Zandalari Paladins are disrespectful

Brigante-argent-dawn · May 15, 2020, 9:31pm

You know WoW nicked the word Paladin, right, who nicked it from Dungeons and Dragons, who nicked it from a very specific group of holy warriors.

None of y’all are Paladins. Technically.

So what is a Paladin? Its a warrior of supposedly granted spiritual powers due to faith, as opposed to being the biggest nastiest person with a cleaver, like a Warrior.

Humans have ‘Paladins’, or rather, Knights of the Silver Hand. (Technically naughty, Nuadha of the Silver Hand was a Celtic deity, so no Paladin points for you!)
Dwarves, likewise, still not the same as Paladins, so no Paladin points for you!)
Draenei are not Paladins. They are -Vindicators- and they are glorious. Still, not exactly what a Paladin is.
Blood Elves -were- Knights of the Silver Hand, They can actually get away with that, Nuada of the Silver Hand was Elven fae in legend, but then became Blood Knights, so not really Paladins either, they’re their own thing, though in practice the state religion was always The Light, so…ehh, they get as much or as little a pass as Humans and Dwarves.

Tauren Sunwalkers are Warriors with faith based powers from An’she. Given the culture they’re based on, Holy Warriors with Sun rites? Yeah, that is actually legit.

Zandalari Prelates are Holy Warriors who take power from their own Faith. Given their culture they are based upon and the plethora of Loa they make sense. I’d call them a Prelate, rather than Paladin, but they make sense. Actually I’d call them a Jaguar Warrior, Eagle Warrior (As we see the Prelates on Thunder Isle called) or a Kukulkan.

Either way, Holy Warrior.

NPC’s call every race of that class ‘Paladin’. Same way as they don’t call my Night elf Huntress “Sentinel” and my Blood Elf Hunter “Farstrider”

Its a class name for goodness sake, The Concept of Holy Warriors is not, and has -never- been the sole province of knights in plate mail, in fact some peoples were doing it a long time before they even figured out how to make their shiny armour.

Just call them what they are, in accordance by their role in that society.

Its not difficult, but to imagine that Holy Warriors are the sole preserve of humans and demi-humans in platemail is just the weirdest thing ever…

Tihoccan-burning-legion · May 15, 2020, 9:43pm

Jaguar Warrior is already reserved for Monk. Prelate fits fine. They’re the Imperial holy warriors, who fight the undead (because they upset the Bwonsamdi) the heretics (blood trolls and blood magic), they live in city filled with temples and shrines, they have royal family to protect and safeguard the empire.

And not only that they are raised from childhood, they’re both showing great martial prowess and they’re chosen by the Loa. And additionally they do have militaristic culture.

They fill all the checkmarks to be proper holy warrior fantasy and represent paladin class well. But they have completely different aesthetics and different faith. Which really sets them apart from Alliance and igves them proper identity.

blood knight started as edgy light thieves, but they’re now watered down copy of regular human paladins. If you really want to play Holy warrior in Horde and not have any ties to Alliance. Then Zandalari gives you this choice.

Sunwalkers too but they were sadly lumped to Silver hand order, and are missing the militaristic culture. But Ireallylike the newest customization options for them I think it will greatly help Sunwalker fantasy.

Brigante-argent-dawn · May 15, 2020, 9:48pm

I was more thinking our worlds historical Jaguar Warrior’s, I just remember seeing mobs by that name on IoT, could have sworn they did Paladin-ish stuff? Mind you, been a while, just remember seeing them. But yes, they’re based on a society that had Holy Warriors long before Charlemagne got 12 thugs with a pedigree together and went “Lets call ourselves Paladins and say we work for Religion!” Was more the point. Pretty much any culture can claim the Paladin trope, if you take it to mean what it means, as in a Holy Warrior. Whatever the type of ‘Holy’ is

Tihoccan-burning-legion · May 15, 2020, 10:16pm

Ye but we’re not playing RL cultures, we’re playing WoW. WoW trolls aren’t direct copy of pre-columbian cultures, they’re a mixture of various stuff.

For example Incas were not taming Dinosaurs, and Zandalari do hence whythey have dinomancers.

Savotar-argent-dawn · May 16, 2020, 7:44am

Says you.

I served as one of Charles the Great’s 12 knights.

Türiel-silvermoon · May 16, 2020, 7:50am

I am the classic paladin just like how lord uther was btw i’m looking forward to be seeing him in my covernent

Brigante-argent-dawn · May 17, 2020, 12:36pm

OK, you get a free pass. You can be a Paladin.

Kelturok-tarren-mill · May 17, 2020, 3:14pm

It was tried but they are to fat for paladin armor and we have not yet found Azeroth’s breast plate stretcher.

Empedocles-earthen-ring · May 17, 2020, 10:35pm

The mere existence of other races besides Humans and their minions such as Night Elves shows how Blizzard is biased against Human players.

What Blizzard did not consider, however, is that Zandalari Paladins are actually Alliance.

The Holy Light is property of the Alliance (I don’t need to explain this of course).
Zandalari Paladins use the Holy Light, therefore they use something that is property of the Alliance.
They are allowed to do that; if they weren’t, they would be thieves and in the Stockades. However, they aren’t in the Stockades therefore they aren’t thieves.
They are allowed to use the Light therefore they are actually part of the Alliance.

Blizzard didn’t see that but it doesn’t take a lot of effort to realise this simple truth.

Leíá-argent-dawn · May 17, 2020, 10:41pm

So alot of RP waffle…?

Calevarn-ashbringer · May 17, 2020, 11:06pm

Please, do continue.

Zakkaru-burning-legion · May 18, 2020, 10:34am

Fantastic idea! Let Alliance open it’s gates to Zandalari, it will make the conquest so much easier!

Anemek-burning-legion · May 19, 2020, 3:49am

You act like you dont know that lore is nonexisting in the game. Its all about numbers and money. They got paladins to get more people.

Zakkaru-burning-legion · May 19, 2020, 5:36am

So you should know that Zandalari had paladin lore back in vanilla and we met them back in MoP as well. It was formality to add them not “for money and numbers”.

Calevarn-ashbringer · May 19, 2020, 10:57am

I hate the fact we have to call the Zandalari Prelates “Paladins”, as if they’re in any way identical. It’s just…eugh.

God, do I hate class restrictions sometimes.

Zakkaru-burning-legion · May 19, 2020, 12:14pm

I agree Prelate sounds better.

Areapia-kazzak · May 19, 2020, 5:21pm

I mean… there was that one Naaru that got one shot by an eye beam… Also I distinctly remember fighting KJ and the only thing Velen did was touch his forehead when I was done. Turalyon had a big sword made mostly of light which was barely able to cut Illidan’s hand. As for Yrel - go play through the mag’har allied race quest line. Also the Loa act significantly more like actual deities - we as mortals go seek them out - not the other way round.

Don’t get me wrong - I dislike the fact that Tauren and Zandalari can be paladins as much as the next guy, I’m just saying that having an old guy who disintegrates the enemy by touching their forehead but only after you’ve kicked their butt, another old guy who after so many years apparently still can’t swing a sword properly and a fanatic cult leader as your chosen maybe isn’t the best argument.

P.S. given that throughout my experience in BFA, Bwonsamdi is the only NPC to send me somewhere and back and actually provide a two way portal - he has my vote any day!

Savotar-argent-dawn · May 20, 2020, 2:39am

Tauren have one of the most beautiful tales of turning to the Light and becoming priests/paladins.

Zandalari Prelates is a given and have a fairly decent background.

Neither is a mistake, don’t be a Windrunner and kneel for the humans… unless it is me of course.

Tihoccan-burning-legion · May 20, 2020, 5:50am

What is this nonsense? Zandalari are widely accepted and there was even a huge outrage when at one page this was not shown previewed for this race. Zandalari were looked forward so they could bring a decent option if someone didn’t want to be a belf and didn’t find tauren to be good enough alternative.

Zandalari are filling the idea of holy warrior excellently and Tauren are filling the role of Sun worshippers which is an interesting concept on it’s own even if the execution was lacking. These are imo more dignified than light vampires and angsty church burners.

Yes, what previous poster doesn’t realize is that only Tauren and Zandalari have truly their own religion and practices to make the class more thematic. They’re not parroting and pretending to be humans in red. If you don’t want to be watered down concept of Alliance paladin (because this is what belf palas are nowadays despite starting off as light thieves) then only Sunwalkers and Prelates offer truly unique take on class and different religion which justifies the class.

Calevarn-ashbringer · May 20, 2020, 2:17pm

Which makes the fact that they go around wearing Draenei or Human plate all the time even more infuriating.

And it doesn’t stop at the armour either, they even have the Draenei-styled crystal hammers too, they are legit an aesthetic tumour, despite the beautiful tales on their origins, their apperance triggers me to no end.