Looking at death knights vs paladin since W3 and onward it has always been death knight that is the mounted warrior. The model for the W3 death knight is Arthas on top of (presumably) Invincible, meanwhile the model for the paladin hero is Uther on top of two very trusty boots.
Looking at the death knights we fight in WoW they are almost always mounted. Baron Rivendete, Attumen the Huntsman, The Four Horsemen, Scourgelord Tyrannus (frost wyrm, but mounted nonetheless), and each and every death knight that guards the courtyard of Icecrown Citadel. The only immediate notable exception to this rule would be Dranosh Saurfang.
Looking at the intro experience death knights are expected to raise their horse before they are even truly considered death knights (i.e. having cleared the intro experience). Meanwhile paladins have historically been rewarded their mount when they have already proven themselves and gone through great effort acquiring it. It doesn’t hold the same significance as it does to death knights.
In regards to the skill as a whole the design is very poor. I would much rather see this as a toggleable skill with a smaller speed boost and a chance to break on damage, letting paladins (or death knights, preferably) stay on their mounts for large portions of the fight, occasionally getting dismounted, and really bring out the “mounted warrior” fantasy.
Of course, should this be a death knight skill, paladins would need some other speed boost. Preferably something that actually allows us to lead the charge and stay in the vanguard, not wheelchair 100y behind everyone else begging them to wait up. It just doesn’t feel very “stalwart protector of the weak” to me…
What’s your opinions on the matter? Do you like the holy pony or would you like to see something different? Have you got other lore sources that reinforce paladins as holy knights on top of their mounts?
That would be amazing! Prot is already inspired by Captain America. Paladins truly need a “hero landing” type skill to really tie up the superhero theme.
Baron is a former paladin, Attumen i am unsure of, The four horsemen is absolutely paladins one is even so strongly in the light he can use holy magic when dead. (even though we know it burns undead to use holy magic) and Scourgelord i do not know.
Arthas is a paladin.
If my memory is correct i might be off death knights are mostly not paladins in life.
But the real reason the Horse fit the paladin is very simple, paladin is a knight.
And we associate knights with horses.
Now i personally think paladin should be on par with a warrior when it comes to movement as they are both considered to be frontline fighters.
How it is done i do not know but the horse we summon is odd because it lasts so short amount of time, now i do think that has to do with game balance but it feels off to me personally.
we do? when has the traditional fantasy paladin ever used a horse? their almost exclusively on foot fighting the undead or unholy horde with shield and sword in hand
WC3 paladins are all on mounts yes that includes Uther.
Shield and sword? have you forgoten about the iconic Ashbringer?
The 2handed hammers Uther and other iconic paladins uses?
i said traditional as in the paladins from a better franchise like D&D if anything wow’s paladin is a pretender they don’t have all the abilties a traditional paladin has like immunity to fear i will however admite lorewise the ashbringer is a slightly better holy avenger
At 4th level - or at any time thereafter - the paladin may
call for his warhorse; this creature is an intelligent heavy
warhorse, with 5 +5 hit dice (5d8 plus 5 hit points), AC 5, and
the speed of a medium warhorse (18"); it will magically
oppear, but only one such animal is available every ten years,
so that if the first is lost the paladin must wait until the end of
the period for another.
Those are some really good points, and tbh I don’t see why one would dismiss the other. Most death knights are former paladins and it would make sense for us both to ride into combat on our war steeds.
I like both the idea of leaping into combat like a holy comet sticking a perfect hero landing, and simply making the holy pony toggleable at a slower speed and possible break on damage (i.e. being dismounted from a bad hit). I feel like the holy comet could play into the superhero fantasy of paladins that Blizz has modeled prot after, and making the mount skill toggleable (like ghost wolf, travel form) would keep us mounted for large portions of the fight.
Ofc I’d love to see both death knights and paladins on top of their respective steeds, undead and living.
Alright well let’s go with 5e and look at the paladin only spells find steed which let’s you summon a horse or pony out of thin air and communicate with it telepathically?
Dose that count?
If not we can look at the super mount 3.5 e paladins get where the mount basically Inerits most of the paladins powers
I understand what you are trying to say but if you are going to use dnd as a reason for paladins not to have mounts please at least check that don’t have mounts first. It literally took me 5 min of googling to pull that point apart and once someone finds a flaw in one part of your argument they are more likely to just disregard the whole thing regardless of how good a point you make.
And you just come across as someone who has no idea what they are talking about. It’s not a good look.
I see why you went with 2e it’s the earliest version if I remember correctly. So it makes sence to bring it up in counter to someone saying they don’t have dnd mounts. but they also had mounts in 3.5e and 5e respectively
You asked when it started and I gave you the answer.
You want the mainstream DnD ? Ok no problem here is the 5th DnD edition called Find Steed :
h_ttps://dndspellslist.com/spells/find-steed
As for warcraft lore. The Paladin appeared in Wracraft II as a mounted knight with a big hammer.
They changed it in War III because each race has one mounted hero class and it was the archmage for the human race.
Seriously I don’t even understand when players claim the horse doesn’t fit the theme of whatever bull sh it they can find just to disregard the horse.
Yes the horse is badly designed for ret paladin but it does fit the lore or paladin rpg fantasy theme.
i see the problem here you seem to think mainstream refers to table top it does not it refers to the most famous games using D&D like Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale etc and no where in those games did paladin have a horse
Isn’t that more the fact that no one really had a horse?
Certainly don’t remember anyone getting a horse in NWN or IWD… thats more a game limitation then something that is based in lore.
Paladins are based on Holy Crusaders / Knights of medieval times, Death Knights are based on same ideal (only turned to evil)… both are tided to the use of horses.
I’d even go as far to add that in my mind the image of a Knight on foot, is of someone who is slow, but still able to hold his own despite being cut off… which is exactly how both the Paladin and DK feel.
Aint the problem mainly Blizz’s refusal to actually add anything to the steed making it more then just a speedbuff for ret? I mean prot gets a better version of it while ret gets the bare minimum. Many different takes on the skill from Diablo that they could import but as i said, they just did the bare minimum while we lost LaotL and emancipate.
Not really a fair trade at all while we also lack CC, repenance talent still has a cast time, our selfhealing and burst aint better then most others while they keep getting more mobility and CC.
it’s to obvious compared to other movement abilities… people see horse in pvp and cc you i miss long arm of the law this idiots have no idea what their doing and keep ruining the class
if anything wow’s paladin is a pretender they don’t have all the abilties a traditional paladin has like immunity to fear