The Grand Shockadin Experiment

Alternate title: My feeble attempt to get a Brutal Gladiator's Gavel for my Prot set.

I really hate names that end with an "-adin' suffix. Every time I hear a new one it conjures up memories of those unoriginal bastards who "invented" Diablo II Paladin builds, all of which were pretty much identical in principle and all of which were named: (Name of Primary Skill)-adin. Unsurprisingly, I haven't ever given much thought to Shockadins in World of Warcraft; uncreative players create unacceptable builds, after all. Right?

Now, on the other hand, I'm incredibly terrible at PvP. So is my wife. And by terrible I mean we're awful; I've never seen the topside of 1600 for more than a single match over three seasons. Problem is, she's rerolling a Shaman right now and wants to get caught up in gear by the time the next expansion cycle rolls around. She's not going to get a raiding slot any time soon, either, so we're stuck with limited badges of justice, and Arenas to get her up to speed.

I had originally thought we would make a decent combo as a Retribution Paladin and a Restoration Shaman, but that's not working out so hot from the limited trials I've done. I alone don't put out adequate burst damage to kill anybody against a healer/DPS combo since we lack Mortal Strike, and we get out-burst against decent double DPS teams. Double healer teams we'd just forfeit against. At this point we're completely rethinking our strategy, and are planning on completely regearing for Season 4.

Enter the Shockadin and Elemental Shaman retardo burst squad.

My theory is that if we can bring our combined minimum level of burst damage high enough to kill a 400 Resilience player at 50% health, we've got a pretty good chance of doing reasonably well. We'll also be banking on the element of surprise, since against healer/DPS teams I plan to stay back and heal while she whittles down the healer half of their combo.

With the above linked level of equipment at the start of the Season, I'm estimating that my minimum possible burst is going to be a total of 3652 damage from just me (1760 from DF Holy Shock, 1572 from non-crit JoR, and a super impressive 320 from my weapon swing). Her minimum burst is going to be about 3683 (with 2277 from NS+EM Chain Lightning, and 1406 from the preceding Lightning Bolt). So 7335 damage total. Both of the builds will be hit capped, so chance of catastrophic random failure should be only 3.94%. Repeating, of course.

Maximum burst is of course quite a bit higher, but the whole premise of the build is to blow somebody away a short time into the match to compensate for our lack of skill in a fair fight.

Here's hoping we have the patience to do Alterac Valley enough to actually get any of this gear.