Pally nerf inc

Paladin
Holy

• Sacred Shield can now only occur every 30 sec. (Up from 6 sec)
• Lay on Hands can no longer be cast on yourself.
• Infusion of Light now also reduces the cooldown on the effect of Sacred Shield by 12/24 sec.
• Aura Mastery now lasts 6 sec. (Down from 10 sec)

How bad will this effect the new fotm melee pally groups? It's looking grim after reading this blue post. More nerfs to come.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...77631492&sid=1

They're about to take pally's out back to the alley and give them a serious beating with the nerf stick.

Doesn't look like any of those nerfs affect PVP specs very much, other than sacred shield (which absorbed a neglibable amount of damage to begin with). I hope there aren't more ret/prot nerfsl... i got a new team in the works :)

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Originally Posted by heyaz

Doesn't look like any of those nerfs affect PVP specs very much, other than sacred shield (which absorbed a neglibable amount of damage to begin with). I hope there aren't more ret/prot nerfsl... i got a new team in the works :)

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It's not the amount absorbed that was amazing (although 2k health every 6 seconds was good), it was the flash of light crit's every 6 seconds.

The non-holy speced sacred shield nerf would definitely hurt survivability in arenas somewhat, but i'm not too worried.

and i wouldn't call the ret pally group fotm until more than 1 person is doing it in arenas with success. ret is one of the most under-represented specs in 5's. i've only run into 2 other teams with a single ret pally

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Originally Posted by Kromtor

The non-holy speced sacred shield nerf would definitely hurt survivability in arenas somewhat, but i'm not too worried.

and i wouldn't call the ret pally group fotm until more than 1 person is doing it in arenas with success. ret is one of the most under-represented specs in 5's. i've only run into 2 other teams with a single ret pally

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I guess flavor of next month would be more accurate.

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Originally Posted by Naysayer

I guess flavor of next month would be more accurate.

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What multboxing comps have 1600+ in arena? Shaman x 4 and 1 person playing paladins? I think we need more than 1, possibly 2, viable comps to cry FotM :P

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Originally Posted by Fuzzyboy

What multboxing comps have 1600+ in arena? Shaman x 4 and 1 person playing paladins? I think we need more than 1, possibly 2, viable comps to cry FotM :P

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Are there not a lot of people leveling pally groups now due to interact with target?

I think there's a lot of people levelling melee-groups in general because of IWT and probably more levelling paladins because of the heroic-videos + the one person getting 1800+ in arenas, but my point was simply that until there are more than one flavor (shaman) it's hard to speak of fotm :)

Anyway, I'm nitpicking, I simply meant to point out that in terms of PvP it would be great to see more than one viable team :-)

I'd just excited to see a viable 5v5 that doesn't rely on another person.

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Originally Posted by Fuzzyboy

I simply meant to point out that in terms of PvP it would be great to see more than one viable team :-)

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Yah, i agree. Sucks though that when someone finally found another comp, the class used is getting targeted in blue posts about being toned down. Blue actually called paladins a one man army.

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Originally Posted by heyaz

I'd just excited to see a viable 5v5 that doesn't rely on another person.

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Just wait, my holy/disc priests are almost 80.

This nerf is aimed at hurting the prot/holy hybrid healer spec, not ret. unfortunately it is a big nerf to ret which is already nearly absent in 5's. there are a lot of people complaining/pointing this out on arenajunkies.com but not many on the actual WoW forums. If you're leveling a paly group or ever plan on it you might want to go there and put your 2 cents in. I'd hate to see ret nerfed before anyone else gets to have any arena fun with it - especially when they're not even the intended target.

edit:
Please post on the thread I made in the WoW forums to save the rets or face the return of lawlret:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...77351712&sid=1

Doh... And my Pally team just hit 60 as well :p

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Originally Posted by Naysayer

Paladin
Holy[*]Lay on Hands can no longer be cast on yourself.

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I know this is a PVP thread but this makes me sad to for PVE. There goes a great oh shit button for tanking though.

I wouldn't get too wound up about any listed changes yet. Looks to me like they are just basically pulling the same old "spray and pray" nerf tactics to figure out what they hell they're trying to do. They'll screw up a lot of stuff, piss off a ton of people and then go a completely different route.

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{Source} As you can see, we are trying some different things with some paladin mechanics.

The Aura Mastery change (to 6 sec duration) is one we think is appropriate. If I had to guess, this one will stick.

We are trying some things with Sacred Shield to make it more of a Holy tool and less useful for Ret and Prot (without being totally irrelevant). I don't have a lot of faith that the implementation on the PTR is the one we'll go with for a couple of reasons, but our overall goal is to make Ret less tanky and the Holy tree feel like it's the right one to focus on for healing. I would expect a Sacred Shield change of some kind though.

I wouldn't worry too much on the Lay on Hands change at this point. I don't want to promise we won't change the spell for 3.3, but our intent was to revert the others only change before it went out to the PTR, which is why we didn't patch note it. We have already changed it back on our local builds.

The paladin class isn't just supposed to be for support anymore, but at the same time, the original intent for many paladin abilities was to help the group. Over time however they have contributed into making the paladin into a "one-man army," able to play offensively, defensively and heal without say the stance changing or shapeshifting or sometimes event talent specialization required of other classes. Many of the LK balance problems we've had with the class are because of that core issue.

With that said, we're just not sure a Lay on Hands change really accomplishes much from a balance perspective, while it feels bad to lose such an iconic ability. We just don't think the bang for the buck is there on this change, which is why we reverted it. But I'm not going to promise we won't touch it.

In fact, I'm not going to promise anything with this post. :) Please don't dredge it up later to try and argue against any upcoming changes. I'm just trying to clear up some confusion.

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This has been the story of paladin's since beta. Change, change change. Ret has always been a joke. For a while the joke was that the class wasn't viable (some argued they were but the mechanics didn't justify the argument), next the argument was that ret pallys were OP and now they are back to irrelevance. There hasn't been such major 'tinkering' of any other class. Every other class does basically what it started out doing at release.

I really love the class but have been tempted to give it up (even did for about 7 months) but I am drawn back invariably. Heck, even Boris rerolled! The nerf stick is something I'm used to I just wish they would settle on something and leave the class alone.

So far those changes don't seem too bad, we'll see if they change it further --- anything is better though than the attention Shamans have gotten throughout the years.

Mabey i'm missing something here (forgive me as I dont play paladins) but my understanding of how sacred shield works is that the FoL crit bonus is attached to a a proced shield, and when the proced shield is consumed by damage the FoL crit bonus is removed as well. Assuming thats correct, if 1 of Kromtors paladins gets FFd I cant imagine the shield proc + FoL buff lasting more then a split second vs any half decent 5v5 team, if thats the case it seems that even its current implementation it would be quite difficult to get a lot of millage from the FoL buff...is my thinking correct here or am I wrong about how the ability works?

Edit: I didn't realize that the damage shield itself can reproc every 6 seconds, I thought that was the FoL crit bonus specifically... damn thats pretty sweet (as currently implemented), but even so, just loosing that extra 1500-2k damage mitigation every 6 seconds shouldn't spell END OF THE WORLD for the "Kromtor comp" teams no?

Pick any class and over time and you'll see a lot of nerfs and improvements.

The big problem with same class group composition is that it magnifies the affects of
every nerf or improvement, so a small change that might be an inconvenience to a solo player
makes a big difference to a multiboxer.

I wouldn't even say that the shaman was hit with nerfs anymore than any other class though.
I just think you take more notice of Nerfs to your class than nerfs to others.

Shamans really weren't hit with nerfs, just never any satisfactory buffs. If I ever want to get really pissed off at playing WoW. I play 1 Ele Shaman in 2's or 3's and then log off in a fit of rage.

The sacred shield change is a huge blow to pvp, especially something like bgs where you are healing yourself. As previously mentioned, it's not so much the heal (although that heal is great), it's the almost guaranteed crit of your instant cast flash of light that will really hurt.

Having said that, I really think ret palys are still a little over the top in survivability. In my other life, my main is a mage. The amount of effort (or skill, if you prefer) required to perform well with that class compared to my paladin is significantly higher. Between SS, plate armor, cleanse and instant cast 4k heals, I can literally shut down classes like DKs or rogues (which is actually kind of fun for all the crap I've taken from them on my mage, but still). I can imagine how frustrating it is for them.

I do agree that the paladin class seems a little lost sometimes, and I wish they could balance it fairly well and just leave it alone. I guess it's a pretty hard one to get right.

Ret's survivability is great in PvE with no priests or warriors to remove your shields. High end PvP Arenas are another thing. If you think your 10 second divine shield is going to buy you 10 seconds of self healing or pitiful half damage you have another thing coming. Divine Shield is like blood in the water for good 5's teams and they will get rid of it (you see any top 5's teams without priests or warriors?) in 1.5 seconds or less and finish you off.

Even with Sacred Shield and Divine Sacrifice in their current form (Both are getting heavily nerfed) 5's teams don't want ret pallies because the little utility they bring to a group doesn't compensate for the fact that their single target PvP damage is track compared to Locks, Hunters, Warriors, Rogues, Shaman, etc and their PvE build single target damage is way too slowly building to be effective.

Seal of Command is an AoE seal - it's great for getting big DPS numbers in AV or clearing trash but in arenas it is completely inferior to spec'ed and glyphed Seal of Righteousness.

Aura Mastery now lasts 6 sec... that was my only chance vs
all these bloodelves in area as an ally 5er boxer.

looks like melee is the only way to go now for real 5er boxers.

Phew, the only thing that affects me here is the lay on hands, but usually I only use LOH when I screw up. It's not like it's ever a part of my main strategy. I agree that every class has its ups and downs. Paladins have had a lot to be happy about in the past few years overall.

By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if the BE racial will end up getting nerfed at some point in the near future.

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Originally Posted by Khatovar

I wouldn't get too wound up about any listed changes yet. Looks to me like they are just basically pulling the same old "spray and pray" nerf tactics to figure out what they hell they're trying to do. They'll screw up a lot of stuff, piss off a ton of people and then go a completely different route.

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dunno what people took over at 3.0 patch, but all the good blizzard staff
already moved to another project.
they write alot about why something gets nerf/buffed but in the end
they really have no idea what they doing anymore.
less and less people doing pvp, on my realmpool (20 servers) there
are times not one single AV is open and 2-3 is max at weekends.

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Originally Posted by drevil

dunno what people took over at 3.0 patch, but all the good blizzard staff
already moved to another project.
they write alot about why something gets nerf/buffed but in the end
they really have no idea what they doing anymore.
less and less people doing pvp, on my realmpool (20 servers) there
are times not one single AV is open and 2-3 is max at weekends.

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Did you play in the first two years? When AV first came out, my server had only one AV in an entire year because we had a low population server. One AV in a year! WSG only had about 20 games per day tops. I don't know when these "good" Blizzard staff were supposedly working, but the game is so far ahead of where it used to be. AV is a really freaking old battleground now. It's not a huge surprise that it's harder to get games for it with more PVP options available.

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Originally Posted by drevil

Aura Mastery now lasts 6 sec... that was my only chance vs
all these bloodelves in area as an ally 5er boxer.

looks like melee is the only way to go now for real 5er boxers.

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I would not sweat the BE aoe silence racial for very long. If they candestroy wotf, all racials are up for changes.

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Originally Posted by Fursphere

This is so true its scary.

Solo Elemental Shaman are so gimped in PvP its ridiculous. Really makes you ask yourself "what's the point of this class".

Only when you stack them do they start to shine.

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They can shine in 5v5 solo. However, you point stands.

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Originally Posted by TheBigBB

Did you play in the first two years? When AV first came out, my server had only one AV in an entire year because we had a low population server. One AV in a year! WSG only had about 20 games per day tops. I don't know when these "good" Blizzard staff were supposedly working, but the game is so far ahead of where it used to be. AV is a really freaking old battleground now. It's not a huge surprise that it's harder to get games for it with more PVP options available.

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i'm an oldie, all the way up from day one, that's why everything besides boxing is sooo boring ;-)

well it's not about the old times without battegroups. it's about now with population of 20 crossover
servers, you only get 0-2 open AV (this bg gives best honor). i remember the days we had around
20+ AVs open all day long.

i think it's no secret that Blizzards favors PVE content to keep players motivated and therefore
sacrificed a lot of PVP balance.

ahhh.. no time.. have to level my melee palas :)

I hate to burst anyones bubbles but Ret pallies survivability in pvp is pretty much nothing. I played a fairly geared one solo and most arena matches end the same.

Train the Ret, bubble, wait for bubble to be gone, Train the ret, dead.

This hurts Ret more then anything especially considering Ret has no gap closer as a melee class and very few good CC options.

Fortunately my bubble is still intact. :)

I will confess to not having a ton of experience with ret in arena play (some, not a ton), and none at high level, so I won't pretend to know if what you say is or isn't true.

What I will tell you is it's the same for:

mages
warlocks
rogues
hunters
shaman
probably more...

only those classes don't have plate, most can't equip a shield for a huge melee dmg mitigation boost, and cleanse can be huge when being trained. You seem dismissive of the bubble, but a lot of those classes don't have that. Have you ever arena'd as a lock? Unless you are very well geared, it is extremely frustrating. It's just like what you said, sans the part where you get 12 seconds to let your team help peel, or at least prepare for your eminent demise.