And here are the Ret changesFollow

The last I checked resto druids weren't bursting people down in the space of a Hammer of Justice. The problem isn't that ret pallies can outlast other classes it is that they can outlast and outburst almost any other class particularly because they have nigh infinite mana. Bursting someone down as a healing spec is both mana intensive and inefficient because it's not what the spec is designed for. Retribution, as the damage spec for paladins, should not give them the ability to outlast geared healers and burst down any class that cannot kite (or, if they can kite, be seconds away from death).

Edited, Oct 21st 2008 10:05pm by SomnusSleeper

precisely why they nerfed Repentence.

Please point out to me where I said anything about Ret Pallies bursting people down over the space of one HoJ.


I have to wonder at this point... Are you even reading my posts? Or are you just picking out four or five words and running with them?

I said several times that no duel is going to last that long because the Ret Pally will have done enough damage to kill his opponent several times over in that space. What I said was that even if an opponent could survive long enough to drag out a fight with a Ret Paladin that long, he still wouldn't have a chance of winning because of the Ret Paladin's survival tools, which may include but does not necessitate cooldowns, are such that he can sustain himself indefinitely if he so chooses to focus on self-preservation and you're not a class capable of intensive short-term burst (like an Arcane Mage).

As for duels in general... two-minute-plus duels are not even remotely an impossibility, it just depends on the classes involved. If it's two bursting classes, yeah, the chances of it running over 60 seconds are probably slim to none. However, I frequently took part in duels in excess of two minutes on my Resto Shaman, and I've seen plenty of duels take that long, even between DPS classes.


This is why I asserted that certain parts of your anatomy may, in fact, be connected to certain others via unnatural means. I did not change the focus of my argument. This was the entire point of my argument from square one. SomnusSleeper got it right off the bat. As did tommyguns. You should consult those two for clarification before responding to my posts further.

/sigh

This would be a lot more progressive if some of you could stop misconstruing my posts. I'll at least take some of the blame for it at this point as I should have just dismissed it entirely the first time Tsarducci latched onto it instead of defending the point, however irrelevent it was.

Let's try this again. I'll go slowly, so try to follow along.

My problem with Ret Paladins as they stand currently is that they sport entirely too much damage for a class with the survival tools available to them and the ability to heal themselves. Even in the most restricted circumstances, the arena, you have to kill them at least twice (DS), and possibly a third time if you lack a means to deal with BoP. In addition to possible "extra lives" granted by cooldowns, the class also has the ability to heal itself effectively (instant FoL from TAoW) and with efficiency surpassing that of even the most efficient healer (JotW; it's hard to get any more efficient than infinite). That is my problem with Ret Paladins.

Now, there are two ways to deal with this (ignoring for a moment the third option, which is Blizzard's completely misguided attempt at balance): you can either nerf their damage or nerf their survivability. Let it be noted that I personally believe their damage should be allowed to remain where it is or relatively close to it because I believe the spec deserves to be viable as a DPS spec both in PvE and in PvP. However, TAoW and JotW are completely unnecessary, and honestly, completely uncalled for. I believe the spec could easily do without the instant 33% mana return from JotW and the instant FoL's from TAoW. Nerfing their survival would not hurt them at all in PvE and would make them balanced in PvP the world over.

Furthermore...


The fact that you can kill a Ret Pally in a two-on-one situation with the help of another class doesn't make it balanced anymore than losing to a Ret Pally that blows all of its cooldowns in world PvP makes it imbalanced. In fact, I'd argue it to be even less so since, lest we forget, the Ret Pally also has a partner in 2v2 that you have to deal with.

Now sit the !@#$ down you insignificant upstart.

JotW is hardly infinite mana. It's a lot, but it's hardly infinite, and if you're proccing Art of War on a regular basis, you're blowing most of the mana return from JotW on Flash Heals.

Face it...the only time you'll be happy is if you wind up the flavor-of-the-month OP PvP class. Until then, you'll find something to kvetch about. My GM/RL is quick to point out that he enjoyed his moment in the spotlight as a warlock in PvP pre-3.0.2 and now it's time to pass the torch. There will always be a class that stands out as OP. Ret paladin opener burst damage is being toned down. Mages and hunters have already learned how to kite us...and we're very easy to kite. All of our cooldowns are miserably long compared to any other class. We have to make what we've got count up front because once our cooldowns are blown, we're waiting a lifetime (PvP wise) for them to come back up again. HoJ and Repentance are both on one minute cooldowns. Each of our nya-nya you can't kill me abilities are on very long cooldowns. Force a ret pally to blow their cooldowns while you keep your distance and you've won.

That's the strategy. I know, however, that you aren't interested in strategy. Your response will likely be along the lines of why that strategy won't work for <this, that, the other class>. Or, "Why that strategy won't work for me."

Whatever.

You can't win them all, and there will always be that one class that 7 or 8 other classes will dread seeing in a BG/Arena. Right now, it's ret Pallies. Come season 5, it could be mages. Season 6 could be the season of the enhancement shaman. Season 7 could be dominated by vanity pets. If you're looking for absolute balance, you'll never find it. If you're looking for every other class to never represent more than a token challenge to you, you're basically just wishing you're the one OP class everyone else is QQing about.

So just reroll or get over it, ya?

Edited, Oct 22nd 2008 9:47pm by AureliusSir

Good Christ. What the hell is up your ***, AureliusSir? Is this what CapJack, Bodh, tommy, and the other Paladin veterans have to deal with here on a daily basis now? I sincerely feel sorry for them if you're any kind of representation of their peers.


If you want to talk raw magnitude, then no, Ret Pally healing can't compare to, say, a Disc Priest or a Resto Druid. But even a Resto Druid (widely recognized as the most mana-efficient healer in the game) operates on a finite mana pool. And instant FoL's? That's utility on par with Holy Shock and Riptide, talented spells in healing trees.


Did patch 3.0.2 disable BoF (HoF now) and Cleanse?


Junk debuffs? Um... like what? Winter's Chill? Uh... Arcane Mages can put Slow on you, but that's hardly "junk". You want that off of you ASAP. I don't know. This is honestly the first time I've ever heard someone claim a Mage was over-debuffing them.


No, please, that's alright. You can stop there. If you are consistently losing to Rogues or Warriors post 3.0.2 then I don't think I need to hear any more from you.


Post 3.0.2 I would definitely agree with most of that. The pendulum has moved strongly in the favor of DPS and made it hard to keep a target alive through even one opponent, much less two or more in a BG or arena match. The only point I really have to disagree on is the "going OOM from Holy Lights" part. I really have yet to see a Ret Paladin go OOM after 3.0.2 even when being Viper Stung and/or Mana Burned. Their mana longevity with JotW is such that they can OOM any opponent incapable of burning them down in a well-timed matter of seconds.

However, that is not the point, and you are now the third person to completely miss it. (Congratulations, by the way.) If an opponent could survive your damage for, as you offer up, longer than 12 seconds... they still wouldn't have a chance against you because of your survival tools. You can react to that however you want. Say I'm overracting like Tsarducci. Play the victim and make false assumptions like AureliusSir. Or you could do... whatever it is zepoodle is doing. I dunno, I'm completely lost on that one. But to suggest that Ret is not OP at the moment... that's just being belligerent. If a class can out-burst you and outlast the majority of specs/classes out there... there is definitely a problem.

Well, ****, Gaud. I was kind of planning to respond to you properly, as people do when they have issues to debate over, *********** man. You've just convinced me that arguing with you would be a total waste of time. I can tell you one thing, I really, really, really never want to come up against you in a game of chicken, because you sound like a guy who'd cut off his own cock to prove he was right.

I guess that means you win?

Edited, Oct 23rd 2008 7:20am by zepoodle

Do you understand how JotW works? I don't think you do.

You're talking hypotheticals like a ret pally can go on forever with all of their tools and tricks. You're talking extended fights against a spec/class with "unlimited" mana, and nothing could be farther from the case.

Paladins, as a base class, are not the least bit mana efficient. Holy Paladins get mana reduction and mana returns in their tree. Protection Paladins count on Spiritual Attunement while tanking to keep them from going OOM. Ret, without JotW, would have nothing. JotW, btw, only procs when you judge...which can only happen once every 8 seconds (max)...and returns a percentage of your base mana, which obviously doesn't scale.

Thats why, pre-3.0.2, ret paladins often had 21 points in the Holy tree...without it, they'd be stopping to drink on a very frequent basis. Now, those same talents aren't available if a ret pally wants the fun goodies that are found at the bottom of the ret tree, so they get JotW instead. It allows them to itemize for dps instead of mana, which is more keeping with the nature of the class.

The only rational argument you could present is that ret pallies have too much up-front damage, which has been acknowledged by Blizzard and is being addressed. In terms of survivability, Ret paladins have no more now than they did pre-3.0.2. They've always had bubbles, BoF, etc. The only difference is that now, paladins are speccing ret like crazy to try out the zomfguber that they've heard about, which makes them more noticeable. Pre-3.0.2, they were lolret. Things have changed.

Now, you're being the most abrasive, obnoxious person in this thread but it seems the first thing you do is complain about how everyone else is being so mean to you. Tone it down a bit and present a rational argument please. Your arguments are not consistant with the facts. Get those straight and then come back and see if you have something new to add.

That's funny, because I've got 2 points in Improved Judgements and the tooltip on all three of my Judgements reads 8 seconds. Not only that, but if I judge and then Crusader strike right after, they both come off cooldown at about the same time (6 seconds cooldown on Crusader Strike + 1.5 sec GCD between Judge -> Crusader).

Maybe the tooltip is wrong.




Did I say ret paladins in PvP? No? Did I say all ret paladins in all scenarios? No? Then why are you throwing the limited example of PvP at me to prove me "wrong"? Read the paladin sticky...21 points in holy was recommended straight up to 70. That in of itself is a prime example of how horribly inefficient ret paladins are/were with mana, and is an example of why we needed something.

The Replenishment buff that accompanies JotW? Not all that significant, lemme tell ya. As part of a 25 man raid with all the other classes that proc raid-wide mana regen on a small scale, it could add up. As a benefit to a solo individual or even a small group, it's weak to say the least.



JotW isn't a survival tool. It's mana regen. You can have a million mana to burn and if you don't use it for anything, you're dead. What you use it for is the survival tool. TAoW is nice. It's not game breaking, but it's nice.



Ya, I'm the guy who stopped telling you to be such a victim in the shaman forums QQing about shaman in PvP. Not content with that, apparently you've branched out to QQ here.

Carry on.

QQ moar.


Edited, Oct 23rd 2008 2:45pm by AureliusSir

dont let them get to you Gaudion, all the band waggons are showing up and have to make a name for themselves by pissing in everyones cheerios.

Well..... maybe just a little bit :)

Yeah, not sure how I got the wrong numbers on Judgements. I even looked it up to double-check before I posted. Guess I either got some bad numbers or I looked at them too quick.

/shrug

Either way, it doesn't change any part of my argument.


Let it never be said that you weren't known for marching to the beat of your own drum, tommy.


I honestly don't understand where this backlash is coming from. From what I gather, the Ret Pallies in this thread (and everywhere else) don't want their damage to be reduced. And I completely, 100% support that. I said as much earlier. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. Ret Pallies are way too resilliant for the damage they can put out right now.

From what I'm gathering, there are several people in this thread unsatisfied with just being viable. You want to be overpowered.