does this things stats remind anyone of thunderfury? o.O

As this is such a contentious item lets have a constructive discussion about it.

I'm looking for someone that plays a Paladin to respond here but I'd like someone who has a sense of reason about it. I'll cover the mage side of things and say first up I think it's a mage priority weapon (obviously good for pallies too, but mage priority). I'll explain why I think this and I'm going to break it down into a couple of narrower base topics:

Alternatives

Lets clear the obvious counter point up first. I'm not going to go into the ˜you can use staves" argument. I don't use staves as, DPS wise, you can crank out WAY more damage with a main and off hand. I don't want more mana "I'm a frost mage, I don't run out, I want more DPS, so a main and an off hand is where I am headed.

Alternative 1

There is only 1 other weapon available (that has similar stats) at the same time as you are doing MC as the mageblade and it's the blade of vaulted secrets (I'm going to assume that if your guild can raid MC they can raid AQ20). To get Vaulted Secrets you have to be:

a) Exhalted with Cenarion
b) have all the idols and scarabs and...
c) have the hilt.

None of these is a small task really, especially getting Exhalted with Cenarion. Yes, I could kill cultists till the cows come home or pvp my butt off or buy a tonne of texts to turn in but it's still gonna take me a long time. Also I'd rather have the crit chance on the mageblade than the hit chance on the vaulted secrets anyways. Finally the mageblade looks cool, vaulted secrets looks, well, like someone on a bad LSD trip designed it.

Alternative 2

The Bloodcaller is a nice weapon, it has reasonable stats but much like the fang (below) it's not a common drop and, again, it's not as high on the DPS chart as the mageblade (and no crit chance). I'd also say that Hakkar is not a push over (for an MC geared guild).

Alternative 3

The Fang of Venoxis is quite a good weapon which drops off the easiest boss in ZG. However, I have not seen it drop much at all (3 times in about 50 runs). It's stats are not really in the same league as the mageblade and you have to compete with shammies for it.

Alternative 4

Verimonde's last resort was my main before I got the fang and it's quite good. It's not even close on the DPS to the mageblade but I have included it to demonstrate a point:

There really aren't that many mage 1 handers out there to pair with our off handers (and I'm not going to get into how few off handers there are). What I've listed here might not be a comprehensive list but it's a good cross section of what's available and as you can tell the mageblade is the premier item mages can get while their guild is running everything up to MC with a reasonable degree of success.

Even after MC we struggle for a decent main hander as the next step up is the Claw of Chromaggus and it's brilliant but BWL is a whole world away when you're on MC.

Availability

The mageblade is a 17% drop off of Golemagg, fairly common, Vaulted secrets is hard to get by comparison (as stated above) unless you are downing Moam or Ossirian on a regular basis.

Bloodcaller drops off Hakkar - end boss, not easy, low drop rate enuf said.

Fang - low drop rate, stats not comparable.

Verimonde's resort - Easy to get (comparatively), has stats you'd expect for a quest item only in here for comparison.

Summary

Unless your guild is running BWL (or better) with a reasonable degree of success each week, and unless your guild's main focus is AQ20 (and so you're ripping through your Cenarion rep) then this really has to go to the mages and locks as a priority, then to the paladins after that. Just like the Blastershot launcher has to go to hunters first then to others later if they want it.

I'm not super familiar with the Paladin's heals but is there an issue here with over healing vs mages never over damaging? Just a thought.

I'd appreciate some thought out responses because Horde are gonna have pallies soon.

Just before I go please note I did not:

... use the "mageblade" argument
... say "you should have rolled a DPS class if you wanted this item"
... say critical strike is no good for pallies

To me this is all about alternatives and the availability there of, as I acknowledge it's a good pally weapon too.

Glad my guild wont let pallys/shamans roll on this item. This is mage/warlock first priority. Unless all your fellow mage/warlock guildies got what they need, this should not be wasted on other classes. But ofc if you prefer slower progression, thats up to u

Edited, Nov 14th 2006 at 9:20pm PST by serman

This is Allakhazam, Not thottbott.
I came here to get away from the constant bickering about "Omgeh its a huntarweapon1!!!" Get real or attempt to get a life.

This excellent is a Awesome weapon for anyone that can make use out of it.
Paladins, Mages, And warlocks all benefit from it, No one more, No one less.

Indeed there are other weapons other classes can use, but if they can, Why dont they use them?
Simply because they do not have acess to them atm.
Please keep this allkhazam.

Staff of Dominance
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Staff
126 - 205 Damage Speed 2.90
(57.1 damage per second)
+37 Intellect
+16 Stamina
+14 Spirit
Requires Level 60
Equip: Improves your chance to get a critical strike with spells by 1%.
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 40.

I notice that the casters are careful not to mention that this drops from the same exact boss at the same exact drop rate, and frankly is the weapon designed for casters on this boss. Pallys can not use this obviously, and it has almost identical stats with significant improvements.

Mageblade, while obviously not targeted specifically for their usage alone,(here comes the blasphemy) is best suited for the pallys here.

I have this on my paladin, was second in the guild to get it.

I love being holy spec, for both raiding and PvP, i find it way more fun then retri.

I'm ALWAYS useing a 1h and a shield. Prior to this I used mind carver / garret family crest.

Now I use azuresong / ZG pally shield.


The reason I decided to take azuresong above aurastone / finkles / jindos etc. Is because of the combination of damage/healing here. I often do PvP, so the +40 dmg helps out my damage spells yet helps my healing at the same time.
Keep in mind too, our illumination ability, allows us to cast free heals if they crit. If a heal crits, we get all the mana back from that heal, therefore why I prefer azuresong which also has the 1% chance crit that aurastone doesnt.
For me, I put a +22 intellect on it, that way i get extra mana for healing in raiding, + i get it for boosting spell critical for PvP and my mana pool for PvP

However, I agree that if a pally just plans to heal in raids and not do PvP or anything, Jindo's mace is better for healing than this, or finkles for that matter.

Yeap, as is stated in this thread already, Azuresong is one of the two best 1h-weapons for a paladin as every future of this sword is usefull to him. Only variant is just Jin'do's Hexxer for pure healing, but that is a question of a taste and how exactly particular paladin heals. I am used to heal between fighting and there is Azuresong definitely only variant till my raid community manage to kill Nefarian and I get in hand Lok'Amir il Romathis.

Those who do not get it yet and mumbless in their madness something about paladin healing only, notice we can tank and do damage as well, even these roles are less accepted. Tanking paladin is probably weakest of our roles at the moment, what can change with Burning Crusade. Healing paladins land always before all other healing classes in healing charts. Retribution paladin when properly played do insane damage and will position himself just under rogues even between them in damage tables. Face it and take it. If not, go on horde side or roll paladin to find yourself how it works, however stop speaking about things you do not know or understand.

But back to the topic. You are paladin and got this weapon. What now? Of course, make it even better as it is. What enchants come potentialy in question for this blade? +55 healing, +30 spellpower and +22 intellect. Which one is the best? Depends a lot on what exactly you do with your paladin. For our decision lets consider 5 minutes long fight what would be good average for MC and BWL, flash heals around 700HPs that crit for 1000. In 5 minutes you produce stream of 200 flash heals.

+22 intellect, insane enchant from greedy dwarves. It makes your mana pool higher for, let be generous, 3 flash heals and you will in 5minutes healing without pause get 1 critical free heal from it, what comes to 3100 healed HPs more.

+55 healing. In 5mins fight sitting on main tank streaming in him flash heals you will produce 200 flash heals. Each your flash heal gets a fix bonus from this enchant of 23 HPs. Giving you bonus healing of 4600 HPs.

+30 spell power is tricky. Your spells get fixed bonus of 12 HPs and in 200 casts per fight you will heal or damage 2400 HPs. However if you are fighting, you get some bonus on your seals as well, making it even higher and I would say you will top 3000 HPs.

Which one you want to take now? Depends on you. As I like to fight while healing and my sword is used whole time out of raid as well, I take spell power that is great allrounder. If you want only heal, go for +healing but then you should consider farming of Jin'do's Hexxer more. +22 intellect is well a garbage for us.

Ok, I understand why some of you think that this is only a caster weapon. Yes, it does give an increase to spell damage and healing. Ok, let's see what I just typed, "spell damage AND healing". I agree that this should go to a lock, mage, etc first then trickle down to pallys. Let me just discuss what my guild has decided. We rotate this item. A lock got it first time, mage second, pally third. We rotate which classes should be able to use their dkp. this is a very good system in my opinion. Now, I have a 60 pally that is 23 holy/28 protection. As for some of you that say paladin's do not make good healers, let's just say that in my guild, paladin's are always at the top of the healing charts. Our priests are right behind us however, so of course, it is very close in healing. However, for those of you that say paladin's do not make good, even great healers, you obviously have not met a good one or have ever tried to play a paladin. If you have and just can't see what a great healer you are, then you're not playing the char right. Sorry, but paladin's make great healers.

I don't get why Paladins think they should be allowed to bid on this, ToEP, Ring of Spellpower and such... If they wanna do damage, reroll a mage or a lock... But it just bugs me that they can't live with the fact that they rolled a @#%^ing healer class