Retribution Paladins Poised To Make A Splash In 3v3, Avada's Shadowstep Rogue Team Beats Nihilum/Cherekee 3-0 In European 5v5 Finals

After two and a half seasons of healbotting, many of the top paladins are finally building a retribution set. Season 3 gear finally has resilience (no idea why the retribution set was the only set without resilience for two full seasons) and considering many of the top slots for a healing paladin involves PVE pieces, and the PPM nature of seal of command screams for a PVE weapon slower than 3.6. It is actually not that that difficult to build a retribution set compared to say, a discipline priest building a shadow set.

While it will probably take a while before retribution paladins see serious play in 2v2 and 5v5, a retribution paladin is already more than capable of hitting 1st spot playing double melee. Serennias/Xecks's warrior/rogue/druid combo started the double melee nightmare for every warlock out there, and they managed to hit the top spot in BG9 without much trouble before the lack of double AR and Xecks's gear started to catch up to them. Warrior, retribution paladin and druid is simply a more versatile double melee comp against non-warlock teams. A paladin's cleanse and freedom helps a warrior so much more. And as much as I hate to say it, a retribution paladin's on-demand burst is as good as any rogue spec not named mutilate (and very few warrior/rogue/druid teams run mutilate rogue due to the lack of mobility and defensive cooldowns). +30% damage on demand is ridiculous for a class already with high burst potential, and with a druid healing, a paladin can pop his wings with impunity in most situations.

Without double AR it is very hard to justify taking a rogue over a paladin for this comp, his synergy with warrior is so much better. Not to mention judgment of justice is simply a death sentence against druids. What makes this comp strong is the high margin for error. With rogue/mage/priest you often only have one or two chances to land that shatter combo off CC rotations. With three very durable classes that can play the burst game as well as the outlast one (paladin can do most of his DPS as long as he can keep rank 1 seal of command up for less than 100 mana, which also happens to be undispellable, and he gets significant mana back when healed), you have a very potent line-up that also has the element of surprise against most teams.

Mounsifjr/Nick are probably as good as it gets when it comes to a druid/paladin duo, and their bold attempt definitely paid off with a 81 and 14 record to first spot. A CWOW team also uses the same comp in what many consider to be one of the strongest BGs in China and they went from a 2000ish team to top spot with a record of 32-2. Yes, it does work, and not too many teams can counter it when played correctly. With most of the top players already having full set of their primary healing gear, I think we will see a very big splash of retribution paladins for season 3. Clicker, the paladin from Inactive's CAPSLOCKCREW is now also playing retribution with warrior, paladin and restoration shaman. With heroism and windfury a retribution paladin's damage is out of this world, and they have a record of 37-11 and rated at 2200 for a spot on BG9's top 10. Although druid is probably still the stronger comp against most teams.

What does this mean for rogues? Between warrior/rogue/druid and warrior/ret paladin/druid(shaman), you have two very hard counters for warrior/lock/druid and rogue/lock/druid(priest) teams and I expect melee/lock/healer to take a hit. Warrior/rogue/druid is not going to beat warrior/ret paladin/druid, just swap to shield and get through the two evasions then nuke the rogue, going on the druid can be very effective as well with judgment of justice. We are probably stuck with RMP as it is still the rogue team with least hard counters. Even the dreaded hunter/druid/X teams are beatable if your priest plays it like a three DPS team, use his smite and DOTs on the hunter. The number of warrior/lock/druid teams should go down with the increase in popularity of double melee teams which is a good thing for RMP.

2.4 patch notes next week, can't wait! Arena has been really slow and with all three of my teams on top 20, it is just impossible to make progress playing 3-5 point games especially with rogue/AP POM mage. I really wish they can add a tracking tool for arena queues that lets you see how many teams playing are within 100 points of your ratings. It will probably make arena quite a bit more active if top teams can consistently find equal rating teams.

European 5v5 Tournament Update:

Avada's shadowstep rogue, felguard lock. water elemental mage, discipline priest and restoration druid team beat Nihilum's drain team 3-0. Nihilum will face XOM (ZOM)'s Showtime in loser bracket finals and I doubt Showtime will allow them to swap in a druid again. Hopefully it will be a rogue vs rogue grand final! Three of the five highest rated teams in Europe's strongest battlegroup plays rogue 3DPS, and I expect this line-up to be imported by American teams as well. It is simply devastating against 2345 and 2346 teams, and does well enough against most hunter variations. My BG's top team is already playing this comp with a blistering record of 81-5.  Once my team get our priest back we will be back on top five as well, playing shaman/druid instead of priest/druid(or shaman) is too risky without defensive dispels and we dropped to 8th spot this week.

I have always been fond of European food and clothing as I find them to be classier and more tasteful than American counterparts, and I am glad European rogue heroes brought us back into high level 5v5 competition.

You can find match videos from rogue POV here:

http://www.sk-gaming.com/file/5981

With ESL (sponsor of the highest paying WOW tournament so far in Dreamhack) starting online leagues for European players, the future of WOW PVP looks very bright for Europeans. Can Americans respond or will BG9 fade away like most other American E-Sports?