Hi,
Firstly, this is not intended to be a QQ thread, and I am not a troll, and yes, I did register to say what I am going to say, although I have been visiting MMO-Champion for a while now, but just never registered.
I have seen, unsurprisingly, a huge amount of threads like "Ret will be useless" and "Why did you nerf us?". I am an ally paladin, who has been retri for a long time before this new patch. Like a lot of people, I felt retri pallys needed a bit of fixing, just a few things here and there to make them more effective for both pve and pvp. When I saw the new retri talents, I, of course, thought it was going to be awesome, which it was, but I realised that they were overpowered after playing one battleground after the patch.
Retri can't be fine if blues-and-greens geared, just-dinged 70 paladins who have specced retri in the patch can kill other classes with S2, S3 and S4 gear. Now, we see retri is going to be nerfed. However, I am still going to buy the expansion pack, I'm not going to reroll, and I'm not going to send Blizz hundreds of emails saying how angry I am. I am going to keep my paladin as my main character. Why? In short, because I find playing retri pallys fun. At this point, many of you might think I've gone mad, but I truly, even way before the patch, found pallys a fun class.
The first character I got to 70 was a hunter, then my paladin, and then a mage. I could, if I wanted, abandon my paladin and go with my hunter or mage, or even level up one of my lower level alts, but still, I will play my paladin as my main. Before the patch, in PvE, ok, admitidly, retri dmg wasn't great, but I could still come second or third on the dmg meter against mages and locks, for example. In PvP, in arena, me and my friend, who plays a lock, would still win the majority of our games, and in BGs, I would still come within the top 5 or so. Many people before the patch wanted retri pallys in their teams, and if retri was completely useless, then why was there such thing as s4 shoulders for retri. (Of course, s4 shoulders were hard to get with most classes)
But why are pallys a fun class? I don't really have a direct answer for that. One thing I did like about pallys before the patch was their ability to do the "triple crit burst", where you would get wep dmg, SoC proc, and Crusader Strike all going off at once, and critting. Before the patch, I was still saying things like "It would be nice if pallys had a short cooldown spell interrupt, or a charge or something". Although we did not really get either of those, I did welcome the changes that Blizz put in, such as the fact you don't have to keep reactivating seals after you judge them, and how Judgement of Justice can now be used as a primary seal, as it does dmg and puts the movement impairing effect on, and how you did not have to change to Seal of Justice for it, and how Hammer of Wrath is now instant cast. Divine Storm was also a nice extra attack to have.
Judgements of the Wise was also another welcome change, as it sorted out our mana problems. However, even I see that this is overpowered. I can go into a fight in a BG, say if 8 hordies attacking the blacksmith in AB, with me and 7 others defending for example. If we win that fight, I look at how much mana I've got...and usually I've only lost 5-10%. Both my mage and my hunter would have lost far more than that. This is just one example I am using.
To clarify, I am neither welcoming nor rejecting the nerfs, but I would say that retri pallys have been, in comparison to other overpowered classes, rather un-humble about it. However, I have noticed that there are now less retri pallys in BGs now, and more Holy specced pallys are coming back. (This might be different in other battlegroups).
When some people are talking about Blizz's decisions with paladins, they say things like "Pallys are there for a joke" "Pallys are just LOLRET, always will be, gg blizz" "Blizz is plotting against us!". Blizz does not have some conspiricy against paladins, and they don't sit there laughing at paladins. If Blizz makes a joke about paladins, even if you are a paladin, just laugh anyway if it is funny. Don't take it personally. It's the same IRL, if someone makes a joke at you then you just laugh at it, you don't go into a massive nerdrage and destroy them. (Well you might do, I don't know :P)
As a final point, for retri pallys: We are going to get nerfed, yes, but it is deserved, as we are clearly overpowered at the moment. It seems most experienced retri pallys would agree with this. The nerf might be too much in some people's opinion, but if that is true, then Blizz should buff them again. Just have a bit of patiance, and see what happens. If we do become underpowered, then just live with it, and we will get a buff. As for other people who are not pallys who complain about them and say stuff like "Haha retardins = owned lololololol", we are getting nerfed, but just try not to be so sore that you might have got killed multiple times by a paladin. I am not angry about these nerfs, and I will keep playing a paladin, in fact, what annoys me more is why so many human males in WoW have gone for the belf haircuts... :P
This is just my opinion, flame away if you like, but keep it constructive. (Sry it was a bit long)