I agree with almost everything you said, just some minor details, will discuss it when I wake up cause I got to sleep now. I am on more than 3600 paladin wins, and I just can't believe what they gave us. Some cards are very good don't get me wrong, but the potential is way higher.
Please post this on Reddit. Maybe even r/CompetitiveWoW for more constructive feedback. Find the best time so both Europe and US will see it.
Paladin has a really awful basic/classic set and they could definitely do a lot of work to improve it like they did with priest. (And I hope they do that next)
I think it makes sense for Paladin to have a lot less combo cards, and be like priest where their cards all work really well within a vacuum. And then most of their card draw being card generation because they just have an overall very strong set of individually powerful cards. I think that also fits the flavour of being "holy".
My post wasn't flaming in the least. It was critical. I even went back and read your OP/rant. All my points stand.
And in libram deck there are 4 draw cards auto include, and 2 cards that refill your hand. Resources are not an issue for paladin ATM.
The only draw cards which are auto includes in Paladin are your two Hand of Adals. Please don't suggest Call to Adventure, that card is garbage. Make one of the best statlines in the game into a Senjin Shieldmasta that doesn't have Taunt is an amazing card, isn't it?
On Lightforged Crusader: let's skip by the problem inherent in Pure (Bombs/Albatross tech utterly ruins it and being forced to use a very narrow and underwhelming card pool) and focus on the card itself, it generates 5 class cards. So you get a bunch of spells and minions. Most of the spells you get from Lightforged don't help. They're usually buffs and Secrets. Buffs don't help swing board states unless you have a token left on board which can attack, Secrets are garbage in general. All the minions in Paladin are slow as fuck. It's a good card to play when your board is ahead but if you fall behind, you can't turn things around with this card unlike the other classes who can pull removals and board clears to pull the board back from a losing position.
The biggest two problems in Paladin right now is lack of good card draw which makes the mini-combos they have useless and inconsistent. Hand of Adal merely replaces itself, it cannot dig for answers. Lay on Hands is too expensive for what it does. Card generation is unreliable and rare; most of it is restricted in ways that make it not very useful, generating tokens for the most part (First Day of School, Bronze Herald, etc) and spell generation (i.e. Vulpera Scoundrel) which in other classes can provide win conditions and removal to flip board states is completely useless because the spell pool is so diluted. This makes it completely impossible to maintain meaningful card advantage.
The second problem is the lack of "fast" damage cards. Warrior, Rogue, Hunter, Mage, Priest, Warlock etc can play Rush minions, destroy cards, damage cards. Paladin gets very little of this (Turalyon is, if I recall, the first Rush card we're getting since Witchwood). When other classes can deal with enemy boards at any time, Paladin has to play your stuff and give up initiative to the opponent to pick and choose their best trades, hope the stuff you played survived, and then try to take advantage of stat manipulation and buffs to get a good trade in. How is a board centric class supposed to maintain board presence without having means to affect the board efficiently? It makes 0 sense.
This expansion was greatly disappointing as Blizzard either seem unwilling or unable to print any cards to alleviate these issues. We got a few good cards like Argent Braggart and Goody-Two Shields, but again no card draw and no way to affect the board outside of solutions that have been tried over and over and have failed (stat sticks and buffs). It's a frustrating class to try and make work.
Make one of the best statlines in the game into a Senjin Shieldmasta that doesn't have Taunt is an amazing card, isn't it?
Wait, what? Using Call to Adventure to pull your 1 drop is pretty. It techs it out fast, it's got a good statline -- 3/5 for 4 is average and because it cycles doesn't really have a card cost, it thins your deck by a card. It could probably have been a 2 mana card, but it's really not that bad.
The biggest issue is the core set. The secrets (and this applies to Hunter and Mage too) have no focus, and the pay off for them is really arbitrary. Compare that to the Rogue Secrets, which have very clear focuses and the punishments are very clear. Your opponent tries to develop a board, you respond with a 2/3 poisonous minion. They try to play spells to gain value, you draw cards. They try to make effective trades, you replace your minions with bigger ones.
Some of the Paladin secrets don't even make sense or your opponent can punish you for even playing them. And then there are super wonky cards like Holy Wrath. Truesilver Champion is weird too. It's an aggressively stated weapon that heals you. Why?
Make one of the best statlines in the game into a Senjin Shieldmasta that doesn't have Taunt is an amazing card, isn't it?
Wait, what? Using Call to Adventure to pull your 1 drop is pretty. It techs it out fast, it's got a good statline -- 3/5 for 4 is average and because it cycles doesn't really have a card cost, it thins your deck by a card. It could probably have been a 2 mana card, but it's really not that bad.
The biggest issue is the core set. The secrets (and this applies to Hunter and Mage too) have no focus, and the pay off for them is really arbitrary. Compare that to the Rogue Secrets, which have very clear focuses and the punishments are very clear. Your opponent tries to develop a board, you respond with a 2/3 poisonous minion. They try to play spells to gain value, you draw cards. They try to make effective trades, you replace your minions with bigger ones.
Some of the Paladin secrets don't even make sense or your opponent can punish you for even playing them. And then there are super wonky cards like Holy Wrath. Truesilver Champion is weird too. It's an aggressively stated weapon that heals you. Why?
It's funny because I wasn't even talking about Call to adventure. I was talking about hammer. It's such an under utilized card for its value. 3 damage face or easy board control with bakes in draw.
It's ironic that player complain the class lacks draw yet refuse to acknowledge the card draw that's there. Some of the nerfs and HOF happened because paladin was the agro draw your deck or combo draw your deck class. The draw nerfs were needed. Maybe with a lighter touch but needed.
What DH got is broken levels of draw and both rogue and paladin got nerfed to make space for it. And honestly it shouldn't be compared, DH is overtuned in that department.
Paladin has always been the token/buff class and libram lives up to that identity. So does murloc agro builds for that matter.
Honestly while paladin is a little wonky it retains an identity and is very playable right now in the current meta and got buffed going into the next expansion. I get the players that play solely paladin wanted some broken legendary but the class didn't need it and received a very good package overall.
Hammer of Wrath is crap at 4 mana, it would see play if it was 3. And so is Call to Adventure. People talked about including it after Aldor Attendant got reworked to 1 mana and it got cut very quickly. If either of them are as good as you guys say, please explain why they doesn't get run in any decks and why even the best players at Legend don't run them.
What's really funny is nothing that I suggested goes outside the boundaries of Paladin identity, yet you're accusing me of wanting cards outside Paladin identity. Plenty of "fast" damage nowadays is minion-based. Just look at Restless Mummy. When Witchwood was first released Paladin got a Rush card along with the other classes, and I believe this is the first expansion post-Witchwood where we've gotten a Rush card that we can use. Paladins have traditionally been about minion combat, Rush uses minions as removal and establishes board at the same time - the mechanics aren't conflicting. Neither is card draw outside Paladin identity, yet you're accusing me of whining and wanting something that shouldn't be available.
0 mana sunwalker and Alura legandaries are broken for paladin, it's going to be one of the strongest classes in the new expansion.
Why? What's the wincon there?
Devout Pupil is basically better (not even strictly) Anubisath Defender. It probably doesn't come down on curve very often, and it's not game winning. High Abbess Alura seems better in pala than priest (less spells that screw you), but it's hardly game winnning. Certainly not broken.
Paladin might continue to be decent, but it's probably still going to be in aggro form due to their lack of consistent card draw and late game win conditions. Could be because Blizzard gives them something new every exp, like a toddler with zero attention span.
It's not that paladin is weak, it is just too straight forward. You can not draw, that leaves 2 options: Aggro or Curve & pray mid-range, that's it. Libram Paladin is quiet viable and strong in my opinion, but man, it is so sloppy. You are forced to play on curve almost perfectly and get the best value out of your cards, since you know, what you see in your hand, that is what has to finish the game. There wont be battle rage topdeck to draw 4, no galakrond to draw 4 (1) cost cards, no skull of guldan refill or overflow, literally nothig. The deck works, I have a 64% winrate over 60 games with Pure pala, but the deck is so binary and has so low flexibility in actual gameplan, that it is sad.
Every architype paladin get lasts for 1 expansion, kinda similar to shaman. Paladin needs a total basic/ classic sett overhaul like priest for sure, out with the trash secrets and the filler garbage (5 mana ds spell lol) and gice interesting options, like those priest cards.
I have not seen any hate against Odd Paladin in ages, and there has been plenty of whine about the Wild meta. I am also not convinced it is any easier to play than the older midrange decks you praise. Quartermaster is still the powerplay, just with even more synergy.
Also, your complain about the Paladin class is the same for every class. The problem is that they can't both plan long-term and introduce frequent quick-fixed in terms of HoF inclusions and nerfs.
Also, what is a "Paladin" exactly? Healer-warleader-tank? The whole concept is pretty ambiguous, so it should be no surprise that defining an identity is difficult, and will naturally go in different directions and step on the toes of other classes.
Hammer of Wrath is crap at 4 mana, it would see play if it was 3. And so is Call to Adventure. People talked about including it after Aldor Attendant got reworked to 1 mana and it got cut very quickly. If either of them are as good as you guys say, please explain why they doesn't get run in any decks and why even the best players at Legend don't run them.
What's really funny is nothing that I suggested goes outside the boundaries of Paladin identity, yet you're accusing me of wanting cards outside Paladin identity. Plenty of "fast" damage nowadays is minion-based. Just look at Restless Mummy. When Witchwood was first released Paladin got a Rush card along with the other classes, and I believe this is the first expansion post-Witchwood where we've gotten a Rush card that we can use. Paladins have traditionally been about minion combat, Rush uses minions as removal and establishes board at the same time - the mechanics aren't conflicting. Neither is card draw outside Paladin identity, yet you're accusing me of whining and wanting something that shouldn't be available.
I legend this season with a homebrew pure libram deck that runs 2 hammers of wrath. After 50+ games I'm over 70% with the deck. So are you saying my winrate would be higher if I dropped them?
Hammer is far from useless.
Also, you have totally misread and made up a wrong interpretation of what I said. No where did I say paladin shouldn't have draw... Draw is also not a class mechanic it's a card game mechanic.
PS rush minions are reactive at best. The problem if any with pali is that it's a tempo class (sometimes combo) and tempo has generally struggled against the hyper agro decks out there or the casino RNG decks that are Mage, Priest and Rogue.
I haven't read all of the op' post yet, but wanted to comment on the number of wins with at the class. At 2,224 ranked wins you have me beat. But yeah, the class is lacking in a number of areas, which is too bad, because paladin has a lot of cool and interesting cards but so far no new archetypes to put them in. With the exception of maybe pure no neutral pally. At least we dont have to deal with odd paladin in standard, which was a drag to both play and play against imo.
I unterstand what you said due to the fact that Paladin has a lot of „unfinished“ archetypes.
But for now, i rly think this is a great expansions for Paladin with some incredible powerful cards wich supports the already viable Libram / Pure Paladin Decks.
You can easily reach Legend with Paladin these days - without playing Murlocs.
Yes our basic/classic set is currently underpowered garbage,remember when tirion was powerhouse ? yes me too,dont saw him in ages.
The fact that pure and libram archetypes got 0 direct support/new cards but instead we got this new clusterfuck of average cards only shows that HS design team either doesnt care or dont have idea,here i just dont understand how 2 promising archetypes which more or less fits paladin identity got ignored. Same with surge of trash legendaries in latest expansions.
I would love to see rework of basic set,and blizz focusing/supporting 1-2 archetypes per year for paladin,last year was clusterfuck trying to support few archetypes and all were meme/below average,hoped it will be different this year.
Er, I mean I agree with the sentiment that Paladin could use some focus, but the class got plenty of new cards that fit with librams and the pure archetype (hey, 14 new paladin cards for pure paladin to use).
I myself got now 5000 Paladin wins and consider myself a Pala main. I am playing wild, not standard, but even in wild you are right. you lack the identity, the fire and the fun. Paladin is nice, I mean there has to be a reason why I main it. And don't mistake me. I love the new quest. I made a very nice controlling reborn deck myself which works pretty decent. But as you said, the class feels clunky. And fuck yeah, no decent card draw at all. I am playing high defensive hardcontroldecks to win against most things. And that's the best I can do as Controldeck in Pala nowadays. But guess what? Every fucking combo deck eats me. Every fucking hardcore aggressive deck eats me. Every value cheating decks freaking eats me. I create my decks myself, I work at them, I make them unique and good. And I am proud of them. BUT I am suffering that much on ladder sometimes I wanna hang myself already. It's so good damn frustrating. The fifth game in follow against quest mage. You already now you are beaten. Then pirate warrior with perfect curve. Then millrouge with 20.000 N'Zoth. It's disgusting. Pala has several problems and thank God, I am not the only retard who does see this. Thank you for this essay my friend. Highly appreciate it. And no matter what let's keep the Paladin flag high in the wind. I will fight with honor!
PS: And don't you start playing this cancer mech or murloc shit. Then you abandoned the way of light. 😉
Paladin has too many problems, the only way is to redo the whole class.
It lacks card draw and card generations. Every other class has it, but it has to be conditional for Paladin to use it, only the purest Paladin can generates the force of light and the only classic card draw is Lay on Hands which is dead alongside with Control Paladin.
The secrets is not worth it for the mana cost, compare to what a 2mana secret from Hunter and Rogue can do and 3mana secret from mage, 1mana secrets from Paladin are trash, the design is also questionable, does Paladin play tricks in combat? I can see this mechanic in Hunter for traps, Rogue for stealthy nature, Mage for strategic spell. It would be perfect in Demon Hunters because they are always prepared and traitors always have a trick up their sleeves. So why Paladin, why?
I can somewhat see that Blizzard wants Paladin to be a recruit/token class with small buffs since the beginning of the game with the Blessings as its core for basic magic cards, Seal of Light, Seal of Champions, Divine Strength, Sand Breath, and librams, but without consistent token synergy in every expansion, this identity just cannot work, to the point that it feels like Druid has better Treant token mechanic more consistent than Paladin recruits because Druid has better card draw, better card generation, better board fill, better board buff with Treant as main theme around it. Isn't buff supposed to be Paladin thing? Paladin would kill for a card like Goru the Mightree to buff the recruits, it's not like Druid isn't capable of refilling the board with treants, but this legendary still see no play simply because there are better cards for Druid.
I don't have problem with the reborn quest, it follows the token identity.
I am not going into Recruit (play from deck) mechanic because it's too dangerous to print, like Call to Arms and Mysterious Challenger, although there are some bad ones like Duel! and the up coming Commencement (I think it is a bad card because Dimensional Ripper and The Boom Reaver are not staple cards in warrior which is a better control class than paladin). However, it also seems like Blizzard is trying to push this mechanic onto Paladin as part of token strategy.
As for AoE, 1 is just enough for aggro/midrange decks. Maybe 1 more for control, which is always Wild Pyro, so it's alright, but kinda boring because it's been THE combo since forever and it's not a class card, so it limits pure Paladin deck.
I love the idea of using Divine Shield as a resource, the mechanic is better as an offensive play anyway.
For Control/Value Paladin identity, I am seeing Lifesteal (aka self heal) in the late expansions and I feel like this is a good direction. The minion design with this mechanic if it has high attack then it must have low health and vice versa for its cost, which is good for a class with small buff like Paladin. Many Paladin class minions stats are like that anyway, especially the legendaries.
Win condition for combo decks, I don't think we'll ever see it other than the Death Knight one and I'm fine with it. Maybe it's because I like to play control and out value opponent rather than drawing the combo pieces to end the game or aggro the face is the place or gamble the chances of turn 5 Anyfin.
What I also would like for Paladin is to have more Aura mechanic, like Stormwind Champion for example. It already exists for Paladin in the form of Murloc and neutral minions synergy, maybe this is the reason why Murlocs are Paladin, by existing together the board is stronger, it doesn't feel right though, still. It looks lazy and it can be solve easily if they just give a tribe tag to silver hand tokens instead, but this would be asking too much because it all tangled up with many existing cards, not just the classic and basic sets.
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I agree with almost everything you said, just some minor details, will discuss it when I wake up cause I got to sleep now. I am on more than 3600 paladin wins, and I just can't believe what they gave us. Some cards are very good don't get me wrong, but the potential is way higher.
Please post this on Reddit. Maybe even r/CompetitiveWoW for more constructive feedback. Find the best time so both Europe and US will see it.
FOR THE HORDE!
Paladin has a really awful basic/classic set and they could definitely do a lot of work to improve it like they did with priest. (And I hope they do that next)
I think it makes sense for Paladin to have a lot less combo cards, and be like priest where their cards all work really well within a vacuum. And then most of their card draw being card generation because they just have an overall very strong set of individually powerful cards. I think that also fits the flavour of being "holy".
The only draw cards which are auto includes in Paladin are your two Hand of Adals. Please don't suggest Call to Adventure, that card is garbage. Make one of the best statlines in the game into a Senjin Shieldmasta that doesn't have Taunt is an amazing card, isn't it?
On Lightforged Crusader: let's skip by the problem inherent in Pure (Bombs/Albatross tech utterly ruins it and being forced to use a very narrow and underwhelming card pool) and focus on the card itself, it generates 5 class cards. So you get a bunch of spells and minions. Most of the spells you get from Lightforged don't help. They're usually buffs and Secrets. Buffs don't help swing board states unless you have a token left on board which can attack, Secrets are garbage in general. All the minions in Paladin are slow as fuck. It's a good card to play when your board is ahead but if you fall behind, you can't turn things around with this card unlike the other classes who can pull removals and board clears to pull the board back from a losing position.
The biggest two problems in Paladin right now is lack of good card draw which makes the mini-combos they have useless and inconsistent. Hand of Adal merely replaces itself, it cannot dig for answers. Lay on Hands is too expensive for what it does. Card generation is unreliable and rare; most of it is restricted in ways that make it not very useful, generating tokens for the most part (First Day of School, Bronze Herald, etc) and spell generation (i.e. Vulpera Scoundrel) which in other classes can provide win conditions and removal to flip board states is completely useless because the spell pool is so diluted. This makes it completely impossible to maintain meaningful card advantage.
The second problem is the lack of "fast" damage cards. Warrior, Rogue, Hunter, Mage, Priest, Warlock etc can play Rush minions, destroy cards, damage cards. Paladin gets very little of this (Turalyon is, if I recall, the first Rush card we're getting since Witchwood). When other classes can deal with enemy boards at any time, Paladin has to play your stuff and give up initiative to the opponent to pick and choose their best trades, hope the stuff you played survived, and then try to take advantage of stat manipulation and buffs to get a good trade in. How is a board centric class supposed to maintain board presence without having means to affect the board efficiently? It makes 0 sense.
This expansion was greatly disappointing as Blizzard either seem unwilling or unable to print any cards to alleviate these issues. We got a few good cards like Argent Braggart and Goody-Two Shields, but again no card draw and no way to affect the board outside of solutions that have been tried over and over and have failed (stat sticks and buffs). It's a frustrating class to try and make work.
Wait, what?
Using Call to Adventure to pull your 1 drop is pretty. It techs it out fast, it's got a good statline -- 3/5 for 4 is average and because it cycles doesn't really have a card cost, it thins your deck by a card.
It could probably have been a 2 mana card, but it's really not that bad.
The biggest issue is the core set. The secrets (and this applies to Hunter and Mage too) have no focus, and the pay off for them is really arbitrary. Compare that to the Rogue Secrets, which have very clear focuses and the punishments are very clear. Your opponent tries to develop a board, you respond with a 2/3 poisonous minion. They try to play spells to gain value, you draw cards. They try to make effective trades, you replace your minions with bigger ones.
Some of the Paladin secrets don't even make sense or your opponent can punish you for even playing them. And then there are super wonky cards like Holy Wrath. Truesilver Champion is weird too. It's an aggressively stated weapon that heals you. Why?
0 mana sunwalker and Alura legandaries are broken for paladin, it's going to be one of the strongest classes in the new expansion.
It's funny because I wasn't even talking about Call to adventure. I was talking about hammer. It's such an under utilized card for its value. 3 damage face or easy board control with bakes in draw.
It's ironic that player complain the class lacks draw yet refuse to acknowledge the card draw that's there. Some of the nerfs and HOF happened because paladin was the agro draw your deck or combo draw your deck class. The draw nerfs were needed. Maybe with a lighter touch but needed.
What DH got is broken levels of draw and both rogue and paladin got nerfed to make space for it. And honestly it shouldn't be compared, DH is overtuned in that department.
Paladin has always been the token/buff class and libram lives up to that identity. So does murloc agro builds for that matter.
Honestly while paladin is a little wonky it retains an identity and is very playable right now in the current meta and got buffed going into the next expansion. I get the players that play solely paladin wanted some broken legendary but the class didn't need it and received a very good package overall.
Hammer of Wrath is crap at 4 mana, it would see play if it was 3. And so is Call to Adventure. People talked about including it after Aldor Attendant got reworked to 1 mana and it got cut very quickly. If either of them are as good as you guys say, please explain why they doesn't get run in any decks and why even the best players at Legend don't run them.
What's really funny is nothing that I suggested goes outside the boundaries of Paladin identity, yet you're accusing me of wanting cards outside Paladin identity. Plenty of "fast" damage nowadays is minion-based. Just look at Restless Mummy. When Witchwood was first released Paladin got a Rush card along with the other classes, and I believe this is the first expansion post-Witchwood where we've gotten a Rush card that we can use. Paladins have traditionally been about minion combat, Rush uses minions as removal and establishes board at the same time - the mechanics aren't conflicting. Neither is card draw outside Paladin identity, yet you're accusing me of whining and wanting something that shouldn't be available.
Why? What's the wincon there?
Devout Pupil is basically better (not even strictly) Anubisath Defender. It probably doesn't come down on curve very often, and it's not game winning. High Abbess Alura seems better in pala than priest (less spells that screw you), but it's hardly game winnning. Certainly not broken.
Paladin might continue to be decent, but it's probably still going to be in aggro form due to their lack of consistent card draw and late game win conditions. Could be because Blizzard gives them something new every exp, like a toddler with zero attention span.
It's not that paladin is weak, it is just too straight forward. You can not draw, that leaves 2 options: Aggro or Curve & pray mid-range, that's it. Libram Paladin is quiet viable and strong in my opinion, but man, it is so sloppy. You are forced to play on curve almost perfectly and get the best value out of your cards, since you know, what you see in your hand, that is what has to finish the game. There wont be battle rage topdeck to draw 4, no galakrond to draw 4 (1) cost cards, no skull of guldan refill or overflow, literally nothig. The deck works, I have a 64% winrate over 60 games with Pure pala, but the deck is so binary and has so low flexibility in actual gameplan, that it is sad.
Every architype paladin get lasts for 1 expansion, kinda similar to shaman. Paladin needs a total basic/ classic sett overhaul like priest for sure, out with the trash secrets and the filler garbage (5 mana ds spell lol) and gice interesting options, like those priest cards.
I have not seen any hate against Odd Paladin in ages, and there has been plenty of whine about the Wild meta. I am also not convinced it is any easier to play than the older midrange decks you praise. Quartermaster is still the powerplay, just with even more synergy.
Also, your complain about the Paladin class is the same for every class. The problem is that they can't both plan long-term and introduce frequent quick-fixed in terms of HoF inclusions and nerfs.
Also, what is a "Paladin" exactly? Healer-warleader-tank? The whole concept is pretty ambiguous, so it should be no surprise that defining an identity is difficult, and will naturally go in different directions and step on the toes of other classes.
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
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I legend this season with a homebrew pure libram deck that runs 2 hammers of wrath. After 50+ games I'm over 70% with the deck. So are you saying my winrate would be higher if I dropped them?
Hammer is far from useless.
Also, you have totally misread and made up a wrong interpretation of what I said. No where did I say paladin shouldn't have draw... Draw is also not a class mechanic it's a card game mechanic.
PS rush minions are reactive at best. The problem if any with pali is that it's a tempo class (sometimes combo) and tempo has generally struggled against the hyper agro decks out there or the casino RNG decks that are Mage, Priest and Rogue.
That doesn't make the class bad.
This post is on point
I haven't read all of the op' post yet, but wanted to comment on the number of wins with at the class. At 2,224 ranked wins you have me beat. But yeah, the class is lacking in a number of areas, which is too bad, because paladin has a lot of cool and interesting cards but so far no new archetypes to put them in. With the exception of maybe pure no neutral pally. At least we dont have to deal with odd paladin in standard, which was a drag to both play and play against imo.
Your are so wrong for bashing those talented people who design those amazing paladin cards...
My dream is to join the paladin card design team and help them during the future expansions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/i0hwb5/reddit_i_need_your_help_i_want_to_join_the/
well written criticism.
I unterstand what you said due to the fact that Paladin has a lot of „unfinished“ archetypes.
But for now, i rly think this is a great expansions for Paladin with some incredible powerful cards wich supports the already viable Libram / Pure Paladin Decks.
You can easily reach Legend with Paladin these days - without playing Murlocs.
But i agree, that Paladin needs more Love.
Yes our basic/classic set is currently underpowered garbage,remember when tirion was powerhouse ? yes me too,dont saw him in ages.
The fact that pure and libram archetypes got 0 direct support/new cards but instead we got this new clusterfuck of average cards only shows that HS design team either doesnt care or dont have idea,here i just dont understand how 2 promising archetypes which more or less fits paladin identity got ignored. Same with surge of trash legendaries in latest expansions.
I would love to see rework of basic set,and blizz focusing/supporting 1-2 archetypes per year for paladin,last year was clusterfuck trying to support few archetypes and all were meme/below average,hoped it will be different this year.
Er, I mean I agree with the sentiment that Paladin could use some focus, but the class got plenty of new cards that fit with librams and the pure archetype (hey, 14 new paladin cards for pure paladin to use).
I myself got now 5000 Paladin wins and consider myself a Pala main. I am playing wild, not standard, but even in wild you are right. you lack the identity, the fire and the fun. Paladin is nice, I mean there has to be a reason why I main it. And don't mistake me. I love the new quest. I made a very nice controlling reborn deck myself which works pretty decent. But as you said, the class feels clunky. And fuck yeah, no decent card draw at all. I am playing high defensive hardcontroldecks to win against most things. And that's the best I can do as Controldeck in Pala nowadays. But guess what? Every fucking combo deck eats me. Every fucking hardcore aggressive deck eats me. Every value cheating decks freaking eats me. I create my decks myself, I work at them, I make them unique and good. And I am proud of them. BUT I am suffering that much on ladder sometimes I wanna hang myself already. It's so good damn frustrating. The fifth game in follow against quest mage. You already now you are beaten. Then pirate warrior with perfect curve. Then millrouge with 20.000 N'Zoth. It's disgusting. Pala has several problems and thank God, I am not the only retard who does see this. Thank you for this essay my friend. Highly appreciate it. And no matter what let's keep the Paladin flag high in the wind. I will fight with honor!
PS: And don't you start playing this cancer mech or murloc shit. Then you abandoned the way of light. 😉
Eines Tages fällt jede Mauer, jede Festung, jede Armee, jeder Wille! Die Frage ist doch, ob man fähig ist, wieder aufzustehen...
3000 wins with a class with no fun decks, I wonder how many you have with the fun ones lol
Paladin has too many problems, the only way is to redo the whole class.
It lacks card draw and card generations. Every other class has it, but it has to be conditional for Paladin to use it, only the purest Paladin can generates the force of light and the only classic card draw is Lay on Hands which is dead alongside with Control Paladin.
The secrets is not worth it for the mana cost, compare to what a 2mana secret from Hunter and Rogue can do and 3mana secret from mage, 1mana secrets from Paladin are trash, the design is also questionable, does Paladin play tricks in combat? I can see this mechanic in Hunter for traps, Rogue for stealthy nature, Mage for strategic spell. It would be perfect in Demon Hunters because they are always prepared and traitors always have a trick up their sleeves. So why Paladin, why?
I can somewhat see that Blizzard wants Paladin to be a recruit/token class with small buffs since the beginning of the game with the Blessings as its core for basic magic cards, Seal of Light, Seal of Champions, Divine Strength, Sand Breath, and librams, but without consistent token synergy in every expansion, this identity just cannot work, to the point that it feels like Druid has better Treant token mechanic more consistent than Paladin recruits because Druid has better card draw, better card generation, better board fill, better board buff with Treant as main theme around it. Isn't buff supposed to be Paladin thing? Paladin would kill for a card like Goru the Mightree to buff the recruits, it's not like Druid isn't capable of refilling the board with treants, but this legendary still see no play simply because there are better cards for Druid.
I don't have problem with the reborn quest, it follows the token identity.
I am not going into Recruit (play from deck) mechanic because it's too dangerous to print, like Call to Arms and Mysterious Challenger, although there are some bad ones like Duel! and the up coming Commencement (I think it is a bad card because Dimensional Ripper and The Boom Reaver are not staple cards in warrior which is a better control class than paladin). However, it also seems like Blizzard is trying to push this mechanic onto Paladin as part of token strategy.
As for AoE, 1 is just enough for aggro/midrange decks. Maybe 1 more for control, which is always Wild Pyro, so it's alright, but kinda boring because it's been THE combo since forever and it's not a class card, so it limits pure Paladin deck.
I love the idea of using Divine Shield as a resource, the mechanic is better as an offensive play anyway.
For Control/Value Paladin identity, I am seeing Lifesteal (aka self heal) in the late expansions and I feel like this is a good direction. The minion design with this mechanic if it has high attack then it must have low health and vice versa for its cost, which is good for a class with small buff like Paladin. Many Paladin class minions stats are like that anyway, especially the legendaries.
Win condition for combo decks, I don't think we'll ever see it other than the Death Knight one and I'm fine with it. Maybe it's because I like to play control and out value opponent rather than drawing the combo pieces to end the game or aggro the face is the place or gamble the chances of turn 5 Anyfin.
What I also would like for Paladin is to have more Aura mechanic, like Stormwind Champion for example. It already exists for Paladin in the form of Murloc and neutral minions synergy, maybe this is the reason why Murlocs are Paladin, by existing together the board is stronger, it doesn't feel right though, still. It looks lazy and it can be solve easily if they just give a tribe tag to silver hand tokens instead, but this would be asking too much because it all tangled up with many existing cards, not just the classic and basic sets.