2.1.0 forum reaction: Paladins and rogues
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Apr 16th 2007 at 1:00PM
2.1.0 is kind of a mixed bag for most classes. Hunters got some minor buffs, but are still upset about their role in raid DPS. Shadow priests were nerfed, but holy priests were buffed (kind of.) And nothing of note really happened to warlocks.
But two classes came out the clear PVE winners and losers of 2.1.0. Rogues got a major buff in that their ability to sap now returns them to stealth 100 percent of the time, cleaves no longer hurt melee attackers standing behind the mobs, and the glancing blows that stopped melee classes from topping the damage meters in many raids have been reduced. Meanwhile, the holy paladin's Illumination talent, which gave them full mana refunds on critical heals, has been nerfed to return only half the mana. Plus, paladins will no longer regen mana when healed at full health (a neat trick to give pallies, especially tanks, extra mana.)
So let's head over to that bastion of player response, the WoW Class Forums, and see how the pallies and rogues are handling it ...
The pallies, unsurprisingly, are not happy. Duljan of Mal'Ganis posted an extremely intelligent look at the changes, but it kind of gets lost in the hubbub. Twelve pages of pallies are standing together and threatening to quit if the change goes live. However, there's definitely dissension among the ranks, as a lot of ret pallies seem to be calling holy pallies hypocrites for complaining about the Illumination nerf, but not past retribution nerfs. Blood elf pallies are sensing persecution in the air now that Horde has pallies, but the old-school Alli pallies aren't buying it. Other classes have also shown up in the pally forums: priests and shamans have been gloating over the nerf, while a warlock is encouraging pallies to join his class instead.
Things are quite the opposite in the rogue forums, which seem to have a dearth of rogues and an excess of other classes complaining about rogues, many of whom do not seem to understand the difference between PVE and PVP. The rogues themselves seem to be working on new builds for raiding and checking out things on the test realm, with some minor complaining about warlocks being able to trinket out of stun. There's one big thread that's basically a "woo hoo!" about the changes, with a lot of references to having to change pants after seeing the glancing blows nerf. The real entertainment, though, is in the angry posts from other classes ... "i spit on every rogue. I will EAT U UNTIL I QUIT WOW." "Why is it that all you rogues get nothing but buffs?" "i bet half of you would be another class but chose rogue just because they are so overpowered." "I HOPE BLIZZARDS MAIN FRAME SYSTEM CRASHES & ERASES YOUR OVER POWERED POS CLASS FOR WORLD OF WARCRAFT FOR EVER & EVER & EVER & EVER."
What do you think about the 2.1.0 changes to rogues and paladins?
Filed under: Paladin, Rogue, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Classes
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Justin Apr 16th 2007 1:06PM
CORRECTION: The "nerf" to shadow priests is in fact NOT a nerf to us per say. The changes to our talent is a result of WARLOCKS topping the DPS charts.
"How do we fix this?" the devs think, "Nerf shadow weaving of course! God forbid we ever nerf warlocks."
Verdugo Apr 16th 2007 1:08PM
Paladin healing changes = complete garbage. Im leveling my lock. Thank god I didn't buy my epic flying mount for my pally yet.
priest Apr 16th 2007 1:13PM
Every patch brings the same whines from someone, somewhere. You really think that by now people would learn to STFU and get on with it.
TwhiT Apr 16th 2007 1:16PM
hehehe......Looks like the less you complain, the better Blizz treats you ^_^
We rogues weren't bitching half as much as other classes for changes, so maybe the key is to not bitch and moan and threaten to quit lol
Flit Apr 16th 2007 1:17PM
I still don't see why pallies are complaining about this. 100% mana back on crit heals? That's a bit excessive, don't you think? You'd think that pallies would like a spell to heal their target 100%... oh, wait.
krizoitz Apr 17th 2007 7:08PM
Rogues are the most overpowered class in the game, no surprise they get even more power. Blizz loves them some rogues...
Asspigeon Apr 16th 2007 1:21PM
100% mana back from crit heals is not excessive, it is our primary source of mana regen so to speak. It wouldn't be such a big deal if we hadn't been stackiing +crit gear since the xpac came out. Now that the spell crit path is gone, we are all going to have to completely change all of our gear, enchants and gems.
Not to mention we will be potting a LOT more often.
Jacob_THG Apr 16th 2007 1:25PM
When I first read about Imp Sap becoming Dirty Tricks I was worried. Then I rad about what Dirty Tricks does and that all rogues get the equiv of Imp Sap and I made a squee noise that was rather girlish for a 250 pound guy with back hair.
While this was nice (me being a sub rogue and all), the changes to poison is what made my day. I spend way too much money on poisons to not get my full 30 minutes worth due to the damnable charges. With 2.1 I get the full 30 minutes, need fewer mats, and get more mats from pocket picking.
I started with a rogue not because the ephermeral power level descrepenicies that may or may not exist. I chose the class because after 20+ eyars of playing analog RPGs I've always been more comfortable with sneaky characters. New to a game, I went with my comfort zone, and boy howdy ahs it paid off. Blizzard has made my favorite style of character fun to play, something most digital RPGs fail to do.
Caen Apr 16th 2007 1:46PM
Seriously, the "rogues are the most overpowered class in the game" comment is misguided. People seem to confuse pvp and pve so badly, and forget that strengths in one area do not equate to strengths in another. Sure, rogues are powerful in pvp though by no means invincible. But in the new instances we had some issues. Eg, we basically HAD to spec 7 talent points into sub just for imp sap if we wanted to do 5 mans. And btw, for combat rogues who SS, thats 5 completely wasted talent points out of 7. Our damage in instances also took a hit via the glancing blows system. Cleaves, well, there are enough horror stories out there already, but for my own personaly anecdote I was 2 hit in heroic underbog by the end boss's cleave, and I had 9k health at the time. So...yeah. These changes are well thought ought and might actually mean rogues have a chance to get into a heroic instance group now...
Falgorn Apr 16th 2007 1:29PM
Paladin nerf is in response to smart Pallies figuring out that if you stack huge amounts of Int, you get high crit, high spl dmg (talented) and loads of mana, and if you put extra spl crit where possible, you could heal all day.
Look at alchemy and clear casting changes. Mana is going to go faster, but bosses will die quicker.
However... this is quite a big nerf, and to compensate there really should be some improvement elsewhere. Plenty of good ideas to improve the utility of paladin healing without effecting its reduced efficiency.
As for Rogues? PvE buffs mostly.
Guildy Rogues have said that PvP has gotten dramatically easier. A former guild mate has an undead Rogue on a different server who he claims is now easy mode on casters and laughably so.
Gamerz22 Apr 16th 2007 1:36PM
What about "Get a 'Real' life"?
Anyways, these are the least of my worries, cause Blizzard will always f* up balancing of classes, but of the next expansion. If the next expansion is just another "kill 30 of this... explore this... help some person cause they need millions of players to help him..." then I'm quiting faster than Micheal Jackson was accused of child malesting.
Seriously though, the next expansion should be about end game, not another leveling grind madness of repetitive quests.
Rich Apr 16th 2007 1:36PM
The Rogue changes are fine with me. The glancing blows/cleave stuff helps all melee (Arms/Fury Warriors, Feral Druids), and doing a 5-man with a Rogue with no Imp Sap sucks.
I'm sad for Paladins though, I think it was kind of cool they could stack spell crit for healing. Now I guess they just need Spirit and +healing gear like Priests.
Seper Apr 16th 2007 1:36PM
Rogues are ungodly at the moment. When you cant trinket out, polymorph out (druid form changes). Or in anyway get out of a stunlock. Thats when a class is overpowered.
Rogues have sooo many abilities to keep you stunned or slowed down now that you cant do anything... at all... they are the seriously broken class. (pallies have always and will always be a broken class so yay to nerfs to them!!)
But rogues need to be hit harder. OR other classes need ways to get out of the stun lock. If the rogue is good... you have about 15-20 seconds to live. Thats not right.. at all.
Ampersand Apr 16th 2007 6:10PM
Blizzard has said they intended rogues to be the top damage in the game. Most good rogues were already at the top, now were just going to smoke the dps competition in raids by a mile and there will be no question, even for crap rogues to be top dps.
Astros Apr 16th 2007 1:44PM
When pallies can heal all day long...its time for a pally nerf.
When pallies can outheal priests...its time for a pally nerf.
Where are the priest buffs? Prayer of Binding? are serious?
Major adjustments to the priest holy tree is needed...holy priests are supposed to be the games primary healer...instead more and more raids are requesting their priests to go shadow and leave the healing to shammies and pallies...something is definetly wrong with that picture.
dag618 Apr 16th 2007 1:51PM
The hate directed towards Warlocks is scaring me. o_o For crying out loud, we're not the ones who nerfed the damn Pallies and Shadow Priests. Calm down, if you've ever played a Warlock you'll know how the same level Shadow Priests can out DPS us in a second, and trying to kill a Pally? Good luck, we might have Fear, but we can't heal ourselves, or throw up shield after shield. >.< So just be mad at the Devs, not at Warlocks.
twh Apr 16th 2007 1:58PM
If you take a close look, the players that the Illumination nerf hurts the most are the players that rolled paladins ONLY to heal. I.e. Priest re-rolls.
Granted, I'm not pleased with these nerfs, but being tank specced doesn't require me to take that talent since a tank that heals is paramount to a deathwish.
To be honest, I'm getting rather sick of the arguing on both sides of the issue. But, I have to say, that my sympathy for the Holy paladins is pretty shallow, considering that I've seen many of them tell ret and prot paladins to "STFU and Hael!".
So, they reap what they sow now.
brian Apr 16th 2007 1:54PM
@15 screw that, we dont even have fear any more, there so many ways to get out of fear, but people refuse to use trinkets etc, so they just cry for fear nerf all the time.
but being stunned for over 10sec is not overpowered? right
Cylntmoon Apr 16th 2007 2:02PM
OMG save the dungeon rogue from extinction, finally. I am spec'd for group runs (which means i suck at PvP) but with the x-pac I became a liability for bosses. Up to the boss, major contributor, boss little help. Which meant I was getting less and less done, fewer invites on guild runs. The only direct melee class without an armor rating, over powered please. The reason rogues hunt clothies is cause we suck against plate and mail. Other classes getting lock opening skills thru professions meant less and less need for rogues. If a rogue keeps u stunned for 20 seconds thats crazy, used all cool downs and now have to hide for 8 mintues.
Bradley Nash Apr 16th 2007 2:13PM
@15 - speak for yourself. As an affliction lock, I CAN heal myself, and it's rare that I am out DPS-ed by a shadow priest, and I have killed a couple of Pallies. So... I'm not sure what your problem is... but this thread isn't about us and when you bring us up, people will remember that they think we're OP and this thread will turn a new direction.