Quote from: Zarhym (Source)
* Paladins section updated: Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption
“Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage. In addition, the damage-over-time effect is now considered a melee attack instead of a spell attack and the effects from these seals can only be triggered by auto-attacks and Hammer of the Righteous.”
TO
THE
GROUND
BABY!
Wrong move, Blizzard. - Megaphone
July 27th, 2009 - 2:46 pm
I blame Hofflerand.
Every time he lauds something in his blog, it gets nerfed three days later. He’s like that tape from that ring, except faster and for paladins only.
July 27th, 2009 - 2:49 pm
There’s new stuff comin’.
July 27th, 2009 - 3:05 pm
what more swingage of the nerf hammer
July 27th, 2009 - 3:13 pm
Yeah, I’d only hope there’s new stuff coming. Yeah, it’d be nice to not be in the blue when it comes to dealing with Blizzard.
Why not just a, “We don’t like the way the SoV/SoCorr system worked, so we’re keeping it tanking-related and have new things in store for you that will be announced soon”.
Don’t you think that sounds a bit more appealing? It certainly does to me. Too bad it never happens. Ever. And we sit here day after day praying. There’s no reason to not keep praying now!
July 27th, 2009 - 3:23 pm
I think after Engineering, they’re against giving anybody any hope ever. Crygil promised cool things for Engineers and all they got was some stuff to shut them up without really solving any of their issues. If they were to say “Hey Paladins, we’re looking at distance closers and interrupts for you guys to make up for this massive damage loss” and then decide that they like us with low damage and low utility, they’ve got quite a bit of angry, disappointed paladins on their hands.
I just don’t understand why we’re being nerfed in PvE because of PvP. (You can’t deny, this is the reason behind all of ours nerfs isn’t it?) Hopefully. before 3.2 rolls out we’ll see a new entry under retribution akin to “Burden of Guilt, new interrupt/slow” or “Leap of Faith, new charge stun ability!”.
Actually, at this point I’d take “Divine Confetti! It shoots sparkly tassels are your target and has a 100% chance to make you look ridiculous!” It would be more effective than what we have now. =(
July 27th, 2009 - 3:35 pm
I just want to be able to actually compete in pve dps , with high end people, not the scrub guild’s where you are number 1 because everyone sucks.
July 27th, 2009 - 3:48 pm
@ Ferarro
Are these changes something that is unknown to GC? He just stated that he is OK with this change and doesn’t plan on changing anything.
“The goal was not to nerf Ret for PvE. We do want the ramp up time to be significant for PvE or it won’t solve the PvP problem we’re trying to fix. However, once you get the stack up, your damage should be pretty decent. On very short kills (say trash or something like Thorim arena) you won’t be able to get the full benefit from the dot, but any class with a finishing move typically loses that damage as well. Balance is important for both short and long fights, but it’s normal to use different rotations or abilities for those two extremes. (In other words, we’re okay with a long ramp up time for this ability.)
We will continue to monitor Ret numbers coming out of the PTR and even once the patch goes live and make changes if necessary.”
Ghostcrawler
July 27th, 2009 - 4:28 pm
It really amazes me how they can’t just post this right when a PTR build goes up, are they really that scared of QQ? But honestly, this not being a bug isn’t very surprising.
July 27th, 2009 - 4:57 pm
Class just got turned into an Arena punching bag and only useful for long fights short fights our DPS will be garbage and no way on hell on long fighs the DPS makes up for it.
July 27th, 2009 - 5:47 pm
Same old, same old. Blizz makes changes to “balance” things, and the ret community scoffs in their faces saying SoC is useless and SoV is so amazingly better because of . Well, no surprise when blizz goes “we want you using this” and we go “no, it sucks, this is much better”. Nerf.
I was somewhat excited about the new SoV change, but that kinda blows to what they’re changing it too. If more changes are indeed coming to ret (this patch) then I’ll be excited. If not.. I guess.. SoC it is?
Here’s a question, given the way JotW works, does anyone know if the extra 8% mana from JoC happens on judgement, or on judgement dmg like JotW? Which, btw, paladins should be lobbying to change because this is equivalent to warriors and rage starvation while at the same time being vulnerable to dispel mechanics against our regen (DP) and mana burns something that warriors with blood rage didn’t have to worry about (i.e. BR getting dispelled or rage decreasing while in combat without being spent).
I’m not defending blizz, but seriously, you can’t be surprised when people refuse to use something blizz intends for us to use. They’ll just nerf whatever is better. Why improve things, when nerfing is easier?
July 27th, 2009 - 5:57 pm
I told you so…
July 27th, 2009 - 6:23 pm
“I just don’t understand why we’re being nerfed in PvE because of PvP. (You can’t deny, this is the reason behind all of ours nerfs isn’t it?)”
Well firstly ret stats are nothing to write home about in arena (bgs = yay the special Olympics). 2v2 stats have slipped markedly in the last 3-4 months [partcilarly after stiff nerfs to vindication, HoF etc]
Dks and warrs are at the top of arena rankings for dps, and warrs are getting a slight buff…. Explain that.
July 27th, 2009 - 8:10 pm
If the dot effect is considered as a melee attack instead of a magic attack, does that mean it is now non-dispellable?
If the above is the case, wouldn’t fighting a rogue be a joke now? Even with said change, it still doesn’t explain what we’re going to do with Repentance…
July 27th, 2009 - 10:16 pm
there are a lot of fights where you have to switch targets at least once while you fight, and this ramp-up time will make things like killing the heart on XT, dpsing adds on freya, doing the arena at all on thorim, killing ANY iceblocks during the hodir encounter, destroying adds on mimiron, and, um, a lot of other fights much harder for paladins to dps because we’ll have no ability to deal damage upon switching targets.
really looking forward to using SoR for more than half the fights in the game in 3.2, guys.
July 27th, 2009 - 10:27 pm
“Which is why we made the change to let special attacks benefit from the bonus weapon damage. We don’t send every one our builds up to the PTR, and the PTR data is often behind our internal builds. ”
Apparently the most recent in-house build reverts the chance to proc damage, but leaves the chance to stack the DoT as white-hits only.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=18601088546&pageNo=6&ST=US-2214556-AoAd0xQarLb7pKHsDw7XbHVU7IvP3z9g79g#110
July 28th, 2009 - 12:55 am
The funny thing is that this won’t fix the problem at all. SoR will provide similar dps to SoC without any talents and I get the feeling that it will be much better with SotP and the Glyph. The sad thing is that this won’t solve the problem of SoV being used in PvP, I get the sneaky suspicion that Blizzard will shit a break when they see how potent ret + SoV + teammate with spamable snare ends up being.
It’s just pretty damn frustrating that the devs don’t seem to get that two dps seals for balancing PvE and PvP won’t work if both seals only provide damage. They were told in 3.0 that SoC would get kicked to the curb without utility, it was mentioned throughout 3.1 and it’s still being pointed out in 3.2. They have the right idea that the PvP seal should do less damage, now they just need to admit that it needs pvp utility to make it the go to PvP seal.
July 28th, 2009 - 1:06 am
@Brock
No, there’s still new stuff coming. And he never said he doesn’t plan on changing anything. Quite the opposite. You actually quoted it:
“We will continue to monitor Ret numbers coming out of the PTR and even once the patch goes live and make changes if necessary.”
Even if this hellacious new version of SoV/C happens to go Live exactly as is (not likely), it won’t stay Live for long. Now, why is this SoV/C version even being considered? Chalk it up to GC and the dev’s current philosophy of nerfing Ret early so they can buff it up slowly and not the other way around. Is it silly? Yes. Is it retarded? Borderline. But it’s pretty obvious it won’t - can’t - stay the same.
I’ll go more in depth about it on my blog.
July 28th, 2009 - 1:26 am
I’m curious what part of “nerfing the damage output relative to SoC” is supposed to make SoV more attractive. Le sigh.
I’m sure they’ll monitor it, but it’ll take till 3.3 for them to make any meaningful change to it.
July 28th, 2009 - 1:47 am
“We will continue to monitor Ret numbers coming out of the PTR and even once the patch goes live and make changes if necessary.” This is a standardized response that politicians use frequently. It carries no weight, since it is all relative. It is just a “trust me” statement that can be used to show to the masses that the person saying it “cares about my needs.”
He said he is ok with there being a long ramp-up, meaning he is content with the change. This leads me to believe that there will be no changes to it’s current state other than slight damage % modifications.
Ret DPS was low in 3.1 so in 3.2 it was due for a buff. SoV was buffed up and then nerfed substantially. It started out strong on the PTR and then got weaker. This does not equate to the Dev’s “new philosophy” that you speak of. Instead, it reeks of their old philosophy. That of nerfs on Friday with no response till Monday.
I don’t doubt the competency of the development team. I do, however, understand time constraints in real time situations. Band-aid fixes are, sometimes, the only solution for the moment. This is Ret’s state in the current PTR. A figurative mummy, if you will, from the plethora of band-aids that have been applied.
This “new stuff” would have to be substantial in order for it to truly “fix” ret, but there isn’t enough time left before patch 3.2 comes out to fully vet any substantial changes. I do not know when the patch will be released, but the “feeling” is that the deadline is fast approaching.
Realistically there isn’t a lot that can be changed. I hope for the best, but I will always expect the worst. If nothing else, at least I can be suprised.
Thanks for your comments, F or E or B or whoever posted it.
I will be looking forward for your blog update.
I
July 28th, 2009 - 3:59 am
To be honest, the dev team lacks any real creativity in the first place. GC is an ass just like Kalgan. They may not be retarded, but they may as well be. I think they’re just lazy and overpaid at this point. Not that I can’t see the difficulty in making balance from a complicated scheme, but they’re not trying. Not trying. They need new blood on the dev team that can make positive changes. I’d love to make a loooooong list of creative alternatives, but it’s late, I’m tired and there’s a ton of suggestions in the paladin forums already full of creativity and viability. I’m not speaking out of anger. I honestly think the dev team should diaf and GC needs to drive off a cliff.
July 28th, 2009 - 4:45 am
Leaving all the rage behind, I doubt you will see any more changes to Paladins before 3.2 hits the live servers. MMO-Champ reckons the patch is next week, I don’t see any reason to disagree with that timescale. They will introduce nothing new with a week or even a fortnight left to go, best we can hope for is that they revert this change, though I don’t think they are big enough to admit it was a mistake…
July 28th, 2009 - 6:10 am
Everyone knew that there would be a change to SoV of some kind, as soon as people started reporting using it in PVP. Even with this recent news will it still out weight SoC?
From what I saw people have, on avg, only had a DPS increase of about 500 on the PTR with copied toons on training dummies. How much of a PVE DMG reduction does this actually equate to?
July 28th, 2009 - 6:34 am
GC doesnt know his head from his ass when it comes to paladins or this change wouldnt of hit the ptr plain and simple.
July 28th, 2009 - 7:04 am
I don’t get very well the concept here, so I believe people may disagree with it.
July 28th, 2009 - 7:13 am
Who gives a crap about EZ mode PvE…”hmm I wonder what he’s gonna do this time? Oh right, the same thing he did the last 2398349 times I fought him.” - hard stuff there.
Lowered damage, no interrupt…we aren’t going to kill anyone in an arena unless it’s versus an all dps team. Hopefully we can get 5 stacks up before we die.
July 28th, 2009 - 7:21 am
@Ferarro
Honestly, are you that much of a fanboy/girl?
This is the same shit with a new lead developer. Time after time, paladin changes (ret in particular) show a lack of foresight and often require multiple iterations on the PTR to get anything close to balanced before it goes live, only for the developers change paladins again a couple patches later. None of them understand paladins at all, so expecting anything that’s actually balanced and fun in the long-term is pretty much rolling dice.
July 28th, 2009 - 8:20 am
realistically, if they go live with this implementation, they can expect that most guilds won’t be bringing ret pallies to the new raid unless the fights are so simple that you can sit on a boss for six minutes and win. hell, if this goes live i’m probably going to try and get my arms warrior to 80 and gear her up for raiding, because i wouldn’t expect my guild to bring me along with such an inferior combat mechanic in place. there’s no chance of me being any good at all, even in ulduar, with the way fights are designed.
once they realize that no one is playing ret any more to raid, they’ll do something about it. the only real question is whether people will still have raid spots once they realize that something needs to be done.
July 28th, 2009 - 8:34 am
@ Ferraro
“I’ll go more in depth about it on my blog.”
Great. Stay there while you are at it. You already shat where you worked, you don’t get to clean it up.
July 28th, 2009 - 9:07 am
I haven’t done any testing on the ptr or the like, as I prefer to leave that to others. When/if the changes as they stand on the ptr hit live I’ll have a better grasp on what these changes mean or do. Wouldn’t it be great if after a ptr, instead of blizz hotfixing us with nerfs, they hotfixed us with a buff? Yeah, wishfully thinking.
Still, the SoV change could get reverted before the ptr hits live, paladins dominate because everyone’s saying “lol, ret paladins are more faceroll than before cause you just get 5 stacks up and tunnelvision to victory!” and then blizz hotfix nerfs us. Which would make you happier? Yeah, getting it right the first time however that’ll never happen.
So, hotfix shortly after the patch goes live? Or launching underpowered and struggling like always? I’ll still give ret a shot post patch in pvp (currently arenaing as ret but raiding as holy but always willing to respec ret at a moment’s notice ^.^)
I rolled this class originally to be a buffer. A character that when in a group, I provide game changing powerful buffs. To me, that’s never come about and we’ve actually seen the class go to a pure dps or pure healer, pure tank aspect. We don’t buff, we have buffs but we’re not known for providing game changing buffs. (Hand spells can change games, but I don’t feel they are unique buffs rather than a counter or escape mechanism in the case of HoP).
Would you people use SoC if there were a chance on dmg that you gained a buff that did not put your hand spells on cd? Essentially, you can use HoF or HoP or HoSac without it going on cd? That’d be pretty damn powerful and meaningful. It’d allow us to pre HoF only to get stunned, then HoF out of it. I mean, that’d be pretty spectacular. Or, if that’s too OP, maybe there’s an increased chance on dmg (over the previous example) that HoF will finish its cd. So, in my first example, imagine a … 3 ppm chance of your hand spells not getting put on cd when used, and in the second one, a 7ppm chance your HoF finishes cd when inflicting dmg.
What about that? Everyone wants a slow, but how about we use our “gap closer” or “gap preventer” and instead actually be unslowable? DKs get an AoE slow on auto attack. Why can we not get more freedom of movement? We can’t zoom around so I think it’d be great if we were the anti slow. And everyone’s been lobbying for AoE freedom since vanilla WoW and earthbind totem. I don’t see that happening, so how about a more frequent HoF which is what my two previous ideas want to use.
I think everyone here only wants a gap closer because even though we move faster, CoI, Frost Shock, concussion shot, etc. can be enough or last long enough to keep putting distance between us and our target. If our gap closer is PoJ coupled with JoJ, then we need to not be slowed in the least.
That’s my thinking.
July 28th, 2009 - 9:08 am
Quick Fix -
switch to a fast 1 hander to apply DOTs, then switch to your big - bad 2 handed sword.
even if CS is buffed to apply the DOT, switching will be the BEST way to dps effectively.
July 28th, 2009 - 10:30 am
Now it seems that patch 3.2 we’ll nerf to the ground our pvp burst and our pve dps.
I really like the new Seals/Judgements system that Blizz implemented with WOTLK and all the major change brought to our class.
But now we’re risking to turn back time, like TBC or worse.
Paladins need these changes:
-The new SoV/SoCorr can be classified like a PVE ability only. The fact that the SoV/SoCorr dots can be delivered only with auto attacks and HoR is a huge nerf in uor dps.
We have to wait a long time to start dpssing seriously the mobs.
Let’s give us the opportunity to dot mobs with all our melee ability.
For the PVP aspect you can disable the SoV/SoCorr in arena or making it works different on players (like is working now on mobs: dots with only auto attack/HoR).
-The new Seal of Casinò…err Seal of Command…make it the PVP seal…but a serious one.
You have nerfed our burst not only with these class changes, but also with the resilience and new resilience changes (now resilience will reduce all damage caused by players, no more only dots and not only % of crits and crits damage).
We aren’t unloading such a loads of big damage (only when we face “green people” which just hitted 80 or players in pve gear with 0 resi): 3.0 times are gone long time ago.
-We are the easiest class to kite. HoF, JoJ and PoJ aren’t gap closer or snearing effect. They have giant flaws: HoF can be dispelled/stealed/countered (fear, blind, horror, cyclone, ecc.), JoJ prevents people from running over the 100% speed but doesn’t slow them a bit (and it’s dispellable) and PoJ is useless with HoF in cd.
We need a gap closer or a snare effect. And a smart one.
Repentance has 1 min cd…and it’s not a gap closer, it’s a “sort” of cc.
-We can’t kill healers. That’s THE point. The majority of them facepalm us. Stuns and our “burst” (rofl) are easily predictable. Without them we aren’t nothing against them.
That’s the reason why Retribution Paladins need a nice interrupt or a healing reduction debuff (and not a lame one, like always happens -_-”).
That can be implemented in the very deep of Retribution tree, so only Ret will have that.
And don’t use the usual statement “We don’t want classes to be too similar…”, because the paladin is the only class who’s got an interrupt that has effect only on the mobs (HoJ…and, please, don’t force me to discuss about Repentance…-_-”) and the Mortal Strike debuff (Warriors, Rogue and Hunters have it already) is now going to mage and priest with 3.2.
Probably, the best solution is an affect similar to the one from the Unrelenting Assault: -25% spellpower (or healing and damage) if the Paladin strikes a casting enemy with a certain spell (and we can move the talent deep in the Ret tree, like the snare).
That’s my point of view.
I’ve played a Retribution Paladin from the day that I started play WoW and not because it was op or something else.
I play it because I istantly love that Holy Warrior and I had fun playing it. I’m playing it right now and I’ve achieved something with that character in pve and in pvp also (arena, not zerging bg).
I’m not thinking to be a “pro” or an “expert” player but I think that as a mature and intelligent player I can argue the things that I had observed in these days.
I’m sorry for my typo and my bad English and I’ll thanks all of you for reading this.
Romberg of Frostmane.
July 28th, 2009 - 5:59 pm
If this goes live without any concurrent buffs, we are completely fucked.
July 28th, 2009 - 10:09 pm
The thing that amuses is that blizzard truly thinks this change might get paladins to use command in PvP…… We were supposed to be using over blood in PvP…… that didn’t seem to work to well, even if it goes live and stays that way for any considerable period of time (which I hope and expect won’t be the case) We will find a way to make SoV work and not use that POS they keep trying to bill as the PvP seal.
July 29th, 2009 - 3:25 am
I read over the patch notes and just shook my head. This whole idea about ramping up is just stupid for a class which is all about high burst. How are you mean to do your burst in a fight where target swapping is needed? Lord forbid XT’s heart or similar.
Once again another major patch comes and goes, promises of fixes are forgotten in favour for the nerf stick. Did anyone spot the fabled ‘this is only a stop gap measure, changes are coming’ post by GC? I wont hold my breath.
PvE, unless Ret has to attack a single target and nothing else (hello XT, Kolo etc) the overall dps will be fucked.
PvP, no snare, interrupt, MS or closer again while now even mages and priests get a 20% MS effect.
To the ground, again.
July 30th, 2009 - 6:02 am
We have two ramp ups now, don’t forget vengeance.
How may classes out there have two damn ramps to deal with? Blizzard needs to wake up.
August 8th, 2009 - 1:15 am
Reading all of these, I see many logical points, and much speculation as well. I have been doing just as most other regular players have been doing lately, running heroics ’till I puke to obtain conquest emblems. Now If you spend that extra one point in your talent tree to get your seal of command as well, couldn’t you just pop your new seal mid fight depending on your situation? Seal of command for groups seeing as to how it is now similar to the old martyr/blood doing a set damage range per attack. Vengeance on the long fights? For bosses such as XT, the your ramp up shouldn’t be too bad, and if you see that you aren’t getting stacks fast enough use your command for guaranteed damage. Yeah, my dps went down significantly, but we’re stuck with the change till the next hotfix, try to work with it guys. I’ve been a ret for 4 years, since classic, when no one knew what ret was. Our day will come again.
August 28th, 2009 - 7:30 pm
@ Fuzzydwarf
The Seal of Command talent is absolutely useless, don’t get it, not even as a talent filler. If you find yourself in such a situation as XT etc. I suggest you use Seal of Righteousness, not only does it share the damage buff from Seal of Corruption/Vengeance with the talent ‘Seals of the Pure’, it does significantly more damage than Seal of Command does. It also deals damage with every attack, this includes DS and CS.
I recommend using Seal of Righteousness on trash packs, Seal of Corruption/Vengeance just won’t cut it for you for DPS, you won’t be able to get your stacks up fast enough, nor will you get it up on enough mobs.
I have undergone a study of using a one handed melee weapon to get your Seal of Corruption/Vengeance stacks up significantly faster, although I haven’t tried it yet. However, as an engineer, I suggest you get Hyperspeed Accelerators on your Hand slot item instead of an attack power enchant or the such. The engineer tinker gives you 340 haste for 10 seconds with a 1 minute cooldown, this will certaintly get your stacks up faster for that insane burst you want on bosses like XT.
That’s my point of view though, you guys may think different, thanks for reading anyway.