More Paladin Nerfs.Follow

I think the fact it impacts on 1v1 is more like collateral damage though. AW + DS definately felt far too powerful in competitive pvp. Ret/ret wasn't even close to being viable pre-patch, and it was quickly discovered to be a nightmare to compete against after. You had the disgusting burst power of sanctified wrath when you got into melee range, and no CC could stop you once you were there because of having bubble up as well. It must have been maddening to try and compete against. The opponent had almost no chance of escape either because of repentence and judgement of justice.

Just fyi, it's woe.

However, you are right about the relative buffs ret have gotten compared to other DPS classes. My ret went from 700-800 dps in 10 mans to now doing 1500-1700. I can beat mages and locks on aoe pulls 9 times out of 10. By comparison my hunter went from 900-1k dps pre-patch to about 1100 dps after. the dps is more appropriate for each, though, based on their gear.

i'll be home soon to download 3.0.3 and see how the newest changes affect me. one thing I don't like is the notes on mmo-champion list SotM/B as being included in the 20% nerf. kinda saddening if they really did that. I did notice our aura will no do 3% extra damage for the raid rather than 2%... now hunter pets aren't more usefull than us anymore.

I actually do more damage today than yesterday. Sure, crits do less, but hits do more, and that righteous vengeance dot makes up more than the lower crit damage.

Divine Storm hits for 200 more, crits for 600 less, but crits cause a 720 damage DoT. This is in BGs, so it's hard to be sure.. right now, target dummies only allow 1 damage righteous vengeance ticks.

I need to get into a raid tonight to check it on something more reliable.

Yeah, Seal of Blood is now a lot better as well as far as actual damage over time goes. I like it this way better.


As well, maybe this will shut the crybabies in trade chat up. I'm honestly getting a little tired of having to listen to the same dead horse argument over and over.




Edit: Okay, so I was wrong. I logged in for a whole ten minutes and watched people go on and on about "LOL RET PALLY BACK TO THE BOTTOM OF THE DPS FOOD CHAIN LOLOLOLOL"

Sigh. Why do I play a game full of such ignorant twats? Sometimes I wonder.

Edited, Nov 4th 2008 7:37pm by Zackary

That really couldn't be further from the truth. If Blizzard really wanted to balance around 1v1 PvP then Rogues would have long ago gotten overhauls that would put the recent nerfs to Ret Pallies to shame. The problem is actually more poignant when considering mid-to-large-scale PvP, particular 2v2 and 3v3 arenas.

Only one DPS spec in the game (Spriest) can dispel Divine Shield, meaning any team containing a Ret Pally would be nearly unbeatable against any double/triple DPS team in 2v2 or 3v3 arenas that didn't contain a Spriest. Teams containing healers would also be at a decided disadvantage since the healer is always either the primary target or locked down if a different primary target is chosen. Divine Shield forbids the other members of the target's team, unless, again, one is a Spriest, from interfering with the Paladin's burst.

You simply can not call AW + DS balanced when it is only balanced against the presence of one particular class and/or three specs. And that's just talking about the AW + DS combo; that doesn't even begin to address any other strengths or weaknesses inherent to the spec.

I understand that. But one can reasonably infer these thing without having it explicitly stated by the devs. Blizzard has always tried to make it clear (while still being as wishy-washy as possible) that they balance around PvP on a larger scale to the relative tune of 5v5. Unfortunately, their attempts remain largely misguided as 3v3 remains the most balanced and dynamic arena bracket, as I believe is evident from the fact that all major tournaments (including those hosted by Blizzard themselves) are carried out in a 3v3 format.

In any case, Ret Pallies were never a serious problem before because they simply did not have the on-demand burst to go along with their survivability, which was honestly also slightly lackluster at the time. With the increase in their overall survivability and burst damage compounded with an increase in longevity and Ret's already natural dominance of the other melee specs, Ret was in a position to single-handedly imbalance the entire 2v2 and 3v3 brackets at 80. I think that's why they made the changes they have and continue to hold Ret under the microscope.

Alright time to bottom-line this one.

The new Art of War is a buff. It replaces 20% crit bonus, a talent affected by Resilience and dependent upon crit gearing, to a 10% overall bonus. In PvP you will see higher resultant overall DPS from this change because Resi isnt eating into your proctime or your crit bonus.

The new Righteous Vengeance is a buff to sustained DPS; the DoT effect is reduced by Resilience but the proc chance is not; it procs at precisely your crit rate pre-Resi, I have seen it happen more than once in my combat log. Not reliably so I think there is a bug floating around, but it does happen and blueposts have implied it is intentional. The DoT still takes a hit from Resi though, sadly.

RV does indeed stack just like Deep Wounds, new damage is added to old damage and the ticks reset and roll higher. For the hard of thinking this is basically double the DPS potential of the old effect.

In PvE this is a fairly substantial buff actually over long-term fights; in PvP frankly I think it is an even break. Priests and Druids are harder, Warriors and Rogues are actually easier. The Vengeance DoT doesnt break Repentence either so it's possible to crit-DoT someone to death while smacking their buddy around.

Yes, Paladins lost burst. They gained more PvE damage, can cut through Resilience better, and an extra little annoyance for defensive dispellers (Dispel can hit weaksauce RV instead of something substantial like Corruption). As soon as they get rid of this band-aid fix on AW, I'll be very happy indeed.

Anyone who isnt an obsessive crit-watcher ought to be quite pleased with how this turned out, the systematic Warlock nerfs were a thousand times worse back in the day. The Seal nerf was the big DPS change, taking away 2-3% total DPS from a Ret using SoC; but guess what? Blood wasnt affected, it still does solid damage.

To anyone who'd like to get on Ret's back about still being overpowered, I'd be truly stunned to see another round of nerfs. Please move on to Arcane Mages and Balance Druids.

did you like taking aggro on the Amani Bear mobs when you Divine Stormed? Now wait for when they are lvl 82 mobs that hit three times that hard. DS = raid wipe potential...or 20% less dps from non-use.

Well in AoE aggro situations you just dont use DS, although all tanks got an AoE threat increase and I only rarely pull aggro in ZA, a famously AoE-dependent raid.

Also... 20%?? DS should NEVER account for 20% of your damage, mine accounts for around 6%, it's really very little. Consecration has more DPS but the mana efficiency sucks a bit.

They hit like girls now, so you can tank them together, i tanked both at once last time through ZA with no problems, just aoe'ed them down, timed HotR for when the riders dismount, etc.


No ret pally is ever gonna pull agro with DS on a decently geared pally tank, but might want to be careful on warr tanks as they are still the weakest aoe tanks imo.

From dpsing in raids as ret since the patch, DStorm has been around 13% of my total damage(trash+boss fights combined), less on single targets of course. But most of the raids i've been in haven't cc'ed any trash and have had multiple pally tanks. Just follow the tanks in, drop consecrate, then DStorm, judge and CS having DShield ready, as you're much more likely to pull the single mob than the other 2+ mobs you hit with DStorm+consecrate.


I have to agree that DStorm breaking cc is very annoying as I haven't gotten a good feel for the range yet and end up not using it at all in those situations. A glyph could solve this issue for those of you who find yourself pulling agro or breaking cc, something similar to the lvl 80 avenger's shield glyph maybe?(AS hits 2 fewer targets but for 100% more damage)

I know that I moaned about the incoming nerfs as much as some others however I have found that it has brought a nice balance to the ret pally, fights do last a bit longer and you do let low on mana however it is not gamebreaking.

You can still frontload a decent amount of burst where required and if crits and so on come in then you can burn down mobs very quickly.

I am actually happy with ret still though I would be stunned if there were any more nerfs as it feels about right atm. Blizz has said that they want ret pallies to be good and really they have put a lot of work into them.

The DS+AW never really affected me as I almost never used AW because there was no clearer way of shouting KILL ME NOW! I never got used to being able to use both and it looks like I will not need to, therefore I do not miss this at all.

Now if Blizz looked at (Nerfed) mages and boomkins it will work out nice.


Edit: Typo

Edited, Nov 6th 2008 10:16am by SamwiseTheBrave

Divine Shield, not Divine Protection. I've yet to see anyone complain about Divine Protection, because anyone with a dispel can remove it.