Don't Nerf Me, Bro!
Posted by 
Bastosa on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 55 Comments Tags: 3.0.2, 3.0.3, Paladin, Patch, content patch, ghostcrawler, nerf, protection, retribution
Bastosa on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 55 Comments Tags: 3.0.2, 3.0.3, Paladin, Patch, content patch, ghostcrawler, nerf, protection, retribution 
So I’m sure many of you have heard, the Paladin heyday is over. We are getting hit with the Nerf Bat… and HARD. Being the token Project Lore Paladin, I thought I should weigh in on this.First of all I should clarify this nerf is aimed mostly at Retribution. Ret was buffed beyond belief in 3.0.2, and I will admit, probably to a fault. The most obvious overbalance being in PVP. I have heard tales of retadins taking out 4-5 opposing players at a time, bubbling, taking out a few more, laying on hands, and going back again. They have been accused of being unkillable and dealing way too much damage.
I’m not going to argue that things are right, in fact I’ll agree that they are very wrong. I must say this whole ordeal as been hard to take as a Paladin. In WoW you grow a certain attachment to the class you play, it becomes part of your identity, and I can’t help but take a lot of the recent criticism a bit personally. There has been massive QQ over what pallies can do. It has gotten to a point that other players are getting angry over it. People are accusing us of being “cheap” or being “cheaters.” This is way out of bounds for me. We are playing our class! We didn’t hack the game to get over powered, it just happened! Sure, I know lots of us have been making the most of it, but I don’t think we are doing anything wrong.
Regardless it seems that the chaos is coming to an end.
Looking over the list that our good friend Ghostcrawler posted, there are quite a few changes coming down the pipeline. Some of which have already been hotfixed into the game, and a few more that are going to hit in upcoming patches.
While I understand this is all part of the class balancing act, I do have a concern, namely the 20% damage nerf to seals and judgments. Consider me a bit selfish, but I can't help but worry that the nerfs to ret are spilling over into the other trees. The Judgment/seal nerf will affect my threat as a tank, no doubt about it. Given, Blizzard acknowledges it, but I think they need to find a way to prevent it, not say they will look into if there is a big problem. They have stated they are very happy with the way Prot has shaped up, so why mess with the formula to teach another spec a lesson?
In the end reading over patch notes gives us a very poor idea of how the game play will actually shape up. We are just going to have to wait until we can play these changes to know if they have done too much, not enough, or got it right. All I know is that I will be paying very close attention.
Reader Comments (55)
It seems, like Blizzard just hates Paladins.
Just because all of the Nerfing, that happens to paladins.
@ Anyone who thinks Paladins are capable of one-shotting you!
Stop exaggerating how badly you lose. You are probably terrible at PvP to begin with, and try to use your raiding/instance gear when you are in the BGs/Arenas. The best a Retadin can do is three shot a clothy, which makes sense, because all cloth classes are ranged, and aren't meant to take many melee hits. It goes a judgement, which you probably don't notice the damage of, being to busy saying "Oh Sh*t!", then Crusader Strike + Auto Attack, and the SoC procs. Even so, the only reason you go down is because a majority of those were critical hits, and you failed to avoid getting in a melee fight with a melee spec'd class. A huge sword to cloth armor, is like a well-sharpened knife to a piece of paper. Now stop whining and get your S2.
imho ret pallys should be the arm warriors of the palladins. arm warriors r good for pvp but could never out dps a fury warr with pretty much the same gear. so as i see it yes a pally should do less damage cause he can outlive any other class. as for pve well, as the arm warrior u can do it but ull never do as much dmg as the other class specced for pve dps. i always tought blizz was making a spec for all class more oriented for pvp like subtelity/arm warr/demo warlock etc... so if ur into pve well pallys still do 2 out of 3 roles so dont b so disapointed. ;)
This nerf is a joke, Crusader Strike does 15% more dmg now, and is just as long a cooldown as Judgment, so the damage is balanced out, and the mana regen still isnt a big deal, its less initially, but u also proc a mana recovery buff, so its the same. The only nerf thats bad in my eyes is glyph of crusader, it used to do 20% more dmg when the target was stunned, now it just costs 20% less. So overall there isnt really a huge difference guys. My ret pally is just as good as before, our judges and CT put us way up in dps, but we have a bubble that gets us out of anything, a flash heal that can be procd an instant cast, and purify for disease, oh and lay on hands JUST IN CASE, stop bitching, were not GODLY anymore, but were still near top if not top of PvP tier.
kthxbai
All I have to say is, a lot of people who complain about other classes being OP are often people who haven't played the class themselves.
I do admit I got a bit scared of paladins after the patch though, and IMHO their nerf isn't crazy.
Oh well.