Retribution Paladins, what is the one thing you wish you had? Some of you will say an interrupt, some of you will say a healing debuff. How about getting both for your 2s team?
Warriors have it to, but warriors have something rogues don’t. The ability to support themselves. With a warrior, you need to supply him your Blessing of Freedom, leaving a gapping hole to get you snared, and on top of that, makes you lose the valuable time you need to kill the target. A good team will peel you off, so this is where the infamous “Shadow Step Rogue” comes into play.
This rogue has cheat death/MS/Crippling/Shadow step, he makes up for every one of your short comings.
Comps strengths; Stuns/Chain CC/Mobility
Comps weakness; Melee only offense/weak heals
Gear; You need to be a powerhouse. Straight up, you need to realize that your not here for the same reason you are in 3s. You are here to pick up the slack from your rogues lack of damage from specing shadow step. Sometimes you will need to wear a PvE/PvP gear mix to do this in higher brackets. Your AP NEEDS to be 1800+ if you’re aiming for gladiator. Since you’re a very anti low armor team you can consider wearing a bit of armor penetration. Cataclysm’s edge and Divine retribution legs are a couple of excellent pieces to use. Aim at all costs to maintain 300+ resilience during all this.
Spec; like I said before, you NEED to bring the damage. R/R is a short game comp. So take this into consideration. Truthfully, the spec 5/11/45 is a build I ran to get gladiator in 1 night. (2150 was needed at that time for gladiator range, place 60th~)
This spec has 1 point in divine purpose to make up for lack of resilience when switching into a bit of PvE gear. Focuses on a lot of damage, but makes sure to bring the Imp Blessing of Freedom for support and Precision as you will probably have 1 shot to get that key Hammer of Justice off, any help on making it not resist will be game breaking.
Play style; Aggressive. You need to kill someone fast, with around 1 round of cool downs. Resetting the fight isn’t usually the best choice with this comp. if something goes wrong, roll with it and adapt, don’t back off. You NEED to keep sacrifice up on the rogue when fighting anyone with a major CC, Sheep/trap/sap/blind. It saves you a trinket and saves you the pain. Make a macro to target your team mate if you have to. Example;
#showtooltip Blessing of Sacrifice
/cast [target=InsertTeamMatesNameHere] Blessing of Sacrifice
Chain your CC together fast. Know who is doing what, be communicative on vent. “HoJing Priest, Blind after” Say it, do it, and communicate. It takes precision to make sure the CC is done properly, but if done right, it makes for a win.
-Slayton
May 16th, 2008 - 3:06 am
Hey Slaton, couple of questions for ya:
1. What CC’s between rogues and ret share DR. KS and HoJ? Repentance and sap?
2. How helpful is benediction vs imp might for arenas?
3. If both you and the rogue get slowed by a physical attack (something that can be clensed thats aoe, like frost trap of piercing howl) who should you give BoF to or is it too situational to make it an absolute?
Thanks
Flap - 70 BE Balnazzar
May 16th, 2008 - 7:02 pm
Pffff Enzy, what a nub!
May 26th, 2008 - 6:26 am
i was running this comp and well seemed like without perception it would be much harder hitting 2k+
May 27th, 2008 - 4:05 am
Why spec 5/5 Redoubt in the Prot tree if you’re NOT USING A SHIELD AS RET?!
May 27th, 2008 - 5:15 am
Very SIMPLE Anonymous. You will never use Devotion Aura, never. Plus the bonus sucks for that 5/5. You should always put on your healing sheild, healing weapon, healing libram whenever you heal in arenas. Check the macro’s section. Even though you are ret you still will heal some. Not a lot but some. 5/5 can help some, agian not alot but at least it’s functional based on improving an aura you really will never have on.
June 10th, 2008 - 10:13 am
its true, devotion aura is crap and will never ever be used, but when u switch to sheild and sword/ heal gear, u will get the nice bonus from redoubt, sometimes u can switch to shield just to stay alive that little bit while your rogue finished the deal
July 8th, 2008 - 1:34 am
is MS mace specialization or what?
July 8th, 2008 - 1:47 am
take it back you can’t have both shadowstep and MS. what does it stand for than?
July 8th, 2008 - 10:06 am
MS basically means wound poison. A 5 stack = 50% healing reduction = MS effect.
July 31st, 2008 - 6:52 pm
Wnat to ask about warrior shaman 2on2 setup, we keep going on the shaman but the warrior just gets too much dmg landed and shaman has ES, whats the best tactic for them
August 6th, 2008 - 11:26 pm
BE Pally
I want to start running this comp more but me and my partner dont really know much about strats to use against certain comps… if you could maybe post more or if someone wants to branch out and theory craft a bit about strats it would be much appreciated…
Slayton 4 President
August 15th, 2008 - 10:00 pm
First of all, the spec is all wrong. You need the following:
- Improved Righteous Fury (6% damage reduction from all sources helps last a bit longer)
- Stoicism (10% stun resist helps against mace spec Warriors and rogues, as well as the 30% chance to avoid having your bubble Mass Dispelled off)
- Improved Hammer of Justice
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=0000000000000000000005321130023000000000000520335130003125331001
This is the spec you should be running as.
The spec that the author of this article suggested has Improved Seal of the Crusader. 90% of the time, you wouldn’t waste a Global Cooldown or Judgement timer for it. You’d be stupid if you did.
As for the question about HoJ and Kidney Shot sharing the same Diminishing Returns timer, Kidney Shot has it’s own DR timer separate from all other stuns. As for Repentance and Sap, they do have the same DR timer, but when you’re CCing a second target, you should be using Repentance to force a trinket then follow with a Blind as it lasts longer.
August 25th, 2008 - 2:22 pm
I know this sounds nubish, but will trinketing something (Cheap Shot) reset the DR so u can fully CC the next time?
Meaning, can I have my rogue Cheap Shot a target, get the target to trinket, and still HoJ for its full duration of 6 seconds?
August 25th, 2008 - 8:16 pm
Drennan:
You clearly missed the intent of the author’s talent spec. If you read more of the website, you will clearly realize that the spec you mentioned (the cookie cutter PVP spec) is listed here. It is suggested in 3’s by the author and in situations where you want more control; however, the spec being listed by the author is one focused on dishing out heaps of damage in a short period of time. Improved Righteous Fury, Stoicism, and Improved Hammer of Justice don’t do much in the department of killing thigs more quickly. Perhaps Improved HOJ will let you get one more HOJ off before the match ends, but survivability in this comp will end up with your rogue dead, the other team probably healed to full, and you sitting there wondering what to do…
The focus was on smashing things quickly, as keeping yourself alive and trying to play a control game is probably not the focus here.
September 28th, 2008 - 5:28 am
thank you, man
September 30th, 2008 - 12:16 pm
How do you kill holy pala+warrior combo? it’s freaking impossible i tell you
October 18th, 2008 - 9:25 am
This is an interesting article, your a very good writer,keep it up.
March 3rd, 2009 - 12:25 pm
Just read some other comments on your blog, and I agree with the general impression, your doing a great job!Keep it up!
March 4th, 2009 - 10:54 am
I agree with what others have wrote, your writing some great articles, keep it up!
March 20th, 2010 - 7:33 am
ya i just started Ret/rogue were doin alright we goin 19-7 this week so far which is ok. hopefuly we’ll improve better were both very skilled, aswell as being both #1 for our class spec on our server.
me below if ya wanna check it out
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=The+Forgotten+Coast&cn=Skorger