Ret Gurthalak nerf

[Reith]

I'm sorry but does anyone really care? It was a bug. It was fixed. Your dps went down, SPECIFICALLY because you were using Gurthalak. WHERE IS THE PROBLEM? You want more chances to proc? Roll a class that hits more often. Idk... Dual wield.

They didn't nerf your class. They removed a bug. So what if you're not topping meters as ret? My feral is far from the top in DS. I can't complain. Maybe I should find a reason to whine.

I want to be able to dual wield staffs.

Feral is very strong in PVP right now so it's understandable as to why they can't just blatantly increase Feral's DPS in PVE. Completely different situation.

As for Landslide's uptime, my experience is that from the logs I've looked at, I can't derive a conclusion as to whether it was affected or not.

[Bearshare]

It's a bug because Blizz says it's a bug, stop thinking otherwise because it hasn't been fixed before

[Megraam]

It's a bug because Blizz says it's a bug, stop thinking otherwise because it hasn't been fixed before

No one complains about "why have you fixed that bug" (it's not a bug though, but whatever). Everyone is complaining about "why are you thinking that without bugs we should be worst raiding dps spec possible".

[Adhal-Blackrock]

Gotta say it was real frustrating seeing one of our arms warriors get 13% damage from tentacles tonight. Just gotta love Blizzards double standards.

[Deleted]

Before I continue with my post and share my views and opinions, I want to say that this comes from a raiding PvE Rogue with only small amounts of experience as a Retribution Paladin.

The way I see it, getting double the chance to proc this weapon isn't intended. Blizzard has said it themselves already, it was a mistake, and they simply fixed the unintended bug. Yes it totally sucks to get 'nerfed' (although I wouldn't call it fixed) but it was never meant to be like this in the first place. I don't understand why people complain about it though.

What I do see is Retribution often being somewhat low on parses and heck even LFR. There is no justification for any DPS spec to consistently being in the lower or middle ground for a few tiers straight. I find it (as a non-Paladin mind you) very insulting blizzard said they think Retribution damage was getting somewhat high so they needed to be tone down again to fit where they want Retribution to be. It's a big slap in the face knowing that the company who designs this game literally wants you to be in the lower or middle ground of all DPSers.

Some people say pure-DPS classes should be the ones topping the meters, and classes who can tank, heal, or even both should be somewhat lower. This is complete and utter bullcrap, a DPS spec from a multi-role class should be just as competitive as a pure DPS class. I don't care if you can heal or tank just by switching specs, you shouldn't suffer just because you happen to have an offspec that can fit a different role. What I do think is that utility should roughly decide how much better or worse you should be compared to other classes. In the brief time I played a Paladin I find that the amount of utility and ways to cheat on encounters (not meant in a bad way) is endless and you can pull of some insane stunts to increase either your or someone else's DPS. It became very obvious on Majordomo heroic where we had some issues beating the enrage timer pre-nerf but killing it with quite some time to spare after stacking a few Paladins to shield our best melee. I can see this might be one of the reasons why Blizzard doesn't want Paladins to be topping the meters as well as being able to be useful in a million other ways. This I do fully agree.

There are a few in this topic who believe they should be topping the meters 24/7 no matter what, no matter the encounter, heck no matter the gear. No, you shouldn't. You have to accept you might not be the best class in some encounters. It was very painful for me to explain to my raid leader I couldn't switch to the Elementium Bolt on our Madness attempts simply because switching targets costs me a ton of DPS and I only had the chance to hit it once for about 10k. I feel a bit like a 3rd wheel whenever the bolt spawns because I will just be sitting there and attacking the corruption. You have to accept you might not be the preferred class at some encounters. In the end of the day someone has to come out on top, and someone has to come out last. whether you like it or not there is always going to be a theoretical number 1 class and spec. And the chance of that being exactly what you play is very slim. But hey, I'm also glad not to see Arcane Mages topping everything everywhere all the time anymore. Sadly it's still Mages topping the meters as a different spec...

All in all I feel for you guys. I've had a major soft spot for Retribution Paladins for a long time, and I will join the rest of you the moment Worgen Paladins become available. Sadly I doubt that will happen but I can hope. I'm sincerely hoping you guys get another buff soon. Even if it's only a small one to soften the blow from this bug fix. There is just no excuse to be where you are now for at least three tiers.

[6ev4enko]

@Bovan

First of all, yet again you say it was a bug, it was not. The seal has ALWAYS worked like this, as a melee attack. They just decided because of this weapon, they should change it just now, when it worked perfectly fine for years.
Nevertheless, I support the other part of your post. I dont want to mindlessly DPS and be on top, I do agree I have LOTS of useful spells like HoF, HoP etc etc. But, I do want to have at least A CHANCE of getting on top on SOME of the fights... But Blizzard just spits in our face saying we are made to suck in DPS.

[MrHappy]

get over yourself bug fix =/= nerf pallies had 2x the chance of proc compared to warriors and dk's so quit your QQ that you are not on an even playing feild

[iArson]

One step forward, two steps back -_-

[utush4sure1]

The way I see it, getting double the chance to proc this weapon isn't intended.

1) Exorcism had 1 chance to proc and now it has zero chance to proc anything based on melee attacks. This is hardly a double chance, and going from 1 to 0 is a bigger nerf than 50% as some have stated.

2) If the weapon was causing our middle of the pack dps, and this is not intended, why did Bliz not address just the weapon but rather lower ret's dps as a whole?

[6ev4enko]

get over yourself bug fix =/= nerf pallies had 2x the chance of proc compared to warriors and dk's so quit your QQ that you are not on an even playing feild

Dont fucking post here if you are here just to bash, I'm fed up with ignorant idiots like you, honestly. GTFO if you have nothing useful to say.

[iArson]

Dont fucking post here if you are here just to bash, I'm fed up with ignorant idiots like you, honestly. GTFO if you have nothing useful to say.

He said the same exact thing in the thread that was closed yesterday.

Funny how the Ret Pallies get nerfed and all we do is QQ....

How would any other class feel if a weapon issue was fixed with a class change rather than a change to the weapon itself.

[taylor856]

There is a very simple answer to all this

REROLL A MAGE.

Ret will never be on top or even doing decent on charts.

[iArson]

There is a very simple answer to all this

REROLL A MAGE.

Ret will never be on top again or even doing decent on charts.

Once again -_- we all know mages are the most important classes in the game but give it a rest. 2 Tanks, 6 heals and 17 Firemages. Great comp.

[6ev4enko]

There is a very simple answer to all this

REROLL A MAGE.

Ret will never be on top or even doing decent on charts.

THAT is actually why I'm mad as hell, because mages should always be on top, doesnt matter they just have to change the spec every 1-2 patches. Rets have never been on top, and never will most probably, but ofc Blizzard states they want Ret to not be there. There is too much love for some classes and for some - hate.

[tavistra]

I don't think it was just a random bug fix - I'm pretty sure it was a targeted nerf.

I imagine the Blizzard train of thought went like:

• Wow, Rets seem to proc Gurth a lot more often in PvP - it is becoming a balance issue.
• Let's look into what is causing it!
• Oh it's that old Seal of Truth bug. We never fixed it before because Ret was already doing poorly (T11) or midtier (T12).
• Let's take a look at its repercussions in PvE if we nerf it.
• Well Ret is pretty high up there so the spec should withstand the nerf - they'll still be midtier afterwards.
• *Nerf/"Fix"*

That's how they almost always balance things in my experience.

This is a reasonable train of thought.

What bothers me more is how Blizzard doesn't seem to have a single person on their dev team that knows the Retribution spec AT ALL. No one that could have spoken up in a dev meeting and warned them about Seal of Truth interaction with Gurthalak before Dragon Soul went live.

Just one friggin intern doing some reading on EJ/MMOchamp and doing some internal testing would have known this. Just one person on staff that played Ret at a high level during ICC even would have known this. This could also have been solved by some better communication between high level devs and coders.

WoW generates probably a billion dollars in revenue annually and no one on the dev team knows Retribution better than a bunch of players and forum dwellers?

Blizzard employees stumbling over the difference between Seal of Truth/censure, and then straight up lying to us that it only the procs for Gurthalak and Souldrinker were affected. No one having the foresight to think about Ret whenever designing no ICD proc trinkets or weapons after the whole Tiny Abomination in a Jar experience in ICC. How embarrassing..

I personally know of expert level players that roll different toons in several hardmode guilds who would have this level of expertise about all dps specs they play. I am sure many of the high-end raiders know such people as well. They can't go out and hire a couple of these people? WoW devs are too accustomed to their Wall Street-sized bonuses I guess.

Gurthalak, SoT, w/e. Its frightening that WoW seems to be operated by a skeleton crew these days. We are paying $15 a month for Titan development, not WoW...

[Divineknight13]

if i could tank on my rogue i would bloody well do so because dps times suck... but i dont i play a ret paladin which is a class that Ghostcrawler just LOOOOOVEEEES to nerf bat straight to zee balls every patch

rets seal damage is concidered melee damage i believe along with most of our other spells the modifiers from spell power effect the damage but not the type of damage

[Deleted]

1) Exorcism had 1 chance to proc and now it has zero chance to proc anything based on melee attacks. This is hardly a double chance, and going from 1 to 0 is a bigger nerf than 50% as some have stated.

2) If the weapon was causing our middle of the pack dps, and this is not intended, why did Bliz not address just the weapon but rather lower ret's dps as a whole?

Ok disregard my old post completely for this because right now my ignorance is taking over. With that said, please correct me if I'm wrong somewhere because I'm trying to increase my knowledge and not trying to come over as someone who is bashing the class.

Exorcism is a magical spell correct? Why would it possibly be intended for Exorcism to proc anything based on melee strikes? Exorcism applies a Censure stack from Seal of Truth (or it used to that is) and that I can understand, but I don't see how a Censure stack counts as a melee attack either. It would make sense if a Seal of Righteousness hit counts as an additional melee attack because that is a straight up extra hit. But why would Censure application be intended as a melee hit?

Your number two part is completely correct and I fully agree with you. I also recognize Retribution's position and it was totally unjustified to receive a nerf based on a weapon. I have no experience with the sword myself, but wouldn't giving it a small internal cooldown like 1-3 seconds solve every issue with the sword? This way Arms Warriors won't be utterly destroying Ultraxion, and RNG will be slightly less of an issue (as in it won't proc 4 of the things at the same time) as well as a Paladin's double melee hits not proccing it more often than intended.

[Theholypally]

Perfect. didnt even get a chance to abuse the sword.

Guess there is no rush in getting one of these then.

[Holtzmann]

2) If the weapon was causing our middle of the pack dps, and this is not intended, why did Bliz not address just the weapon but rather lower ret's dps as a whole?

Because it's far easier to make a small fix that affects a very limited set of procs and doesn't result in the spec playing any differently than it is rebalancing the spec's output. Specially when the fix is for something that seems to be causing PvP concerns already. Yep, blame PvP for that.

Now, if a spec if only viable (or overpowered, which Rets weren't) because of a specific piece of gear, that is a problem that has to be fixed. Anyone remembers Unheeded Warning and Feral Druids?

[tavistra]

Ok disregard my old post completely for this because right now my ignorance is taking over. With that said, please correct me if I'm wrong somewhere because I'm trying to increase my knowledge and not trying to come over as someone who is bashing the class.

Exorcism is a magical spell correct? Why would it possibly be intended for Exorcism to proc anything based on melee strikes? Exorcism applies a Censure stack from Seal of Truth (or it used to that is) and that I can understand, but I don't see how a Censure stack counts as a melee attack either. It would make sense if a Seal of Righteousness hit counts as an additional melee attack because that is a straight up extra hit. But why would Censure application be intended as a melee hit?

Your number two part is completely correct and I fully agree with you. I also recognize Retribution's position and it was totally unjustified to receive a nerf based on a weapon. I have no experience swith the sword myself, but wouldn't giving it a small internal cooldown like 1-3 seconds solve every issue with the sword? This way Arms Warriors won't be utterly destroying Ultraxion, and RNG will be slightly less of an issue (as in it won't proc 4 of the things at the same time) as well as a Paladin's double melee hits not proccing it more often than intended.

Exorcism isn't intended to proc anything based on melee strikes - what he probably meant to convey was more along the lines of Ret being punished for being a melee/spellcasting hybrid spec that uses melee only enchants/trinkets/weapons. With the change to Seal of Truth, any enchant/trinket/weapon that triggers procs off of melee attacks will be worse for Retribution than for Arms/Fury/Unholy/Frost. We just attack less overall and/or a larger proportion of our attacks are spells compared to other specs.

Given that Ret scaled poorly and needed to be buffed often to remain middle of the pack BEFORE SoT was nerfed... now that all other plate melee specs make better use of all melee weapons/trinkets/enchants.... you see how this is very frustrating...