2v2 Resto Drood & Ret Pally

General Information
Intro
I have been playing this comp since the first days of Season 5, almost touching 2400 with a positive win-loss ratio against every team we've met before the patch 3.0.8. At the time of writing, we're 2521 rated with a 81% winratio.

It is worth noting that even though Ret Paladins are perceived as kings of burst by many, this is a very defensive setup and in our games we focus on survival and outlasting while waiting for opportunities to set up CC chains and get kills.

It's also worth saying that while a good Paladin here will make worlds of difference vs competent opponents, at lower ratings a skilled Druid can really carry the team - I started playing my Paladin in PvP as a WLK reroller with very little experience (and I must admit I still do some retarded mistakes every so often :P). In many situations you have a good margin for error where you can recover and turn the game around.

Addons, Macros
Being an addon junkie myself, I can't help but recommend some as well. As a Paladin, you've got a plethora of tools to assist your partner, and you will have to utilize them all to succeed; so keeping good track of what the enemies are doing and countering it swiftly is paramount.

I highly suggest using SCT (or a similiar addon) with custom warnings for buffs / debuffs on both friendly and hostile targets. Having big red letters, "SILENCE ON X" "Y USED RECKLESSNESS" is really a lot more helpful than straining your eyes staring through buff lists on your target frames. Apart from that, some sort of a cooldown tracker both for your partner and your opponents is very useful. Knowing at a glance when the next strangulate can come, when their trinkets are back up, or when your Druid's innervate is ready is much more efficient than keeping track of that in memory or chatting about it on ventrilo or something.

I also suggest macroing every support ability to cast it on your partner and hotbinding them all; /cast [target=name] hand of protection, /cast [target=name] cleanse, etc. The split second saved by using a single hotkey over some sort of a click to cast or a mouseover macro can save you the game, considering the damage output in WLK.

General tips:
Coordinate your positioning, CC, and cooldowns! This is true for any arena team, but especially so for this setup - both of you are very helpless on your own. Your druid needs to know when you may be stunning your target, as well as when you might be going to bubble or when your repentance is up for a CC train.

As the Paladin, you're probably going to use Seal of Martyr / Blood in this setup alot, that combined with DP should keep your mana up indefinitely. If you're ever going OOM, you're probably wasting mana on unneccessary things.

Hand of Reckoning is amazing, learn to love it. You can get in combat to avoid saps, keep rogues from restealthing and healers from drinking, eat totems, there's all sorts of things you can do with it, so be creative and put it on a handy bind if you haven't yet.

Be ready to assist with cleanses, heals, and blessings as required - there's no reason for your druid to waste trinket on a blind if you can safely spend BoP on it, and so on. Make sure you're aware of your Druid's mana state - you can keep yourself up for a good while through JoL / AoW / SS - so use that if your partner needs to drink.

If you are able to get some tet-a-tet time with a healer, you can very reliably force trinket or get a kill by HoJ'ing them, going through judge > cs > ds, then dropping a repentance on top of the HoJ and finishing with another Judge + HoW when it's about to go off. This is pretty much guaranteed to kill a Shaman, an unshielded Priest, or a Druid who doesn't have full hots up; just make sure your Druid is keeping their partner busy as most classes have a way of getting you off their buddy.

vs most classes, judging Wisdom is the best choice, but do have Light handy for when your partner needs some help on healing. Justice should be the judgement of choice against Hunters, Ferals, and Rogues, but it is also situationally useful against other classes as well - it negates stuff like rocket boots, runspeed talents / metas etc, so be smart about it. That nasty Priest is going to rage a lot when he blows his rocket boots to fear your Druid but finds himself moving at normal speed.

For the Druid, you'll probably spend majority of time healing rather than CC'ing like you did in tBC, but be ready to go aggressive on CC at the right opportunity. NS'ing a cyclone can win you the game, don't forget about bear bash and roots either - just make sure you don't overextend yourself, as you're extremelly vulnerable in caster form. Also, remember that your Paladin may be using repentance as a part of their DPS cycle - cycloning a low health target when your partner is about to judge them can cost you the kill.

Be aware of your partner's LoS if they're away while you're being targetted, especially if you're in danger. Your partner have lots of ways to relieve pressure from you, but none of it will work if there's a wall in between of you.

Against Holy Paladins specced into Divine Purpose, using roots / bear bash aggressively is a good idea. Every BoF used on something else than your partner's HoJ is a point in your favor.


If you have any further questions / comments on this guide, please ask either in game, this thread, or the forum PMs. I'm always happy to assist and I'll try to keep this up to date as any changes come along or we come upon new matchups / tactics.

Matchup difficulty is rated 1-5, 1 being easy, 2 means you're at an advantage, 3 is an even matchup, you get cookies if you guess what 4 is, and 5 being a hard counter.

Thanks for reading, and as said before, I will do my best to keep this up to date and accurate as patches come and things change. Should you have any suggestions or questions, or want some tips on comps not listed above, don't hesitate to ask!
Builds
Druid
Deep resto 15/0/56 is what we found to work best. While a Feral / Resto hybrid spec may seem appealing for the extra Druid's survivability, the Paladin can get gibbed just as quickly in this setup so missing out on deep Resto talents is probably not worth it, and you want the efficiency of ToL vs healer/dps teams anyway.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0VG0uoZZf0IubuxVuAhst - this is the exact spec my partner uses, there's a few slight changes you could make but not really much room to play around.
Paladin
I would highly suggest a 20-51 Divine Guardian spec. Different players may prefer different variations of the spec, but DG is a lifesaver against certain setups, and the rest of points in Prot are good as well while the Ret alternatives aren't all that.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0ebVfZxdrtbfufMsTzho - this is my preferred talent spec. Toughness over Imp RF as you're usually saving BoF for kidneys / whatever stuns so snares can be up quite often. Imp BoM over 3/3 HotC since 250 AP > 2% crit that isn't always up. No points in RV since right now RV is bugged to break repentance, if they ever fix that I'd drop 1 point out of Fanaticism and put it back in RV, useful against stealth classes.
Gear
Druid
You will be the primary target most of the time here, so you can't go wrong with resilence and stamina. Wearing 2p Kodo 2p Wyrmhide for the double resilence bonus is a good idea, but remember that you need a decent amount of regen as well. You'll want to use the "of Salvation" offset pieces, as Spirit is amazing for Druids.
Paladin
You can get by with little resilence as the Paladin in this setup, but considering how good our 4P gladiator bonus is, and how horrible majority of currently available PvE gear is, there's really no reason not to use PvP gear. In my opinion, the ideal setup is 4 parts gladiator with 1 offset PvE item (Obsidian Greathelm or Spiked Titansteel Helm, or perhaps Belabored Legplates are probably the best choices for that). You probably want PvE rings as well, as the PvP ones are pretty awful. Rest of deadly offset pieces are quite good, except for the trinkets - I would highly suggest using either Bandit's Insignia, Darkmoon Card: Greatness, or some AP on use trinket - or even the engineering lightning generator.

In terms of weapons, Betrayer of Humanity is by far the best choice, if you are unlucky like me or just don't do much raiding, Titansteel Destroyer is a decent alternative, or pretty much any other PvE drops. In my opinion, Betrayer > Death's Bite / Crypt Fiend's Bite > Armageddon / Jawbone / Maly10 spear (forgot it's name) > everything else.

Overall, I would aim for something like ~3500 AP, ~30% crit, and as much hit rating as possible. Since so many classes / races have extra chance to be missed these days, I find that going OVER the hit cap is actually not a bad idea at all. Missing judges / hojs / repentances is very annoying, doing 100 less damage per judge on other hand is something I can live with. Do not ever gem for crit - if you want raw damage, go for str instead. Honest, it's better. Your meta should either be the 21agi 3% crit dmg or 21crit 3% crit dmg; agi gives a bit of dodge and has lesser gem color requirements, 21crit gives (very slightly) better dmg stats.

By the way, don't even consider Haste rating when comparing items. It's awful for you, even more awful than armor penetration is (and that stat is seriously bad for Ret Paladins in PvP).
Matchups
VS. Unholy DK/Holy Paladin
VS. Blood DK/Holy Paladin
VS. Unholy DK/Resto Shaman
VS. Feral Druid/Holy Paladin
VS. Resto Druid/Warlock
VS. Survival Hunter/Resto Shaman
VS. Mage/Mutilate Rogue
VS. Holy Paladin (Beacon of Light)/Warlock
VS. Holy Paladin (Divine Purpose)/Warlock
VS. Holy Paladin/Fury Warrior
VS. Disc Priest/Mutilate Rogue
VS. Rogue/Resto Shaman