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We are willing to talk about Paladin Retribution and aura changes online for your information. More or less this information comes in handy if necessary. Now let us take a quick look at it.
We are happy with Ret's PvE damage and sustained damage in PvP, but were concerned that the burst damage in PvP could be too high. Thus we hope these changes are not perceived as a knee-jerk reaction, but we are sure that will depend a great deal on which class you play.
Divine Storm--the damage was changed from Holy to Physical. As you know, Holy damage is almost never mitigated and this talent could pack a lot into a very short time. This is a nerf to the ability's damage. This change is now active on Live.
Repentance--this ability now lasts for only 6 seconds in PvP (down from 10). Obviously this is also a nerf. This change is also active on Live.
Art of War--now affects all damage done by Judgments, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm (instead of critical strike damage). Net DPS should be about the same but less bursty. This change will be made before Nov 13.
Righteous Vengeance--now applies a dot affect similar to Deep Wounds instead of critical strike damage. This ends up being a significant buff to the ability to make up for the damage lost to Divine Storm, but is also less bursty.
Glyph of Crusader Strike--now reduces mana cost (instead of increased damage on stunned targets.) We thought paladins could stack too much damage vs. stunned targets. And also we fixed a bug with Seal and Judgment of Light that could sometimes result in too much healing.
For our part, Retribution DPS remains the same over longer periods of time, but they can't do quite so much damage in the initial few seconds of a PvP encounter.
We get to know that Ret pallies feel a little picked on since we've made this mistake before of having them come out the gate too strong and then had to correct them. It's a difficult spec to balance by reason of part of its design is to have large crits and stuns which have obvious PvP implications. We are pretty confident these will not nerf pallies into the ground but if we overdid it, we'll be happy to back off some of the changes. Maybe we'll see fewer BGs with 20 paladins on the opposing side and can get some reasonable feedback on all the other classes in the game.
To be consistent with stances, presences and aspects, Paladin auras are now off of the GCD with a 1 second cool-down. We are aware of the fact that Paladins don't switch auras as often as the other examples, but we also saw no reason to keep it the way it was.
As a matter of fact, the "aura twisting" aspect is something we're a little concerned about. We don't want Paladins to feel like the right thing they're supposed to do is switch to fire right before an incoming Pyroblast in PvP, or perhaps worse, notice when the dragon is about to breath, shift into fire and then shift out. At that point, the change may do more harm than good.
We are happy with Ret's PvE damage and sustained damage in PvP, but were concerned that the burst damage in PvP could be too high. Thus we hope these changes are not perceived as a knee-jerk reaction, but we are sure that will depend a great deal on which class you play.
Divine Storm--the damage was changed from Holy to Physical. As you know, Holy damage is almost never mitigated and this talent could pack a lot into a very short time. This is a nerf to the ability's damage. This change is now active on Live.
Repentance--this ability now lasts for only 6 seconds in PvP (down from 10). Obviously this is also a nerf. This change is also active on Live.
Art of War--now affects all damage done by Judgments, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm (instead of critical strike damage). Net DPS should be about the same but less bursty. This change will be made before Nov 13.
Righteous Vengeance--now applies a dot affect similar to Deep Wounds instead of critical strike damage. This ends up being a significant buff to the ability to make up for the damage lost to Divine Storm, but is also less bursty.
Glyph of Crusader Strike--now reduces mana cost (instead of increased damage on stunned targets.) We thought paladins could stack too much damage vs. stunned targets. And also we fixed a bug with Seal and Judgment of Light that could sometimes result in too much healing.
For our part, Retribution DPS remains the same over longer periods of time, but they can't do quite so much damage in the initial few seconds of a PvP encounter.
We get to know that Ret pallies feel a little picked on since we've made this mistake before of having them come out the gate too strong and then had to correct them. It's a difficult spec to balance by reason of part of its design is to have large crits and stuns which have obvious PvP implications. We are pretty confident these will not nerf pallies into the ground but if we overdid it, we'll be happy to back off some of the changes. Maybe we'll see fewer BGs with 20 paladins on the opposing side and can get some reasonable feedback on all the other classes in the game.
To be consistent with stances, presences and aspects, Paladin auras are now off of the GCD with a 1 second cool-down. We are aware of the fact that Paladins don't switch auras as often as the other examples, but we also saw no reason to keep it the way it was.
As a matter of fact, the "aura twisting" aspect is something we're a little concerned about. We don't want Paladins to feel like the right thing they're supposed to do is switch to fire right before an incoming Pyroblast in PvP, or perhaps worse, notice when the dragon is about to breath, shift into fire and then shift out. At that point, the change may do more harm than good.
