i feel compelled to ask the question also has not most of the testing been done on patchwork... who is undoubtably and undead boss.... and in blizzards own description of paladins they are suposed to own undead.... so shouldnt a ret palading come out 1st on dps vs and undead or demon if thats what they are suposed to be specialized against... if u nerf us to normal dps numbers vs undead that puts us at extremly low dps numbers vs humanoid beast giant dragon ect.... so what exactly is up with that?

I agree with blizzards recent decision with pallys.

I have seen lvl 68 pally's rip through a clothies 400res+ in seconds, that shouldnt be the case.


Pallys have alot of surviability options, from BoF, bubbles, healing, stuns, good armor etc. with surviability comes a reduction in damage.

Cheers GC for a while there I was worried we would be playing the "World of Retadin"

Not good enough. Mana has always simply been up and down like a modified energy bar for every other class except paladins, for us it was always down and further down. Until the recent talent changes. Now you're taking it away again.

My subscription expires in a few weeks and I am not renewing it. I hope the loss of my $15 a month means you can't buy that new ivory backscratcher.

P.S. Shamans water shield costs nothing yet my seal of wisdom currently costs 413 mana and you've nerfed it to reduce how much it gives me back. THE HELL!?

Ive seen a 400 res clothie hit another 400res player for 14k in 2.5s.

---

Q u o t e:
I agree with blizzards recent decision with pallys.

I have seen lvl 68 pally's rip through a clothies 400res+ in seconds, that shouldnt be the case.


Pallys have alot of surviability options, from BoF, bubbles, healing, stuns, good armor etc. with surviability comes a reduction in damage.

Cheers GC for a while there I was worried we would be playing the "World of Retadin"

---

those must have been really crappy clothies playing lol btw we die really quickly and we can't get out of CC easy

Id realy just like to see us actualy be balanced youve said your trying to make us balanced but weve always been towards the bottom of eaqualy skilled and geared players, even at the bottom of the hybrid class', i understand you work hard at it and you guys have alot to do im not asking to be on the top in a day like what happened but competitive without over gearing the people i raid with, id even be happy to just be close ive always had to work my @$$ off to compete with warriors in tanking and never been able to get close to warlocks in damage, you guys havent taken care of us as far as balance goes but it seems like your trying to balance us back after out opness just remember to balance us foward if were not right and you know it just dont leave us in the ditch as bieng "OK" thanks for letting us know you were nerfing us as well its very kind of you >^_^<

edit=i realy am thankful for the heads up i just always come out arogant its a pally thing >-<

I was going to post my life story, but to be honest it wouldn't be worth the read

after speccing ret from 2 years of holy and finding myself in a state of infinite mana & hp I'm not really surprised by the nerfs, saddened but not surprised.

I think my main concern is the thought that ret pallys in arena will be a literal 3 mana burns / 2 viper stings (1 if imp'd) / 3 drain mana's (depends) and you're out class
(or at least out until you've gotten away from your opponents and drank)

personally I just can't see any way around it

if you get a ret pally below the 6% judge mana cost, he can't judge = no JotW = no mana = auto attack
the 3 mana draining classes can dispel BoW if for some reason we have it up over might
BoW costs mana so it's too late to put it up if we're oom
you can't SoW if you're oom to get mana back
guess you'd better hope you JoW at the start (and they don't have a defensive dispel)

yes there are other dps classes who go oom, but only enhancement shammys are also meele.
(and their BoW equivalent is mana free)

anyway, it's just a worry as we can only theorycraft.

personal opinion btw
I could be totally wrong here, but I feel that giving instant attacks the chance to proc SoC was part of the problem, if you rocked up to someone, blew your load, all of them crit and 2/3 proc'd a crit SoC then I wouldn't be surprised if something blew up.

perhaps if SoC was put back to white dmg procing only and was raised to 70% weapon dmg, there would be less potential for instagibbing.

this would also increase the value of haste to retadins as atm it only seems to make your autoattack & SoC from white (which is 45% now) dmg increase, not a hugely useful stat compared to crit rating.
(VS white + 70% SoC gaining from haste)

This would also assist leveling ret pallys, who have no instants (judgements no longer proc SoC I hear)

anyway, it's only a game, we're all only here as we've got nothing else better we want to do, and whatever happens I'll still be healing my ass off come WotLK.

I'm greatly reminded of that world of roguecraft video where there's a shot of the forums, pictures of babys crying and the audio to go with it.

http://www.jokepier.com/detail.php?jid=7726&position=10&categoryid=5&cat=1

can tests be done on other types of bosses (humanoids etc) testing on undead/demon are not accurate.

---

Q u o t e:
If professional players dont think anything is wrong with the class, and/or the class is balanced, why is it that Blizz (in their infinite wisdom) think that paladins are NOT balanced?

---

Its because they received thousands of tickets/hate mail/angry phone calls of all the other class going : "Imma quit WoW and stop my subscription if paladins can kill me in WoTLK" and the only numbers Blizz can truelly add up together are the $$ they'd lose even if only 1 out of 20 of these QQers actually did what they say they'll do.

This has nothing to do with so called balance. This has to do with money. Blizz is a buisness, the revenue risk it represent is greater from the QQers then from us.

Dont you get it? This is why no blue can give us numbers that do add up while you guys have been proving them over and over in all sort of rational arguments that Ret was not OPed and did not need a nerf. Its because, again, this has nothing to do with what you're all arguing. None of your argument will have any sort of weight against the fear Blizz has of that 1/20 QQer that truelly will tell his/her parents to stop paying for this game.

Ummm bullcrap everything in a raid kills dps in one shot. Ret paladins do have kings its called a tier 1 talent. I apologize for only knows ret paladins that don't suck.

LOLLLLLLLLL

---

Q u o t e:


No, silly me, I did read it all.

There were some good responses, and I thank you for it. There were some good questions too, and I will try to find some time to answer them (reading them took a very long time).

While I do find some of the outrage to be over the top considering so few people have even been able to try the changes (which themselves were severe but hardly life-threatening), overall it was interesting to see the reaction. I do hope that some of it was caused, as several of you suggested, by the unfortunate timing of having a beta go live at the same time the forums went down. (Before you smell a conspiracy, do you really think I would have shifted over to the live forums if that were true?)

It's going to be challenging to keep discussing class balance in the Live forums the way I have in beta just given the magnitude of posts overall. I'm not sure how to have a conversation with so many thousands of people at once. :)

It is rewarding to once again be reminded that people really care so much about the game. Whether you choose to believe it or not, so do we.

---

Will u find the time to answer these question maybe before WOTLK is release?

cancel your accounts.

---

Q u o t e:


BoK is still the best buff. The ability to put might on melee and wisdom on casters is where the power of their buffs comes from.

Bubble, shield, plate and LoH make them less squishy than other DPS. If you think all DPS are equal squishy you are greatly incorrect.

Mana regen on paladin and shadowpriests are EXACTLY the same clearly you haven't played both. Both mana regen spells apply .25% mana to 10 party members every second. The only difference is the shadowpriests only works while dpsing and paladins works all the time. This means that when a mob dies they lose theirs. In fact, VE is being made a replenishment effect so they don't stack and are exactly the same.

I never said you would bring a ret pally as a raid healer. The healing that was being provided while dpsing was substantial though and a large utility benefit vs other classes brought to raid. The old divine storm alone was giving alot of heals. Instant cast FoL helps alot in a bind and if you were not using this ability because you were too busy trying to hit top dps and call your healers noobs you are playing poorly.

Bubble and LoH are not over the top but everything ret pallies get put together = dps with most utility.

---

BoK is the best buff out there? Best for what? Its a generic buff that is good for everybody. Tanks would take probably take Fort over Kings, casters would take Int over kings, and healers would take Spirit over Kings. However full raid buffs are awesome, kings is the icing on that cake. Its not the best and not every spec of paladin will have it.

Bubble, shield, LoH, .... Bubble if i get threat, LoH to the tank if his life dips to low (press "F", LoH, Press "F" resume dps) , and lastly... shield? Why would i use a shield with a 2 handed weapon?

Shadow priests can mind blast 5.5 seconds (if spec'd for it) thus triggering the mana regen more often in long fights. Im not talking about quick scraps with 10,000 hp mobs. Boss fights, a shadow priest will return more mana. Also shadow priests are having to stay less mobile whereas melee have to run in and out, i cant always get my 8 second cooldown judgement off to restore mana to my party members.

Again our healing... how are you saying our healing is better while doing damage? Vampiric Embrace far exceeds the healing that a ret paladin can do. 3-4 castings of holy light and im out of mana as a ret paladin.

Laslty, im not too sure what you're exactally arguing. You're talking paladins up that we're Gods, yet we have unique abilities. For the third time - SO DOES EVERY OTHER CLASS. If we didn't, there wouldnt be a need for different classes.

---

Q u o t e:
Ummm bullcrap everything in a raid kills dps in one shot. Ret paladins do have kings its called a tier 1 talent. I apologize for only knows ret paladins that don't suck.

---

lol any ret paladin at 70 who has kings need to delete and reroll

and yeah i know in karazhan bosses dont 1 shot u

---

Q u o t e:


No, silly me, I did read it all.

There were some good responses, and I thank you for it. There were some good questions too, and I will try to find some time to answer them (reading them took a very long time).

While I do find some of the outrage to be over the top considering so few people have even been able to try the changes (which themselves were severe but hardly life-threatening), overall it was interesting to see the reaction. I do hope that some of it was caused, as several of you suggested, by the unfortunate timing of having a beta go live at the same time the forums went down. (Before you smell a conspiracy, do you really think I would have shifted over to the live forums if that were true?)

It's going to be challenging to keep discussing class balance in the Live forums the way I have in beta just given the magnitude of posts overall. I'm not sure how to have a conversation with so many thousands of people at once. :)

It is rewarding to once again be reminded that people really care so much about the game. Whether you choose to believe it or not, so do we.

---

Have you noticed that the vast majority (if not ALL) the Paladins are pissed at you? We've been through Blizzard's nerf crap for 4 freaking years and we KNOW what these changes are going to do.

Give some bloody credit to some of us old schoolers for understanding this game, especially PvP, and understanding the limitations of this class BETTER than any dev you have on your team, guarenteed.

Stop looking at the god damn spread sheets and get into the bgs and actually PLAY THIS CLASS EXRENSIVELY so you can see how it performs against other classes.

You will most certainly re-evaluate your position.

---

Q u o t e:
I thought we were supposed to be bursty?
Yes, that's the design. It's also a tough design to nail because if you're too bursty the opponent doesn't even get to respond.

---

Oh, sorry. We forgot that attacking someone without them being able to respond was reserved to stun-lock rogues. Next.

---

Q u o t e:
You reviewed our class last because you don't care.
We overhauled the entire class. We rebuilt the way Seals and Judgements work, and by and large it's a good change. Paladins got a lot of attention for Lich King. your response suggests to me that the correct way to balance the game in the future is to make a class terrible early on and then buff it so that players are happy and excited instead of fuming and disappointed. Trajectory is everything.

---

No. What we are suggesting is that the INCORRECT way to balance the game is to make a class that has been made a laughing stock by your liberal and frequent use of the nerf bat excitingly good and then publicly HUMILIATE them by stripping that all away just when they were starting to get comfortable. We’re sorry that you didn’t get that.

---

Q u o t e:
But we don't care about Battlegrounds.
A lot of people do care. And if you don't care about them right now, I'll warrant that's because they don't offer the rewards that Arenas or raiding do. This is something we want to address in the future.

Again, though, we think Ret was out of line in several situations. Other classes are OP in some situations too, and we have either recently nerfed them or are still discussing how we want to address those classes as well.

---

No. You’re dead wrong. Not even close. Do you even PLAY a paladin? We don’t care about battlegrounds because you built a crappy class that can’t compete in Battlegrounds. And we know that you’ll “get to that” in the future. We KNOW other classes are OP in some situations – we’ve been their whipping boys for 2 years. And the fact that you buffed us last, but then nerfed us first, but promise you’ll be “looking at how to address” how you might nerf them a little bit so they are merely superhuman and not god-like when they’re kicking the crap out of us just doesn’t quite soothe us as we pick ourselves up off the floor after you’ve hit us with the nerf bat – first – AGAIN.

---

Q u o t e:
Look at all the other classes in here laughing at us.
Well, they're jerks. Many of them probably suspect they are OP too and have so far escaped the nerfbat. So far. We want Retribution to be a dangerous class to go up against. We don't want to see BGs with 30 Retadins on one side, which is actually something we were seeing. Yeah, I know it sucks that people say Lolet. It sucks when people say huntards too. That doesn't drive people away from playing either class. We're always going to have some amount of competition in this game, either directly in PvP or the damage race in PvE. If I can read 1200 angry posts from Ret pallies today, you can blow off some inane gloating from warlocks or warriors. We delete the trolling comments when we see them.

---

Thanks Mom. You’re the best. You’re right, I’ll bet those other kids ARE just jealous. Newsflash – WE KNOW THEY’RE JERKS. We just can’t DO anything to shut them UP because you keep tying our hands behind us. And the fact that you’ve pointed out that they’ve “escaped the nerfbat, so far” just PROVES that when it comes to nerfing, Paladins are always first, and always hit hardest. But hey, you’ll get to those other classes soon enough. And then, boy… whew. Won’t they be sorry.

---

Q u o t e:
Why did I describe our initial attempts to nerf Ret as surgical?
Because that's what we tried to do. In retrospect, we were so worried about nerfing Ret too much that we ended up not fixing the problem. We should have done more sweeping changes initially.

---

Once again, WRONG. What you SHOULD have done was not made such a huge SPECTACLE of how much you were going to BUFF Paladins, so that everyone else was watching. Now, you’ve got their attention just in time to pants us – AGAIN.

---

Q u o t e:
Why did we say Ret was fine for so long?
Because we didn't want to have to nerf the spec. Ret players were having fun. We thought and hoped that some well publicized bugs were to blame for the excess damage. As I've said, if I wait to post until we're absolutely 100% certain, you're just not going to get as many posts. Many posters have said they appreciate getting occasional developer communication and insight. But that is going to come with some risk that things are going to change. As I said, I'll caveat it more in the future.

---

Yeah they were having fun. After being useless for over a year, they could finally COMPETE again. And what you call “excess damage” is in, reality, just leveling the field.

---

Q u o t e:
We don't believe you because we've been at the bottom of the barrel before.
There's not much I can do to get you to believe me or not. I try to be honest so my words carry some weight, but I also try to joke around a little so you know I don't take myself too seriously. I don't know how many other ways to say that it sucks that your PvE wasn't competitive in BC or that you weren't a major Arena force. That's not where we wanted you to end up and not where we want you to end up this time. I'm not going to show you my daily tasks or how I spend my time so that you can oversee my progress and make sure it doesn't happen again. Sorry. The best thing you can do is point out situations where you're struggling so we can investigate. Most of you haven't even had a chance to test with these changes yet.

---

Sure there is, Ghost. Don’t cop out. You can deliver. You can give gifts that you don’t publicly take back. What you’ve done by screwing us in BC is set the stage so that the other classes won’t be satisfied unless we are ALWAYS last. Well, that’s unacceptable. And your language in these posts doesn’t do anything to reassure us that you or anyone at Blizzard gives a crap whether we remain dead last, no matter how much you prattle on about making the field “level”.

Don’t deny it. This isn’t about excessive damage. This is about appeasement. You guys pissed off 4 classes by moving Paladins up the roster, and that’s just bad for business. That’s the ONLY explanation for making such a public – frequent – and overt statement that “Ret paladins are getting nerfed.” Because the implied “so please settle down” reads so comfortably behind it. Show me one other class where Blizzard has every come right out and said “yeah, we’re nerfing you.”

---

Q u o t e:
You're nerfing paladins because of PvP.
Read my initial post again. Ret PvE dps was also too high.

---

What does this prove? “No, no… we aren’t caving to the people who were complaining about paladins in PvP. No, we are caving to the raiders who didn’t like losing their top spots to paladins too.”

---

Q u o t e:
Our numbers are different from yours.
That's going to happen. We compare data when we can. I think you'd agree that the game balance would be pretty interesting if we automatically made adjustments whenever anyone suggested them.

---

And I think you’d agree that you can make the numbers say whatever you need them too, especially when you are making the case to appease the other classes.

And don’t bother denying it, man. Everyone knows what is going on here. But we can’t do anything about it. And you won’t.