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

[Mosg2]

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.

[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.

[Shodokan]

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.

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.

[remanz]

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.

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.

[Shodokan]

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.

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.

[remanz]

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.

[BrothelMeister]

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.

WoG doesn't use mana, and mana itself is a joke to Ret paladins isn't it?

[Boylston]

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.

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!

[Mosg2]

Haha, to play off of Remanz' post about the Rets at 85 I'll post my thoughts on the DK's so far:

I hit 85 on Thursday and I've done a total of 6 BG's since then. Me entire team died once and one of my DK's (carrying a flag) died another time. That's it.

I'm a complete wrecking ball. The damage that they do coupled with the defensive cooldowns that they have is insane. It's *even better* than how I thought it would turn out in my Manifesto.

[Mercbeast]

Haha, to play off of Remanz' post about the Rets at 85 I'll post my thoughts on the DK's so far:

I hit 85 on Thursday and I've done a total of 6 BG's since then. Me entire team died once and one of my DK's (carrying a flag) died another time. That's it.

I'm a complete wrecking ball. The damage that they do coupled with the defensive cooldowns that they have is insane. It's *even better* than how I thought it would turn out in my Manifesto.

I couldn't start leveling until friday really, and I just hit 85 with mine. I am in marathon mining mode atm to get myself into the PvP gear before thursday.

Anyways more to the point, actually I will post my question in the manifesto thread ;p

I will concur with Mosg2 however, I got jumped by a full group of 84/85's with my team 4dk+1pali while questing in Uldum. They jumped me via dropping on top of me, and blew up one DK pretty quickly before I could really react. Then they got curb stomped. I just turret healed with the pali as they ran people down and tore them apart. When they focused on the pali, I popped a shield and gripped the offender to my blender.