PVP power nerf must be a joke?

[Tullkas]

Imo 2v2 as a DPS+Healer vs DPS+Healer will be totally unplayable after this. If a healer gets only +healing from PvP power and with burst nerfs comming it wont be possible to kill anything in those new 20 minutes. They should change the bracket to dps/tank only srsly...

[Palatinus]

the 5 stack taste for blood/heroic strike thing is messed up but don't fool yourself, this happens almost never. just because you saw a video of a dude getting 1 shot for like 325k doesn't mean this is a regular occurance and warriors are running around 1 shotting everyone. i think the most i ever got vs. another player was 3 stacks.

It depends on what is being played. For example, 2s or double healer it is very common to see it a lot. Since all the hype about it came out, I now watch warriors constantly (as a healer) and I see it a lot more than "almost never".

Imo 2v2 as a DPS+Healer vs DPS+Healer will be totally unplayable after this. If a healer gets only +healing from PvP power and with burst nerfs comming it wont be possible to kill anything in those new 20 minutes. They should change the bracket to dps/tank only srsly...

The change was a bit weird, seems like it only targets double healer teams and 2v2. I agree that 2v2 is going to be very bad in the new patch, probably going to see a lot of games end on a draw now. They will never ban healers from 2v2, its much more likely that they will say that everyone hates it now (after all these changes especially) and remove it. Don't know if that is good or bad, balancing around 3v3 and RBGs hasnt exactly worked out great for them...

[scvd]

Voledan never seizes to make me laugh with his offensive defense.

How about we quit complaining, we all know arena has been weak as shit since wotlk.

[Caliph]

lol no. the egregious offenders and the targets of this nerf are boomkins, shadowpriests and to a lesser extent elemental shamans.

rets, and other melee hybrids who have offhealing capacity are all actually very very balanced.

here, let me explain ret off healing to you, a lot of people obviously don't understand it because they keep claiming its overpowered.

a large portion of ret's play is based around resource management, ramp up time and cooldown burst.

all of ret heals either have
a. a significant resource cost that if they make the decision to heal they can't put out damage.
b. a significant ramp up time. selfless healer takes at minimum 8 seconds ramp up time to be useful, its usually used after 12 seconds. after it has been used it takes another 8-12 seconds to ramp up.

i don't play enhance, and i'm not hugely familiar with it, but as far as i understand it, they function similarly
enhance shamans use their maelstrom stacks, which takes a few seconds to build, to put out instant heals, for them to use those stacks to heal they have to give up instant hexes and instant lightning bolts.
they sacrifice control and damage to heal, just like rets do.

compare shadowpriests who in the past could drop out of shadowform and sacrifice damage reduction and damage output to pump out some fairly powerful heals, but it obliterated their mana pools fairly quickly and opened them up for swaps because they no longer had the defenses of shadowform.
right now? they no longer have to drop out of form, and their massive mana pools allow them to pump out heals with out any significant resource cost.

there is no reason that hybrid specs like rets, and enhance shamans, who don't have any particularly glaring balance issues, or particularly high arena rep should suffer because blizz is trying to control a spec with insanely high rep with a chain saw instead of a scalpel.

if the pvp power nerf goes though, both enhance and ret need to be compensated in terms of their damage output because their off healing is a half their worth to a team because while both specs have decent burst their overall damage is rather mediocre.

since when can shadow priests cast flash heal in shadow. You have to glyph Dark Binding in order to be able to use renew and prayer of mending which are relatively weak. it's some healing but not over the top.

The priest has to lose the damage reduction/gain of shadowform to flash heal. And oh by the way shouldn't you be interrupting that heal or damaging them in some way. Also, flash heal has a high mana cost and can't be spammed or you have a dead priest.

[Shiny212]

Ret is not Op at all and isn't even the target of this nerf.

Infact if Ret couldn't offheal (which you need to stop all dps to do) they would be the worst spec for pvp in the game.

This nerf will hurt Ret paladins more than any other class by a long shot.

I'm pretty sure shadow will feel it more.

[kosechi]

I'm pretty sure shadow will feel it more.

i'm pretty sure shadow has other tools to keep it viable.

[Yvaelle]

i'm pretty sure shadow has other tools to keep it viable.

We have a pretty good skill set, but the pvp power nerf will have as least as big an impact on shadow as it does ret in terms of healing. Remember how I pointed out shadow has 1 really competitive comp - Shatterplay? Well, any time you have a frost mage and a resto shaman - you potentially have Mage / Lock / Shaman. MLS at the world championships pretty much proved itself to be the comp that beats the best players in the world, regardless of their comp. So - if shadow loses its support healing ability - the one thing we truly hold over the heads of warlocks - it's likely we will see a lot of Shatterplays turn into MLS if they are really serious about succeeding.

The nerf to pvp power and psyfiend are big nerfs to shadow, while the nerfs to mages probably aren't going to significantly alter their representation - the nerfs to locks and rshams border on non-existent. The reason for a frost mage / rshaman to bring a shadowpriest over a lock could very well evaporate with the pvp power / psyfiend nerf. What would our representation look like then? When the one truly effective shadowpriest comp that comprises like 70% of our representation suddenly becomes MLS.

The question rets face is different but no less concerning - without any truly effective comp, but lots of comp diversity, will we see a bunch of ret comps that were capable of 2200+ (if not 2600+) suddenly fall below 2200 when they can't rely on ret heals? If rets most effective comp is Arms / BM Hunter / Ret - they are relying entirely on that ret for heals and a good chunk of their CC (stuns / repentance). But rets second best represented comp - Ret / Arms / Rshaman - will probably only become more popular - as the warrior nerfs are to mobility, and rets can remedy that with blessing of freedoms: so I think Ret / Arms / Healer comps will be on the rise, while Shadow could decline dramatically as Shatterplays convert to MLS (could, not everyone is willing to ditch their friends for success obviously).

[Brandoh]

how will warr/ret/sham be on the rise when all 3 of the classes are getting a nerf in someway? 2 of the 3 are very significantly nerfed..... dont see logic, if this goes through i am just gonna reroll, class just wont be fun AT ALL

[Kezuma]

how will warr/ret/sham be on the rise when all 3 of the classes are getting a nerf in someway? 2 of the 3 are very significantly nerfed..... dont see logic, if this goes through i am just gonna reroll, class just wont be fun AT ALL

warrior wont lose his dps burst my friend and by the looks of it u;re team up with ret so u can use the freedom on the warrior and he can still faceroll with stacking button for win ye well rshaman is to op atm to not get a bit fixed so i dont get why u complain your combo will still be fine if u play it right

[Theholypally]

Lets screw over melee hyprids like ret paladins but leave warriors and mages the ability to global someone with a macro or with a deep freeze + frost bomb.

Sounds right.

[kosechi]

We have a pretty good skill set, but the pvp power nerf will have as least as big an impact on shadow as it does ret in terms of healing. Remember how I pointed out shadow has 1 really competitive comp - Shatterplay? Well, any time you have a frost mage and a resto shaman - you potentially have Mage / Lock / Shaman. MLS at the world championships pretty much proved itself to be the comp that beats the best players in the world, regardless of their comp. So - if shadow loses its support healing ability - the one thing we truly hold over the heads of warlocks - it's likely we will see a lot of Shatterplays turn into MLS if they are really serious about succeeding.

The nerf to pvp power and psyfiend are big nerfs to shadow, while the nerfs to mages probably aren't going to significantly alter their representation - the nerfs to locks and rshams border on non-existent. The reason for a frost mage / rshaman to bring a shadowpriest over a lock could very well evaporate with the pvp power / psyfiend nerf. What would our representation look like then? When the one truly effective shadowpriest comp that comprises like 70% of our representation suddenly becomes MLS.

The question rets face is different but no less concerning - without any truly effective comp, but lots of comp diversity, will we see a bunch of ret comps that were capable of 2200+ (if not 2600+) suddenly fall below 2200 when they can't rely on ret heals? If rets most effective comp is Arms / BM Hunter / Ret - they are relying entirely on that ret for heals and a good chunk of their CC (stuns / repentance). But rets second best represented comp - Ret / Arms / Rshaman - will probably only become more popular - as the warrior nerfs are to mobility, and rets can remedy that with blessing of freedoms: so I think Ret / Arms / Healer comps will be on the rise, while Shadow could decline dramatically as Shatterplays convert to MLS (could, not everyone is willing to ditch their friends for success obviously).

rets are pretty much limited to cleave teams (warr, dk, hunter), they have no real synergy with casters. compare shadowpriests who can work well with casters (lock, mage) and melee ( rogue, feral)

shadow's damage is more versatile in its ability to deal respectable burst as well as very powerful sustained pressure. rets can't cleave, they can't deal spread pressure, and outside of cooldown burst their damage isn't very good.

shadow has hands down better control, the fear break threshold alone makes it's control above average, they can lock down casters and melee hybrids in a way that only warriors are also capable of ( and won't be anymore once the gag order nerf goes through) and have a number of very powerful utility spells.

even with their healing reduced shadow is a far more versatile and powerful spec then ret.

ret doesn't deserve to be nerfed to control shadow, they should be compensating ret with damage buffs which it could use in pve and pvp, or tuning up sword of light ( the spec specific mechanic that allows ret to off heal, that i might add, shadow has no equivalent of) but they are not going to do either.

they should be fixing disc, to allow priests more freedom in what they can play, they should be fixing demo,warriors, and feral damage, they should be fixing dk survivability, they should be fixing their buggy raids. but no, they are dealing with hybrid healing, which wasn't a huge deal to begin with.

[Yvaelle]

rets are pretty much limited to cleave teams (warr, dk, hunter), they have no real synergy with casters. compare shadowpriests who can work well with casters (lock, mage) and melee ( rogue, feral)

Shadow/Rogue/X and Shadow/Feral/X haven't really worked since like Season 8(9?) when Bloodlust was removed from arenas, and Dispel Magic no longer defensively dispelled teammates. After that, RPS still had a few people playing it (myself included) - but it went from being rank 1 viable - to struggling to make 2200. A lot of people continued to believe it could work because Talbadar very publically would try it sometimes (streaming it) - but Talbadar himself (and his teammates) all agreed way back when that the comp was more or less dead post-nerfs. Prior to the stats resets messing up rankings today, there were no Shadow/Rogue/Healer comps above 2200. Shadow/Feral/Healer is slightly more viable right now just because it doesn't depend on a rogue - but Shadow and Feral have never had good synergy - so it never did as well as RPS in past seasons - and I haven't noticed any Shadow/Feral/X's this season (but I wasn't specifically looking for them, like I was for Shadow/Rogue/X's). Right now, Shadow only works with Frost Mages - and to a much lesser extent Demonology Warlocks and Arms Warriors. Of these three combinations - only Frost / Shadow have strong synergy. Demonology / Shadow only works because it provides the spriest portals - while the combination of Devouring Plague and Chaos Waves - and the double execute classes - makes for high damage potential. Arms / Shadow has no synergy at all, but because Arms is so strong right now - Arms / X / X works - and Shadow just provides more support to the healer in that comp while the warrior does the work. Make no mistake though, Shadow/Demonology/X and Shadow/Arms/X are both each more than 5 times less common than Shadow/Frost/X this season - while Rogue/Feral combos are non-existent.

shadow's damage is more versatile in its ability to deal respectable burst as well as very powerful sustained pressure. rets can't cleave, they can't deal spread pressure, and outside of cooldown burst their damage isn't very good.

I'm not sure what you mean by versatile in burst. Ret burst is far, far and away stronger than Shadow's right now. We used to be a burst class last expansion - then we got our Finishing Move nuke (Mind Blast) traded in for a Finishing Move DoT (Devouring Plague). I understand why people remember Shadow as bursty, we certainly were in the past - but our burst now is average at best. Ret's burst is reliable (cooldown based, not proc stack based) and predictable (cooldown tells you when you will be able to burst again so you can plan ahead) and massive (way better than my ~1 devouring plague per minute in arenas). Regarding DoT cleave, Shadow's dots tick for Nothing compared to what they used to. It was so bad that we were actually contemplating not casting them on the beta for awhile - because it wasn't worth the GCD (think about that for a second) - the main purpose of casting our DoTs now is to regenerate mana, and generate procs: not to deal damage in and of themselves.

shadow has hands down better control, the fear break threshold alone makes it's control above average, they can lock down casters and melee hybrids in a way that only warriors are also capable of ( and won't be anymore once the gag order nerf goes through) and have a number of very powerful utility spells.

Psychic Scream has a 30 second cooldown, 27 seconds with pvp gloves. The fear break threshold is partially randomized, it can break on 1 damage after being cast, or it can take as much as 20% of the targets base health - which at level 90 is 28k hp - but it's not by any means a stun (which you seem to think it is?). My other CC options are, Silence - 5 second duration, 45 second cooldown. Psyfiend - 10 second duration, 45 second cooldown, 20 yard range - getting nerfed into near-uselessness in 5.1 - OR - Void Tendrils, which have 30k hp, can be AoE'd, targetted by macros, or in the case of rets dispelled, freedom'd or BoP'd out of - OR - Dominate Mind, 30 second cooldown, 8 second duration. The final option is Psychic Horror, which is a disarm effect that consumes all my Shadow Orbs (you know, those things I use for my "versatile burst" - meaning that if I disarm you, I can't burst you (and my burst isn't anything special this season to begin with). Please explain how that's the best lockdown in the game, because it isn't. I have no stuns, no interrupts, no snares (MF technically, but it roots me in the process) - no spammable CC, even the CC I do have is relatively long compared to mages, locks, boomkins and elemental shamans.

even with their healing reduced shadow is a far more versatile and powerful spec then ret.

In terms of who is more likely to make gladiator cut-off (as I already proved some posts above) yes, Shadow/Frost/Healer is a more capable spec than ret. In terms of 2200+, more Rets are above 2200+ than Shadow. I'd prefer to rely on statistics than your feelings here, and the statistics by and large disagree (except in the notable case of Shadow playing Shadow/Frost/X).

ret doesn't deserve to be nerfed to control shadow, they should be compensating ret with damage buffs which it could use in pve and pvp, or tuning up sword of light ( the spec specific mechanic that allows ret to off heal, that i might add, shadow has no equivalent of) but they are not going to do either.

Ret isn't being nerfed to control Shadow, Ret is being nerfed to control Ret. Shadow is being nerfed to control Shadow. Enhancement is being nerfed because Ghostcrawler hates Enhancement Shamans (in reality, the nerf won't really affect them much - no one brings an Enhancement Shaman for Healing Storm procs - it's either their damage/buffs/totems/synergy or not at all). Also, fun fact - if you look at damage averages from the worlds best rets versus the worlds best shadowpriests in heroic 25m (meaning all buffs always present for both), and specifically look at Mogu'Shan Vaults (since HoF and Terrace haven't been cleared yet) - you will find Rets are, on average, higher dps than shadow in PvE right now. Shadow outperforms rets on Stone Dogs and Elegon (but only by about 5% on each), while Ret wins out on every other encounter - in some cases by as much as 20% (Will of the Emperor, despite it also being a multi-dot fight).

they should be fixing disc, to allow priests more freedom in what they can play, they should be fixing demo,warriors, and feral damage, they should be fixing dk survivability, they should be fixing their buggy raids. but no, they are dealing with hybrid healing, which wasn't a huge deal to begin with.

On this I agree, there are bigger problems that need addressing than hybrid healing right now - like I said in, I think, our first posts - hybrid healing is strong right now, but it isn't Too Strong yet. It will be though, I have no doubt had they left pvp power scaling as well as it was for everybody (damage for DD's, healing for healers) - and double as well for hybrids - especcially Shadow and Ret who were known for our off-healing to begin with - it would have become too strong. I'm dissapointed they aren't addressing the biggest problems first - but pvp power is a problem in the making - I have no illusions about that.

[Lowdiskspace]

well while all your off heals get nerfed ill be sitting back on my destro lock with ember tap that dosent benefit from pvp power what so ever and still a 20% heal or more

[Yvaelle]

well while all your off heals get nerfed ill be sitting back on my destro lock with ember tap that dosent benefit from pvp power what so ever and still a 20% heal or more

Ya, as powerful as hybrid healers are - some of the pure class heals are the oddest additions this expansion - like ember tap / second wind / cold snap (30% of max hp on use, as if cold snap needed buffs). Still, power was scaling too well.

[Alanar]

the amount of healing none healers can do is over the top, it was over the top last expansion and more was added, yes some classes are worse then other, but healing as a dps's utility package will always be lazy and bad design as you will keep running into situations like triple dps last season.

I dont like people like u... i can take many examples here.. many classes have self healing.. non healers( shadow,ele ret, need to cast it.. wich can be interrupted and such) Those heals heal for 10%, critt maybe 20%. Deathstrike and instant heals of feral druids cant be interrupted btw this brings the whole discussion about blank silences.. reward players for not being able to interrupt on time etc etc.

I am sorry but i just hate people complain about Shadow or ele for example (not just you) who will be cast down if u know how to time right.. aside from that is that players QQ about heals that are being cast while many other classes have instant heals or no effort heals such as chi wave. I dont see the QQ from those wich is IMO weird.

There are so many topics to discuss here but the main problem is that people dont even know what they are saying.

pvp power is scaled to high i agree on that front, but if u just gonna look at certain classes being Op is just not fair.


Edit: Yvaelle thank you for pointing those out, couldn't say it better myself.

[razzapool]

i see every1 moaning about how the nerf is aimed at shadow priests cause of there insane self healing but i play a shadow priest in 2s with a boomkin and healing from him is way better then my healing (im not moaning about my heals they are fine) my instant hot heals me for 8k ish a tick his hits for 12k a tick i can flash heal which is around 50k unless it crits but we have very low crit chance mine is 10%, now please dont get me wrong im not saying that it shouldnt be nerfed but i think all hybrid healing is high not just shadow priest

[kosechi]

Psychic Scream has a 30 second cooldown, 27 seconds with pvp gloves. The fear break threshold is partially randomized, it can break on 1 damage after being cast, or it can take as much as 20% of the targets base health - which at level 90 is 28k hp - but it's not by any means a stun (which you seem to think it is?). My other CC options are, Silence - 5 second duration, 45 second cooldown. Psyfiend - 10 second duration, 45 second cooldown, 20 yard range - getting nerfed into near-uselessness in 5.1 - OR - Void Tendrils, which have 30k hp, can be AoE'd, targetted by macros, or in the case of rets dispelled, freedom'd or BoP'd out of - OR - Dominate Mind, 30 second cooldown, 8 second duration. The final option is Psychic Horror, which is a disarm effect that consumes all my Shadow Orbs (you know, those things I use for my "versatile burst" - meaning that if I disarm you, I can't burst you (and my burst isn't anything special this season to begin with). Please explain how that's the best lockdown in the game, because it isn't. I have no stuns, no interrupts, no snares (MF technically, but it roots me in the process) - no spammable CC, even the CC I do have is relatively long compared to mages, locks, boomkins and elemental shamans.

fear>silence>disarm. i've just been locked down for about 15 seconds by one person, all on separate drs. a lot of casters seem to forget that much melee hybrids get screwed by silences.
fear break might be randomized in theory, but in my experiences i've taken nearly my entire HP from warriors/demolocks/feral druids with out it breaking. it certainly doesn't break reliably break on dots, so i'm not rewarded for being able to predict it with hand of sacrifice. either they need to change the wording on fear, or fear is legitimately broken.

In terms of who is more likely to make gladiator cut-off (as I already proved some posts above) yes, Shadow/Frost/Healer is a more capable spec than ret. In terms of 2200+, more Rets are above 2200+ than Shadow. I'd prefer to rely on statistics than your feelings here, and the statistics by and large disagree (except in the notable case of Shadow playing Shadow/Frost/X).

there are six rets above 2.2k in bloodlust, (and lets be honest here, there is no other battlegroup that matters in the US) two of them are played by the same person, there are eleven shadowpriests. wirbelsturm has six rets and thirty one shadowpriests
yeah....
maybe the ladders are still screwed up from the exploiters and the BM hunter bug, maybe its still to early in the season to judge because people are still team hopping, maybe i'm reading your stats pages wrong ( top ret comp is ret/uhdk? what?) i don't know, all i see is better representation for shadow then ret.

Ret isn't being nerfed to control Shadow, Ret is being nerfed to control Ret. Shadow is being nerfed to control Shadow.

no. its really not. the nerf is specifically aimed at caster hybrids, ret is not a caster last time i checked. the only reference to ret and this nerf has been a few posts on the EU forums that states that ret's offhealing should be nerfed because it, among other things, devalues lay on hands.

as i have mentioned several times, ret has a spec specific mechanic that supports its strong capacity to offheal, shadow does not have any such equivalent mechanic. part of ret's design and one of the things its obviously balanced around is its offhealing, that is not true for shadow.
hence. shadow ended up too good at something it wasn't designed to do, ret, who IS designed to do it, gets nerfed as a casualty.

[Brandoh]

so much ignorance in here to what ret play is like at the moment.