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

[BrothelMeister]

One thing you are forgetting about how healing is a precious commodity is that DK+Rets have 5 DPS, and 4 Healers! If any single soon in the party dies, you still have decent healing, whereas if the healer dies in Healer+ 4 DK, you're screwed.

The other comments about CC make me laugh, since DK+ 4 Rets also ahve interrupts, now you have 5 instead of 4. The rets aslo bring a sleep effect for the focus target, and a stun for the kill target. The snare that the 4 DK team brings is only better than DK+ Rets in that it is AoE, yet chains of Ice is still the best single target CC, and its no better for Frost than Blood.

The MS effect from Necrotic strike will have to be nerfed, otherwise normal multiple DK teams will be over-powered, again.

Definitely waiting until January before leveling more a DK heavy team.

[remanz]

HP vs damage ratio

It is definitely going to be tougher to burst at level 85. Lava burst will have a short period that it will be too good. Reason ? at level 85, when we all have just shitty gears, we got like 15% crit while lava burst is 100% crit. With 120k hp, still able to burst it down with lava burst. But others can't burst down with just 15% crit.

Gotta nerf healing regen, or pvp gonna be healer fest again.

[Mosg2]

@Brothelmeister:
I appreciate your point that the DK+Rets has 4 healers and 5 dps... But I think you need to modify your statement to: "This team has 4 shitty healers and 4.5 good dps."

In their heyday DK+Rets was amazing for what it did--Which was not dominate arenas like Shaman do. They're great at destroying people in BG's. They do awesome in instances. Those things are all great. Do you know what they don't do well?

1. Any DPS once your DK is dead or properly CC'd. Once you lose that Deathgrip and that Chains of Ice it's ridiculously easy to force 4 Rets to have to use every GCD to cleanse themselves to stay mobile.

2. Any sort of ranged DPS. Sure, you can pop wings and Hammer of Wrath... Every few minutes.

3. Survive well to sustained DPS. You no longer have chain DS/DS to lower incoming damage.

4. Heal well. WoG from a Ret is just plain not good enough. There's no way for you to synchronize their DPS rotations so that they always have the same amount of Holy Power. That means that when you hit your WoG-->Paladin_01 key you really have no f'ing clue how much healing you're going to get. Do you know what happens after you hit that key? Most of your Paladins are now back to zero HP and just lost a TV.

Look, I've played DK+Rets since the day Kromtor posted on the forums that this was a team. I remember because my wife was throwing this stupid party at my house for her friends and I was drunk so I didn't have to talk to anyone. I remember sitting down at the keyboard and experiencing the (drunken) wonder of IWT spam with melee classes. It changed boxing for me--I have always gravitated towards melee classes and I dislike casters in general. I felt like a solid golden beam of love from Lord Jesus the Christ himself had parted the heavens and was pointed right at me while I spammed IWT on some dinky level 3 Paladins as they spun around their target. It was amazing. Transcendental.

What I haven't done since then is attach that sense of awe and amazingness to DK+Rets--I attached it to melee boxing. My point is this:

DK+Rets spend waaaay too much time worrying about being in range of their targets. Even though they can Cleanse themselves of movement effects and Freedom themselves... You still only have one DG and one person that can Snare. That means if the other side can control your DK, you have basically no closing tools. You will be kited endlessly. Forever. And while that's happening, you can't heal because you have no HP.

I've played both teams. All of my personal experience shows that DK+Rets is trash compared to 4 DK's. Just plain trash. I'm sorry to say it because of how much time and gold I've invested into my Rets, but it's the truth.

[BrothelMeister]

I'm not sure what this shitty healing is that you refer to. At 80, if you spec into Selfless healer, and protector of the Innocent, even (2/3), that becomes atleast 3.5k healing per holy power, PLUS a 2500-3500 heal on each paladin every time you use it. Since I like glyph of Long word, over-healing is really a non issue since half of the incoming healing is delayed over the next 6 seconds.

3-4 Ret pallies should definitely be able to out heal 1 Holy Pally, especially factoring in the difficulty of CCing 4 toons instead of 1.

If you utilize power Auras it's very easy to know when your paladins are sitting at 3 holy power by having a large translucent icon appear on their screen, one that's large enough to notice from yours. That said, It is entirely possible based upon changing the color and/or size of the icon to know EXACTLY how many holy power that each of them have but this comes down to how well your screen set-up is, and how much you actually care.

As far as ranged damage goes, get another power auras icon, this one can actually be on your main screen, and each of the slaves, for when Art of War procs. If you need to hit a Ranged taerget, you can gauge based upon how many icons are lit up how many 5K (or 10K Crit) Exorcisms will hit the target. Judgments aren't much but a 2k times 4 instant ranged hit that gives you a speed buff is still a pretty good ranged DPS ability.

As far as targets getting away from you, last I checked, Rets had a hella lot of CC. 4 Repentances can halt someone until you catch up, and 4 HoJs can keep them from running away in the first place.

[Ualaa]

Kind of funny.
This is the Ret thread, but we're discussing the 4 DK + Healer in both this thread and the DK Manifesto thread.

[Boylston]

Kind of funny.
This is the Ret thread, but we're discussing the 4 DK + Healer in both this thread and the DK Manifesto thread.

All this energy would be better spent In This Awesome Thread!

[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.

[Noids]

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.

[remanz]

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.

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.

[Zappy]

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.

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