pallies were hated back in EQ since launch...crap dps, originally had crap agro, stealing gear from clerics and real tanks at the same time (OOOOH it has wis.  OOOOOH that one has STR....I'm rolling for both!!!!!).  Most of the players tended to RP thier toons as arrogant shits (around others who didn't rp).  They got better when the anti-undead AA's were added and the stuns were beefed up, but the damage was done...then they started taking tanking jobs from the warriors who couldn't compete with the stun agro and how easy they made the cleric's job (hey, it's stunlocked and not hitting you, nap time).  Plus, anyone who was guilded with a paly wanted to kill them because of the epic quest they dragged thier guilds out to.   Can only stomach raising Vox and Naggy so many times :P

WoW: Palies were crap until they got the FOTM treatment in spades so they were a waste of group slots.  Now most of the hatred is towards Retribution pallies....easy mode characters with insane dps that takes 3 buttons to play (yeah, I have one, they're the easiest one button win macro ever).  Also Bliz beefed up the agro on tanking paladins which makes them seem better at agro then any other tank....they're not, the other classes actually have to work for agro :P

WoW Paladin - You get to wear whatever you want(plate after 40), got good heals, got a defense bubble so you can heal yourself back to full, can use heavy weaponry, can cast fast, many times out heal priests, out dps rogues, and out tank warriors, all at the same time. Its the ultimate class!

Originally posted by tro44_1

I notice that there is a lot of hate towards Paladin classes in MMORPGs. My point of view of this, stem back to Warhammer Beta. Whenever somebody compared a Warrior-Priest to the Paladin archtype, people would yell "Go back to WoW" and other things such as "Warrior-Priest are not Healbot". Was DnD Paladin a Healbot? Was WC2 Paladin a Healbot? Was WoW's Paladin a Healbot (Yes). does all Paladin classes have to be Healbots?

When somebody mentioned the ideas of a Paladin class for Guild Wars 2, I noticed that most people hate that idea because of the name alone. Many prefer Templar class title.  Many of the same haters of the idea of a Paladin class, accept Templar class ideas, but wouldnt that be the same thing? Holy Warrior/ Holy Knight even WoW's lore has Templars

Which made me wonder,, Why do people hate Paladin Archtype so much? Everywhere I go, the hate always get dirrected to WoW. Even though "IMHO" I may Be Wrong, But WoW didnt invent the Paladin class and archtype.  I may be wrong, but still, this class is in other games, and also plays differently in those games as well, with their own unique mechanics.

 

As my sig shows. I like playing Paladin archtype classes. So why so much hate from the mmorpg community?

I don't hate Paladins. I hate the concept that only "good" deities have them, which is the prevailing way they are implemented into games. Neutral and "evil" gods have holy champions as well. A warrior who has a great deal of faith in his/her god is a Paladin, be they "good, neutral or evil".

Originally posted by tro44_1

Which made me wonder,, Why do people hate Paladin Archtype so much? Everywhere I go, the hate always get dirrected to WoW. Even though "IMHO" I may Be Wrong, But WoW didnt invent the Paladin class and archtype.  I may be wrong, but still, this class is in other games, and also plays differently in those games as well, with their own unique mechanics.

People don't hate the archetype, they hate the NAME Paladin. Most people's only exposure to a class named Paladin is from WoW.

Paladins in WoW are hated so much because they have damage immunity spells.  While shielded, they can hearthstone somewhere safe to avoid combat or heal themselves/others.  They're one of the most hated PvP classes because of this,  they usually wait til the last second to cast their divine shield, because its instant cast, uninterruptable.  This prevents their death, lets them heal and really frustrates the opposing players that thought the paladin was going to die in the next hit.

So when you're talking about a holy warrior, don't say paladin.  The WoW paladin has alot of the features of a DnD paladin:  anti-undead, healing, special mount, aura's, lay on hands, etc.  But they also have some other features that make them stand out as an annoyance to other players in PvP,  namely damage immunity on themselves (or others).   All the hate comes from people's experience with other players who chose paladin and PvP.

 Normally I don't jump on the WoWbash wagon... but yes WoW did ruin the Paladin ideals, although when D&D went 3.0(i think around the time WotC bought them out?) when all races could have a "paladin" and the IP went downhill from there.

Ok, granted it's their IP of a paladin... it's their world they can do whatever they want. But here's the problem...

WoW = the game almost every MMO'er has played, and the minority that haven't have heard enough about it. WoW has set the bar for every class name that it uses. I stopped grouping and 5-manning when parties no longer wanted priests in favor of heal-spec'd pallys. Personally it angered me. In no way, shape or form, should a hybrid class be able to outperform or be more viable than a pure class in their specific duty. FFS even EQ got that right from the beginning. KNOW YOUR ROLE! But now that WoW has bastardized the ideas of what "class" means, from here on people will bitch about balance and being like "how it originally was, aka WoW".

Paladin is supposed to be a hybrid class of warrior and healer as far as RPG's are concerned. I mean call it whatever... templar, jiggalo, whatever... a hybrid class that combines warrior and healer, but not as good as the pure classes. The hybrid class is supposed to borrow from both pure classes and have it's own "niche" to fill with it's own unique abilities, but again not robbing from other classes their viability. The WoW Paladin has done this to the Priest.

p.s. As far as that goddamned "pally bubble of immunity"... why the fuck would a god give their champions of war and a "oh shit save me" force field? You trained to kill, so go out there and do it, or die. Give the "oh shit save me" bubble to the priests... you know... the ones who are moist and chewy in their sackcloth armor when they get aggro.

I've always loved playing Paladins in single player RPG's as well as MMORPG's like DAOC.

Just not in WOW because they bastardized the class so much from its more traditional role.

Originally posted by Ibluerate

I played a Paladin in WoW, level 80 to.

Everytime I killed someone they'd whisper me.

You're a Paladin, you're OP, go play a difficult class noob.

And that's when I'd start camping/laughing at them.

Yes, I'm a terrible person, and yes I love being terrible

So every time you killed someone, they could message you via /tell even though you can't whisper to the other side? Yes you're a terrible person, and a terrible liar as well.

The hatred of the paladin/holy warrior archetype is not exclusive to MMO's.  Anyone who has played Dungeons and Dragons long enough can likely share a story or two about an instance of a paladin being put in an unfair situation simply due to his class  ("You encounter a band of zombie children! If you kill them, you become evil.  If you dont, you die!") 

The point is, I believe there is a certain type of person who is predisposed to hate anything characterized as 'good' or 'moral', usually out of a rather poorly conceived sense of rebellion.

Originally posted by Lansid

Originally posted by Ibluerate

I played a Paladin in WoW, level 80 to.

Everytime I killed someone they'd whisper me.

You're a Paladin, you're OP, go play a difficult class noob.

And that's when I'd start camping/laughing at them.

Yes, I'm a terrible person, and yes I love being terrible

So every time you killed someone, they could message you via /tell even though you can't whisper to the other side? Yes you're a terrible person, and a terrible liar as well.

Oooh....

Caught me. :'P

Although I did camp them.

Originally posted by tro44_1

Which made me wonder,, Why do people hate Paladin Archtype so much? Everywhere I go, the hate always get dirrected to WoW. Even though "IMHO" I may Be Wrong, But WoW didnt invent the Paladin class and archtype.  I may be wrong, but still, this class is in other games, and also plays differently in those games as well, with their own unique mechanics.

 

As my sig shows. I like playing Paladin archtype classes. So why so much hate from the mmorpg community?

you are correct, WOW didn't invent the Paladin

or anything really for that matter

The bias against Paladins started in EQ1, then continued on with WoW.  Paladins in these MMO's often are not good enough to be top tier tanks, not good enough to be pure healers, and they always offer really really bad dps.  Paladins in WoW was improved on after several years.  Much like druids in EQ1 & WoW, they were also disliked by groups until SOE & Blizzard made druids into good healers.  But both paladins and druids are always viewed as these jack of all trades classes but master of none...and this isn't even mentioning the very bad dps output from both classes usually.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Kyleran

I've always loved playing Paladins in single player RPG's as well as MMORPG's like DAOC.

Just not in WOW because they bastardized the class so much from its more traditional role.

 

 

That's because you quitted WoW before the retribution Paladin became very usefull as a DPS class.

Played right these days in WOW, the Retri Paladin can do very high damage output and give dramatic overall healing to all around him. The more damage, the more overheals he does. I did the test today on an heroic dungeon: 2 palas supported the main tank, on mobs I didn't even intervene as a healer. The 2 retri Paladins topped the tank with haunting down the mobs.

That's the arche type of a Paladin, but - as always - you didn't experience this, as it was introduced in Oct 2008, with the last patch before WotLK.

And still you want to publish ....about a game in which you  no longer have a clue.

Pallies are still ower on the dps totem pole. Take 10 players of equal skill and gear  and the pally will still be mid pack. Healing wise they aren't very good raid healers but are amazing mt and ot healers. Tanking on the other hand is where they really shine. Amazing damage reduction and threat.

I think it has to do with the strict code that paladins follow in AD&D, Most paladin players I have dealt with use that code to piss off their party and eventually end up dead because no one helps them in a pointless fight, or the party just simply kills them.

Paladins are supposed to be unwavering beacons of good. Sure that can be great, but in a fantasy game that is about teamwork and options....when someone puts their own values above the party...well it is annoying.

Paladins and the people who tend to play them often do this.

That is the beginning of the hatred for a lot of people.

Just my 2 cents

Originally posted by Axehilt

Paladins aren't (just) healbots in WOW anymore for what it's worth. Although I think it's tragic that they ... were relegated to that... Warrior Priests (WAR) are quite a bit different than Paladins ... the fact that they had hybrid healing classes who healed as a result of meleeing was one of WAR's big pluses for me.  That's the type of stuff I've long suggested for Shamans/Paladins in WOW....

I'd agree with you there Axehilt. For all the problems WAR may have had (and FWIW I got my share of fun out of it, so I'm not complaining too much there), playing a Warrior Priest was what I'd refer to as a 'lightbulb' moment - it felt exactly how a Holy Warrior should work, so much better than the easy method of just handing out a mana/spell points/whatever-you-want-to-call-it bar. Don't prance around at the back, God gave you a big sword and very heavy armour for a reason...

On the tabletop, however... yeeeeeahhh, I've seen more problems and drama caused over exactly how to interpret in-game 'moral codes' than possibly any other single issue over the last... 20+ years (my god, really that long???). Of course in 90%+ of those cases it seems to be that the G/DM and the player have never actually sat down and discussed what their interpretation of the code is and how they can reach a compromise - Sir Smitesalot in the game reality is not going to not know how his Higher Power interprets different situations, but all too often I've seen a GM ambush a player (the ever popular "hahaha, the innkeeper was secretly evil, you fall for buying a pint" springs to mind - ok, exaggerated for parody, but not by much sometimes!) and severely screw him over for what often amounts to little more than a need to expel some teen angst and have a good guy take a tumble.

Originally posted by Loricane

The hatred of the paladin/holy warrior archetype is not exclusive to MMO's.  Anyone who has played Dungeons and Dragons long enough can likely share a story or two about an instance of a paladin being put in an unfair situation simply due to his class  ("You encounter a band of zombie children! If you kill them, you become evil.  If you dont, you die!") 

The point is, I believe there is a certain type of person who is predisposed to hate anything characterized as 'good' or 'moral', usually out of a rather poorly conceived sense of rebellion.

Actually, a  D&D paladin would have no problem dealing with undead children as theyre already dead (soulless) and if anything, would be encouraged to put their bodies to rest. A common misconception is that pallys couldnt act in anything but a lawful good manner but alignment was a complex mechanic. I do get your point tho, and youre absolutely right, it was morally ambiguous situations that posed a challenge for pallys. The classic example would be a pally compelled to keep his word when he knew full well the results would bring harm to innocent people. A mediocre player would simply break his oath and do a couple of atonement quest afterwards. But a good roleplayer would find a way to twist his oath and both keep his word and do good.

Its the lack of complex quests and involved writing that have made the pally such a mediocre class in MMOs. In D&D a pally would loose his abilities and become just a warrior if he fell from grace. In games like WOW they can become griefers with impunity. Another key difference is Paladins are suposed to be humble which made them well liked in pnp games. It wasnt  lecturing other chars that they got their holy avenger swords.

Paladin is really a somewhat meaningless class for anyone but roleplayers, and perhaps it should be treated more like a status available to fighters or knight classes.

I don't have a problem with paladins in most games but I do have a problem with them in WoW. Tell me why a plate wearing/healing/ high defense class get's to have high dps also... it just doesn't make sense. Whoever had the idea to turn WoW paladins into face rollers deluxe needs to be fired twice. YOU'RE FIRED... hehe jk, no you're not... jk, YOU'RE FIRED!

I've always hated Paladins.  Long before WOW or any MMO.  Because I don't like holy warriors.  Same goes for Templars and Crusaders.  Priests too for that matter.  I will never play those classes.

Well the current view of Paladins are very different than what they were historically (at least in literature). Paladins are basically knights (Charlamagne, King Arthur) who had a strict code of ethics. RPG games (AD&D) changed that into a holy warrior pretty much. Games like WoW have further changed the view of Paladins.

Now as far as hatred toward the class in games? I haven't really seen that. Are you sure you aren't being a bit paranoid about it?

FFXI had one of the best roles for Paladin, and they were useful, and could be a great ally. They were basically a Warrior with a limited mana pool with access to some White Mage skills (not all, of course). One of the best parts was that Paladins in FFXI were intended as tanks. The small mana pool meant that the RDM had to keep Refresh on the pally, and the pally needed to consolidate his mana use and spell casting. Generally, the Paladin's biggest spell was Flash, which I think debuffed the enemy, as well as causing greatly increased threat.

In FFXI, there was no mistaking the Paladins role in groups. They were meat shields. In other games, the Paladin has become more of a support class, rather than master of a single task.  This why SE and FFXI were great. They developed meaningful roles for all classes. There was barely any class that wouldn't be useful. Here's to a bright future for FFXIV

Originally posted by arenasb

Well the current view of Paladins are very different than what they were historically (at least in literature). Paladins are basically knights (Charlamagne, King Arthur) who had a strict code of ethics. RPG games (AD&D) changed that into a holy warrior pretty much. Games like WoW have further changed the view of Paladins.

Now as far as hatred toward the class in games? I haven't really seen that. Are you sure you aren't being a bit paranoid about it?

I would challenge that. Paladins in the chansons de geste would be associated with knights fighting against muslim invaders (you brought up Charlemagne) and later on in the crusades. The rpg archetype was certainly inspired in religious orders like the Knights Templar. Many chivalric traditions were meant to emphasize christian values and this is suported by literature. Le Morte dArthur certainly ties King Arthurs myth to the search for the holy grail.

I would support the opposing view, that as the more secularized society of the west evolved, the figure of the knight errant slowly overcame the deep conection of knights to religion in works like La Chanson de Roland and Amadis de Gaula in favor of more realist portrayals as in Ivanhoe and Don Quixote. It shouldnt be forgotten that even these late knights were deeply religious.

D&D was deeply influenced by the works of Tolkien and other fantasy authors with a neoromantic view of pre-christian pagan myths, and so the knight errant was divorced from religion in order to better match this lore. The ranger class is a good example of this adoption of the Tolkien ethos. The figure of the Paladin however rounded up the AD&D 2nd Eds warriors by, ironically, reintroducing the historical knight as portrayed in western medieval tradition.

Paladins and Holy warriors are meant to symbolize the ancient belief that God would grant victory to the righteous. Trial by combat was historically suported by the English legal tradition for this reason. Chivalric values are very important to the evolution of western ethic systems, although many of the actual knights themselves (those who fought the reconquista and the crusades) were certainly biggots and very likely religious fanatics.