The core of Paladin PVP is not to beat down your opponent like other classes do, but outlast them and wear them down. Most of the other classes are dependant on either mana or abilities with long cooldowns when dueling so if you can make them exhaust themselves they will defenseless enough for your weak DPS to finish them off. Each class is very different and requires different strategies to deal with their various abilities. Factors like their talent specs and quality of gear will also play an important part so try to observe these early.
Druid

Druids can pose a real challenge since they are also specialists at surviving assaults. They will typically come at you in one of three ways depending on their talent specialization. Balance druids are the easiest to take down because they will blow all their mana in an effort to take you down as fast as possible. Their strategies are usually comprised of using their long range magical attacks like Starfire, Wrath and Moonfire. They will usually stay out of melee range and use Entangling Roots on you to keep you away so don’t try to close in and fight just yet. Stay back and heal through the damage and purify away the Moonfire DOT. Very quickly they will be out of mana and you can close in and finish them off. If you see a green glow forming around their hands with little leaves it means that they are trying to get off a healing spell so use Hammer of Justice to interrupt them. Take them down with regular melee and seals and judgments. Restoration druids are a different story since they will try to outlast you while you try to outlast them. They will change into bear form to minimize your damage and when they get low on health they will pop back and use a powerful heal. While they are in bear form their abilities cost rage not mana and they will be regenerating mana while in bear form while you will be using yours up so it ends up being a war of mana efficiency. Keep Blessing of Wisdom up and use Seal and Judgment of Wisdom so you will regain as much mana as possible. Feral druids are also not too hard since your high armor severally gimps their damage in cat form. And their damage in bear form is not to hard to negate with healing. They will act very similar to a restoration druid, but won’t have the extra healing from their talents so it’s a little easier. While in bear form they can be

treated as warriors which are usually not to hard if you know what you are doing. The key is making sure that your health doesn’t drop to low so they can interrupt your heals when you really need them. Melee them in both forms as quickly as you can and when they shift out to heal, stun them and use Judgment of Command.
Hunter
Hunters can be a very straightforward fight because they are a DPS class and you are a DPS mitigater. If your enemy is smart he will be trying to run away to get in bow or gun range so you will spend most of the fight chasing him. To keep them from getting ahead of you I've found it best to judge them for Justice. If they are not smart they will try to engage in face to face melee and you will drop them fast. The key to their survival is rooting you in place. Every thirty seconds they will try to root you with a trap, usually an ice trap. If you get close to them they will use abilities like Wingclip to slow you or root you so it is imperative that you keep Blessing of Freedom on yourself when you get trapped. If they do manage to get into shot range they will try to use Scatershot to disorient you and then use a heavy attack to take out a chunk of you HP. If you can keep him out of shooting range he won’t be able to use abilities like shots and stings though. If they drop to the ground with a large amount of HP remaining they have used Feign Death so prepare for them to jump back up soon and chase after them. Their other major tactic is to try and drain your mana with Viper Sting. Cleanse yourself immediately to prevent losing mana and continue chasing them. Be careful though. Sometimes they will use the lowest rank version to trick you into clensing it and wasting mana. Pets can be a threat because their quick auto attacks will interrupt your healing. Pets will also have different abilities depending on what type they are that can be very beneficial to the hunter. But if you focus on taking his pet down first the hunter will run away and start shooting, so take it down fast or ignore it totally.
Mage

Mages have high damage but blow through their mana fast and once they're dry they are defenseless. This is a pretty typical duration battle where you wait for your opponents mana to run out before taking them down. If their body becomes encased in bluish light though they are using Invocation and will regenerate a lot of their mana. Hit

them or Judge them to interrupt the channeling as quickly as you can. Keep Blessing of Wisdom on yourself and judge the enemy for wisdom so you can keep up your mana with regular melee strikes. Healing is the most important part of winning against a mage. They can deal huge damage and you will most likely not have enough resist gear to make a difference. While healing though you should use Flash of Light not Holy Light because of the mages Counterspell ability. By using this they can take away all of your heals for ten seconds which drastically drops your chances of winning. Because Holy Light has a longer cast time the mage will have plenty of time to use Counterspell. Flash of light has such a low casting time though that you can usually get them off more safely. Put some bits of time between your heals though and don’t just spam them. Doing them one after another lets the mage get a chance to hit you with a counter. In general its best to try and heal yourself when you see that your opponents hands are glowing blue or red or when they are moving. When fighting a mage smart players will use their frost spells to slow you down and attack from a distance. They will primarily do this with Chill effects, but also use Frost Nova to root you in place. In this case you shouldn’t even try to chase them because they will always outrun you. If they are frost specced is would be a good idea to keep Blessing of Freedom on yourself since mages have a talent that increases their chance of landing a critical strike against frozen players. Another benefit of BoF is that it will render a mages Ice Lance ability nearly useless and they won’t be able to spam it. Most other mages will be Arcane/Fire specced. They have huge burst damage but less survivability options and won’t be able to run as much. Focus on staying alive by watching your healing carefully. You will also have to bubble more against these mages since their DPS is so high.
Shaman

Shamans require a little bit of juggling to beat. You will need to once again make your foe burn through his mana as fast as possible before taking him down. The first way of doing this is to kill as many of his totems as possible and make him re-summon them. Each totem can be taken out with about one melee hit but you can’t use AOEs like Consecrate because they are immune. While this may force him to use his mana he has a similar tactic. Shamans will typically use their Purge ability at the beginning of a fight to take off some of your seals and blessings so

during the fight you are going to have to do without many of your good ones. Halfway through the fight you should start to reapply you seals as quickly as possible but you’ll have to do without blessings till the end. Purge is a very mana intensive spell though so every time they cast it you are a little closer to beating them. The final thing you have to worry about while fighting a shaman is their healing. If you see greenish light coming from their hands it means they are trying to heal themselves so use Hammer of Justice to interrupt them. Try to save this ability for these situations and not use it whenever the cooldown is up. As for healing yourself you need to be very careful because shaman can use Earth Shock to interrupt your spell and put it on cooldown. When you heal you will either need to use your Bubble which is not a good idea in my opinion. Or keep track of when you have been hit with a shock spell so you can heal in the six second cooldown period. Once they have run out of mana, buff yourself with blessings and seals and take them down with melee. The fighting style of the shaman will depend very much on what type of build they have. If they are elemental they will rely completely on casting nukes and damage dealing totems. They will also use their mana up faster than any other build so weather their attacks with careful healing and take them down when they are out of mana. Make sure to kill all water and air totems they put down since these increase their mana regeneration and spell damage. You can tell if they are Enhancement specced right away because they will be using duel wield or a two handed weapon. They won’t be as dependant on mana as the other builds so it isn’t wise to wait for them to run out. Instead start fighting them right away and hinder them as much as possible. Enhancement shamans rely very heavily on buffing themselves with totems so your best bet for taking them down is to destroy as many totems as possible. A Restoration shaman is such a good healer that it is almost impossible to take them down. Fortunately they don’t have nearly enough DPS to take you down. The only way to win is to be very patience and fight them right away instead of waiting to take out their mana.
Priest

Priests can be very difficult depending on their build. Holy and Discipline Priest are a regular endurance game, but Shadow Priests are very hard because of their added DPS. Trying to outlast a priest is nearly impossible since they have a much higher mana pool

and more potent heals, so it is often best to try and blast them down as carefully as possible. Their main tactic will be to try and burn down all of your mana with their Mana Burn abilities. Your best option against this is to simply use all of your mana up instead trying to take them down with Holy Shock and mass Judgments. Their second best ability is their instant Fear, which gives them time to heal back up. Your only hope is to try and resist it or use your PVP trinket to break out of it. They will try and use it every thirty seconds so if you can keep track of the time you can plan for when it may happen and not waste your abilities or seals. Fortunately this is their only real way to interrupt your healing. If you are ever low on health you can heal yourself with little worry about being stunned or interrupted. When you can stun them with your Hammer of Justice when you see them casting spells and judge them for Command whenever possible. Regardless of their build they will be doing most of their damage with shadow based attacks. Therefore it is a good idea to buff up your shadow resistance with Shadow Resistance Aura or equipment with SR if it is available. If they are a full blown shadow priest you will want to be careful about their Shadowfiend, Silence and the damage reduction from Shadowform. Make sure to kill their Shadowfiend right away to prevent them from gaining mana back. A Discipline priest can also be a threat but won’t have the damage dealing power of a shadow priest. They rely heavily on buffing themselves and their abilities instead of getting new ones so you won’t have to worry about healing as much. A Holy priest is mostly about healing and their only way of dealing good DPS is with Smite. Treat them like a Discipline priest and burn them down.
Rogue
Rogues are rather straight foreword as long as you follow a few simple steps. Fortunately your high armor rating will reduce their melee damage a good deal so they will not always be able to take you down in one shot like other classes. Also, since they rely on fast weapons Retribution Aura is a god send and will take them down even faster. Unfortunately their poisons go right past your armor and can do significant damage or seriously debuff you. If they have a stacking effect try to Purify them away when possible. A PVP rogue depends entirely on stealth, mobility and high damage abilities with long cool downs. The secret to winning is to outlast his abilities so you can take him down in the cool down. His first tactic will be

to try and attack you from behind while stealthed. Your best weapon against this is Consecrate. Its primary function in this situation is destealthing the rogue so use rank one to save mana. Unfortunately rogues that go deep in the Subtly tree have Shadowstep which puts them right behind you from twenty yards away and Consecrate won’t have time to destealth them. If he manages to get through to you he will Ambush you, stun you and then hit you with his powerful abilities. This is known as Stunlock and the only way to beat it is to try and survive it. Once they have used up their stun lock they will either try to finish you off by running behind to backstab you. Or use Vanish to restealth and Ambush you again. At this point your first priority is healing back the damage you took. Use Hammer of Justice to stun him and cast your highest heal on yourself. It is dangerous to heal at any other time because he will use his Kick ability which interrupts your heal and puts all of your heals on a long cooldown. If you are really desperate use one of your bubble spells to gain immunity and heal or if worse comes to worse use Lay on Hands, but that will drain all of your mana so make sure it is a last resort. Start to engage in melee and wear him down as much as you can. When Hammer of Justice becomes useable again you can try to heal yourself again, or if you feel confident stun him and judge him for Command and then use Hammer of Wrath and Holy Shock to try and finish him off. If a rogue sees this coming though he will try to use Cloak of Shadows to protect himself. All of your spell based attacks will be useless at this time so hold back until it fades.
Warrior
The warrior can be an easy class to beat since they rely on pure melee damage like a rouge, but don’t have their sneaky stealth and stun tactics. They have better armor though so they won’t fall as quickly. Their strategy will be composed of standing in front of you and hitting you as hard as they can with a few stuns and bleed effects mixed in. As long as you are able to keep yourself near full health they will have very little chance against you. If your health gets to low though they may get off a few critical strikes, Overpowers or Executes and take you down. When fighting a warrior you need to remember that their Rage is constantly regenerating, while your mana is limited. Since they will have plate armor like you, melee is not a very viable option. Instead you will want to use Holy since it isn’t affected by armor. Seal of Command is good but if you

don’t have that talent use Seal of Righteousness. Judge them as often as possible for extra burst damage. You may be tempted to use Hammer of Justice and then Seal of Command for extra damage but I advise against that. Instead, save that to stun the enemy so you have a window to heal. You also may be tempted to use Retribution Aura, but unless they are duel wielding the extra damage is not worth it. Instead use either Devotion Aura or Sanctity aura if you are specced retribution. A furry warrior will usually come at you with duel wielded weapons and use heavy hitting abilities that cause massive damage. They are the lowest on defense though so as long as you aren’t the victim of a string of critical strikes you can usually heal through them and take him down quickly. Arms warriors are about steady consistent damage. They won’t bust as often but they will have Mortal Strike that reduces your healing by half. If your healing is cut in half their damage will add up quickly so you will want to beat them down fast. A protection warrior have very little offensive abilities but will be very resistant to your melee attacks. You best bet is to use pure holy damage to take them down but there is not real time factor.
Paladin
Paladin Vs Paladin fights are some of the longest and dullest fights in the game. Both fighters specialize in mitigating damage, both have low damage output and both can heal away any damage they may take. This means that victory will usually go to the one who runs out of mana last. This means that fight are usually decided by the one with the most mana at the start of the duel. But skill will still play an important part. Phase one of the fight will compose of using Blessing of Wisdom and judging your enemy for Wisdom so you can keep your mana up. You will also want to skimp on many mana using abilities like judgments and seals. Try to keep at least one up to cause damage, but don’t judge them unless they are about to expire. When healing you should also try to use Flash of Light instead of Holy Light because of its mana efficiency. Save Holy Light for when your HP has really dropped. When choosing an Aura your best options are Devotion and Retribution. Devotion will reduce your damage and save you mana. Retribution will force your foe to heal itself more and waste their mana. If your base mana is lower then your opponents I would go with Devotion. If you have high mana or your opponent has a fast weapon Retribution aura is usually my choice.

Warlocks
Warlocks are perhaps your most difficult fight, but it is very dependant on the other players skill. It is a standard outlast their mana fight with a twist. Warlocks can trade their life for mana which means they never reach a point of being helpless like a mage, but their HP goes down so it can actually make the fight quicker. However, surviving to the point where they have used up their mana is very hard. Their primary tactic is to use fear to render you inoperative then either load you up with Damage over Time spells or hit you with nukes like Shadowbolt. These will usually break you out of Fear. But by then you will have run away from them and by the time you get close they will have cast it again and you will be fleeing once more. About the only way you can beat a warlock is to try and resist or break out of as many fears as possible. Shadow Resistance Aura can help a great deal since Fear is shadow based and can be resisted. You may also want to try and get the PVP reward trinket to help to break you out of fear, but that will only be available maybe once or twice a fight due to its cooldown. Whenever you are not feared you should focus first on Cleansing off any DOTs (you can’t get rid of curses though.) They will add up to significant damage if you leave them alone, and by getting rid of them the warlock is forced to re-apply them and waste mana. But there is a twist to this. If the lock is deep in the affliction tree they will probably have Unstable Affliction which explodes when dispelled and deals damage. In addition it will silence you and prevent you from healing the damage away or buffing yourself. The only way to get around this is to use your Bubble which will remove all DOTS but protect you from