the man who nerfed paladins before the game even came out

[Tauren]

here is a quote and theres more info on this online

Furor and Tigole hated hybrid classes. Their anti-hybrid stance was notorious in Everquest. Furor was an obnoxious baby who organized server crash protests because Paladins out-tanked him in the EQ Planes of Power expansion. He was a loudmouthed brat who didn't care a lick about taking all the fun out of the game for other people.

Tigole was his best friend.


When Vivendi bought Blizzard, much of Blizzard's developing talent left. Some of these were Diablo and Starcraft developers. They went to various other projects, including Hellgate: London and Arenanet. It's unclear whether they were fired, or merely quit.

With several of the original WoW developers gone, these two geniuses were suddenly in positions of influence, in a game with three hybrid classes. Two guys who crashed servers because, for whatever petty and childish reason, they saw red whenever someone with a mana bar out-tanked Furor's pwecious warrior.

Talk about a perfect storm.

Then the class nerfs began.

Paladins suffered from nerf after nerf, beginning with a complete gutting of the class one week before the end of open beta. This culminated in a class review wherein the class was outright lied to by CMs, their forum trolls were praised, and almost none of their major concerns were addressed. They became a pure support class, almost identical to the Everquest Cleric. Big surprise, nobody wants to play them, either. Seen how many endgame WoW Ret Paladins there are? The latest Judgement of the Wise nerf only proves the point. Many will quit or reroll. Having your class being treated like a diseased dog for 3+ years with promises of "no nerfs, just tweaks" and then being lied to just doesn't sit well.


i wish there was some way we could email the developers who did this and confirm that they did this (they did but see if they admit to doing it) do you guys know a way? before moderators delete this because they think its made up you should do the research, this is old and true news. they had holy strike and crusader strike but he wanted them to be weak in revenge

furor is on twitter so i already asked him. hopefully if you guys ask too he will answer us

[taliey]

Strangely enough, the person associated with nerfing ret paladins is Ghostcrawler.

[Kalisandra]

Of course, Ghostcrawler is also the guy who lead the dev team that made all tanks able to tank all content, and all DPS (hybrid or not) be at least in the same ballpark. Sure, WotLK was a bit of a roller-coaster for Ret, but at least they got to be on the ride, rather than on the sidelines behind the rope as was previously the case.

[Jester Joe]

Strangely enough, the person associated with nerfing ret paladins is Ghostcrawler.

I remember that, when someone asked they replied with "A ret paladin killed Ghostcrawler's parents"

[nyc81991]

Strangely enough, the person associated with nerfing ret paladins is Ghostcrawler.

That's because Ret Paladins were actually strong at the start of Wotlk and could actually be nerfed more than they already were. Also, the whole "Into the Ground" statement.

[taliey]

That's because Ret Paladins were actually strong at the start of Wotlk and could actually be nerfed more than they already were. Also, the whole "Into the Ground" statement.

I still long for the days when Divine Storm healed for 33% instead of 25%.

It was so OP to have Divine Shield and Avenging Wrath at the same time.

And Avenging Wrath usable at 35%.

Holy sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

[Deleted]

Can someone link me some of these things that Furor and Tigole did?

[Pengalor]

Nice witch hunt thread. First off, you didn't post any actual proof that they did any of these things or that they are responsible for any of the changes to the class (hell, Tigole wasn't even working on the game from 2009-present, he was working on Titan before it was cancelled). Second, that was years ago, the class has had its ups and downs, so has every other class including pures so this topic is nothing but hoping to brigade two people over things they may or may not have done.

[Deleted]

Well I guess Afrasiabi was famous for throwing tantrums.

http://forums.evercrest.com/f/thread..._the_countdown

Here is an interesting post from the Everquest reddit.

http://www.reddit.com/r/everquest/co...celeb_and_now/

Due to the high profile and visibility of Fires of Heaven's site, and his presence on the board, he had undue influence over development resources, development decisions and game design for being just a player. Aveneyer linked his rant about the design of P1 of Plane of Time below. What you might not realize, that was EVERY FUCKING WEEK from Furor. I exaggerate, but only slightly. It was a vicious cycle that ran something like this: FoH tears though raid content > Furor goes to the EQ forums complaining that they've went through all the raid content, demanding more or he's taking his guild and millions of fans to Dark Age of Camelot, Horizons, Asheron's Call or whatever the fuck failed MMO was launching or about to launch

Man, Afrasiabi sounds exactly like the people that threaten to quit WoW and to go to whatever new MMO launched.

Meanwhile, Furor's Supremacy Of The Warrior Tank dogma led directly to the dominance of the Holy Trinity for a long time. If Furor happened to see a knight, or - god forbid - a ranger surviving an encounter with an even con mob with nothing but a druid or shaman for a healer, off to the boards to complain some more or organize a warrior protest.

Also lol. Seems that he really did hate hybrids. Man, that guy must've been tough to bear.

[PapaNasty]

Paladins weren't that great in vanilla, and being ret or prot wasn't hugely viable.

But during BC they were slowly changed, and by WotLK they were very viable in PvE for both Ret & Prot.

From BC onwards, Ret Paladins have always been jumping around, as either OP, nerfed or somewhere in the middle, and it usually varied a little depending on which spec you were playing. I think it's difficult for Blizzard to balance Paladins, since they're trying to balance PvE tanks, PvE heals, PvE dps, PvP battlegrounds, PvP Arenas & world PvP all at the same time. They've been making changes so that they can more easily buff/nerf specific specs without nerfing the others, and I think it's in a good place at the moment (I neither feel OP, or nerfed during raids, and the same applies in PvP).

I think any nerfs etc which we've had, have very little to do with particular developers having grudges against hybrid classes etc, but rather about keeping the community content and balancing the classes/specs to make them all equally viable without being OP.

A lot of the failings of Ret Paladins stems from us usually being too reliant on cooldowns. In Arena we're a one trick pony, and anyone worth their salt knows how to counter us (and they only really need to do it once every 2 minutes), but they don't want to change how we play the class too much, since blowing all of our CDs to activate god mode and smash face for 30s is fun.

[Deathgoose]

This is water so far under the bridge, being roughly a decade old now, that... what is the point of all of this?

[Ghostile]

Ah, a thread about "I got no fucking idea how blizzard development works"

[MonsieuRoberts]

I don't see how this matters in 2015.

[DrMcNinja]

Ah, a thread about "I got no fucking idea how blizzard development works"

About as mysterious as "I got no fucking clue why Blizzard still hasn't seperated PvP and PvE by making spells have different values or act differently in either game mode"

[MonsieuRoberts]

About as mysterious as "I got no fucking clue why Blizzard still hasn't seperated PvP and PvE by making spells have different values or act differently in either game mode"

We already know why, because they have very little faith in the average player being able to understand a dichotomy like that.

[Tangra]

Strangely enough, the person associated with nerfing ret paladins is Ghostcrawler.

Ret sucked way more before Ghostcrawler. The spec was practically unplayable during much of tBC, and during Vanilla you were expected to be a dispel bot.

- - - Updated - - -

Ah, a thread about "I got no fucking idea how blizzard development works"

Yes his details are wrong, however in every large organization, there is "how it works" and how it actually works. So, he is specifically wrong but generally he has a point.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't see how this matters in 2015.

Because Ret still only gets to be good for 2 weeks every 4 years maybe?

[derpkitteh]

never in my blizzard game life have i liked afrasiabi.

he's just got an aura that gives him a way as a complete piece of shit.

[Art3x]

We had a ret paladin that raided MC => Naxx and had a Hand of Sulfuras. He did nice dps.

[Ealyssa]

A 2k6 thread, chaud should fix the time continuum breach on this forum.

[Nerevar]

This sounds like a thread an obnoxious crybaby would create.