Ok, to put it more formally, currently, population size does not correlate with high end representation at all - I did the maths earlier. In easier terms, you cannot explain the current overabundance of DKs and paladins using the total amount of people playing those classes.

If you believe that after the current season priests will be balanced with paladins ACCOUNTING for population imbalances that's a claim that I feel absolutely confident rejecting.

If you can get a representation for season 1, 2, 3, and 4 showing the same thing then I will agree with you. FOTM rerolls occur ALOT. Not to mention it is reflected by DKs being a brand new class and everyone wanting to play one while being the best arena dps class at the same time. Paladins had just as much time for the rerolls cause of the 3.0 patch when you got lvl 80 talents at 70. I knew many people who actually started playing their paladins again because they had a huge imbalance.

When season 6 comes around you will see more overall balance.

I do not have a handy guide to the total population dynamics as a function of time but I guarantee you druids were far more represented in arena than they were as a % of the total population - hunters were the opposite.

Well yes druids are probably the exception, but that may be because only one race on each side can play them and they were the least class played ever but the best arena healer. However, if you look at rogues and warriors it probably holds true.

Again, no it does not. Paladins have always been an extremly popular class, however they did horribly in seasons 3 and 4.

BC Gladiator Breakdown by Class - Arena Junkies Forums

The current representation would indicate that the game is dramatically more imbalanced than it ever has been in the past.

There was something similar to sk-100 that someone had put up a few weeks ago, where you could look at the breakdown of up to the top 5000 (if i remember correctly) teams. However it's no longer up - I'm trying to see if I can find something else that can display the same thing.

Give the lack of proper statistics from Blizzard, all us customers can really do is use the imperfect information we have. Critiques of the statistical methods to derive the data is perfectly fine, but it is very easily coupled with qualitative data. Talk to a random subset of high-rated players in any bracket and they can walk you through exactly why paladin/x or paladin/x/y is completely dominant against almost all other setups. Combine with that the numbers from various statistic sites and information from the tournament realm, and it paints a pretty clear picture. It would be one thing if he was arguing about a 2% difference in representation or something like that, but we're talking about a healing class that is, by all accounts, dramatically more powerful than resto druids ever were in TBC, in every single bracket.

No amount of nitpicking is going to change that fundamental fact.

Would it be possible to direct this thread back to a discussion of paladin arena strategies and compositions rather than an unrewarding argument about the OPness of the paladin class?

To that end, I will try to refocus the discussion with a question about the viability of a rogue/holy combination. Have others had experience/success with this team? If so, are there any general tips that you could provide to a ret paladin who plans to arena as holy with a mutilate rogue?

Sure, very productive. I would just like to politely inform you that you will get steamrolled by Paladin / Deathknight, Paladin / Hunter, Shaman / Hunter, and Shaman / Warlock.

Have a great time in the arenas!


To be more productive:

1. Find yourself a rogue that is extremely skilled. The stupid ones will fall over almost instantly above 2k.
2. Make sure to glyph offensively to a certain extent (3.1 Exorcism, Holy Shock, Turn Evil), and I would suggest cheesing engineering (GLG trinkets) if you can for additional burst.

On the topic of holy/rogue. I play this comp reasonably successfully (hovering beteen 2k and 2100) and with it you need to play VERY VERY offensively. i do not agree that you will get steamrolled by all the comps that Lanky says above but it will be an uphill struggle. The only team that we ever experience troubble with is paladin/DK.

Gem for spell power wherever possible. use repentance and hammer offensively on the burn target if your rogue loses handle of it. Get the Engineering trinket and glove enchant and spam it hard once the target hits half health followed by a holy shock. should be able to RNG most teams don without having to outlast.

Is this what you were looking for?:

Arena Class Breakdown Statistics - World of Warcraft Realm History

Looking at the numbers, it seems to me that paladin/dk is dominating 2's. Then Dk's aren't nearly as strong in 3's with only 3% more representation than rouges and hunters but paladins still totally dominate healers at 22% with second best being priests at 10%.


I think simple damage numbers are to blame for the healer imbalance. It is simply too easy to train down a non-paladin healer right now. I think every healer needs a 20-30% flat damage reduction talent at the top of their healing tree to be honest.......

I would say that buffing resilience or stam is a good answer, but then mage/rogue teams would be even more LOL than they are now (for anyone besides paladins).



Edit: Also Mearis your data is terrible and your sample size is garbage. Please use better statistics to support your argument. The Sk-100 list is just not a good indication of general balance issues. If you looked strictly at Sk-100 rogues would seem to be the worst class yet they have more 2200+ representation than any other class behind DK's and paladins.

I just need to come out and say that is a really terrible idea, unless those abilities are similar to pain suppression. Even then, giving something like that to a Shaman would be the height of terrible-ideas, since he could pop it, ignore you, and hex / flameshock / LvB your partner.

My turn to manipulate statistics. I posit that, based on the EU TR standings (see below), priests are overpowered relative to all other healers, including paladins. Evidence for this supposition can be found from the fact that, of the top 10 teams, 7 of them have priests while only 5 have paladins.

The top 10 teams of the 2009 Arena Tournament’s online qualifier as of April 1, 2009 are listed below:


Rank | Team Name | Classes | Win – Loss | Team Rating
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| 1. we r randoms | Mage, Priest, Rogue | 189-65 | 2401
+| 2. Cowsgomoo | Mage, Priest, Rogue | 99-26 | 2384
| 3. êAê RAT | Mage, Priest, Rogue | 148-78 | 2379
+| 4. Beat de Haut Bois | Death Knight, Hunter, Paladin | 108-45 | 2363
+| 5. Gqwgqwgqgqgq | Mage, Priest, Rogue | 100-33 | 2360
-| 6. Nightmaree | Death Knight, Paladin, Warlock | 113-38 | 2323
-| 7. N O P | Death Knight, Mage, Paladin | 111-47 | 2320
-| 8. BOMBERS | Hunter, Paladin, Priest | 163-73 | 2309
+| 9. eDawgs | Mage, Priest, Rogue | 108-49 | 2307
+|10. Improved Clicks | Death Knight, Hunter, Paladin | 230-139 | 2305
+|10. sadpandasrcute | Mage, Priest, Rogue | 140-49 | 2305

Shouldnt we be discussing how to balance priests rather than paladins?

No there was one that was hosted by a smaller party that showed only the top 5000 teams or so, which I found very useful (you could set it to display the statistics from the whatever of teams you wanted, for instance if you were trying to compare the class representation of the top 2000 teams to that of the top 5000 teams), since the realmhistory data just shows so many teams now that the arena ratings have inflated and 2200 is not what it was relatively in bc.

To the above poster: if people in this thread are discounting sk-100 as a substantial indication of balance due to its small sample size, why would the top 10 be any less skewed? It's even more asinine that you chose to omit the statistics of the top 10 U.S. teams because they wouldn't support your point.

I would take that wager-- that priests will be within 2-3% of the representation of Paladins next season (give it 4 weeks to stabilize first). You're on EU server, so a gold exchange would be impossible, but we can work out some other friendly wager if you wish.

On a personal note, I will be switching to my shadow priest next patch from my paladin, as I cannot find a single DK or Hunter that I like playing with and I just don't feel my current rogue/paladin, warrior/paladin, and enhShaman/paladin combinations are competitive past 1850.

On the other hand, I personally know very skilled rogues and warlocks who would fit well with my shadow priest. I think in looking just at class representations is too simplistic an approach and synergies have to be looked at as well. The only time I've felt OP as a paladin this season is when I ran up to 1950 in 2v2 in one night--while I was still in blues-- with some random DK. (Who I never saw again)

Also, most paladins are hybrid spec right now for the offensive CC/damage/mana it provides-- something paladins are not "supposed" to have. That's nerfed. Others are a more conservative 49/0/22 spec that provides CC breaks. That's nerfed. No paladin will be the same spec in 3.1 than in current live. That's a pretty hefty re-do of the whole class.

Looking at the statistics for all paladins on the European tournament realm with a 3on3 rating above 2000 gives us:
~50% 51/20/0 or 53/18/0
~13% 37/0/34
~10% 49/0/22
~13% Some type of Retribution specc

The hybrid specc that is getting most of the nerfs is not used all that much in 3on3, it's more of a 2on2 specc, though "only" 34% of the top 100 rated paladins in 2on2 worldwide use it, rest going for Holy/Prot or Holy/Divine Purpose. Question is how big the nerf is to the deep holy builds if there even is one at all. Aura Mastery, Divinity and Glyph of Holy Shock are quite big buffs, they might outweight the nerfs to Sacred Shield and Infusion of Light.

And nerfs to Enlightened Judgments, blessed hands, pure of heart, imp. hammer of justice, and SA. Also you forgot salvation as a buff.

And yes, you are correct. 37/34 and 49/22 are 2v2 specs. 51/20, which should net an overall buff in 3.1 (once you count in buffs as well as nerfs to the spec), is the spec of choice for top-end 3v3 and 5v5. This is mostly because you don't have the healing power to keep up with damage in those brackets. And because you can't really afford to NOT use conc aura in those brackets.

I don't think anyone is defending DKs. His point is that neither side of that matrix is taking the blame for being imbalanced, when in truth both are. Death knights do comparatively more damage than every other class with no survivability tradeoffs, and paladins are the best healers using almost any measurable criteria. Arena is all about competitive advantage over other classes, and right now (probably also after 3.1) there are very few situations where the response to "what healer should we bring?" is not a paladin. It was exactly the same with resto druids for well over a year in 2s and 3s, if not as pronounced.

Anyway, you are apparently ret, and ret is actually reasonably balanced now compared to other DPS specs (aka inferior to a DK, but on par with nearly everyone else).

Priests can do that right now....better than Shaman. They don't cause it's not some kind of uber strat you've stumbled upon.

What does that even mean? What the hell does it matter if you get DKs and Paladins to admit that we're OP; what grand purpose does that serve? What do we do then, apologize and give up all our undeserved gladiator titles?

Arenas in this game have never really been balanced, and this isn't even a thread for discussion on arena balancing.

I was just clarifying a previous post because it was misinterpreted. But as for your other question, this line of discussion started several pages back when someone made the supposition that deep holy needed to be buffed because its top tier talents weren't useful in PvP. That position was since corrected but it ultimately lead to this balance war.