Cataclysm: The Ret Paladin- AKA Multi-Box Burst PVP Machines.

Not sure that binary is such a bad thing if you are referring to going from 50% to 100% health in one cast :P

It seems that the 4 ret team sort of works as a mediocre survival sort of squd for 100 seconds then 20 seconds worth of kick ass time every 2 minutes. Considering the sort of sporadic fighting that ossurs in BGs again, this probably isn't a horrible thing. If the team can stay alive in between having cooldowns to use then they can still be a force to reckon with considering BGs is quite often about surviving most rather than killing most.

Saying all of that, I think the durability of having a dedicated healer in a 5 box team can't be understated. They have more effective heals and cleanses so will generally be a better rounded team IMO.

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Originally Posted by Mosg2

If all you're doing is using your HP for WoG sure, 4x Rets will outheal a single Holy Pally... But that also means you're doing absolutely terrible DPS.

/shrug

I'm not trying to come off condescending--I'm just saying I've played both teams a lot and the healing from 4x Rets is just too binary for me.

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For now yes, the HP pool too small. Not to mention you can glyph it . Heals 50% less up front, then another 50% become hots.

when your HP becomes 120k and WG heals for 15k non-crit, it will be a lot more useful.

I have two meanings for the binary comment:

1. You're either at 0 or full right now if you're getting healed with WoG. Yes, this will change with Cata but then number 2 is a bigger problem.

2. Swapping to heal people who are either both getting focused or if your whole team is getting AE'd is *hard* with WoG. It's not impossible, it's just hard.

I'm sure people will be successful with the Rets--I just think it's going to take more work and will have an ultimately lower cap on your max performance.

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Originally Posted by Mosg2

If all you're doing is using your HP for WoG sure, 4x Rets will outheal a single Holy Pally... But that also means you're doing absolutely terrible DPS.

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If you check out my video of Azol'Nerub, around 3:00, I pull the spider boss the hard way and was forced to heal a ton. You can hear all the WoG heals going off constantly to keep the team healed. While you lose some burst DPS by losing some TVs, I wouldn't say the dps is terrible, as all the other attacks are still doing solid damage. If burst is no longer the game in cat, it may be a lot easier to keep these guys topped off as you'll never lose mana when using WoG to heal.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=33131

Lol, yes when 4 Rets use their Holy power for healing, they trade damage output to do it.

But that's the awesome part! You have crazy, non-CC-able healing when you need it, and 5 good DPSers when you don't need the healing.

A Healer +4 DK team has 1 very CC-able healer (except for 8 seconds every 5 minutes, providing no one dispels bubble) and 4 DPS. Regardless of what's needed, you will never have more healing or more Damage output. This is simply less versatility.

The reason Healer + 4 Shamans kicks ass is because you have 5 healing capable classes for when the healer gets CCed. Getting 2K with the Shamans involved a lot of healing in between targets to ensure my healer didn't collapse. Even if Shaman and DK's can do equivalent damage, the DK's do not bring any utility to the table that will keep their healer alive.

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Originally Posted by BrothelMeister

Lol, yes when 4 Rets use their Holy power for healing, they trade damage output to do it.

But that's the awesome part! You have crazy, non-CC-able healing when you need it, and 5 good DPSers when you don't need the healing.

A Healer +4 DK team has 1 very CC-able healer (except for 8 seconds every 5 minutes, providing no one dispels bubble) and 4 DPS. Regardless of what's needed, you will never have more healing or more Damage output. This is simply less versatility.

The reason Healer + 4 Shamans kicks ass is because you have 5 healing capable classes for when the healer gets CCed. Getting 2K with the Shamans involved a lot of healing in between targets to ensure my healer didn't collapse. Even if Shaman and DK's can do equivalent damage, the DK's do not bring any utility to the table that will keep their healer alive.

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Healing as a whole is less effective in cata without burning through a shitton of mana.

Also to the person saying WoG will hit for 15k non crit @ 85 is living in dream land. But that remains to be seen.

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Originally Posted by BrothelMeister

The reason Healer + 4 Shamans kicks ass is because you have 5 healing capable classes for when the healer gets CCed. Getting 2K with the Shamans involved a lot of healing in between targets to ensure my healer didn't collapse. Even if Shaman and DK's can do equivalent damage, the DK's do not bring any utility to the table that will keep their healer alive.

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I think you have a decent point here, but the idea is that you pick a very durable healer (mosg2's reasoning behind the pally) and your 4 other characters help keep the healer alive by killing off 2 or more enemy players fast.

I played arena with 4xShamans plus a healer friend for a long time, and agree with your sentiment about the power of hybrids being able to help the healer. However, one of the reasons Pally+4xShaman was such an awesome combo for a long time was that the Pally could bubble and/or heal themselves through a lot of focus fire while the Shamans ravaged the other side. Same principle here. In contrast, Priest+4xShamana in arena did require much more shaman healing assistance (even if they had other advantages).

The DKs will have the ability to do sustained pressure and apply anti-healing. If they focus your healer, you're going to need to make them pay for that choice by killing 2-3 of their group. You can also use DG and ranged snaring to allow your pally a chance to get free of the pain. (Come to think of it, that may work even better...)

DKs will have some new tricks as well using multi-DGs. You can park 3 at the arena entry area on some maps, and drive a lone DK out in the middle of the map to double-pull someone WAAY out of position of even receiving heals.

I can see that 4xDK+Healer arena matches might turn into battles of attrition quite easily. I still think there's a good chance to win. If they focus on blowing up your healer, and you can take down 2-3 of their DPS quickly, you'll still win. Hell, I'd leave the healer to the end if Necrotic Strike works well enough. Take out their big DPS first and win the battle of attrition with your continually regenerating resource system...

I think Druid has a strong potential for a healer partner with this team, if played by another player. Great CC abilities combined with Stealth could really help.

Ok, time to stop before I get too excited again... Good luck with this team, gang!

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Originally Posted by Shodokan

Healing as a whole is less effective in cata without burning through a shitton of mana.

Also to the person saying WoG will hit for 15k non crit @ 85 is living in dream land. But that remains to be seen.

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Oh I just made that number up. But you get the idea. It won't be as much as over heal now.

As for 15k , I was being conservative. What do your WOGs heal you for at level 80? Mine heals for 20k cirt, 10k non crit.

15k is a conservative estimation. 3 HP obviously.

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Originally Posted by remanz

Oh I just made that number up. But you get the idea. It won't be as much as over heal now.

As for 15k , I was being conservative. What do your WOGs heal you for at level 80? Mine heals for 20k cirt, 10k non crit.

15k is a conservative estimation. 3 HP obviously.

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15k Might be about where it stands, as it is now i do 10kish on myself (just checked, haven't actually been on one of my rets yet) and i just crit healed another rando player near me for 24.5k So that's is quite a bit of healing.

I've been toying around on my ret paladin, and you can estimate crusader strike to be about a 14,000 crit.

The only negative thing i really see about the dk/rets is their requirement of keeping inquisition up at all times in order to make judgement damage worth a damn, same with holy wrath. Theres quite a gap in when damage can be done though, theres a few seconds per basic rotation where its just autoattacks. That and that without taking the 9% haste judgement you are stuck with basically 4.5 second crusader strikes.

The wings + HoW do a lot of damage as well.

The one thing that helps with this setup as opposed to a single healer is that with WoG getting 60% extra chance to crit (bringing it up to what... 90%?) But thats a tradeoff for 20% extra damage to exorcism... which as it stands crits for like 15k.

I dunno, i think its retarded a DK's obliterate does more damage than any attack a ret paladin has.

Well Dks are not without their own problems. Since we are in the rets thread, I can lay out some of the bad things about Dks.

1st and foremost, I just don't see playing healer yourself + 4DKs can work. Without a lead => follow, your paladin get CCed, your DK will get into this "stickie targetting mode" IWT will be screwed up. DK will run around like a mad man. You know what I am talking about. "blind on paladin, bam!, DK lost control" need to cleartarget and resync.

2nd , frost DK dies fast. I went from blood => frost. Gain about 1-2k DPS, but lost 12k HP and all my self heal abilities. They are like arm warrior. The defensive CD is just not that effective as far as I used it. They need heals.