beacon is a huge help against warlocks. regardless of mana cost it may steer paladins to a more mp5 based gear set with deep holy/prot to cancel out those silly locks

Since it looks like the 37/0/34 is being nerfed due to the changes in the Holy tree; instead of speccing Holy/Prot as suggested, does anyone think there would be any mileage to a healer/dps hybrid build such as 32/0/39? I'm beginning to think that with the Exorcism change, glyphed Exorcism and Judgement with Seals of the Pure, The Art of War and Fanaticism could provide some really useful burst damage. It would maintain the same kind of feel as the 37/0/34 build, but with AoW procs instead of IoL procs; with Fanaticism you should have a higher crit chance on Judgements than we did on Holy Shock.

The only problem I can see is that you won't get these procs while chain healing like at the moment; you have to be using Judgement every cooldown (read: dpsing) to get healing procs and this seems a little counter-intuitive - especially as if you are helping to burst down a target then you and your partner probably aren't in dire need of instant cast healing.

I've obviously dropped Spiritual Focus to get some additional damage from Seals of the Pure since it has synergy with the build. This is because Spiritual Focus is one of those 'no brainer' talents that's always taken (and with no reason not to) and I'm curious to see how big a difference it actually makes after the changes to spell pushback and now our healing has moved more towards instant cast spells.

Dropping IoL is insane.

AoW is 8s cooldown and requires melee range, IoL is 5s cooldown if you glyph your HS. Even if you want to go that way I'd still drop sacred cleansing, seals of the pure and some divine intelect in favor of the more useful holy talents you skipped. Not to mention using the actually useful glyphs (SoL, HS at least).

I suppose if you're going that far into the Retribution tree, then the age-old argument of 'you might as well just spec ret' will apply. I was also forgetting about the loss of 5% healing from SoL glyph and 5% from the new Divinity talent, as well as some of the other Prot tree goodies. I guess Repentance really is unsalvageable now for holy paladins.

Correct, (not specifically to you) if you desire to get 2k rating as Holy in Season 6, you will have IoL which means 47 points in the tree.

Since the buffed Prot tree is nice (5% more healing, another damage absorb ability, and the standard old stuff), that would be a hard sell to give that up for 8% crit, Vindication, run speed, and 10% cheaper instants. However, I could see people still specing that.

You're 2v2 rating is coming along nicely. Don't you lean pretty heavily on instant flash of light procs while kiting DPS?

Not so much, I use more resilience than what everyone else is using, and also 4 pc gladiator gear, so the only thing i rely heavily on are HS and my malygos trinket, and a more offensive/melee playstyle.

I currently play 37/0/34 in 2s (armory), and while I tried out holy/prot with both of my partners (rogue, followed by dk when my rogue quit), I did not find it to be worth dropping the goodies in ret. However, I absolutely do not think that ret hybrid builds have any chance of competing with holy/prot builds next patch. You may be able to succeed as such a build in 2s, but I really can't see it as being ideal at all. I really don't think you are realizing how much it will hurt to lose IoL, especially with sacred shield becoming single target only.

I see the changes diferently to be honest, DK burst builds get nerfed, hunters get nerfed, ferals get their stuns nerfed; the way I see it everyone I have issues with gets a big fat nerf, and we'll also have a immune to interupts button so we can tank stuff w/o fears of beeing kicked, so the battles will be about survival more and more, and that build is the absolute best at outlasting our enemies, afterall you have infinite mana.

Really, both popular and successful arena builds are getting a nerf, not just 37/0/34.

37/0/34 loses IoL. 49/0/22 loses Divine Purpose.

Keep thinking that. Pity you are not in my BG, really.

The thing is, dk burst isn't really being nerfed at all, and considering that by far the biggest motivator for me to wear as much resilience as I do on my paladin is dks, I believe our desire to gear/spec with these defensive concerns in mind will remain relevant. If we were able to easily survive against all opponents without IoL, I would likely agree with you that speccing to outlast would be more beneficial. However, I really cannot see this being the case.

Hmm, I heard that form the "friend of a friend", I guess I need to investigate it to get a proper idea about what would it change about them.

Have any DK/Healadin teams been having success against skilled affliction Warlock/Healer teams? I'd be interested in tips on handling them more effectively. The incoming damage to both players and inability to dispel thanks to UA seems like an automatic win for our opponents unless we can get an early kill.

Anyone have any thoughts about the new warrior talent that causes -50% spell effectiveness if overpower is used while casting?

That seems like a HUGE kick in the balls to paladin teams... Since IoL doesn't reduce casting time of HL, our only tool to HL bomb is to use aura mastery first, but that would set us up for getting stuck with the MS debuff plus this new overpower talent. The only other healer I could see this potentially affecting would be priests, if they get caught casting a gheal, but still... HUGE relative buff to shamans (vs. paladins, since shamans have a 1s cast lesser healing wave plus earth shield as it is).

Shadow resist aura and have your dps put presure on the warlock all the time, a few interupts later he will be dead, you have to be doing some CCs at the right time on the healer, beeing blood elf helps alot aswell.

@ warrior issue : We are still talking about overpower skill here, wich shouldn't trigger unless you are tanking that warrior wich you should not in my opinion.

are there any paladins out there that are experiencing troubble with solid DK pally teams out there? as said before i play pally rogue and we just cant seem to beat them unless we kill them while the DK is sapped between the rogues dmg and my divine favor, holy shock, engineering gloves, and lightning generator.

That's what you should be doing, really. Paladin/rogue is very reliant on lightning generator because of it's effectiveness against high armor classes. Gibbing the paladin as you said can work, as can starting on the DK and making a quick swap to the paladin with the same plan (this would be if if you aren't able to get a sap, or after you force bubble).

How much are you healadins worrying over spell power and related through-put and efficiency stats (INT, CRIT, Haste)?

I'm sitting around 610 resilience and with the deadly gladiator off-spec gear available with a 1700+ rating, plus picking up the hateful helm with valor tokens, could end up somewhere north of 720 resilience, but at the expense of crit, haste, and spell power.

Already, my spell power is down into the 1600's with a 37/0/34 spec.

I give my stats as an example we can use to illustrate gearing choices, but I'm curious how successful healadins have chosen to gear and how those decisions have worked out, in addition to how they feel the need to gear differently when paired with different classes or when using different specs (37/0/34 vs. 49/0/22 vs 51+/X/0).

Mathematically, spell power will help you live longer more than resil will, but resil/stam also increase the time it takes to kill you with no heals in between. Looking at top rated teams' armories seems to confirm that at least if you're not getting gibbed, socket for as much SP as possible while matching good socket bonuses. I put 32 sp gems in my blue socketes, 19 sp in red/colorless and 9sp/8resi (except for 1 20 resi) gems in yellow sockets. My limited experience also says that I die more to "I healed but it wasn't enough" rather than "I got gibbed and didn't get a chance to heal" which means SP is generally better. When it comes to actual items, though, PvE items don't really have more SP than the PvP items - they just have more int/haste/mp5.

Hi, I play UAlock Hpal at 2470, and the only way we ever lose is when the DK is on me 90% of the game, the other 10% is when he is on the warlock pet. Normally the DK blows strangulate, garg AMS, Lichborne, ghoul stun, and hoj all within 15 seconds of each other to force the initial bubble, and then once bubble is down they just last until the DK can get a lucky string of crits, normally 2-3 4.5k icy touch crits in a row. This strat only works about 35% of the time, probably because I only wear 550 res, but they NEVER kill my warlock if they go on him. Hope this helps, if you have any more questions PM me.