Hi all!
Tharvolde here and, yes, I made up the name for the cleave. It seems anymore that every particular comp has to have some “clever” name associated with it so why not Hungarian Bobcat? You heard it here first. Some other names I toyed with were:
- Magenta Scorpion Cleave
- Bob Saget Cleave
- Lithuanian Centipede Cleave
I digress…..
Anyway, I’ve recently had quite a few people logging onto Mal’ganis to ask questions about the comp and our strategies of late. While I’m certainly happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability on the spot, I thought it might be beneficial to simply make a post about it here. Before I begin, however, I want to ensure the following is understood: this is not a Prot vs Ret post. ProtRet and Ret both bring valuable tools to the playing field and both are highly-viable in various comps. I play ProtRet simply because it seems to work better for the 3s comp I play and I enjoy the play style. I like having Hammer of Justice on a 30 second cooldown, have high survivability and having a 3 second silence. With this understood, let’s begin!
This Arena season seems fairly balanced compared to most. I can honestly say I think Blizzard has done a pretty decent job at balancing out specs and comps and that they are almost there. I say almost because I feel Shadow Priests and Affliction Warlocks are slightly too string right now thanks to haste affecting damage over time. The only change I would make to Arena at present is to slightly scale back the effectiveness of haste towards damage over time. With balance comes variety as you no longer will be forced to see the same tired, old comps over and over and over again as they are the only viable options at high ratings. And variety, seems to be the story of Arena season 8.
To give you a brief background, we are currently pushing into the top 10s of our battlegroup as ProtRet/Arms/Druid. Last night, unfortunately, we dropped from 2640 to 2567 thanks to an unlucky string of comps that fair very well against us. Partner that with us not really playing all that well and, well, you get a rating loss even though you achieved a great deal more wins than losses (I’m not 100% sure but I think we went something like 15-8 last night but dropped almost 80 points).
So what do we do against the comps we face? Before I begin, let’s discuss the structure of this post going forward. I have purposely started with what we would consider be the easiest comps for us. I have provided a difficulty ranking for each comp where 0 = easy and 10 = hard As the list progresses, the comps become increasingly challenging until, at the very bottom, you will find the comps that are nearly impossible to beat.
Now, let’s get started.
TSG (Arms Warrior / Unholy Death Knight / Holy Paladin)
Difficulty: 1
TSG is probably the easiest of the comps we face as we are able to “outcleave” them. TSG’s strategy against you will almost always be the same: they will start on you or your Warrior to build up rage and runic power and then hard-switch to your Druid while blowing every CD available. In particular, a good TSG will get MS up and then lead with a Bladestorm while the DK focuses on interrupts. The moment you BoP the Druid, the DK will Strangulate him so be ready to Cleanse.
Generally speaking, you simply need to put out more pressure on them than they can put out on you. Against this team, I typically pop wings early – before they switch to our Druid. The split second they switch to our Druid, I Freedom him, Sacred Shield him and possibly pop either Divine Sacrifice or put Hand of Sacrifice up and I always start Cleansing like a madman while still maintaining pressure on both the DK and the Warrior. Holy Paladins healing TSG often just spam Holy LIght as the comp is a zerg and kill type comp that thrives on quick kills and quick switches to achieve them. Sit on the Warrior and Dk, help your Druid through the switch and you’ll be good to go.
Beast Cleave (Enhancement Shaman / Beast Mastery Hunter / Holy Paladin)
Difficulty: 2
This is another zerg and kill type comp that thrives on quick kills and quick switches. Unlike TSG that needs to build up rage and runic power, however, this comp will typically just bum-rush your Druid (on some occasions I’ve seen them sit Warrior but this usually doesn’t end well for them). Our strategy for them is simple: let them get on the Druid while we get on the Paladin. The key here is that I will pop Divine Sacrifice early to help with damage on our Druid and he LoS’s the Hunter like a pro. I have not faced a Beast Cleave yet (and we’ve played some as high as 2700) that was able to get close to a kill on our Druid before we made the Paladin bubble. When he bubbles, we try to shatter it and finish the job. A good Holy Paladin doesn’t let this happen though as he is constantly pillar-humping. As a result, we often just switch to the Shaman during bubble to peel for our Druid. I usually hand him a Freedom at this point and refresh Sacred Shield if I hadn’t already due to purge. Once bubble is down we switch back to the Paladin and land the kill. I should note that a select few Beast Cleaves will stay on your Warrior when you try to switch back to the Paladin after bubble. If we encounter this then we simply sit on the Shaman until our Druid is comfortable enough to get him in chain Cyclones – at which point we rush back to the Paladin and end the fight.
Double Healer and Warrior
Difficulty: 2
There are several different flavors to this comp. Most commonly you will see what is called “Dispel Cleave” which has a Holy Paladin and a Discipline Priest. Quite honestly, though, it doesn’t really matter as this comp is extremely easy for you. Here’s the only catch – you need to figure out early what kind of gear the Warrior is in. Some Warriors will run extremely low resilience with this comp because they feel that two healers makes up for the lost in survivability. While this may be true against some comps, it is definitely not true for our comp 
. If you figure out that the Warrior is wearing extremely low resilience then you literally can sit on him all game long. The Priest will try to land mana burns on your Druid but will quickly realize that he can’t afford to not be healing. I specifically remember playing against this comp with the following Warrior:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Archimonde&cn=Hizo
Don’t get me wrong here – he’s a very good Warrior for sure. The first time we played them, we ended up losing because we tried to bounce between the Shaman and the Holy Paladin all game. Hizo eventually landed a kill on our Warrior as the damage he was putting out was insane and the Shaman, who was in extremely high resilience, was able to expend GCDs on purging our Warrior hard. After the loss, I armory’d him and noticed that he was in 700-ish resilience. The very next time we fought them (and every subsequent time we’ve ever fought them) we have ended the game in less than two minutes by simply sitting on the Warrior while swapping Cyclones between the Shaman and the Paladin. Quickly they had fallen so far behind on heals that the Warrior popped Shield Wall and immediately following its end, we killed him.
Some double healer comps will run standard PvP gear however on their Warrior. If they do this, your strategy is still just as simple as the above case: sit on whichever healer is easiest to sit on. If there is a Disc Priest, sit on him – all day, all night, through the next morning, into the weekend and twice on Sunday. You can literally faceroll like champions on the Disc Priest and eventually you’ll land the kill.
Kitty Cleave (Feral Druid / Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin)
Difficulty: 4
We have only faced a few kitty cleaves this season but one of them was a triple-Relentless Gladiator one at around 2650 MMR. Their strategy was simply to keep bouncing back and forth between me and the Warrior with occasional switches to our Druid. Generally speaking, they played rather chaotically in that they were switch about once every 5 to 10 seconds. The first time we faced them we lost a close match after a 4 to 5 minute battle. The second time, however, we took the win by sitting on the Warrior and Feral long enough to force all significant cooldowns out of the Paladin. I then waited for the instant Cyclone from the Druid and the moment I came out, we hard-switched to the Paladin. We were able to interrupt one of his heals which means he was locked out of Holy and we ended it right there.
The moral of the story here is simple: put out as much pressure as you can on the Druid and Warrior until you get a good opportunity to switch to the Paladin. If you don’t land the kill, wash, rinse and repeat.
PHD (Unholy Death Knight / Marksmanship Hunter / Holy Paladin)
Difficulty: 5
This comp is fairly simple but extremely annoying. I say it’s simple because the strategy is straightforward: kill the Paladin. I say it’s annoying because the Hunter and the Death Knight will be using every abilities in their proverbial toolbelts to stop you from getting to the Paladin. You can expect the Death Knight to be spamming Chains of Ice on both you and the Warrior. You expect a “clutch” Death Grip across the map the moment either you or the Warrior gets on the Paladin. You can expect to receive a Scatter Shot the moment you’re about to land an Avenger’s Shield while your Warrior is Bladestorming. So although the strategy is simple, the duration of the game promises to be long. As the ProtRet in this comp, your primary objective is getting rid of serpent sting the split second it’s up. Serpent Sting is the Flame Shock of MM Hunters. Get rid of it every time it’s up. I should also add that I would previously have rated this comp as a 3 or 4 but since the Unholy Blight buff that makes Death Knight diseases undispellable, I have increased the rating accordingly.
To land the victory against this comp, you need to play a game of possum. You can’t bum-rush the Paladin off the bat because you’re just going to get peeled and your Druid will fall behind on healing as your efforts to get on the Paladin have allowed them to put out significant damage while you have done none. Instead, you need to bait him into a position that lends itself to a good switch. The Warrior and I typically get on the Hunter to mitigate damage for a while. My left index finger typically goes numb from cleansing at around 2 minutes in. Ideally what we want is for the Death Knight to use Death Grip on one of us while we’re on the Hunter. At this point, we will hard switch to the Paladin and go for the kill. We most often don’t get it and will have to get back on the Hunter until we can make another switch to the Paladin. Some might ask why we wouldn’t just sit on the Death Knight who is already in our face. The answer is that the MM Hunter is the bulk of the damage (at least the burst) from this comp and allowing him to unload without mitigation is a sure-fire way to lose quickly.
RLS (Assassination or Subtlety Rogue / Affliction or Destruction Warlock / Restoration Shaman)
Difficulty: 6
Quite honestly, the deciding factor on the difficulty for this comp is how much damage they are able to put out. Really good RLS will just sit on your Warrior all day long while CCing you and the Druid back and forth. The amount of damage a good RLS can put out on your Warrior is ridiculous and when you partner that with the Shaman purging you have a recipe for disaster. What we typically do against RLS is to start hard on the Shaman to force some cooldowns (we can usually at least get NS on our initial push). If we are unable to land a kill by zerging up front (we most often do not) then we switch hard to the Warlock. The key to surviving this comp is that you need to be splitting your time between cleansing everything (even UA) off the Warrior while hitting bot h the Rogue and the Warlock. HotR should nail both of them and Consecration should be down at all times. Basically, you want to force the Shaman to have to heal instead of allowing him to purge. I typically use my Hammer of Justice on the Rogue or Warlock because I’ll have five stacks of corruption rolling on each which means a lesser chance that the fel puppy can dispel it. If you Hammer of the Shaman it’s almost guaranteed to come off immediately.
As with any Warlock team, once we are on him we keep a close eye on his pet’s health. Once the pet gets reasonably low from Soul LInk, we hard-switch to the pet and kill it. We repeat this process for the second pet and, if successful, the game is pretty much over as the Shaman will no longer be able to heal through our damage on the Lock.
Old School Spell Cleave (Elemental Shaman / Destruction Warlock / Holy Paladin)
Difficulty: 6
I wish I had a better strategy for you against this comp but, quite frankly, what follows seems to be the only path to victory. You can get on anyone you’d like for this comp although I’d recommend the Warlock given how hard Warriors hit them. The single most important thing that I absolutely cannot stress enough about playing against this team is that you absolutely, 100%, never can ever (not a @#^@ing chance) stray too far from an LoS point (a pillar, Dalaran boxes, etc). What this team wants more than anything is for one of their opponents to stray too far from such a place and then to lock them in place and light them up like the Christmas Tree in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (great, classic film). You no doubt feel like the biggest tool of all time playing against this team properly but I assure you it’s the only way to beat them consistently.
The moral of the story is this: always stay by a LoS point, cleanse Immolate and Flameshock immediately, keep Fire Resistance Aura up at all times, pop in and out of LoS to do damage to whatever target is nearby and eventually you will land a kill on the target of your choice.
Our games against this comp typically last around 10-15 minutes because of how we play against them but we have a pretty good win percentage as a result. Quite honestly, the trickiest thing about this, for you as a ProtRet, is managing your mana pool by ducking in and out of LoS to hit something in order to keep Divine Plea rolling.
PMR (Discipline Priest / Assassination or Subtlety Rogue / Arcane or Frost Mage)
Difficulty: 7
The bane of your existence as ProtRet/Arms/Druid will be teams with high burst potential and extremely good CC. Enter PMR (RMP, MRP, RPM, w/e). If the Mage is Arcane, the fight is a bit easier for you as he only has one Ice Block and you and the Warrior won’t constantly be Frost Nova’d in place (nerf snares pl0x). We almost always start out on the Mage and quite often force an early Ice Block. If the Mage is Frost, he’s more willing to just block early as a precaution against any RNG kills from us. If he’s Arcane, he may still block early but we generally stay on him until he does. If the Mage is Frost, the first thing I do as soon as he pops a Water Elemental is to kill it. Frost Mages already bring enough snare potential to the table – we don’t need the elemental’s nova as well just heightening the Mage’s chances at ridiculous burst. Whether the Mage is Arcane or Frost, the important thing to note here is that you need to be cleansing your Warrior extremely hard at all times. I don’t care if Wound Poison is just going to go right back up after you cleanse it. Cleanse it again. Every tick of a heal your Druid gets off without Wound Poison up there turns chance in your favor against PMR.
In addition to cleansing a lot, you need to realize that they are going to be CCing the living @#%^ out of you.. Most often, this is not really avoidable unless you just stay out of line of sight the entire game – which isn’t a viable option. The moment you come in LoS, they are going to want to CC you. Generally this will begin with a Polymorph or two or three. Good PMRs will complete the CC chain on you with 3x Polymorph, Blind, Fear (or Fear and then Blind) and then under 10 seconds later put you back in three Polymorphs. The trick here is to be aware of how your Warrior is doing at all times and to communicate to your team how you’re doing. The moment you are CCd, call it out and let them know the duration. Keep it concise and informative. I typically just sayed “Sheeped – 9 seconds” or “Feared – 5 seconds”. The reason you need to be aware of how your Warrior is doing is because you will need to coordinate CC DR and your sacrifices with your Warrior’s ability to deliver some burst. Once you are on DR for all significant CC AND the Warrior is in a position where he can put out some damage (i.e. he’s not too low on health and he is in range to switch to the Mage) get on the Mage with him. About five seconds into this, pop Divine Sacrifice and then follow that up with Hand of Sacrifice on the Warrior. If you do this right you’ll have a grand total of approximately 29 seconds worth of damage potential on the Mage. You may still get sheeped or blinded but you’ll come right out thanks to sacrifice.
The name of the game against any PMR is to survive their burst long enough to deliver your own burst once you are on DR for significant CC. Some ProtRet/Arms/Druid find success in just training the Priest. We, however, have found this to be a bad strategy as the Mage just lights our Warrior up. If we ever get on the Priest, it is after he has blown Pain Suppression on the Mage first.
Bad PMR will be just as easy as TSG for you but good PMR can be borderline impossible to beat unless you play absolutely perfectly in every way. As a result, I’ve ranked this comp a 7 based on my experience against decent PMRs.
Modern Spell Cleave (various except for Shatterplay)
Difficulty: 8
The original “Spell Cleave” (thus what I’ve labeled as “Old-School Spell Cleave”) was undoubtedly Paladin / Ele / Destro. This comp started popping up in strong numbers during season 6 and, from it, have spawned all varieties of spell cleaves. There is an important distinction to be made for us, however, between the old-school standard spell cleave I just mentioned and some of these new flavors. One particular spell cleave we’ve fought around 2600 was Affliction / Boomkin / Holy Paladin. Given the recent buffs to both Affliction and Boomkin, this comp is now extremely scary. Expect 8000 – 10000 Starfires on occasion while ticking like crazy from Affliction’s DoTs. We play comps like this the same though, regardless of makeup:
- Line of Sight like crazy
- Pop in and out for putting out some damage
- Line up CC from your Druid with burst from you and the Warrior to land kills or at least force defensive CDs.
This general setup of two casters + a healer can be extremely frustrating for ProtRet/Arms/Druid but you can win if you play it extremely smart and line of sight effectively. I do recall one game taking roughly 20,000 damage instantly because I was cleansing myself of DoTs, failed to check on the Boomkin and ate a 10,500 Starfire crit at the same time I dispelled UA on myself (I typically just dispel UA – especially since its dispel nerf recently such that resilience now affects it). I was already a bit low from DoTs and a few Wraths and I promptly fell over dead. Bad on me for sure but let it be a lesson to you as to how to play against these comps. Line of sight like champions, cleanse like crazy and only pop out to do damage sporadically.
Shatterplay (Shadow Priest / Frost Mage / Restoration Shaman)
Difficulty: 10
Strategy: Leave arena and join a new game hopefully against a team you can beat.
Seriously though – the amount to which this comp counters ProtRet/Arms/Druid is borderline absurd. Your only hope is to literally pop everything on the Shaman right off the bat and hope for some RNG. If the fight lasts any longer than 30 seconds, barring any ridiculous luck in your favor or some extremely game-changing @#%@-up on the part of your opponents, then you will lose. I think we have beaten this comp perhaps once or twice in 300+ games. The games go like this:
- Pop Bloodlust/Heroism
- CC me the point of uselessness with Polymorph, Deep Freeze, Fear and Psychic Horror
- Fully DoT Warrior and commence Shatter combos while silencing/imp CSing the Druid
- Is the Warrior dead? If not, CC him instead and switch to Druid for the guaranteed kill.
I hope you all have found this useful. If there are any other comps you’d like to hear about, please let me know. As always, you can feel free to PM me here at RetPaladin.com or simply log on to Mal’ganis and drop me a line!
April 1st, 2010 - 10:50 am
I love the name for this comp. I might be partial though because I’m a sliver Hungarian.
April 1st, 2010 - 1:13 pm
Didn’t even read past the first two arena names. Hilarious.
Maybe when I actually read all of this I’ll put in something constructive..
April 1st, 2010 - 2:25 pm
How do you guys fair against Ret/MM/Rsham?
April 1st, 2010 - 2:50 pm
@Kaiyo
I’ll add it to the post above in some detail but basically it depends how good the Shaman is. We played some Ret/MM/Sham around 2200-2400 and the Shaman wasn’t very good at slipping away like many we’ve faced. For these Shamans, we were able to start Ret or Hunter and then quickly switch to the Shaman for the kill. Good Ret/MM/Sham though I would rate about a 7 difficulty as they can just bide their time long enough to catch the Warrior in some insane burst.
April 2nd, 2010 - 4:51 am
I don’t like the fact this site after many years started taking prot spec into consideration.
April 2nd, 2010 - 7:26 am
@Warrain
If it makes you feel better, I have another 80 Paladin that I am gearing up as pure Ret right now. I plan to run Ret/MM/Shaman, Ret/ProtWar/Druid or RRP as high as I can get it. Stay tuned!
April 2nd, 2010 - 10:46 am
The names are pure win. That is all.
ps Thanks for this in depth write up, just got into this comp and this is helping tons.
April 3rd, 2010 - 1:21 pm
No.Ur prio should have been retri spec!
April 3rd, 2010 - 2:09 pm
Helluva post man, great info!
April 3rd, 2010 - 2:57 pm
im really disapointed in the direction this site has gone….leave your faceroll prot posts at another site
Tharvolde, no offence…i like you, but it seems you are being carried by your spec…have you ever been 2650 as ret?
April 3rd, 2010 - 3:07 pm
You’re.. joking, right Holycow? You can’t possibly be serious.
Protribution is in the exact same boat as retribution, they have the same amount of skills to play with and both are plenty viable. Who’s to say that it takes more skill to get higher rating as Ret?
Tharvolde’s post was extremely informative for anybody who was willing to try it out or is having trouble with combination. It was even a nice read for people who knew exactly what’s going on as well!
In other words.. who are you to say something like that? Have you even gone past 950 as Ret? Because you just seem like a plain troll who needs to be put in their place. Eagerly waiting for your response, since apparently you think it’s well mannered to flame people when you have no idea what you’re talking about and leaving no trace as to who you are.
April 3rd, 2010 - 3:29 pm
megaphone, you misunderstood my post to be a troll
it was a legit question….explain to me what happens if a person changes specs and explodes in rating? he got better over night? im not here to put down Tharvoldes skill, i just dont think he is a 2650 rated player…hell im not a 2650 play and ive no problem with saying that, im just fustrated @ people that switched to prot and think there god..When slayton made this site he kept everything Ret related, during tbc holy had problems…easy to interupt, they were in the same boat as ret (just not nearly as bad)…did slayton switch to holy or make posts about holy?(minus vague references)
It was indeed very informative, however not near what this site is about
April 3rd, 2010 - 3:35 pm
sooo frustrated I forgot the R!! XD
April 3rd, 2010 - 8:00 pm
Holycow is absolutely right, beying retribution is all about beying a true paladin with a 2 – hander. ( insert mace if you’re a human )
It isn’t called retpaladin.com for nothing.
that is all.
I’m no familiar face or poster, but i’ve been a lurker since cromfells’ first retribution posts.
So it’s quite shocking to see posts about holy-retadins or prots.
that is all
April 3rd, 2010 - 8:32 pm
Well, you do have to realize that both Slayton and built this site up from nothing. It’s not like I came out of nowhere and demanded to be able to write, I knew him for a long time before Retpaladin existed! And you also have to realize, that being a true Retribution Paladin means to support and do damage. If you take a look at oldschool Vanilla PvP videos (such as Zalgradis 3), there is absolutely nothing wrong with deterring from using a 2-hander.
Obviously some specs are easier at lower brackets. That’s a given, it honestly doesn’t need to go without saying. But can you honestly tell me that different specs take a drastic amount of skill to play when compared to another at a high level of play (assuming everybody is equally geared and skilled)? You really can’t argue that an entire style of play is terrible because it has a slightly easier time “smashing the nubs”.
This site is about Paladins that want to smash and take care of business. This site is about community! I find it awesome that if a Ret wants to learn about Protibution, there’s tons of resources and help on our forums and front page from time to time! The game evolves regularly, I don’t think we’re going to change our name to “RetAndProtributionAndDoingDamageWithMeleeAbilitiesPaladin.com”
At least there are very rarely tangents about strange real life debates and random classes constantly!
April 3rd, 2010 - 9:06 pm
@Megaphone
i 100% agree with you, however having said that…whats to stop us from turning this into a site not about paladins…I mean warriors like to mash and bash to, correct? and hell enhance shamans are “in the same boat” with minimal working comps. Leaning away from what made this site popular is a dangerous area, sooner or later this will be no different then the warcraft forums. I remeber seeing this site on the warcraft forums when you and slayton were trying to lure people over with streams ect when you took something bad and made it amazing to watch…i dont deny that both you and slayton didnt put your heart and soul into building this site into what it is today…
just to coment on your reply to Tharvoldes rating, were not talking about prot being harder to play then ret, infact they are both very similar in playstyle. We are talking about a spec carrying a player to a rating. Take the top team last season (hunter/protwarrior/Hpally) these players hit what 3050+? are these players 3k rated bound? no, before prot warriors came from the woodwork, the war was about a 2600 rated player…and either the hunter or pally(cant remember which) had never even got a glad title before…nerfs came to that spec and they are nowhere near the 3050 they ended at.
If it had “nothing to do with his spec” then he could switch to ret at any moment and still reach his 2650 rating…one again im not here to question the skill of Tharvolde(still a very good player), just here to bring him back to reality of how he got to where he is
April 3rd, 2010 - 10:08 pm
Well.. Slayton, Tharvolde, 96.3% of our traffic and I would keep it from turning into a place for other classes! I mean, there’s nothing wrong with mentioning other classes here and there, but definitely not as our main attraction. The game is always going to change, who knows that goofy things are in store for the next expansion. If people want the game to stay the same all the time, it’s best to go to an oldschool private server!
As for the spec comments, it really has to do with the balance of the team composition. Retribution just plain does not fit into some things, just like if a Disc Priest were to spec Disc/Shadow in a Priest/Warrior/Hunter combination. Some things aren’t meant to be. Changing back to Ret when your team was based on an entirely different style of play is going to yield some terrible results!
People also didn’t know how to deal with Prot specs in the previous season(s), and now that it’s not some type of mystery, Retribution has overtaken Protribution as the most successful arena spec. Using your logic, that should mean that Ret is easier to play, and that they can carry their team to victory?
It’s just not how things works. Protribution smashes the “nubs” roughly as much as Ret these days, and I can’t see how it’s easier to gain rating at high level play when Ret has more numbers in all brackets!
April 3rd, 2010 - 10:31 pm
“I can’t see how it’s easier to gain rating at high level play when Ret has more numbers in all brackets!”
Quantity=/=Quality
Not including Holy, a pret holds #1 in all three brackets
Also, unlike the shadowPriest/Warrior/Hunter comp you mentioned…Ret/War/Druid works, this is just fact
April 3rd, 2010 - 11:09 pm
Ehm, where do you see that!
http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/player/all/all/paladin/all/all/
Aside from the hilarious amount of Holy Paladins, the first deviation is is Vanguards at #12! Since we’re apparently just talking about one person now, Ret holds the highest ratings! Also, you can’t bring “Quantity =/=Quality” into this. Even if there was 1-2 PRets above ~50 Rets (exaggeration) by slight amounts, nobody could honestly say that it was purely the spec that was making the PRets so high.
The fact is that both specs are represented plenty higher up, with there being more Retribution Paladins there. It makes no sense to argue about which is more powerful since a simple two games can determine who has the higher rating. Both are plenty powerful, both have roughly the same play style, nobody gets magically better against a competent opponent just because of a spec change (not counting extreme cases like frost mage vs rogue at low levels!)
Regardless, there’s just.. nothing to honestly argue about here. Not unless there was some solid example of people fighting the same line up with only changing out their Paladin’s spec and after 10+ games there was nothing the other team could do to stop it. But then, it’s still an argument about composition isn’t it!
Oh, and the Spriest/War/Hunter was just for the sake of an example, the main point of that was about how the team operates!
April 3rd, 2010 - 11:48 pm
im not sure why you linked that…
his 2′s are 2423 as ret…this guy is pret and 2621
http://www.arenajunkies.com/team/2v2/US/Kel‘Thuzad/Leaf_and_a_prot_nub/
his 3′s are 2734 as ret….this guy is pret and 2905
http://www.arenajunkies.com/team/3v3/US/Earthen_Ring/Is_This_Real_Life/
his 5′s are 2542 as ret….this guy is pret and 2792
http://www.sk-gaming.com/wowchar/kr/506/1005014-Kamiu
And yes, Quality>Quantity here, as blizzard stated (too lazy to site this) They were hesitant to nerf prot warriors because they wernt topping arena rep
You say there isnt solid example, and that i can agree with. However you cannot ignore the fact that he “exploded in rating” once he switched specs…im sure nobody here is in denial about that…the only way to see if this is indeed the reason or if it was because he god Glad skill overnight is for him to play a solid 50 games as ret and stay at the same rating or higher…then and only then will i eat my words.
Once again, im not saying ret takes any more skill to play then pret
April 4th, 2010 - 1:49 am
But he was within Gladiator rating last season, and got held back by his Rogue in the last two weeks!
Also, none of those people have an overall high ratings. I think it’s better to show that the best damage dealing paladin in the world is currently Retribution, with solid high ratings in all brackets. If you’re wanting to show that Prot as more potential than Ret.. in all of those brackets, Retribution is literally just a few games of playing as close. If Ret had the highest ratings in each bracket, you’d be arguing the same thing that I am, except with PRet instead! It’s all gravy, all specs are handy dandy later on.
So if he was basically a Gladiator before, both specs take just as much skill as one another, and both of them are equally powerful at top end, what are we arguing about? Lawl.
April 4th, 2010 - 8:16 am
Not to divert this wonderful arguement here, but I have to agree with mega here…while this site is about ret paladins, news and ret paladin info of late has almost dried up completely. Much of what could be covered now has been covered in the past, and to keep content fresh, sometimes branching off into other aspects of paladin gameplay is a welcome necessity!
April 4th, 2010 - 10:34 am
which just goes back to my original question…was he 2650 before switching specs? I stopped paying attention about half way through the season…anyone know what he ended at last season as ret?
@khor- Well let me make a request that the site name be renamed to a more generic paladin name, infact at the begining of the season hoff(a highly respected player) was playing around with holy…lets start talking about holy…whats everyong think about holy? Not trying to be negative here, i just dont believe this site is about prot…hell there are plenty of prot site, holy site, warrior sites…let me know now where the boundaries lay now, maybe im wasting my time on this site and will go back to the generic paladin forums, same topics about prot and holy, but more traffic
April 4th, 2010 - 11:05 am
Well.. he was pretty much up there, I don’t remember the exact rating! But I do remember chatting lots and wishing him luck with him being an inch away!
As for changing the site name, it’s just not enough of a reason! We’re not talking about prot tanking at all, it’s just another PvP build that a lot of people are interested in.. there are a lot of holy sites, warrior sites, prot sites, but not many that actually touch on PRet at all! Does that mean we should devote an entirely new site to purely just PRet?
It wouldn’t last long at all, because PRet is purely PvP. I don’t see the harm in touching on the subject here, like I said I think it’s great to have more resources available to players! I also don’t see the harm of one holy post every couple of months, as long as we don’t just plain start having multiple holy posts a month and dedicate a new writer to it! We’ll definitely change the name if it ever gets to that, trust me!
April 4th, 2010 - 11:22 am
well that answers that then, i wish all of you the best of luck @ retpaladin.com…id suggest posting prot dps cycles/gemming/spec on the side bars
ill be back closer to cataclysm when slayton is back in full swing
April 4th, 2010 - 1:47 pm
Lolds, silly Holycow.
Still love you though.
April 4th, 2010 - 4:12 pm
Holycow
This is the first season I’ve taken Arena seriously. I was 2400+ last season as Ret running RRP. Ret and ProtRet are both equally-viable. Unfortunately, I do take offense to you saying that I’m “not a 2650 player” when clearly I am having been there on more than one occasion this season. The general consensus in the Arena community right now is that Hunters and Shadow Priests are extremely strong at the moment. Does that mean that any Hunter or Shadow Priests that are 2600 aren’t 2600 players? I would argue it the other way around in that they’ve been 2600 players for some time and now that their classes have been brought more in line with other class and specs they are able to achieve it.
To say that ProtRet is a spec that can magically improve your Arena ratings overnight is a bit foolish. ProtRet is far and away less-used than Ret in Arena at present. We are one of 3 ProtRet/Arms/Druid above 2300 in our BG and the only one to reach near 2650. We have fine-tuned our strategies and worked endlessly on our coordination. This is why we are 2650 players – not because I play ProtRet.
April 4th, 2010 - 4:49 pm
then do me one favour before i depart (was looking for a responce from you) Play some games as ret…prove me wrong. If you switch to ret (and yes the comp would still be very very strong) then i will eat my words and admit to you that you are indeed a 2650 player+ and wish you best of luck on glad this season…but untill then ill stick with my opinion as to why you jumped on the prot bus with all the cool kids this season
April 4th, 2010 - 5:02 pm
Holycow I see where you are coming from about the direction of the site. I’m relatively new here but to me this site is about ret pve and damage dealing pvp. The only reason pret came up is ret was constantly getting little chips at it and then the two started to come in range of each other in terms of damage. I think you are wrong to call him out though. No where in his post did he say he was godly at paladin damage dealing pvp or that he is an amazing player. He simply wrote strats for pret. What is wrong with a pretty highly rated pret writing about pret strats? Would you rather have me, a 18-1900 mmr pret in the same comp write the strat? I’d think not. And actaully you bring up a good point maybe a pret pvp gemming cycle and basic style of play intro is worth it. I doubt it though as hardly anyone I think even looks at the main page, I know I only check occasionally. I still don’t see how it’s so very wrong for him to post this or where it was warrented for you to attack him though.
April 4th, 2010 - 6:07 pm
Holycow
Ret/Arms/Druid is not even close to as viable as ProtRet/Arms/Druid this season. If I were to run Ret I would run Ret/MM/Sham or Ret/ProtW/Druid.
In either case, I have a second Paladin now that I am gearing up for Ret. Her name is Aveldroth (an anagram for Tharvolde). IF I can get her geared enough before it’s not too late in the season then I’m sure I’ll be able to find a pro Resto Shaman and MM Hunter to run some 3s with into Glad range.
I’m not sure about the intent of your comments but it’s clear you have some anger towards ProtRet in general. Quite honestly I find your comment of me “jumping on the Prot bandwagon” fairly laughable considering that Prot is not very represented at high ratings this season (at least in my BG).
Regardless, if you have anything constructive to add to this thread please feel free to post them.
April 4th, 2010 - 7:06 pm
as i’ve shown with links in my previous post, prot is actually higher in rating then ret…im not talking which has more people playing it, im talking about what you can achive with the spec…and looking at arena junkies and sk, there are hundres of ret/war/druid teams that range up to 2800ish…telling me it’s not as viable is laughable.
and you are indeed correct about my comments about pret, I play on mal’ganis(horde) and KT(alliance) and I can tell you ,as both server have top players, that in my experience alot of the paladins that couldn’t get glad the previous season went prot…this was no different with warriors when prot was able to gib people.
@Bacon- I agree that they should either convert this site (and change the name) to a full on paladin site, including holy…prot..and ret if they want to “open up to specs in the same boat”. Either keep it where it’s roots started or convert it to something bigger and dont confuse new player that come here thinking it’s a ret site and to read a large amount of posts about prot. Im not saying that it will or will not get to that point some day, however with Tharvolde playing prot, expect his posts to be alot about prot, and less about ret (why would i post about holy if i dont play one?)
once again Tharvolde, im not here to destroy the wall you’ve build up, and i hope you understand the angle im coming at here.
April 4th, 2010 - 8:46 pm
I understand your criticism of Prot but saying that someone simply “isn’t a _____ player” is a bit harsh. You most likely have never seen me play and I sadly believe you think Prot is “faceroll” whereas Ret is not. Ret and Prot play EXTREMELY alike. The choice to be made is whether you would like higher survivability and better sustained damage or lower survivability and higher burst potential.
As Ret I’ve found that you constantly have to play the defensive. The moment a switch to you occurs, you are forced to kite. This in-and-out play style I’ve witnessed both from my own play and those of some of the top Retadins is not at all attractive to me. Ret is certainly strong and capable of great things in Arena. ProtRet is likewise capable of great things. To come here and criticize the contents of this post based on your personal distaste for the spec is a bit out of line.
I’m not going to comment anymore in response to this post but I would ask that those who don’t care for a particular topic being discussed bring this to the attention of myself, Megaphone or Slayton via PM as opposed to these comments. Rest assured there is an extremely large base of players who graciously accept ProtRet as a viable and fun spec and wish to learn more about it right here at RetPaladin.com. I am regularly visited by people logging onto Mal’ganis to ask questions about ProtRet. There are a couple very lengthy threads on the subject in the RetPaladin.com forums. If you are uninterested or disagree with a particular topic being discussed here, once again, please let myself, Megaphone or Slayton know via PM.
Thanks
April 4th, 2010 - 9:39 pm
I just have to say, there are what 3 (only one of any length) threads on pret and one front page article other then the hey look at this thing some ppl are doing post? I would hardly call that a “large amount of posts”.
April 5th, 2010 - 2:46 am
I’m sorry but, that last post was just far too out of line, Holycow. After deleting it, there’s just nothing else to say other than it was nothing but a fish to draw out more anger and to continue arguing like a forum troll, not taking the other side into consideration whatsoever. It really saddens me that you couldn’t actually “let it die”, you just have some furious hatred for PRet and feel the need to blindly flame anybody who plays it.
When you have your comments deleted because you started taking things personal and started arguing for the sake of arguing, remember this post. Really, really saddens me
.
And Bacon, a simple seach of the word Protribution comes up with over 30 pages of hits (http://www.retpaladin.com/warcraft/forums/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&keywords=protribution&start=260), also remember that there are plenty of other variations such as PRet, Prot ret, prot pvp to search for! If there are over 400 posts out there that are roughly about PRet, isn’t that.. a large amount? I’d think so!
April 5th, 2010 - 6:01 pm
Isn’t this a ret site? Protret eats fat ones and it’s resistance to nerfs (WTF) is a primary reason why rets are not going well this season.
Cease and desist prot support for pvp… For the love of god, think of the children!
April 6th, 2010 - 11:04 am
LOL at this whole thing. this got stupid real fast, seriously a protRET is still a damage spec as far as im concerned, it still does the same thing, and im pretty sure tharvolde still knows how to play ret and report on ret news. And even if you want pure ret things to read about, there are forums here, lrn2read. Tharvolde thanks for the great info, i just started a ret/war/druid combo and im considering protret as an alternative and im finding this extremely helpful. (now if i can only find my paycheck and get my account back up for the day >_<)
April 6th, 2010 - 7:20 pm
Wow some people can be dumb.
The reasons that Protret gets writting about is simple.
It uses the same gear.
It has ALL the same abilities minus repent and stun freedom. Very similar play styles and is a damage dealing paladin.
Prot and ret have 99% same abilities and therefore neither spec takes more skill than the other.
Fact of the matter is Protret/Arms/Druid isn’t nearly as strong as it has been in the past and Tharvolde is doing really good to be as high as he is. He could be riding the hunter gravey train to success but instead he is playing a comp that requires a lot more micro management on his behalf than just switching dps targets with the odd cleanse to the druid or freedom to the hunter.
April 7th, 2010 - 9:38 am
Thanks, Kookamonga and Ruzael for the support.
FYI – I am working on gearing out one of my other 80 Paladins (I actually have 3 – no joke) as pure Ret in order to do 3s in a standard Ret comp like MM/Ret/Sham. This Paladin’s name is Aveldroth (an anagram for Tharvolde) and you can check out her progress here (still working on gear so haven’t started 3s):
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Mal%27Ganis&cn=Aveldroth
The 2s team I’ m on I just bought since I didn’t want to grind to 1800 from 0. I haven’t played any games yet but should get 1800 this week with a Rogue who said he’s willing to help me.
June 4th, 2010 - 1:23 pm
Hey Thar, you’re more than a 2600+ player. You know better than to feed trolls like HolyCow. I’m disappointed. =T
Getting that high with ProtRet/Arms/ Resto where spell cleaves at that rating are running around rampant, is very impressive.
I have no doubt that as Ret/ Hunter/ Resto, you could go even higher since that comp is much more successful facing the spell cleaves that dominate upper end brackets.
June 12th, 2011 - 3:52 pm
I’ve played pally for long time and i think this vid helped me a lot guys should hit it too lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSiI3V_Hs-4&feature=channel_video_title