FOTM for Multiboxing is definitely pallys

[Owltoid]

I mentioned it before, but it is clear that stacking Sacred Shield is OP. Hopefully there isn't a nerf incoming, but having four stacking on one toon makes them nearly unstoppable. I have to imagine that rets will overtake DKs for the melee of choice. I decided to run my 4 rets with a warrior (fury at the moment). I'm pretty confident that this group will take down any PvE or PvP (BG at least) thrown at it. I can't wait to see the Battle Healer glyph in action!

[heyaz]

I'll definitely check that out on my pallies (they are still only 80 since I quit boxing, but whatever).

You tried shaman yet?

The one thing I'm afraid of, is these healing abilities scaling with pvp power, so they'll drop off significantly the minute you hit 86 and won't recover until a few tiers into level 90. My 80 in full wrathful (stat dropoff starts at 81) healing tide totem ticks for the same damn amount as my level 85 in starter pvp gear... imagine that. An 85 shaman in season 11 though, hits crazy numbers.

[Shodokan]

Shaman will be better overall IMO.

Healing rain + healing tide totem + resto 4 set + ascendance + hpally aura mastery.... unkillable due to 160k heal per tick or more on totems + healing rain and enough damage to burst anything in the game down...

Rets will be strong as shit for sure.

Does it cost holy power to use? (re-rolling and old accounts inactive now with pallies on them)

Also... how much does it heal for/absorb? They also have 6 seconds to swap to another target if you sacred shield one and burst it down (yes we have bubble though)

[Ualaa]

Pallies have a fair bit going for them...
But DK's are going to be quite strong too.
I'm not going to mention anything in favor of the Pallies, as they're going to be a strong option... but... they'll both be good choices.



In the DK's favor is still Howling Blast.
As this is AoE damage, at range, and applies a snare.
Which means the DK's have an easier time closing to melee range than most other melee characters.

The DK's also have Death Grip, which essentially negates root and snare effects.
They retain their defensive cooldowns, against knockbacks/fear/stuns, and can give up the knockback cooldown (glyph it) for a second trinket effect.
Plus Conversion & Purgatory look to be nice.

[Shodokan]

Pallies have a fair bit going for them...
But DK's are going to be quite strong too.
I'm not going to mention anything in favor of the Pallies, as they're going to be a strong option... but... they'll both be good choices.



In the DK's favor is still Howling Blast.
As this is AoE damage, at range, and applies a snare.
Which means the DK's have an easier time closing to melee range than most other melee characters.

The DK's also have Death Grip, which essentially negates root and snare effects.
They retain their defensive cooldowns, against knockbacks/fear/stuns, and can give up the knockback cooldown (glyph it) for a second trinket effect.
Plus Conversion & Purgatory look to be nice.

Howling blast damage really isn't that high in MoP so the days of spamming that for our main damage ability are pretty over. It hits for 11-16k non crit in s12 gear on other PVP geared players meaning you aren't even doing 15% hp for every howling blast all 4 dks do due to high health pools.

Yes dks will be strong but it is not going to be because of howling blast. It will be due to their absurd burst with full RP and runes and trinkets up as well as their ability to ignore CC for as long as they can. Also their ability to clear targets with a long ranged purge into grip + burst + stun. Necrotic is basically off the table unless you horde blood tap and make sure your real death runes are up. That along with their execute being stupid if they all hit at once it will basically kill someone. Don't get me wrong dks will be good but they will be MUCH harder to play than point and click as they are now, they will no longer be completely faceroll but will still have their faceroll burst moments. Survivability minus CC reduction and such is pretty abysmal though in comparison to paladins.

[Owltoid]

Sacred shield does not have a resource cost (mana or holy power). Self refreshes every 6 seconds (impacted by haste) for 30 seconds if you don't put it on a different target.

Havent been able to try the other two parts of the survivability equation - glyph of battle healer and holy prism. The glyph requires mop mats and the other is level 90 talent.

One of the improvements is that templars verdict and divine storm require three holy power. That's great from a multiboxing resource management point of view as you can just spam it with you HP generators and not have to manage HP.

I went with the warrior over DK for healing rebuff and fun. The pallys are pretty damn mobile and I thought the warrior being mobile would be better. I want them to focus the warrior as that will feed rage and she will likely have the shields. Y default (until others get focused)

Blame iPhone for typos

[Shodokan]

Sacred shield does not have a resource cost (mana or holy power). Self refreshes every 6 seconds (impacted by haste) for 30 seconds if you don't put it on a different target.

Havent been able to try the other two parts of the survivability equation - glyph of battle healer and holy prism. The glyph requires mop mats and the other is level 90 talent.

One of the improvements is that templars verdict and divine storm require three holy power. That's great from a multiboxing resource management point of view as you can just spam it with you HP generators and not have to manage HP.

I went with the warrior over DK for healing rebuff and fun. The pallys are pretty damn mobile and I thought the warrior being mobile would be better. I want them to focus the warrior as that will feed rage and she will likely have the shields. Y default (until others get focused)

Blame iPhone for typos

Just thought i'd mention this about rets...

The entire tier 45 talents are complete garbage.

Sacred shield on a t2 ret right now is a 9.3k absorb. Which means at content it is approximately a 40kish absorb per 6 seconds for 30 seconds. This is also considered a magic effect and can be dispelled.
Selfless healer is also a magic effect and can be dispelled (each stack is a different buff)... but at current content a 3 stack heals for approximately 100k on someone else.

So effectively it ends up coming down to: are you fighting a hunter/dk/shaman/priest? Kiss your sacred shield/selfless healer stacks good bye (normally for 1 toon i'd say) which puts Selfless healer ahead because if one of them is cleaned off of their SH then the other 3 still have 75+k heals that will go out vs every 6 seconds being able to use a global to re-buff a shield that may be dispelled. Sacred Shield will however help with initial burst.

Also I want to point out that a lot of things hit for over 100k... so essentially if they somehow get to 25k absorb per shield then it will only absorb one ability (like a crit obliterate, slam/mortal strike under avatar, shatter, mind blast, pyroblast, etc etc)

They obviously can't dispel it every time but the point is that it is dispellable and for a single toon the entire tier is garbage but for us both options are viable since they can't spend enough resources to clean the entire team of their cooldowns unless they are running dk/enhance/hunter/priest/paladin or something in 5's with full resources up.

[Palee]

Interesting thread. Keep it going guys :)

[MiRai]

Interesting thread. Keep it going guys :)
Shodokan will be charging $10 a reply from here on forth. :)

[daanji]

Anyone create an awesome Ret Paladin cast sequence DPS macro or technique yet?

I've been playing around with it on my Freshly minted Level 85 Paladins with item level 305 and am getting ~6k. Pretty awful.

Though, not sure if it is my gear or my macro.

[Owltoid]

If someone dispels one magic effect then do all similar effects go away? If so then SS is significantly weaker than hoped. If only one goes away then let them use their gcd and keep smiling.

Does anyone know the approximate attack power a ret pally will have in pvp gear at 90? How much health?

[Shodokan]

If someone dispels one magic effect then do all similar effects go away? If so then SS is significantly weaker than hoped. If only one goes away then let them use their gcd and keep smiling.

Does anyone know the approximate attack power a ret pally will have in pvp gear at 90? How much health?

Between 23 and 25k attack power or so (at least thats what dk had on beta). So I assume about 10k higher than on live or so. Which nearly doubles it... so you're looking at maybe a 20k shield from SS as a guestimate.

Around 350-375k HP in full PVP gear (in bgs closer to 400k)

Similar effects if they STACK are stripped one by one.

Ret paladin DPS:

HoW > 5 point TV > judgement > exorcism> crusader strike > 3 point TV

Since TV is always 3 now you can just throw it into highest priority for PVP.

4x non crit WoG will heal for > 33% of your total HP btw. As will a single non SH FoL (hard casted)

Ret paladins also scale REALLY hard with weapon damage due to seal, crusader strike and TV. Just like warriors and Dks...

[Owltoid]

They definitely stack. My warrior has eight buffs on him due to the shields, so it may be possible that the 30 seconds buff would remain while the 6 second shield would be dispelled or stolen (Mage)

[Fat Tire]

I hope no one is getting too excited. This patch is giving alot of people false hope, I am sure people can remember holy pallies from the last patch before cata they were truly impossible to kill and could exorcism people down. Just food for thought as everything will change in 3 weeks, as the healing seen now will not make much of a difference at lvl 90 as hit point pools are 3x higher.

Pvp power is such an amazing stat, I will be stacking it as high as I can get it and using it in every gem and chant slots. I am talking about the 120 pvp power gems at 90, I have no idea about the 50 pvp power gems on live. Healing only gets 50% of the healing from pvp power and they cant go any lower because pve healing gear would then over take it. 4-5 weeks from now people are going to be complaining about being "one shot" again from certain classes.

Also I will continue to destroy ele shamans in mop as I did all of cata, they have one mediocre defensive cooldown now of 40% woopdie doo. They have one cooldown NS blast and thats it, if you ele shamans can figure out how to project your stun totems then you might have a shot. There is alot more cc in the game as I am sure some have noticed now, it seems like everyone has alot of cc at their disposal. Of course I am speaking about arenas not bgs.

In mop there is more than one class that has a vanish as I am sure some of you guys have seen. Druids, priests and hunters all have a vanish and they will be a little more difficult to kill good ones now.

Should be fun.

[Shodokan]

I hope no one is getting too excited. This patch is giving alot of people false hope, I am sure people can remember holy pallies from the last patch before cata they were truly impossible to kill and could exorcism people down. Just food for thought as everything will change in 3 weeks, as the healing seen now will not make much of a difference at lvl 90 as hit point pools are 3x higher.

Pvp power is such an amazing stat, I will be stacking it as high as I can get it and using it in every gem and chant slots. I am talking about the 120 pvp power gems at 90, I have no idea about the 50 pvp power gems on live. Healing only gets 50% of the healing from pvp power and they cant go any lower because pve healing gear would then over take it. 4-5 weeks from now people are going to be complaining about being "one shot" again from certain classes.

Also I will continue to destroy ele shamans in mop as I did all of cata, they have one mediocre defensive cooldown now of 40% woopdie doo. They have one cooldown NS blast and thats it, if you ele shamans can figure out how to project your stun totems then you might have a shot. There is alot more cc in the game as I am sure some have noticed now, it seems like everyone has alot of cc at their disposal. Of course I am speaking about arenas not bgs.

In mop there is more than one class that has a vanish as I am sure some of you guys have seen. Druids, priests and hunters all have a vanish and they will be a little more difficult to kill good ones now.

Should be fun.

Shaman have the tools to deal with every situation. Don't know if you've seen healing tide totem on live but kollektiv's were ticking for 40k per when i was watching him duel RZN on tich the other night. It will also go up in MoP so you are looking at a defensive cooldown that basically makes you unkillable along with a 40% damage reduction for a second defensive.

Shaman were EASY to steamroll by melee cleaves but there were plenty of shaman/warlock/pally and shaman/mage/priest that did well this season in 3's. In 5's stacking them was a death sentence against melee cleaves especially vs other boxers who could be immune to knockbacks (dks).

Shaman damage is still pretty high when stacked and they have a lot of options. Will they be the best to box? Who knows and only time will tell.

Paladins for sure will be strong and healers on beta are still pretty unkillable unless you have all your cds and CC ready.

Everything right now is out of control because it is the patch before an expansion like you said. We'll have the same exact problems we have every expansion, learning to adapt and deal with things. Projecting your totems effectively being one of those things we can use to do well (if they don't totem stomp, which pros will unless you stack 3-4 of them). Worse case scenario you wait for them to burn cooldowns and heal through it with your spirit walker's grace + 4 piece resto + chain heal and drop a single healing tide totem. Ele shaman are prone to losing more often than not to melee stacking teams which they can now deal with better because of the stun totems on round robin and thunderstorms plus the fact that you can have earth elementals as pets that stun now if you don't want to take elemental blast.

On the topic of rets... they will be strong but none of the abilities we are discussing are what is going to make them so viable. The way PVP power works with healing is what will make them stupid to deal with as a team. But that can be said about shaman and any other hybrid class with a decent castable and instant heal (boomkins on live are funny to watch do this, NS to full).

Every class has its downfalls. Especially DK's the last season as fire mages/dot cleaves just ATE US ALIVE. Everything has counters and almost every class in the game looks STRONG if played right and with the correct setup at 90.

I'm excited purely because of the viability to box every group of classes I enjoy for the expansion and doing DECENT at the very least in 3's and 5's... as well as multi-class teams being very very good if you can use them decently well because of all the new abilities/synergies between classes.

[Fat Tire]

Shaman have the tools to deal with every situation. Don't know if you've seen healing tide totem on live but kollektiv's were ticking for 40k per when i was watching him duel RZN on tich the other night. It will also go up in MoP so you are looking at a defensive cooldown that basically makes you unkillable along with a 40% damage reduction for a second defensive.


The healing on live is scaled for 90 it just that the hp pools are lower on live so it looks like healing is going to be insane when mop comes out. I destroy ele's on beta they go down like butter, who knows maybe things will change.

I equate theorycrafting to the start of every baseball season. Everyone starts fresh and everyone thinks their team has a chance to make it to the world series because their team looks good on paper and is having a good spring training, its only when the season is underway its realized that only a couple of teams really had a chance to begin with.

...and yes I thought my Colorado Rockies had a chance at the start of the season.

[Shodokan]

The healing is on live is scaled for 90 it just that the hp pools are lower on live so it looks like healing is going to be insane when mop comes out. I destroy ele's on beta they go down like butter, who knows maybe things will change.

A single ele is crap, this isn't really changing in MoP that much :P they need babysitting like a mofo.

[Palee]

Shodokan, where are you rerolling? On Tich?

[Shodokan]

Shodokan, where are you rerolling? On Tich?

This could have been done through a PM, but more than likely I will be moving to Tich alliance. I have to decide by friday when i start leveling.

[Palee]

This could have been done through a PM, but more than likely I will be moving to Tich alliance. I have to decide by friday when i start leveling.Ah

Ah sorry... Well, I'm on tich on Horde so if you go Aliance we should have some epic battles :)
But I'm considering have both horde and alliance teams.

[Shodokan]

Ah

Ah sorry... Well, I'm on tich on Horde so if you go Aliance we should have some epic battles :)
But I'm considering have both horde and alliance teams.


Arena is all that matters to me really. So horde isn't really an option.

[Palee]

Is is because of the racials? I thought they are nerfing EMFH?

[remanz]

This is some good discussion here. I am still trying to catch up on various changes for all classes.


because of all the new abilities/synergies between classes

Anything reallly exciting in this area ? Say if I pick a team of mixed melees, dk,pally,warrior,shaman (enhance, seems like enhance wont get ANYTHING new !?).

[Fat Tire]

Is is because of the racials? I thought they are nerfing EMFH?

They havent nerfed EMFH. Its just that they have put stats on the trinkets for trinketing. Humans can still and will use the proc and on use trinkets which others that need a trinket wont use.

[Palee]

So regarding EMFH, I think I noticed that it doesn't remove silences, like a pvp trinket does, is this correct?

[Palee]

They havent nerfed EMFH. Its just that they have put stats on the trinkets for trinketing. Humans can still and will use the proc and on use trinkets which others that need a trinket wont use.

A second dps trinket might make a different at very high ratings, but at the 2k rating or so I don't think so. I remember when I had BE pallies with their silences. The moment I moved to alliance to humans, even though I had an extra trinket, the lack of silence tanked my rating from like 2000 down to 1800. If you get CC-ed or if you can't CC a little bit of extra dmg from a trinket won't make much difference.

[heyaz]

I'm an everything guy - arena, rbgs, random bgs, world pvp, and pve. I think shaman look viable for all. Viable for 2200+ arena? Only time and experience at 90 will tell. But I don't think 1800 will be hard at all and maybe 2000 if you put the time in. That'll give you the increased points cap to get geared up and blow things up in other types of PVP where I think shaman can really shine.

Although shaman have some very promising talents with the dynamics to potentially hit very high rating arena, other classes have a lot of things that could give us trouble that we'd have to overcome, or if not, just get hard countered and blown up to melee cleaves like in wrath.

I'm not interested in banging away at 5v5 for an entire expansion trying to earn a minor tier 2 upgrade, and even less so - titles. If I really get into arena I'll play solo or dual box 3v3s or something.

I only went to 2000 in 5v5 in wrath to get fully geared when there were rating requirements, by 2100 it was no longer fun - but with that gear all other pvp was amazing. I focused on BGs and Wintergrasp at that point, and heroic instances. For the latter, LFR gives us a way to get excellent gear compared to being stuck 2 tiers behind from the justice vendors.

I didn't box in Cata but based on what I observed, Shaman were good but not amazing in non-arena settings. I think with increased burst capability with ascendance and the like, coupled with the ability to spec all survivability and healing (with the super OP healing tide totem), you can be a powerful force in BGs and world pvp without quickly getting mowed down when the fight gets to more than 4 people, or 2-3 skilled players aoe cc'ing you down and outhealing your burst.

[Shodokan]

They havent nerfed EMFH. Its just that they have put stats on the trinkets for trinketing. Humans can still and will use the proc and on use trinkets which others that need a trinket wont use.

I haven't tested but i think EMFH doesn't include silences anymore (just what i heard through the grapevine)

@heyas

Everything in the game is viable to 2.2k if the player(s) are good enough.

[Svpernova09]

I haven't tested but i think EMFH doesn't include silences anymore (just what i heard through the grapevine)



Just tested on live, EMFH *did* remove the silence from Silencing Shot.

[ebony]

I'm an everything guy - arena, rbgs, random bgs, world pvp, and pve. I think shaman look viable for all. Viable for 2200+ arena? Only time and experience at 90 will tell. But I don't think 1800 will be hard at all and maybe 2000 if you put the time in. That'll give you the increased points cap to get geared up and blow things up in other types of PVP where I think shaman can really shine.

Although shaman have some very promising talents with the dynamics to potentially hit very high rating arena, other classes have a lot of things that could give us trouble that we'd have to overcome, or if not, just get hard countered and blown up to melee cleaves like in wrath.

I'm not interested in banging away at 5v5 for an entire expansion trying to earn a minor tier 2 upgrade, and even less so - titles. If I really get into arena I'll play solo or dual box 3v3s or something.

I only went to 2000 in 5v5 in wrath to get fully geared when there were rating requirements, by 2100 it was no longer fun - but with that gear all other pvp was amazing. I focused on BGs and Wintergrasp at that point, and heroic instances. For the latter, LFR gives us a way to get excellent gear compared to being stuck 2 tiers behind from the justice vendors.

I didn't box in Cata but based on what I observed, Shaman were good but not amazing in non-arena settings. I think with increased burst capability with ascendance and the like, coupled with the ability to spec all survivability and healing (with the super OP healing tide totem), you can be a powerful force in BGs and world pvp without quickly getting mowed down when the fight gets to more than 4 people, or 2-3 skilled players aoe cc'ing you down and outhealing your burst.


i cata shams did not get good till they removed the cooldown on chain lighting and buffed us in DS patch. they was hell at the start of the xpac with big mana probs but in mop your spending the hole of level 90 at like 370k mana. its not going up its not going down so should not be a prob at 90.

Av got shams at level 90 (they give out free conquest gear.) healing is far to op in pvp atm. (needs work a lot of work) 5v5 arena is just 2 healers 3 dps and nothing dies in arana you have to lock down the healers thats kinda hard to do when u getting stunned/fear/aoed/Nuked. but beta is nothing like live :)

[Shodokan]

Just tested on live, EMFH *did* remove the silence from Silencing Shot.


Thanks for testing.


i cata shams did not get good till they removed the cooldown on chain lighting and buffed us in DS patch. they was hell at the start of the xpac with big mana probs but in mop your spending the hole of level 90 at like 370k mana. its not going up its not going down so should not be a prob at 90.

Av got shams at level 90 (they give out free conquest gear.) healing is far to op in pvp atm. (needs work a lot of work) 5v5 arena is just 2 healers 3 dps and nothing dies in arana you have to lock down the healers thats kinda hard to do when u getting stunned/fear/aoed/Nuked. but beta is nothing like live :)

You have plenty to keep healers out of the game as shaman in beta. Placing your pulse totem and stunning, stunning with earth ele with t90 talent, hex, wind shear (they can't juke forever), your partner's HOJ, repentence.... (if running with paladin). Its all a matter of doing it. It was the same way in cata though that double healer triple DPS would give people a hard time because if both healers were left unattended or not kept CC'd then you could not land a kill on DPS.