4 pallys 1 druid

[nodoze]

...Another note in pvp is that 1 mage behind your paladins can use counterspell on 1 paladin and then polymorph on the other, to prevent any healing for 10 seconds. (unless the polymorphed paladin uses divine shield)

... Or just a priest who runs on his mount to the palys to aoe fear them. They will be forced to waist their trinket or bubble on that fear.

CounterSpell in 1.12 is indeed OP and thankfully it has a 25-30 second cooldown. At least Paladins are one of the few classes with a native 15% chance to resist a CounterSpell due to Improved Concentration Aura which makes it semi-unreliable against Paladins. Thankfully the 3 CC immune Warriors can indefinitely "Counterspell" the Mage by chaining their 3 Pummels (which lockdown for 4 seconds each with no diminishing returns) so that is essentially 12 seconds of lockout with only a 10 second cool-down...

If I recall correctly in PVP Polymorph only lasts 8 seconds, is subject to diminishing returns, and can be cleansed by the other Paladin (if not also CCed). A Paladin can chain Skull of Impending doom (SID) with their PVP trinket to clear Polymorph and get 10 seconds of Polymorph immunity. If they chain the SID with bubble it should be 18 seconds of Polymorph immunity... If the other Paladin then chains that could be 36 seconds of Polymorph immunity between the duo. That is a long time for 3 CC Immune Warriors with +60% run speed and intercepts to be swarming the Mage...

Note that smart Paladins won't sit right next to each other (their cleanses have 30 yard range & heals are 40 yard range) and their cleanses are instants with no cool-down so you have to CC both at essentially the same time... In a boxing scenario a combat spread macro should give the Paladins enough separation to not be a group target (so AoE fears will NOT work) and if the Paladins get more than 30 yards apart, any attempt to cleanse the other Paladin by either Paladin with IWT should cause them to automatically close within 30 yards of each other...

Fear should also be semi-unreliable to land on Paladins in PVP as a Healing Paladin should have a flat 10% resistance to fear due to Unyielding Faith before their base Shadow resistance of 104+ kicks in (from Judgement Helm (10), 3 Lawbringer pieces (24), GMI(10), and Shadow Aura (60) ). That 104 Shadow Resistance is only with 4 pieces of armor & 1 Trinket slot and thus could be increased and that is before any consumables/enchants/buffs/etc...

If a Fear does land on only 1 Paladin it isn't a big deal as the other can instantaneously cleanse it.

If Fear does land on both Paladins each Paladin has 2 Reactive Fear self-breakers (Trinket & Bubble) & either can use one to essentially free both so you would need to simultaneously get both 5 times to lock them down and even then the Paladins would be in severe diminishing returns territory if not fully immune at that point anyway...

Each Paladin should also have 30 seconds of Proactive Fear self-immunity (from Glimmering Mithril Insignia) so if their 4 Reactives are all going on cool-down they could go Proactive on the 4th Reactive pop and chain to essentially then give the duo 1 minute of Fear immunity... Alternatively they could be Proactive from the beginning of the fight when they see a threat getting close and save their Reactives till the 2nd+ minutes of the fight at which point you have to CC both simultaneously 5 times to get past all reactive cool-downs...

All of the above is assuming the duo Paladins are just sitting there taking it with no help from their 3 Warriors nor anyone else in their World PVP faction...

Offensively the 3 Warriors CAN AoE Chain Fear you (6 seconds each, subject to diminishing returns) and their Fear can NOT be cleansed from you... The 2 Paladins can also preemptively chain stun you (6 seconds each, subject to diminishing returns), etc.. There are likely other options as well (3 Tidal Charms from the Warriors, Engineering items, other skills, etc)...

Bottom line is that I never, ever, met a single player in literally hundreds (if not thousands) of PVP fights who could consistently CC my brother and I simultaneously when we were both on our Paladins when we ran together (him more Prot and me more Holy) as we kept cleansing each other near instantaneously and had multiple options to fall back on in the rare occasions we both did get caught. I learned to instinctively keep myself between 20-28 yards from my brother at all times with me keeping him between the enemies and I when I could & we made cleansing each other a priority.

Many times the two of us made it through 2-6 enemies in WSG with him carrying the flag with them going "WTF just happened?" as they could not stop us between chaining blessing of Freedoms, Free Action Potions, and dual instant cleanses and heals (with skulls &/or dual lay-on-hands as extreme backups)... Didn't always work but certainly worked more often than not... Even when we did both get briefly CC'ed my brother was so damn tanky that it was hard to kill him and if they attacked him and broke his CC he would cleanse me and we were off to the races again...

Regardless you both have made lots of good points and as said previously I think the most optimal approach in zerg vs zerg will be playing smart and focusing on targets of opportunity as per this quote:

It really depends on the situation. If you charge into a raid with 4 warriors you're probably going to die. If you're part of a zerg vs zerg fight though where you're not the only target, you can definitely do some work with warriors if you're patient and dive at the right time. Especially as alliance with paladin healers. Preemptively pop freedom, death wish and skull [of impending doom] and your warriors are effectively immune to all CC for the next 10-30 seconds with a 60% run speed buff. You will just chainsaw through people as fast as you can get on them.

However, if the enemy is smart and just focuses you you will still die fast. SL Warlocks just mashing DoT's on everything from range would probably contribute more to a PvP raid and stay alive longer. ...

See also the above section in bold where it was already mentioned that a group of caster types could indeed be more optimal for PVP... No one ever said the Warriors+Paladins were the optimal group for PVP so I don't know why people are trying to argue that they aren't (because it was already said they weren't)...

Bottom line for me is that my primary goal never was optimal 5boxing in World PVP anyway. My goal is to end up with 2 end-game Raid & PVP capable Paladins and one Warrior with anything extra being a bonus (a Druid would be great).

I only PVPed in Classic on my main Paladin Healer with my brother on his Paladin main (as Prot or Ret) and and that will be fine with me if that is all we get out of this PVP wise (though I would like to also have a druid option for WSG Flag Running and joining all stealth parties from time to time).

Since my brother really played his Paladin like a Warrior my hope is that he is willing to try (and then will fall in love with) the best geared Warrior of our 5man team but if not then the 2nd Paladin will be there for him.

TLDR: It really isn't as easy to CC 2+ Paladins as you think... Regardless I really only care about at most duoing (with real people behind both characters) and the only classes that matter for that duo with my brother are really Paladins (though I really hope he likes the warrior more since he plays his Paladin like a warrior). I already know from experience that duo Paladins was fun enough for both of us... Everything else is gravy... I do plan to try 5boxing in World PVP and try to do it smartly but it isn't a big deal to me if it isn't that successful.