Life of a Porcupine, Pt. 1

With such mixed views of paladins out there, and very little view from people who seem to know anything about them, I thought I would attempt to help out anyone looking to play a pally. First off I would like to say that this is mainly for Protection Paladins. Other paladin builds have their uses, but they are not what I play. I will touch a little on them all, but later installments will be Protection specific.
There are resources out there to see what prot palies are capable of. Hobbs videos are a great place to see some good work at it. There should be a link over on the side there. He is good, but he doesn't ever really explain what he's doing, so it's a little much for someone new to figure out. So after about 53 lvls of playing around with it, here's what I know. First, the intro.

Paladins are a class not quite like anything else. You are feared, but why? Our melee damage is laughable at best. We wear plate, but so do warriors. It's all in the playing that makes us feared. Here's a few reasons why in my opinion.

Lesson 1 to playing a Paladin: you make everyone else around you awesome. It's true. With the largest assortment of selectable buffs in the game, you get to choose how to influence everyone around you. Make everyone tougher, cast better, have better resists. Make a rogue hit better, a mage regen faster, keep that squishy shaman from pulling too much agro. All of it is possible with just your buffs.

Lesson 2 to playing a Paladin: Make yourself unkillable. With healing spells, heavy armor, a shield, mana-free bandages, and potions a plenty you should be hard to kill anyways. Add in your bubble shield, and it should be easy to figure out. The fact that the later Divine Shield doesn't stop your attacking either should make this a surefire advantage over other classes, who's bubble either absorbs, or redirects. Ours is invulnerability for a period of time. Game over.

Lesson 3 to playing a Paladin: stopping others. As a Blood elf, you already have a racial ability to AE silence all those around you for a few seconds. This is a serious advantage for a pally who doesn't want a mage to move anyways, and who is forced to play as a blood elf anyways on horde. I always see b elf pallies use this ability more than any other b elf. On top of that you have Hammer of Justice which stuns your target for x amount of seconds. Both of these abilities have cool down, but do NOT be afraid to use them ALL the time. Your hammer should always be used. That rogue running away? NOT ANY MORE! that mage about to get a fireball off? NOPE! My biggest recommendation is to turn on target casting bars in your interface so you always know if your target is casting. As a paly you can't stop every spell out these, but you should never let someone just cast away. Just cause you're hard to kill doesn't mean you need to just take it to the chin.

This will end the first segment. These notes should help you get started and see the view point differences for paladin vs. other classes. We can't out damage you, we can't outrun you, or out cast you. But we sure as hell can outlast you.

Tune in next time, when I attempt to handle paladin combat. The weird and original thing it is.