More Paladin Nerfs.Follow

Thats right, more paladin nerfs are inc.

Here's a blue post

Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12065281479&pageNo=1&sid=1#0

I'm attempting to post this early since the Ret community felt totally surprised last time.

We are looking at some way of making Avenging Wrath and Divine Shield mutually exclusive. This may be through Forbearance, if we can reduce the Forbearance duration through a hotfix. The bubble is intended as a defensive measure. Yet bubble+wings currently is used a lot in BGs and Arenas and helps contribute to the feeling of being destroyed by a Retribution paladin while you are unable to respond.

My apologies to the Ret paladins who already feel picked on. We are really trying hard to not overdo anything but even the last round of pretty severe nerfs didn't seem to do enough to Ret's dominance of PvP.

We are also sympathetic to the notion that if Ret can't do insane burst damage, that the spec might need other tools to be viable in PvP. We're exploring this now, possibly though the missing 11-point Prot talent, possibly through other avenues. We'll let you know when we've made a decision here.

I don't know exactly when this change will go live, but I didn't want you to return from trick-or-treating and be shocked that we didn't announce it, since that seemed to cause a lot of damage with the last nerf.

I'll leave this post unlocked for now, assuming the responses stay intelligent and we don't get too much flaming or trolling.

NOTE: The hotfix will be on Live and the beta.

[...] We lowered Seal and Judgement damage, changed Divine Storm (earlier) and changed Hammer of Wrath. Those all should have lowered PvP burst damage, and they did.

The JotW nerf was done because a paladin could use all their buttons quickly then go on to another opponent with no down time. On bosses in PvE, they could hit every button that was up and still have mana left to be very high on healing meters. So we do think the mana regen was too generous in both PvP and PvE cases.


By: Ghostcrawler.

Edited, Oct 31st 2008 11:40pm by Akuin

i'll catagorize this as a wrong move. i'll also repeat my sentiment:

Blizzard doesn't know how to handle the paladin class. prepare for the 6 month jerk around. at least give us free respecs once a week.

oh yeah. took me only 2 mins to realize the fix:

Blizzard designers have their head up their asses atm.

instead of bubbling decreasing your attack speed, make it a reduced dmg(maybe -20%). we are no longer auto-attack monkeys, thus the reduced speed is hardly a debuff when you get invinsibilty. this would reduce the regular "bubble bomb" burst dmg, plus it would make AW+bubble nil.

if they F with forbearance, we go back to the days of AW + burst = aggro = death OR AW + pvp = death.

Judgment of Justice also only lasts 10 seconds now.

Apparently, it's a CC effect.

Edit: At least it's solely a PvP nerf. Bubbling to drop aggro isn't as vital now that we have HoS.

Edited, Nov 1st 2008 5:36am by zepoodle

This was a nasty shock in arena, that's all i have to say on the matter :(

With the complete rape of Judgements of the Wise, at least make Judgement free of cost. As it is now, Judgements cost 5% of your base mana pool while Judgements of the Wise returns 15%.

My level 65 Paladin had a challenging time in Blood Furnace with the new changes. I'd run out of mana in no time at all and actually found myself judging every single critter to get as much mana out of the talent as possible. How pathetic is that?

At my level it returns 350 mana and Judgements cost 106. After they nerf the damage output of Judgements, judging is just as much a pointless chore as it was before the revamp of the Seal/Judgement system.

AW would be useless on trash mobs, since MT aggro isnt built as quickly. same reason DS needs to be "used with caution" on trash so you dont aggro the other 3 mobs(and im not talking nerfed Kara mobs). also, AW will not be usuable on good portions of phase shifting bosses.

i used to work AW and HoSalv into my rotation on boss fights, now i would be worried a AW+DS would attract an add that hasn't been adequatly tanked.

i think the 3 min forebearance was even too extreme. in ZA with DS i would pull the untanked mob and either tank it myself or bubble it off. the next pull i had no bubble and therefor left my DS alone, reducing dmg output.

in pvp, one of the awesomenesses of AW was the talent that it would bypass 50% of dmg reduction effects. that means it would cut through PW:shield, ice barrier, etc. now, just like the last 2 yrs, it makes you have "Wings of Kill Me Now, Cuz I Can't Bubble".

get to lvl 80 with this forebearance nerf and tell me how much u use AW.

I beg to differ. prot doesn't use divine shield or hand of protection anyway. AW will still be a great way to help with initial threat, especially on bosses and aoe pulls. AW is still great for healing. if 20% more healing will pull threat then the tank's threat to mitigation ratio is a bit of... healers will definitely still be using AW for predicted higher amounts of damage. Ret shouldn't have been using AW right at the start of a pull anyway. if you are pulling aggro with AW either you are using it at the wrong times, or your tanks threat is terrible and you need to be using your HoSalv more. maybe have your tank be using his HoSalv on you or um, the threat transfering buff that prot warriors have if the problem is their threat generation. This is not very much of a PvE nerf for any spec if you've been using AW wisely already.

Dear Blizzard:

Not everyone pvp's.

Well, I was speaking in regards to Ret's PvE performance. The other two specs are obviously affected by the splash nerf, but I've come to expect that now. The reason why this isn't bad for PvE is because with HoS, you really shouldn't be pulling threat, as long as you're using wings sensibly - i.e, a long way into the fight when your tank's threat is ahead of your by leaps and bounds. You should only need to bubble if you pull threat and as DPS, you will optimally never be pulling threat.

I really hope this one isn't permanent, but Blizzard hasn't gone back on any of its other nerfs. I just want to know why ret always gets picked on...GC hasn't said *********** about boomkin.

Linked cooldown. What's wrong with that? Stops you from using both simultaneously but doesn't lock one out.

Be fair, here. From a PvP perspective you may as well not have AW anymore.

JoV now deals ~450ish base damage regardless of whether or not you have any stacks on the target. Further stacks merely increase the damage by 10% each.

DS is an instant weapon strike, and you're toting Stormherald in that pic with BoM on, so it looks like a perfectly normal crit. They haven't patched Righteous Vengeance yet, it's still +25% crit damage.

Raid buffed and with that kind of weapon? Why not?

Besides, JoV crits will get nerfed when the changes to Art of War and Righteous Vengeance takes effect.