DK vs. Ret Paladin

[Brouhaha]

How do these two compare in strength, gameplay styles, skillcap (we all know they have a pretty low skill floor), 1v1 capacity against all classes, and team pvp capacity? Not sure which to try out, trying to decide; just tired of suffering from the poor choice of leveling my shaman and figure I'd like to see what the other end of the spectrum is like, just don't know which would fit my playstyle more...and which can actually have some nuance to it instead of being 100% purely straightforward.

[morislayer]

This thread should be closed ASAP.

Just to reply, your shaman is fine. All 3 classes you mentioned, Paly dk and shaman are 100% straightforward, and just fine in rated play.

Sorry your Shaman is not overpowered my friend, but they are still viable

[keishton]

i havent seen a single shaman or a monk yet after 10ish games a week for the past few weeks. Ive benched my shaman for the same reason theyre not viable compared to how op the others are. Id say warriors would be the line where they arent op but still viable.

As far as play style goes ret would be almost exactly the same as enh shamans. Bind all keys on your keyboard and roll your face over it to win.

Dks is the same except you only have like two buttons to press hahahah.

If you go unholy dk its a bit different tho

[Prag]

They're both pretty straight forward... Pick you poison, a la priority system..... Cooldown based (Ret) that's akin to whack-a-mole or resource and proc based. I think Rets have a higher skill cap as the good ones can do some crazy things with all that utility where the bad ones just try and pop wings for the win. I keep trying to "main" something other than my DK (and have since the end of WotLK burned me out), but keep crawling back to it.

[Brouhaha]

This thread should be closed ASAP.

Just to reply, your shaman is fine. All 3 classes you mentioned, Paly dk and shaman are 100% straightforward, and just fine in rated play.

Sorry your Shaman is not overpowered my friend, but they are still viable

Holinka, is that you? Look, I try to remain respectful and all, but anyone who says that Enhance Shaman are "fine" at the moment is either trolling or as stupid as Holinka is. All you have to do is take a look at how there's barely any representation for the class at any meaningful level of PvP to figure this out, backed up by personal experience. From 0 rating to 2400, the class is terrible.

I'm all for pvp balance, and if Blizz could suddenly come up with a way to make everything balanced at the cost of nerfing the Ret/DK I end up playing, then so be it, I'd gladly have that happen. But in the meantime, since Blizz is taking their sweet, sweet time "fixing" things, I'd rather invest in a class I know will be worthwhile, rather than make the same mistake again like I did with the shaman, picking a class that for all the effort you put into it, offers little to no reward.

Thanks for the replies so far, everyone else. Sounds like it's leaning toward Rets, since using their utility to its fullest seems to call for some nuance and skill.

[ongal]

Holinka, is that you? Look, I try to remain respectful and all, but anyone who says that Enhance Shaman are "fine" at the moment is either trolling or as stupid as Holinka is. All you have to do is take a look at how there's barely any representation for the class at any meaningful level of PvP to figure this out, backed up by personal experience. From 0 rating to 2400, the class is terrible.

I'm all for pvp balance, and if Blizz could suddenly come up with a way to make everything balanced at the cost of nerfing the Ret/DK I end up playing, then so be it, I'd gladly have that happen. But in the meantime, since Blizz is taking their sweet, sweet time "fixing" things, I'd rather invest in a class I know will be worthwhile, rather than make the same mistake again like I did with the shaman, picking a class that for all the effort you put into it, offers little to no reward.

Thanks for the replies so far, everyone else. Sounds like it's leaning toward Rets, since using their utility to its fullest seems to call for some nuance and skill.

Enh shaman is absolutely viable in arena. http://www.twitch.tv/vanguardstv << Watch for some tips on how to play better. Fairly sure he's highest rated enh atm, and highest rated ret.

Representation is not always a meaningful metric when determining if a class is viable.

What will hold you back though with a dps shaman more so than ret/dk is the smaller number of viable comps.

[Brouhaha]

Enh shaman is absolutely viable in arena. http://www.twitch.tv/vanguardstv << Watch for some tips on how to play better. Fairly sure he's highest rated enh atm, and highest rated ret.

Representation is not always a meaningful metric when determining if a class is viable.

What will hold you back though with a dps shaman more so than ret/dk is the smaller number of viable comps.

Representation is literally the only piece of hard data we currently have to determine what is viable and what is not. Everything else is speculation and hearsay. Sorry, I just don't think that because one of the best best players in the game at the moment managed to take an Enhance Shaman to high ranking does not make it "viable" where the other 99.99% of the population is concerned. I don't have the time nor inclination nor the skill to be on his level, and I don't want to make a decision as if that was the case.

[Darksoldierr]

Also, the problem with saying Vangards got to high is ok, but he is actually in a situation that he can ask his ~2700 rated friends to help him out. An average Joe cannot do that. And without really good players to carry an enhance, you have very little chance to get high. Theres a reason why Feral, DK, Hunter, Warrior, Rogue and Ret are more popular than enhance, and they fill the same role.

If you aren't friends with an enhance, then why on earth would you take one over literally any other melee? As of now, enhance is the weekest melee in game by far, every other class has better, viable melee dps spec (out of the melees)

[Deleted]

Pretty sure there are like 3 enhance shamans on first page of top 3v3 players in EU

[ongal]

As the season progresses I'm fairly sure you will see an increase in the number of enh shamans towards the top of the ladder. Mostly due to upcoming changes/bug fixes (heals not effected by dampening, combat KS maybe etc), but also because people will start to play off-specs or roll a new class and see that the spec is actually OK.

Until then though, most people are going to play FoTM classes. In the case of enhance shamans though, they are perfectly viable (not OP, not UP) - but why play a spec that requires twice the effort to achieve the same/similar result. Rogues are a good example of this, sub is viable in arenas but is overshadowed by combat which is comparatively much easier to play and is arguably slightly overpowered.

Back to what you were asking, if I were to offer a suggestion it would be to roll a ret. Great in 1v1, provide a lot of group utility in 2's and 3's which imo makes the playstyle more engaging and also they are doing very well in a lot of different comps, giving you some variety throughout the season.