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by Matthew Rossi 
Feb 5th 2010 at 12:08AM
The culprit for the paladin health reduction seems to be the paladin talent Sacred Duty, although this has, at this time, not been confirmed by Blizzard so far as I can find. As soon as there's an announcement we at WoW.com will of course bring it to you.
Edited to include this link to the official forum post explaining the change. Thanks to ummeiko for the fast catch.
Filed under: Paladin, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Death Knight
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 5)
ummeiko Feb 5th 2010 2:17AM
Official post about the nerfs and buffs:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22749574063&sid=1
Matthew Rossi Feb 5th 2010 3:13AM
Editing the post to include, thank you for pointing it out.
Jellyfish Feb 5th 2010 2:20AM
I'm glad they inserted this nerf and I hope there are a few more nerfs in store for pally tanks so that raid composition isn't preset.
I for one am sick of the "must have atleast 1 pally tank" trend that's occuring and it seems Blizzard are on the same page for once.
I also hope they nerf pally healing in a similar fashion though perhaps giving people a warning next time around.
Lhock Feb 5th 2010 2:42AM
"I for one am sick of the "must have atleast 1 pally tank" trend that's occuring and it seems Blizzard are on the same page for once."
ICC is an instance FULL of undead. Paladins do more damage against undead, plus other things as well.... Bring what benefits the group best. I think its insane that everyone wants ever class type to be identical to each other.
Jellyfish Feb 5th 2010 3:39AM
It's not about making classes Identical, it's about making things fair on other tanks.
Letting main spec prot warriors and other tanks get a chance at playing their main spec more often instead of hoping that they're asked to fill the other tank spot each week and having to sit around in their off-spec for raids.
A buff to warriors and a nerf to pallys is a nice start in that direction.
Sure "bring what benefits the group best" but leaving other tanks at a "won't benefit the group as much as a pally" state is very unfair and the people at blizzard are obviously aware of this.
Thorakar Feb 5th 2010 9:41AM
I went from 57.6k Buffed to 56.4 I Think.
Vitos Feb 5th 2010 2:41AM
Another thing that has been helping paladins find roles in progression raiding is the whole basic idea of paladins. When you think paladin you also think "Kills Undead". Now, just out of curiosity, what is the specialty of this Lich King guy? Might it be undead? Might the 3 second, insta-cast AoE stun +5-8k damage against undead have anything to say about that? In Ulduar and ToC-25, paladins didn't face as many zombies, so their abilities could not be used to their full power.
Just saying. Paladins be zombie killers. Like Shotguns.
Nokarma Feb 5th 2010 2:46AM
I don't like seeing nerfs to any class.
That being said, I am a warrior tank and I HAVE been passed over for raids because Warrior tanks don't do enough "DPS", and AoE aggro against more than 3 mobs is huge problem with trigger happy DPS. People will always take the path of least resistance. I see Druids and palis pulling 3K on single target boss fights and 4-5K on group pulls effortlessly. I am busting my rage to zero through an entire fight to break 2.2K DPS on group pulls and I average 1.6 - 1.8K on a boss fight that hits me hard enough to keep my rage topped off.
Druids have huge Health pools, palis have intense mitigation and seem to take a LOT less dmg than warriors ( I know I rolled a healer so I could see the raid content again )
Point being a warrior has NOTHING to offer that the other 2 classes don't do better, easier. I want to see some equality brought into the warrior tree, 20% to devastate isn't even going to come close IMO.
Thayer Feb 5th 2010 6:00AM
It would certainly help if they'd remove the archaic penalty to damage that's rolled into defensive stance. Death knights get added tanking benefits when in frost presence while warriors get a penalty to damage? Seems odd when you think about it that way, doesn't it?
And yes, I know, it's likely there to prevent warriors from running in defensive stance in pvp, but really if they're going to go with a dps loss by skipping out on the other stances they'd do it anyway. Fix the outdated stance penalty and suddenly prot warriors can do damage.
Sterb Feb 5th 2010 9:21AM
"Point being a warrior has NOTHING to offer that the other 2 classes don't do better, easier. I want to see some equality brought into the warrior tree, 20% to devastate isn't even going to come close IMO."
*cough* Sunder? That said, I agree warriors aren't in a happy place right now.
Quasimofo Feb 5th 2010 3:03AM
During vanilla and BC I main tanked pretty much everything with my warrior, who was my undisputed main with a shammy a not too-distant second (only because people gotta have their totems). But now in Wrath mine has been relegated to using their transmute CD every day to make gems for my other tanks while sitting at the mailbox next to the AH feeling sad and depressed.
Warriors simply bring nothing to the table that other tanking classes can't do better, more efficiently, and more reliably. Their contributions pale compared to the others, as already discussed their damage is pathetically low stacked toe to toe, and nobody ever "needs" a warrior rather than simply needing a tank. Nor is anybody ever excited to see one pop up in your random group.
The solution isn't nerfing the other tanks, it's moving warriors back into their rightful place as the "premier" tank with the others able to pull a close second. But at this point it would require such a massive overhaul that it won't happen until Cataclysm. In the meantime, just set your warriors in the bank to keep company with their old Might set stuffed in there for nostalgia.
Stephen Feb 5th 2010 3:18AM
I don't understand all the pally hating. I've been in 3 guilds since Wrath began, and the MT in every one was a Warrior. (well, except for one, and that's only because that pally was a megalomaniac GM who bragged about being actively recruited by Premonition but yet was turned down for all the top guilds on our server) The only, and I mean ONLY time I've seen "We have to have a pally tank" was HAnub10 and 25.
Our current progression tanking team is a Warrior and 2 Druids. We're doing well, in the top 5 for our server in kills. Come to think of it... I never even see a Pally tank in heroics unless it's me on an alt.
Lemons Feb 5th 2010 5:55AM
Well then our experiences are radically different...I don't see much else but pally tanks, and the MT of my guild is a pally tank, and on many raids the OT is a pally too.
Pally is simply a more popular class...and the tanking style is quite easy...I wish I could find some raw data but my gut tells me there's more paladin tanks in wow than warrior tanks. Now whether or not that remains true in the upper teirs of raid content I have no idea.
uncaringbear Feb 5th 2010 8:49AM
There is no such thing as a pure tanking class, and the old nugget about warriors being the premier tanking class died years ago, and rightfully so. While I agree that warrior tanks have suffered (my old warr tank has been in unwanted retirement for months and months now), no one class deserves to stand above the rest of the tanking classes.
Beldoro Feb 5th 2010 11:29AM
There was an interesting thread analysing this a week back or so. The poster had looked at the tanks used in the top 100 kills for Putricide and Blood Queen. For Putricide it was:
Warrior - 109 (37%)
Paladin - 86 (29%)
Druid - 58 (20%)
DK - 41 (14%) [27 Blood, 11 Frost, 3 unholy]
Take whatever conclusion you want from this, but for me it shows warriors are still the most popular progression tanks followed relatively closely by Paladins.
Thread at http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/22748799633-putricide---bql-top-100-kills-tanks-by-spec.html
cannedhero Feb 5th 2010 3:39AM
Well fact is that paladins (that have about the same avoidance/block as warriors) have a better +stam scaling than warrior. At naxx10 level it kinda makes up the lack of a +stam ranged weapon in the ranged slot, but beyond that the warrior starts falling further and further behind on health.
In ICC itemlevels the warrior is easely a few K health behind the paladin in similair gear, blizz knows this and wants to fix this
Drork Feb 5th 2010 3:36AM
The problem I have with a lot of people who say paladins are meant to kill undead so ICC is awesome for them is, why are they equal on everything else yet better at something. There needs to be give and take.
I think a hot fix was a little rude. How ever the change made to happy. It was needed and not huge.
I just hope the devastate rumors are true. Warriors tanks putting out more DPS is a good thing.
Cmidrfti Feb 5th 2010 4:28AM
So, random tank hotfixes in the middle of raids but still no word on when they intend on sorting out the pathing issues? I know I'm not the only one sick fed up of mobs running straight through me and hitting me in the back.
Neuropox Feb 5th 2010 5:12AM
The Above comment is grey and sucks more then your average comment
jsmith215 Feb 5th 2010 5:40AM
The frost presence changes are now stated on the forum post.
# Death Knight:
# Frost Presence now provides 8% Stamina, up from 6% Stamina.
# Icebound Fortitude now provides 30% base damage reduction, up from 20% damage reduction. For a geared tank with high defense, this translates to 50% damage reduction, up from 40%.