They didn't actually fix the Gladiator pants in any case.

I can't imagine they're unaware of it not working, I just wish they'd hurry up and fix it. Counterspells and silences are direct counters to paladins, and I'd like my 3 talent points to have some sort of return.

I'm quoting this because this is exactly how I feel about paladin PvP outside of healing. Against every other class in the game, I can never, ever "outplay" my opponent. I can anticipate, I can react, I can do decent damage from time to time, but I can never control the battle. Some may say that this is the way all PvP is regardless of class, but I have to disagree.

A good portion of our abilities are reactive, in that they are made to "counter" enemies. DS, BoP, BoF, BoSac, Cleanse, Auras, all three of our heals. And those that are not reactive share the same use or cooldown (seals, other blessings, for instance). This very much fits our recent image as a "defensive-healer", but defining us as that only pidgeonholes our retribution tree.

Anyhow, I dont think the answer for ret viability in the arena is the return of the six second CS. While it offers good damage, I cannot honestly say that that will suddenly give us a new way to counter all the abilities of other classes. For the life of me, I cant really think of what will help us in that respect.

This is even more so with non-ret spec. It's nigh impossible to excert any sort of influence on the flow of a fight. Against warriors I look to exploit carelesness with GCD, casters I try to leverage line of sight, rogues just general abscence of discipline or misunderstanding the concept of thirteen thousand armor and so on. It's exactly as you said, I can tell every single class how to kill myself and I wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.

That's actually more true being Holy in my experience. As Ret against most classes, you can control your destiny pretty well--other than the fact you rely heavily on crits and procs. Ret gives you the additional CC, which is pretty huge, as well as the burst to slam someone down when needed.

To repeat what others have said, I think this is the general role of the paladin, not just the retribution paladin. I think it is necessary for the overall enjoyment of PvP to have a stable or "given" class. For almost every other class in-game, it can be a guessing game on how they will turn the tide. The paladin is one of the few things you can count on in this game, except for the proc-based burst DPS of the retribution tree. I don't know if that comforts anyone or not, but I think it gives me a little more peace of mind as to my satisfication with the class. While I really love being a "playmaker" I think the people I play with enjoy knowing that even if everything else goes haywire and roles have to be switched up mid-game, the Paladin will still be doing "his thing."

Are people swapping to SR gear for warlock teams? I am considering swapping to shadow resist gear and aura, but the main problem is the dearth of such items in TBC. A cursory wowhead search shows mainly BT items (which I'll probably never get), enchants, the abyssal shroud, and the pendant of shadow's end. I could probably hit 150 with SR aura, but that would leave me open to felhunter pushback. Plus, I'm poor and relatively poorly geared anyway.

I think the Paladin is the least skilled-based class in PvP. It's one of the reasons I rolled the class in TBC to be quite honest. Because of my career I often can travel for a few weeks to months at a time. It's my hope that I'll be able to pick it up like riding a bike.

I am putting SR enchant on both of my PvP cloaks. I'm also going to get the SR shield from Heroic MT. I wouldn't use the Shadow Resist Aura over Concentration. This only goes for 2v2. In 5v5 the Warlock is just one part of the pie that you have to fight, and I wouldn't base my gear set-up for 1/5th or 2/5th of a group.

I have mixed feelings about several posts in this thread, and several topics mentioned pages back.. i'll address them in order.

First off, a paladin in PvP is really different than a paladin in Arenas. It's literally not the same game at that point, since your role is so much different. In battlegrounds, there's very little LoSing, very little cleansing, very little offensive stunning...etc. Whereas in Arenas, the damage is being contained by everyone on your team.... and it leads to less burst damage. With less burst flying around, that gives a paladin a LOT of extra time to do the smaller tasks of cleansing, LoSing the mana burning priest, hitting totems, tossing extra magic debuffs on sheeped warriors, and countless other small tasks.

If your arena team requires that you stand still for more than 6 seconds spamhealing, then your team is doing something extremely wrong. A paladin's role in a 5v5 is a primary healer, but healing isn't the job that burns most of your time.

Next, the shaman issue. I've played with two shaman in my entire WoW career. Both were elemental, and both were very well geared. One was, like said in previous pages, nothing but Bloodlust. The other things he provided were rather useless in comparison to another class. However, the other shaman I played with for a long time was excellent. Earthshock is quite possibly the best ability shamans have. Elemental shamans get a shortened cooldown on it, that can proc a clearcasting type effect and they nuke with that, which is really impressive burst damage.

If the elemental shaman is focused first in a 5v5 arena match, it's not always completely locking them down. From my experience, I always play my hunter with my shaman, so if they are focusing one, the other is left to completely devastate the other team with outstanding burst and interrupts... along with other small annoyances, or possible game winning abilities... depending on the group's coordination.

A small example:

Pally/Hunter/Shaman/Priest/Warrior combo.

Frost trap with double dispell on the other team's warrior takes him out of the fight, just like a mage would with sheep. The other team has to decide who to target... The hunter? The shaman? Let's say they pick the hunter.

Mail armor, high dodge, parry, and amazingly high health. With traps and freedom, a few LoS's and he is NOT dying for a long time... while still doing small amounts of burst(multi, arcane shot) and instant cast annoyances (Viper sting, etc). Meanwhile, the shaman is chain casting lightning bolt at 2,000 per hit and trinket/ns/chain lightning a target at <50% for an early victory. Heroism + Chaincasting = Bad for other team.

So, assuming most teams think this way... they attack the shaman instead! Lovely, then.

Now the hunter is left all on his lonesome. Left to dps his heart out on anybody with MS (I've been playing my warrior and I have been trying a new strategy lately of swapping from clothie to clothie bursting them and forcing them to heal big with MS on the target... while they get mana burned). Viper sting + Mana burn + forced to chain cast on the clothies = 2 minute victory. With the warrior/hunter on a cloth dps class, the enemy team's DPS is literally shot to pieces because of traps and immediate dispelling.

I can't really say that any class is a "monkey"... it's really completely reliant on the player's skilllevel. The shaman class, if used right, can be an extremely potent annoyance, a great damage mitigator team wide (grounding totem, earthshock), a backup lifesaver, and a huge bonus to DPS. Windfury totem being down for one tick gives the warrior a near 20% damage increase for 10 seconds.... and that all goes strait to burst.

Did I just miss the memo on being able to BoP people while I'm sapped? It's not hugely arena useful since I'm barely ever sapped but since I've been BG'ing more in anticipation of the patch, it's easier to be caught unawares and I stumbled upon it. Really useful in some situations and I've been wondering why I've never heard of it before.

Because it's not a very effective method, really no battlefield up to arenas made it a very useful thing to do...and even in arenas you'd have to be pretty confident that you're not going to need it for the next 4-5 minutes on either another team mate or yourself.

On the topic of BoPing people while CCed, has anyone else been able to BoP people while feared before? I think it may have something to do with intimidating shout but I've never figured out why sometimes I can BoP during fear and other times I can't.

Since when does BoP remove Int. Shout? I recall warriors using it to interrupt BoP'd heals. (Though that was a really long time ago)


Also, the question you're answering is about using BoP on someone else while CC'd (feared). It's always been possible when stunned, but I'm not sure how exactly it works with fears.

Not removing it from other people, but casting it while you're the one feared.

Pretty sure it has removed Intimidating Shout, it doesn't come up often so I'm not 100% sure though.

I noticed this a few weeks ago in EoTS. Just decided I would spam it so it would hit when sap came out, but apparently it cast right away.

BoP removed and made people immune to intimidating shout ever since I've been playing the game (about patch 1.7-.8). Short of something like the meteor trinket a warrior can't do anything at all to you while BoPed.

e: Same with sap. They're all physical effects and that's what BoP removes. Description may be taken quite literally. Blind goes through BoP since it's not physical it's poison.

Ok so it seems they have fixed the improved concentration aura bugs, though I haven't tested to see if it's working with the physical interrupts IE kick/pummel. But my latest gripe is that cyclone is removing auras (has it always done this?). It's not a huge deal but when conc aura gets turned off cause I'm cycloned, I have to decide if I want to waste a GCD putting it back up or risk getting some pushback, which is fairly annoying.

Cyclone has always removed auras. According to several blue posters, this is 'working as intended'.

I'm pretty new to the Paladin class (rerolled in March and didn't hit 70 until late April) so please bear with me.

At season 2's start, I decided to pair with a SL Warlock. We've faired alright so far, finishing with a 1910 rating last week. We've often come across teams that we couldn't beat, but we've been able to justify most of these (most of these opponents out-gear, out-experience, and out-shadow resist us, or we just plain screw up).

However, while running games this morning we ran into a Resto Shaman/UA Warlock team that we banged our head against for most of an hour and couldn't not come up with a way to win. After scoring 1 fluke win out of 5 games, we called it quits. We should have called it earlier but right now, we actually prefer to play games we lose so we can figure out how to win them. The first two matches were a relatively equal. We played a standard mirror match with each lock chasing the healer attempting to mana drain. They one the first, we won the second.

The next time we faced them, they changed the strategy entirely. Their warlock began pushing on mine and they almost left me completely alone other than dropping Curse of Tongues on me. With my warlock getting so much attention and getting hit by Fear, Instant Howl of Terror, Felhound, Earth Shock, and Tremor/Grounding Totem he doesn't have a chance to do much. During this, I play the pillar game. When my lock needs a heal, I pop out from behind the pillar, drop the heal and return to hiding, drinking if necessary. Eventually, it gets to the point where I'm not keeping my warlock at full hp, usually because my warlock got feared in the exact opposite direction that I was standing or their warlock managed to get a fear on me. From here, it falls apart. the shaman switches to me. With CoT, it's impossible to get a Holy Light off and Flash of Light isn't enough to heal through the UA warlocks stack of DoTs hidden under UA (which he's also managed to get on me now). I can hold out for awhile, but eventually, my mana pool gets destroyed or they manage to Earth Shock and Fear all my heals and we lose the match.

I know our Shadow Resist sets are weak (I'm only at ~130 and my partner doesn't have any) but I'm pretty confident that our opponents didn't have any on.

How can I deal with the pressure of a UA Lock with Curse of Tongues and Earth Shock on me?

Stop expecting your warlock to do all the work. Help him out. Hit totems, make the warlock actually chase you and kite him, make him run so he can't be stationary and cast fear as easy. Also don't fall behind on healing and force you to use Holy Light with tongues on. Wasting tons of time and making yourself open to spelllock and fears cause your sitting there casting forever. Make sure your warlock is helping you out too and lifedraining.

Your shadow resist also needs work. Against any warlock/healer team I wear at least 225 with aura. I can't thank SR enough for all the times its saved me from a fear, deathcoil, manadrain etc. You can get that easy with the green shadow protection gear off your AH. Don't think because its green and gimps your stats its awful to wear. That gear has a ton of stamina and SR. With enough Stamina and SR it can make up for the lack of gimp healing stats.

As for mana if you find yourself trapped in a corner, tons of dots on you, feared and chain mana draining you, don't be afraid to bubble and get all that garbage off you, get out of there and try and recover. Make sure your judging wisdom on the pet too and to melee it for mana. Not only can you get mana back but some warlocks and healer combos get sloppy and let the pet get low. Sometimes you can even kill it.

In the end you just have to make the other warlocks life a living hell. Keep moving, keep los, keep him guessing.

I have some thoughts about things said in this thread.

First, about paladins being skillless:

I don't think playing a paladin is skillless. We're static healers and so when we're kiting, we're not healing. When I play on a bad 5v5 team, I'm constantly pressured by mages, rogues, and warlocks, and sometimes all at once. This forces me to have to be constantly on the move. Keeping your team up in this instance isn't trivial by any means.

When I fight on a good 5v5 team, I normally don't have anything on me, and if I do it's just the fel-doggy thing, which is easily dealt with by a HoJ. I can heal all day.

I wouldn't say that paladins are skilless, I would say that there is an inverse relation between the skill of a paladin necessary to be victorious and the sum total skill of the 5v5 team you're on.


I don't think we'll see much variation in specs. Light's Grace is too deep in holy, and it prohibits you from getting anything meaningful in Prot or Ret. For Arena, Light's Grace is probably the single most powerful talent you can get. Talents that scale with gear are very powerful, especially so when they increase heal/sec by 20%


I don't know why heal-faking is mentioned as much as it is. Heal-faking isn't really viable(I wish it was) when you're playing against good teams. I'd never miss a CS on a paladin given (a) that I can mod my UI to keep my Focus's casting bar always visible and (b) have a key bound to end cast and cast CS on my Focus.


I do have two questions for everyone.

I play with a rogue and I also play with a warrior. By far the hardest matchup has been a good ice mage and a good feral druid.

Have any of you found any successful ways to deal with this combo? Between CS, stun locking of the feral druid, and cyclone spamming, I've found this team to be very difficult.

Also, I have 1099 healing, 8.5k hp, and 8.8k mana, and 53% armor mit with my best gear, is it reasonable to be able to break 2000+? I've gotten to 1780's in 2v2 but it seems to get harder and harder to get points. I don't know if it's me playing wrong(some matches I definitely make really stupid mistakes that are obvious to me), or if gear is starting to be a factor.

Thanks

I'm kind of lost in the thread - is the Improved Pally Concentration Aura working now as intended or is it still messed up? July 10, 2007