Not really sure what you're talking about: pretty much every change to skills recently has been in the name of balance.
---------- Post added 2013-01-12 at 12:57 PM ----------
How is a Ret a better node defender than a Hunter? A better lockdown class than a Rogue? The problem is anything a Ret can do, other classes can do better - and if you want BoP's and Sacrifices, it's better to just bring a holy paladin, as they are probably the 2nd strongest healer, and share all utility with Ret.
I thought Aura Mastery would have been a pretty good Ret-specific utility, as it can clear silences and such from teammates, but Holy gets that too.
Whoever said Ret is an excellent node defender is leaking grey matter.
A Ret can get node-capped by a single Rogue, thats how bad it is.
Sap.. which you have to trinket, (8sec duration vs 7cap) immediately get Blind and capped.
If you Divine Shield to get a hit on the Rogue and make your Guardian chase it the Rogue will proceed to Cloak/Vanish to reset the Guardian (which means the Guardian won't hit anything regardless of you being in combat or not for a few sec) wait a whole one second and Sap you full again.
Congrats you lasted 15sec tops.
In the same situation:
Shamans have pulsating AoE totems.
Warriors incapacitation break.
Warlocks, Hunter's and Frost Mages have a Pet.
Rogues can remain hidden and counter-CC as needed.
Priests can stand at range and Halo which takes 3 sec off Sap to run back and forth.
Druids can remain hidden and CC as needed, Nelfs can 'reset'.
Unholy DKs have Desecrated Ground and a Pet.
Monks have a Pet, can port in/out of CC Range.
So the only thing more useless than a Ret for node defense is a Frost DK and a Fire Mage. Nice.
Unless you play 1500 RBGs nobody is going to come and back you up 1v1 because you can get capped, thats why they bring better classes.
Last edited by Veliane; 2013-01-12 at 08:59 PM.
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I'm glad Ghostcrawler listened to our feedback.
We genuinely needed ret healing to scale with some PVP Power.
---------- Post added 2013-01-12 at 11:21 PM ----------
Yeah I remember. Ret would have been much better in vanilla if it had Crusader Strike from the beginning. We spent most of our time waiting for damage to happen.
The 25% healing buff will make us somewhat playable again, but nothing will truly change as long as we share all of our utility with Holy, a dps spec has to bring something more than a healing spec. Ret basically runs around mindlessly whacking things and shooting out off-heals, there is barely any strategy to the spec and that really has to change.
At the very least they could make our own version of Repent, plenty of talents like Solace/Insanity change with spec, so it's not like there is no precedent. Ret's repentance needs to be instant cast and maybe on a 20-30 sec cooldown, to make the rest of the tier more attractive, Burden of Guilt should also root for 2 sec, and Fist can go down to 25 sec cd and maybe a 30 yard range. They just nerfed repent cast time on the PTR, this is the perfect time to admit that the ability can't really be balanced for both Ret and Holy.
Is that what you believe Hand of Sacrifice does? Is it really?
No, what Hand of Sacrifice does, for you, is to set off the enemy player's SpellAlert causing him to waste one GCD and a trivial amount of mana purging your target. That's it. Even if the other team is stupid enough to let you get away with this, you WON'T be CCed as Ret until you use cooldowns, at which point you will be spam purged anyway to keep you from using Freedom, which I might add overwrites Sacrifice anyway.
All that other stuff you listed? Much more useful to Holy. Ret works best with melee partners, melee can't DPS through HoP; run as Holy with Wizcleave to see actual benefit from this spell. Freedom is often self-cast as Ret. Mandatory, in fact, unless you think auto-attacking while spamming Emancipate is fun. But it would be more powerful when cast, by Holy, on a DPS that already has good mobility without it, such as a Mage or Warrior.
A heavily telegraphed burst phase that lasts 30 seconds and is easily countered. Compare to 10 seconds for FDK or 6 seconds for Arms. SIX. By the time you see Skull banner populate on your screen, the execute that will kill you is already queued up.they have a VERY high burst with barely no ramp-up time
LOLa hard hitting ranged attack (judgement)
And prevents all CC on his target, while you exist as a winged sheep.a guardian you cannot CC nor kill (which hit rather hard aswell).
Actually both can fish for Rogues with Arcane Explosion/Blood Boil, so no, Ret is still worse.So the only thing more useless than a Ret for node defense is a Frost DK and a Fire Mage. Nice.
Last edited by Lumineus; 2013-01-13 at 12:26 AM.
OMG 13:37 - Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Cleave unto me, and I shall grant to thee the blessing of eternal salvation."
And His disciples said unto Him, "Can we get Kings instead?"
According to a recent tweet by GC I expect prot and holy, specifically holy will be losing instant cast blinding light.
I would like burden of guilt to be baseline for ret with an 8 second root as you mentioned for a replacement talent for Ret only or completely separate from judgment. Disable can be on more than 1 target and reapplies itself if within 10 yard of the monk, if you disable a target already disabled it will root.
The reason I ask for this is we need more peels to be desirable or even tolerable in the upper tiers of pvp. I'd also like an additional ret only utility ability, hell the root could be it. Holy shackles/prison or something. I don't care really. Long as they don't make holy cc's any better than it is. Making ret a desirable addition to an rbg or arena team, instead of being a liability.
They should also change sac to be like soul link both ways. Forbearance feels too long as well.
Last edited by Riptide; 2013-01-13 at 12:31 AM.
What really frustrates me at the moment is the fact that we have to choose between insane burst every 2 minutes (in the form of Holy Avenger), or random Divine Purpose procs. Divine purpose is great if it procs a few times in a row but you can't rely on it, and Holy Avenger is great but you have nothing in between those 2 minutes.
I suspect things will stay that way as well.
GC has already somewhat hinted at buffing sustained and nerfing burst. Honestly, I think the way they should nerf burst is take Hammer of Wrath off of wings, make it a real execute(hit like a truck like warriors and DK's), and scale pve dps around it. Being succeptable to CC is fine, lots of classes are during their cd's. It's about the only way to stop a melee with like 4 cooldowns up. The only super strong part about our burst is that it becomes Hammer/TV/Exo all chained together, which all hit hard. If we had either of those talents baseline it would be too strong.
How are they nerfing Spriest healing? I can't see any specific info.
I agree with this. My first character was a Paladin in Vanilla. I have always sort of agreed that bubble is OP. That is, until every expansion, like you said, it gets more hard counters, or spells similar/better than it.
I got fed up with trying to pvp as Ret, (or maybe I am just bad) so I switch to pvp as a Lock. The first few times I faced a comp in arena with a Pally, I was kind of worried about bubble. That is, until I figured out to just leave that Pally alone. TPing away and then focusing his partner worked fine. Like You said I think its kind of bringing our other abilities down, even though, every expansion it gets weaker/countered harder..
http://www.twitch.tv/hammerpairs 7/7 Mythic EN / 3/3 Mythic ToV / 10/10 Mythic NH / 9/9 Mythic ToS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBmNLMo4vcI some old school CM fun
"Your lights will go out. The darkness will envelop you. And you will fear the shadows that move within it."
Looks like this post is coming from a Warrior.... LOL. CC in general is shortened through various racials, passive, talents etc, so most of the time those are shortened by a lot, not to mention 2/3 of our CC's go away upon damage dealt... I see what you mean, but 3 CC's isn't even that many to be honest.
Yea, Ret Paladin CC and Utility are really str.. CHARGE SHOCKWAVE HEROIC LEAP CHARGE "MOTHERFUU"... *dead*