It's only about 3.5 mp5 for each 1% of crit chance, assuming chain casts.

Less if not.

Well, as you know, cleanse works the same way. I can not "pre-cleanse" a team member of a debuff either.

The disparity that I do not understand is why does dispelling operates at twice the rate per GCD than debuff removal (cleanse) or so cheaply compared to costs of the buffs in question? (related to magic debuff removal)

If buff removal of all 5 members of the opposing team was "too expensive" than I wouldn't see shaman in 5v5 removing all buffs as part of their ritual. I just think that if dispelling is going to be "so key" to the fight, then it needs a counter. The negative side to dispelling is just really low.

The worst result to cleansing is 4-8K shadow damage and silence. The worst result to purging is you wasted 300ish mana on rank 1 Seal of the Crusader.

Dispel Magic costs *more* than twice as much, and Cleanse also clears 2 debuffs, if the target has Poison on them.
Better mana regen stats? o_O PvP gear has no spirit on it. My paladin has far far greater efficiency and longevity than my priest. It still makes me smile when I see how long my paladin can keep healing. (I do feel rather sorry for Resto Shamans...)

Anyhow, when it boils down to focusing on magical debuffs or offensive purging, Dispel Magic is very nice. Cleanse is also great. The two spells really serve different roles, and I can't say that either one pales in contrast to the other.

It's not evidence that "dispel is overpowered", it's evidence that some buffs are powerful enough to require removal. We don't say "healing is overpowered" just because many successful teams must make good use of MS and Wound Poison. It's just a game mechanic - why do you think they changed BoF and BoP to be huge and flashy? Dispels are meant to be a core part of gameplay.

If your BoP or BoF is getting dispelled, then try putting a stun on the opposing purger when you apply those blessings. Or get someone on your team to silence/CC them. Counteract their counteraction.

Cleanse also clears 2 debuffs at once too. 1 magic debuff and 1 poison debuff. I happen to find the flexibility rather nice. Clearing 2 magic debuffs is useful, but so is the ability to remove poisons.

The worst result from *not* removing a debuff is that your ally takes some damage, or is rooted in place for a few seconds.
The worst result from *not* removing a buff could be letting your burn target become immune to snares/roots or become immune to physical damage, reverting all the damage and effort your team just did.

Look, I wouldn't be against some minor buff protection (maybe a little bit of reflected damage, or something). After all, I play a priest and paladin - the two classes that would benefit the MOST from having protected buffs. I just think something like a UA-for-buffs would be far too much.

The worst result from not removing a debuff could be loss of a game as someone gets mana drained to zero, viper stung to zero, sheeped so they can't kill a target, feared so they can't heal.

The worst result from not dispelling your target is someone is immune to snares for 14 seconds out of every 25, or has immunity from PHYSICAL damage for 10 seconds every 3 minutes.

If your target has freedom, can you still kill them? Yes.
If your teammate is sheeped, can they still do anything? no.

If your target is BoP'd, can you still kill them? Yes.
If your teammate is feared, can they still do anything? No.

If your target is BoSac'd, they take less damage (however, full damage is still done, just split between two targets).
If your teammate is being actively mana drained or viper stung, they have less mana. Once they have zero mana, they can no longer participate in a fight in any meaningful way.

The only class poison cleansing is useful against is hunters. Rogues stack poisons far too fast for cleanse to do anything.

There's a reason drain teams and CC heavy teams are so powerful right now, and it has nothing to do with freedom and BoP not getting dispelled. Drains and CC are successful because they have protection against defensive dispelling. Winter's Chill, lock dots+shadow embrace, Scorpid Poison, in addition to talents that give 30% chance to resist dispel.

Something to prevent or delay dispelling of important buffs is NEEDED. There's a reason why I use ribbon of sacrifice and the PvP libram when I arena, and it has nothing to do with how good they are. They put up trash debuffs that will eat dispels at important points in a match.

The debuffs you speak of are pretty bad, but they only affect a single target. A BoF and BoP can undermine the entire team's focus burn at a critical point - that seems more likely to lead to the loss of a game than a single viper sting, or CC on a single player for a few seconds. (Ironically, Viper Sting is a poison, so the vaunted priest Dispel Magic cannot remove it. And polymorph cannot be protected with UA, since we're talking about buff/debuff protection).

Trash buffs are already available, and we have talents to increase dispel resistance. Makes it significantly harder to remove the important buffs. Like I said earlier, I wouldn't object to some additional minor buff protection, but I do not agree that our buffs should be untouchable.

A single sheep on say, myself during an important 5s match could cost us the game. BoP and freedom are hardly as powerful as you make them out to be, even when left alone for full duration. I've seen good teams simply switch targets if someone gets freedom.

Trash debuffs ARE debuff protection. UA is the only debuff of its kind that prevents dispelling, and few enough locks are UA in arenas for it to be any issue whatsoever, but it's not why cleanse is weak. Cleanse is weak because of trash debuffs, which usually auto-apply themselves off of other attacks. Shadow weaving, scorpid poison, shadow embrace, winter's chill are all debuffs that are placed, free of charge, that cleanse can and will remove BEFORE it removes the effect you're trying to get at. And after you've gotten all the trash debuffs, you still have dispel resist to contend with.

Paladins, however, have zero trash buffs besides one trinket and a libram. Indeed, most trash buffs cost mana/GCD, have no additional affect other than to prevent dispels, and are usually cast only once (at the beginning of the match). Any mediocre dispeller will have them all off long before the important buffs are placed up there, and if you don't, I don't know what to tell you.

I'm not sure why we're debating offensive versus defensive dispelling, but, as Arias said, the fact that trash debuffs are ALL auto-applied off of attacks and spells that are being used anyway causes defensive dispellers to have a much harder time removing the necessary abilities.

That being said, a change to the Cleanse mechanic is pretty low on my list of things that I would like to see altered at this point, as there are much more pressing issues.

The recent change that causes each debuff stack to count as a whole when determining what will be cleansed made getting around the trash debuffs to the things that you want to cleanse much less aggravating, although the issue is still very much there. Yeah, it would definately be nice if Cleanse removed a few extra debuffs when only one of the three types is present, but such a change is far from the top of the list of what Paladins need in order to remain competitive with Priests and Druids across the board.

As it has been said, BoF, BoP, and BoSac generally do not remain up for very long against competent teams, which removes a very large portion of what Paladins bring to the table. I think that this would be less devastating and that we would be in a much better position if the BoSac cooldown was removed or reduced. I do not believe that it is in any way necessary for BoSac to have a 30 second cooldown.

Also, as every Paladin has thought at one point or another during a nice, long period of time where he or she hasn't been able to contribute any meaningful healing, we obviously need some ability to help us keep our group members alive while we need to be mobile or are being completely locked down with interrupts. There have been some pretty interesting ideas on this front, and there is surely plenty of room to overhaul an ability or add a new heal while still keeping us in line with Druids and Priests.

Speaking as a Gladiator Priest and Paladin - cleanse is near useless in all of my team setups to the point where I am busy spamming heals to really be bothered to spend 3-4 GCD getting all the trash debuffs off of someone to finally hit nova/etc. The only time I really try to mash cleanse is for Viper, and even then I get a ton of resists/scorpid poison on the target, so it doesn't accomplish a whole amount. Cleanse being only 1 debuff of each type REALLY shows up in 3v3, not so much in 5v5. Every class can stack junk debuffs - Rogues have wounding, Mages have Frost crap, Hunters have scorpid poison, SPriests have shadow weaving/blackout, Warlocks have a ton of things, etc. Whereas as a Priest I can dispel magic debuffs faster than they can put them up. Yeah not removing poison sucks, but clearing my warrior of all magic debuffs with 1-2 casts is REALLY amazing.

Important question that I searched for and didn't find an answer to : Is Cleanse based on +hit%? I get way too many to think it is (precision) and wish to god that there was a way to increase my dispel %. Watching as Viper ticks away and I get a [Your Cleanse Magic has failed to remove Viper Sting lol noob] 3 times to lose over 1k mana is rather disheartning, considering I just blew an additional 360 mana in the process upon cleansing itself.

Well for hunters, Viper has a 30% chance not to be dispelled (Imp. Stings) and most hunters pick up that talent. And yes, Cure Poison for me is 200 mana, and failing 3 of those while Vipered makes me cry.

As to your underlying question, I don't know that anyone's ever tested that.

I do not believe cleanse is based on hit, the resists are merely due to the talent.

I agree with kadrok though. As much as I'd like cleanse to be more powerful, I really only mash it for viper or mana drain, even getting my war out of sheep/nova isn't important enough to warrant me spamming cleanse. I'd much rather have the option to heal while moving, because right now I'm being forced to chose between healing or avoiding mana burns, fears, cyclones, etc. There's always that point where if you don't heal someone they die, but if you do heal them you eat that burn/fear and they die anyways, if a bit later.

Enough with the complaining though. I need some advice! Last season I hardly played 3s at all except with some friends and while we did ok (1900-2k playing pal/lock/war) this season I'm taking it quite seriously. I and my 2s partner picked up a resto shaman and we're trying out 2 healer war. Any tips on what I should do against PMR and war/lock/druid? I really have no idea what I'm doing in this setup and in 3s in general.

That's what we are doing, guess we just need to do it better!

Any tips for 3 DPS teams, like spriest/ua lock/rogue or variations of that? They tend to blow up our warrior... not really fast, but eventually both me and the shaman get CC'd and he dies.

I'd keep SR aura up if the Shammy can earth shield you, even then the rogue is most probably on the shammy meaning 9/10 times as a pally you don't need your 100% push back. ES focus would be the Spriest, aggressive stuns/bof/Bop to keep the rogue from completely shutting down your shammy. The focus target is going to be the warlock pet then the Spriest, aggressive purges on all targets means he should drop quickly along with removing fel armor from the lock.

Watching Sck's videos and commentary on them and pally play in general, it seems that positioning--specifically, positioning to outrange fear/counterspell/cyclone/etc.--is key to a good pally healer. Obviously I have range checking on my bars/unit frames to tell me whether my target is in range, but I'd like something that helps me to figure out, visually, how close I am to people on the other team, since I'm most likely targetting my teammates and attempting to keep them up. What do people do to learn where to position oneself for outranging spells?

Showing Nameplates over your enemey targets helps to get an visual idea how far they are away (with practice). It also helps for kiting around pillars.

It sometimes helps to have that nasty warlock or *insert any annoying anti pala class here* as your target to see if it's in range for holy shock (wich means it's ways to close). This needs click casting for healing, though.

Besides of that positioning is key quite often for sure, BUT the main problem of a paladin is not being able to heal while moving (aka repositioning) and while you have to heal (and thus stand still) there is always quite a long period of time where someone can move towards you to get that manaburn/fear/whatever off. Even if you positioned yourself at the greatest possible distance (40m from your teammates or at least from the one that's most likely focused) right from the start.

Arena is more and more about how good your team handles CC/Drain and less about raw healing output.

There's not an answer to this that can really be satisfactory as an all-purpose solution -- all depends on who you're playing and what they are doing. Positioning is not paladin specific, every player who steps foot in an arena needs to have this skill and general awareness is a huge part of playing your class well. It just so happens that aside from good awareness and positioning, paladins don't really have that much more they can do so it becomes quite integral. You can only learn by playing and doing.

To comment on sck's videos and the few healer 5v5 videos of reasonable quality that are out there -- plain and simple, the less the paladin (sck in this example) has to do the better and it's a function of how good his team is. Good teams don't let individuals function in isolation -- for example when one person is getting focused it's not simply a PvE-type situation where the responsibility is with the healers primarily, everyone needs to try to defend that person by doing various things however small they may be (including the person getting focused). So it seems like most of the time his job is pretty simple and smooth and that's because that team is generally excellent in terms of coordinating, communicating and protecting each other -- YMMV, especially if you are just starting out and you'll generally be in quite chaotic situations that aren't really represented in those videos.

At least Paladins have Sacrifice, which has kept me out of Sheep Hell many times. BoP and BoF not as powerful as I make them out to be? Well, forcing your opponents to switch targets is already pretty big, especially if your team doesn't have many vulnerable players. Forcing them to focus on someone less-than-ideal who is still at 100% health can only help.

Some trash-buff skills added to our arsenal might be a good idea. I would love to see that.

With the cooldown on BoS, it's pretty hard to keep it up in any serious 5s match. Since almost every team is 2345 and they constantly work on keeping buffs off people for a target switch, it is very difficult to hide on someone that is actually going to take damage. At least if they have a mage nova might set it off if you have it on someone, but again, I haven't been able to keep BoS on anyone for any significant duration in 5s this season (granted we have played solid gladiator teams for the last two weeks).

With out a pet, they should never be able to CC both of you. Additionally, when ever you bubble, try to spam cleanse a few cleanses and hope you drop the UA off. The key to winning this match is to kite the rogue around ( with help from bof/bop/earth bind etc) and letting the warrior and earth shocks locking down the shadow priest.

Even without a pet, they can still CC both of us (especially with no curse removal and Fear spams from the lock). Blind from the Rogue is really annoying since I can't remove it as a poison anymore. Without a mage it is a bit harder to lock us both down (be sure to kill that felhunter!).

The trickiest part about the Warrior kiting is having him accidentally go out of LOS of his own healers, (especially since neither of us can spam instant heals). Best not to let your healers get too close to each other as well, but that's a tough positioning problem when your Warrior is running around pillars.

Yeah, I generally don't expect BoS to give me anything more than 2-4 seconds. Which should be plenty of time for me to nail a nice big heal. Really, I use it almost as a MS debuff-remover, and a temporary shield that absorbs a bit of physical damage.

And yeah, gladiator teams. Darn them. =)

How do you all feel about the new specs that I see around, still 40/21/0 or 41/20/0, but they pick up 3/3 Precision for the Spell Hit and put 1/5 in Toughness.