5 Pallies

[Redbeard]

Howdy,

Just coming back for Legion, I skipped out on panda and WOD so getting my bearings.

I see some people having some success with 5 paladins, and deciding to give it a go.

I recall a ways back people were playing 5 ret... for any of you playing with this spec, curious to see if you're doing trinity, all prot, all ret, etc. Just setting up my people now, trying to decide between trying 5 prot (love avenger's shield =D) and just playing it straight with 3 ret and a holy.

Appreciate any comments or advice,

Thanks.

[Andreauk]

I think 5 Prots will be more forgiving - I rolled 5 last night while my main team - Holy Priest and 4 BM Hunters gather some rested xp. I don't expect to have the success that some of the others have had on here, but I know it will be a lot of fun!

[JohnGabriel]

The class balance goes live today, might play around a bit before you invest too much in your artifact.

Prots were nerfed a couple days ago, but Rets get a big buff.



Templar’s Verdict damage increased by 10%.
Divine Storm damage increased by 20%.
Crusader Strike (Retribution) damage increased by 13%.
Blade of Justice damage increased by 13%.
Judgment (Retribution) damage increased by 13%.
Zeal (Talent) damage increased by 13%.
Blade of Wrath (Talent) damage increased by 13%.


That seems a really big buff.

[davidmage]

Prot paladins are fine, and are probably one of the stronger teams you can choose.

A setup of 4 dk and 1 pala is more favorable in most encounters. DK are superior in withstanding magic damage, and the battleresses can make the difference between managing a hard boss or not.

I haven't played DK myself in a while, but if they still have those mass grips (dragging all mobs to a single spot) it should be very helpful to handling large packs of mobs (it should also work as a wide aoe interrupt if you yank a mob, which paladins lack). That could be really essential if you want to be doing timed mythic+ runs, and have to fight a lot of mobs at the same time just because of the speed limit.

EDIT: Paladins do have the tier 3 talent, where we can choose Blinding Light. That can work as an AoE interrupt, and even give some time for your team to recover if a pack is overwhelming. Seeing especially for timed runs where you don't have time for repentance CC, this talent could be worth sacrificing at least a couple of repentance.

[Redbeard]

Thanks for the comments folks. Can you find the prot nerfs listed out? My google fu is not coming through.

In the context of paladins, sounds like a couple folks in favor of all prot. Definitely seems like a strong toolkit.

[Lyonheart]

Even with the nerf..prot seems very powerful. Also.. they feel great and look amazing boxed ( blessed hammer x5 is insane looking! )

[davidmage]

Even with the nerf..prot seems very powerful. Also.. they feel great and look amazing boxed ( blessed hammer x5 is insane looking! )

Yes 5 prot pally do have potential. The nerf on the self healing, and (coming or has it been made?) dps nerf to tanks in general, is no game changer. My team can theoretically do the same thing they could do before, I just need to stand in less shit and execute things better. Also we are far from the kind of ILvl we will reach after some time with lucky titanforged items (which easily can be traded from a char already geared in a slot, to one who is not).

5 paladins do look awesome. It was the only reason I decided on paladins, I had no plan behind performance. But I had not planned to even run x5 of them, but it works so why not.

[Redbeard]

One thing I am finding interesting is I am failing in finding a lot of theorycrafting around abilities (even from a single boxed perspective).

For example, first tier. It sounds to me like consecrated hammer (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=203785/consecrated-hammer) is a potentially better talent, especially from a boxing perspective. According to icy veins, double dips on the standing in consecration bonuses. If thats true, decent bump to your AOE, defense through SOTR and healing through LOTP.

Everything I can find says take blessed hammer, but I cant find a good comparison. Of course the 15% damage debuff sounds nice, but the hammers fly out pretty wide pretty quick. Whats the dps comparison? Whats the comparison of survability from the improved SOTR / LOTP vs the debuff, etc etc.

Anyways, will try to do some comparisons on my own but doesn't seem like a lot of good explanations out there at the moment.

[davidmage]

Hmm some nice thoughts about the tier 1 talent. I have always played with Holy Shield, as an attempt to boost defence and especially magic defence for my whole team. However that black chance feels spiky, and may not always be as helpful at a steady heal that one always can rely on.
So if the survival aspects is not a great loss, the increased damage and AoE is very welcome.

With this and my previously missed talent Blinding Light, I have some new things to try for handling large packs of enemies in a more effective manner.
I will come back with results of how these 2 talents work out for my team.

[Redbeard]

Awesome, will be good to hear how you fare.

[Xeneres]

I think that holy shield is the superior talent for slaves and overall mitigation. Its amazing for DoTs, trash and constant AoE. It is RNG in nature but I have a ~35% chance on any attack for it to be reduced by block which I think is pretty good. The 10% block chance cant hurt either.

I also just unlocked bulwark of order golden trait and with the extra chance at grand crusader and extra single target damage by avengers shield the first avenger talent I can build shields of 300-500k quite rapidly. I can have strings of good rng where it resets a lot which builds me a little 10-25% hp absorb shield cushion that is fairly easy to maintain and refresh while fighting a boss.

Blessed hammer looks cool and adds some AoE but I think its only the best on that one toon who is taking melee hits from a boss or trash. The other toons will not get any benefit aside from the AoE damage.

I think I'm also going to experiment with Consecrated hammer and see how it plays with bulwark of order and first avenger. Maybe it will be better than holy shield? If it works how I'm guessing it does then each hammer of righteousness it is a spamable 22.5% chance to reset avenger shield each time its used. It also gives us the benefit of consecration without having to be in it, which happens quite a bit if you have to run out of of something or handle a mechanic.

I guess all 3 of the first talents do lose some effect by not actively tanking some more than others.

At least holy shield gives you that +10% block and consecrated hammer gives you the effect of consecration for some of your core abilities and easy pulsing AoE damage without having to game blessed hammer to hit the maximum number of targets. I wouldn't rule out that 20% more powerful light/hand of the protector while running around dodging mechanics. That can be ~7% more total HP healed assuming your light of the protector healed a very low hp target for the full ~30%.

7% HP on a nearly dead DK with hp increasing abilities (vampiric blood) and bone shield can be an extra 200-300k heal or nearly two flash of lights worth of extra healing.

[Andreauk]

I don't use the taunt at all and find that aggro just swaps around automatically.. so for me blessed hammer works ok.

[Redbeard]

So, healing. In particular, hand of the protector. How are you guys using it?

Up until this point (i am at like 105 and have done the first 5 normal dungeons), I have it macroed in with my dps rotation. So each pally casts it on himself on cooldown essentially. Obviously can be wasteful if not needed.

I am contemplating putting it on a round robin since its off the GCD and then just click healing whoever needs it. More work, but more likely for the heals to go where they need to go.

Curious how others are doing it.

[Andreauk]

On my pallys I had it bound twice.. one with @self and then one with /assist main.. so if they needed a small heal I'd use it individually, and if I needed a big oh shit they'd all heal one.

[emitchell109]

Hey..
So I ended up making a mix team based off of what I have read/videos watched of these Prot and hunter boxing champions here. "David/Xeneress"

My team is currently a mix of 2x Prot Paladins and 3x Blood DK's
I have two macros that I spam for my dps rotation.

One of the macro is for Trash, it uses hand of the protector on self, while the other macro will use it on [@targettarget] <-- Who ever has threat. Because I find myself driving from different tanks depending upon what I want to do. Or if I just want a diff bit of scenery.

But having the Paladin Hammer stun as well as DK strangulate all on the same round robin button/interrupts/grips/arcane torrents makes the majority of all trash packs a breeze.

Currently I am only level 103. So once I get to max level I am sure they will get better tested.

Only trash pack that makes me cringe is that big Dragon trash pack in HoV just before the first boss..
It gave me some issues until i figured out what i was doing wrong.

[Ellay]

Jumping on this thread potentially late, I am testing the waters with 5 prot paladins and it seems like others are having decent success. Their damage overall feels kind of low, or is it actually decently high?
Granted the ones I am using are lvl 20 so it's way out of line for thinking but I'm just imagining at max lvl with dungeons the kill speed is lower than ideal.
Is it possible to spec some of them into Ret, or it's really the heals that save the day?

[davidmage]

Jumping on this thread potentially late, I am testing the waters with 5 prot paladins and it seems like others are having decent success. Their damage overall feels kind of low, or is it actually decently high?
Granted the ones I am using are lvl 20 so it's way out of line for thinking but I'm just imagining at max lvl with dungeons the kill speed is lower than ideal.
Is it possible to spec some of them into Ret, or it's really the heals that save the day?

According to Xeneres DK:s are superior DPS compared to paladins, especially for AOE (which is a big deal in mythic+). So if you are looking for higher dps (and probably a stronger group in general) having some DK:s is the way to go. 4 DKs and 1 paladin seems to be a strong group. The paladins role is supporting the dk:s as prot with necessary healing. DK:s can handle all kinds of incoming magic AoE damage nicely, and have battleress which can often save the day.

I also feel that the dps of prot paladin is kind of low. It's probably fine for mythic level 5 or so. I did a level 5 maw of souls with some minutes to spare on the timer. However I'm probably playing it far from optimal with my rotations, and how I handle mechanics on trash/bosses etc. I can see it being possible with level 7ish or so if you have nice gear and use some of them expensive pots, and can play your team close to optimal in all situations.

[Ellay]

Watching the videos I see the DK's have quite a bit of self healing, but what is the Prot Paladin doing for healing? His main 50% heal seems like it only works on self.
For the mythic level 5, isn't that still pretty good? Or what is the average non boxed player ramped up to now in difficulty?

[davidmage]

Watching the videos I see the DK's have quite a bit of self healing, but what is the Prot Paladin doing for healing? His main 50% heal seems like it only works on self.
For the mythic level 5, isn't that still pretty good? Or what is the average non boxed player ramped up to now in difficulty?

The Big paladin heal can be improved with the lvl 75 talent http://www.wowhead.com/spell=213652/hand-of-the-protector
The heal can be cast on any player, and the cooldown on it is also reduced!
And together with the lvl 100 talent http://www.wowhead.com/spell=204074/righteous-protector the remaining cooldown can be reduced/removed further whenever we need. With this Protection paladin becomes a ridiculous healing machine.
Also having at least 1 paladin which can apply this on the boss also helps http://www.wowhead.com/spell=183778/judgment-of-light

Yeah level 5 is fine, and I could probably push it a bit further if I really wanted. I don't know really about what the average non boxer is atm. But at level 7 with noticeable raw increase, and 2 affixes with a tight timer, things are getting serious. I'm top m+ players in my casual non boxing guild.

Anyway if you only care about results, I believe that DK:s are stronger in most aspects. However I care more about what's fun. I enjoy playing my paladins. Just like my x5 hunter team, they are not going to survive in high m+ or even all boss encounters. But I have been able to do what I want with them so far, and enjoyed it. If one only cares about the highest mythic + or even raids, you probably just want to drop boxing and do it single anyway :)

[Kicksome]

I copied Xeneres after my 5x Druids were just not cutting it at all. So my Pally, DK group can at least do Mythic+ content, and maybe even get 2 chests on some.

So I'm rolling with 1x pally, 4x DKs. They are a lot of fun, but, it's just so much easier having 5x of one class. And the Prot Pally is just insane on heals. I can see how the 5x Pallies would be a lot of fun. I'm really tempted to go for that next.

Although you have to love DKs for the 4x death grips in PvP, and the DKs just have more hitpoints and pretty good self heals. But they are a bit slow on their feet.

Now I'm sort of going back to the druids to gear them up - right now they are at ilevel 820 and doing better. The problem with druid tanks is they really don't have any self "heals", just mitigation. Their artifact talents really "bite" as well - for multiboxing at least. Pallies get "avenger shield gives you a damage shields etc....". Druid tanks get nothing like that at all - no healing help to speak of. Unless you go out of bear form to heal....

So I'm still working on the Drews, Once I get to ilevel 840 or so, I'll need to see if I have any chance in Mythics.

[Ellay]

So I'm hashing things out - love my theorycrafting.

For Retribution Paladins, since their DPS is pretty good and it makes switching to Protection easy if it doesn't work.
Divine Shield talent, where it auto casts if a shot kills you and brings you to 20% hp. This is amazing.
Word of Glory - you've got 8 AoE heal bombs every minute that heal for 900 spell power. I'm guessing this heal is in the 1 to 1.5 mil heal range?
Blessing of Kings - it's essentially healing rain if I read this right - without the issue of throwing it down. it makes an absorption shield which is 1.8 x spell power - every 6 seconds. Where Healing rain is 50% spell power + 50% spell power x 2.5 over 9 seconds.
Blessing of Wisdom - another mini heal , it's something!

Flash of Light is still viable if you need to top off. I know not optimal but it's another tool in the arsenal.
Currently only lvl 35 on my team, and only using flash of light since the fights are not difficult. It runs butter smooth but excited to try it at later levels.

The Protection artifact weapon buff where light of the protector gives a 15 second heal over time on top of the instant heal is massive though. Ultimately Paladins appear to be extremely boxer friendly, but I love to squeeze out the DPS and I think Ret might have enough survivability for some situations.

[Xeneres]

So I'm hashing things out - love my theorycrafting.

For Retribution Paladins, since their DPS is pretty good and it makes switching to Protection easy if it doesn't work.
Divine Shield talent, where it auto casts if a shot kills you and brings you to 20% hp. This is amazing.
Word of Glory - you've got 8 AoE heal bombs every minute that heal for 900 spell power. I'm guessing this heal is in the 1 to 1.5 mil heal range?
Blessing of Kings - it's essentially healing rain if I read this right - without the issue of throwing it down. it makes an absorption shield which is 1.8 x spell power - every 6 seconds. Where Healing rain is 50% spell power + 50% spell power x 2.5 over 9 seconds.
Blessing of Wisdom - another mini heal , it's something!

Flash of Light is still viable if you need to top off. I know not optimal but it's another tool in the arsenal.
Currently only lvl 35 on my team, and only using flash of light since the fights are not difficult. It runs butter smooth but excited to try it at later levels.

The Protection artifact weapon buff where light of the protector gives a 15 second heal over time on top of the instant heal is massive though. Ultimately Paladins appear to be extremely boxer friendly, but I love to squeeze out the DPS and I think Ret might have enough survivability for some situations.

What are you looking to do with your 5 paladins? For dungeons you will almost have to go 5x prot or make one of them a healer if you want to run with a trinity setup. I don't think its worth it to use a trinity setup unless you overgear the dungeon you are doing. The issue is that healing is toned down at 110/legion you are encouraged to move out of stuff asap. A healer cant cast one spell and heal you for 50% of your life like they could in previous expansions. By playing 5x melee you will be subjected to almost every mechanic and be nice and stacked so if they cleave or spread you can bet it will hit all of your other toons. If your toons are not very tanky you will have to be very good at minimizing your damage taken so you can survive long enough to get your damage out to kill a boss and handle their mehcanics.

I don't think greater blessing of kings absorb scales very well at 110 and its only refreshed every 6 seconds. Word of glory has too long a CD to be useful and it costs 3 holy power. 1% health and mana every 15 seconds from wisdom is a joke.

I'm at 871 on my prot paladin and my HoT from light the titans only ticks for 33k vs my 3.2 million HP pool. All in all the entire Light of the Titans HoT amounts to about flash of light over 15 seconds. It's nice addition but its not a game changing ability. One boss melee swing can be 400-600k so in the grand scheme of things its not that much but it does help offset some dot damage.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news for dream of many to multibox melee dps in dungeons. I tried playing 1x blood 3x frost and 1x holy pally and even if I make the frost dks only spend their runic power on deathstrike they are just too squishy to be able to survive anything they don't massively overgear. It would never work in something like Karazhan. There are too many mechanics that are just brutal to groups with lots of melee.

[Ellay]

That is really good information though and I do truly appreciate it!
It seems like 5x Prot Paladins will be the way to go.
At what level do you think I'll need to make the switch to prot? 100+? I'll most likely grind out as 1 Prot 4x ret until it becomes clear it isn't working.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Don't underestimate 5x Flash of Light on the prots, either. I can go from ~25% to full health just from broadcast+Clique FoL on a guy and I usually have enough mana to do that 4 times in a row.

[edit] I'd go prot immediately. I leveled mine from 100-110 as prot and they just blew through everything. It was less about how many mobs I could pull as much as having alliance turds tapping my packs as I was riding around gathering them up.

[Lyonheart]

That is really good information though and I do truly appreciate it!
It seems like 5x Prot Paladins will be the way to go.
At what level do you think I'll need to make the switch to prot? 100+? I'll most likely grind out as 1 Prot 4x ret until it becomes clear it isn't working.

I started leveling as trinity with my paldins until i got the quest for EoA and got my ass kicked lol.. then i jumped on the 5xprot train and have never looked back 8) I have been leveling my ret artifacts.. i think they will end up being better for just clearing stuff in the world. But they do not shine until they have most their artifact traits. My prots still out dps the rets..but the rets are catching up.

[Xeneres]

Don't underestimate 5x Flash of Light on the prots, either. I can go from ~25% to full health just from broadcast+Clique FoL on a guy and I usually have enough mana to do that 4 times in a row.

[edit] I'd go prot immediately. I leveled mine from 100-110 as prot and they just blew through everything. It was less about how many mobs I could pull as much as having alliance turds tapping my packs as I was riding around gathering them up.

This. Flash of light is very powerful on Prot Pallies. Its never a good idea to cast it while tanking on 1 paladin but with 5 toons you can cast it 4 or 5 times in a row per toon every 30 seconds or so. I'm sure its just as strong on ret as well. Its almost the same amount of healing as holy's flash of light.

One of my weaknesses playing 4x blood + 1 prot is having to survive on things when I'm unable to melee a boss to use my self heals and leech on DKs. Something like Helya when she submerges, serpentrix while Im running to kill heads or shivermaw when im spreading out for the frost debuff. I can get by with light of the protector and a few manual holy lights and CDs if needed but playing 5x prot would make that easier. My DKs have around 4.2-4.5 million life with high bone shield stacks so they do have a larger cushion of 30-40% more HP than my pally. I'f I'm low life and out of combat I don't really have very many ways to top my entire team up quickly.

[Ellay]

Are you leaning towards maybe for even further progression than your currently at Paladins may be the route?

[Dinosawrex]

Both Paladins and Dks seems really strong in groups atm. Would 1dk (blood) and 4 prot paladins work for mythic +