I know this sounds like a troll post, coming from a ret paladin, but hear me out for a legit minute.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been grinding out 2v2 arenas with my closest friends, and we’ve all managed to push 1600 with our mains! Which is fantastic! The main problem comes with the fact that, while I’m comfortable with this and understanding I need to practice, my friends are… more ambitious than I. They very much want to collect the full mog set for the season, and their next step is 1800!
One thing I’ve noticed, however, is that our group includes:
1 Ret Paladin (me)
1 Fire Mage
1 MM/BM Hunter
1 Rogue
0 Healers.
The VAST majority of groups we fought, at around a 5:1 ratio, were healer/dps comps. None of us are comfortable with the level of competence required to be an exceptional PvP healer, so that leaves us to make somewhat bursty double-DPS comps. I’m fine with this, but… Even after upgrading our gear at 1600 to Challenger level, we seem to just hit a wall that pushed us aggressively back down to the 1500’s (and floating consistently up and down there).
We want to ‘earn’ our rating, and not get ‘carried’ by a service, but I’m definitely open to alternative suggestions. We seem to be consistently outlasted due to the control put upon us during our burst windows, and the offensive pressure even a healer can put out during the enemy’s offense. Is there an ideal composition in the above list that could help push higher ratings as double-DPS, or do we need to make friends with a healer (or roll and learn to play one ourselves)?
Unfortunately, what I’m reading off this alone is that I, the ret paladin at least, am S.O.L; since none of my friends’ classes/specs are considered popular!
However, this website is actually some pretty good stuff. Thank you very much for sharing, I can try to make use of this for the others, at least!
I appreciate the optimism. I guess it’s an L2P issue, which just means more practice.
Think Bramot can 2v1 up to 1800 as Ret. I only run double dps and have been like 2098. Get another hybrid and you’ll get it pretty easily. Can probably just run someone down with a Warrior/DK/Rogue.
Unfortunately it only shows you the 7 most populous comps which is only a small percentage of total comps. You could try putting other specs in though. For example, if you put in enhance shaman, ret pops up as once of its most popular pairings (along w/feral and ww - basically double hybrid melee comps).
Real talk though, anything can work together. It’s just a matter of if you’re willing to sit down and put th etime in and learn what to do vs what matchups. It’s all about practice and improvement, not about what the meta is (though the meta makes life 50x easier).
pickachu pala on EU plays a lot of double DPS as ret.
I think Hunter/Mage/Rogue can all work, and not “work” in the way people just spit out anything can work to 1800
but as in with decent play and not exceptional play those all work.
A lot of the weight is going to be on you as the ret to sustain your team tho and it takes some really airtight coordination on setups and resets compared to Arms/Assasination/BM + their healers just running at you.
Rsham healers are also going to just do 100k free damage to the 2 of you too
At this moment he’s streaming ret/rsham but here’s a vod of him running WW/Ret
If you’re an outlaw rogue and an arms warrior trying to hit 1800 into stuff like BM/Earthquake/thorns + a druid in argentina saying don’t need sustain is kinda wild to me but not gonna argue
Saying he has an ability and to press it is literally the definition of knowing your limits.
It doesn’t change the fact that you should avoid taking damage randomly if you can. That’s like raiding and saying you’ll stand in the fire to get 1 more global off and dying. Gratz, you got that one TV off, but you died and your raid has to reset the fight because of it.
It’s a matter of understanding your spec, comp, enemy spec & enemy comp then using that knowledge to not take stupid trades.