Last week I was over at a friend’s house apartment, for parties and stuff I guess (WHO THE HELL BURNS POPCORN? COME ON!), and near the end of the evening ended up playing some WoWzors.
It being the AV holiday weekend, and my paladin still needing a few honor pieces, I queued up for that and away I went, smashing faces in and so forth, whilst me and a couple other WoWheads discussed PvP balance.
We were initially talking about arena matrixes, and discussed how well unholy DK/ret/disc would run in 3.3. After all, Unholy’s getting a few buffs and ret isn’t being nerfed for once, and I casually mentioned that poor retribution had been nerfed every single patch since LK shipped.
And you know what my friend said? He said “yeah, and you guys are STILL overpowered!” I mean it was meant as a joke, his main is a death knight after all, but ARGH ret pallies aren’t OP anymore!
So a long discussion was launched, in which I enumerated the many areas with which ret paladins are seriously lacking, about the lack of control, snares, gap closers, interrupts, and so forth, all the while kicking ass in AV.
At the end of my lengthy tirade, the same friend spoke up and said “That’s great and all, but I just watched you kill fifteen people in under three minutes, by yourself, without using major cooldowns, and you were fighting no less than three of them at a time.”
Which was, of course, completely true. My defense?
“Well… yeah… but… they… uhh…”
I mean how do you say “I was better than they were in nearly every way” without sounding like a complete tool? I had better gear than them, I made few mistakes, they made many, I knew how to play defensively to win and how to use CC properly, they didn’t.
Which brings me to a completely different point.
The vast majority of people in battlegrounds have no idea how to PvP, in the broadest sense.
I’m not talking about how to PvP with their class. I’m not talking about, say, a hunter having no idea how to use traps/deflection/disengage properly or a mage not knowing when to use counterspell.
I’m talking about PvP in general. As in, PvP skills that you use no matter what class you play, no matter what game you play.
Defensive play, for one thing.
The number of people I meet who can play defensive is surprisingly low.
To use the broadest possible sense, there are two modes to PvP: offense and defense. At all times, you are trying to defeat your opponent (not necessarily killing them).
When you are in offense mode, you are actively trying to kill. A frost mage using Deep Freeze and unloading a hasted frostbolt and two ice lances into a target is offensive play.
When you are in defense mode, you are actively trying to survive. A frost mage ducking out of LOS for a split second to dodge Unstable Affliction is defensive play.
Proper defensive play can’t really be taught, you have to go out and consciously learn it. You can’t tunnel vision, you need to be aware of LOS, know how to use it properly, know how to prevent your opponent from using it, you need to be aware of what cooldowns you have and what cooldowns your opponent has.
I’ll give you a few examples to try and describe what I mean. Hopefully you learn something.
The scene: My ret paladin, wintergrasp, a southern workshop. 4 horde, including me, versus 9 alliance.
Largeish battle going on. A hunter disengages from a warrior, landing directly in front of me at half health. A quick crusader/judge later, the hunter bites the dust. I get hit with curse of agony and corruption, which means there’s an afflock out there. Destruction warlocks don’t use CoA and rarely use corruption, they use curse of elements, then immolate to fuel massive chaos bolt/conflagrate crits.
UA and haunt are coming right up, even though I don’t see the warlock yet.
I’m near a drop off, so I take a quick couple steps and drop out of LOS. Cleanse corruption… oh hey look, the warlock followed me! Standing right above me on the edge. Felhunter just dispelled Sacred Shield, which means the warlock can’t dispel anything from himself for 8 seconds. He’s too far away for me to melee, which means I can’t autoattack or get in any crusader strikes. But he’s in range of everything else. Hammer -> judge -> DS -> exorcism -> hammer of wrath -> dead warlock.
The scene: My ret paladin, warsong gulch, alliance tunnel. Myself versus a hunter and two ret paladins.
I’m currently exposed in the tunnel, a survival hunter at the top of the tunnel ramp and two ret paladins bearing down on me. Impossible odds. I duck right, out of LOS with the hunter, popping a quick FoL off before the rets are on me. I retreat, the hunter doesn’t follow, so I go out into the open to fight the two rets.
The draenei paladin is in deadly glad gear with the 219 axe from the Black Knight. The human paladin is in significantly better gear, 1800 rating relentless sword better gear.
Quick question. How do you beat someone in melee if their melee is way better than yours? Simple. Don’t.
The plan: if at all possible, avoid being in melee range of either ret paladin at all times. Fight using judgement, most likely every Art of War proc will be needed for healing. Use DS only when both paladins are close enough together for me to hit both of them. Judicious use of freedom (it counters JoJ), hammer, and repentance. Hit the draenei first, it’s a lot easier to fight a good player one on one if it actually is a one on one fight.
Both paladins seem extremely confused by my strategy, constantly running into melee range, then stopping for a few seconds before chasing me again. Almost as if they expect me to stay in melee range, you know… being a melee class and all.
Draenei paladin is dropping like nothing. So far, I’ve landed every DS on both of them every time, they’ve missed every single one of theirs. Learn to circle strafe guys!
Draenei pops Lay on Hands. I laugh. Goddamn OP ret paladins! I bubble at 4% HP (autoattack for 5k whut), but only heal myself back to 60%. That draenei needs to die. CC chain on the good paladin (repentance, HoJ, belf silence) while I click off divine shield and go full out melee. Draenei dies, but it cost me. Human pally trinketed out of repentance and nearly killed me.
Low health, low mana, ret paladin mirror match, except he’s got better gear and weaponry than I do. The plan? Just stay out of melee range, attacking via judgement only. Using Art of War procs, get myself back up to full, then simply delay long enough for hammer to come back up.
Wings + AP trinket + Hammer = dead ret paladin.
I win, and I’m left wondering why a paladin with an 1800 weapon didn’t freedom HoJ. Maybe I’m blind and it was actually a blue polearm or something.
The scene: Euripedes, arcane shatter spec alone at Lumber Mill, owned by alliance, having just defeated the moonkin/horribly undergeared resto shaman (17k hp) guarding the place.
Half a second away from capping the stupid flag, a warrior charges me out of nowhere. Damn it, I hate it when they do that. Night elf warriors… I swear those dudes just stealth and watch you, waiting for the best worst possible moment to enter the fray.
Whatever, sheep the warrior, it lasts 10 seconds, capping the flag takes 8. I got this. Aaaand there’s a trinket, and ow, that was 70% of my hitpoints just now. Friggin PvE geared raiders.
Root the warrior, keep slow up at all times, bounce ice lance off spell reflect, throw in the odd arcane barrage so maybe he thinks I’m actually trying to beat him. Just stay the hell away from him, that’s the plan.
Poly DR wears off, I throw a full duration poly on him, and evocate. Pop AP; a couple 11k frostbolt crits later and it’s all over.
The scene: My warrior, 30-39 bracket, versus another warrior of equal level.
The opposing warrior is at full health, I’m at 40%, having fought fierce fights. No horde anywhere to be seen, but there’s a few rezzing soon, including my healbot druid.
The plan: sword and board, kite the opposing warrior back to the graveyard. When my healer’s back, bust out the arcanite reaper and put this warrior down.
Hamstring the warrior, thunder clap for the melee attack speed reduction (I probably don’t need it, but why take the risk?), waltz away from him while he follows me like he’s trying to fight a frost mage. No juggernaut yet, can’t charge in combat. Combat drops, I charge him first, refresh hamstring and thunder clap, again running away. I see him swap to Fury stance, which means an intercept is coming right up. I pop shield wall.
He intercepts, and the followup heroic strike/overpower combo hits me hard enough to have killed me had I not used shield wall. Hamstring, run away, intercept him myself for the stun and keep running. Druid’s respawned and is on his way, but I still need to buy some time. I pop Intimidating Shout.
PHOOM oh I have never been so glad to see a Healing Touch. 16% health, jeez. Disarm the warrior, bust out the 2H, he goes down like a sack of potatoes.
Cool story bro.
Couldn’t resist.
I love it when (as a shadow priest) other players, especially those using melee classes, don’t expect it when I mouse-turn around and run right through them, as they keyturn after me. By the time they’ve turned around to see me, I’ve either:
a) gotten at least 10 yards away,
b) turned around again and run through them (I imagine they /gasp when I do this), or
c) unloaded all my DoTs on them and they die about 3-5 seconds later.
Love the blog btw, fun to read as a caster PvPer, even though I’m not a mage.
I once fought a keyboard turning holy paladin that was decked head to toe in the best of the best PvP gear. 251 weapon, relentless shoulders, it was all there.
I wept for days.
grrr sounds like you had some fun. I wish I could sell off all my gear and trade it for damage dealing. I had no idea how boring Healing is on a paladin until about a month into it. I should just let the druids handle it, but I really don’t want to re-farm all that honor for damage gear.
Forgot to mention that I liked this article better than I usually like your articles. I was too busy being angsty.
Your friend really brings stuff down to earth. Keep him close
You’d have to either grind that honor again as a healer, or pick up a bunch of terrible ret gear and go that route.
Actually, to be honest, gearing up from scratch is extremely satisfying, assuming you can devote a lot of time to it.
To actually experience becoming notably more and more powerful every week is awesome.
sorry for butting into someone else’s reply, but i realized i have another question: should i buy any pvp gear before level 80? my pally is 63 and i’m having a blast in bgs and she’s got 2 pieces of resilience gear (boa shoulders and weapon), but i was wondering whether to invest in more.
(i’m not rushing to 80 so it’ll be a while before i get there)
There’s really not much else to buy. There’s lots of PvP gear back in vanilla WoW (18-60, roughly) but there really isn’t anything for you in BC or Wrath (until 80).
Just grab a PvP trinket, try to get stamina on every piece of gear you have, and you’re good to go.
i wouldn’t mind at all (at all) if you posted an article about how to pvp on a ret pally. ‘how not to get your face pwned as an op class’ or something.
(i’ve never pvped – mainly because i suck and it was a frustrating experience, oh god i still have nightmares from the seasonal achievements – but i’m leveling a pally and bgs are kinda fun now… except i still suck.)
I think Ferarro is getting ready to explain how to PvP as a ret paladin. She very recently posted about speccing as one, so I’m pretty confident that how to play it is coming up next.
http://ferarro.blogspot.com/2009/11/specing-for-pvp-ret-bit-more.html
Hammer -> judge -> DS -> exorcism -> hammer of wrath -> dead warlock.
Wings + AP trinket + Hammer = dead ret paladin.
Wish my DPS class could heal itself like a healing spec, have massive defensive cooldowns so that you need to kill me 3 times, use CC, defensive dispels, and still able to drop people in 2 or 3 globals or a hammer of justice.
Ret is still OP, unless you’re talking high end Arena where they just get CC’d or blown up by casters with massive gear. Its just a cheap spec of a cheap class
Now, I will agree with you about defensive play though. No matter how many times I do it, if I can catch a warlock on my warrior with Hamstring->MS->bladestorm, I’ll either kill them outright or get them low enough to be able to finish them off afterwards, because they never ever drop a portal. They never learn. A lot of the people I watch on our side are in the same problem – they die without using their defensive options.
Unfortunately, in BGs (besides AV if you’re in one of the Alliance bases) there is very little LOS near or around most objectives – which means every BG match turns into a Ring of Valor arena match. The reason no one in BGs know how to PVP is because its a lolburstfest anyhow with very little chance to survive unless you have more of your team around than the other guy.
Unless of course you’re a Paladin. Those guys you have to kill 3 times
I could go on and on about PvP, but I won’t here, because it would make a fantastic post!
Very good post, and I’d like to see more like it. Especially about how to PvP in battlegrounds (aside from follow the healer), where I inevitably find my CC broken by overzealous/overstupid allies, few places to LOS, and groups who don’t understand that when the Pally bubbles, it’s usually a good idea to switch your offensive endeavors to the Priest.
(Oh, and Mages/Shaman/Priests who refuse to spellsteal/dispel PWS/HoTs and so allow one well-geared Disc Priest or Resto whatever to last indefinitely. Don’t be that guy! I saw a Rogue/Disc team hold Mines for a full 90 sec against six or seven Alliance because nobody would coordinate CC or dispel.)
People who stand around waiting for a paladin’s bubble to end when there are other enemies within 40 yards is flat out hilarious.
Sad, but hilarious.
I actually went horde because of the situations you described. I dare you to pvp as alliance, in any bracket, on shattered hand. It is terrible. I seem to be the only one who knows how to play defensively, and help out my teammates. I’ve played support roles as a freaking fire Mage. I will cs a heal that is on the flag carrier, after 3 alliance are beating on the enemy carrier for half of the entire map. I will dragon’s breath a pet to let a healer get his heal off in time to save a dumb dps.
I don’t know why all the baddies decided to level up on ruin, but it was rediculous.
/endrant (first real rant I have ever done)
do you find these problems? Is it alliance only? Have the horde not owned wintergrasp for a full 8 hrs??
But, I rolled an Orc death knight on a different realm, and it is so great having competent teammates (I might actually consodr rolling a healer with the knowledge that my teamates will not screw me over.
-shiverr/tuliok, goodbye SH, you were alright.
Ok, posting on an iPhone has some disadvantages in terms of spelling… Heed is heal.
On my server, horde and alliance have equal offensive wins, but Horde has successfully defended several hundred times more than alliance has.
Horde sometimes has some very long defensive streaks… I think 14 hoursish is the longest I’ve seen.
Number of offensive wins will ALWAYS be equal for Alliance and Horde. Only the number of successful defences will differ.
It’s the same on Frostmourne, I feel sorry for the Alliance. Must be really hard for them to do VoA.
I wonder how good a metric the WG defenses is for relative PvP ability amongst the factions on a given server … it’s certainly the easiest to measure, but it’s also got the greatest number of confounding variables.
I wonder if anyone’s done some analysis on this …
I’m generally a defensive player as well. I’ve been known to be quite the ninja in terms of LOSing people. It’s especially fun to do to Mages when they pop their mirror images. Run behind a tower in AV, then hit up the actual mage with a DG and burst while keeping out of LOS of the images is fun.
As always great post. It is obvious that you have so much expirience.
Only one remark.
As a not native english speaker abreviations make it actually very hard to understand what is meant.
Hammer -> judge -> DS -> exorcism -> hammer of wrath -> dead warlock.
What exactly does this line mean. Keep in mind our WoW client has the name of the spells in our language.
Hammer: The stun?
Judge: Inflict the seal currently activated
DS: ?????
Exorcism: Damage Cast with casttime to opponents up to 20? yeards
Hammer of wrath: Instant with cooldown only applicable if target is lower than 25%.
What does this DS means.
DS is the swirly golden thing. AOE that hits 4 mobs around you and looks oh so awesome. You got the rest right
(and, if it’s any comfort, it’s just as hard for an English-playing speaker to roll on another language realm – I tried Spanish and it was a huge pain to communicate since I have no idea what everything is called)
I’ve sometimes had the opposite problem with Quebecois on my server. If they’re of limited English proficiency, I’ll try to switch to the French. Only problem is that English abbreviations and borrowings are so prevalent within the WoW community that sometimes my use of Frenchy abbreviations are not understood!
Against my mage… sure I could see paladins needing a gap closer… but against my hunter when sacred shield procs and I dispel that instead of hand of freedom >.<
Anyway I forgot about the arcane shatter spec how is that working out? Wouldn't think it would be as good as pure arcane or pure frost but idk.
I’m still convinced there’s gotta be a way to make a fire PvP build for BGs at least… Even if it is roughly six seconds to live.
Given the right support, Fire makes a very effective flag carrier and can harass healers much more effectively than other mage builds, thanks to the additional crowd control afforded by Blast Wave and Dragon’s Breath, and the occasional Blazing Speed procs.
Not so great for PuG’s, but if you can count on a healer to have your back and a DPS to give you a hand, it can be effective.
There are many things in this post which just floor me. I will only respond that I will never be good at PVP, and I don’t want to be.
These posts always inspire me. To do what, I’m not entirely certain, but they inspire me.
Probably to go get my face kicked in again as I remember that I don’t know enough about the other classes to effectively combat them.
@ Euripedes
I recently rolled a Elemental Shaman Twink (currently 16) and I’m very interested in learning more of the “Defensive Play” at much lower brackets.
Have you (or anyone else) had troubles playing defensivly at lower lvls because your class doesn’t have all of the tools yet to do so? I believe that Shamans can be extremely hearty in BGs at lower lvls, I just need to figure out how to truely squeeze all of the potential out of her.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated
You were able to kill a destro warlock outside of melee range just using spells….yeah, paladins aren’t OP at all.
Reading your articles reminds of why I love PVP and BGs. There’s a hell of a lot of strategy involved in doing well. Reminds me of the old Vurtne videos … undergeared player with skill and awareness of their environment > all.
The thing is… most people in BGs are generally “bad”. In order to do well against multiple enemies you have to know all the classes, their specs, and their cooldowns. Most players can’t afford that. Most players have only ever played one or two classes.
I’ve started playing other classes, and it’s helped me tremendously… but the investment to do this is huge.
However, on the flip side… things like line-of-sight, and playing defensively apply, even if you don’t know what that warlock or warrior around the corner is capable of.
I’ve been following your blog for over a year, and it’s refreshing to see your PVP posts. Please do more!
I love (and hate) reading your PvP posts. It always makes me want to roll one of these other classes to try out! And it makes me excited for PvP again, even though most of the time I’m so very bored of it.
I completely agree with knighterrant81, and so many others. Anyone who claims that ret pallies aren’t OP are just misguided fan-boys. I used to just think they were OP now I KNOW they are. I finally leveled a Ret Pally and, from level 11 on, have been completely face rolling 95% of the players I face. (even up to 6 levels above me)
Now that my pally is 80, in starter saronite pvp gear, I still put the hurting to so many players it’s just sad. The fact that the paladin is a 3 phase boss fight (you literally have to kill them 3 times) is completely ridiculous.
When I play my relentless/furious geared warrior (1850 rated as of Tuesday – woot) I have a hell of a time against ret paladins of any gear type. (unless I can catch them off guard or without any or most of their cool downs)
I know every class has a ‘counter class’ and the paladin (and mage) are the warriors major ‘counters’. A warlock is considered to be a major counter class to a paladin and you had no trouble dispensing of him in a few GCDs. Don’t state this and claim, in the same breath, that paladins aren’t OP and you just play them right. I wouldn’t go so far as to claim you have no skill (obviously you do) but when my friend’s girlfriend (who doesn’t even know what Judgement of Justice is) can beat me about 50% of the time in duels I know something is wrong.
Don’t go saying that I suck because my arena rating states otherwise…it’s just a simple FACT that warriors need support when facing paladins – give me a healer or dispeller against a paladin and I’ll show them a wicked 6k MS to face (ArP stacking ftw).
I think pallies are just too easy to play, which leads to all that OP talkings.
Yeah, they just need to stun once and then spam /castrandom on their abilities to faceroll. HoF soometimes. And oh, the wings for burn. Thats all.
While any other class need to do more stuff than just spam mutilate, frostbolt, chaosbolt or any other bolt.
And also it seems that any class lacks of some useful thingy, some classes more than others: shammies would love to have some kind of stun (except from that hilarious 2s from wolves), mages – not-for-frost defensive cds, hunters and rogues – ways to heal themselves, warriors – anti-kite, I’m sure druids, warlocks, priests and dks has its flaws, but I can’t imagine a thing that pally would want. Only another 5 minute CD that damages your enemy for 100% of your maxhp.
You make me want to come back to WoW PvP.
Oh wait.
I am back (I just haven’t blogged about it)
Fact: 99% of people in BG’s aren’t just completely ignorant about playing defensive, but they’re also completely undergeared and probably playing BG’s to grind honor to gear up. Ask these people if they enjoy PvP and a large percentage of them will likely say “No. I hate PvP, but I have no gear and Deadly Gear is better than no gear”