• Amera

The shaman on our 3s and 5s team basically stopped playing because of that. He gathered elemental gear and whatnot but I think he really preferred the ability to heal, but you really just hit a wall with a resto shaman at a certain point in almost every bracket. The same is true of paladins in a lot of ways as well, but almost every 5s team will have one simply for output, Bop, BoF, and stuff that you can't get anywhere else. Almost everything resto shaman have is replaceable (dispel, healing) or fairly easily dismissed/detroyed/dispelled (like totems and heroism).

Given the DR they gave to earthshock and then backed out on, its probably reasonable to assume there are changes coming in the future to help shaman/paladins to help them a bit against interrupt spams that are unavoidable. It's fairly silly that my fairly fresh lvl70 druid just runs around totally shutting down even geared up paladins in BGs and there isn't a damn thing they can do about it except for 12 seconds every 5 minutes. It's not really that different with resto shaman, either - they still have to stand there and cast.

I rerolled from priest about 1/5 of the way through Naxx and swapped to a paladin. My priest is still sitting at level 63. While I actually think raid healing and pvp healing with her would be super fun now, one of the main reasons I rerolled was PvP - I hated everything about priest pvp at 60. The durability issue has definitely been fixed, but I'm not sure I could live with viper stings and the lack of snare removal. :P

 

◊ Praetorian

Well the problem is that it's not really interrupt spam that is my nemesis. It's interrupts and the resulting school lockout interlaced with other forms of CC. It's, for example, getting spell locked on a Tongues'd heal, then getting cycloned when I'm powerless to shock or ground it (because, of course, everything meaningful I can do is nature school), then getting recycloned, then getting feared by the lock as that second cyclone ends, then getting charge/bashed by the druid, then feared by the lock while stunned, and then by the time I come back, assuming there's still anyone left to heal, spell lock is up again. What I just outlined honestly isn't even all that hard to do. It's the same deal with paladins. I have NS as my one trump card to squeeze in between CCs or while kiting or coming out of CC -- paladins can bubble for a longer period of safe healing. But that's about it, really.

Chain interrupts aren't really the major culprit. It's not like I'm getting pummeled then CS'd then pummeled then spell locked then pummeled, etc. That sort of scenario rarely plays out that way. It's just the fact that having cast-time heals exposes us not only to interrupts and lockout, but also to every other sort of cast-time CC that other healers can LoS.

 

Duilliath

Okay...

Will be having my first games with the new 3v3 team tomorrow.
Line up - Frost Mage / Feral Druid / Priest (holy or disc, not 100% sure on his spec).

I've no clue how this team would do, though it at least seems interesting on paper. Could I get a few tips n tricks n ideas for when we step into the arena tomorrow ?

 

• Amera

Right, I totally agree. I said "interrupt spam," but what I really meant is what you described - interrupting my capacity to heal, not literally "interrupts." Poor choice of wording on my part. I guess I just hope they realize it is an issue the way you describe it rather than just nerfing actual interrupts, because that wouldn't really fix much of anything.

Really, I think, it is a symptom of healing being more powerful than they originally intended. You have to be able to prevent someone from healing or it is very hard to kill anyone, even in 5s, so you either have interrupts or mana burns to eventually make healing impossible. This is all well and good and presents interesting strategic options, but if it is so easy to shut a healer down and kill someone in the duration of an interrupt or unavoidable chain of control, it really isn't very fun for the healer at all. You end up having this really powerful ability that you don't even get to use against good players. I mean everyone has seen how dominant a paladin or shaman with gear is when healing in a normal BG, but that is largely because PuGs have no idea what to do to stop them. Then I take my severely undergeared druid and completely shut down a paladin for ~20sec at a time, and their team is all dead.

In general I really don't mind the ability to chain interrupts/CCs and all that since it is such a vital part of team strategy, I just wish for some options of my own to be able to avoid them, bait them better, or maybe have a few more abilities I could use while locked down so I'm not completely paralyzed by a player who is even mildly competent.

 

Rej

I'm the opposite. Arena PvP on my priest was reaching the breaking point of frustration. Finally, I rolled a paladin and watched our team shoot up 200 points in rating to dabble in 2k+ rating matchups.

Really, you play teams with great support for your priest. Without a paladin backing you up in a 5's team, can you say the same great things about your priest? Without great CC classes holding DPS off you in 2's and 3's, can you say the same about your priest? The paladin isn't always an inferior healer - it's just a different role that works better than a priest in some combinations and worse in others. Had I had the same teammates as you did, I might still be on my priest checking out the new Disc. talents. Instead I rolled a paladin, and I haven't regretted it at all.

 

Sumie

Just theorycrafting, since I haven't actually tried this combo, but have faced teams with similar makeups, some even as high as 2300 (or at least when we were 2300):

Best way to drain the healer's mana is to also pressure them by DPS'ing another target. This also forces them to come out of LoS and away from pillars. Combined with viper sting and an occasional mana drain, they'll be sapped pretty quickly. So in other words, make sure you DoT up all your targets before you start draining mana. A BM spec also works wonders for this since it allows the hunter to focus on snares and mana drains while the pet contributes a good portion of the DPS. Bestial Wrath for CC immunity is huge against burst teams as well. In my spriest/aff lock/resto sham 3v3, when we faced this makeup, the hunter was MM and easily CC'able by our aoe fears, which also sent him away from the pillars and out into open, making him easy to focus-fire. BW will prevent that and would've allowed the hunter to frost trap us and dance around pillars, as his viper sting drained the spriest.

Against rogues, you have a paladin, and multiple snares, so your best bet is to kite him throughout the match w/ CoEx, frost trap, and of course, BoF. SL/SL spec would be ideal, cause you can still apply your instant cast DoT's on all the targets as you kite the rogue. Felguard can also work, but since you have BoF on your team, I'd suggest sticking with SL/SL for curse of exhaustion. If it's the cookie-cutter mage/rogue/priest setup, have your hunter sic his pet on the mage and drain his mana. They have no poison dispels, and with CoT on the mage and a BM-specced pet on him, he won't be able to do much in the short time that he actually has mana. Once the mage is drained, work on draining the priest.

Warrior teams will probably be your toughest matchup, especially if they have a shaman/priest to purge BoF. I don't really have any advice for this. I would suggest trying to focus the other DPS, even if it's a SL lock, and making sure to mana drain the healer at every opportunity when he comes in LoS to heal.

 

Snik

Okay, last night I started a new 3v3 team with some real life friends of mine that consist of Warrior, Priest(Shadow), Paladin. We did pretty well until we ran into multiple teams of Hunter, Warlock (SL/SL), Priest (one was shadow and one was holy). We really had no chance against these teams so I'm asking for some advice on what we should do against this comp? Mana is going to be an issue so we really need to finish someone quickly, any advice?

 

Coriolis

The question here isn't whether a paladin/shaman can get to 2K rating. You can, it's been done, and it's probably even true that a fairly bad shaman/paladin player (along with a bad team lineup) could do that more easily then a priest/druid who is also fairly bad or with a wierd lineup.

The problem is that once you get to about 2150 or so and start having matchups with 2200-2300 teams a good paladin/shaman is far worse then a good priest/druid since they are much more easily interrupted/cced forever, with little ability to do anything else while this is done to them, or to put pressure on the enemy team themselves.

Of course if the team you're fighting isn't good enough to chain interrupt/cc you until they kill someone, then this isn't much of an issue and a pally/shaman is fine.

Another thing that makes shamans have such a hard time at the higher end is how easily earthshield is dispelled - it's obvious when someone has it, shamans don't have many other buffs that they tend to stack, and so most teams will get rid of your ES which is actually a fairly huge amount of healing, especially since it's not interrupted when you are. Some sort of high inherent dispell resistance (like the one for the priest damage reduction talent), would help alot against classes who do not have a very good dispell (i.e. wouldn't stop shamans/priests but maybe hunters/warlocks/mages).

 

Rej

I've heard this before, and there are three points I'd raise/ask.

The first is that a large number of the very top (2300+) 5v5 teams still run with a paladin. And while they aren't as overwhelmingly popular in top level of 2's or 3's, they certainly aren't under-represented (the Shaman is, along with a few other classes). Maybe this will change in Season 3, but so far I don't see the paladins being that big a liability in top-end Arena pvp, at least not enough to reduce their numbers in the top teams. It's making it hard to buy the "far worse" descriptor coming with paladins (though for shamans, I can see how this is the case).

The second is that people are constantly complaining about the lack of utility that paladins suffer from (which I agree with) and the greater vulnerability to CC compared to other classes (which I also agree with). What are the proposed solutions? I've found most of them to be unbalancing, to be honest. Give them some instant heal spells? Give them manaburn? Give them a low-cooldown CC? I can't see major buffs like this being added without unbalancing their strong roles in 5v5. A few discussions have brought up re-inventing the paladin concept to move away from the "bubble focus". While it's a good idea, it doesn't seem like something that the developers are going to consider. Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see my paladin get some greater utility than just healing, but I don't want to see her become overpowered either. I can see improvements to Holy Shock and some better Judgements/Seals being nice additions without tipping the balance too much. What are some better ideas that can be thought of?

The third is an idea brought up when Hunter changes were being discussed. Do we fix a class to the 2200+ performance, or do we fix a class to the "majority" performance? From the complaints flying around, it sounds like people here would rather see paladins/shamans fixed at the 2200+ level, as they are "fine" at lower ratings for lesser players. How can we fix things at the 2200+ level without disrupting their performance for the bulk of average players? I suppose this ties into the second point about improvement without damaging overall class balance.

 

Rej

Something I wanted to add here: The Pain Suppression change is very recent, and it's a very good change. I don't see why they can't add a similar attribute to Earth Shield - make the presence of Earth Shield increase dispel resist by some amount.

 

Grymauch

Just starting with a Frost Mage(me)/BM Hunter/Mace Rogue 3v3 team. So far we've had a slow start and aren't really clicking. It feels like we can win but only with perfect CC's from the Rogue and myself. Me and the hunter are pretty well geared at this point but the rogue is fairly new.

I'm wondering if we're screwed in the long run, have potential, or maybe just need to make some adjustments and can be pretty solid. Input/advice?

 

• Amera

A lot of paladins would probably prefer a huge overhaul that somehow allowed them to do melee damage while providing occasional significant spot heals, blessings, and the like, but that's not realistic at this stage of the game. The only real skill I could see changing at this point would be holy shock, since it is such a bad spell most of the time. The suggestions for it are numerous - increase its healing power over its damage power, add a hot component to it, etc. Neither of those would be game-breaking, but they would help a lot in 2s or 3s.

 

AriasImmortal

I'd even take a range increase on HS. Should be 40 like the rest of our heals, so at least I can stand really far away if I have to get that incredibly weak and mana inefficient instant off, instead of having to move into CC/burn range.

 

Baggles

So following that Dreamhack 3v3 tournament, I noticed that resto druid/rogue/rogue was a comp that was employed pretty successfully. In fact, in the finals of both the winners and losers brackets, resto druid/rogue/rogue was victorious. I got gladiator last season as war/druid/warlock, and I don't think we saw one single resto druid/rogue/rogue comp, but it's got me thinking about how viable it would be. I know personally, had that comp been played well against us, it might have been tears. Does anyone have any experience with or against this comp?

 

• syeren

The composition was brought in simply to stop the annoying / retard mana drain comps that are starting surface throughout the battlegroups, it's an extremely effective counter comp, however I think it would fail against a lot of the more common and successful compositions in the meta-game right now.

 

Zest

They used the rogue/rogue/druid team only to counter Mob's Hunter/Lock/Priest team. They will go back back to their original teams in the finals.

Anyways, almost anything with a Druid is viable.

Druid/Lock/Rogue
Druid/Mage/Rogue
Druid/Mage/Lock
Druid/Warrior/Lock
Druid/Warrior/Mage

All viable 3v3 teams.

 

fealty

Okay guys wasn't really sure where to put this but im seeking a little bit of advice regarding a 3v3 team (from a warlock POV). Basically we arn't doing too badly we have a decent rating but due to starting in the last week of s2 and our priest having no gear we only got to 1.9k
Anyway back on point i run a disc / holy priest / frost mage / warlock setup. My query to any warlocks out there or anybody who has ran this setup is, should i go SL/SL or UA ? Or perhaps any other setup. I have plenty experience with both specs and even more experience in high end arena's (2k-2.5k) so adapting is no problem for me. Would appreciate any advice anybody may give regarding this

Cheers, Fealty.

 

Altima

I would think Sl/Sl or even Felguard is preferable to UA when you're not running with a shadowpriest. Should you go UA, you would essentially present the opposition with two soft targets, and melee comps will give you and your priest headaches.

Cheers, Fealty

 

fealty

Thanks for the advice, i was using SL/SL last season when we reached 1.9k and ive been using it for the start of this season, however ive noticed that the damage output is not particularly high. This can sometimes pose a problem when healers become immune to sheeps and dps targets become immune to fear, although of course it is possible to switch targets and CC each others, our mage uses a macro that dosnt leave much options in the way of cycling for targets. Im not exactly sure what the macro/addon is but he told me that it sometimes dosnt recognise the target and ends up CS'ing a dps class which can be a real screw up.
About the squishiness yeah that is the one major issue i have with UA in that 2 dps targets on me at once can bring me down rather fast, although fear and a good healer helps alot there. However i have noticed that when 2 dps classes burn both me and the priest, with one on each ofc can present us with a real problem especially if a rogue is stunlocking the priest and a warrior is keeping my fears locked down. Im very thankful for the advice but i will await somebody who has played with this setup or a lock before i make a final desicion

Thanks alot, Fealty.

 

Mex

The solution to this isn't for you to spec for more DPS, it's for your mage to get his shit together.

 

Deci

Hey, I've seen a few people having success with Warrior/Hunter/Priest(Sometimes paladin?) in the arena. I don't understand how this is a strong team, other than having some straight up burst along with mana draining abilities. Isn't this team very easy to lockdown/burst with little healing along with less CC.

---

I usually play a War/Paladin/Shaman though and we've just begun our rise on the ladder meeting a lot of different teams: But we especially had problems with:
Disc Priest - Mutilate Rogue(?) - Frost mage - This team is pretty annoying locking me down and focusing. My team is having heavy problems with the mana burns and knowing how to defend ourselves against the team. Polymorph isn't a huge problem - but dealing with both nova's/high burst dmg at will along with mana burns forcing us to be mobile is pretty frustrating.
Close to beating them, but which team member should we focus?

Thanks for any help/Feedback

 

Emary

Warrior should be sticking on their rogue allowing the shaman or paladin to gain some distance on him. Make sure you communicate intercepts and freedoms, an HOJ on the priest plus a freedom plus an intercept stun on the rogue can create tons of space, just make sure the healers don't kite too far away from the warrior as an RMP can quickly switch and burst down the warrior.

 

Humbaba