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

[Zub]

163K hp on bear tank in blues >.< that's 6-7 times more than a similar geared bear in Wotlk.
What will it be by the time they release Exp4 .. 1M hp i guess

i can see it coming already:
- "nub don't queue for heroics when you only have 1.2M hp!" *leaves"

[Altsoba]

I think that both powerhouse teams are going to be awesome... i also highly think that for BGS that spriest and warlock are going to be a blast... but yeah.

I'm looking forward to paladins and shaman both

That's where my hesitation resides if I'm coming back to Cata, what to level first:

Tank+4 Shaman
or
DK+4 Pala

You see any pros and cons if you had to compare them as far as your Beta experience goes?
I mean among other things, instance survivability too.

Thank you and great work on this thread mate.

A.

[Noids]

Yeah I agree, paladins are looking nice. Not even sure if you need the DK any more either. DK was mainly there for the death grip and easy snare and the 10% AP buf and 20% melee haste which is no longer possible. Long arm of the Law talent gives a 50% run speed boost after using a Judgement which means we shouldn't really have too much trouble catching kiters. There are no more of the stupid 30% dmg reduction when stunned talents which means that with 5 Hammers of Justice you can sprint to and lock any target down in melee range with ease (except maybe mages and hunters).

The other neat thing is the instant aoe HoT skill which although on 1min CD will be pretty handy from a situational point of view. The other addition to our healing/ranged dmg armory is Holy Shock. I didn't see too much mention of this stuff Shodo and as I am only really reading about it on mmo-champ, I'm interested to hear if it is actually proving useful at all in Beta?

Cheers

PS: Forgot to say, in planning my combos for Cata, I am very keen to get a heal debuffer into the team also. I feel this has always been a weak point of the pally/shammy combos and would be interested on what others think. With the bigger health pools in Cata I think the heal debuff (although reduced to 25%) will be even more powerful. I sort of like the idea of having a warrior leading my team of pally's given they have a nice set of melee buffs as well as in combat charge and the new leap skill etc and possibly shadow priest to lead my shammies.

[ghonosyph]

Holy shock is holy only, and the dk provides some healing de buffery in necrotic strike. Overall I think it would probably be stronger to run 2 dk and 3 pally but time will tell

[Fat Tire]

Sweeet. this team could be a real player in battlegrounds, even more so than it is now. It's the only group I've played that I can say for certain I carried BGs with, did well even in WSG, and held my own (at least similar to what a pug would have done) against partial premades or just good groups... and now it's getting stronger. Can't say the same for the shaman, they can be pretty fail in smaller BGs and against any partial or full premade they are shut down so easily and made fools of.

Question for you.

How big of factor do you think the loss of cleanse is for this team?

Edit: For all you DK-Ret fans here is a video of DK's Dark simulacrum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bcWny7Gw2Y

[Mosg2]

Dark Simulacrum looks insane. Can you imagine x4?

[Shodokan]

Dark Simulacrum looks insane. Can you imagine x4?

Why take it x4? The uses are very limitless but it's on a 1 min cooldown. Unlike spell reflect though it does not do the damage back it does to you, it uses your coefficients.

For raiding you can go dual-wield and end up with...
Seal + 2x wind fury on weps + your normal crap.... pulls like 18k on dummy (tested by a friend of mine) rediculous.

[Mosg2]

Is Hand of Glory still off the GCD?

[Noids]

Holy shock is holy only, and the dk provides some healing de buffery in necrotic strike. Overall I think it would probably be stronger to run 2 dk and 3 pally but time will tell

Ahh righto, I thought I read somewhere early on they were going to be making it a base skill. Thinking back that was probably prior to the whole 31 point talent tree change that included giving a spec defining skill once you start allocating points.

I thought initially that necrotic strike looked interesting for the healing absorb aspect, but when I started applying it to estimated numbers I thought it looked fairly weak next to the mortal strike type abilities. The other thing I have tried recently is running a MM hunter as my main and sending the 4 rets in like uber pets. Quite an interesting play style and a fair bit different to what I have tried before with either pure melee or ranged teams. I like the MM hunter for the 10% AP buff, healing debuff but also chimera shot healing 15% for the hunter every 6 seconds should make them fairly hardy I would think.

Do you find the AoE HoT for the pallies useful at all or does the 1min cooldown make it fairly situational?

[Mosg2]

Hmmm. I'm trying to figure out if a DK or a Warrior would be better to lead the Rets with in Cata. With the nerf to Chains of Ice all the DK brings that the Warrior doesn't trump is Death Grip. Charge/Intercept and Improved Hamstring I think are better in the sense that they allow the Warrior to stick on a target better.

What do you all think?

Edit: Ebon Plaguebringer is a not-insignificant amount of damage that the DK would add vice the Warrior. The 4% increase to physical damage that the Warrior adds just isn't even close. In any case, discuss!