In-Game Fixes, Vindication Talent Change, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

*Update* Recent In-Game Fixes - 06/08

• When immune to the stun of following abilities, Maim, Bash, and Hammer of Justice will no longer cause player spells to be interrupted but they will still interrupt NPCs.
• The Retribution Paladin talent Vindication no longer reduces the targets stamina or intellect but does correctly lower agility, spirit, and strength as mentioned: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17631617432

Vindication Talent Change

We are in the process of completing a hotfix that could go live as early as this afternoon that will make the Paladin talent Vindication no longer reduce Intelligence or Stamina from the target it is applied to. The talent will continue to reduce Agility, Spirit, and Strength as it currently does. We felt this change will help balance the ability out, especially in the lower arena brackets where they are very prominent, while not being a negative impact on a Retribution Paladin’s PvE dps.

Once this hotfix is live, the tooltip will be incorrect until we can update it in the next content patch.

Why with Ret is it always a hotfix for any other class it's ok to let them dominate an entire arena season?
Increasingly it felt like someone playing against a Ret-Pally really only had 60% of their health bar because Vindication took away 20% from the start and then Hammer of Wrath kicked in when they had 20% left. This change was something we could confidently hotfix and would have a minimal to no impact on the PvE side of things.

Blue posts

ETA for classes Q&A
We are working on them pretty much everyday. We hope to get the first couple up this week but like I have mentioned before, these take a lot of coordinating with other regions and in turn translation to get them all ready together. You will start seeing some soonish. (Source)

[US] Mountain Dew In-Game Pet
The in-game pet is not available yet. A few things still need to be completed before it will be available so I don't have an exact time frame to provide. Keep an eye out though as it isn't too far out. (Source)

Only one Auction House
There are multiple NPCs in each major city that link to one Auction House. Splitting up into a separate auction house for each city is something that was somewhat done years ago and wasn't a big plus for the economy.

We also don't feel that the auction house really needs to be connected through NPCs in Outland or Northrend or anything as those are areas where front line battles are taking place and not quite as focused on merchant sales. We want players have a reason to visit the home cities and the AH is one of the reasons that fits this nicely. (Source)

Crowd Control in Arenas
The point I was making was that a common sentiment seems to be:

1) Only classes with multiple forms of CC on different DR (typically embodied by the Frost mage) are capable of playing intelligently and with finesse.
2) If you aren't one of these classes, you are only faceroll.
3) Faceroll classes require no skill. It's the class winning, not the player.
4) Therefore, it is offensive if faceroll classes ever win.
5) Therefore, those classes really shouldn't be represented in Arena.
6) The only way to fix this problem is for every spec and class to have equivalents of Blink, Frost Nova, Polymorph etc.

Number 6 just isn't our design, and it definitely homogenizes the classes more than we are comfortable with.

Even if you want to argue that warriors are too weak in PvP at the moment, which I don't think is a foregone conclusion, they have certainly been quite capable at points in WoW's history. If you are of the mindset that warriors should never be in that situation because they are a faceroll class, then your vision for WoW PvP is probably at odds with that of the developers.

We think classes are capable of playing with finesse even if they aren't a class with layered CC and escape mechanisms. What I mean by that is that you need to play intelligently and respond to your surroundings. You need to use your cooldowns at the right time. You need to sometimes at least think about switching targets. Even if warriors aren't there at the moment (again debatable) we don't really think warriors need a couple more types of CC and escape mechanisms to get there. With the addition of Juggernaut, they probably have all the tools they need and it's just the numbers that might need adjusting.

Some of you just need to untangle the definitions of cleave, burst, melee and faceroll and stop using them all completely interchangeably. It's imprecise and just confuses everyone else.

Now, in those situations where a class or spec just beats someone over the head with MASSIVE DAMAGE and doesn't have to be particularly clever or even sentient to win, then that is faceroll, that is a problem and not at all what we want in the PvP game. I don't think warriors are in that spot now. DKs and Retadins have been there before. (Source)

Turning off achievements announcements
An option to turn off achievement announcements is something that has been brought up in the past but currently we don't plan to implement. While initially there was a lot of achievement spamming when the system launched, it has calmed down considerably to where even seeing alts complete things isn't much of an issue and you can pat your friend on the back for completing something for the 3rd time on an alt.

You can turn off seeing other peoples' achievements by going into the chat window settings and turning off the achievement announce in the 'other' category, but I understand that this is not what this thread is about. (Source)

Hunter (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Chaos Bolt ignores Deterrence
Deterrence is an unusual ability -- it grants spell deflection. Chaos Bolt always hits, so technically it is working correctly by ignoring Deterrence. We don't see any reason to change this behavior at this time. (Source)

Paladin (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Vindication Nerf
If an class is so powerful among less skilled players that it dominates but totally ineffectual against the best players in the world whose skill is high enough to counter it, we don't think that makes it balanced. The game needs to be fun for everyone, not just the most elite players. (Source)

MP5 on Gear
Regardless of any other changes we might make, mp5 just doesn't seem to provide enough point for point on gear. It's possible (likely?) we'll just increase all of the mp5 on gear. (Source)

Shaman (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Shaman changes in 3.2
The class Q&As are not lists of patch notes. Many of the questions are more philosophical in nature. The Resto shaman list of patch notes is shaping up to be among the longer ones this time around, but we aren't quite ready to share the specific changes yet.

I mention this so you can help remind players (of any class) when they respond to the Q&A with "But they didn't buff my spell." (Source)

[MOSTHATED]

COOL MORE RET NERFS

[DarkAxius]

Vindication nerf eh? Never really thought of that talent as being responsible for Ret's dominance in some fights...

[Deleted]

They are nerfing Vindication NOW? In Season 6? Way to go blizz. ^^

Oh, and as a sidenote. My own Paladin still sits at lvl 70, so no QQ on my side. Just wondering what made them decide it's op after whole 5 seasons before this.

[Deleted]

How bout you nerf water shield, spending a half an hour chasing a goddamn resto shaman around in a fucking arena and he heals himself to full each time and never runs out of mana, but nerfing the one thing we can use against a damn healer, yeah, smart move blizz, way to balance shit once again.

Leave us Resto Shamans alone, we have enough problems already.

[atf]

Rogue poisons are OP in the scrub bracket.

NURF PL0X!!!!1!ONE1

[Exiztence]

Shut the fuck up terrible ret , rshamans are the worst PvP healers ingame and you are the most overpowered class you might want to think before you post you 1500 rated 50% winrate WOTLK hero.

[Eriador]

I dont care what it is, any nerf to ret pallys is welcome. I hope you guys get nerfed to kingdom come.

[lolgetnurfed]

yea rets are really op at killing those 200 resilience resto shamans who are too dumb to drop grounding totems, trinket, or purge

oh wait everyone can do that

(its actually a lot harder to heal against a rogue, warrior, or dk than a ret)

blizz basically saying its perfectly fine to nerf anything that kills horribles at low brackets, even if it makes them completely useless (lol totally ineffectual) at higher ones

nice justification - can use that same logic to nerf moonkin, enhance shaman, or pretty much any class u want

[Balbarei]

Another Paladin nerf, this does it, REST IN PEACE my paladin - no frecking way im gonna continue to play on it, guys lets wait 1 more week before the nerf hammer of wrath aswell or even put 20second cd on crusader strike....


Learn to nerf other classes like Rogues/Locks or whatever.

[Tripp]

Before anyone starts losing their mind about what the Blue said on playing like you have 60% of a health bar. Vindication reduces Stamina not Health. On my character that's 13% initial reduction instead of 20%. Hammer of Wrath range is then even slightly lowered, for me it's 18% instead of 20%. Meaning I play with 69% health pool instead of 60%. That's still pretty amazing but It's just a matter of time before Retribution Paladins call him out on his mistake.

P.S. These are my numbers from my character, I sure other people will have different ones as this debuff essentially scales with gear.

[Belenus]

So, since when HoW takes away 20% of HP?

More facts plz.

[laytoncy]

Rogue poison slow might as well be a damn root not a slow. Yeah, they always have something to nerf on pally's why not look around a bit more...

[Divnous]

yea rets are really op at killing those 200 resilience resto shamans who are too dumb to drop grounding totems, trinket, or purge

oh wait everyone can do that

(its actually a lot harder to heal against a rogue, warrior, or dk than a ret)

blizz basically saying its perfectly fine to nerf anything that kills horribles at low brackets, even if it makes them completely useless (lol totally ineffectual) at higher ones

nice justification - can use that same logic to nerf moonkin, enhance shaman, or pretty much any class u want

this. ya they do. They nerfed thorns (and of course ret aura) because it hurt rogues. What a shame. We wouldn't want rogues to dominate lower or higher brackets..oh wait....

[Lokholar89]

Ya know when they nerfed eye for an eye i was like ya ok that kinda makes it less OP but then again its pretty lack luster. But this whole vindication thing seems ridiculous. The talent is now worthless, no one uses it in PVE and its such a slight damage reduction for pvp that i cant see it being worth it. I have an 80 pally, i definitly cant say vindication made us OP, anyways most people who actually understand the principles behind pvp dont seem to be overwhelmed against a retadin. Hell they might as well nerf windfury because it does too much burst in a low bracket :

[Azharok]

Ya know when they nerfed eye for an eye i was like ya ok that kinda makes it less OP but then again its pretty lack luster. But this whole vindication thing seems ridiculous. The talent is now worthless, no one uses it in PVE and its such a slight damage reduction for pvp that i cant see it being worth it. I have an 80 pally, i definitly cant say vindication made us OP, anyways most people who actually understand the principles behind pvp dont seem to be overwhelmed against a retadin. Hell they might as well nerf windfury because it does too much burst in a low bracket :

I thought it was because of the reduction to health that Vindication was good, that's why they are getting rid of Stam in the -20% stats .

But 'nerf' a spec because bad players get facerolled is pure BS

[jneboon]

Why with Ret is it always a hotfix for any other class it's ok to let them dominate an entire arena season?
Increasingly it felt like someone playing against a Ret-Pally really only had 60% of their health bar because Vindication took away 20% from the start and then Hammer of Wrath kicked in when they had 20% left. This change was something we could confidently hotfix and would have a minimal to no impact on the PvE side of things.

come on...at least understand the fu*&ing spell....60% of their health...OH REALLY?
20% stats != 20% health
20% from maximum Hp to hammer != 20% Hp after vindication ....so the window to hammer is smaller...AND FFS i got 4500 AP self buffed and i crit alot with hammer ...but its not always a kill shot ...so the crap with starting at 60% is even bigger BS


i dont care about the nerfs...im use to them...but this ignorance towards the spell is....................................

[Deerhaven]

QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ All i gotta say to u ret pallies out there

[talrob]

There is such a thing as too far and this is it...

Rets can't interrupt (don't say hammer), they cant really snare, they have long cooldowns on the cc and now they are removing the 'mortal strike' (I thought the whole point of vindication was to give something like MS/wound) debuff. So now paladins have...o yeah burst that was what needed to be nerfed not the fing debuffs.

[Deleted]

Welcome change for every non-Ret Team <3 thx