A Divided Community
This site just goes to show that there *is* a divided paladin community. Paladins, for the most part, see themselves as "holy pallies", "ret pallies" or "tankadins". We do not see ourselves as paladins first, who are currently specced prot or ret. To most players, the mechanics of the other trees are foreign in as much as they mostly exist as a novelty which we may occasionally play with.
This is not the case with druids, who are also a dps/tank/healing hybrid (and in fact they have four different options really, with their dps either being ranged or melee). It is certainly not the case with warriors. The only class with a similar divide, though much less exaggerated is the Shaman class, but even then, the difference is far less pronounced than for paladins. Priests, even though they cannot use holy spells in shadow form do not have the community split, hurling abuse and derogatory comments at each other. And of course all of the pure dps classes consider themselves as a "mage" or a "lock" or a "hunter" etc...
Why the divide?
Before I look at what divides the paladin community, I would first like to look at what unites the other hybrid communities.
Druids - The druid community is one that is very united in their push to further their class in totality. This, I would say, is largely down to the mechanics of the class itself. Having different forms for the different roles means that druids are the ultimate hybrid class. In fact I would say that they are the *only* true hybrid class, who can perform, even at a basic level in all of their roles. Moonkin druids still switch to bear form when they are under heavy attack and cat form when they have need for stealth. Bear form druids switch almost effortlessly to a quality dps roll while not tanking. Resto druids also have use of their tanking form (and occasionally offensive dps spells). In short, druids, regardless of shape or size, will at least occasionally use the mechanics of the other specs that are available - even if it is just to pull a mob.
Warriors - Warriors are a united community. They do not have large wars between the specs, except to get a spec buffed for them. This is probably due to a couple of factors. The first thing that springs to mind is that warriors are used to being the kings of tanking - which is the most prestigious spot in the raid. If anything, historically they have had to push to get their dps specs buffed so that some could escape the job of tanking and solo with effectiveness. Warrior tanks can also do a reasonable job of dpsing, and dps warriors a reasonable job of tanking while not specced.
Priests - Priests have in the past found themselves in a situation similar to paladins. They want to dps, but got pigeon-holed into a healing position. But as time went on the Disc and Shadow trees got buffed, which gave priests better pvp and dps viability respectively. Disc and holy priests both use similar mechanics and gear, while shadow priests fill a vital niche - meaning that priests can spec in whatever manner they like and still be in demand. It helps them that if they buff the dps of shadow, it will not cause nerfs in holy, due to shadow form being necessary for a priest to dps seriously, and vice versa with heals.
Shaman - Shaman have historically had a very confused roll. Initially they were designed to be blizzards answer to the paladin. They were initially designed to be able to tank somewhat, though that changed for reasons Blizzard only knows. Still, even though they have three different specs which largely require different gear, shaman really don't bicker amongst themselves and call for nerfs to other trees. I can only assume that this is because resto and enhance shamen both have incredibly important niches in raids, and that because of the mechanics of their dps and healing roles, buffs to one tree are very unlikely to effect the role of the other trees.
Paladin - Our class. Why are we divided as a community? I believe that it comes down to a few things. The things that tend to keep the other hybrids united are several, but revolve around two main principles - having vitally important uses that are *needed* by raids and a seperation of talents which does not result in buffs to one spec overpowering another. This is, I feel, the historical cause of the divide in the paladin community. In most BC content, the only paladin spec which has been neeeded in raids has been holy paladins, regardless of the strength of either of the other two trees. This reflects the pre-BC days, though not as bad - where holy was the *only* spec that was raid viable.
Unfortunately for paladins, blizzard (perhaps rightly, perhaps not) tends to view the paladin class as one that is defined by talents, rather than abilities. This is reflected in the utter lack of baseline abilities that the paladin gets compared to other classes. By comparison, shaman get all bar two totems baseline, windfury weapon enhancement as baseline and the main damaging elemental spells as baseline. Similarly, warriors get a gimped version of devestate baseline and nearly all of their mitigation talents baseline. Sure, they still have to spec for last stand, bloodthirst and mortal strike, but the core abilities are there so that they can effectively perform in an off-roll.
By contrast, paladins really only have, consecration and the seal/judgement system and all the holy spells as baseline. And I think this is largely what the problem is. The core paladin is holy specced by nature - having flash of light, holy light, cleanse and all the blessings baseline. If you were to take one look at an untalented paladin and see their skills, you would immediately pigeonhole them as a healer. To fix this, blizzard had to overpower the abilities and scaling that they gave paladins deep in each tree. Simultaneously, the baseline paladin is the worst offensive class in the game. Other than seals/judgements, consecration and HoJ, nothing that the base paladin has is offensive in nature.
Many paladins rolled a paladin because they liked paladins from previous blizzard games - Warcraft 2 and 3 and Diablo 2. All of these paladins were first and foremost melee fighters, and their healing was something that was important but a sideline (warcrafts) or virtually nonexistant (diablo). Many players hoped for an experience similar to this, but reached the endgame and were forced to be holy. As things improved for the other specs, this lead to a resentment by these holy paladins for the simple fact that they wanted to be a ret/prot pally, but their circumstances wouldn't allow it (i.e. they were required by their guild to heal or they didn't have the gear or time to get the gear needed to be effective). Of those that did move over to prot or ret, many had a severe resentment for all of the time that they were forced holy, and cheered blizzard whenever holy copped a nerf - for the simple reason that it meant they were less likely to be forced into that role.
Even for those who "grew up" as ret or prot faced another challenge, a divide which separates them still today. Playing a ret pally is almost like playing a different class to playing a prot pally. The core mechanics are so different that many players of both specs don't know how the other spec even works, let alone how to play it well.
Even if a player did regularly respec between prot, holy and ret (which most don't), the constant gear changes between the three specs make it all but impossible to have raid viable gear for an offspec. Though this is the same situation the other hybrids face too.
What is being done and what can be done?
Wrath of the Lich King will change several things for our class for the better, which should hopefully unite the class somewhat more. The biggest and best change for class unity is the addition of Shield of the Righteous to the list of baseline talents, and the buffing of baseline Righteous Fury. This will let ret and holy paladins at least offtank and experience some of the prot mechanics.
We still, however, need a few additional things to happen to address the disunity in the paladin community.
1) Holy needs to be a more attractive tree. More interesting mechanics need to be given to avoid the "Flash of Light spam" syndrome that effects the spec. Beacon of light is a start, but there needs to be something to do for holy pallies other than spam flash and then hit the occasional holy light to keep lights grace up. Resto shammies are in many ways like holy pallies, in that their abilities are available baseline to the whole shaman class, but their healing mechanics are so much more interesting and earthshield is a very interesting and fun tool to use. Holy pallies need to be given a better choice than "do I use holy light or flash of light". Shammies, priests and druids all have many different, unique, fun healing spells for different situations. Holy Pallies really don't. If holy pallies got some interesting new mechanics then it would go a long way to easing the resentment that they may have to the people who "get" to spec prot or ret.
2) Paladins need dps abilities baseline. Seal of Command would be a good start (for when prot/holy need to dps). A nerfed version of crusader strike would be lovely (then make the current one "improved crusader strike").
3) Paladins need a better delineation between thier classes while in combat. A prot/ret pally offhealing is functionally no different to a holy pally (a good thing from prots perspective) but the same situation is not carried over as well to the other off-spec roles. Contrasted with druids, shammies or even warriors, paladins are severely gimped when moving to an offspec role. To address this, prot/holy should get higher dps, but with a damage debuff should be automatically built in to righteous fury. With more baseline dps skills this should not be a problem. Alternatively, blizzard could move righteous fury into devotion aura and improve baseline ret aura and concentration aura to improve damage and healing respectively while active (obviously the rest of the raid would be uneffected by those changes, just the pally using it).
4) Paladin itemisation still means that we need three different sets for three different jobs. This is incredibly unfortunate and could have been avoided with some more thought (for example, making the best option for ret and holy pallies the same spellpower plate by automatic stat conversion when ret/conc aura is active).
Summary
This wall of text has gone on far enough. To summarise: make holy interesting, give baseline dps talents, allow gear sharing and make baseline paladins better at all three roles.
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"mana efficiency is for people who aren't tanking enough mobs" - Knaughty
). I have gear for all 3 specs and believe it is very important for prot paladins to have a healing set for fights where they aren't tanking (heailng in good healing gear is certainly more useful than auto attacking to keep a judgement up imo)
