Duncan

This build won't work at all, as much as i like the idea of being as versatile and "hybrid" as possible. It was to some extend possible at lvl60 preBC- for some classes more than others, though.

This won't work, simply because your missing some important things.

1. End game is to a large extend about specialized roles, even for PvP, though to a somewhat lesser extend, but still it's definatly the case for PvE.
2. Itemization - You can't equip yourself properly to make this work and you will definatly miss certain key talents that make a build viable, expecially if you go that far into retribution, without being able to pick up crusader strike or Sanctified Seals (wich is propably a must have for serious PvP or your seals will be gone the second after you casted them).

You won't do serious damage nor won't you be able to heal through serious damage doesn't matter if it's PvE or PvP. And if you try to fill a spot in a 5 man group there is always someone prefered over you, since it's basically always just tank 'n spank you need a tank a healer and 3 DDs, nothing "half backed".

 

Mex

I'm not sure where you're getting massive DPS from. The talents are all over the place, and you don't have anything good apart from perhaps Kings. You've missed Imp Conc Aura, Crusader Strike, Illumination, Divine Favour, Precision, Conviction and Vengeance. SoC by itself isn't a huge amount of damage, especially not without a large number of ret talents to support it. Your "strong healing base" is anti-pushback and 12% more healing done, without any of the higher holy talents.

You need to pick a focus and stick with it. You won't ever be able to do it all, especially not by just grabbing lower tier talents from every tree.

edit - This is in response to galaphrey.

 

Duncan

@Galaphrey

One more thing, maybe.

If you like the idea of being able to do some damage, while being able to heal in a noticable way, try a 40 holy 21 retribution build. This way you can equip straight forward: healing gear, with maybe some spell damage items mixed in, but the main stats are the same without having to mix up gear like crazy.

 

Modez

Who here hates being a paladin in PvP versus other healers? I mean seriously, paladins are probably the weakest arena healers in the game now, and it doesnt seem to be changing anytime soon. I rarely ever see a pally with 2k shoulders either

(dont take my arena teams into account... i just transferred servers to play with my trash geared friends :P)

 

Drops

It's a bad time to be using any spec paladin in arena, unless you're holy in a 5v5. The "fix" we have is to simply group with classes that can cover all the things we lack.

The shortcomings of our class are balanced concerning PvE content, but not PvP.

 

KrazyIvan3003

Thats correct. It isn't, at the moment, a good time for paladins in arenas in general. For 2v2 and 3v3 we must be ridiculously geared, and our partner(s) also must be gear, to stand a chance. 5v5 is the only bracket we stand a chance because its a waste to target a paladin off the bat. I am considering trying Ret in Season 4 (even though that is still pretty far away) because holy has lost its shine to me. Paladins have turned into the PvE Healbots, rather then being able to compete in PvP effectively with other healers.

 

Stoical

If you're playing with trash geared people, obviously healing is not going to be fun. And with the average gear level of arena this season, since pretty much everyone with time has at the very least s1, yes you do need gear to compete, but what other class doesn't? You don't need to be any more "ridiculously geared" to compete in 2s and 3s than any other class.

I haven't taken 3s seriously at all this seasons, so I can't speak to that bracket. Obviously we shine in 5s, which is where I got my shoulders, but I also found no trouble grouping with a warrior and getting to 1850 in one week before we were there with our 5s to get him the weapon quickly. We sucked against warlock/healer, but we crushed warrior/druid, and were at least even chances against all priest/dps 2s.

The class has weaknesses, but before you just chalk it up to "paladins suck" and feel the need to post about it, try to evaluate your own play as well as the play and gear of the people you're with.

 

tdevil

I'm going to assume theres no hope for a holy priest/holy paladin combo? =(

 

doogless

Add a Warrior and two ranged DPS and you have a successful 5v5 comp.

 

Myul

3on3:
hPaladin + hPriest + warrior

5on5:
hPaladin + hPriest + warrior + rogue + enhShaman is the uprising combo #1 for easily beating the 234x and euro comps
hPaladin + hPriest + warrior + rogue + rDruid is an outlasting combination
hPaladin + hPriest + arrior + dual ranged is a mainstream 2k combo with options for drainteam (hunter/warlock) or train/nuke mix (hunter or warlock + elemental shaman).

hPriest + hPala is allways a nice combination, despite of bracket.
- offensiv dispell (massdispell vs mages/paladin)
- 2x passive dispell
- curse poison
- manaburn against dual healer

Only real weakness is the lack of decursing (curse of tongues!).

 

Drops

2v2 and 3v3 you don't have to be insanely geared, but you do have to be on par (especially for ret). The real question is who is your partner, and how good are they?

Paladins don't have many options for offensive control--the ones they do have are fairly easy to break or resist. Combined with defensive abilities on medium to long cool downs that are easily purged/dispelled, a serious weakness to mana attacks and you have a class that can only work with good assistance.

If you're ret, you need someone that can support themselves well, as well providing critical CC/debuffs/interrupts to add to your unspectacular utility (which you mostly use on yourself). Your DPS is nothing special, just being bursty. You need a partner that can help capitalize on it, and gear to further enhance it.

As holy, you need people to keep people that can keep casters/rogues off of you in addition to the offensive control and DPS.

Our weaknesses are only lightly touched by PvE content, but in PvP they are exploited to the fullest. It is a glaring fault of our one-sided class's emphasis on defense and passive abilities.

 

cammauta

i write here to ask some suggestion.

i play in arena 5vs5 in the 1700 brakets, my team is:
holy pala (me)
disc priest
retri pala
war ms
shaman ench.

My problem is we always lose when i'm the focus of a rogue + another dps (not equip problem, got around 422 resi).
this is what i do: i put bless on freedom on myself and start running, but soon rogue stuns me ; then freedom expires and (assuming i have on me rogue+another melee dps/pet) i cant run away (poison:harmstring), i cant cast more than holy shock on myself, and the heal i receive from priest are not sufficent to stay alive.
If i do DS, i will get the same situation 15 second later.
While i try to survive in this way, my dps m8 dont do anything for me, they continue focusing their priest or mage or lock or the focus.

Tbh, I have the same problem in 3vs3 (same bracket), my team is
holy pala (me)
retri pala
war ms.

it is the same except here i dont have heal from priest. usually dps m8 focus on enemy healer, so another time they dont help me.


basically they said they hasnt cc, so they cant do a lot for me anyway ; and they think it is stupid to focus a rogue when there is a cloth weaver.
what have i to ask them ? what do u do when u are focus ?

 

Duncan

Your team has absolutly no CC. That's just plain bad, since the other team can almost roam freely around the whole game, killing what they want.

You should switch some DPS for more CC (Mage/Rogue) or switch the Disc priest for another DD and go for 4 DPS.

You can try to rush in when the gates open and kill something in the time your DS lasts, but if they don't get something down fast, there's just not much you can do.

 

Bhoris

Your problem is stacking paladins. While 1 paladin offers a lot of utility (freedom, BoP, kings, etc), more than one is usually overkill. I hate to tell you this, but if you subbed out the hpally for an rdruid, this team has vast potential.

Don't forget to practice "safe DPS".

 

Devouress

I am playing with warlock in 2v2 (on my paladin) and we got to around 2000 rating. But when we get warrior and druid we find them unbeatable. We summon void and druid kills him solo or warlock dies while I am running after void to heal it. What can be done about them? Any tips?

 

Bhoris

Have your druid keep JoJ on the druid, keep freedom on you, and just stay on the druid up the druid. Keep in mind though, lock/pally was big in s2 and druid/warrior was formed as a kind of counter comp to it. It's still possible though, just have to play sharp.

Don't forget to practice "safe DPS".

 

woeye

As a shaman I wanted to add that warrior/paladin/shaman nice as well. Personally I feel that there are nice synergies between a shaman and a paladin. But in 2s, well, we're sitting in the same rowboat against the druids and priests in their shiny racing boats ;-)

 

Odun

I can't say I've reached the higher brackets of PVP, but I have done a fair share of playing as retribution. From my experience, 20/41 has more survivability, and the PVE specs of course have more burst damage. I've altered my various specs to be either pure PVE, PVE with pursuit of justice, PVE with PoJ and eye for an eye, and pure PVP, etc. On the lower brackets of 1500-1600 in 2v2 PVE spec worked very well, low resilience (generally) made for easy kills. The 1700s (I've not reached anything higher in 2v2) I switched to a PVP spec of 20/41 for more survivablity, relying on my partner to make up for my dps loss (I ran a rogue/ret pally team, my brother).

The only difference from my 20/41 PVP spec and yours is I opted to get the Eye for an Eye over improved sanctity aura. This decision was made with a sort of "tanking dps" idea in mind. The retribution paladin, with PVP spec, has a decent amount of damage mitigation, increased further by equipping a shield and 1h. The weakness is casters, and eye for an eye helps damage down the caster targeting me. Resilience changes the usefulness of the talent somewhat, but I've always had low resilience.

In the 3v3, in theory, while they attempt to dps me down, the MS warrior goes to work. I live longer than a PVE spec, and the EfaE talent helps damage casters out of my melee range. I rely on the damage output of my teammate to make up for the lost burst damage on my part. It should work, since every second theyre targeting me it's another second the warrior and druid are alive.

My dream is to be on a 3v3 with a MS warrior and resto druid. Working on finding my resto druid.

As for your choice to judge Justice on rogues and druids, I question the judging on rogues. The judgement is broken by improved sprint is it not? Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Left

It may be; I can't remember for sure. More importantly, Cloak of Shadows will take it off.

However, just rejudge. Imp. Sprint is on at least a 3.5 minute CD; even a prep rogue can only use it twice a fight. You can judge every 8 seconds, so if you can live through a CoS and 2 sprints you should be able to keep the rogue at bay after that.

One important note is that while Improved Sprint removes current movement impairing effects, it doesn't prevent new ones from being applied. (I hate being frozen just after popping sprint, for example.)

 

Khaelarys

I can't remember a time where my Judgement of Justice was resisted by a rogue with CloS. It is removed by CloS, but I shamelessly reapply it. It always sticks.

 

Odun

Hmmm just reapply then. Sounds simple enough, I think I can manage that.

 

Keeper

Judgements are counted as physical attacks if I remember correctly(You also can't use any Judgements when you're BoP'd). And with that being the case, you can always JoJ rogues since CloS only stops magic attacks from landing 90% of the time. Judgements have been like that since even before tBC, I believe.

Damage wins the fame, Healing wins the game.

 

galzohar

Isn't JoC/JoR resistable though? As far as I know not all judgements follow the same rules, but good thing JoJ follows the "can't resist/miss" rule that JoB follows

 

thorden

Okay so I was messing around with the talent tree and I got a crazy idea. I think it would make sense to switch the sacred duty and reckoning talents in the prot tree for holy paladins to use in arena.

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Paladin -> Talent Calculator

that is the spec, just imagine that reckoning is sacred duty.

it seems to me that reckoning isn't used by prot pallies for end game raiding because of the increased chance for bosses to parry and thus hit the paladin more often eating up the holy shield and possibly leaving them vulnerable for a crushing blow. As far as I know reckoning is a prot leveling talent.

Sacred duty is used by prot paladins for the extra stamina boost but not neccesarily for the divine shield, because using it as a tank will aggro dump all the mobs. This however would be EXTREMELY useful for use in pvp and especially in an arena setting. 6% extra stamina, 1 min less CD on divine shield and reduces the attack speed penalty by 100%. It's making me salivate already.

Plus it's not that big of a change. The talents are adjacent on levels and would not affect anyone's spec negatively.

Things to note: with this spec it's only 4/5 in holy guidance and no points in divine illumination. However, 2/2 in imp BoW means 20% better mp5.

Priests can still mass dispell, druids can still cyclone, but they just have to do it more often. Thus leveling the playing field.