WotLK Is the 1H intellect mace + shield combo with a 2H weapon a legit PvP advantage?

[Bomesssor]

Greetings fellows,

I've been playing a retribution paladin as my main for almost a year now. I do very little pve content, I mainly focus on the pvp aspects of the class. I learned/failed a lot during the past year, trying to get the most out of my paladin without having SM and not being full BiS yet. I roll with the usual Glorenzelg + JC / ENG combination on my gear. One thing I noticed is how invincible some fellow paladins are when they pop that "switch" macro that equips an intellect based mace + shield. I understand that this is mostly useless against casters, since they do spell damage. When it comes to fighting a melee battle, however, they keep blocking / parrying / reducing all the huge damage they take. Not to mention the main reason, the spell power and intellect bonus of these items, which make Art of War + Sacred Shield combo a pretty OP thing. At least I thought so until I tried it myself.

I spent my precious accumulated daily points on the most fitting ilvl 239 mace + shield. I gemmed and enchanted them of course, wrote the macro for the switch and went straight to BGs. It was actually pretty good sometimes, usually when I did 1v1 with some melee class. The healing bonus from the critical flash of light is small though, I expected a higher amount, block and parry, on the other hand, has increased greatly, allowing me to beat most of my 1v1 pvp opponents with ease.

Now comes my question: Is this really worth it? I mean the switching process itself takes time, each time you switch you lose one precious attack. If you keep switching back and forth during the fight you'll do nothing but keeping yourself alive until your mana runs out, then your opponent takes over and the fight is over for you. Not to mention that this works best only in 1v1 combat, plus if you find yourself in a battle situation with a shadow priest or a warlock or basically any skilled caster class, you're most likely done. We all know fighting as a pala against casters is hard if you're not extremely skilled or BiS.

I wouldn't consider myself that skilled, and I'm not BiS either. I never wanted to reach a God-Level PvP skill mainly owing to my lack of time. I only want to know whether this switching method is worth trying or nah. Maybe some veteran arena players and PvP legends can use it while being full BiS, but as for my experience, if you're not willing to devote countless hours and hard work, you're better off with the good old 2H ret pala setup.

I hope someone who's into this can answer me, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks for your time

[Greedman45]

You switch to 1h+shield when the enemies focus you. You peel back, wait cooldowns and heal of your judgment of light, you can also pop seal of light during this time if you are not kited or if there is even a pet that you can hit near you. You stall for your team or for your cds to come of cooldown, then pop a hoj or wings, go back to 2h and smash them. Its like using defensive stance. you also want to recast sacred shield when swapping to the spell power weapon because the reapplied shield will be stronger.

During this defensive state try losing, peeling back and dont try using crusader strike or divine storm to deal damage unless you are full hp and having no debuff on you. Keep dispelling and autoattacking to proc aow to heal yourself.

Is it worth it doing it? Yes.
Can you do it effectively? Well that takes practice. I am currently playing protret pvp and reckoning second spec but when i played full retri i used to stay in turtle mode all the time and switched to twohand only on wings:). Also seal of command on bgs and one hand can make you have infinite procs of aow in a teamfight.

PS: Having the wrathful gavel and wrathful shield can help you a lot on you defensive mode vs casters kiting you, since having a two handed equiped when you are being pulled by the nose by a hunter or a lock doesnt help that much lol:P.

PSPS: You dont care about the 5% dodge and parry, and even the block isnt that much. The extra spellpower from the weapon is the main point followed by the extra armor of the shield.(Also you can use shield of righteousness while in this mode which surpasses crusader strike in dmg with onehand weapon).

[Mcpro]

Maybe you dont see a huge difference of heal because you have only a 239 1h instead of a bis one. Also switching to heal mode can help you to peel melees but also caster (hitting pets of demo, mages and priest) when they try to kit you.