The level cap’s been raised in the WoW Forever beta, so we’re getting closer to release. Instead of continuing on the Undead Paladin I took to the previous beta cap, I started an Undead Warrior.
Why am I torn between these two classes for my “main” after posting about Paladin specifically a couple of times?
Well, it comes down to both class’ Protection specs: these are their tanking specs, and there is a good chance friends will “coerce” me into switching to this spec at some point regardless of class. This happened to me on retail during Wrath of the Lich King: I was perfectly happy playing Retribution Paladin, and yes, while I did read up on Protection as I leveled, eventually a friend asked when I was going to change. I think this was to abuse instant Dungeon Finder queues. It was fine at first, but eventually one particular heroic dungeon mostly turned me off from the game for a while.
I did return around pre-Cataclysm patch and played through the first few months of Cata, tanking as I went, and as the game went along and I played it periodically, I stuck to Protection as my spec on Paladin until very recently. At present moment, while I do have a gearset for Protection, I main Retribution. I also told the friends I was playing with that while I wouldn’t mind tanking leveling dungeons, I would absolutely not tank max level content on Paladin. Period.
Well, Forever is going to be different. In Vanilla the best tank was Warrior, and I understand even in Classic that’s still true, but now it seems Protection Paladin will be viable. On my beta Paladin, I just used Retribution, but I’m definitely open to eventually shifting to Protection, or even using it from the start once the game’s released.
Warrior thus far has been pretty fun, if frustrating due to its relatively lack of self-healing early on. I’m getting fencer vibes out of Overpower and, especially, Revenge. I’ve been using a one-handed sword and shield since I started, and it’s worked well enough.
All this said, I’ll probably play Paladin at launch, simply because the lore of the Forsaken Paladins is so appealing to me. I’ve yet to try out Protection in the beta, simply because I did the Lv20 quest and got [Wolfsbane], so Retribution with this made sense to play at the Level 20 cap.
With the beta ending on the 21st and a full reset happening for the launch, I think I’ll play the Warrior for the rest of it just to see it further than I ever was able to get it both when I tried during The Burning Crusade, and again with Classic proper.
Until next time!