Sup guys?

[Azaroth]

Jesus.

I was playing my 68 Pally in BGs before the patch. My judgements were critting around ~1300.

Today they're doing about 750 or so.

[Fordel]

Yea, it's pretty much 

[Azaroth]

Oh, shit. I thought we were already nerfed.

Apparently we were only hotfixed.

The rest of our nerfs will come soon.

We have already hotfixed the changes to Judgement of the Wise (from 33% to 15%) and Seal and Judgement of Command (down 20% damage) to live. We need to start getting more testing on these changes right away to see what they do to Retribution in PvE and PvP. We still intend to lower the damage of other Seals and Judgements (except one - see below), but to hotfix those requires touching a lot more data so we think that change can wait for the 3.0.3 patch on live.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12065287753&sid=1

There are so many things wrong with the above statement that I don't know where to start.

Although random, untested nerfs seem... uh... fucking retarded? I dunno. Especially if you're asking for data from live nerfs after the fact that you'll never act upon.

[Koyasha]

I'm not sure about the Judgements of the Wise nerf yet.  Of course, I've never planned my paladin to be ret long-term, I just noticed when 3.0 came out that hey, ret is AWESOME right now and I've never been on the front end of the 'overpowered class of the week' curve before.

So about the JotW nerf, I seemed to fluctuate between 'plenty of mana' and 'crap I'm oom again'.  I did notice I felt like judging wisdom a lot more.  In a 5 man group I was running low on mana a good bit.  In a "raid" (just kara) where I had shaman totems and a prot paladin was judging wisdom (I think wisdom stacks, oddly enough, so if two paladins judge wisdom you get double mana onhit, but I can't say for sure cause it was hectic) I didn't really have trouble for the most part, except when I busted out the backup healing.

As for the Seal of Command damage nerf....I can honestly say I didn't really notice it.  Of course, I've never been one to pay really close attention to my numbers, but...they didn't seem that different.  So, we'll see.  JotW nerf might've hit a bit too hard.  18% instead of 15% might be a better balance.  Other than that, seems fine to me.  Besides, even if the damage nerf was bigger than it looks, ret damage did kinda need to be nerfed.  I knew from the beginning - especially when I wandered into AV after hitting 70 to get my gnerd rage achievement, and wound up winning a 3vs1 fight with 3 guys in a smattering of arena gear, with me in my blues and greens, that ret nerf was coming.

[Merusk]

.

Although random, untested nerfs seem... uh... fucking retarded? I dunno. Especially if you're asking for data from live nerfs after the fact that you'll never act upon.

It's what they've been doing all of WOTLK's beta cycle.  They're relying VERY heavily on their spread-sheeted damage models that assume perfect timing and perfect latency.  It's fucked over several classes throughout the cycle.  Frankly, reading some of the replies from this Ghostcrawler guy who's in charge of class dev now, I have less confidence in Blizz doing things right through this expansion cycle than ever before.

  The blatant class gaffes and stupid assumptions I've seen from him were enough to make me drop playing a Hunter at all, because I saw where that train was going.  Great PvE damage, as always, but even worse in PvP than they were before.

Now the ret nerfs.. but hey, Dismantle is perfectly fine and balanced, guys!  All the damage models show it to be so!

[Calantus]

Oi hunters... of all the classes they're the only one I tried out after the patch and thought they were worse. I wouldn't touch a hunter main with a 10-foot pole at this stage.

[WindupAtheist]

Speaking as someone who has leveled his main to 70 as ret, the spec was horribly overpowered for a couple weeks or so there. That shit with the infinite mana bar was fucking ridiculous. Now it feels more or less right. Assuming I'm going reasonably heavy on the DPS, I drink every couple fights. As opposed to after every single mob during the bulk of TBC, or NEVER immediately prior to the nerf.

It's fine. Enough with this WoW-forums-level QQ.

[Xanthippe]

Speaking as someone who has leveled his main to 70 as ret, the spec was horribly overpowered for a couple weeks or so there. That shit with the infinite mana bar was fucking ridiculous. Now it feels more or less right. Assuming I'm going reasonably heavy on the DPS, I drink every couple fights. As opposed to after every single mob during the bulk of TBC, or NEVER immediately prior to the nerf.

I leveled my ret pally with a shadow priest.  Rarely had to drink unless I was soloing and then I couldn't imagine soloing a pally because of all the downtime.  Or maybe I was doing it wrong and would have had to learn how to do it differently.

Still haven't played my ret pally since the patch.  Waiting to see how it shakes out, I think, before I even try it.

[Xanthippe]

Oi hunters... of all the classes they're the only one I tried out after the patch and thought they were worse. I wouldn't touch a hunter main with a 10-foot pole at this stage.

I've avoided pvp on my hunter because either I'm doing it completely wrong, or the class is broken.

Pve is fine, though.  I particularly like the changes to disengage and volley.

[Merusk]

The class is broken in PvP, probably permanently given how even more broken the designer's views on it are. To paraphrase: "You've got mail and Disengage/ Wingclip.  You should be fine with the nerf of agi->dodge we gave the class.  We don't intend for you to survive if you ever get into melee."

 

Even the two guys who HAD 2100+ rated hunters in the BC days have quit the class.  They've rolled Death Knights and haven't looked back other than to laugh at the stupidity on the beta boards.  Like.. Freezing Arrow!  A shot that must hit the ground and has an arm time.. so it's a thrown ice trap that breaks on any damage. Glee.

[Xanthippe]

The class is broken in PvP, probably permanently given how even more broken the designer's views on it are.

Nothing is ever permanently broken in an mmo.  Until it closes down, anyway.

I still have a lock (broken?), priest, druid and pally to play with.  And a little mage, shaman, warrior, rogue to level up which I probably will at some point, because I enjoy leveling.

Alts ftw!

[Merusk]

Well by "Permanently" I meant "so long as Ghostcrawler and the other devs keep this mindset."  We'll see if their tune changes once Arenas start up again and hunters don't make it anywhere on the lists for a 5th time.

But yes, alts ftw.  I've got a Pally, Lock (don't think so, just didn't get the love of all the other classes) and Priest to putter around with.  I might even take my warrior who languished at 60 up to 80 since titan's grip looks super awesome.  .  I don't give a fuck about it actual functionality.

[Ingmar]

Oi hunters... of all the classes they're the only one I tried out after the patch and thought they were worse. I wouldn't touch a hunter main with a 10-foot pole at this stage.

Hunters are pretty much top or close to it for PVE dps right now. No cooldown volley pretty much removed their last weakness as far as that goes.

[Fordel]

Hunter PvP will be redeemed if Wintergrasp doesn't suck.

Having a giant wall to hide behind and shoot people from is always a good time. If DaoC taught me anything, it's that. 

[Calantus]

Oi hunters... of all the classes they're the only one I tried out after the patch and thought they were worse. I wouldn't touch a hunter main with a 10-foot pole at this stage.

Hunters are pretty much top or close to it for PVE dps right now. No cooldown volley pretty much removed their last weakness as far as that goes.

My hunter is 63 so I was talking from a purely leveling perspective. I don't raid and only 5man to help friends.

[WindupAtheist]

Still haven't played my ret pally since the patch.  Waiting to see how it shakes out, I think, before I even try it.

I'm hardly out doing uber shit, but I've taken my ret and his little blue rep-bought PVP suit and done some battlegrounds, dailies, and a couple of solo and duo Stratholme runs for shits and giggles. I can't tell you if raid DPS is down 18.33 percent (repeating of course) but I played a ret to 40 at launch, to 70 around the beginning of this year, and except for this recent two weeks of infinite mana overpoweredness, this is by far the best the spec has ever felt.

If you didn't play during that two weeks, you'll probably just log onto your paladin and go "Wow ret is pretty good now!"

[Shrike]

Protection looks like it took one in the ass with the so-called ret nerfs. I haven't logged mine in yet to fiddle around, but from what I've seen it doesn't look good. Holy seems unhappy, too, but screw them. I won't play that tree even for real cash.

Elsewhere...eh, shaman seem ok, aside from PvP, but nothing new there. Warriors, though, man, they have to be cruising for nerfs, but prot just looks fun now. Hell, they all look fun. Might have to restart my 62 warrior again. Bring on the dual spec!

[Merusk]

Protection paladins on the forums will NEVER be happy until they're warriors that do holy damage and can bubble.  Fuck the forum asshats and their whining.  I'm still killing swaths of level 70-72 mobs in the Netherwing mines without going OOM.  If they're having problems it's because they're trying to kill one or two things at a time, which isn't how the fucking spec works. 2+ mobs on me and I'm always dodging/ blocking/ parrying enough to keep a full blue bar with Blessing of Sanc, never mind running JoW or SoW.   

[Xanthippe]

I'm hardly out doing uber shit, but I've taken my ret and his little blue rep-bought PVP suit and done some battlegrounds, dailies, and a couple of solo and duo Stratholme runs for shits and giggles. I can't tell you if raid DPS is down 18.33 percent (repeating of course) but I played a ret to 40 at launch, to 70 around the beginning of this year, and except for this recent two weeks of infinite mana overpoweredness, this is by far the best the spec has ever felt.

If you didn't play during that two weeks, you'll probably just log onto your paladin and go "Wow ret is pretty good now!"

No wonder you were so bitter about WoW.  Wasn't pally one of the slowest to level?

[Ingmar]

Protection looks like it took one in the ass with the so-called ret nerfs. I haven't logged mine in yet to fiddle around, but from what I've seen it doesn't look good. Holy seems unhappy, too, but screw them. I won't play that tree even for real cash.

Elsewhere...eh, shaman seem ok, aside from PvP, but nothing new there. Warriors, though, man, they have to be cruising for nerfs, but prot just looks fun now. Hell, they all look fun. Might have to restart my 62 warrior again. Bring on the dual spec!

No, trust me. Protection paladins are ri-damn-diculous right now. They're insulated from those ret changes because of the weird way judgement of light threat works and the new abilities they got that are unaffected (the holy shield slam and holy swipe things.)

As an equally well-geared protection warrior, I can't keep threat off of Fordel's protection paladin if he judges light on the target, period. We're talking 6000 TPS craziness. That will probably get changed or nerfed in some way too, but prot is going to be fine even without that.

[Fordel]

I think it's obvious you just need to l2p! 

[Chimpy]

Oi hunters... of all the classes they're the only one I tried out after the patch and thought they were worse. I wouldn't touch a hunter main with a 10-foot pole at this stage.

Hunters are pretty much top or close to it for PVE dps right now. No cooldown volley pretty much removed their last weakness as far as that goes.

My hunter is 63 so I was talking from a purely leveling perspective. I don't raid and only 5man to help friends.

The changes to BM make it mediocre now. Marks is insane single target DPS for endgame stuff as you basically go from trying to use 1 special between steadies to trying to figure out how to get steady shots fit into a rotation with 3 instants and the GCD. Also Marks hunters (if they spec into rapid killing) get to use 4 rapid fires in less than 4 minutes because they put readiness in the marks tree for some unfathomable reason.

Once hunters level up, Kill shot will make them more viable in arenas just a bit, as kill shot will be very much open to the nerf cries.

But most hunters don't play the class to PvP anymore anyway. I have a resto shaman alt for pvp now, and even then I dont pvp that much.

[Gobbeldygook]

The changes to BM make it mediocre now.

This is simply wrong.  BM is still the top DPS spec by a non-trivial margin.  Here's a spreadsheet.  Go knock yourself out.

[Merusk]

The changes to BM make it mediocre now.

This is simply wrong.  BM is still the top DPS spec by a non-trivial margin.  Here's a spreadsheet.  Go knock yourself out.

For now.  There's a LOT of haste on WOTLK gear.  Marks will quickly catch-up since the hunter 1.5s GCD rules all.  With no method of speeding-up beyond that hard-cap to your DPS the more powerful Steady and Autoshots of MM will overtake it eventually.  Not to mention pets are weaker than ever @ 80 in terms of survivability.

[DraconianOne]

Ooo! Spreadsheets! 

All we need now are some charts. 



Seriously though, any spreadsheets out there for 'locks you can link to?

[WindupAtheist]

I went out to Winterspring this morning and did one of those Scourge invasion crystals solo, all the way down to when the cultists appear. I ran from mob to mob, blasting them to shit, and never once had to drink. Yeah, I'm pretty happy.

I left Consecration and Holy Wrath out of my rotation, and I did use Judgement of Wisdom instead of Judgement of Light. But on the other hand, I did use Exorcism and Hammer of Wrath as much as possible, while throwing the occasional Flash of Light on myself to keep my health up.

So yes, outside of a couple weeks of infinite mana, this is definitely the best ret has ever been.