3v3: Warrior, Paladin, Shaman
Setup and Thoughts
There are a few ways to shuffle Warrior, Paladin, and Shaman spec-wise. The one that I’m going to talk about is the one I that I have the most experience with: Arms Warrior/Resto. Shaman/Holy Paladin. There are a few other successful combinations out there (some I’d definately love to try) such as:
- Ret. Paladin/Arms Warrior/Resto. Shaman
- Holy Paladin/Arms Warrior/Elemental Shaman
- Holy Paladin/Arms Warrior/Enhancement Shaman
Warrior, Shaman, Paladin and Warrior, Priest, Paladin are the only combinations I’ve ever run on Shinsoku. Most fights are usually drawn out as I’m the only real DPS in the whole team.
Strengths
+ Strong Healing - Two of the longest straight healers! Can’t go wrong with that … can I?
+ Offensive and Defensive Dispels - Cover all bases.
+ High Armor - Anti-Melee as each target sports more than 10k armor.
+ Plenty of options to slow the opposition down (Earthbind, Piercing Howl, Hamstrings, and Judgement of Justice)
+ Sustained and “infinite” DPS
Weaknesses
+ Shamans don’t have quite as many utilities as other healers.
+ Both Healers don’t really have strong spot-healing abilities.
+ Lack of Burst DPS
+ Snaring or CCs on the Warrior disables most of the DPS.
+ Very few CC options.
+ Very susceptible to Mana Burn teams.
Strategy
There isn’t anything incredibly dynamic about this team in terms of timing. The real key for Pal/Sham/War is positioning. My general rule of thumb is to never get too aggressive and to play as if you were tied at the waist with a rubber band to your team mate. If you go out of range and force them into a position where they can get CC’d, it’s going to be rough. If you play in such a way that they can constantly use Line of Sight to their advantage, then you can probably do well.
I’ve found that one strength of this team is against teams with high burst, but lacking in longevity. A good example would be RMP (Rogue, Mage, Priest). After surviving the initial burst, it’s not difficult to turn it around. Another strategy is to keep working on the class that commonly puts out either the highest CC or the highest burst. By spreading out the damage or limiting the CC, you can decrease their advantage over you.
And remember, it’s absolutely key to never let the foe drink. This is doom for your team (and probably any team that lets opponents full drink).
Conclusion
In Season 3, the art of Paladin, Warrior, Shaman isn’t what it used to be. With the rise of Druid+ Anything Teams, Pal/War/Sham are struggling even to match the healing output in the short run that druids can provide. That said, a good setup can punish and press most any team into playing defensively out of the gate.
Oh, and to the Warriors: Sunder is Everything. (But this is a topic all on its own)
-ERP-
February 3rd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
I can’t stop looking at the picture.
February 3rd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
The picture is well done XD
So, my warrior just hit 66 and moving fast through Nagrand. He’ll be 69 in no time and be ready to grind it out for his season 1 (or two permitting how long it takes / when season 4? comes) You’ve really influenced me to try an ER build. Heres the one I’m gonna try out, could you give me some advice on what to switch around or what I need to do with it? I’ve never been deep arms before :) (35+)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LV0xdAbogbdioVVzMZc
Also, where should that last point go once I ding 70? I was thinking of putting it in Commanding Presence, but I’m sure theres a better place.
February 3rd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Synii - Only you might be distracated by that …
Rob - I’m not even ER right now haha. I’m actually 35/23/3. I’m probably going to try 39/1/21 this upcoming week. The build you linked is almost exactly the one I had on Shinsoku. I’d put that last point into 3/3 Imp. Hamstring.
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Nice new layout with the blue and new pic :)
Yeah, I know, I was trying to look at your spec. I did wanna try it at least once, and from your success with it I figure it won’t be terrible, right?
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Heres a question : My warrior is 157 mining and 364 skinning — I hate the look of the season 1 mace but I want to be mace spec. Would it be worth it in the long run to level my mining enough and get blacksmithing to 375 so I can craft Thunder/Deep Thunder?
February 4th, 2008 at 11:44 am
With the introduction of purchasable Gladiator weapons, you might be better off just grinding out a week of honor and buying the Mace that way. The effort and costs involved just to get Deep Thunder don’t really get you anything better.
Though, you may want to consider getting BS just for WoTLK in the event that they introduce new Blacksmithing weapons that rock hard.
And to answer your other question - Yeah, 41+ points deep is a really great spec to have. For the slight trade-out in utility, you gain a strong foundation in Arms. Even without Endless Rage, the other talents: Max Imp. Hamstring, Max 2H mastery, Max OP, Max Imp. MS are all very worth the deep Arms build.
February 4th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Woot new layout! looks nice.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Imo you wouldn’t even wanna max BS for WotLK just because I’d wager there’ll be some new recipies released that will get you from 360-375 much more cost-effectively than the recipies that will do it now.
February 5th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Eli - Well, I do wonder how true that would be. The gap from 280-300 isn’t very cheap even right now because no recipe uses any Outland material. It’s still all old Azeroth stuff (which is insanely expensive now since everyone needs to get past that gap to get to 375).
February 5th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Yer still playing WoW… gawd.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
You may very well be right about that. I was just going off what I thought I recalled from lvling tailoring/alch/engy/ench.
February 7th, 2008 at 1:50 am
quick question about your mention on sunder — whats your normal amount of sunders during pvp? i usually throw 3 on plate, 2 on mail, one on leather, dont really worrry about cloth unless its a priest, then i just try to get damage off before the bubble
February 7th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Max sunder anything you can stay on. Sunder increases your % damage greater on cloth than plate so your logic on it is backwards.
February 7th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
oooh, i see. ill throw them in my rotation then :)
February 9th, 2008 at 11:42 am
I don’t usually bother putting 5 on priests unless I’ve been on them for a long time. I’ll usually open with 2 sunders at the start, and then after each MS round, I’ll try to put in another sunder.
On plate, time to live (TTL) is linear . So while the damage you deal isn’t going up linearly (with sunders), the TTL is reduced at the same rate as sundering a clothy. It’s a little hard to conceptualize, but there is math behind it.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Armor
http://www.wowwiki.com/images/4/4e/ArmorVsTimeToLive-LVL70.PNG