5 Prot Paladins?

[OzPhoenix]

Has anyone ever tried this? I mean, my Prot Paladin can take a tonne of damage, has some (admittedly limited) healing, and can even do about 3k dps. So, strictly for 5-man stuff only has anyone ever tried a 5 x Prot Paladin team??

[Khatovar]

What exactly would you gain out of 5 prot that outshines ret? Prot mana pool is absurdly small, healing wouldn't outlast a pissed off squirrel in most cases. You get nothing for heal cast time reduction and nothing to boost healing. Almost all prot talents are totally wasted if you're not getting hit, which at any given time, 4 of your team will not be.

[OzPhoenix]

So, alternately going 5xRet but stacking equipment as if I were prot? Part of the problem I guess is that after a long break from boxing, I've returned and would be keen to start off with a 5 x (insert class&spec here) team to save on all the multiple spells etc. You're right of course about the Prot spec when not getting hit and the healing I admit would be tiny (my current team is lead by a Prot Pally which is what I playing when back to single-boxing), but then 5 x Lay on Hands would get useful to.

[Khatovar]

No, you can do 1 prot and the rest ret, or 1 prot, 1 holy, 1 ret. Ret will provide you with mana replenishment, passive healing on divine storm, 3-4x instant FoL on the tank as needed. Bonus damage, bonus crit, multiple long-term CC, haste, boost to healing and HoTs on heal crit.

There is really no reason to want to stick with 5xsame class AND same spec, you lose so much by not altering spec to allow you to pick up other things. For example, Heart of the Crusader does not stack. Why have 4 toons waste 3 talent points on something that does 0 good? Vindication doesn't stack, no need for more than one toon to get it.

It's not hard to macro multiple specs. The time spent is a minor tradeoff for the huge amounts of utility/dps/survivability that you can gain.

[OzPhoenix]

Khatovar,

Yeah, been reading that 20+ page thread on 5xPaladin (1 prot, 4 ret) so I can see where my innate-laziness is leading me to try and make this a little TOO easy.

At the moment I'm running 1 Prot Pally, 4 Ele Shaman (and needing to convert 1 shammy to resto I think), so I'll also consider raising up 4 ret pallies and see how that goes.

[ghonosyph]

I'm levelin 5 pallys ATM and I can tell you that 1 prot 4 ret is the only way to go, the healing is really very simple and even with crappy gear you still pretty much face roll everything lol

[OzPhoenix]

I am even actually considering not using my current pally, just starting all fresh (except for the bags of gold I'd bring) with 5 x Belfs. 1 Prot, 4 Ret.

I'm one of those freaks that actually doesn't mind levelling and the lowbie dungeons would give me experience in boxing the Prot/Ret combo.

[kate]

1 prot and 4 ret is ridiculously survivable. The prot paladin generates boatloads of threat so usually it is the only one being damaged usually so there's 1 focus for healing. Divine storm's healing is enough passive healing to deal with splash damage from bosses on all the slaves and all healing needed for dealing with trash. Judgments of the Wise and glyphed Seal of Command provides enough mana regen for the ret paladins to just spam things without any regard for mana. You also can get all the aura improvements and blessing of might improvement from ret.

5 Prot would be *less* survivable - no passive healing from divine storm, no mana recovery until much, much later in the tree, too much switching of threat from one character to another so figuring out who needs to be healed is an issue. You'd run out of mana FAST so your DPS would be throttled back on boss fights or anything that takes any real time.

The only change I might make to the team would be swapping out one of the ret pallies for a shaman, but it isn't that big a deal. My team is steamrolling through everything in TBC so far - I think the only boss that gave me any trouble was the dragon in Ramparts, but now I have a strategy that works and it's been smooth sailing. :)

[Ughmahedhurtz]

If your pallies are geared enough to do 3.5k DPS in prot spec, then yeah, you're easily capable of most 5-man stuff. I was clearing heroics with a team that was all under 3000 gearscore rating and the DPS were only pulling about 1800ish on a good day. If I can do it with that crappy group, you should be able to faceroll it if your prot is doing twice the DPS of my DPS spec. :p

[Maxion]

Yeah, 1prot&4ret is the way to go for instances, but for pvp and especially arena 5x protret spec with ret gear (with dps 1h + shield) has a lot of potential, there just hasn't been much footage of anyone boxing it yet.

[Catamer]

I liked my 5x pally team, I was using 1 prot and 4 ret. that worked great until I started heroics.
I ended up dropping the 5th pally and using a shaman healer, I get great totem bufs and other than a earth shield/riptide on the main tank I use chain heal. I love just running in instead of setting up positions.

[OzPhoenix]

Thanks all for the feedback. The team, 1 prot, 4 ret, hit 21 last night and look forward to their heroic dungeon running.

[Prega]

i tryed 5 prot, for fun, long time ago in pvp, in Bg.
basically with crappy gear, rare+crafted epics items.
oom is a real issue and lack of mana make healing capabilities...almost useless.
mana is the main issue. but it requires better testing. the positive thing was HoJ spam:)
pve? dps is too low, you probably run out of mana too fast.
But ...with gear... and if anyone could constantly switch tanks during fights...maybe some heroics bosses are... possible(??) ... not sure.

[Maxion]

i tryed 5 prot, for fun, long time ago in pvp, in Bg.
basically with crappy gear, rare+crafted epics items.
oom is a real issue and lack of mana make healing capabilities...almost useless.
mana is the main issue. but it requires better testing. the positive thing was HoJ spam:)
pve? dps is too low, you probably run out of mana too fast.
But ...with gear... and if anyone could constantly switch tanks during fights...maybe some heroics bosses are... possible(??) ... not sure.

Sounds like your testing was done before they gave prot the ability to refresh their divine plea by attacking enemies.

[zenga]

But ...with gear... and if anyone could constantly switch tanks during fights...maybe some heroics bosses are... possible(??) ... not sure.

My tank has 'decent' gear (as in all the triumph gear, the 245 crafted pieces and 2 frost pieces, 46k hp self buffed), and I have solo'd several easy HC bosses. Takes ages, but with seal of light on, you can use divine shield (+ 2 heals), lay on hands and divine protection. And if necessary a mana pot. Doing 2k dps the average fight lasts 3-4 minutes.

[Vasyl]

I'm currently leveling a prot pally solo, and due to the changes [namely holy power, WoG] I think this thread is worth rezzing.

Unfortunately, due to fiscal strain, I am still bound to single boxing play. I'm currently level 53 and my Prot's dps/healing is enough to solo BRD and get pretty good xp. I've also noticed that I am always pulling 50%+ of the groups damage when I do randoms, and I can easily keep myself up between WoG + GbtL, allowing the heal spot to be filled by my Ret friend who queues as a healer. I was wondering if anyone with 5x pallies has tried 5 Prot since the patch? I should also think it would be much easier to set up round robin WoG for prots since their Holy Power generation has no RNG component. All that would really be needed is some way to track Eternal Glory to maximize the Free heals from supporting characters.

Strengths I see from this team:

Omfg Survivability in PvE and PvP

Round robin
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=70940 would provide 25% uptime of a -20% damage for 80% of your team.

WoG + Eternal Glory for wonderful, free heals.

THE BIG MOTHER

Shield of the Templar reduces the CD on Avengers Shield to 15 Seconds. Avengers shield silences for 3 seconds. Avengers shield hits 3 targets. 5 Paladins means 15 seconds of silence on perfect round robin. But oh wait, 15 second cool down means the first will be ready after the round robin is up. UNLIMITED SILENCE POWER from this group. This is huge. Not only can you chain silence any Caster AND up to two next to your target, but AS has HUGE damage now. And I know I'm not the only one who thinks seeing a shield fly out of your group every 3 seconds is cool. And again on the Round robin chaining of AS effects: Daze! Forgot about the glyph :P

So guys, what do you think? This will definitely be my first venture when I pick up my 4x accounts.

[deadguyfred]

diminishing returns in PVP

[zenga]

I play my pally solo in prot spec for pvp, pre & after 4.0.1 patch. The problem since patch is that we are very week against casters. Their increased dps + us taking more damage is a bitch. On the other hand world of glory rocks for this. So prepare for lots of kiting. Another thing that blows is the increased hp pool of the other players. However I can rambo in groups of rets/dks/pallies and kill them. A ret pally with shadowmourne? pff, easy :D

I rezzed my warrior + 4 pally team (still lowbies) and started to level them again. They are all 4 prot, so lets see how they do when they get higher. The fact that AS cooldown can reset is pure awesomeness. I have it glyphed as well16-17k crits are no exception. Using a 31/5 spec with 1 point in divinity & toughness, no hallowed ground and divine guardian. Though if i'm gonna box 5 prots i'll def. spec divine guardian. All cooldowns combined seems to be nuts. Also went all the way mastery, sitting at 40% block.

Prior to the patch I used a mixture of tank gear, ret pvp gear and 2 pieces of healing gear (high spellpower). However I'm now sticking to ret pvp gear only.

[BrothelMeister]

In my experience, with any team for PvP, the only character that has to be soaking up a LARGE amount of damage, is the main toon. If you want to have a toon that breaks the rules of damage dealing in order to soak up as much damage as possible, regardless of losing >50% of his damaging potential, the main toon is the only one.

Beyond that, the 3-4 slaves should be geared towards as much survivability without gimping their damage much at all. The only time that they will really be getting focused is when your opposing team is smart enough to know that they are squishier; but 95% of the time, the main toon is the only one that takes any focused damage.

[Mokoi]

In my experience, with any team for PvP, the only character that has to be soaking up a LARGE amount of damage, is the main toon. If you want to have a toon that breaks the rules of damage dealing in order to soak up as much damage as possible, regardless of losing >50% of his damaging potential, the main toon is the only one.

Beyond that, the 3-4 slaves should be geared towards as much survivability without gimping their damage much at all. The only time that they will really be getting focused is when your opposing team is smart enough to know that they are squishier; but 95% of the time, the main toon is the only one that takes any focused damage.

This has not been my experience at all. I'd like to be on your battlegroup. On Bloodlust everyone and their dog knows that CCing yor main and killing your alts is the way to go, and they do t in spades.

[BrothelMeister]

This has not been my experience at all. I'd like to be on your battlegroup. On Bloodlust everyone and their dog knows that CCing yor main and killing your alts is the way to go, and they do t in spades.

In cata, there won't be battlegroups.

And I'm talking about Battlegrounds, where the players are running around uncoordinated. Without coordination, how the hell can a bunch of people who have never met know to stun the main toon, and kill slave A ? In my experience in Battlegrounds, EVERYONE attacks the main toon, and theres never any coordinated pressure on a slave.

[remanz]

This has not been my experience at all. I'd like to be on your battlegroup. On Bloodlust everyone and their dog knows that CCing yor main and killing your alts is the way to go, and they do t in spades.

Oh totally agree here. I am also in bloodlust. (for now)

I tried DK + 4 prods. My team got bounced around in so much CC and burst, and it is not even funny. Prods have the same problem that rets have. No cleanse, getting kited. A couple fear/sheep/nova/earthbind, you will never get your full team to attack someone. When you finally get out of the CC, the prod's burst is meh for me.

This team DK + 4 prod might work in arena though since it can take a beating with divine guardian rotation as well as a lot of defensive CDs. It also had x 4 range slience + daze. So those 4 flying shield might catch healers off guard.

[Mokoi]

In cata, there won't be battlegroups.

What? Explain. I don't believe they are abolishing battlegroups...


And I'm talking about Battlegrounds, where the players are running around uncoordinated. Without coordination, how the hell can a bunch of people who have never met know to stun the main toon, and kill slave A ? In my experience in Battlegrounds, EVERYONE attacks the main toon, and theres never any coordinated pressure on a slave.

Bloodlust Battlegroup has more Boxers than any other group anywhere. We have so many there you often see another boxer in AV on the BG weekend in many games. both sides. Therefore, most groups of people have dealt with boxers and have devised clever ways to be more annoying than the average bear. Doesn't matter if that particular group of horde / alliance have never met, they have likely met a boxer in their BGs before and found what strategies are more effective than others.

[BrothelMeister]

There were only about 5 total Boxers in BattleGroup last season, 3 that I saw in arena and one that was 2k that I did not see, and a boomkin team in some BGs.

Yes, they are not going to have battlegroups for rated battlegrounds in Cata

[Alemi]

What? Explain. I don't believe they are abolishing battlegroups...

They will likely not be abolished and will stay standing for Arena matchmaking, battlegroups for battlegrounds will be going away. Each region (North America, Europe - by language IIRC, etc.) will share the same pool. Kalgan, Tom Chilton, announced that about a year ago and it was confirmed that it was rolling out as a test for Emberstorm and Whirlwind effective yesterday before they roll it out to the remaining 9.

[Vasyl]

So I've been looking into this team more, because I'll admit, I forgot about DR :rolleyes: Can anyone confirm that AS is on DR? I've heard from a few sources that it isn't :D And as for no burst, I've seen prots at 80 throwing down 10k+ AS, so I'm not sure how you're not managing to burst people down with 5x Judgement -> AS -> ShotR/HoW. Also: New beta build with AS cooldown reduced to 15 seconds baseline? Yum yum. I think the group still has potential, but you just gotta remember that you're playing prot not Ret, so things will run differently. Charging up the HoPo for Shield of the Righteous is kinda nuts, my friend can lay down 22k crits with it, and with talents making it have an extra 50% crit from Judgement, its pretty sweet

[Mokoi]

Yeah, I have been enjoying my 5x Prot pallies, they have been crazy easy to global people, 5x AS is devastating, with most crits obliterating people. and the Grand Crusader refresh on it procs all the damn time, almost every HotR i get at least one and more likely 2 or 3 procs up.

[Kojii]

Thanks all for the feedback. The team, 1 prot, 4 ret, hit 21 last night and look forward to their heroic dungeon running.

Erm i thought u had a 5 pallies already? at 80? why are u creating more?

[Khatovar]

Erm i thought u had a 5 pallies already? at 80? why are u creating more?

The original post is from last March, the post you quoted is from last April. He hit 80 on them around June (http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=30419) and probably updated his sig around the same time.

[Vasyl]

Let's keep it on topic, guys :rolleyes:

OT: Mokoi seems to be getting it, I'm not sure [obviously I need to spend more time researching] what the Proc rate or PPM is on GC, but it does proc A LOT. I mean I was just doing UK today on my 70 pally and on some pulls its literraly just HotR -> AS repeat. And the really nice thing imo about prots is the fact that WoG can't really be "wasted" as all overheal turns into a shield. I personally love Prot, and by that alone I think I will try out the 5x prot. But on another point, the big reason I wanted to try this was because of how borked DS was, but now with the removal of the HP requirement, It will be easier to model Ret DS healing than before. If I'm not mistaken, that is the primary strength in Ret.

I have a question for you Mokoi: Are you using round robin DG? And is the survivability as nuts as I'm imagining?

[remanz]

Let's keep it on topic, guys :rolleyes:

OT: Mokoi seems to be getting it, I'm not sure [obviously I need to spend more time researching] what the Proc rate or PPM is on GC, but it does proc A LOT. I mean I was just doing UK today on my 70 pally and on some pulls its literraly just HotR -> AS repeat. And the really nice thing imo about prots is the fact that WoG can't really be "wasted" as all overheal turns into a shield. I personally love Prot, and by that alone I think I will try out the 5x prot. But on another point, the big reason I wanted to try this was because of how borked DS was, but now with the removal of the HP requirement, It will be easier to model Ret DS healing than before. If I'm not mistaken, that is the primary strength in Ret.

I have a question for you Mokoi: Are you using round robin DG? And is the survivability as nuts as I'm imagining?


The closer we got to cata. The worse it looks for prod. The damage at level 85 is really not that good with prodin. What you see at level 70 is not the same as at level 80, let alone level 85. The defense on the other hand is always there. And obviously, vs melee, you win. Key is always, has always been, the wizards. And I said this many times already, no cleanse, 1 mage + 1 healer can kite you to no end. Your dps period goes as long as freedom up time. When you engage, the battle starts at 40 yard, not from melee. You throw the shield dazed him, you still don't have a distance closer. You have to run. At least Rets have repen and run 15% faster.

As for Rets, DS was indeed one of the primiary str of Rets. The attack + auto heal was OP. Whats also OP is sacred shield, cleanse, and divine sacrifice. lost all 3.

edit: just to give you an idea on the damage. After some fine tuning with my holy power management, For retribution, I can get About 6.5k-7k dps on a target dummy with all CD used. This is in all pvp gear. For protection, same gear, I swap the 1h + shield. My DPS drops to 4k with wings open. The prod damage goes up when being hit. (tanking). When you are in the assult/lock down mode, the damage is not that high.

[Vasyl]

Thanks for the feedback Remanz.

You made some good points. I never played high level Paladin before, so I wasn't aware of those kinds of nerfs. What a shame! Where do we go now? Anyone tried 5 shockadin? This was another combo I was curious about. I have not given it a chance yet, but from what I hear Paladins out there are getting their exorcisms down to like 1 second casts which is just retarded.

[remanz]

Well. I whined Sooooo hard about no cleanse. And blizzard heard my call!

http://wowtal.com/#k=ff3.a7t.paladin.

Look at retribution's "Art of Sacrifice" Talent.

"You cleanse will remove one movement impairing effect if cast on yourself"


Back in the game again if this stays.

[BrothelMeister]

As far as I see, 4 rets+ DK will be immune to snares completely. Cleanse removes any snares from the ret, and each ret can take turns popping Hand of freedom on the DK.