“To The Ground, Baby!” October 30, 2008

From Araan:

First they came for the Paladins, and you said nothing, because you were not a Paladin…

The Nerf bat is coming, friends. Check out this recent Blizz blue post Q&A:

 

Q: Are we going to nerf Ret?

A: TO THE GROUND BABY. Okay, not really, but sometimes I can’t resist. We’ll see how much that quote comes back to haunt me. We will probably be making some changes soon, perhaps even hotfixes. We want to be very surgical about what we do. We don’t want to overdo it, and we don’t want to hurt their sustained PvE damage. When we’ve decided, I’ll make sure you all know. (Ghostcrawler)

“Surgical”, eh? Well, let’s look at the announced changes:

Paladin (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Skills
Holy
Seal of Wisdom now deal [ 16% of AP + 25% of Spell Power + 1 ] holy damage when unleashed. (Down from [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 1 ] Holy damage)
Seal of Light now has a chance to heal for [ 15% of AP + 15% of Spell Power ]. (Down from [ 28% of AP + 28% of Spell Power ])
Seal of Light now deals [ 16% of AP + 25% of Spell Power + 1 ] (down from [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 1 ]) holy damage when unleashed.
Seal of Righteousness now grants each melee attack [ 2.2% of Melee Weapon Speed * AP + 4.4% of Melee Weapon Speed * Spell Power ] additional Holy damage. (Down from [ 2.8% of Melee Weapon Speed * AP + 5.5% of Melee Weapon Speed * Spell Power ])

Protection
Seal of Justice now deals [ 16% of AP + 25% of Spell Power + 1 ] holy damage when unleashed. (Down from [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 1 ])

Retribution
Judgement of Command Holy damage reduced from 56% to 45%.
Blessing of Might (Rank 8 ) and Greater Blessing of Might (Rank 3) now increase AP by 306. (Up from 305)
Seal of Corruption now deals [ 15% of AP + 8.8% of Spell Power ] additional holy damage over 15 seconds. (Down from [ 19.2% of AP + 9.6% of Spell Power ])
Seal of Corruption now deals [ 14% of AP + 22% of Spell Power + 1 ] Holy damage. (Down from [ 17.5% of AP + 28% of Spell Power + 1 ])
Seal of the Martyr now makes all your melee attacks deal [ 22% of mw ] to [ 22% of MW ]. (Down from [ 28% of mw ] to [ 28% of MW ])
Seal of the Martyr now deals [ 16% of AP + 25% of Spell Power + 36% of mw ] to [ 16% of AP + 25% of Spell Power + 36% of MW ] Holy Damage when unleashed. (Old – [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 25% of mw ] to [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 25% of MW ] Holy damage)
Seal of Blood now makes all your melee attacks deal [ 22% of mw ] to [ 22% of MW ]. (Down from [ 28% of mw ] to [ 28% of MW ])
Seal of Blood now deals [ 16% of AP + 25% of Spell Power + 36% of mw ] to [ 16% of AP + 25% of Spell Power + 36% of MW ] Holy Damage when unleashed. (Old – [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 25% of mw ] to [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 25% of MW ] Holy damage)
Seal of Vengeance now deals [ 15% of AP + 8.8% of Spell Power ] additional Holy damage over 15 sec. (Down from [ 19.2% of AP + 9.6% of Spell Power ])
Seal of Vengeance now deals [ 14% of AP + 22% of Spell Power + 1 ] Holy damage. (Down from [ 17.5% of AP + 28% of Spell Power + 1 ])
Judgement of Wisdom now restores 1% of the attacker’s maximum mana. (Down from 2%)
Judgement of Light now has a chance to heal the attacker for [ 10% of AP + 10% of Spell Power ]. (Down from [ 18% of AP + 18% of Spell Power ])

… So, does anyone think that those changes above are in any way “surgical”, or that they won’t affect PvE damage? And no one said nerfing Holy and Protection damage was part of the deal, either. Nerfing all seals affects Holy soloing and Protection tanking. A targeted seal nerf would have touched Command and Blood/Martyr only. Of course, it’s not a total nerf. You do get one extra point of attack power from Blessing of Might . . .

Mage & Hunter nerfs incoming; Paladins say “we told you so” October 22, 2008

From Araan:

Mages are also bursting with burstiness, according to Blizzard. Ghostcrawler has the nerf bat prepared for you: 

We have concerns about how bursty dps has become in PvP. On the other hand, we’re pretty happy with mage dps in PvE so we want to take care not to hurt it.For example, we discussed shifting some of Arcane’s damage between Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage, but that actually does hurt one of Arcane’s PvE advantages over Fire — namely to be able to move around while doing some instant spells.   

In the case of Frost, however, we have become concerned that it’s too easy to blow opponents up too quickly. Two of the culprits here are instant, uninterruptible Fireballs and Deep Freeze.

We are changing Brain Freeze to only proc off of Frost spells that can chill. Specifically, this limits the tactic of trying to fish for procs with Ice Lance. Ice Lance gets used a lot more in PvP, so we don’t think this will hurt Frost as much in PvE.

Secondly, Cold as Ice no longer reduces the cooldown on Deep Freeze. Deep Freeze is an (ahem) cool spell and we don’t want to nerf it too much, but you must admit that the poor frozen shmuck can endure a lot of damage while he is locked up.
 

I’ve maintained from the beginning that if they nerfed Retribution they’d come for other classes, too. Next on the list: Hunters.

As I have suggested a few times, we are concerned that hunters of all 3 specs are doing damage that is clearly superior to other classes.[…]

Ranged attacks no longer benefit from the haste effects of Windfury Totem and Improved Icy Talons. This is a nerf to hunter white damage.

There you have it. “First they came for the Retribution Paladins, and I said nothing”…