Paladin - General

The Paladin is a tough, mana-using melee and caster hybrid class who supports his teammates through auras, blessings, tanking and healing. Though they aren't as powerful as a Warrior or Rogue in melee or as powerful as a Priest or Druid in healing, they are arguably the strongest support class in the game. Paladins can use various auras to enhance their entire party, and they have a varied selection of useful buffs to aid others in addition to their healing and tanking capabilities. While the Paladin's heals aren't as powerful as those of a Priest, Druid or Shaman, they are very mana-efficient, making them great endurance healers, support healers, and even excellent main healers in well balanced groups. Unlike Priests, Paladins can stand their own in melee, supporting their allies from the front. Paladin can play diverse role in groups, including tank or healer.

Paladins also have several abilities (such as Exorcism, Holy Wrath and Turn Undead) which make them a powerful force when fighting Demon and Undead targets (not including Forsaken undead player characters).

Many non-paladin players do not have a firm grasp on the abilities of the class. Many Paladin spells and abilities are supportive in nature, and a player who chooses a Paladin as "a Warrior that can heal himself" will often be disappointed. With the right talent build and gear, a Paladin can perform extremely well as a healer, a tank, or a DPSer, but it is often difficult to perform all three roles, since all three rely on the same limited pool of mana.

The Paladin's traditional role in PVP, other than passive auras & buffing, has been to: spot heal, cleanse, stun, damage, judge and tank. They are essentially a combat medic. They can withstand lots of punishment and have very good survivability vs. melee classes. However, they don't survive as well against casters such as: Warlocks, Mages and Priests. In addition, Exorcism, Holy Wrath and Turn Undead are useless in PVP except against Warlock's pet demons. Paladin's offensive abilities are very limited, because Blizzard has defined the Paladin's role as being Defensive support. The Paladin's main offensive weapons are others in his group, so he needs to keep his group alive in order to be effective. With the advent of the 2.0 talent changes, and Crusader Strike, however, Paladins have become much more offensively enabled since their damage output cannot be completely interrupted by a counterspell or a kick.

The Paladin's main role in PVE Raiding, however, focuses primarily on healing and off-tanking, as this class is only one of four that can continuously heal in combat, and are great at managing multiple mobs. Since the Paladin has some of the most mana-efficient and low-threat healing spells in the game, it is not uncommon for the raid leaders to assign the paladins to "float heal" the entire raid as their quick-casting heals help delay death long enough for the slower, more powerful heals of Priests and Druids to land on their target(though this may change for non-Holy speced Paladins in the Burning Crusade, as HoT spells will stack). The Paladin's multiple defensive capabilities usually keeps them alive in the raid and are among the last to fall in the event of a wipe.

Races

The Paladin class can be played by the following races:

	Alliance
	Dwarves
	Humans
	Draenei (Draenei are not playable unless you own The Burning Crusade expansion)
	Horde
	Blood Elves (Blood Elves are not playable unless you own The Burning Crusade expansion)
The order Blood Elf Paladins belong to is the Blood Knights, much like the Knights of the Silver Hand for the Alliance.