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Q u o t e:
Hey GC, just wanted to post an opinion on the DS + AW thing.

What I was wondering, instead of forbearance, why not make it like trinkets? When you pop an AP trinket, you can't pop another AP trinket until the first's duration is over.

Why not make it so activating DS puts AW on a 12 second cooldown?

Seems like the obvious fix to me, and shouldn't be overly difficult to achieve since you have it in place on trinkets, and certain spells putting others on cooldown currently in game.

Thanks for the heads up too, I could see this hurting holy paladins though too, who can DS+AW for healing.

Anyway, lemme know what you think!

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I concur with this idea, though I think around 20-30 sec may be more appropriate.

Instead of doing Ret nerfs, you need to nerf arcane mages to the ground.

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Q u o t e:
Wow. I'm so glad I get to play patch 2.4 while everyone else enjoys 3.0

One step forward, fifteen steps back.

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What's that? A pally still isn't bottom 5s in arena? Thank god the locks been buffed to be able to handle a single melee dps being put on him... Oh wait.

Welcome to our world.

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Q u o t e:
Instead of doing Ret nerfs, you need to nerf arcane mages to the ground.

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Arcane is FOTM and will be regulated soon.

Would AW cause Forbearance only in PvP? If not, you're gimping PvE at the same time. I prefer to solo, and there are times where I need to bubble in a bad situation. If AW causes forbearance, I have to be very selective about using it because I don't know if I'm going to get in a situation where bubbling is required.

I'm not saying this doesn't need to be fixed, but you need to be very careful not to look like you're pissing on an already nerfed class.

If you link it to Forbearance then people will preferentially leave open the option of using a bubble (i.e. not use wings).

How about:
Avenging Wrath: while this effect is active, the paladin cannot be affected by Divine Shield
Divine Shield: while this effect is active, the paladin cannot use Avenging Wrath. Also reduces cast time of Hearthstone by 10 seconds.

Obviously if a paladin uses AW and suddenly needs to bubble they'd need to lose the AW buff, but at least the option is there and there's no chance of using Bubble Wrath.

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Q u o t e:


I concur with this idea, though I think around 20-30 sec may be more appropriate.

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The idea is to not be able to use both together from how I understood what GC said. This would make that happen without using forbearance as the deterrent.

I NEVER used AW in arenas pre-3.0, because doing so made my death certain.

god bless you GC, pallys ret are detroing my fun in bgs.

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Q u o t e:
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.

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It's no surprise that your "pretty severe nerfs" didn't have any effect on Paladins' PVP dominance, because they did absolutely nothing to address the problem in PVP. Taking away our mana regeneration hurts us over the long haul, but you did virtually nothing to stop Paladins from being what they were in a short PVP encounter.

That was a major point we were trying to tell you back when the JotW nerf went into effect, that it was unnecessary and doesn't actually address the core problems the community was addressing with the Paladin.

Just posted this in another thread, but tell me what you think:

Have bubble reduce damage done by 20/30%? I know it sounds horrible but I would rather be able to use bubble when I want for defense and wings for focused burst, rather than be locked out of one after using the other.

Also, if we pop wings every other class now is going to know that they can kill us ASAP without bubble. It's a huge nerf.

Lol doesnt bother me. Before patch i never used wings in pvp unless fighting undergeared people. and during 3.0.2 found wings+bubble a waste.


Go right ahead just dont mess things up like in the past.

GC, I understand the reasoning behind why this change is needed, but can you make Divine Shield and Avenger Wrath strictly mutually exclusive without resorting to a 3 minute forbearance? i.e. You cannot cast Divine Shield while Avenger Wrath is active, and vice versa.

If Avenger Wrath causes forbearance, it will once again rarely be used in arenas, just like how it was in TBC, because the risk is way too high. Even if you lowered forbearance to 1 minute cooldown it wouldn't be enough, because arena pvp is so fast-paced that you cannot predict whether you will need Divine Shield within 1 minute. Currently, Avenger wrath is mostly used only when you're pretty sure you have the upper-hand or are about to win the match, and in that case, what's the point of the spell at all?

Also, don't forget Holy paladins. In WotLK you added a +20% healing component to Avenger Wrath so that it will be useful for holy paladins. Attaching forebearance onto it will stop holy paladins from casting it unless they've already exausted their Divine Shield AND lasted long enough for forbearance to disappear.

I agree using Avenging wrath with divine shield is OP. But however i don't think avenging wrath should cause forbearance, i think you just shouldn't be able to use avenging wrath with bubble. Also on a side note i'd make it where instead of 100% slow on our weapon while in bubble, maybe consider making it where we cause 50% less damage or so when were bubbled. That might help? Just my two cents :) GC you've been doing a great job to us ret paladins. I'm happy with most of the changes you've made so far.

Ghostcrawler, there is one major problem with your scenario. It only works against melee classes, and even then, only if they don't run.

Right now, that same situation goes on whenever a mildly talented ranged attacker, such as a Hunter, Mage or Priest can do the exact same thing to us.

A Mage can kite us for nearly 4 minutes regardless of spec, 6 if frost spec

A Priest can mana burn us to effectively dead in about 10 seconds.

A hunter can stay away for near indefinitely thanks to 40 yards of range.

These are just a few examples of people being able to take us from 0-100 with no fear of real retaliation. Please bear in mind no amount of burst helps us with this problem. We are simply helpless against a decent ranged attacker.

If paladins lose the ability to Aw/bubble at the same time yet gain some pvp viability tools like Distance closers movement impairing effects and interrupts I am all for this change.

It is high time the class gets some much needed tools as it is the tools that makes a melee class not the burst damage.

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Q u o t e:
If paladins lose the ability to Aw/bubble at the same time yet gain some pvp viability tools like Distance closers movement impairing effects and interrupts I am all for this change.

It is high time the class gets some much needed tools as it is the tools that makes a melee class not the burst damage.

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I would support this nerf if crusader strike or divine storm interrupted spell casting, a la Earth Shock.

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Q u o t e:
Hey GC, just wanted to post an opinion on the DS + AW thing.

What I was wondering, instead of forbearance, why not make it like trinkets? When you pop an AP trinket, you can't pop another AP trinket until the first's duration is over.

Why not make it so activating DS puts AW on a 12 second cooldown?

Seems like the obvious fix to me, and shouldn't be overly difficult to achieve since you have it in place on trinkets, and certain spells putting others on cooldown currently in game.

Thanks for the heads up too, I could see this hurting holy paladins though too, who can DS+AW for healing.

Anyway, lemme know what you think!

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Something like this instead of a full forbearance.

They changed it so ele shammys cant use Elemental Mastery and Nature's Swiftness at the same time so just make it that you can't use AW and DS at the same time. No need for such a long debuff like forebearance.