And here are the Ret changesFollow

From Blizzard: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11296670044&sid=2000

"As I stated yesterday, we are happy with Ret's PvE damage and sustatined damage in PvP, but were concerned that the burst damage in PvP could be too high. We discussed this for literally hours yesterday, which was certainly not the first time we have discussed the issue. Thus I hope these changes are not perceived as a knee-jerk reaction, but I am sure that will depend a great deal on which class you play. :)

Divine Storm -- the damage was changed from Holy to Physical. As you know, Holy damage is almost never mitigated and this talent could pack a lot into a very short time. This is a nerf to the ability's damage. This change is now active on Live.

Repentance -- this ability now lasts for only 6 seconds in PvP (down from 10). Obviously this is also a nerf. This change is also active on Live.

Art of War -- now affects all damage done by Judgements, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm (instead of critical strike damage). Net dps should be about the same but less bursty. This change will be made before Nov 13.

Righteous Vengeance -- now applies a dot affect similar to Deep Wounds (instead of critical strike damage). This ends up being a significant buff to the ability to make up for the damage lost to Divine Storm, but is also less bursty. This change will be made before Nov 13. EDIT: The dot will NOT break Repentance.

Glyph of Crusader Strike -- now reduces mana cost (instead of increased damage on stunned targets.) We thought paladins could stack too much damage vs. stunned targets. This change will be made before Nov 13.

We also fixed a bug with Seal and Judgement of Light that could sometimes result in too much healing.

In our tests, Retribution dps remains the same over longer periods of time, but they can't do quite so much damage in the initial few seconds of a PvP encounter.

I know Ret pallies feel a little picked on since we've made this mistake before of having them come out the gate too strong and then had to correct them. For that I do apologize. It's a difficult spec to balance since part of its design is to have large crits and stuns, which have obvious PvP implications. We are pretty confident this will not nerf pallies into the ground as I facetiously promised yesterday, but if we overdid it, we'll be happy to back off some of the changes.

On the other hand, maybe we'll see fewer BGs with 20 paladins on the opposing side and can get some reasonable feedback on all the other classes in the game.

EDIT: To clairfy the new dot will not break Repentance."

================================================================

Actually, I think these are very reasonable and not really a hard nerf. Ret, even with these changes, is going to continue to be a great DPS spec.

i would have rather them just lowered the damage of DS then change it to Physical, i like the holy for the fact that it helps my threat when im Ret tanking.

by the way, me and my two roomates 3 manned Shattered halls with 3 DPS: Ret, Shadow Priest, Demo Lock.

I'm OK with these changes. I do not want to see ret paladin PvE damage to go down. I want ret to be as competitive for dps as any other class, leaving it for the player instead of the class. However I've been literally killed in 3 seconds on beta (when having 10-12k health around 70). I am OK with the burst nerf.

If they're reducing the damage done by Divine Storm, I hope they'll buff the healing done by it. It's nothing special, to be honest, and with Divine Storm damage now being mitigated by armor (which most things have), it'll be even less.

Does anyone know what the average physical damage mitigation of a level 80 mob is? We might be looking at a flat 25% damage nerf to Divine Storm, not counting in the loss of Art of War and Righteous Vengeance. Art of War will turn into a flat damage increase, but I doubt they'll keep the 20% (that would just be nuts), so it'll probably be something like 1/2/3%.

I hate that they're hotfixing the nerfs, but waiting with the balancing changes for the expansion. It means that we will be grossly underpowered until the launch of the expansion when we'll hopefully be balanced out. Except, I have a feeling it won't go as intended and then it'll take a new patch before they send a fix our way.

This all reminds me of something...

No the changes he says are live are now on the live servers, not beta. They were hotfixed in yesterday night (people noticed the DS change almost immediately).

Honestly, I believe that there will be another "hotfix" at some point in the future. Possibly before WotLK, or possibly part of WotLK.

The "hotfix" was a knee-jerk reaction from Blizz (regardless of what they say). You know it was a knee-jerk reaction because it happened within 24 hours of the patch release. If it was well-thought out, it would've happened before the patch release, and they would've released notes before the fix. Instead, they did it in silence in the middle of the night.

Knee-jerk reactions generally mean "not well thought out" reactions. Give Blizzard more time to figure out what they really want to do, and they'll implement something better.

I'm sure we will be seeing a lot of changes in the next 4 weeks leading up to WotLK. These will flip flop around. Buffs. Nerfs. Re-buffed. Re-nerfed. Etc... Get some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the roller coaster :)

Why do I suddenly feel like I'm playing on the PTR??? Random sudden short changes and all. Wasn't the whole point of the beta and PTR to see how this stuff works *before* they put it on the live server? Did they not see how it worked? Was it not as high of burst damage on the PTR?

Edited, Oct 16th 2008 2:13pm by digitalcraft

You said it yourself, you almost solo'd a full venge rogue at level 62. If that isn't completely out of control PVP damage, I don't know what is.

Double post

Edited, Oct 16th 2008 5:29pm by gwynhara

It means the rogue was an idiot and an embarrassment to his class. With a level difference of 8, the spell hit chance that paladin had was already down to 52%. Hammer of Resist, Judgement or Resist... Also, the rogue would have had around 40% avoidance against that 62.

And that's not even looking at the absolutely massive difference in HP and average damage. The rogue would have nearly one shotted him. Bubble -> Vanish. Paladin heals. Rogue waits 12 seconds, dead pally.



Oh, wait, I saw a level 15 hunter melee a 70 warrior to death in the Crossroads. Nerf hunters. Right?

Edited, Oct 16th 2008 6:32pm by Ehcks

It's been nerfed, have you been reading?

My warlock was killed yesterday by a warrior during the duration of a 4 second stun I had never seen the tooltip of before.

Rogues kill me before KS ends as a RULE.

Warlocks kill me before I become immune to fear. Or they go Demon form and I just straight out die.

I kill retadins more than they kill me. Fire mages kill me more than retadins do. I think you're just doing it wrong.