Saturday, November 01, 2008

UPDATED: Paladin PvP Hotfix - Avenging Wrath and Divine Shield.

UPDATE:

Two other hotfixes that Ghostcrawler didn't mention. Judgement of Justice now lasts for 10 seconds in PvP, and the Sanctified Wrath talent in Retribution no longer allows 50% of damage to bypass absorption effects (in fact, it allows none).

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Ghostcrawler:

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.

NOTE: The hotfix will be on Live and the beta.

(Source)


Hardly unexpected, though a more elegant solution to Avenging Wrath + Divine Shield's hard to counter nature would be beneficial. Linking DS, DP, HoP and AW again via Forbearance would be a pretty stupid move in the long run because we are already locked out too many of our abilities for too long, so a compromise such that DS sets AW on a 15 second cooldown would be fine. The problem is that they are seeking to hotfix it which severely limits their options, and as always is unlikely to become more sensible when it goes Live as they have other things to worry about.

AW causing Forbearance is a ticket to seeing it back to never being used in PvP, for healing or damage dealing. Who is going to want to cast a 20 second damage increase which can be easily Purged or Spellstolen and also locks out their major defensive abilities? I'd also suggest moving Divine Protection (not Shield) off the Forbearance timer.

I'm not exactly happy about this, but I can see how it may be necessary. I hope they are gentle, and that they seriously consider more PvP tools for us rather than use that line as a forlorn hope.


UPDATE: Hotfix has been applied. Forbearance Duration reduced to 2 minutes. AW cannot be activated under Forbearance. Divine Shield, Handof Protection, Divine Protection and Avenging Wrath all now cause Forbearance.

Bleh, crap way of doing things, for all specs.

13 comments:

Ardent Defender 01/11/2008, 03:27  

I've not done any PvP and don't do a lick of PvP yet ever nerf I'm having to endure it's effect in PvE. It's just don't seem to have a end. I'm wondering what the next nerf will be for in trying to find a solution by Blizzard.

Anonymous 01/11/2008, 03:28  

All our abilities are balanced around bubble. I wouldnt mind being rid of it in all honesty. Give us a new defense besides a once every 5 minute god.

NightKnight 01/11/2008, 05:11  

.... let the Nerftrain keep a rolling, so all other classes can faceroll us once again. Lolret, we missed you so little.

Anonymous 01/11/2008, 15:17  

Nice. With Forbearance now two minutes, we're actually worse off than when we started; it used to be 1 minute, if I recall correctly.

Anonymous 01/11/2008, 15:35  

ofc as rogues cant stunlock us, and mages have to click same buttun now 3 times instead of 2, and hey arms warrior cant kill 5 ppl if paladin is around, and dont forget warlock cant solo 5 ppl on them if paladin is around, yes ofc paladin has to be nerfed.... i'm sick of this stupidity. Paladin has to combine at least 5 skills to kill someone, not to mention that you cant kill discipline priest with all skills and AV on you if you dont crit at least 3 times and get lucky. AV is useless now for pvp, and to healers in pve is some situations as the only thing to get away from beeing attack by mob if over aggro is bubble so if you use AV you are risking to overaggro and you will be unable to bubble so once again nice job bliz, put more useless skills, why not

Anonymous 01/11/2008, 16:51  

yup, it was 1min.

So they buffed us to no forbearance, then they took it away and nerf the original 1min to 2min ;)

It's a beautiful thang! Well, i never get used to have Avenging Wrath anyways, the GCD was what caused me to not use it unless i was waiting for DS/CS/Judgement CDs, then i would pop it.

Tom 01/11/2008, 17:37  

Why are none of these "hotfixes" being annouced at login OR in the tooltips of the spells?

I found out when the hotfix went live in the middle of an arena battle where two warriors ganged up on me... I popped wings first and lo and behold my bubble is greyed out

Told my partner the hotifx must have gone live, he thought i was crazy

I looked at the tooltips but nothing seems to be updated... Speaking of that, I dn't think the previous nerfs have happened yet.. my tooltips don't seem to be updated and I don't have a DOT affect on avenging wrath... Have you noticed that?

Unknown 01/11/2008, 19:46  

the dot isn't hotfixed.

Only nerfs like -20% seal damage, -20% judgement damage, 15% base mana return on judgement.... stuff like that, they (only Bliz) considered that dot as buff.

Unknown 01/11/2008, 23:52  

Zebra, you're always the first to report the latest nerf!! not sure if i should thank you!

j/k, thanks... very nice page. I always load yours up first every day to see Blues and stuff.

Unknown 01/11/2008, 23:56  

sorry for spamming this but to clarify, the last post was because of your update info on JoJ and stuff.

You said that everyone reading BoK first (or something like that in BoK blog, thought i like his too). I'd like to say that your page is my top paladin news source. I got the updated news on JoJ before i read your comment at BoK.

Anonymous 05/11/2008, 16:58  

On the topic of the Avenging Wrath hotfix.

Blizzard should really of given the user a 20 second debuff on activating Avenging wrath so the use of a shield was not permitted.

I dont see why they had to go all out and nerf it to the point where its completely useless in pvp.

Anonymous 06/11/2008, 19:53  

i think the most annoying thing is that prot pallies who use avenging wrath + bubble (like me) have it bad as well. i finally got a massive boost on aoe grinding and they go and nerf it. why dont they just make it so forbearance is only caused when you're in pvp? surely it cant be that hard?
i want avenging wrath so i can do that bit more damage in raids but now i have to wait 2 minutes instead of the original 1 minute. grrr.

Anonymous 07/11/2008, 20:10  

I think that we should just get rid of the bubble completely along with getting rid of forbearnce on avenging wrath again.

To just got back to patch 3.0.3 when it first hit, not all the hotfixes after, and rather then giving us the bubble, give us somthing like pain supression (disc priest) and to make it more simple, use the same graphic as the bubble.

That is all imo though, just a thought, that way people can still hit us, stop crying for there passifier, and feel like they accomplished somthing.

thank you all for your time reading this.

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