caboom

Double DPS oponents are the reason I said holy/prot "might" be better once resilience is high enough and your DPS doesn't struggle to survive anymore. But I am inclined to think that is not true seeing that at least in my BG healer/dps comps are more numerous still and agaist healer/dps you want to have staying power.

 

jaofos

I'm still helping my Arms partner get geared and ready, but I did a few skirmishes last night and did pretty well for just random 2v2's. A (good) priest + anything makes it tough, especially when they hump my leg ready to fear at any moment.

20 sec CD on HoJ + 3 sec silence from Avenger's Shield does create a lot of opportunities for win, and was the deciding factor on many of the skirmishes. I do miss Holy Shock terribly, but hitting 8k FoL crits is pretty nice.

 

marcblack

Im trying on this spec for BG's and WG sessions, just to start to farm my gear. I just figured out that get Imp BoM (instead of 2s in Judgements CDs) can worth it, since my gear just suck at this point and any more AP can help a lot. In BG situations i guess 2s are not that god, since we are not allways engaged, like in a boss fight, for example. Do you think its a good idea?

Thanks a lot.

 

caboom

It seems as soon as discipline priests started catching up with me in gear, they started to become a nightmare.
HELP!

WTB strats on how to stay alive against them and their dps.

 

aquanda

With the nerfs to Mana Burn and Glyph of Pennance I think PR will be a lot more manageable.

Instead, we get to be owned by DR's CC spam!

 

jackvance

It looked a bit grim for paladins for a while there, but with the nerfs to disc priests, the playing field is evened out again. I'm running a 19/52/0 healing build, paired with a DK. I tried a 52/19/0 build, but i just ran oom in no time, and a 32/0/39 left me feeling enormously frail - rogues, DKs, rets and warriors would just rip me to shreds in no time - I honestly don't know how others can make this work. The biggest problem is ofcourse that i have no instant heals in my build, but with glyph of seal of light, my flash of light crits for 8.2k+ (holy light 22k+). And I'm very hard to kill, so i'm sticking to this build for now. (also mana is rarely an issue, as I can use undispellable plea, and even refresh it by hitting someone. - only when I have to heal massive dmg all the time can i be run oom; Happened only once in a ton of games i played today)

The biggest problem is restoration druids - the good ones are just nigh impossible to kill. They seemingly never run oom, and can often travel form run off, tank in bear, cyclone the dps for a breather, whatever it takes. Especially when paired with a Mortal Striking warrior it's a real pain.

The nice thing about paladins is that retri is also a viable spec atm. I hope to get the furious 2hander and then I might try it with a druid or priest healer. We lack any form of snare, mortal strike or interrupt, but can dish out a constant stream of high damage, and have a whole arsenal of defensive spells. For the moment i use it mostly to do BGs (grinding all the furious honor pieces ^^) and in skirmishes with some healer friends. Works especially well with a druid who can cyclone the healer so I can kill the dps.

 

Mordekhuul

You haven't hit a high rating yet, so maybe you don't know, but how does a deep prot build help you keep from running out of mana? Yes, DP is undispellable and can stay up as long as you auto-attack, but it still cuts your healing in half while up...

 

jackvance

We just go defensive with the DK spamming chains of ice on the opposing team. Then I can either drink or get a few attacks in to refresh DP, and I'll be high on mana again in no time. This prot spec probably isn't the most ideal spec (the weakness of having no instant heal will be exploited by good teams) but for the moment I like it because I can survive on my own, and my DK is a bit gimped with just a titansteel destroyer so my 20s stuns and 30s avenger's shield can really help to score a kill. I don't think I'm gonna go to high rating with it (will have to respec to 32/0/39 or something then probably and have the DK protect me more) - if I can get the furious weapon, I intend to try my luck as retri. Atleast for a while.

 

Mixe

I'm running the 20/52/0 Prot healing spec in 2's and it's working quite well. Just hit 2k rating (top 200 teams on the battlegroup) and I'm sure we can get to 2.2k eventually. With a DK, the spec works pretty well. We rely on bursting the DPS, then quickly switching with HoJ, Avengers Shield and Strangulate. It catches alot of teams by surprise. Rogue/Priest is not much of a concern for us at all, although that might be because we have only faced average Rogue/Priest teams. The main concerns are teams with resto shamans. When teamed with a Warlock or Ret Pala, we bump into serious problems.

Another discrepancy with this spec is the lack of Holy Shock. And with Aura Mastery currently being bugged (confirmed by a GM to me today), silences and interrupts have to be fake-casted well. The most hilarious aspect of this spec is Priests attempting to manaburn me with little success.

 

KYA1337

The main reason you're not running out of mana is that you have a hard time spending it.

No expensive holy shock, and a lot of reasons to refrain from casting 2.5 sec HLs, means you use the cheap and efficient flashes all the time.

 

benzo

Ok, so I've made a quick talent setup for ret in general PvP, BGs/WG.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Tell me your opinions and thoughts please, I'm pretty new to making my own talent specs.
Also, what seal is good to use in PvP?

 

jackvance

You made a few crucial mistakes imo.. put the points from deflection into sanctity of battle (a significant dps increase), you will also want sheath of light, it will make your flash of light (which you will get instant procs of, with art of war) actually worth casting - and spell power also adds some dps to your abilities.

In the protection tree move the points from anticipation into guardian's favor - a longer blessing of freedom is ideal against kiting and the 1min off hop can help keep a healer alive, this outweighs 2% dodge. And put the toughness points in divine sacrifice and divine guardian. If you are going for 19pt into prot (the common retri thing to do), you're gonna have to not take some retri talents. You can drop righteous vengeance (it's not a big dps increase, not bursty, and sometimes you dont want a dot because it can break cc) or fanaticism (judgements are your weakest attack so it's not imperative that they crit)

As for what seal to use, martyr is still superior. The self-damage is minor, especially with sacred shield, and you'll have more sustained damage. Some people still like to use command.. the reasoning is that you can *sometimes* have higher burst. The judgement hits a bit harder, and can be forced to crit with repent/stun, and the judgement can proc a seal whereas martyr can't. The biggest problem is that even with the glyph, seals still proc less than 50% of the time, so while on a rare occasion you can do a big burst (when the stars align and all your instant attacks proc seals and some crits) but oftentimes you'll be doing crap for damage and not be applying much pressure at all.

 

Crossbones

Use Seal of Blood.

Your spec is missing Sheath of Light. That is pretty much a must have.

You do not need defense in PvP. Take those points out of anticipation and put them in guardian's favor.

You shouldn't take parry over DPS talents. Take those 3 out of deflection and put them into sanctity of battle.


That's the important stuff. The rest is personal preference. If you are planning to arena often, you should get divine sacrifice and divine guardian. Whether you take the points out of toughness or imp RF is up to you and your play style.

 

Trakor

With a big chunk of our burst gone, would it be a viable option to grab reckoning rather than divine storm? I just started doing arena, so I use pve gear. For this reason, quite often, they come after me.

On that subject, if i have sacred shield on and it absorbs damage, can reckoning still proc?

 

Mahdrid

Not sure you want to drop DS. In fact, it's a pretty good bit of burst, and Reckoning is just unreliable.

I have a question for the more experienced ret folks here. I hear a lot of talk about bursting people down in a single HoJ, but I am beginning to think it's a myth. last night I got stuck on fighting a resto shaman, and could not for the life of me get her into a position where I could HoW her down. I used a combination of HoJ and silence, and even repentance.

So, if it *is* possible to do it, how does one go about doing it? Do you hit them a couple times, then HoJ, then repent, then hit again? Or is it HoJ, then our three melee attacks, then Repent?

I have fairly good gear - basically nearly BiS pre Ulduar, and I'm swinging Ironsoul (Betrayer hates me), so I know I can put out solid damage. Should I stick to a minimal resilience setup? I currently have nearly full Hateful, but I seem to sacrifice a ton of AP, crit and hit for resilience, and the resil doesn't really seem to help all that much.

 

MatsT

As a resto shaman, i can provide some insight on this. Bursting someone down during a HoJ is certainly not easy and not something that will succeed every time. Some things that will help you for killing resto shamans specifically:

• Make sure he isn't using Earth Shield. If he have Earth Shield up, it will heal him for at least 5k during the stun, maybe more. If he's using ES on himself he will run out of mana quite fast, so it's not necessary to kill him when he has. He will have to swap to Water Shield to keep his mana up, wait for that before you burst.
• Try to stun him lower than 100% hp. If you can stun him at 70-80% hp, your chances of killing him increase substantially. This can be hard to control, but if he's not standing still he will often go up and down between 70-100% as he waits for Riptide cooldowns, and sometimes stops to heal if he feels he need it.
• Get help from your partner. Any healer class can put out 4-6k damage in a 6 second stun if needed. This isn't always possible as he/she may be at the other end of the map and under heavy pressure/interrupts from a dps, but letting the healer help with the burst is a crucial part of killing someone as a retribution paladin. If you feel that your healer can almost never help you out, you may want to reconsider your overall strategy. Maybe you can repetance the rogue/dk/whatever before you stun.
• If you are going to use the silence, it might be better to start with it. If you silence as he comes out of the stun, he will likely use a stoneclaw totem for a 4k absorb shield (totems can be cast while silenced). If you start with the silence, he might not feel it's worth wasting stoneclaw, and when the stun hits at 60% hp, it might be too late.
• Try to make him "waste" trinket on normal stun or a cc while you kill his friend, then use an Avenging Wrath combo when his trinket is on cooldown.

Depending on your gear, the shamans gear and your luck with crits, you might not need to use all of these points to score a kill. Also, if you run out of instant attacks during the stun, you can follow up with a repetence and get a chance to kill him with autoattack+seal+instant attack before he has a chance to cast a spell. Just make sure the repetance hits before the stun ends as he is sure to be spamming NS heal, Stoneclaw Totem or Riptide.

 

Crossbones

100 -> 0 in HoJ is generally hyperbole unless you catch a druid in caster form or something along those lines. It can happen, but you shouldn't be planning on it. Get a CC chain going on their partner and burst while your healer is nuking.

Shamans are generally the toughest healers to kill as ret I find.

If you aren't dying, use as much PvE gear as possible. I get focused often enough that 5-600 seems right.

 

caboom

From my BG experience running in full PVE gear if you manage to burst someone down in one HoJ it is generally not worth spending that HoJ on him in the first place. This used to happen in 3.0 or 2.9 if i remeber correctly when judgements would hit for 4k and ppl had max 9k hp back then. Other than that it's just hyperbolic, if you are planning it for arena forget about it.

So "Burst down in 1 HoJ" Myth :
BGs - PLAUSIBLE
Arena - BUSTED

 

Destrali

I will agree that it is highly unlikely to burst someone down in the span of a HoJ. In a battleground where a vast majority of the fighters are undergeared, have low amounts of health, of are running pure pve gear, then yes it is possible and happens frequently. This is not a fault of our class or the design of Ret, that is the player's fault for not being properly geared in the PvP setting. In arena it is vastly harder to burst someone from 100% to dead in the span of 1 HoJ. It may look like it happens at times, I personally destoryed a priest in a HoJ but only due to the fact that my Shammy partner had managed to strip him of all buffs and protections right as I landed a ridiculous amount of crits leading into the HoJ and during the HoJ and the priest simply hit the deck. But as it has been stated by the couple posters ahead of me, and by myself, while it is possible in duels, and BGs, it is virtually impossible to score it in Arena.

 

Mahdrid

Great information. Thanks!

 

Requizen

Hey, I've been messing around with Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft for BGs and wintergrasp. Seem ok to you guys?

 

Taincity

You might find righteous vengeance limits your ability to repentance when needed. I would drop those 3 points for the 2 points on eye for an eye and 2 points in sanctified wraith. Also i think it will be more effective moving the 2 points in divinity to improved righteous fury.

 

Requizen

Hmm... something more like this then?

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It does seem to work well, though I feel like IBoM might be a good idea in some cases. And I'm not sure if my glyphs are the best for ret pvp ATM, but I can't think of better ones off the top of my head.

 

Taincity

If this is a full WG/BG spec, then you really don't need might. Maxing health in BG's is always a good idea. And as for glyphs. Replace hammer of wrath for exorcism. It helps when killing pets. And you might want to pick up SOC and glyph for it.

 

blacksuit

Strongly disagree. Don't use Glyph of Exorcism or Seal of Command. Use SoB (the seal, not necessarily the glyph). You don't need Glyph of Exorcism because it only helps against pets and you can pretty reliably burst down pets anyway.

There are several viable glyphs: HoJ, Turn Evil, Judgment, Salvation, Seal of Blood, and some even use Divine Storm. I use Salv, SoB, and Judgment. Not sure why people use the DS glyph, but a lot of really high rated Ret paladins have it.