Paladin Healing Spec: 3.1: The Great Debate v2

[Druiddroid]

Druiddroid, I like your thinking, but what you just stated it pretty much why I'd go the prot spec.

well that depends what gives you the most trouble. the prot spec won't let you get away from melee as easily, while the PoJ spec won't let you survive as well against casters. depends what you have problems with.



personally, i love it when a rogue has no chance of catching me, even with sprint and trinket.

 

[Pållynåtor]

True, BUT the prot spec has a lot more survivability against other classes as well, e.g other true rets, hunters in the extra armor, etc. and damage reduction from imp RF, and IMP DEV

 

[Druiddroid]

hunters don't pose as much of a threat to me as rogues.



hunters just fire a lot of shots, sometimes aimed. i can work around that typically with just healing. rogues can kick/gouge/crip (once HoF is down)/sprint/evade



at 29 you can't get both aimed and scatter, so you can just HL every time aimed shot has 2.4 seconds left on you, and get a full heal in.



other rets can be a problem, however if you use trinket when they HoJ+JoJ you can probably get away, at least out of melee range. plus rets don't have many interrupts either.



the great thing about being a paladin that heals is that you can pretty much outheal any sort of DPS a single target is throwing at you. once you get disrupted a few times though, that's when most problems occur.





it's your choice of what you want to spec, i'm just talking from my experience as a 39 healing/FC paladin in WSG. perhaps your playstyle or battlegroup or preference of PVP zone makes our preferred specs different.

 

[Vallei]

You see, i really do think it(it being a ret oriented build) would be effective at the most situations. Making it the most viable.



The only things i see it being unviable at are:



- solo-carrying a bad wsg pug. Due to it relying on teammates to get full use of.



- arena pugs where your partner is a lowbie and the other team is likely to treat it as a 2v2 even though your partner is a lowbie.



The things i see a ret oriented build excelling at:



WSG pugs where you have a few good people.

 

[Pållynåtor]

No wound @ 29. Aimed Shot REALLY F's me up @ 29 too.

 

[Vallei]

You see, i see a ret oriented build (atleast 12 points in ret) being the most effective at the most things. Therefore making it the most viable spec.



The downfalls of ret oriented build in my eyes:



- bad for wsg pugs where your team is filled with lowbies. squishier then prot build so solo-carrying the flag would be more of a challange.



- bad arena pugs where your partner is a lowbie.



The areas where ret oriented build would be very effective:



- WSG pugs where you have a few good people to work with, As you can fc decently due to the speed increase and kite rogues if you get jumped midfield, Go on offence well with a group for a flag return, or defend your flag well with 2-3 people.



- 2v2, 3v3 organized arena. 5v5 is likely to have a dispell spamming priest on the team gimping your effectiveness a bit.



-premade wsgs. Because you can pretty well do any healing roll assigned to you, be it healing the offence or healing the defence.



- 1v1 duels. Healing yourself often, using your offencive stuff such as concecretion, exorcism, judgements, you could pretty well 1v1 any class including rogues and hunters as you can kite a rogue, hoj a hunter before aimed shot is worn off, and other tricks such as exploiting aimed shot flight time for full strength heals , eventually widdling them down.

 

[Pållynåtor]

Actually, Ret is strongest for bad arena pugs, because you can actually kill something yourself. That's the biggest bonus of the spec, tbh.

 

[Druiddroid]

PoJ is vital to solo flag carrying in PuG WSG.

No wound @ 29.

removed from my post.

 

[Pållynåtor]

Rogues are alot easier to peel for me. Plus, ret aura wrecks rogues.

 

[Vallei]

Actually, Ret is strongest for bad arena pugs, because you can actually kill something yourself. That's the biggest bonus of the spec, tbh.

I disagree, if your partner is a 24 hunter the enemy team is going to jib the hunter rather quickly then 2v1 you.



My idea of a bad arena pug is 2 twinks versus one twink and a lowbie.



Althought all twink healing specs would be ineffective in this situation(except maybe a very, very good priest?), so would a ret oriented build for healing.

 

[Pållynåtor]

Ummm......What?

 

[Vallei]

Ummm......What?

Removed the unneeded confusing part.

 

[Pållynåtor]

Yes, but the ret spec is alot better for actually being able to beat 2 players that way, our dps is too bad w/ just consecrate and JoR

 

[Vallei]

Yes, but the ret spec is alot better for actually being able to beat 2 players that way, our dps is too bad w/ just consecrate and JoR

Not saying it couldn't be done. And i'm not saying that a ret oriented spec wouldn't do better then the other specs in a bad arena pug. But it's still going to be a loss atleast 80-90 percent of the time. Making it unviable for bad arena pugs.

 

[Pållynåtor]

But the ret spec would be better than alternatives for a bad arena pug because you could still kill at least 1, whereas you would be less likely with others.

 

[Vallei]

But the ret spec would be better than alternatives for a bad arena pug because you could still kill at least 1, whereas you would be less likely with others.

Yes,

As I said, it would probably do better then the other options, but it's still going to lose the match 80-90 percent of the time. Just because it's not AS bad as the other alternatives at bad arena pugs, doesn't mean it's not bad. Which was all i was saying.

 

[Pållynåtor]

Eh, debatable as to your percentages. With the exorcism buffs, a well timed HoJ "shatter" will drop some major hp.

 

[Vallei]

Eh, debatable as to your percentages. With the exorcism buffs, a well timed HoJ "shatter" will drop some major hp.

Those were just ballpark percentages. But between healing yourself from 2 twink dpsers, widdling one down, and running around. you're either going to get overwhealmed with damage, or go oom. most of the time.



and in the sitaution where you're stuck 1v2ing a dps and healer, you're healing through 1 dps, trying to kill the healer/dps, you may put up a good fight and get close with a well timed hoj combo on the healer, maybe even kill him. Then you still have to heal through the dps, and damage the dps. very taxing on mana. and any sort of cc could overwhealm you easily. such as a fear. silence, or stun.

 

[Pållynåtor]

AGM

BoP

Trust me, 1 dps won't kill you

 

[Vallei]

AGM

BoP

Trust me, 1 dps won't kill you

That may be true, but any healing spec is unlikely to be able to kill a dps with a healer backing them. I stand by my assumptions of a 10-20 percent chance to win in a 1v2 situation as a paladin of any healing spec at 29.