Paladin PvP Guide - Holy Paladins

Welcome to read the first part of “Paladin pvp guide”. We’ll start with abilities and spells and cover additional topics with each part in this series.

Aura Swapping

Most of the paladins I’ve played against typically do not swap auras in different situations, even if it might help them a lot of. With Aura swapping you are actually changing those auras in constantly throughout the match. It is extremely important to swap these auras though. Using different auras allows you to get a huge advantage throughout the duration of the match and the better you get with using each situational buff the better off you’ll be.

Frost resistance aura - 70 frost resistance. Use it against any team where the primary source of damage is a frost mage.

Shadow resistance aura - 70 shadow resistance. Use against priest and warlock teams. This can really be a clutch buff, because one or two extra fear resists throughout a long duration match could very easily tip the tide in your favor.

Devotion aura -Devotion aura can be another very beneficial buff when used under the right circumstance. Generally speaking this aura is ideal on any team where melee damage is the primary damage output.

Blessings and seals

<Blessing of Sacrifice>
Really useful and important ability that people should use MUCH more. When to use it? I suggest to use it always against warlock teams, reducing so much of damage income to warrior. It’s really effective against rogue teams with the same reason, but they also can’t blind you, sap you or gouge you. You should always try to keep it up on your warrior against rogue and mage teams, that way you cannot be crowd controled nearly as effectivly.

Tip: You can sacrifice warlock’s pet instead of the warlock himself, that way you can keep both sacrifice and blessing of freedom up.

Tip: Keep the blessing of sacrifice up on your friend, that way you can’t get sapped, sheeped, blinded for too long.

<Blessing of Freedom>
The “Ultimate Kite” ability. This is one of the abilities that make the paladin class viable in arena. Excellent ability for pillar kiting, if you have your movement speed enchant or gem and your enemy doesn’t it’s pretty much impossible for them to catch you.

<Blessing of Protection>
Personally, this is one of my favorite paladin abilities, it’s simply dominating against melee teams. When using it with Divine shield and blessing of freedom rotating against rogue teams for example, there is really small change you could actually get killed. Blessing of protection only has 3 minutes cool down, so you’re able to BoP yourself, Divine shield after that if needed, and BoP again nearly asap after Forbearance has gone off.

Tip: Blessing of protection removes blind. If someone is about to die on the opposing team for example, and your friend gets blinded and can’t get out by himself, this is good thing to know.

<Seal of Justice and Judgement of Justice>

Judgment of justice basically kills resto druids, especially in 2s / 3s.

Unleashing this Seal’s energy will judge an enemy for 20 sec, preventing them from fleeing and limiting their movement speed.

That means that your opponent can’t run with more than 100% speed. Druids in travel form run just as fast they would run without it, or mutilate rogue who uses movement speed on talents can’t run faster than 100%. Even if the rogue uses his sprint (If it’s not improved sprint), he won’t run faster than he’d run without it. But you also need to remember that there are minor stuff that improves movement speed as well, and removing that from someone while you have it by yourself, might be dramatically.

Tip: Most of the people don’t know it’s also useful as seal. Seal of justice, has a change to stun your target on melee hit. When would you need really short stun? Interrupting warlocks or hunters while they’re recasting pet and while your partner is being cycloned and your hammer of justice is on cool down.

<Seal of Wisdom and Judgment of Wisdom>

The only use I find for seal of wisdom in arena is in heal fights against certain classes. Because it doesn’t really last that long to get benefits from it, I’d only use it in few situations. For example, if you’re playing 2v2 against healer + hunter team, judging it on pet and sealing yourself with it could save a lot of mana from you.

However, lately I’ve started to play really offensively against hunter + healer teams, so I judge seal of command on the pet every time it gets off from cooldown. (I’m currently playing with 47 / 0 / 14 holy spec with a warlock).
Other abilities

<Exorcism>

Mana cost 340, it’s a lot compared to damage it does, but sometimes you just got to go offensive and this spell is ideal for killing warlock pets. Together with Holy shock, judgment of righteous / judgment of command and hammer of wrath, it’s a lot of nuke damage. Using this technique is ideal for bombing pets, though you’ll want to make sure you pull them out of line of sight so it cannot be healed as easily.

You lose a lot of mana dropping the damage, but you’re able to drink after that so you may have to take the risk. Don’t start nuking the pet by yourself before it’s already pretty low and you’re away from opposite teams healer. If you start nuking it you’ll end up losing mana while opposite healer just heals it to full with mana cost of 300.

<Holy shock>

Your only instant healing spell, use it wisely. You can use it either offensively or defensively. If you’re playing against double dps team in 2v2 this is a spell you should have on cooldown all the time. Granted it is quite mana costly, but sometimes it’s the only way to get caught up on heals.

<Consecration>

Great way to detect stealth classes using Rank 1 and randomly casting it while mounted or even without.  It’s also a great way to kill snakes from hunter’s viper / snake trap (Correct me if the name is wrong). Don’t use highest rank when you use it, use rank 1 or few ranks higher.

WotLK Hunter Pet Changes

Good news for all you hunters out there. The guys over at Manias Arcania discovered a host a undocumented hunter pet changes appearing the most recent patch update. Check out the new hunter pet stuff below.

• Exotic pets do not seem to be implemented yet.
• The talent points were all refunded but the pets were not.
• The pet talent trees now have an obnoxious background.
• The bug with the tooltips that said they required too many talent points has been fixed.
• And there are a bunch of pet talent changes, although most are pretty small. Let’s list those by tree …

Shared Pet Talents

• Dash/Dive now says it works for 16 seconds and has a 32 second cooldown.

Cunning

• Mobility now reduces the cooldown of Dash/Dive by 8 seconds per rank, which means that you can bring the cooldown down to 16 seconds — exactly the length of the effect.
• Wolverine Bite now says it does 330 damage instead of 5 damage.
• Owl’s Focus has a greater chance of a free special ability: it’s now 15%/30% instead of 5%/10%.

Ferocity

• Loyalty has been renamed Bloodthirsty (and has a new icon). It now increases happiness by 5% when it triggers instead of 10%. (Health is unchanged at 5%.)

Tenacity

• The Stamina boost of Blood of the Rhino has been increased slightly (to 2%/4% instead of 1%/2%).
• Improved Growl has been renamed Guard Dog and now generates 10% happiness in addition to 10%/20% additional threat when your pet Growls. This gives the Tenacity tree a way to regen happiness without food.
• Roar of Fortitude has been replaced by Roar of Sacrifice: Your pet absorbs damage from the friendly target up to a maximum of 50% of the pet’s total health. Lasts 12 sec. (60 Focus, Instant, 40 yd range, 3 sec cooldown)

Pet skills changes
Boar - Gore

• Was: Gores the enemy, causing damage. This attack has a 50% change to inflict double damage, or triple damage if used during a Dash.
• Now: Your boar gores the enemy for damage. Causes double damage if used during a Dash.

Cat - Prowl

• Was: 40 Focus
• Now: No focus cost

Crab - Pin

• Was: Pins the target in place, and squeezes for damage over 6 sec. (20 sec cooldown)
• Now: Pins the target in place, and squeezes for damage over 4 sec. (1 min cooldown)

Crocolisk - Bad Attitude

• Was: Snap back for damage at any target that strikes you for the next 2 min.
• Now: Snap back for damage at any target that strikes you for the next 45 sec.

Nether Ray - Nether Shock

• Was: Instantly lashes an enemy for Shadow damage. Also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 1 sec. (30 sec cooldown)
• Now: Instantly lashes an enemy for 35 to 47 Shadow damage. Also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 2 sec. (1 min cooldown)

Tallstrider - Dust Cloud

• Was: Kick up an obscuring cloud of dust, lowering the chance for enemies to hit by 30%. Effects last 8 sec. (20 sec cooldown)
• Now: Your tallstrider kicks up an obscuring cloud of dust, causing all enemies within 10 yards to miss their next attack. Lasts for 8 sec. (40 sec cooldown)

Warp Stalker - Warp

• Was: 25 Focus
• Now: No focus cost

Wind Serpent - Lightning Breath

• Was: No cooldown
• Now: 10 sec cooldown

All Pets - Growl

• Was: Taunt the target, increasing the likelyhood the creature will focus attacks on you.
• Now: Your pet growls at the target, generating threat and increasing the likelihood the target will attack it.