My raid experience.

This is with my fire resist gear (arguably not that much), unbuffed:

Fire resist: 50.
Crit rate: 11.81%
HP: 3556
Mana: 3767

My spec is 20/31.

Head: Avenguard Helm.
Neck: Drakefire Amulet.
Shoulder: Lightforge Spaulders.
Back: Sergeant's Cape.
Chest: Energized Chestplate.
Wrist: Emberplate Armguards of the Boar.
Hands: Fiery Plate Gauntlets.
Belt: Highlander's Lamellar Girdle.
Legs: Lightforge Legplates.
Boots: Crystal Lined Greaves.
Finger: Ring of Demonic Guile.
Finger: Blood of the Martyr.
Trinket: Sanctified Orb.
Trinket: Royal Seal of Eldre'thalas.
Weapon: Zulian Stone Axe.

Yep. Not a single epic. Why? I haven't raided much at all, mainly due to timezone differences. That's not an obstacle anymore, and I'm saving DKP now since I really want the Judgement Helm next time it drops from Onyxia. I really want a plate helm with +int, and I've given up on Lightforge Helm a long time ago (25+ runs, not ever seen it drop).

Anyways, my guild began with doing Onyxia tonight. Since I was dirt-poor I could only afford buying Greater Blessing of Kings, so that was my blessing. God dangit these greater blessings are awesome. Really, really, really great improvement. The largest, most boring task in the entire game has finally been fixed. I wasted about 191 Symbol of Kings (including giving away 48) during this night.

The first phase went smooth. Ran up to her, judged her with Judgement of the Crusader and whacked away with Judgement of Command, judging SoC every time I could. At phase 2 I support-healed and threw up Blessing of Protection and Salvation on the Mages/Warlocks who AoE:d the whelps. At phase 3 I really didn't know what to do... Go melee or backup heal? First I healed, then I realized many of the casters were out of mana (which they were also saying in the raid channel), so I hurried up to the back of her and judged Wisdom. It was a bit tough since the fears she did would occasionally force me to rejudge due to the 10 second timer runnning out, but nevertheless tried to keep it up on her as long as possible. At the end when Onyxia was at about 20/15% I retreated back to the side for some reason -- not sure why. Anyways, the only things I did then was to heal and throw Hammer of Wrath's.

We killed her pretty smoothly with not too many deaths. She dropped two Dragonstalker helmets. Many complaints about that.

This is really what I continued to do in Molten Core. We took down Lucifron, Magmadar, Gehennas and Garr. I just continued doing what I did with Onyxia on these guys as well. I tried to stay in melee range as much as possible for as long as I could.

It was really fun to switch auras, and for once it was worth it... Getting hit with fire? Switch to Fire Resist. Safe from fire damage? Turn on Sanctity to up the DPS. And as a bonus, since not many of the Paladins were up front I had the freedom to pick whatever judgement I wanted (so much for the use of the Lasting Judgement-talent!).

I begged to get the damage meter list, since I really wanted to see how much damage comparatively I did in the raid. After some asking -- or bitching rather, in guild chat I got the list. Click on the picture for a larger image. (Notice: I've really, really trying hard to make sure I don't mention names of anybody or anyone else on this blog unless I've asked them about it or that they've wished to be mentioned. I really try to respect the privacy of others. But I think not posting the damage list would be tough to do.)

When it comes to it if you look on the list, I technically came in to the bottom of all damage dealers. The 1% difference between me and Nushu (Holy or Discipline Priest I think) is the giveaway. Soulpatch who's above me happen to be the raid's maintank (he's almost completely decked out in epics).

Am I disappointed at my standing? Yes. Could I have performed better to improve my DPS? Sure. Do I think my stats were bad? Not really. Putting things in perspective I guess this is the place where they want the Paladin to belong: at the bottom of the DPS list. Really, when thinking about it, it's not too bad. I mean, I get to to do damage -- one percent more than main healers. I also get to do my fair share of healing on top of that, augmenting the raid in more ways than just standing there waiting to throw a heal.

Actually, I'd dare to say that the best Paladins are the ones who are in the front. Why? We're never going to be anything else than backup healers. It's best if we DPS when we can, but when needed we pull back and do our Healadin-routine. Just don't stand there and idle! Let's say all Paladins in the raid had my build; that'd be an additional 459,500 damage added to the pool. Not bad considering circumstances. Heck, I'd dare say that it'd be make more of an difference to the raid than having them as Healadins in the first place.

What really what makes the Druid class so appealing is the ability to switch roles, adapting to the situation. As a Druid, one second you're a Cat dishing out damage, then you *bam* switch to Bear to off-tank a mob, and so forth. I have to say that this experience sure existed now when I was playing tonight. It wasn't as strong as it is when I play my Druid, but it is there nevertheless. This is fun!

The biggest gripe, which definetly is a huge limiting factor, is that the damage I dish out with Judgement of Command is really bound upon the principle of stunning the enemy. In raid dungeons this simply is impossible because all of them are immune to stuns. This leaves my to rely on Sanctity Aura and Vengeance to be able to at least pump my Judgement of Command to a decent high amount. It's tedious since all you're doing really is just standing there auto-attacking, waiting for the Judgement cooldown to refresh.

It just feels like, what I got out of this, was that Paladins are really best for dungeons and small raid dungeons. We dish out our damage based on stunning, our tanking abilities are impossible for Molten Core but very possible in UBRS and the only thing is that stands out is that our main healing which I'd guess just descent all-around.

I'm dirt tired now, so sorry for grammatical errors. It's 4 AM. I'm happy of what I experienced this night so far and I'd like to see your input on this and what you've experienced -- if you're just like me or just the opposite. My guild's going to do the rest of Molten Core tomorrow which will allow me to write a follow-up on this later that night as well.