Paladin vs Siren Spoilers

[baronzaltor]

Another weapon I will use! The urchins are super cool too! Thanks Laddin!

^agreed

Heroic Ballad on self-
Charge for 6+2 pierce on border zone, push into wall for 3 dice attack.
quick cast battlefury
Attack for 4+3 pierce, push into wall for 3 dice attack.

Siren beatdown is fun.

[Kaarin]

Another weapon I will use! The urchins are super cool too! Thanks Laddin!

^agreed

Heroic Ballad on self-
Charge for 6+2 pierce on border zone, push into wall for 3 dice attack.
quick cast battlefury
Attack for 4+3 pierce, push into wall for 3 dice attack.

Siren beatdown is fun.

Also Siren can make Heroic Ballad last 5 rounds, with Voice of the sea and her ability. Add Lion Savagery and for 5 rounds she will be able to attack with 8 dice +3 pierce with single attack every round and we still didn't see any new water attack spells.

[Reddicediaries]

Cool! Mega blast time!

[Coshade]

Sounds like another reason to run fumble 

[Halewijn]

With smite it becomes very clear that the paladin is using his valor as some sort of special mana to do epic stuff. With more (very cool and awesome) things being spoiled I just cant help but wonder which advantage the priest will have over the paladin. Laddinfance mentioned that there were instances when the paladin had 8 channeling, and right now, I wonder if it would have been better (and thematic since he is more of a warrior)

[RomeoXero]

That's my major concern actually. Not only does the pally get access to the same tricks and such that the priest already had (meaning holy school complete with spawnpoint) but he gets his own special pally stuff that makes him awesome. Im still super excited cuz i  get to use all this new cool tech in my priest books, but im afraid he's just gonna get pushed back further on the list so to speak

[Ophidimancer]

Quick search shows that [mwcard=MW1I22]Resurrection[/mwcard] is the only out of school Holy spell for the Paladin on the Card Database.

[Halewijn]

Quick search shows that [mwcard=MW1I22]Resurrection[/mwcard] is the only out of school Holy spell for the Paladin on the Card Database.

Thanks!

So ressurection and the staff. (Never used ressurection though  ) ah well, I trust AW and the playtesters. Everything will be alright. Just blabbing my concerns.

And Crown of Protection.

Seems Im blabbing again 

[Boocheck]

I reserve my opinion on how Priest will rock after Academy Priestess, PvS and Lost Grimoaire. But so far,its true that facts could be in favor for Paladin.

All academy cards that are good for Priest are "Holy Mage only" and i bet there will be no "Priestess only" in PvS. Last unknown in this equation is Lost Grimoire.

Dont loose hope. Paladin will never summon Holy Avenger and Priest will never use Auras

[baronzaltor]

The Priest has the advantage of an opponent not really being able to start gaming his opponent by his mage card.  Paladin certainly has cool tricks, but you have to play into them to maximize them.  Which means predictability, a player can start to guess what youre going to do and try to "deny valor" making it more of a risk/reward sort of thing.  Priest on the other hand isnt reliant on a narrower secondary mechanic or minigame.  By its very nature, Valor is telegraphed, the opponent will know how you generate it and know how much you have at any given time, and what spells you might be using it on and probably even WHEN you will in some cases.  Which means the Paladin can have his own tricks stiffled or be forced into tough decisions by his opponent. 

When an opponent sees hes playing a Paladin, he can already start accounting for Valor in his own strategy, when the opponent sees hes playing a Priest he cant assume as much.  (much how the Forcemasters biggest weakness is simply that she is a Forcemaster and can anticipate much of her spellbook and gameplan already.)

[baronzaltor]

Also, Jinx hoses Smite pretty hard.  Jinx will fizzle the casting, but it only says it refunds the mana spent not other costs.. so a Jinxed Smite doesnt get the 4 Valor refunded.

[iNano78]

Also, Jinx hoses Smite pretty hard.  Jinx will fizzle the casting, but it only says it refunds the mana spent not other costs.. so a Jinxed Smite doesnt get the 4 Valor refunded.

The Valor isn't really part of the cost of Smite, though. It's part of the effect (eg card text) which is dependent on resolution  - sort of like how the mana cost of Purify is 0 not X, since the spending of mana happens as part of resolving Purify.

*edit* Unless I'm mistaken, and a rules supplement states that spells with subtype Valor may have a cost that includes both mama and Valor, where the amount of Valor required is stated in the card text, rather than the cost bar at the top of the spell card.

[Laddinfance]

The other benefit of the Priest is in future development. Right now he seems very similar to the Paladin, because there are few high level spells, that aren't creatures. This area is something we want to explore more in the future. It will help make them feel different over time.

[iNano78]

The Priest has the advantage of an opponent not really being able to start gaming his opponent by his mage card.  Paladin certainly has cool tricks, but you have to play into them to maximize them.  Which means predictability, a player can start to guess what youre going to do and try to "deny valor" making it more of a risk/reward sort of thing.  Priest on the other hand isnt reliant on a narrower secondary mechanic or minigame.  By its very nature, Valor is telegraphed, the opponent will know how you generate it and know how much you have at any given time, and what spells you might be using it on and probably even WHEN you will in some cases.  Which means the Paladin can have his own tricks stiffled or be forced into tough decisions by his opponent. 

When an opponent sees hes playing a Paladin, he can already start accounting for Valor in his own strategy, when the opponent sees hes playing a Priest he cant assume as much.  (much how the Forcemasters biggest weakness is simply that she is a Forcemaster and can anticipate much of her spellbook and gameplan already.)

I'd agree with this in general, but this has always been one of the Priest's problems.  In other words, the "drawback" of the Paladin being somewhat predictable in what he aspires to do also applies to the Priest.  His Burn token trick depends on Light attacks, so you know he's probably packing Staff of Asyra and Dawnbreaker's Ring (each in multiples?) ... so you save your Equipment removal spells for those and you really hose 1 of his 2 tricks.  His other trick involves his Holy Avenger, which is honestly tough to pull off if you've played Priest: you need other friendly creatures to Guard or otherwise draw attacks in order to activate your Avenger.  All your opponent has to do is choose not to cooperate and the Avenger is mostly nullified.  The Paladin's "challenge" is similar but a lot easier to pull off, since the choice is mostly in the hands of the Paladin player (e.g. which creature to choose). So, honestly, the Priest doesn't have much more flexibility than the Paladin, and often feels like a mage with no special ability... besides getting to add a Burn token when he casts a (generally pretty weak) Light attack spell or using his (very weak) primary attack - although the new Light attack spells in the PvS expansion will surely benefit the Priest in that regard (e.g. Luminous Blast).

[Coshade]

The Paladin absolutely rocks! If you want to continue playing Priest, you really have to make a book that uses his abilities to their fullest.  I believe the Priest is still the best holy mage for being rushed against with his HA and potential double status effect punch. The reasoning that Baron gave is absolutely spot on for Priest advantages. I would like to add that his ability to to daze/stun and add burn is really good. Now that we have a temple that boosts light attacks, and a plethora of new options of doing light based damage, you can make some really crazy builds. While the Paladin can roll that single high damage die with smite, the Priest can have consistent action denial and burns to ramp up the advantage.