How viable... for arena

[Deleted]

How viable would a prot and retribution paladin be for 2v2 arena?
Both prot and Retri I imagine would be in pvp and gemmed for damage. I just feel the two specs could work together well with talents that improve healing, and a huge amount of interupt/silence/stun to make any healer go down without a fight. Just wondering if anyone has tried this?

[DaGhostDS]

would probably get destroyed by any combo with a frost mage.

[Lewlipopz]

In other words, you wouldn't win one match because all comps have a frost mage.

[Kewi]

Or In other words, you wouldn't win many ranged matches if the team has slow mechanics and dispells...

Both specs suffer kiting problems, and neither has tools to remove on demand slow debuffs on teammates outside HoF

Ret must chain-cast Cleanse until OOM to remove slows, if fighting a team that has both slow/root and dispell... or slow/root and a sprint mechanic (to outrun while HoF is up). While chain-casting cleanse, a ret paladin is unable to use anything else as any free GCD is used to Long-arm judge for the speed boost, followed by more cleanses.. (Think Mage or warlock + another on the team.. they can chain cast Slow/CoC/Frostbolt/Frost Nova/Curse of exhaustion then running away using instant CD's in between.. Ret paladin uses his GCD to remove slow, takes damage, might cast judgement, but is then re-slowed... a good warlock will also deathcoil you if you HoF and let dots tick while he stays at range... A mage will just spellsteal HoF and re-slow, continuing the kite/root)

A prot paladin can add nothing to help the ret paladin do damage, other then his HoF, which may or may not be helpful depending on group comp you fight.

In either case, the team has no ranged capability of note, and very weak dispell options


I find prot PVP works a lot better with casters as partners, as ranged comps can only 'kite' me, and if i'm being hardcore kited, I have other utility I can provide until they stop focusing me

[Deleted]

kewi how do you find prot for pvp at the moment?

[Kewi]

With a caster, great -- but if he dies with one of the opponents.... don't expect that you can solo the remaining opponent from full life.

I find my job is best described as playing the 'soak' / distraction -- pretend to be a healer, or outright charge them as aggression.. When both are on me I use a CD as my partner is not a healer.. This helps with vengeance and allows your partner free time to CC or nuke your determined target.

My buddy sits back and nukes like crazy doing whatever it is he does.

If its a 2-melee team, which seem very common, I throw HoP on him so he can mostly keep doing his thing, and I swap finisher mode with him and we try to kill 1 person before HoP is removed.. I'll stun the person that could remove it (whom is also usually the healer) and finish off whomever the target was


I could not see me working well with a heavy melee damage dealer... vs. a melee/melee or melee/ranged maybe (if the melee dies so we both can do the ranged guy)

but caster/caster will be hell on earth, for my above stated reasons. If they slow my partner we're basically out of the fight, Prot's really cant solo people -- great burst, which helps, but need that *other* DPS.

You would either need luck, or *amazing* skill to close on a 2-range team (with at least 1 able to chain-slow on demand)

[gildra]

at 1300 rating with prot/ret paladin setup and mage isn't the biggest problem, the biggest issue is death knight healer as the lack of a gapcloser/ snare is really painfull.

vs caster/caster we pretty much **** them. the double stun, double Belf racial, AV and repetance not to forget rebuke wich is in my case pretty much on cooldown.

vs rogues we have a hard time aswell if they go for the one who is ret spec(me). I miss my old Divine purpose

[taugrim]

With a caster, great -- but if he dies with one of the opponents.... don't expect that you can solo the remaining opponent from full life.

I could not see me working well with a heavy melee damage dealer... vs. a melee/melee or melee/ranged maybe (if the melee dies so we both can do the ranged guy)

On paper, Prot + RDPS should work better than Prot + MDPS for the reasons Kewi stated.

That said, if you and your melee partner coordinate well, you can get your team 2k+ rated in 2v2. My Enhancement Shaman partner and I are @ 2031 TR in 2v2, and we're continuing to win more matches than we lose, so we haven't hit our ceiling yet.

I have a series of videos showing what a Prot + MDPS comp looks like, from early arena attempts all the way up to 2k:




Prot should work with any of the following MDPS: Feral/DK/ProtWar, and possibly Rogue (I haven't tried that comp yet, but another guy I know has a Rogue partner and they're over 1900 and climbing). Ret would probably work OK, although there is the issue of overlapping DR.

[Krekko]

I was honestly expecting a "SHOCKADIN" spec thread, again. Thank god I was wrong. I do not know about arenas though sorry!

[Aelthais]

Well a friend and I are doing arenas with that comp, i'm ret and he's the prot, we do have fun with this but it's true that we suffer quite a lot from a heavy kiting.

On the other hand, we do manage to defeat frost mages or other casters, a prot paladin have a shipfull of interupts, so with my rebuke/hammer/repentance/racial (i'm horde), i think any caster is at least managable.

I'm not very high ranked with this compo though, i don't think we will ever get near 2200 (my mate is really not that good with pvp) but i think this comp is not unplayable.

[Deleted]

As stated many times above, would get dominated by mostly caster classes. However, the comp is not all too bad, as I have a little bit of experience through playing a Prot Pally & Balance Druid at 1900 rating. I could imagine that with the upcoming patch, the comp would be quite alright. However, do not expect to soar through the ratings with no problems, I'd have to say that the composition takes a bit of practice and experience.