Vindication hotfixed, no longer affects Stam or Int
by Eliah Hecht 
Jun 8th 2009 at 5:00PM
A hotfix is in the works for the Retribution Paladin talent Vindication. When the fix goes live ("as early as this afternoon"), Vindication will no longer reduce the Intellect or Stamina of affected targets. It will continue to reduce Agility, Spirit, and Strength. As usual, tooltips will not immediately update to reflect this change; the tooltips will be incorrect until they can be fixed in a content patch.
Bornakk says this fix was put in place to address Retribution paladins being "very prominent" in PvP, "especially in the lower Arena brackets," without hurting Ret PvE DPS. Nerfing a class based on performance in lower brackets seems a little weird to me, but whatever. We did have some rumblings that something like this was coming - a PvP nerf that doesn't affect PvE. This certainly covers those bases. It leaves Vindication a pretty lackluster talent, though. Will you still keep it in your talent spec?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
tresser Jun 8th 2009 5:02PM
sad paladins are going to be sad
thebvp Jun 8th 2009 5:12PM
Indeed, they will be.
Vindication was a sort of "passive" dps, like the opposite of a disc priest bubble, lowering the amount of damage needed to take down the target. I never bothered to do the math, but it's probably worth at least one 3.6 second autoswing from a ret pally.
Without the stamina debuff, it's basically been nerfed to an anti-melee debuff only and probably isn't worth the talent points.
Nick S Jun 8th 2009 6:26PM
I play a Paladin, and I couldn't be happier. Vindication is a stupid mechanic.
Derrith Jun 8th 2009 7:42PM
I really don't understand how they say Ret Pallies are prominent in lower PvP brackets. Do you know how hard it is as a ret pally to take out a healer? Sure we have great burst, but once you've gone through your first rotation, you get to sit tight and watch the healer you just bursted down to 30% heal themselves back to full health while crying softly to yourself.
By making this no longer affect Stam it's going to be ever harder to take people out.
And on a side note, how many High-End teams have a Ret Pally on them?
Swampsquatch Jun 8th 2009 11:15PM
@ Nick S
Really? I don't even have a pally and I know "vindication" was awesome. Usually procs in the first swing in pvp and is also good for killing mobs (be it dailies or eternal farming or the like). If you only play a ret pally for raiding pve then I guess you could say it was stupid... but then again, you shouldn't have it anyway.
Bubsa Jun 9th 2009 9:50AM
Well, at least you can use Hammer of Wrath earlier!
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
RetadinMan Jun 8th 2009 5:06PM
WTF is even the point of taking it now!?!?!??!??!?!??!??!
Sure, blizz, go ahead and put us back to where we were pre-Wrath.
/anger!!!!!!!
crsh Jun 8th 2009 9:31PM
You're just about as sad as the poster below who specced Vindication for raiding..
Candy Man Jun 8th 2009 5:11PM
How does this NOT affect PvE? Might be time to ditch this talent for raiding.
Hakker Jun 8th 2009 5:14PM
It never worked on 90% of pve mobs/bosses, if you had this talent to begin with your bad.
Robert M Jun 8th 2009 5:17PM
“DPS only counts on a boss fight” It doesn’t necessarily influence PVE because the talent doesn’t work on bosses. Sure it can help clear trash, but the idea that trash matters is a philosophy that was buried when Blizzard decided to implement the great AoE patch of 2008 and then subsequently release WotLK. From what I have seen in researching a ret build for my dual specced pally, I don’t see where vindication is a raiding talent anyway. I could be wrong, but just in my experience in trying to build a raid spec.
Candina@WH Jun 8th 2009 5:44PM
Why did you have this talent for raiding, as BOSSES DON'T HAVE STATS.
Clbull Jun 8th 2009 6:43PM
Did Vindication cut down the stamina of a raid boss by 20%? I don't think it did.
Besides, I think its a good change balance wise, but it isn't going to change the fact that a Paladin's stuns and high burst damage in PvP, in combination with their uber survival abilities, is very overpowered.
Mickthathick Jun 8th 2009 7:33PM
This talent was good for farming mobs (less stamina= less time time to kill stuff), but useless on bosses.
lightning4 Jun 8th 2009 11:23PM
If they make it so it affects everything including bosses, it might be worth picking up for raids. A nerf to incoming damage will make your tanks like you even more than they already do, what with the dual bubble sacs.
Otherwise, it's just as garbage for PvE as it has always been.
Candy Man Jun 9th 2009 2:08AM
So many lolretards...
It works on trash - trash that wipes raids (yeah, except yours - note the correct use of the word "your").
After 54 pts in ret and 5 in prot for str, the rest is ret filler w/no real utility. Now there is less. QQ in PvP land wins again.
Shealtiel Jun 8th 2009 5:11PM
I find myself wondering whether "lower brackets" is the closest thing Blizzard has to an objective measurement of world PvP? Those in the lower brackets would, I presume, be the ones either less skilled at PvP or with lower-quality gear (from a PvP perspective)--or both. That is a situation very similar to a chance encounter in the world at large.
To the extremely (or perhaps not so extremely) casual player--particularly those on a PvP server--"OP" has nothing to do with raids or Arenas and everything to do with what happens as you go about your business of questing or farming. Maybe, cat calls of the raiders and Arena enthusiasts aside, Retribution Paladins really were overpowered?
Angus Jun 8th 2009 5:42PM
If this was the case EVERY class would have to get nerfed to oblivion because PVP in 1 vs 1 situations is never balanced. Heck, if they used that metric then shaman should be seeing something to allow them to actually beat someone.
Speaking as an enhance shaman that goes to WG just to pick flowers, it is pretty sad. I'm dead in 1 CC to most classes. The ones I am not dead to shut me down and make me want to sit down and just let them kill me. I'm not beating them. And when I die to prot paladins/warriors because they control the fight, it's about time to give up on PVP.
kabshiel Jun 8th 2009 5:12PM
I don't arena, so I don't know whether ret paladins are OP or if this talent was OP in PVP. One thing's for sure though: this talent really sucks now.
Shnutz Jun 8th 2009 5:13PM
I can kind of understand the reasoning behind this but it does make the talent pretty useless, and barely does anything to casters now (woohoo... a spirit debuff.....)
They should either replace this talent completely or buff it to say 30% for the stats it still affects.