Sunday, May 31, 2009

Stick a Fork In It...

When is it time to can your wow-blog? Well, when it's necessary to post something like this. History here.

The shame is that 'Ferarro's' guides have been pretty good, a lot better than most of the dross posted on Paladins of all specs and stripes. Frankly though there is no way to redeem the cluster**** the blog has become, the previous actions and subsequent attempts at rationalising those actions will and should forever taint it. Seriously, there is no way you can defend what's been done and this 'seven different authors' bull strikes me as an attempt to deflect and minimise responsibility.

I just hope that the lass who was ripped off hasn't been harmed in any way by Ferarro's actions. Retpaladin.com's reputation will also be hurt by this, though hopefully not much.

Ferarro, or whoever you are. Archive the guides and close the blog down. If you really want to set up somewhere else with a clean slate - this is the internet and no-one can stop you. Be aware however that you're forever going to be known as one creepy bastard.

EDIT:

Just to be clear, my annoyance isn't because he/she has lied. Everyone has lied and will lie to a greater or lesser extent, and if he/she had merely made up a persona and posted in that persona it would be no big deal. I don't of course find it borderline virtuous to lie, but so long as no-one gets harmed and no money is extorted I could generally care less.

No, the issue is the identity theft. Lets not delude ourselves, when you steal someone's photo's and personally posted information and pass it off as your own it is exactly that. It's bold, brazen and despicable, doubly so considering that Techdarling has apparently been stalked in the past. In that light Ferarro's send-off post makes my blood boil.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Paladins: Now 60% More Kiteable.

Well, the newest patch notes have hit and it's PvP nerf city hamlet.

Paladins:

* Eye For An Eye: This talent now deals 5/10% of the critical strike damage taken by the paladin back at the attacker. [down from 10/20%]
* Hand of Freedom: The base duration of this buff has been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.

(source)


These changes are obviously a blow to Paladin PvP against Rogues, Feral Druids, Hunters, and certain flavours of other classes. I can't complain about Hunters because in BG PvP I find them to be quite squishy when all my tools all me to get in range (i.e. if they are not BM), but Rogues and Druids are already a huge PITA.

The E4aE nerf is at first glance the more minor of the two as it comes into play the most against Rogues and Ferals due to their high crit rate, and coupled with the recent nerf to Retribution Aura and Thorns it's obviously Blizzard want to move away from any sort of 'free' reflective damage.

Another nerf to HoF will hurt the most though, and the skill is now back in contention for most nerfed since Vanilla. It should still retain its' talented stun-break and 4sec increased duration but the fact that it remains dispellable and Ret has no distance closers should re-cement this classes key weakness: stay safe by staying out of range.

Still, this won't make many PvPers happy. In fact, nothing less than a 25-50% reduction in burst damage output will sate the ravening hordes now. I suppose that we should be thankful that our burst will remain untouched, but this does not augur well for any projected combat mechanic change in 3.2. Kiteability + long-lead time before burst DPS output would probably make it much more difficult for the class to function in 2's and 3's. It's not 3.2 yet however, so bring the pain whilst you can. And be comforted by the knowledge that not only Paladins were nerfed (what's the point of Chaos Bolt again?).

---

More words from GC:

Hand of Freedom: The base duration of this buff has been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.

Holy paladins in PVP are officially killed. Way to go Blizzard, if this isn't heavily compensated for in our holy tree or elsewhere, you'll be seeing a lot of anger from me and a ton of other paladins trying to stick with this trash spec.

Try to avoid nerfing the already crap specs while trying to tone down ridiculous things like Retribution, it makes you guys look completely clueless.

Holy and Ret paladins have in some form been on top of the current and previous Arena season. Furthermore, we think part of the reason some players, especially casters, feel like they are dying so quickly in PvP is because they can't use their crowd control abilities without them getting quickly removed. Freedom was a big part of that. It's supposed to be "Get out of jail free" card, not "you can't ever cc me" card. If that makes sense.

It is still a very potent ability, especially talented, which almost all PvP paladins do. To be honest, we're concerned the duration is still too long. (Source)


Just in case anybody wasn't aware, the new HoF will be 10 seconds talented (7pts in Prot) with a cooldown of 25 seconds. I think this has to be a blow struck due to Ret's current arena representation in 3's, and seems a bit much for Holy which is far from mobile and needs the group utility to be competitive. 10 secs apparently may still be too long, so expect yet another nerf later (or something of a side-effect, such as a slow after you come out of Freedom or a Forbearance-like debuff lasting longer than 25secs). Stoicism not affecting the dispell chance of Freedom is another possibility.

As mentioned, the litmus test will be 3.2, with this supposed change to melee combat timings and the requirement to 'wind-up' our burst.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

If BBB Can Talk About Ret Paladins...

Then I can at least mention the new Feral textures coming in 3.2.



These are the Tauren Bear textures, and the rest will be previewed before the next content patch (3.2). They look awesome, don't they ;).

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Super Secret Alternate Star Trek Ending.

Baddie defeated. Galaxy is saved except for the one planet. Enterprise is set to leave.

Quinto-Spock comes on board and requests permission to stay on as first officer. But there is something different about him.

Something strange.

Spock...


...has a goatee.


"J.J. Abrams: screwing with Trekkies any which way he can."


(Film is awesome btw. The science is horribly bad, but overall it rocked. If you don't get the reference it doesn't mean you're a bad person. This would have been a photo-shop post but my GIMP skills are awful.)

Completing the Argent Tournament.

Burning the midnight oil, I finally complete the current stage of the Argent Tournament grind, Exalted Champion of the Horde:



which gains me the title I think most apt for my Blood Knight Paladin:



It's not a world first, nor even a server first. But it's something I've been looking forward to for a while. Now it's just 30 days until I reach 250 tokens for the Argent Hippogryph, unless I spend it on some of the land mounts first.

Back to the Lemsip.

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