Divine Storm now less divine
by Eliah Hecht 
Oct 16th 2008 at 9:00AM
As promised, it looks like Retribution has been nerfed, through a hotfix. The substance of the nerf is as follows: Divine Storm now does physical damage, not Holy. This means, among other things, it's mitigated by armor, which should obviously cut its damage significantly against certain classes.
Many people have noticed a similarity between this sequence of events and something that happened back when 2.0 was released, right before Burning Crusade. Divine Storm is the 51-point Retribution talent. The 41-point Ret talent, Crusader Strike, was pretty overpowered at level 60, so Blizz nerfed it, only to have to buff it back up later in the expansion.
The Divine Storm nerf is, similarly, in the context of level 70 balance. At level 80, where much of the Wrath balance testing has been done, Divine Storm may well have fit right in. Is an un-nerf coming when Wrath is released? Paladins can only hope.
Update: I am also told that they may have reduced the health/mana returned from Judgment of Light and Judgment of Wisdom by 50%, and reduced the damage of Judgment of Command by 25%. There still isn't a blue post that I can find about any of this, so it's hard to confirm -- can anyone confirm/deny the Judgment changes?
[thanks, Nyttyn]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Serrar Oct 16th 2008 9:06AM
This makes me a very sad panda.
Naix Oct 16th 2008 10:06AM
Welcome to the world of every class in the game.
Netherscourge Oct 16th 2008 9:07AM
NERFadins!
Woot. Welcome back to the pack!
Kraas Oct 16th 2008 9:07AM
Oh wells. I can live with this.
ghusnak Oct 16th 2008 9:07AM
well im not using Divine Storm in my current talent spec so i couldnt care less :)
Swiss Oct 16th 2008 9:12AM
I support this hotfix. Why? Because before the hotfix I saw undergeared ret paladins taking people in S4 with 400+ resilience down in a matter of seconds (and the majority of the fight their target was stunned by HoJ and could not fight back).
Some may argue that such burst damage would be balanced at 80, but for now it's just too much.
I even saw a screenshot of a double ret pally 2v2 team that hit 2200+ arena rating in one night. Balanced? I think not.
Swiss Oct 16th 2008 9:31AM
Doh, my bad. It was late last night when I saw this screenshot, so it's not 2200+. It was 2050.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y188/jajader/lolret.jpg
D.O.T. Oct 16th 2008 9:31AM
Rather funny you should say that, I saw all matter of other classes doing a hell load of damage and not one of them got nerfed. Have you seen the new talents for ARMS warriors? I mean wtf? They can keep their dps, but a paladin has to be nerfed?
Riight.
Sad day when Blizzard screws one class so that all the others can feel an entitlement over them. -_-+
superfrank Oct 16th 2008 9:37AM
D.O.T. stop whinging lol
Swiss Oct 16th 2008 9:47AM
I have no problems whatsoever with paladins as a class, retribution as a spec, or retribution putting out good damage. What I do have a problem with, however, is a class/spec combo that can kill someone with much better gear than them in the time frame of one stun.
Considering the fact that a paladin can do the following:
~ Become immune to all damage while still doing damage
~ On demand stun
~ Become immune to snaring effects
~ Can heal themselves
There is NO reason whatsoever that they should out-damage a class that cannot heal themselves or become immune to damage.
Have I seen the arms warrior changes? Yes. Do I think Bladestorm is incredibly strong? Yes. Do I think 1 second cooldown Overpower is too strong? Maybe.
But in the end, the warrior is incredibly vulnerable to cc and snares, cannot become immune to damage while still murdering someone, nor can he heal.
Again, I have no issues with paladins putting out great damage. That's fine. But in my screenshot above where it was a 2v2 arena team comprised of two ret paladins (neither wearing S4) who attained 2000+ arena rating in one day is PROOF that a change needed to happen.
Source (post #46):
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11228495283&sid=1&pageNo=3
Malkeior Oct 16th 2008 9:52AM
Why did the patch turn everyone into tards? Ret paladins are STILL extremely susceptible to kiting and CC. HoJ is STILL Trinket-able.
Swiss Oct 16th 2008 9:57AM
Okay, I'll bite.
Here's how a fight (as a melee class in this case) might have gone down:
He casts Hammer of Justice.
I trinket.
We fight for a bit and he bubbles.
I run out of range.
He casts repentance.
He attacks again and I die because I cannot fight back and he bursts me down before bubble fades.
Malkeior Oct 16th 2008 10:10AM
He can only do that every 5 minutes, Repentance is an incapacitate, it breaks on the first source of damage.
Ret v Melee is now like Rogue v. Clothie, I'll give ya that.
Heilig Oct 16th 2008 10:42AM
"He can only do that every 5 minutes, Repentance is an incapacitate, it breaks on the first source of damage."
Except he can do it every 20 seconds. The real problem with ret right now isn't really the crazy burst. The problem is the modification to Imp. HoJ. It used to drop the CD on HoJ to 45 seconds. So, at best, a ret pally with 4-pc PvP bonus would get a new HoJ every 35 seconds that was based off of spell hit trating, so would be resisted half the time anyway.
Now, they get one every 20 seconds, and it's based off their hit rating, so it doesn't get resisted nearly as often. Combine that with a basically endless mana source and you have a class that gets to take a breather for 6 out of every 20 seconds. That's enough time to pop a quick heal and set up a new burst combo.
Ret DPS is not now, nor has it ever been the problem. The problem with ret before was that it was bursty without the control necessary to properly apply that burst, which was why they relied on their teammates very heavily to apply that control. Now, they can just do it themselves.
Malkeior Oct 16th 2008 10:45AM
No Ret currently has both DS and Imp HoJ, HoJ only lasts 6 seconds against someone not PvP specc'd
Swiss Oct 16th 2008 10:46AM
@Heilig
I played with a paladin talent calculator and was unable to get both Divine Storm and Improved Hammer of Justice into the same build at level 70.
Are you referring to something else or potential builds at 80?
Noirwolf Oct 16th 2008 12:08PM
Warriors, and anyone, that gather herbs, get a heal over time. Not as instant as a paladin's, but nice due
to it not being there before.
Update: This got posted to the wrong reply before.
Dukenukemx Oct 16th 2008 1:02PM
You may see under geared Ret Paladins taking down people in S4 gear, but do you know how those people got their S4?
Even before the patch you'd see teams with people who have full S4, who fail in the 1600's and 1700's.
Don't even get me started with the Druids, Warriors, and Rogues who would face roll their keyboard and win fights.
Just cause you have the gear doesn't mean you rule PvP. It just means you're very good at face rolling Mortal Strike, or you payed someone to get you S4 stuff. It happens more often then you think.
Swiss Oct 16th 2008 1:10PM
@ Duke:
When I said I saw a retribution paladin in Season 2 gear take out a warrior in Season 4 gear (shoulders and weapon), maybe I was not completely specific.
The warrior charged in and began attacking the paladin. The paladin hit him back, cast HoJ, beat on the warrior some more, and the warrior trinketed out of the stun. The paladin then bubbled and finished off the warrior. This warrior had ~14k hp going into the fight.
I'm sorry, but I thought resilience and stamina were both key stats to build up in order to survive burst damage like that...
Verit Oct 16th 2008 1:46PM
I play an elemental shaman - I got nerfed. I used to be able to do 1200-1500 dps - now I'm barely breaking 1000 :(.