Look, I love the idea of a Paladin or a Crusader. A gilded warrior with a strong moral code and a mission to accomplish above all, whether that’s to protect the innocent or storm a city far away.
I appreciate what the Paladin is in Warcraft 2 and 3; basically a Knight which has been upgraded. It gains a few magical abilities, becomes imbued by light and (in the case of WC2) gains glowing eyes.
The state of the Paladin class in 2023, though, is so over the top.
Everything is yellow, yellow, and yellow.
Every ability explodes in light.
You have freaking wings half the time. WINGS. YELLOW ONES.
Instead, I wish they toned the class way, way down.
Have it be like a Warrior (only less angry about things), but with a few nifty perks. Seals to empower your warhammer or shield, or why not ancient rites to read from your holy libram, which could heal your allies or inflict damage upon the enemy. Definitely auras.
Small, low-key effects, with more emphasis instead placed on the plated armour, the sturdy shield, the hammer, the steed, the libram, and so on.
Let’s do it, Paladin 2.0!
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I miss when Warcraft was more medieval than over the top fantasy too.
Great theme for the Humans in Warcraft 3.
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I love what you are saying, the class needs another look from both mechanics and the class fantasy.
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I love that music. The newer Arathi Warfront Alliance music is fantasic as well.
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Yeah, I definitely agree. It’s just one of those classes that got out of hand over time. More flashy effects, more spells, more yellow! I think Blizzard somewhere along the way started to believe that the class fantasy behind Paladins was Captain America or something. When really, it’s just WC3 Uther.
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You should ask for Glyph modifiers! (but a very very good post Ithilun) The best solution to this an to adress the whole “Medival” aspect of classes in World of warcraft, I think there could be a very easy fix to this by having more costimizations on abilities… For example Warrior has gotten their excute changed to Condemn visual. So basically execute sound effect an attack animation (icon an classic) is now gone an replaced. I suggest more costimization through glyph/trainers, just like you can costimize how you blink as a mage from the mage trainers. Would be a good change
No paladins are fine how we are maybe just buff us to top tho 
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Warcraft 3 has the best soundtracks.
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Paladins have been very flashy ever since TBC. Doubt it’s going to change any time soon.
That’s what makes a Paladin a Paladin. Using the Light.
So basically you want Paladins to become Warriors, just without anger-issues as gameplay mechanic.
In other words you want to “delete Paladins, replace them with Warriors”.
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I’ve also been confused with Blizzards approach to them with regards to the libram.
In every piece of Paladin imagery, they have a libram either in hand or attached to their belt, yet in game it’s not even present.
The only time they ever bothered was in Legion with the artifact weaponry.
Why do Holy tanks have a shield like protection? Surely they should be using a Libram as an offhand.
Why do we not read from it for certain spells, like healing or buffing?
Why not have them kneel and read from a libram to create a shield for the group?
Well, in what do you want it to explode, in darkness? 
It feels you rather want to play a warrior. Maybe if you transm it in a more “paladihish” style this will be the best fit for you?
I wanted to come into this thread with the words “I wish my feral was more druid, how can you wish your paladin was less paladin? Different classes should be different”
But upon reading your actual post, OP, I came to realise the correctness of your statement.
Because your statement is not about class identity alone, your statement is about visual noise. It’s about a class identity being so over-pronounced that it starts to deviate from the class fantasy because of this visual noise.
When every single ability results in a blaze of particles it becomes exceedingly difficult to see what is really happening and even more difficult to understand how to react to it. It also doesn’t really make you feel particularly powerful, either. It’s just… noise.
And the problem is, if you try to tone it down not only will it not tone it down for you, but it’ll tone it down for everybody else so you can’t see “what isn’t significant”, as if Blizzard have proven themselves to have any friggin’ clue what is and isn’t significant.
It’s essentially saying “the game is unreadable and the graphics card can’t handle the noise. Here, let us help your graphics card and keep the game unreadable” I’m like… bruh?
WoW’s visual effects team during Legion did something truly, truly awful. I understand that spells were looking a little old, but they made the game appear significantly less readable and this problem is only getting worse because the combat mechanics guys aren’t communicating probably with the FX guys, and they need to completely rethink it. What they have done is really bad.
Class skins next expansion please.
i think they need to make 4th spec - offensive light caster and make ret less light goes wooosh but more hit stuff with big hammer.
Shockadins always were cool. Pity they barely ever worked and whenever they did Blizzard was swift to pull them back to earth.
that is why they need a whole new spec else it might create problems for healer balance
I wish that my sweets werent sweet cries in being fat
With holy magic. Thats the whole Paladin thing. A Knight with holy powers. Holy powers are religious. So you practically get a holy knight.
Over the years it was focused more on the holy knight aspect for this archetype, rather than the fighter aspect, which we already have an archetype for.
I imagine you mean you would rather have the DS3 Herald as a class fantasy?
Sounds fun to me
Our thing is being flashy, we are all about the light. We wield it.
It sounds like you want a Warrior.
I suspect more a commander or noble knight that buffs himself with divine power but in a subtle or charismatic way. Less particles more heroism.
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