Questions for Paladins

[rbarton15]

I haven't played a paladin above level 24, and I don't plan to. So, no, I don't know the class. Which brings me here. To ask legitimate questions from the paladin community. This isn't a pally-bashing post, or a "lolrets haha" post. I would genuinely like some insight from the paladin community on a couple thoughts.

I have PvPed quite a bit. Not as much as the die-hards, but enough. Recently in BGs (I don't do arenas), I've been decimated by the ret paladin. Usually it involves a melee for as much as 3.6K damage, followed by a stun, followed by another huge melee swing. At which point, I'm usually dead. Okay fine. People die in BGs. I get that. I got no problem dying. What really seems to me to be over-powered is not the damage so much, but the survivability PLUS all that damage.

Warlocks, mages, rogues, etc. all have large amounts of damage and very little armor. Catch a lock/mage/rogue with their guard down, and you have a fighting chance to take them down. What amazes me in the BGs is watching the ret pally take on numerous opponents, do HUGE damage, then bubble and heal themselves full, and just keep on banging away. Very very frustrating to watch.

Let me get to the point. The purpose of speccing heavily into one tree, is so that you can get all the benefits of that tree. However, you must sacrifice some/all of the benefits of the other two trees. For example, druids are probably one of the better balanced classes in the game. Very stong in each separate tree, but don't overly benefit from the other trees. (i.e. Resto druids don't tank, Ferals can't heal very well. Boomkins are just downright ugly, but remain lethal. lol)

It seems to me that retribution paladins have all the benefits, but none of the drawbacks. Heals, bubbles, huge damage, stuns, plate armor, holy cow. Now honestly, is that remotely balanced? No, I'm not slamming the class. It's not the fault of the Paladin community that Blizzard has put you guys into this position. I would just like to know how the pally community would best balance their own class. I wouldn't mind seeing retribution paladins keeping there big damage, but lose the bubble. Or suffer serious penalties to healing if specced full ret. Sure, mages have Ice Block, but they can't heal themselves or cast spells. Priests have a bubble and can heal, but they don't wear plate. So, keep the damage and lose healing/bubble? Lower the damage burst and keep the healing/bubble? I think the point of three separate trees is so that you can't have your cake and eat it too. From the outside looking in, it looks like ret pallies have it all at the moment.

So, what are the opinions of the paladin community on balancing the class? I don't know if the Blizzard nerfs are a good thing or a bad thing for pallies, but I would be very interested to hear some serious (no trolls or lawl-posts please) thoughts from the Paladin community.

[Cronk]

At first I have to say, ret pallys on the live servers are op.

But they are only so strong because they can burst you verry fast down.
At lvl 80 with much more health this would be different.

A ret pally is easy to encounter. I've seen many skilled players beating retpallys on live servers.

You can disarm or kite ret pallys to prevent dmg. Also you can silence them to prevent the hammer of justice.
Or fear them... I've never seen a undead paladin That are only a few examples... there is mutch more like cloak of shadows, spellsteal, stun...

When you use your abilities whisely, you can win.

okay, bubble is verry op.

But all this doesn't matter, we have to see how the nerfed ret pally works....

[blupp74]

The bubble is a great lifesaver.
Not just in PvP, but in instances and questing/grinding too.

I can agree that it is a quite unique ability, and the only class that even comes close is the mages iceblock, but they can take no action whatsoever during the block.

But frankly, I have yet to get a unified impression of what people's problems with retribution really is.
Some say it's the burst damage. Others say it's the bubble. Or the plate. Or the healing.
Some people just chalk it down to "survivability", which appearently includes all of the above (aside from the burst), and more.

I think the loss of the bubble would make most people shut up. Of course, if we get un-nerfed in other areas :P
How about Art of War, along with it's current contents, also reduces movement speed while Divine Shield is up by 50/100%?
Or..well...the basic idea being to put that "debuff" on a talent that no retri in his right mind would pass up.

...but please just give us our mana regen back!!
(QQ)

[str4vic]

For example, druids are probably one of the better balanced classes in the game.

You lost me at for example.

[Cronk]

i play ret pally and balance druid (i think you can see at my sig )

in my opinion the balance druid is much stronger than the ret pally.

[sillverhair]

Let me get to the point. The purpose of speccing heavily into one tree, is so that you can get all the benefits of that tree. However, you must sacrifice some/all of the benefits of the other two trees. For example, druids are probably one of the better balanced classes in the game. Very stong in each separate tree, but don't overly benefit from the other trees. (i.e. Resto druids don't tank, Ferals can't heal very well. Boomkins are just downright ugly, but remain lethal. lol)

It seems to me that retribution paladins have all the benefits, but none of the drawbacks. Heals, bubbles, huge damage, stuns, plate armor, holy cow. Now honestly, is that remotely balanced? No, I'm not slamming the class. It's not the fault of the Paladin community that Blizzard has put you guys into this position. I would just like to know how the pally community would best balance their own class. I wouldn't mind seeing retribution paladins keeping there big damage, but lose the bubble. Or suffer serious penalties to healing if specced full ret. Sure, mages have Ice Block, but they can't heal themselves or cast spells. Priests have a bubble and can heal, but they don't wear plate. So, keep the damage and lose healing/bubble? Lower the damage burst and keep the healing/bubble? I think the point of three separate trees is so that you can't have your cake and eat it too. From the outside looking in, it looks like ret pallies have it all at the moment.

i understand your concerns but please remember that moonkin, ferals can heal aswell and healers can go into transformations aswell.
from a retri point of view, heals: i heal for 4-6k which is nice at lvl 70 but at lv 80 when were all running around with 20k hps itll be the same as b4 1/3 of our hp for quite a big chunk of mana.
bubble is not a topic since thats just an ability weve had forever,
huge damage: well after that nerf i think we can safely take that away aswell,
stuns: 1 stun and repentance which functions as a stun but breaks with any amount of dmg, so in pvp not really that usefull unless a judge follows right after.
plate armor: same as bubble.
whats holy cow?

PS. complaining about the plate armor/bubble would be the same as complaining about knockbacks, hunters moonwalk knockback, moonkin roots, mages iceblocks, roguestuns, warrior hamstring, shamans slowing totems, priests/locks fear ect ect

[rbarton15]

The bubble is a great lifesaver.
Not just in PvP, but in instances and questing/grinding too.

I can agree that it is a quite unique ability, and the only class that even comes close is the mages iceblock, but they can take no action whatsoever during the block.

But frankly, I have yet to get a unified impression of what people's problems with retribution really is.
Some say it's the burst damage. Others say it's the bubble. Or the plate. Or the healing.
Some people just chalk it down to "survivability", which appearently includes all of the above (aside from the burst), and more.

It's pretty much all of the above. Retadins have all of the pallies best abilities, with none of the drawbacks. As it is now, it seems like ret pallies are nigh-unkillable versus 1-3 people. Assuming you live through the initial crit/stun/crit cycle, are able to get off some damage, they bubble, heal and either run away or start the crit/stun/crit again (no, I don't know how long the CDs are). I don't know what a proper solution would be. But there should be some sort of sacrifice somewhere. Right now, there doesn't appear to be one.

Just interested to hear logical thoughts from the paladin community. Thanks.

[sillverhair]

we come in with nice dmg, you dot us up we die... if we have bubble we use it to heal up and try to get some of you, most likely it fails.

just dont let us get close and your fine...
whats our best abilities? bubble 5 mins cd meaning once every 5 mins were unkillable, all the other time you can just nuke us...
assuming u live through the initial? dont get close? shoot, fb spam, slow us, stun us... we cant do anything, HoF? dispell it and do it again...
if we run away u follow wait till bubble wears off and kill us.

i see loads of be paladins in pvp, and most have no idea what their doing, they bubble and heal or bubble and try to deal dmg, i just run away /lol at them and when the bubble wears off i stun and nuke them
(im a pala aswell)
for me its insanely easy to kill other retri palas, probably coz i know why

my best advice to you?
go read up on paladin abilities read some more fora on pvp usage of paladins from the paladin perspective and figure out for yourself how best to kill us. what always works is get a dispeller and just kill us, most dispellers will be able to heal you.

now you will say OPOPOP we need 2v1... but if i see a priest lock or mage i prefer to wait for backup too, ofcourse if hes looking the other way ill happily hand his ass to him...
pvp is about paying attention as much as class/gear/skill is...

[Strykewrath]

As a Ret Paladin both before and after the patch, my opinion is that Ret Paladins didn't need a huge buff before the patch, just a few new things, like an extra attack (Divine Storm), perhaps a short CD spell interrupt, and something to help us with mana problems (JotW), but at the moment, we are overpowered. Divine Storm, not having to refresh seals, the mana regen and other changes were good, but I think that the problem does still lie in the fact that, as you said, Paladins do have very good survivability coupled with massive, quick damage.

But saying that, Boomkins also have this. Although they don't have a bubble, they still have the capacity to keep themselves alive while doing huge damage. The new patch has brought in many changes that are overpowered at the minute but we should remember that in turn, these overpowered classes will be nerfed, and then buffed if they are nerfed too far. It's just a matter of patiance.

Going slightly off-topic, for those of you who played WC3 (the normal version, not DotA), the paladin hero was quite powerful, and personally I prefered him to say the Mountain King because of his abilities to heal, and at lvl 6, resurrect multiple units, as well as bubble and give an armour increase to your units on top of his good damage output. Similarly, paladins in WoW should be capable of a variety of moves, just not excessively excelling in every category.

To get to the point, I think Ret Paladins should be adjusted to the point where they are still a force to be reckoned with, but also have a chance to be beaten one-on-one. Personally, I am not exactly sure of how to go about it either. The Paladin nerfs were justified in my opinion, we'll just have to see what happens.

[Odyssasthai]

A few points:

1) I think most Ret Paladins agreed that they were OP.
2) I think most Ret Paladins agree that these changes were excessive.
3) I think Holy and Protection Paladins are baffled as to why they got significant nerfs.
4) I think many open minded players--of all classes--are astounded that Blizzard is doing massive class changes less than 3 weeks before the expansion.

At this point, it's hard to have confidence in Blizzard. Most of what they've said is incorrect. Also, history has not been kind to us. Bottom line, if Blizzard knew what they were doing we wouldn't be seeing such huge changes at this point in beta--we'd see tweeks. This concerns many people.

[Torture]

One of the biggest problems has been over representation.

Before the patch, Retadins accounted for a fairly small percentage of players in BG's. Yes there were a few, and if you talked to the good ones you'd know that they aways had large burst potential (relying on seal of casino).

When the patch hit, following the hype from Beta, everyone, their dog, their sister, their sister's uncles dog and a three legged man from the shetland isles all logged onto old paladin alts, or respecced from Holy/Prot to Ret and descended upon BG's like a wave of sex maniacs that had spent 5 years in a convent, desperate to unleash pent up fury on unsuspecting players.

Your average joe player just wasn't ready for this. He'd casually be stood at lumber mill minding his own business and thinking how nice the view of the blacksmith is from up there when 'whooooosh' 4 retadins come over the hill, stun him and proceed to bludgeon him into an unrecognisable patch of goo.

In the first couple of days following the patch there were retadins everywhere.

Now, as far as imbalance goes, there is nothing quite as effective as 3874734874 retadins running round BG's /y'ing varying quotes from Braveheart while simultaneously beating 2 clothies to death with the corpse of a priest to make Blizzard sit up and take notice.

Yes, things did indeed need tweaking and balancing, I totally agree that things couldn't remain as they were. I do however think the speed at which these things were 'tweaked' was largely down to the above circumstances despite what GC says to the contrary. If you get killed twice in a BG by a retadin it's no big deal. If you die 4874 times to a retadin you tend to complain.

Fingers crossed at 80 we'll be where we belong, a DPS class that can compete with other DPS classes, simple as. Although I think every one of us would be lying if we didn't say we'll always look back to these few weeks with a smile that says 'and you thought the reckoning bomb was bad'.

[Donthate]

A few points:

1) I think most Ret Paladins agreed that they were OP.
2) I think most Ret Paladins agree that these changes were excessive.
3) I think Holy and Protection Paladins are baffled as to why they got significant nerfs.
4) I think many open minded players--of all classes--are astounded that Blizzard is doing massive class changes less than 3 weeks before the expansion.

At this point, it's hard to have confidence in Blizzard. Most of what they've said is incorrect. Also, history has not been kind to us. Bottom line, if Blizzard knew what they were doing we wouldn't be seeing such huge changes at this point in beta--we'd see tweeks. This concerns many people.

very much this.

nerfs were needed, but were over the top and affected prot as well which was unnecessary. The JotW nerf was the biggest one and will hurt the most.

[sillverhair]

lol at your post torture i really had some laughs there,

ive been retri for almost a year now, yes pre patch aswell,
pre patch i was in the top on dmg, and i agree post patch were overpowered,
im hoping that the pve changes will balance us with other classes
(on a sidenote i hope they balance huntards aswell)

as to the massive amount of retri pala in bgs, i havent done any more bgs than i did b4, like 1-5 a day
im mainly a pve player and ofcourse i like go gank people im on a pvp realm after all.
i came into my first wsg off the thinking, ok we been buffed a bit and as always picked up the 30% dmg bonus after exiting the alliance building and proceeded towards the onrushing horde when i got a whisper saying
" go ahead ill heal you " and i was like oh cool a friendly player, you dont find many off those on alliance side

so i figured id just try and take out 1 or 2 hordies on their way to my flagroom, unfortunatly 6 off them unmounted so i was like shit, im fucked, bubble+wings (60% dmg bonus) laying about with 5-6k crits rushing 5 horde DS 5-6k holy crits leaving in my wake 6 dead horde i just stood there and thought WTF just happened?

suffice to say the 2 off us proceeded to the horde gy where we kept the horde busy while the rest off the alliance capped flag or something,

yes we DEFINETLY needed a pvp nerf, tbh from what ive heard so far the pve nerf isnt as bad as people said it was, and hopefully well get buffed at lvl 80 coz well be behind at lvl 80 thats for sure, but hey its always been like that, weve always been behind,
it takes class to play a retri pala,
it takes practice to play a good retri pala,
and as always it takes patience and skill to play a great retri pala

[Zarcob]

So, what are the opinions of the paladin community on balancing the class?  I don't know if the Blizzard nerfs are a good thing or a bad thing for pallies, but I would be very interested to hear some serious (no trolls or lawl-posts please) thoughts from the Paladin community.

Paladin burst was seriously too high for 70, but that's not the whole issue.  That burst was needed, and yes I say that with an entirely straight face, because Blizzard refuses to give ret any other offensive utility.  They have no snares, no mortal strike, no mana drains, no dispels, and a single stun + interrupt rolled into one ability on a 1 minute cooldown.

That's simply insufficient.  Paladins can't kill healers.  They can't even PRESSURE healers.  At first I thought the changes were ridiculous when I saw ret paladins destroy people in BGs, but then I did some arena games.  Boomkin, mages and hunters can do just as much burst, and from ranged, and paladins STILL struggle to kill healers.  Even while being completely op.

I had thought during early beta they would be making paladins exceptional at outlasting opponents, but their mana return has been cut in half too and divine storm still doesn't heal enough to make it more worthwhile than a warrior or rogue (or even feral druid), which can fight indefinitely without running out of energy or rage.

I don't think the class can ever be balanced.  Blizzard doesn't want to "homogenize" the classes so they don't give ret paladins attacks that they blatantly steal to balance other classes (dispel to hunters for example).  They don't seem interested in devising a new niche for paladins, so they just keep playing the yo-yo game with their dps.  It goes up, it goes down, it goes up, it goes down.  There's a lot more to the game than just dps so the ret paladin will be eternally stuck bouncing between suckville and OPland.

[Ivresse]

A ret pally is easy to encounter. I've seen many skilled players beating retpallys on live servers.

And therein lies the problem.

You have to be skilled to beat a ret pally. Unfortunately, a lot of people playing this game (probably far more than the skilled players) mainly consist of casual PvPers who don't really understand the mechanics of WoW PvP, or consist of little 12-16 year old brats who, like most 12-16 year old brats, are God's gift to gamers and know how everything works and that they won't be affected by anything negative, but in reality are generally mentally ill and wouldn't know how to play the game if a member of a professional tournament game player came up to them and said 'I'm going to show you how to play the game'.

Unfortunately, when people see a skilled player beat a paladin through kiting, some end up thinking, 'Oh, he beat a ret paladin, anyone can do that now!', when that just isn't the case.

Blizzard doesn't want to "homogenize" the classes so they don't give ret paladins attacks that they blatantly steal to balance other classes (dispel to hunters for example). 

Erm....didn't they just give Ret Paladins Whirlwind and Deep Wounds through these changes?

[Auton]

very much this.

nerfs were needed, but were over the top and affected prot as well which was unnecessary. The JotW nerf was the biggest one and will hurt the most.

This. JotW nerf means that it only restores a net 12.5% base mana (Judgement costs 5%, replenishment is another 2.5% but over 10 seconds) which is enough for one divine storm or 1.5 crusader strike. I guess when I go OOM I am just supposed to be a Judgement bot with an extra attack thrown in plus a Divine Storm every minute or so. Maybe.

I know the change referenced warriors not starting with a full rage bar, but they scale so that once gear is good enough, they build up rage to a full bar in a short while at the beginning of a fight and then have infinite rage for the remainder of that fight (dps warriors). Pallies are going to start with a full mana bar, go OOM a short way into a fight, and then be nerfed dps wise for the remainder.

[Kodi]

well, even if many of you dont like to hear ist. mothball is right.

we've got something from everything.

- brust is way way high into the sky

- bubble saved our asses lots of times and heals as well, especially instants with hot or big heal with hot ticking for 800-1000 ^^

- infinite mana for healing and dmg

shit i did azuregos(old worldboss), ony(old boss) and the elite reaver(70 elite) on hellfire pen solo and went out of the fight with 100% life and 100% mana. is that normal or supposed to be? well its fun, no question. but for sure thats not balanced.

i agree to the point, that we have to sacrifice something for that dmg. and yes i would nerf the retheal into the ground to be able to do that dmg, and yes i would spit on bubble for that dmg, and yes i would sacrifice my plate if it must.

no i dont wont to reroll. i have every class on max lvl. NO DRUID THOUGH! and i like the class-mechanics from my paly. i love the class and thats the reason i dont want to reroll. i play the class since classic release and created it with the thouht in mind that it would be a dd that can heal himself. if that was right or not, everyone knows the answer by now. but i didnt have the info at release of wow-classic, im sorry ^^

but i want to be able to play that class in raids without always struggling for mana and even then not beeing able to do good dmg.

i would sacrifce so much for that, but noone wants to hear it. blizz will do what the community asks from them, because ret-palys are so little in numbers in comparison to alle other classes. the way it is: palys just need to shut up and eat that shit like it was served.

to just nerf dmg or manareg. but everything. manareg, every talent, ret-tree ... jow back to at least 20 or 25% would give us a little hope again, but as it is right now. i hardy doubt that we will be able to do 95% of the dmg of a "pure" dps-class ^^

greetings from germany and a very frustrated ret-paly....

p.s. even after all these years, im still dumb enough to have some hope for the ret paly. i hope i wont get disapointed again when i have hit 80 ust to realise that rets haven been fucked over just one more time again.

good night fellow ret.play, i feel with you.

we fell alright, to the ground and a thousand mile below.

i even feel sad for other classes if they get nerfed, but ... ah fuck it

[Ninjaurloots]

Survivability. We have it in insane amounts. That is why we feel so OP. Plate armor isnt such a big deal. Warriors have it and do easily as much burst damage. But instant FoL is to much IMO, that should be removed. Make us chose between Avenging Wrath and Bubble again. Being able to pop both one right after the other or whatever is to much. Make our lay on hand use up our mana again. Perhaps make it a talent in holy to make it what it is now.

Our mana regen is way to high. My brothers and I are 3 manning HH daily. 1 prot specced pve dps geared warrior, 1 lock/hunter(switches between them for summon), and me a S2/S3 ret pally. I can easily run with them in DPS and heal everyone. I rely mainly on instant FoL to heal with the occasional Holy Light. I come out of each kill with almost full life/mana.... I shouldnt, that is simply to much mana regen. I think they may have went a little overboard with the regen nerf, but Im not in beta so I cant test that. Its easily adjusted if needed.

Yes our burst damage was a little high and maybe overall was too. Though not that much. My hunger for blood rogue has nearly as much burst damage. Im still mainly setup for a Combat Sword build so my AP/Crit is a little low for this build. Adjust my gems and a few pieces of gear and I could match my pallies burst damage. I watched my brother's warrior do a 6700 damage crit last night as a wrecking crew build. He does over 5K crits fairly often. Ive had arcane mages do over 6K damage to me in matter of seconds too. So I think a 20% Seal/Judgement damage reduction is a little overkill. Especially since just recently GC said they were happy with our overall damage. It was just to bursty. Hmmm.. I think they nerfed our overall damage. lol.

But I believe Retadins will still put out competitive PVE dps. As for PVP, meh. I could hold my own pre-3.0. Even with these nerfs I will still have way more power than I had before.

Also to those of you that dont play a pally and bitch about our "QQs". You have to remember that Blizzard hasnt done much in the last 4 years to give us a reason to trust them. It might take a little while for us to trust them enough to believe they wont nerf us into the ground again.

[Tanyn]

I really dont see how the instant flash heals make us OP. They heal for about 2k and take up a GCD. Any dps class you're fighting would do way more than 2k to you in the same time the GCD is coming back. If anything its just there to give you time for you judgement CD to be off.

I really think that the pushback change is a big OP thing to us. On top of being able to throw a heal, which we've always been to do, just to a lesser extent, we can do it with minimal pushback. Did you ever try throwing a heal with ANYONE attacking you pre-patch, without being bubbled? It was nearly impossible. Now paladins can throw a holy light with little fear of it not getting off, unless we get counterspelled, kicked, etc..

Maybe adjust the mana costs of healing spells in the retribution tree.. roll a mana cost % increase into one of our dps talents. So that if we cast heals, it puts a larger dent into our mana pool.

I personally hate bubble. I hate the fact that every thing we lose or gain is criticized because of how it does or doesnt work with divine shield. I would gladly give it up for some other type of abilities that would make us more effective and cause less QQ.

[Kodi]

/signed ... both of you guys.

i wrote in the beta forums before, that we should be able to choose our survivability in our ret-tree.

a feat that increases criticalstrike-dmg done with all attacks by 50% but reduces healing by 50 or 75%?.

that would give us the opportunity to sacrifice healing/survivability for dmg, without killing the lore around oour class that we can heal ourselfs. just not good anymore. healing now is pretty harsh for a dd ^^

bubble ... well in pve it can save you ass lots of time, in pvp i try to use it almost at no point in battle. it makes me feel way better to know i can beat my enemy without using the /godmode console-entry ^^ and spare me the ... bla bla you only won .... ... i dont want to rely on dinve shield to be good. give me another nice pvp/pve quality and i will gladly throw that thing out of my spellbook. the problem is, other classes got so many pvp skills to lock you down. fear, stuns, slows and so on. the pally has to stund with 1 min cd. that pretty much all. yes we can despell most, but its back on us before we reach the enemy. hand of freedom skilled in ret tree, nice little thingy. sucks angainst good playing rogues tho. they just wait for it and follow up with another stun do some dmg.. vanish wait for their cd so come off an stund-lock you again. but well i can live with that. most of the time having one rogue is alright. ill break the stun-rotations at some piont, stun him twice an kill him. if i have 2 rogues on myself as somke many times in the last few days. i try to not use bubble, only to see my self stunlocked to death. next time i use bubble to show'em whos you daddy XD .. that bubble dosnt even have to reduce all dmg taken to 0% ... for me it would be good enough if it would just make me 12 sec non-cc-able. no stuns, no slows ... a little like hand of freedom but stunimmun. remember the big red kitty? XD he has got ist. for a skill like that i would sacrifice my shield. or change our wings! dmg and healing incresed by 20% für 20 sec and your not cc-able just like our hunter friend. and make wings and divive shield not usable at the same time.

fuck survivablilty = give me dmg!

p.s. i also think that we still can do some good dmg in pve. i wont be on the first spot anymore, but hopefuly under the top5 somewhere +/- 2 spots form there. ill see, next time in bt or ... without being able to use my other skills. i tests dmg-rotation on beta. and with the normal, J, CS,DS -Rotation youre fine, mana is not the problem. if you have some sadowspriests with ya or use manapots, dark runes or stuff like that, youre even able to do aoe if it is needed, just not on single targets anymore to push dps even higher. i think its fair, but is hope that wont break our necks. im confident thoug. only thing is ... i guess now i have to ask for water again XD