Braque

Hello,

I play my Paladin as a support class in battlegrounds, arena, and PvE. I "know how to play", in that context, and I realise that my class is very powerful in that context.

That said, sometimes my team mates die. Often a lost arena game ends with me as the last man standing, being eaten alive by 2 or more of the opposition team.

Occasionally, however, I am left as the last man standing, against just one other player. In those situations I just don't know what I'm supposed to do to win. Quite often I can keep myself alive for quite a while, but with no effective offensive tactics they will eventually wear me down.

I'd love to know what other Paladins do in this situation. How do you handle other classes when it's down to a 1 on 1? I can beat melee classes in duels by equipping some tanking/spelldamage hybridish gear, but in areans I'm stuck in combat in healer gear, and just can't find a tactic to beat people.

Advice would be appreciated.

Edit: Note my current armory profile doesn't show my usual spec or equipment, I'm Tankadin at the moment so I can do some heroics with my wife (a holy priest). I'm usually in 3 arena bits and T4ish level healer gear in the other slots.

 

◊ Yes

There's a few things you could try.
Some ground rules: some classes, such as mages, warlocks, hunters, rogues, druids and healers who can heal themselves will always be able to cc /bandaid/heal vs any sort of holy paladin dps and will kill you if they get full health/mana if they are able to.

However, since most times they do not have full mana and health they might be made to lose. In particular, you can do just a little bit of burst with Judgement of Crusader, followed by seal of righteousness judge and a holy shock crit. However, in most cases you're in trouble. You're going to be CC'd while they run out of LoS to bandaid. You can possibly sneak a rez in.

Perhaps practice dueling (Without bubble) vs opponents, sometimes switching into ret gear to pressure them after a CC (Because you get out of combat). Some classes like say a frost mage should never be able to heal you if you juggle BoF correctly and watch for dispel, LoS.
Your best tactic is to outlast them untill your bubble comes up, make them sort of low on mana and health when that happens, put on a 2her and ret type of gear when OOC and hope to kill them. Practice duels where you can run out of LoS. If you are ENG you could use something like a shadow/fire reflector that you equip when out of combat to add more burst.

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• Deris

Bring all of your spelldamage gear, and if your teammate dies, HOJ the enemy, and run as far away as possible. You NEED to drop combat, and hopefully you use Itemrack - swap to your +damage gear, and burn him down. Your bubble will probably be down already, so go ahead and use AW (unless its a mage), and still remain defensive - always keep your health high, AW + trinket + DF Holy Shock can put up almost 2k damage, on top of JoR, etc - maybe even a 2H if you aren't fighting a melee class.

My favorite 2v2 Match i've ever had was vs. a Destruction Lock and a Mage. My partner and I killed the Mage, but the Warlock killed my Warlock. So it was down to myself vs. a Destruction lock. Sure enough, the lock began to fear me, and run away to drink/eat. I simply waited until I saw he was actually sitting, and began to res my partner. By the time he got to me, and DC'd me - my partner was already rezzed and fearing the Warlock :o).

You're never truly in a 1v1 Situation as long as you have the res button (they didn't nerf it yet did they?) and someone stupid enough to drop combat for that long.

 

• Xaviera

In 100% full healing gear it's definitely hard to put out ANY type of offense to give yourself a chance of winning. Try to stun them in a spot where they're farthest from you during your fight, and gives yourself an opportunity to jump down/away/out of los long enough to break combat. Obviously itemrack or something queue up your spell damage gear and get that on asap. The difference between a holy paladin in pure healing gear and one in gear with 700-800 spell damage is incredibly large

 

Kardinalen

Hammer of justice and leg it in the opposite directon to try and get out of combat. Once there, you should have a macro or addon with which you can change to more appropriate gear instantly.

Edit: Xaviera beat me to it.

 

hawkon

Like previously mentioned, some spelldmg gear (ignore the retri gear comments) and you should be fine. I usually go healing gear for 1-2 minutes just to outlast them abit, then itemrack my lamellar set for some burst with the wings.

 

• Amera

This happened to me the other day in a 3v3. I managed to run away from the elemental shaman (who had like 5% mana) and dropped combat long enough to get my melee gear on. I then ran in and meleed him down pretty easily.

Just be careful about doing this against foes who will try to drink - even a few ticks of water may end up hosing you if you aren't careful.

 

aquacadet

I realize this isn't a answer to your question, but I figure this is decent place to share this story. I was playing 2v2's with a warrior using a guildmate's paladin. One game on Blade's edge arena was Druid and Affliction warlock vs us. That being said, I'm not a good paladin and with Curse of Tongues (2.0 not 2.1 btw), and the inability to remove UA, coupled with cyclone my warrior died just as he finished off the warlock. I was in a very bad place, 1 on 1 with a class I was fairly bad at playing. I knew I had to take action and came up with an interesting plan.

I ran to the opposite side of the bridge and began kept healing myself while I waited for Hammer of Justice to cool down. As soon as it did I stunned the druid and quickly ran back to the body of my warrior. By the time I got there I had dropped combat. I popped shield and began to cast res. The druid came over and started hitting me but the shield kept me out of combat. There was a split second at the end where he could have stopped me, but luck was on my side and the res went off. I healed up the warrior and the rest was history. Like I said I don't really play a paladin so I'm not sure how common this is, but I certainly enjoyed the experience.

 

◊ Shadowed

Depending on bracket and what class you're going up against, you can get a ressurection off sometimes if they try and run away to drink in maps like BEM where if your teammate dies up top, someone couldn't get LOS until they ran all the way back up to the bridge.

Had a couple of cases where it was Holy Priest vs Ice Mage resulting in wins because the Mage kept running away and the Priest was able to ressurect.

 

Gulaja

Depending on the class, I have two plans:

1) Kill the player. This usually occurs against Rogues, Warriors, and sometimes hunters/enhancement shaman. All three classes will continuously put DPS on me and don't have to worry about mana. Depending on my cooldowns, I can sometimes when. Generally, I will immediatly try to get out of combat, switch gear, and than proceed to whittle down my opponent while keeping my mana high. My goal is to survive until DS or BoP is up, or to get the opponent down to 40%. At 40% I'll usually use Avenging Wrath, drop all my burst and trinkets, and pray I win.

2) My Mana > Your Mana. If I'm facing a caster, often times I just try to outlast their mana pool. This doesn't work against Warlocks usually unless they are already at low health. The goal is to get them at low mana so they have to pull out of combat and drink. I than hide behind a pillar and rez. Often times I can just bait a sheep if my trinket is up.

 

panos

hm i guess a useful tip is to get the Stealth-detect buff if you are up against a mage(or other cc class). it applies a dot on you so you cant get sheeped (or blinded,maimed,charmed, sleep sting etc)

 

hip

Sadly enough, though, I dont think we can really ever win a 1v1 situation against another skilled player at equal mana (assuming they arent allready dead). I've learned all to quickly that without my PvP trinket and shield, I'm pretty much more susceptible than even shamans to CC, and every class that I've ever dueled relies on it to a disgusting extent.

For example, a good affliction warlock can quite literally kill you without you even hitting him once. CoT, a felhunter, UA, iHoT is simply too much for any paladin, and you wont even get a heal off let alone deal some damage. Other specs arent too far behind.

Good mages, likewise, save their burst for the period after they have counterspelled you, and will have little trouble wiping the floor with you if they get off a sheep into a primary damage spell.

Rogues are a better matchup if you have a cooldown or two still up, but even so skilled rogues will blind you through a BoP and keep you from healing, EVER, with KS, gouge, kick and their other cooldowns.

Warriors are a decent matchup for us 1v1, but there is one caveat: Assuming warrior+healer as the other team, which is what most warrior combos are made up by, if it is just warrior vs you, then chances are you are oom. Unless that warrior is practically dead allready, there is no chance in hell you are going to get to drink, and you cannot fight a warrior with no mana.

Finally, against healing classes we may have a "chance", but hope it never happens to you. This is where you see screenshots of those games that last 2+ hours. We simply dont have a way to put down reliable enough burst damage on a low mana budget to actually be a threat for a well-geared, well-played healer, at any point in time. Likewise, the same is true for them. Even when I was ret (our supposedly highest damage spec), I found myself avoiding healers because there is just simply nothing we can do but keep beating on them until they go oom (and often we do first).

I cant say I have any experience vs a hunter, but I can imagine that is one class we can win against in 1v1.

In terms of what you can do, I'm going to just go with keeping your options open and your finger on the rez key. I have had a rogue blind me before and run like a coward to the other side of the arena so he could bandage (even though he probably could have killed me right there) and I just walked behind a pillar and rezzed a teammate. Keep your eye open for situations like these where the opponent is trying to kite you, and take advantage of some los and attempt a rez.

I'm actually willing to bet that in that famous WSVG fight alot of us saw with Power Trip vs an asian team 3v3 where it was mage vs paladin at the end, if the paladin had walked behind the pillar after the mage had sheeped him and BLINKED away, he could have gotten a rez off and ended the match right there.

 

levk

You can play the mana game better than anyone except a UA lock. Then as Gulaja said you can try and get a ress off. Warriors could go either way and rogues it's really down to the rogue. If the rogue you're fighting knows exactly what to do, it's going to be a very slow and inevitable death. Few rogues are that disciplined though, but it's kind of sad to give pointers like "in case the other guy sucks, do this."

 

Gulaja

This is where it really wins to have a cooldown timer on enemy attacks handy and a very in-depth knowledge of other class abilities, how they work, and their range.

 

Crossbones

Unless you have stellar spell damage gear, I don't like gear switching unless I absolutely have to (vs. a mage who will just poly and drink). I just wear them down, and maybe pull out my deep thunder if it is a caster. If it's another healer I'll HoJ and run and drop combat into PvE gear and out mana them.

I was going to acquire the full spell damage gladiator set but had to bank my points for the next season instead. I'm hoping to start hitting large point numbers sooner (though the point nerf probably won't allow me to gain much overall) to get the s2 heal set asap and be able to finish the spell damage one for 1v1, solo, etc.

 

Ragnor

Scrolls of blinding light + Res ftw

The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.

www.retpaladin.com

 

Zraknul

Priests are really the nightmare match up for me. We don't have the interupts or the damage to deal with a priest playing defense/mana burning. Once we're burned out of mana, it's pretty much over.

Ferals tend to be tough.

At least against shaman we have the advantage of "your gear will break before mine will", and once they're broken we may be able to burst them down.

 

• Xaviera

Is this actually true? I have never actually tried it, but in all of my experiences so far as a paladin, merely being pulsed into combat will interrupt your res.

You can be pulsed into combat while in a divine shield, this happens all the time, no exceptions. Taking any hit or being near a mob that decides to look at you will still pulse you in.
I'm 99.9% sure you made this story up, unless something changed recently with res + divine shield + arenas.

 

Clavain

Unless this was an extremely rare, unrepeatable fluke, he is pulling our legs. If a player attempts to attack you while you have DS up, you are kept in combat.

 

Sapphrina

Why would a warlock ever try to drink 1vs1 against holy pala?

The only legitimate use of the BLINK tag:
Schrödinger's cat is [BLINK] not [/BLINK] dead.

 

Thelyna

About the only way I can think of for that to work is if the druid didn't faerie fire, didn't cast anything, and missed with every single melee attack.

 

aquacadet

Now like I said I don't play a paladin, but I assure you it did happen. Now I am pretty sure he attacked me while I was bubbled, but he may have just stood there and assumed he couldn't pulse me into combat.


The events were as follows:

-stunned him, and ran
-dropped combat
-bubbled
-cast res under bubble


I honestly didn't think it would work, but I got the res off. I can't tell you with 100% certainty that he did attack me, but I recall seeing a cat scratch at me.

 

Gulaja

I was trying to infer that that plan works against all casters who AREN'T warlocks. Warlocks, even at low life can still fear, life drain or mana drain, and than life tap/bandage/whatever choice of health/mana gaining abilities they choose to use.

 

levk

I just tried it and it doesn't work. Ress cancels when you get attacked, the guy just chose not to attack you.