Quiet paladin nerfing
by Elizabeth Harper 
Feb 25th 2007 at 2:55PM
After reading the patch notes, you may have come away with the impression that paladins made it out relatively unscathed. However, players hitting up the test realms have discovered that this isn't entirely the case. Paladinsucks is reporting that Forbearance (a debuff left for a minute after being affected by one of the paladin's bubbles) is also applying a -15% physical damage debuff (conflicting reports say this may be all damage). If this makes it onto the live realms, that would certainly put some hurting on the paladin class.However, not even Tseric seems to know if this is an intended change. On the forums he tells paladins that he won't be able to confirm whether this should have been in the notes or is a bug until after the weekend. Seems like a terribly odd bug, if it is...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Thijz Feb 25th 2007 3:42PM
"Whoops, we accidently made a de-buff to strong and we put in in the explanation too...!"
:S
Alarius Feb 25th 2007 4:27PM
Yeah... this silent change that just happened to be mentioned in the Forbearance tooltip is absurd. There is absolutely no logical reason for this reduction in our damage. Retribution Paladin's alike are going to be hurting badly, even tanks are going to be flipping their shit because that's a 15% threat reduction too.
Way to go Blizzard. Good game, seriously, good game.
Aphext Feb 25th 2007 4:57PM
QQ more pallies, this NEEDED nerf was a long time coming. Maybe now you'll think twice before popping that bubble.
Rurrik Feb 25th 2007 5:37PM
Ya, we'll think twice before that *whole 12 seconds* of bubble.
Matthew Feb 25th 2007 5:39PM
#3: You do realize that this also affects people who use Blessing of Protection on, right? So, should I bubble that mage about to die? That's a 15% dmg reduction for him as well...
Todd Feb 25th 2007 5:48PM
Excellent news!
cgrus Feb 25th 2007 7:20PM
...
Why don't they just increase the cooldown timer. I could live with that. Say 10 minutes instead of 5. Increase forberance as well for all I care. 2 minutes to 2.5 minutes is fine. This debuff is pure BS IMHO.
Yerxer Feb 25th 2007 7:25PM
#5 Mages do physical damage?
Tyler Marx Feb 25th 2007 7:38PM
#8
It's all damage, not just physical.
Also, it's not that paladins do too much damage, it's that this would make paladins way more likely to hide in the back and heal. Leave that job to the priests. It would just take the hybrid back out once more.
Dixonij Feb 25th 2007 8:57PM
Damnit Blizz... As if us pallys already had crappy DPS/damage. GG. GG indeed.
Masshysteria Feb 28th 2007 10:57AM
It's strange that they would suddenly change a mechanic which has existed unchanged for three years. I'm not sure why people cry about the bubble so much anyway; if the pally bubbles to heal/bandage, take the chance to do so yourself too. By the same logic that allows this, they ought to make the same change to PW:S and have Weakened Soul cause a damage reduction.
I kind of liked the way Blizzard was handling things by making more pally stuff *cause* forberance... but I would hate to have wasted a 41 point talent on GIVING MYSELF A DEBUFF. Christ.
Gadai Feb 26th 2007 4:19AM
What your article doesn't mention is that Divine Shield and Avenging Wrath are also sharing the same CD now although AW no longer causes forebearance and has an increased duration of 30 seconds (formerly 20). So you can now choose to Bubble once every 5 minutes or use AW during that 5 minutes where before you waited out your 1 minute of Forebearance to use the second skill. Effective nerf of potential paladin damage, as well as reducing our survivability in one fell swoop. Btw, to the 'paladin suck' types - play the class to 60 or 70 and then comment compared to other level 60-70 chars you have. I currently have 4 different chars between 60 and 70 so I can say with some experience that paladins didn't need this latest nerf.
George Feb 26th 2007 7:13AM
Nerf. Pallies. More.
paul Feb 26th 2007 12:31PM
i agree with #12.
Kaylek Feb 26th 2007 8:45AM
You can see they're trying to make us choose in any given situation between, A.) using your damage buff and a partial immunity, or B.) full immunity and a damage debuff. That's balance?
This is ridiculous, and people saying paladins need nerfing are probably enhancement shaman (lol) and warriors (grats on your crit buffs and desnares), or worse, stupid retribution paladins crying about damage output with the holy tree (grats on QQing your own class into a nerf).
They give us a greatly needed damage spell, balance it out nicely with Forbearance (no DS/AW combos blowing shit up while invincible), and then they completely fuck us over by making our DS hurt us in PVP, not to mention making you choose between DS and AW every 5 minutes.
They already stealth nerfed BOP not long ago to prevent us from using Judgement while it's up (stupid), so there's no point in AW not causing Forbearance, because why the hell would you BOP and AW at the same time? For a 15% buff to one Holy Shock?
This just means we'll be popping AW more often because DS is largely useless. And anyone harping about us healbotting, don't judge the class by the dozens of ret-tards that don't heal you, this hurts your holy paladins too because our damage was
In the end, good fucking game Blizzard. The only way around a lock who really knows his class is a bubble, and now we won't even have the DPS to burn them down when it's up. Lord knows a damage buff is pointless when you're being chain feared, and everyone knows any lock with any sense is going to keep those fears going when we've got big ass wings flapping around while we're trying to DPS.
Time to quit your QQing warriors, we now have our very own retaliation.
Kaylek Feb 26th 2007 8:46AM
You can see they're trying to make us choose in any given situation between, A.) using your damage buff and a partial immunity, or B.) full immunity and a damage debuff. That's balance?
This is ridiculous, and people saying paladins need nerfing are probably enhancement shaman (lol) and warriors (grats on your crit buffs and desnares), or worse, stupid retribution paladins crying about damage output with the holy tree (grats on QQing your own class into a nerf).
They give us a greatly needed damage spell, balance it out nicely with Forbearance (no DS/AW combos blowing shit up while invincible), and then they completely fuck us over by making our DS hurt us in PVP, not to mention making you choose between DS and AW every 5 minutes.
They already stealth nerfed BOP not long ago to prevent us from using Judgement while it's up (stupid), so there's no point in AW not causing Forbearance, because why the hell would you BOP and AW at the same time? For a 15% buff to one Holy Shock?
This just means we'll be popping AW more often because DS is largely useless. And anyone harping about us healbotting, don't judge the class by the dozens of ret-tards that don't heal you, this hurts your holy paladins too because our damage was in need of that buff for effective burst (which you want your support to help you with, not just buff your face and healbot you).
In the end, good fucking game Blizzard. The only way around a lock who really knows his class is a bubble, and now we won't even have the DPS to burn them down when it's up. Lord knows a damage buff is pointless when you're being chain feared, and everyone knows any lock with any sense is going to keep those fears going when we've got big ass wings flapping around while we're trying to DPS.
Time to quit your QQing warriors, we now have our very own retaliation.
Kaylek Feb 26th 2007 8:48AM
Sorry about the double post.
stapleboy Feb 26th 2007 9:26AM
Aw man, now there's a downside to 12 seconds of immunity to all but 1 priest spell?
I do feel for the holy pallies getting hosed by this, but Blizzard needed to do something about the fact that retribution losers can run around blasting the crap out of people and then heal at the last second with no chance of interruption. Then again, maybe that's just the bitter feral druid in me talking, haha,
Cymru Feb 26th 2007 9:34AM
Warriors don't use retaliation, it's not that impressive of a talent. We got an increase of less than 1% chance to crit, and our de-snare was nothing more than a fix so we don't bug out when trying to intercept. It also won't be implemented for several patches.
Asspigeon Feb 26th 2007 11:10AM
Simultaneously nerfs our raid viability as well as out solo dps. Our raid viability was obviously great before the nerf and is still pretty good despite but out solo dps did NOT need a nerf. I can barely grind as it is (holy raid spec).
This, in addition to the other healing class nerfs, makes me wonder what blizz is thinking. Healers make everyone else's lives easier and are already the smallest portion of WoW players. Paladins, Druids, and Priests are getting screwed over in this patch and I really don't think blizz realizes what is going to happen when no one is willing to play a healer anymore.