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

[Fat Tire]

Having done some PvP @ 85 w/ the first blue PvP set premades:

Burst isn't going to win matches @ 85. Unless they really change some mechanics across the board. Most PvP matches are a lot longer and require multiple CDs to line up to kill someone. It's going to be a focused assault with fast swaps to force healers to get behind and panic and use their fast, mana expensive heals to save someone. While stacked HBs may throw a lot of pressure on a single person, keep in mind inflated health values @ 85. In the blue PvP set I was running ~122k HP as a priest (self buffed)

Yup.

Anyone relying on burst to get kills in cata is theroycrafting too much. CC and mana are what is going to get kills. Given that most CC is 40 yards, anyone has done arena on beta can tell you that is pillar to pillar in nagarand. That is how large the CC field is now, not to mention 4k resilience in S9.

Also, people who are relying on burst kills in these new rated BGS are in for a world of hurt. They are not pugs even though they are pugs you can expect healers galore on every team and pve tank spec classes(200k+) in both wsg/AB and even eots games, maybe not at the start of cata but I am willing to bet a month or two and we will see /2. Need pve tank for wsg, pst. Cant wait to see a 4dk/healer team try to take down a tank with 2-3 healers, it just isnt going to happen. Unless you have CC on his healers, but they can all dispel now, doh. Hell 1 frost mage can control a nicely packed group of melee by themselves, if not just keep them in combat while they waddle along trying to catch up. Not to mention the 22k ice lances mage are going live with.
Imo if I see a 4-5 boxer on the other team, its a free win.

[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.

[Shodokan]

Yup.

Anyone relying on burst to get kills in cata is theroycrafting too much. CC and mana are what is going to get kills. Given that most CC is 40 yards, anyone has done arena on beta can tell you that is pillar to pillar in nagarand. That is how large the CC field is now, not to mention 4k resilience in S9.

Also, people who are relying on burst kills in these new rated BGS are in for a world of hurt. They are not pugs even though they are pugs you can expect healers galore on every team and pve tank spec classes(200k+) in both wsg/AB and even eots games, maybe not at the start of cata but I am willing to bet a month or two and we will see /2. Need pve tank for wsg, pst. Cant wait to see a 4dk/healer team try to take down a tank with 2-3 healers, it just isnt going to happen. Unless you have CC on his healers, but they can all dispel now, doh. Hell 1 frost mage can control a nicely packed group of melee by themselves, if not just keep them in combat while they waddle along trying to catch up. Not to mention the 22k ice lances mage are going live with.
Imo if I see a 4-5 boxer on the other team, its a free win.

I currently do about 35k damage PER ABILITY USED on my 4x dk + holy paladin (@ 80)... and shaman lightning bolt hits for like 10k per non crit.... what problem are we going to have taking down 2 healers and a tank? Honestly the only healer with more than 85k life to start are paladins, so we will be able to kill them in 2 globals because of NS (as a dk team) or a single lavaburst (as a shaman team)... will the tank kill one of our characters in 2 globals? fuck no, and we have a healer for it anyway. Not to mention BE silence for anti-heals for 3 seconds that's enough time to throw out 3 howling blasts which apply pressure to the entire group, and likely kill someone... hell right now my howling blasts non crit are around 8k... which means i'm throwing out 32k damage in a single button press. Also if it is 3v5 and it's 2 healers + X vs me... i'm going to help kill with exorcism, the 1 character can't global anyone, or even kill someone in 5 attacks... you can kill one of them and then heal your damn toon they attack.

I'm not saying boxers are going to rape everything, and i'm not saying we don't have problems. But we certainly are not sitting ducks like you describe. I PvP'd during beta too, and the health pool to damage ratio isn't changing for boxers, it's getting better for us even in comparison to what it was at the middle of WOTLK when we were strongest.

It really depends on your teammates and your skill level/reaction time. Right now i'm talking to lafu(wrathful glad, and one of the top dks in the world) and a few of the pvpers in excessive gaming as well as in Skill-Capped about making groups, for the most part they think it will work very well... but then again what do top rated pvpers know about pvp?

If a mage can get away from 4 deathgrips + slowed movement speed, then he deserves to kill you.

[Svpernova09]

...Honestly the only healer with more than 85k life to start are paladins...

People won't be under geared for long. And this is a pretty low assumption about a fresh 85.

[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.