Strategies
Mage/Ret Paladin
Author
  | Kaag Alterac Mountains US-Nightfall |
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Top Builds View All
General Information
This is a very frustrating team composition. It will probably make you want to quit the game while playing. However, it is the strongest combo that a Retribution Paladin will be able to play, so if you like to 2v2, give it a go.
Strengths: For a 2 DPS team, Retribution Pally/Mage is very defensive. This gives the team an advantage against most other double DPS teams. Do not forget that your strength is your survivability. You also have very good CC as a team, and excellent burst. The Mage should always be on top of CC. Using a snare on enemy melee can be the difference between winning and losing. Most Warrior teams will be easy to beat with this combo.
Weaknesses: You rely heavily on good timing and coordination to kill Druids. One poorly timed stun(or a well timed stun with an excellent counter) will lose you the game in most situations. Without good CC, Warlocks can rip through your team. Druid/Warlock is going to be the hardest fight and generally you can not win under any circumstances.
A note on killing Druids: Druids can be a challenging opponent for Mage/Ret, but with proper coordination, this task can be efficiently and reliably done. Here is how this team can kill Druids. CC the other player, if it is a Warlock stack a few Winter's Chill debuffs to avoid an instant Devour. Use Freeze/Nova at times where it will hit the Druid and his partner. The Mage needs to find a way to Shatter the Druid during a stun, which is why the 2nd must be sheeped. Keep Justice on the Druid(DO NOT JUDGE DURING THE FIRST STUN) and instantly reapply after trinket. IF you get a good Shatter, the Druid will be forced to trinket the first stun. The second stun is where Mage/Ret finishes the Druid, and should be followed by a Counterspell to prevent any Druid heals. Both stuns must hit, the first must be trinketed, and the second must include a Shatter. Pray for no resists.
Strengths: For a 2 DPS team, Retribution Pally/Mage is very defensive. This gives the team an advantage against most other double DPS teams. Do not forget that your strength is your survivability. You also have very good CC as a team, and excellent burst. The Mage should always be on top of CC. Using a snare on enemy melee can be the difference between winning and losing. Most Warrior teams will be easy to beat with this combo.
Weaknesses: You rely heavily on good timing and coordination to kill Druids. One poorly timed stun(or a well timed stun with an excellent counter) will lose you the game in most situations. Without good CC, Warlocks can rip through your team. Druid/Warlock is going to be the hardest fight and generally you can not win under any circumstances.
A note on killing Druids: Druids can be a challenging opponent for Mage/Ret, but with proper coordination, this task can be efficiently and reliably done. Here is how this team can kill Druids. CC the other player, if it is a Warlock stack a few Winter's Chill debuffs to avoid an instant Devour. Use Freeze/Nova at times where it will hit the Druid and his partner. The Mage needs to find a way to Shatter the Druid during a stun, which is why the 2nd must be sheeped. Keep Justice on the Druid(DO NOT JUDGE DURING THE FIRST STUN) and instantly reapply after trinket. IF you get a good Shatter, the Druid will be forced to trinket the first stun. The second stun is where Mage/Ret finishes the Druid, and should be followed by a Counterspell to prevent any Druid heals. Both stuns must hit, the first must be trinketed, and the second must include a Shatter. Pray for no resists.
Builds
Mage
17/0/44
The Mage MUST be Deep Frost. The defensive utility from Frost is very important to the team. Improved Counter Spell is a vital part of this team, because it prevents a Druid from using Nature's Swiftness on the second stun and buys your team another 3 seconds.
The Mage MUST be Deep Frost. The defensive utility from Frost is very important to the team. Improved Counter Spell is a vital part of this team, because it prevents a Druid from using Nature's Swiftness on the second stun and buys your team another 3 seconds.
Paladin
0/20/41
Since the changes to the Retribution set, there is basically no purpose in speccing to heal at all. Just get the faster stun Cool Down and use it often.
Since the changes to the Retribution set, there is basically no purpose in speccing to heal at all. Just get the faster stun Cool Down and use it often.
Matchups
Comments: | |
|---|---|
 Clown | Feb 8, 2008 - 6:49 PM (HideShow) |
| shhh! your giving away all our secrets | |
| Ryushi | Apr 6, 2008 - 3:33 AM (HideShow) |
| Improved retribution aura? Typo? | |
  Akagar | Apr 6, 2008 - 9:47 PM (HideShow) |
| I hope that's a typo. | |
 Gornall | Apr 8, 2008 - 5:46 PM (HideShow) |
| Thanks for the guide. A friend and I are giving it a try? Any general tips on taking down locks? | |
| Chrodaegis | Apr 12, 2008 - 8:34 PM (HideShow) |
| 5/14/42 ftw | |
| Chrodaegis | Apr 12, 2008 - 8:38 PM (HideShow) |
| Ret Paladin / Rogue is also a decent combo if you both are geared and know what your doing. Burn either the healer or dps(CC the other via blind, repentence, HoJ) and switch to 1h/shield to heal the rogue to finish it off...seems to work pretty well. Every now and then BoP to save the rogue from getting pounded by a melee class so they can bandage up. And always keep up BoF either on you or your partner. Being ret doesnt mean you have to always dps, know when to back off throw up your 1h/shield and heal. It could mean the difference between a win and a loss. | |
 Skwissgaar | Apr 14, 2008 - 2:32 PM (HideShow) |
| what do you guys think about 20/0/41? http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sExhMZZxfcth0uiIoz those are the talents i was thinking on using | |
| Skwissgaar | Apr 14, 2008 - 2:35 PM (HideShow) |
| http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sExhMZZxfcthchVIoz was another one i was thinking on using, if im being a retard dont hesitate to tell me so. | |
| Chroz | Apr 16, 2008 - 5:36 AM (HideShow) |
| http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sExhMZZxfcthchVIoz imo is the best spec for Ret...of course there are different variations but this is the basic build | |
| Faste | Apr 27, 2008 - 5:06 PM (HideShow) |
| how do you beat druid rogue? | |
| Goldhand | May 15, 2008 - 7:58 AM (HideShow) |
| lol...only good spec for retribution paladin is 0/20/41, all other specs are crap, druid isnt hard to beat at all but warlocks are fucking insane, rogues 2. Im going to give it a try, but I think that ret paladin would do better with BM hunter. | |
  RemyuL | May 17, 2008 - 3:41 PM (HideShow) |
| lol | |
 Saudade | May 31, 2008 - 8:32 PM (HideShow) |
| yeah its rly hard against druid/lock bcs there is no ms. Most of the games we have only one chance to nuke the druid during stun and cs...Against rogue, we most try to get a way to sheep rogue like stun him and sheep, than we try to bossfight the druid ;) | |
 Abillitez | Jun 7, 2008 - 5:18 AM (HideShow) |
| seems to work better on my mage with POM Pyro and slow we blow stuff up faster with the pom pyro and the match dont last long. the hardest thing for us is going against 2x SL/SL Locks and Rogue SL/SL lock | |
| Kaag | Jun 21, 2008 - 2:22 PM (HideShow) |
| imp sanctity aura. this guide is quite outdated now, since it was made in S2 before resilience and before any of the recent changes | |
| Kaag | Jun 21, 2008 - 2:22 PM (HideShow) |
| working on getting it fixed | |
 Orcslayermac | Jun 24, 2008 - 5:09 PM (HideShow) |
| I had a 2's with a Retadin a few months ago and the the warrior+druid comp was the #1 easiest for us to take out over the span of a good 100 games. The only teams we ever had troubles with were Priest+lock, teams with Shamans, and all the obscure match ups. Rogue+Mage is mean too. | |
| Kaag | Jun 26, 2008 - 9:52 PM (HideShow) |
| Special thanks to my BFF mage Ddahc | |
| Opto | Jun 26, 2008 - 10:13 PM (HideShow) |
| getting glad with kaag in 2's was a huge challenge...in the beginning we were sloppy and found that we didn't time things correctly... playing together a lot and learning how to play the comp and time things properly didn't come easy but i believe we have the hand of it now. if anyone has any questions i'm open for em. =] | |
| Quantity | Jun 28, 2008 - 2:34 AM (HideShow) |
| you aren't good, nobody cares, grats you made glad in the easiest bracket in the game no one cares. | |
| Yurkora | Jun 28, 2008 - 8:49 PM (HideShow) |
| Appreciate the update, helped me vs. some teams. Tbh when I ran it, I had a good amount of success as a 5/14/41 and 9/11/41 setups, but guess i did't give the normal ret spec a chance. | |
| Kaag | Jun 29, 2008 - 12:37 AM (HideShow) |
| "grats you made glad in the easiest bracket in the game [using the 2 least represented classes in the bracket. PS i play warrior druid]" yurkora- all of them are functional, but the faster stun cd is useful | |
 Marliben | Jun 30, 2008 - 11:35 PM (HideShow) |
| Quantity is full of it. Runs most popular combo and he thinks he can talk. | |
 Fisker | Jul 2, 2008 - 10:55 PM (HideShow) |
| I think you mean to say; Runs most popular -Combo's-, plural, don't forget it. :) | |
| Kirbyrules | Jul 4, 2008 - 8:34 PM (HideShow) |
| lol | |
| Tupatupa | Jul 6, 2008 - 3:13 PM (HideShow) |
| what about pom pyro mage with ret pally!!!???? | |
| Opto | Jul 8, 2008 - 4:30 PM (HideShow) |
| Quantity, I made glad in 2's and 3's my 3's and 5's was 2nd place earlier in the season but no one played so we got bored and remade, my priest didn't play the last 2 weeks of the season otherwise i would been in the top 5, i could beat you naked =].. btw you getting glad in 2's with a druid and in 3's as a double healer? grats i think thats scorned upon more than anything...well besides warlock druid =X. | |
 Zephfia | Jul 16, 2008 - 10:16 PM (HideShow) |
| is there a reason that no one is speccing "divine purpose" in the Ret tree? it seems like 10% less damage caused by crit strikes would be nice to have. I'm also noticing that people are split between improved devotion aura and redoubt... pros and cons of each? | |
| Yurkora | Jul 17, 2008 - 3:56 AM (HideShow) |
| Divine purpose is useless because it does not allow you anything you do not get from gear. It does not let you pass the resil cap, it's pointless to throw three points in it when you get what you need from pvp gear. I took redoubt because I often switch to sword and board for rogues, and its nice for offtanking. Devo aura is good, but i didnt take the talent as i almost always use a resist aura or sanctity aura over dev. They're just filler points, really. | |
| Jubilant | Jul 17, 2008 - 4:13 PM (HideShow) |
| I just started trying this out and still got a lot to learn. How exactly do we beat rogue/priest teams or any other disc priest/dps? I'm not to sure about the CC rotation that needs to be done on the priest. Assuming he wasnt able to SW death the first poly, he will trinket (and casts mending etc on rogue or hunter). Second poly will be on DR (dunno 4 seconds). I think repentance shares DR with poly so its quite short if i use it on priest. If even theres a second that the priest gets out of CC, he will pain supression the dps and were left with almost no cooldowns and lose. help! | |
| Tsak | Jul 19, 2008 - 12:23 PM (HideShow) |
| Jubilant; Start by attacking the priests dps'er. Only start CC on the priest when you know it will lead to a good kill attempt. You will have to deal with pain suppression and all the preists instant heals(which, imo, is easily handled by mage/ret dps). Eventually the preist will have to cast a heal, thats when you CS it and finish off the dps'er. If it looks like you will not kill his partner, attempt a poly on priest. But have the mage fake the first cast as the priest will probably Counter-word:POLYMORPH it. I tend to prevent my paladin partner from repenting the priest as this will put polymorph on DR. And I like using repentance on his parter to get some distance + a good frostbolt or two. Usually the dps'er will be debuffed with a 5 stack of winters-chill + CoC and possibly ice-armor debuff. These debuffs will make it hard for the preist to dispel the repentance. | |
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