[Paladin] Season 7 is Over

I'm a little disappointed in how season 7 turned out for me. My 2s team was just for fun so I never really expected much of it, but after having spent season 6 around 1700 in 3s it was a letdown struggling to make 1350, even if our team make-up stank.

My 5s started up and looked like it would be fun. Even if our rating didn't go very high, the points would have been nice in comparison to how my 2s was performing. Besides, I like the quicker pace of 5s. Dancing around with a resto druid for a half hour for a measly 4 rating points just kind of sucks. With 5s the matches go quickly enough that I consider it the best "casual" bracket, get in there, get out, assuming one can muster the teammates for it. But then our priest faction transferred and that was the end of that.

The theoretical bright star early in season 7 was going to be my 3s team. DK/ret pally/holy pally. The ret pally was a bit nubby by his own admission, but a good player and willing to learn. He and the DK were doing 2s together as double dps and doing all right. But then the DK vanished and for a while I had no 3s team.

Some time later the ret pally came back wanting another go at 3s. Not having another team to play on, I agreed to heal again and the ret pally nabbed a mage to fill in the third spot.

That comp was horrible.

It really made me miss my season 6 team and the control we had. I don't mind losing to a well-played team. I'll be disappointed, yes, but playing with a ret pally and mage made me feel like I was trying to fix a broken sink with only half a toolbox. Everything was unnecessarily hard and teams that would have been pancaked by my old S6 team were now rolfstomping us.

Then finally, far too late, a decent 3s team fell into place. It was only two weeks ago, and we hadn't the time to really devote to burning through the fat to our proper rating. Hell, we didn't even have much of a chance to settle into working with each other, but it has promise. I think we'll stay together for season 8.

It still involves the scrubby ret pally, who, while better than he was at the start of season 7, is still learning not to LoS his healer, but he's gotten better. His spec has improved and he's taken to reading Arena Junkies for advice. He has a full set of furious gear now and relentless where he's been able to get it.

But the biggest help I think has been the addition of Cursedhoof, the hunter from my season 6 3s team. He wasn't going to do 3s this season, but agreed to give it a shot.

So my 3s team is now almost the same as it was back in S6 except that we now have a ret pally instead of an unholy DK. I'm going to miss those AMZs and amazing Death Grips, but the ret pally has potential. He knows how to toss a quick emergency heal if I can't cast and he's quick with the BoPs (for our hunter). With a little more practice so the three of us can better settle into working together I think I might have a real team again.