general from hardest to easiest,

Priest - lack of DPS, and very responsible for sucess of group
Warrior - no heals, plus tanking is tough
Mage - lack of HP
Rogue - not much armor, considering you have to close to melee
Warlock - a lot of options, gotta watch the shards
Druid - Shift right and you can do anything
Shaman - Watch your mana and you can do anything
Hunter - pet attack, auto shoot, rinse and repeat with no downtime
Pally - Bless, bubble, heal, if you are not a complete noob you are a solid unexciting performer

Replace "Paladin" with "Shaman" as Pantalaimon said.

More than anything, I think that it simply comes down to the Paladin and Shaman classes being targets of a kind of xenophobia. They're the Enemy embodied.

Honestly, Jerry, did you ever think of "all paladins [as] noobs" back when you played Alliance?

Lots of blanket comments. We'll skip to the list.



Lack of DPS? Sure. Right. I'll say I respect a good priest, but I've met my share of l33t shad0w preests.




Tanking's like riding a bike. Once you learn to do it, hopefully well, it's just a matter of getting back into the groove. Warriors also do a fricken ton of damage.



Mages- my god, their talent trees are awesome. Rogues and mages, best trees in the game. Beautiful for the varied methods of murdering people. A simple goal, a single purpose, three trees to explore it. In massed fighting, they're delivering death from a distance or mage-bombing the enemy as part of a charge. In small group combat, they're able to effect the overall flow with snares, roots, stun effects, and sheer devastation.



Not much armor, but they're not going to be going for the full life warriors. The rogue is looking for the target's that's going to die instantly after that opener. They're seeking out the mages, the priests, the occasional harder class at low life. They bring discord and domination by taking out the most vulnerable targets and escaping. And unless they get unlucky and get spotted, there's not much you can realistically do to ward off that first damning blow.



Warlocks are, honestly, better than mages. Damn good AEs, very nice DDs, brutal DOTs and debuffs. Soulshards are an interesting problem, especially in the fast-paced environment of BGs. Like most of the classes, Warlocks have a bad case of "how does this get improved without breaking it?"



A good Druid is a god. The true jack-of-all-trades class. Goddamn moonfire.



Can't say much on shamans beyond that they need to watch their HP, too. They die quickly. A softer target than paladins, but extremely dangerous (if you're not a fricken hunter).



Hunters are brutal. All the range of mages, with far more damage and far more staying power. Warsong, a good hunter truly shines. Alterac... the faceless melee. Never been hit by that mana draining shot, in Alterac, which surprises me. DOTs and Debuffs into the fray there tend to be lethal. I think most of the people playing there are just around for the brawl. I know I am.



Remarkably accurate after that little episode. I'll say that my paladin's shield is a useful tool, little more. Not many of us who started as paladins expected their endgame role to be what it is. Look at the boards if you want evidence of that. "Run and hide?" The best use of the shield in Alterac is to slam up a hill through enemy fire. Warsong and elsewhere? It's so I can heal and keep fighting. It's not for running. Twelve seconds isn't enough time to run. But it's enough time to heal and pick which ugly face I'd like a swing at.

bingo. The simple way to tell a noob paladin from a non noob one isn't that they use their bubble it's How they use the bubble.

Well, my brief comments were not supposed to be an in depth look at each class. They were supposed to be a quick reason why I put each class in each spot on the list. For the most part you seemed to agree with me about the relative difficulty of each class, but your comments were unclear.

In AV I do see a lot of pallys Bubble on their way in, then stun and AOE once or twice, then bubble and run out.

I guess I'm mostly agreeing with MJ that 1) there are a lot of n00b pallys drawn by the fact that 2) PVE and Dualing, Pallys are relativly easy to play. I do agree with you guys that in a tough instance, a good pally (and there are a few out there) can make a big difference.

Up through around the late 40s, Paladins are a safe class. Easy? No easier than any other. This is not a difficult game. 50+, solo, against PVE content, they're no better than any other class due to limited utility and extremely low dps.

Make it a group situation, PVE, of any size, and it's honestly the players, not the classes.

PvP, and everything's different. A well-geared, well-played paladin can still get his teeth kicked in by an idiot with a rusty dagger and cracked sash if the RNG doesn't roll well for him. The durability of a paladin doesn't matter because players hit far harder than monsters and use stuns, interrupts, and burst damage abilities intelligently.

In group PvP, our lack of ranged damage and inability to close distances quickly or slow opponents (unique amongst the melee centric classes) become glaring weaknesses. So, we become healers or fruitlessly thrash against overwhelming inadequacies.

Actually, yes. Not as intensely, but yes, I've never liked the paladin as a class or the typical player who came to play them. Yes, of course, there are good players who do decide to play the class, but the general average paladin, no, I never liked them. When I played alliance, I always felt the paladin as more of a liability than a help. In the typical 5-man group situation -- say, warrior, priest, mage, rogue, and paladin -- the paladin doesn't tank, the paladin can't dps very well, and the paladin typically doesn't heal very well. Oh, sure, they get their licks in and cast an important heal once in a while or whatever. But, never in months of playing did I ever have an experience where I said, "*Whew!* I'm glad we had a paladin along!"

Mostly, I invited paladins into groups simply because it was so impossible to find a second priest or druid to act as the secondary healer. The groups where we did find a second priest or druid, though, were always much stronger. The best most efficient 5-man group I ever played in was a warrior, 2 mage, 2 priest combination that blew though BRD at the level 55 cap more than 50 times that I went on personally and more than 150 times all told. The people playing the part of the mages and priests rotated, but the tactics were the same. Whenever we had a paladin take over one of the priest's spots, though, it hamstrung the group and we ended up having to go much slower and be less aggressive, because the paladins just couldn't take on any role well.

The biggest job of the paladin that I ever saw in any instance group was to sit out of fights and rez the other four people when they suicided attacked mobs. That is, the other four would attack a boss's minion, knowing that they would wipe but would at least reduce the number of mobs by one for the following fight. (This was before the armor durability penalty. Stopping this tactic was in fact why the armor durability penalty was implemented).

The natural question is then what do I think of shaman? The answer is, I think they're great, and I would love to have them in my groups and would intentionally invite one in many cases over a second priest. The difference between shamans and paladins may simply be player attitude, but whatever the difference is, it's real and it matters. I think the typical paladin sees him or herself wearing plate and being able to wield big weapons, so he or she thinks of themselves as primarily being out front banging on things. However, shamans in general seem to know that their class is a support class. They can do decent dps, but shamans tend to focus more on supporting the group using the right totems at the right time, doing things like interrupting spellcasters, and healing far more often than typical paladins. Hillary's comment that, "Play with Sharanna, Triarius, Megwynne, Katrin, or Altrius at your back when you're a healer and then tell me how noobish they are. They'll save a priests ass - this priest's ass, at least - every time" made me laugh, because I'm confident that if she played with another priest, druid, or yes, shaman, she'd find her ass saved a lot more often by them than by a typical paladin.

But then, PvP comes along, and then all those stupid paladins suddenly get their automatic "I win" buttons. Thinking of smaller group PvP like CTF, the Alliance gets this huge advantage that Horde can't compete with. One needs healing and in particular dispells to function effectively in a group PvP encounter. But in PvP, there is no aggro control, so suddenly all the best priest defenses in having tanks and being able to reduce their aggro go away. In a typical CTF fight in the middle, two rogues and a warrior (Mortal Strike to lower healing by 50% and berserker stanced to be immune to fear) will instantly converge on a priest, killing him or her in 5-8 seconds. This is something that a paladin will never have to deal with. First, it doesn't happen because people have just learned not to bother even trying to kill paladins, so paladins live to heal and dispell all they want. And second, if people did try to kill the paladin, paladins wear plate and can therefore take a lot of punishment, and just when he or she is about to die, suddenly they can noob bubble heal to full and waste the time of the other team. Meanwhile, of course, the Horde's healers and dispellers are dust, because they don't get to cast noob bubbles of their own.

The Horde side can't go without priests or else they couldn't dispell so many crowd control and damage spells, and yet at the same time, the Horde has to expend all kinds of energy protecting very fragile party members. In fact, now that I think about it, I don't know why the Alliance side would bring a priest to a CTF match. A party of three paladins (plus a druid for both healing and flag capturing) would cover all the healing and dispells needed and yet would be practically invulnerable to attack. All the Alliance dps could be focused on the Horde healers without any worry about defending squishy healers of their own. The only challenge the Alliance side would have would be to convince the paladins that they really aren't dps machines and that they should step back and play the role of priest-in-plate.

Seems to me that hybrids are naturally more geared towards soloing tough content(tank - dps - healer all in one) and specialist classes are geared towards parties. So judging a paladin on their group role is failing to see the whole picture



He he, more flamebait, think you're going to get some sharp replies to that one

An advantage of a hybrid is in grouping you fill up the necessary roles much easier. I don't remember ever being in a group with more than one priest unless I'm playing a priest myself. It's much more common for us pickup players to have mage mage warlock or something and be looking for 2 more. A hybrid is a godsend because it means we can have a viable group so much more easily. If the mage mage warlock group recruits a priest then they still need a tank but if the recruit a paladin then either a tank or a healer will do. So while hybrids may not be good for optimal groups they go a long way towards promoting viable groups

Your main is Horde. I'm just wondering if you have experience of well-played paladins (and no I don't have either, but I like my pally and I can certainly see potential for a very useful group role)

You also didn't mention buffs. Paladin + Priest = 2 compatible sets of good buffs, Priest + Priest = PW: Fortitude



I'm very surprised to hear you say this. I find shaman often quite frustrating to play with if I'm on my druid or my priest

Typical pubbie shaman is enhancement windfury shock searing totem zerg monster. They only look to do damage. Their mana pool is empty 10 seconds into the fight. If my priest is there and I run out of mana I can guarantee the shaman will be empty. Shamans are great for groups that blitz through instances to the last boss then wipe and ask "why didn't you heal me?"

I particularly dislike Searing Totem when used by bad players. If they park it in the wrong place it will shoot adds pulling otherwise unaggroed adds into the brawl. It also shoots downwards which sometimes causes a vast train of mobs coming the long way around the dungeon to eat us

Pre-30 all shammies use Rockbiter which makes them huge aggro stealers

The main pro of shammies over pallies when played by idiots is that if you have someone who is simply using their hybrid as a dps monster then shammies are better suited to the role



We've had different experiences. I've played with tons of shamans who think their job is up front banging on things, in fact it's an overwhelming majority




I don't know those players in-game but give me a good pally over a bad priest druid or shaman any day



Actually they're not "I win" buttons they're "I don't lose" buttons. Generally if I die to a pally it's because I'm so pre-occupied with getting them down that I get sloppy. A class with no move speed buffs and nothing that works at over 10 yards is not able to win in pvp unless the opponent gets reckless (short of potion and engineering tricks)

I think actually that's where a lot of the animosity comes from. I do think Rinnhart is correct that calling paladins noobs is essentially xenophobia. But another aspect is that most classes fighting one on one resolve the fight in under a minute. A paladin can make the fight stretch out for ages which actually hurts both players in terms of efficiency over time. So that's the newbie quality - to play a class that is very hard to kill in a game where killing brings rewards and death is trivial.



Utter utter bull

Horde win 80% of matches

Besides give me dispels + purges over dispels + dispels if the team is good



Actually all it takes is persistence. Once the paladin runs out of tricks they're toast. I find paladins not especially difficult to kill in ctf unless someone else is healing them. Your example of 2 rogues and a warrior would absolutely splatter a paladin, probably as fast they kill a priest unless the paladin was lucky and got his bubble off between stuns

Their strengths are balanced pretty well by the shaman's ctf strengths, notably the awesome snares although it does sound to me like your experiences are with more organised teams than the ones I generally face

Even so I think this point is more about naive tactics by players facing paladins plus a certain frustration with trying to play a priest with players who all run off and leave you to die

You say this as if I haven't. My main right now is an undead mage, and I still stand by what I said. I prefer my pallys, slow dps and all.

*A well placed divine intervention
*Blessing of Salvation
*Consecrate to draw aggro OFF of me

For starters.

I've grouped with some other great priests - Flyndar, Vilatra, Onan. I've grouped with druids - Hykim. And I still think a pally is your best back up healer. They take hits, their bag of tricks is bottomless, and if played well, they can be the most integral part of an entire group.

That being said, I honestly don't think this argument's going anywhere. I stand by my opinion, because yes, I *have* played with every class.

Until you've played a paladin for more than 40 levels, or played with a capped one that knows what he's doing, I don't feel you honestly have a whole heck of a lot of right to bash the class. But mebbe that's just me. I hear the pally bashing and I hear the night elf hunter bashing and it makes me shake my head. Simply because a class/race is popular, doesn't mean they're sucktastic.

My 50 cents.

Thanks, Brista, that's exactly what I wanted to say without the language I wanted to use.

With all due respect Mongo you are full of complete and utter crap. You played Alliance in Beta with paladins who didn't get talents until right before beta. What's more the class got a complete overhaul to its skills at the same time. I was capped at Beta end and spent my remaining time in Beta re-learning how to play my class. Fastforward to retail and your decision to go Horde PvP. Since that time your only experience with Paladins has been as advesaries. I believe in this case you are letting your animosity to one of the hardest to kill classes cloud your judgement. I also don't think you have ever made the effort to play a paladin to a sufficient level to see exactly how challenging the class can be to play well. And you don't care to. Instead you would rather make knee-jerk generalizations and insult a player class that you as WoW admin should be fostering. Its sickening.

You say that paladins don't have any role in a group. I call bull#$%&. In a party I can play tank (and believe me I take a helluva beating before I go down). I heal the squishy members of the group and play interceptor when a mob goes after my healers. I add DPS when the RNG is in my favor. I buff, I dispell, and I provide auras. When things go south I can prevent a full wipe of the group. I can put a melee-proof shield around a party member so a heal can land.

In group PvP I heal and dispell more than I fight. I escort the flag bearer, if things go well I can be there to intercept an enemy flag bearer for the DPS'ers to take down. I can do much more than take up space in a party.

I won't argue that Paladins attract more of the n00bs than most classes but Shaman aren't terribly far behind those numbers.