On the topic of undead paladins, there were also Reanimated Crusaders in early icecrown leveling. They used Avenger’s Shield and Unholy Light abilities, clearly implying they are still paladins in some capacity.
I had a clear memory of them using a forsaken model dressed in grand marshal pvp set, but now they apparently use generic wotlk vrykul skeleton model with bits of season 5(?) Paladin pvp set. Idk if they were changed or i misremembered.
do you think my bladder is pressurised? you buffoon. you child. you have just caused mildly painful swelling
They were always skeletons.
Regarding undead paladins, I wouldn’t consider them an example of ‘lore dilution.’ Their society does have some connection to Light worship, even if it’s something that they once did in their former lives.
Now with Alonsus Faol present in the Ruins of Lordaeron and with Calia Menethil serving as a part of the Desolate Council, the undead have a stronger connection to the Light than a lot of other paladin-lacking races.
They’d certainly make more sense than a nightborne paladin, for example, as that race has no prior lore connecting them to any form of Light worship. Nightborne paladins would be a much stronger example of ‘lore dilution.’
On the other hand, if someone likes paladins because of the strong correlation between the Church of the Holy Light and Christianity and fantasy paladins and Christian chivalric orders, but doesn’t want that imagery to be diluted or subverted by allowing unholy abominations like the undead to become paladins, that’s an entirely valid (if entirely subjective) stance to take.
that stance died 17 years ago when draenei and blood elf paladins were introduced
(and is extremely sus, to put it mildly)
Though it isn’t a stance I personally hold, I can imagine a response to that.
While the inclusion of paladins of those races was a bad thing and a dilution of the supposed Christian knight fantasy of the paladin class, they don’t want it to be diluted even further by even more unsuitable races being made into paladins. After all, there’s still people who claim to this day that tauren paladins and Zandalari paladins should have never been a thing.
Look, I figured it had thawed enough to open safely.
For me it’s personally a bit of a boomer thing, I don’t even like Blood Knights very much and I can tolerate Vindicators as a different sect of Paladin blessed by their own version of God(s). I dislike anything that deviates from what the original intent, role and premise of a Paladin was in Warcraft; a warrior held to the absolute highest moral standard and, for following such a ruling, is permitted the blessings of the Church and Holy Light to the greatest-degree possible for a mortal.
These others things like Sunwalkers, Prelates, aren’t Paladins, they’re much closer to Warriors using a few trinkets for Light effects to me; made 10x worse by all of them whipping out the golden Holy Light of Humanity and their giant bibles whenever they cast any Paladin-related spells. They have none of the burden, none of the intrigue and none of the moral-weighing that makes Paladin such a defining class across all spectrums of fantasy, they just…exist.
Paladin has very specific connotations to me, and a very specific premise and part of the original tragedy of being Undead was that it deprived you from a full connection to the Holy Light even if you were pious it would burn your flesh for your spirit not being whole and tainted by Shadow and Death, so to grant someone like that a boon that is essentially Lightforging 1.0 just deprives the Forsaken of another tragedy, diluting them further and ridding them of previous baggage that has defined them as a race that was forced to turn to a religion based around Shadows instead of Light.
Pretty much and this goes for many of the existing ridiculous combinations as well for me.
True but I will at least throw a bone in mercy and say if it had to happen they should have been given a Unique Class name on the creation screen, and fully unique, visually-distinct spells and abilities.
I’m capable of providing enrichment for myself
But priests are okay? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand this stance…
If creating a Penitent Knight concept who is constantly aware of the fact that she is dead and rotting and should not be moving as the Light tries in vain to heal her and only increases the sensations that death has robbed her does not spark your creative brain, that is frankly a skill issue
it is not only plausible, it has already been done - sir zeliek is a paladin and undead from back in Classic, the light cares not from whence the faith flows, only that it flows
I think you can play that concept better as a Warrior using trinkets to occasionally be able to call weakly upon the Light. Not the class 24/7 infused like a disco ball of God energy with a 50 foot bible at their waist.
I’ll forget your ice cubes in the freezer.
Well… I don’t see an issue here so it’s okay? I’ll grab them myself regularly anyway because my hatred for warm drinks has now started to affect room temperature things.
If I weren’t fearing for my life due to angery Roe (currently fem elezen) I would be on my knees for this elezen lady
Priests are in a bit of an odd place, because they originally had racial mechanics to differentiate between them and to give the different priests of different races unique identities, to make up for the fact that it was a rather clumsy catch-all class for the non-martial holy men of so many races and cultures.
This was later eliminated, but people are more easily able to suspend their disbelief when it comes to priests and pretend that trolls sling voodoo and that night elves call upon Elune. This is harder for paladins, as they have a much stronger image in fantasy as pseudo-Christian chivalric warriors, reinforced by D&D, while fantasy media has had priests of all sorts of different religions for decades.
So it’s still a problem for priests, but people just don’t care as much about priests as they do about the holy knights and crusaders of pseudo-Catholicism, who have a much more visceral appeal for a lot of people for various reasons. The most obvious one is that paladins are just cooler than priests, I guess.
It was also obvious (back in the day) what specs were suitable and which weren’t based on the Racials. Old quests defined Night Elf Priests as those of Elune, Forsaken as those explicitly of the Shadow Cult and not the Light, Humans as Holy Light Priests etc., so whilst the Specs obviously had to stay open for gameplay purposes it was very explicit lorewise where things stood for each Priest race imo, doubly so now with Season of Discovery very rapidly pressing down on the fact that each Priest represents their specific racial religion by each of them having different quests and buffs related to their specific racial religion.
Metzen was always very explicit that a lot of things that exist in the ambiguous gameplay blob for the sake of convenience are not true to lore.
Fantasy media should really try to incorporate more holy warrior types than just the christian flavour. Not like international history is lacking in those.
Also how dare you call me less cool than some rando with a pink bar on the dps metre 
I will remember this
It’s why it’s Extremely Sus - the overlap between Light Must Mean Christian Deus Vult and frothing weirdos is very close to a circle
When undead use or are healed by the Holy Light, does it cause them any actual damage or harm, or does it only cause them pain (in addition to the intended effects of the spell)?
Channeling the Light in any way, or receiving healing from the Light, only causes pain. Forsaken priests do not disintegrate or explode from channeling the Light for an extended period of time… though they may wish they would.Are there long-term effects on an undead who is in regular contact with the Holy Light in a positive way?
It is difficult to say, as there are no known records of undead wielding the Holy Light before the Third War. There are reports, however, that some Forsaken have slowly experienced a sharpening of their dulled senses of touch, smell, etc., as well as an increase in the flashes of positive emotions that have otherwise become so rare since their fall into undeath. Unfortunately, this may be the cause of the Forsaken priesthood’s increased attempts at self-destruction; regaining these senses would force the priests to smell their own rotting flesh, taste the decay in their mouths and throats, and even feel the maggots burrowing within their bodies.
ehhh that feels like it’s overstating it a lot. They got two abilities each.
What does it even say that the dwarf priests (of the Church of the Holy Light) got Fear Ward and Desperate Prayer while Human Priests (of the Church of the Holy Light) got Feedback and Desperate Prayer?
That human priests are scaredy cats but also are weirdly anti-magic and dwarves are neither of those things? They’re the same Church!
I can agree with that, though one potential argument is that those holy warriors should be given their own classes and not be stuffed under the umbrella of ‘paladin,’ as it dilutes the identity of the paladin and also does a disservice to other varieties of holy warrior.
But does that mean that those other varieties of holy warrior should get no representation at all, until Blizzard has the resources to adequately represent them with completely new classes?
Sorry, I can’t help it. It’s something that PvP has taught me. Paladins are an actual threat, while priests are just obnoxious damage sponges at worse. Discipline priests belong in the trash.
I can handle “paladins were inspired by the Christian knights of Arthurian legend and the Crusades and they shouldn’t deviate from that image.” I don’t agree with it, but it’s a mostly harmless opinion to have.
I’m less accommodating of “that means that all paladins must be men and that all paladins must be white.” The way that some people reacted to the race and gender of Seelah, a paladin companion in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, was disgusting.