06-27-2005, 02:47 PM
I think you may be underestimating the possibilities that are open to you simply because of your long survival time
If you assess the relative combat capabilities and decide you can't win in a slogging match you can
- kite a warrior into a huge sea of mobs, then bubble and hope some of them eat him before they eat you
- run to an alliance town
- call for help in chat and kite the warriors into friendly players
- kite the players along the road and hope you meet someone
- use engineering or potions to gain a movement advantage (swiftness potion, net-o-matic, rocket boots)
- lastly, a speculative one, what happens if you jump off a cliff and bubble as you fall? does it prevent falling damage?
I would say that the strength of a paladin in pvp, especially a protection-specced one is that you are at the bottom of every opponent's targetting priorities. This is a huge tactical advantage. Logically to gain your advantage you must introduce other alliance players into the fight. Once there are other alliance players involved then you will get the other team advantages discussed in the ctf thread, basically that if they target you it's an exercise in frustration and if they target your ally you heal him/her
With regard to the bubble I think that one of it's biggest effects is psychological. It's demoralising to almost kill a pally and see the bubble and a heal (or bandage, since most fights are about attrition it's very good if you can use a bandage rather than a mana based heal)
The weakness of the bubble is that it can't cope with sustained pressure. In ctf matches 5 minutes is a pretty long time so if the horde victimises a paladin methodically they will usually catch him with his bubble on cooldown. Of course this almost never happens since most Horde are so frag-oriented and always seek the easiest path to the contribution points. But at least in theory, a good team can persistently catch the paladin without 3 of his big tricks simply because they have long cooldowns (Blessing of Protection, Divine Shield and that spell that heals anyone to full once per hour for whatever mana you have left)
Strategically I think the gameplan of a pvp paladin should be to enhance the reputation for being unkillable. Never give the opponent an easy kill, and certainly don't just stand there and let him win by patience. From the perspective of a mainly horde player and an active pvper I would always accept a guaranteed but slow kill and I think 99% of pvpers would do likewise
I have lost to paladins with my hunter (who is generally a very successful pvper). Where I've lost it's been part sloppiness but also partly down to good movement. I tend to think that if my pet takes damage it's time to stop and shoot and one excellent paladin player caught me out that way by hitting the pet then running in to whack me up (I took some damage while getting a Wing Clip on him, which was necessary because I cant use aspect of the cheetah to outrun someone who's hitting me because of the daze effect). He clinched it with Hammer of Justice. I was very impressed with how he anticipated hitting the pet would make me stop and consequently ran up to me fast enough that I decided to Wing Clip before running
I see great potential for paladins in pvp
- never give anyone an easy frag. They'll remember you and come for you again
- be ambitious. Getting him killed and you killed is a lot better than letting him kill you. Paying a few silver for repairs is trivial compared to letting pvpers victimise you on a pvp server
- enjoy it. It's simply more fun trying to win than just turning passive and thinking "woe is me, I'm doomed"
- you're a herd animal, your best pvp tactic is to lure someone into your herd. If you're alone find company or simply run along the road in the direction of the nearest alliance base
- horde players waver between contempt and frustration where paladins are concerned. You work much better against discouraged opposition so never give people an easy win and always strive for maximum frustration. The two qualities are yin and yang - the more frustrated they are the worse they will play against you and the more cheap wins you give away the more they will attack, the more they will catch you with abilities on cooldown and the more they will think pallies are easy cp
- engineering is huge for a pally. No other class gets such advantage from a profession. If you don't have it you need to think hard about dropping your current skills and taking it up. If you do have it re-read the list of products, there are many many ways to offset your class's weaknesses
- gain cp's by striking at advantage. In a typical busy raid a priest will spend 50% of the time dead and not getting cps where you should almost never die. So it's very important to teach the opposition by example that you're too dificult a target to bother with. The more intimidated they are the less often they'll go for you which means the more often your special butt-saving tricks will be off cooldown when they do try and kill you, which in turn will enhance your seeming invulnerability. You're probably best doing a lot of hitting when the horde are focus firing someone else if your goal is simply to maximise your own cps. Bear in mind though that what you're hitting needs to go down or you won't get points. Healing will get you some cps but anecdotally it seems to be less effective than killing. Dispel doesn't seem to get you any cps at all. If you care less about cps and more about your team winning then the order is probably reversed: 1. dispel 2 healing 3 hitting. This analysis, if correct, indicates a 2hander for when you want to focus on cps and a shield for when you want to focus on team success
(*all theorycraft, my pally's only 20)
If you assess the relative combat capabilities and decide you can't win in a slogging match you can
- kite a warrior into a huge sea of mobs, then bubble and hope some of them eat him before they eat you
- run to an alliance town
- call for help in chat and kite the warriors into friendly players
- kite the players along the road and hope you meet someone
- use engineering or potions to gain a movement advantage (swiftness potion, net-o-matic, rocket boots)
- lastly, a speculative one, what happens if you jump off a cliff and bubble as you fall? does it prevent falling damage?
I would say that the strength of a paladin in pvp, especially a protection-specced one is that you are at the bottom of every opponent's targetting priorities. This is a huge tactical advantage. Logically to gain your advantage you must introduce other alliance players into the fight. Once there are other alliance players involved then you will get the other team advantages discussed in the ctf thread, basically that if they target you it's an exercise in frustration and if they target your ally you heal him/her
With regard to the bubble I think that one of it's biggest effects is psychological. It's demoralising to almost kill a pally and see the bubble and a heal (or bandage, since most fights are about attrition it's very good if you can use a bandage rather than a mana based heal)
The weakness of the bubble is that it can't cope with sustained pressure. In ctf matches 5 minutes is a pretty long time so if the horde victimises a paladin methodically they will usually catch him with his bubble on cooldown. Of course this almost never happens since most Horde are so frag-oriented and always seek the easiest path to the contribution points. But at least in theory, a good team can persistently catch the paladin without 3 of his big tricks simply because they have long cooldowns (Blessing of Protection, Divine Shield and that spell that heals anyone to full once per hour for whatever mana you have left)
Strategically I think the gameplan of a pvp paladin should be to enhance the reputation for being unkillable. Never give the opponent an easy kill, and certainly don't just stand there and let him win by patience. From the perspective of a mainly horde player and an active pvper I would always accept a guaranteed but slow kill and I think 99% of pvpers would do likewise
I have lost to paladins with my hunter (who is generally a very successful pvper). Where I've lost it's been part sloppiness but also partly down to good movement. I tend to think that if my pet takes damage it's time to stop and shoot and one excellent paladin player caught me out that way by hitting the pet then running in to whack me up (I took some damage while getting a Wing Clip on him, which was necessary because I cant use aspect of the cheetah to outrun someone who's hitting me because of the daze effect). He clinched it with Hammer of Justice. I was very impressed with how he anticipated hitting the pet would make me stop and consequently ran up to me fast enough that I decided to Wing Clip before running
I see great potential for paladins in pvp
- never give anyone an easy frag. They'll remember you and come for you again
- be ambitious. Getting him killed and you killed is a lot better than letting him kill you. Paying a few silver for repairs is trivial compared to letting pvpers victimise you on a pvp server
- enjoy it. It's simply more fun trying to win than just turning passive and thinking "woe is me, I'm doomed"
- you're a herd animal, your best pvp tactic is to lure someone into your herd. If you're alone find company or simply run along the road in the direction of the nearest alliance base
- horde players waver between contempt and frustration where paladins are concerned. You work much better against discouraged opposition so never give people an easy win and always strive for maximum frustration. The two qualities are yin and yang - the more frustrated they are the worse they will play against you and the more cheap wins you give away the more they will attack, the more they will catch you with abilities on cooldown and the more they will think pallies are easy cp
- engineering is huge for a pally. No other class gets such advantage from a profession. If you don't have it you need to think hard about dropping your current skills and taking it up. If you do have it re-read the list of products, there are many many ways to offset your class's weaknesses
- gain cp's by striking at advantage. In a typical busy raid a priest will spend 50% of the time dead and not getting cps where you should almost never die. So it's very important to teach the opposition by example that you're too dificult a target to bother with. The more intimidated they are the less often they'll go for you which means the more often your special butt-saving tricks will be off cooldown when they do try and kill you, which in turn will enhance your seeming invulnerability. You're probably best doing a lot of hitting when the horde are focus firing someone else if your goal is simply to maximise your own cps. Bear in mind though that what you're hitting needs to go down or you won't get points. Healing will get you some cps but anecdotally it seems to be less effective than killing. Dispel doesn't seem to get you any cps at all. If you care less about cps and more about your team winning then the order is probably reversed: 1. dispel 2 healing 3 hitting. This analysis, if correct, indicates a 2hander for when you want to focus on cps and a shield for when you want to focus on team success
(*all theorycraft, my pally's only 20)