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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsVindication 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 3 of 5)
Heilig Jun 8th 2009 5:29PM
A. Balancing around lower brackets is absurd. Blizz constantly says they have to be careful when balancing for PvP because of all the unintended consequences. One of the unintended consequences is that the GOOD PvPers in high brackets, who already laugh at ret pallies, will now completely ignore them.
B. Burst is ALL WE HAVE. No interrupt, no snare, no root, no way to close, exactly ONE cc that is fully dispellable, breaks on ANY damage, lasts 4 seconds LESS than any other PvP cc, and has a MINUTE cooldown. The ONLY thing that ret brings to the table offensively is six seconds of burst. Vindication was a way for us to maximize our only offensive purpose, and now it's gone.
C. BALANCING AROUND LOWER BRACKETS IS ABSURD. If you lose to a ret pally in a lower bracket it's because you got outplayed or out-comped, not because they ran in and one-shot you, not anymore.
Blacknimbus Jun 8th 2009 5:38PM
Burst is all you have? You mean besides the plate armour and shields. Oh and the healing.
Who laughs at Ret Pallys? You're thinking of Warlocks I think.
Mindaika Jun 8th 2009 5:39PM
Nice try.
You have TWO CCs, one on a 40-sec (glyphed) CD (which lasts 6sec, not 4), a slow (Judgement of Justice) and all the burst you had in the first place.
Oh right, and you can also heal yourself.
Clint Jun 8th 2009 5:39PM
Shields? Yeah...my ret paladin shield.
Do you play WoW or just post to forums?
Clint Jun 8th 2009 5:41PM
Hammer of Justice at 40 secs is up in the prot tree, not ret. It's not a glyph.
Angus Jun 8th 2009 5:50PM
"Nice try.
You have TWO CCs, one on a 40-sec (glyphed) CD (which lasts 6sec, not 4), a slow (Judgement of Justice) and all the burst you had in the first place.
Oh right, and you can also heal yourself."
Nice try on your part with complete lies.
1: 40 second CD is prot.
2: Justice doesn't slow. It limits movement to 100%. Against a standard opponent, this means nothing. It only slows people with boot enchants, druids going cat or travel and shaman in GW. It isn't actually a slow. Hamstring is a slow.
3: The burst they've had repeatedly beaten to the ground? Judgements and seal damage were changed to have seals do more and judgements do less. Burst was nerfed this way.
Exorcism was taken away. You know I used to punich 'locks changing to Illidan form. They'd eat the exorcism for daring to turn into a demon when facing a paladin. Now, their demon pets are immune too.
As for healing: LOL. Seriously. That isn't healing yourself, it is wasting mana in a feeble attempt to delay the inevitable.
Wither Jun 8th 2009 7:18PM
Everyone pays the same subscription regardless of playtime, so surely the game should be balanced around the majority of players.
If there are more BAD players than GOOD, then it will get balanced around the lower brackets.
What's wrong with that?
Mindaika Jun 8th 2009 7:23PM
You are (sort of) correct: Both of your stuns are on 1min CDs.
Most, if not all serious PvPers, have some sort of speed increasing talent or enchant.
As for pally burst being "beaten into the ground," again, sort of correct: It's gone from "ludicrously OP" to "a little high."
Also, you can still heal yourself. ALSO: not all PvP is is the Arena, which means in world PvP, or BGs, you get a free "fill up my life bar" spell every 20 minutes.
Also, bubble.
Also, the OP's argument was that A) Pallies aren't/weren't/won't be serious contenders in high-ranking brackets because of the nerf, and that B) non-high ranking brackets should be completely unbalanced.
Oh, and he also argues that all ret pallies are good PVPers (that is exactly what C says).
joerendous Jun 8th 2009 7:41PM
i don't see where C) says that exactly.
Clint Jun 8th 2009 5:37PM
So...in the past few days they've nerfed Hand of Freedom, gutted Eye for an Eye (woot -- 10% of damage now) and made Vindication less than half as effective.
Ret spent, what, 4 years as the biotches of WoW? So bring it on, Blizzard. We can take it.
Lorem Jun 8th 2009 5:42PM
::ret balls:: *snip*
Aylia Jun 8th 2009 5:43PM
Well, this is good, taking off 3k health or more permanently was OP. Too bad the talent is completely pointless now. Lets hope something replaces it or it is retuned at some point.
Robert M Jun 8th 2009 5:45PM
The incoming vindication hotfix that is on it’s way to live servers is obviously getting mixed responses from the community, and all I can say is WHAT THE %&$#!
I don’t mean it because the talent was so great in a PVE setting, or because Blizzard has arrived at the conclusion that it creates and inherent imbalance in their quest to balance PVP (which will never be balanced), but because paladins are still left with little direction that the other classes seem to be at least somewhat impervious.
First there was the exorcism nerf in PVP and not PVE, and now there is this. Add that Blizzard understands that their model to make paladins the smooth damage eating tanks and robbed us of some of our ability to keep up with all the magic damage in WotLK. The philosophy is that we should ideally be able to eat more damage because we can become block capped, and thus avoid/mitigate more damage so we don’t receive the kind of HP pools that DKs and druids have. In an interview this week on the rawrcast, some members of Exodus, one of the top raiding guilds in the world said they preferred DK and druid tanks because of those health pools alone. Couple that with the admitted failed block mechanic and the fact that paladin tanks need another cooldown and it is evident that Blizzard sure as hell doesn’t mind nerfing ret paladins in PVP, but insists on overanalyzing prot paladins in PVE before they are really willing to help them. In that same rawrcast, members of Exodus also said that DK’s could chain their cooldowns for hard mode encounters.
So, we have one of the top guilds in the world admitting that DK’s are superior tanks, and we have Blizzard admitting that paladins need some love, and in response, rets get nerfed in PVP?
That’s one hell of a class balancing agenda if I do say so myself.
http://fatchickstank.blogspot.com/
yokumgang Jun 8th 2009 7:01PM
DK vs Paladin tanking argument =/= argument over Ret Paladin burst.
Did anyone actually read what Bornakk said?
"Increasingly it felt like someone playing against a Ret-Pally really only had 60% of their health bar because Vindication took away 20% from the start and then Hammer of Wrath kicked in when they had 20% left. This change was something we could confidently hotfix and would have a minimal to no impact on the PvE side of things."
Being able to essentially ignore 40% of someone's health bar, no matter the target, is simply not balanced. A Ret can do 60% of somebody's health in a few GCD's. After that, GG. Being able to instantly reduce the health of someone (not just total health - max health too) is not balanced.
Robert M Jun 8th 2009 7:04PM
I never said that the nerf wasn't warranted, what I said is that paladins seem to still be the red headed stepchildren of balance. Take ur time and read slowly next time princess.
I agree that vindication is op, but they seem pretty comfortable taking away from paladins when they perform too well, and seem to just say, "ya, we know" when they need help.
twh Jun 8th 2009 7:18PM
@Yokumgang
Except the fact that his math was completely wrong, blowing his analogy out of proportion and perpetuating the misinformation about the talent, because stupid people, like you, think it takes away 20% of a person's Total health when all it takes is 20% of the Stamina.
ash Jun 8th 2009 5:51PM
Wow, this blows.
What's with all these nerfs and not giving us anything in return?
Blacknimbus Jun 8th 2009 5:58PM
A little balance, perhaps?
ash Jun 8th 2009 7:17PM
No, balance is saying, "hey you're a little overpowered in this one area and a little lacking in this other area, so why don't we nerf one and buff the other and call it even" Like Heilig pointed out, we don't have an interrupt, a root, or way to close that is comparable to other melee (or a healing debuff), so if they are going to nerf us on one front at least they can make up for it on another. What with nerfs for BoF, eye for an eye and now this its starting to feel a little much -- like they're overreacting.
Crash Jun 8th 2009 5:52PM
Next time anyone try to tell me this game doesn't revolve around arena and pvp, i will show him this. And kajillion other pvp-based nerfs and changes.