Yeah, this time it's Lay on Hands. 5 years it's been perfectly fine and suddenly the bat comes a-swinging again.
Why?
It can't be used in Arenas so it can't be for that reason it's nerfed.
It is a lifesaver in PvE if you are suddenly up shit creek. Both for you or for the tank or whoever might benefit from it.
The only thing that remains is duels and Battlegrounds. And honestly, if it is nerfed because of that, then we can safely say that Paladins are the only class to be ever nerfed because of 1vs1 and Battlegrounds where people with little to no resilience roam and get one-shotted because they're in full greens or quest blues or any combination there of.
The nerf? Ah, yes. If you use it on yourself you get 2 lovely minutes of juicy forbearance.
I know. It's fucking retarded.
Death Knights have access to far better instant self-heals than Paladins have. Even if you include Lay on Hands. And they aren't on an 11-20 minute cooldown either. Not to mention that Arms warriors - any who knows what the hell he/she is doing - can completely and utterly annihilate a holy paladin.
Lay on Hands is overpowered but a 75% healing reduction through Mortal Strike and Unrelenting Assault isn't?
Ghostcrawler (who else?) said that it wasn't "fair" that you have to kill a Paladin 3 times when you only have to kill another class 1 time. That only says that we've got fuck all offensive tools and the other class beating the living daylights out of us have all the necessary tools at their immediate disposal to lay down some serious hurt on us.
We can't have an MS effect because this is a unique Warrior/Rogue/Hunter/Mage/Shadow Priest/Warlock ability.
We can't have a gap closer because this is a unique Druid/Warrior/Rogue/Death Knight ability.
We can't have a slow effect because this is a unique Mage/Warlock/Rogue/Warrior/Death Knight/Shaman/Hunter ability.
We can't have a proper interrupt/silence because this is a unique Mage/Warlock/Priest/Warrior/Rogue/Death Knight/Shaman/Hunter ability.
"And that is called Balance." (name the quote and get a cookie.)
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Aion – The Tower of Eternity
Or rather the Queue of Eternity. If you thought the WoW servers were horrible at launch, they are flawless in comparison to how awful Aion's were and still are.
During Closed Beta there were queues on every server. During open beta even more so. Up to 2hrs queue. Now, at launch, there still are queues of 2hrs+. You would've thought that they'd get it through their inch thick skulls that they need to upgrade their servers for retail launch.
It's been a few weeks now after launch and the queues still remain. Not to mention bots, gold famers, gold sellers, power-leveling services – I actually noticed these in-game spam adverts 2 days after official launch. But we'll get to that later...
RETAIL LAUNCH
For those who played in Closed Beta had everything set up and running to play the game. All that was needed to do was to simply input your payment of choice (credit card, game card, paypal) and enter the retail launch code from the Aion box and log in and play to your hearts desire.
Or rather, that's how it should've been. Trying to log in to your account on NC-Softs site was impossible. Server error, server timing out, all those "fun" things. When you actually managed to input your code and payment option, you couldn't log into the game because your account was deemed inactive as you hadn't paid yet. They (NC-Soft) didn't take into account the 30 day free time you get shipped with the box.
I, and many others, had to run through all kinds of stupid hoops on the account site just to get the account from Inactive to Playable. Some people who chose PayPal as payment got billed twice as they tried to activate their game properly.
The forums were in an uproar during launch day. It wasn't resolved until several hours later. I remember picking up my game that friday on my day off and I figured I'd have a fun time trying out this new MMO as it was looking pretty solid during beta. I came home around mid day and I couldn't log in to the game until at least 4 hrs later due to the horrible bugs and server time-outs during launch. Fun, yes?
QUEUES
As I mentioned earlier, there are insane queues on almost every server. The fact isn't made better that some servers are designated solely for french, german and spanish speaking people. Leaving oh, say, 6 or 7 odd servers for english speaking people only. Which have all filled up to the brim. They added ONE new server for english speaking people. One.
Honestly, they should've anticipated the half a million odd sales in EUROPE ALONE not to mention the queues during BETA that their servers need to be upgraded and/or get some more to compensate for the huge influx of people.
The North American and Europe forums are filled with complaints and questions how they (NC-Soft) didn't add a whole bunch of extra servers when they new that this game was going to get a huge influx of people.
What answer did we get from NC-Soft? Nothing. Except for a deluded PR post from Lance Stites, the executive producer of Aion.
He says that they are seeing time-frames where 60% of all players are playing at any given time. "Another surprising development is how long players are staying in game—I think that’s a testament to the enjoyable nature of the product ."
That is pure and utter bullshit. Most of those "players" are bots, gold farmers or gold sellers. The real players are either stuck in queue or are avoiding the 30 minute AFK logout because of the insane queues at prime-time. Enjoyable nature? Don't make me laugh...
He says: "The reality of the situation is that some servers quickly become very popular servers, with lines queued up to enter, but other servers have plenty of space to accommodate players. Obviously, adding servers won’t help in this case. If you’re waiting to enter a full server, 100 extra servers won’t help. "
Partly true, but let me go back to my previous point of HOW YOU SHOULD'VE FIGURED OUT AT BETA THAT YOU NEED MORE SERVERS! Idiot.
BOTS
Two days after retail launch I saw the first power-leveling service. Two days after that, gold seller spam. After that, it just went quickly downward. Nowadays you can't even log in without being hit by a million and one spammers all wanting to sell their gold, power leveling service etc. Etc.
Oh, and there are no GM's around to handle it, either. As you can only make petitionts between 9 am to 5 pm (I shit you not) and only 5 petitions per day. Seeing as how the GM's are non-existant and bots are still running rampant throughout the game, one can only surmise that NC-Soft doesn't give a rat's ass about it. They've said they've banned a whole bunch of accounts, but somehow we (the players) just don't believe it as we're seeing the same bots, the same names running around in the same old pattern.
OFFICIAL FORUMS
This is perhaps the absolutely best part: the CM's (community managers) can't post on their official forums due to some "bug" in the forum software. Yes. It's true. I couldn't make this shit up even if I tried. They CAN, however, post sticky notices but not much else. They also ask people to follow them on twitter. Yes. Twitter. Again, I couldn't make this shit up. It just stinks how utterly unprofessional this is.
The english forum CM, Ayase, posted a sticky topic asking people to express their thoughts on how they think NC-soft should handle the queues and bots. Excuse me, you are asking US how YOU should handle your own product when it's so blatantly obvious even a blind man could see it?
That thread has reached 13 pages with people all wanting to hear an official NC Soft representative or even the CM (Ayase) to reply to his own thread he's started. No luck. Guess we'll need to follow him on Twitter, right? Yeah, if you really think that's gonna happen, Ayase, you've got another thing coming.
I've seen them post more on unofficial forums than the official ones. I find it also amusing they can't solve a forum bug that prevents the CM's from posting.
Recently, people hve been posting that the queues have improved. That may well be so, but it's not thanks to NC-Soft. It's because most of the players have left (me included).
Anyone who isn't a fanboi can see that this game won't last the year if it continues the way it does.
There is no community representatives active, no GM's, no nothing. Anyone who ever says anything bad about NC-Soft on the official forums gets their post deleted. Speak no evil, see no evil?
It's a shame it had to come to this, really, as the game had potential. It has stunning graphics and the game runs smooth on most systems; but the complete and utter lack of support and horrible bugs still in the game that should've been resolved during beta makes it a sub-par game. At best.
If you're planning on buying this game, don't. Save them for STO or SW: Old Republic.
Or rather the Queue of Eternity. If you thought the WoW servers were horrible at launch, they are flawless in comparison to how awful Aion's were and still are.
During Closed Beta there were queues on every server. During open beta even more so. Up to 2hrs queue. Now, at launch, there still are queues of 2hrs+. You would've thought that they'd get it through their inch thick skulls that they need to upgrade their servers for retail launch.
It's been a few weeks now after launch and the queues still remain. Not to mention bots, gold famers, gold sellers, power-leveling services – I actually noticed these in-game spam adverts 2 days after official launch. But we'll get to that later...
RETAIL LAUNCH
For those who played in Closed Beta had everything set up and running to play the game. All that was needed to do was to simply input your payment of choice (credit card, game card, paypal) and enter the retail launch code from the Aion box and log in and play to your hearts desire.
Or rather, that's how it should've been. Trying to log in to your account on NC-Softs site was impossible. Server error, server timing out, all those "fun" things. When you actually managed to input your code and payment option, you couldn't log into the game because your account was deemed inactive as you hadn't paid yet. They (NC-Soft) didn't take into account the 30 day free time you get shipped with the box.
I, and many others, had to run through all kinds of stupid hoops on the account site just to get the account from Inactive to Playable. Some people who chose PayPal as payment got billed twice as they tried to activate their game properly.
The forums were in an uproar during launch day. It wasn't resolved until several hours later. I remember picking up my game that friday on my day off and I figured I'd have a fun time trying out this new MMO as it was looking pretty solid during beta. I came home around mid day and I couldn't log in to the game until at least 4 hrs later due to the horrible bugs and server time-outs during launch. Fun, yes?
QUEUES
As I mentioned earlier, there are insane queues on almost every server. The fact isn't made better that some servers are designated solely for french, german and spanish speaking people. Leaving oh, say, 6 or 7 odd servers for english speaking people only. Which have all filled up to the brim. They added ONE new server for english speaking people. One.
Honestly, they should've anticipated the half a million odd sales in EUROPE ALONE not to mention the queues during BETA that their servers need to be upgraded and/or get some more to compensate for the huge influx of people.
The North American and Europe forums are filled with complaints and questions how they (NC-Soft) didn't add a whole bunch of extra servers when they new that this game was going to get a huge influx of people.
What answer did we get from NC-Soft? Nothing. Except for a deluded PR post from Lance Stites, the executive producer of Aion.
He says that they are seeing time-frames where 60% of all players are playing at any given time. "Another surprising development is how long players are staying in game—I think that’s a testament to the enjoyable nature of the product ."
That is pure and utter bullshit. Most of those "players" are bots, gold farmers or gold sellers. The real players are either stuck in queue or are avoiding the 30 minute AFK logout because of the insane queues at prime-time. Enjoyable nature? Don't make me laugh...
He says: "The reality of the situation is that some servers quickly become very popular servers, with lines queued up to enter, but other servers have plenty of space to accommodate players. Obviously, adding servers won’t help in this case. If you’re waiting to enter a full server, 100 extra servers won’t help. "
Partly true, but let me go back to my previous point of HOW YOU SHOULD'VE FIGURED OUT AT BETA THAT YOU NEED MORE SERVERS! Idiot.
BOTS
Two days after retail launch I saw the first power-leveling service. Two days after that, gold seller spam. After that, it just went quickly downward. Nowadays you can't even log in without being hit by a million and one spammers all wanting to sell their gold, power leveling service etc. Etc.
Oh, and there are no GM's around to handle it, either. As you can only make petitionts between 9 am to 5 pm (I shit you not) and only 5 petitions per day. Seeing as how the GM's are non-existant and bots are still running rampant throughout the game, one can only surmise that NC-Soft doesn't give a rat's ass about it. They've said they've banned a whole bunch of accounts, but somehow we (the players) just don't believe it as we're seeing the same bots, the same names running around in the same old pattern.
OFFICIAL FORUMS
This is perhaps the absolutely best part: the CM's (community managers) can't post on their official forums due to some "bug" in the forum software. Yes. It's true. I couldn't make this shit up even if I tried. They CAN, however, post sticky notices but not much else. They also ask people to follow them on twitter. Yes. Twitter. Again, I couldn't make this shit up. It just stinks how utterly unprofessional this is.
The english forum CM, Ayase, posted a sticky topic asking people to express their thoughts on how they think NC-soft should handle the queues and bots. Excuse me, you are asking US how YOU should handle your own product when it's so blatantly obvious even a blind man could see it?
That thread has reached 13 pages with people all wanting to hear an official NC Soft representative or even the CM (Ayase) to reply to his own thread he's started. No luck. Guess we'll need to follow him on Twitter, right? Yeah, if you really think that's gonna happen, Ayase, you've got another thing coming.
I've seen them post more on unofficial forums than the official ones. I find it also amusing they can't solve a forum bug that prevents the CM's from posting.
Recently, people hve been posting that the queues have improved. That may well be so, but it's not thanks to NC-Soft. It's because most of the players have left (me included).
Anyone who isn't a fanboi can see that this game won't last the year if it continues the way it does.
There is no community representatives active, no GM's, no nothing. Anyone who ever says anything bad about NC-Soft on the official forums gets their post deleted. Speak no evil, see no evil?
It's a shame it had to come to this, really, as the game had potential. It has stunning graphics and the game runs smooth on most systems; but the complete and utter lack of support and horrible bugs still in the game that should've been resolved during beta makes it a sub-par game. At best.
If you're planning on buying this game, don't. Save them for STO or SW: Old Republic.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
The bat comes a-swinging again.
You know it, folks. Another overnight "hotfix". This time to Vindication which has been fine all the way through TBC and all the PTRs in WotLK up until 6 months in when BAM! The nerf-bat smacked it around with a vengeance.
Honestly, this is just stupid now. Why are Paladins the only class getting "overnight hotfixes" without even a word prior to it? This stinks of WotLK early days where JotW got nerfed from 33 to 15%.
Everything is starting to feel more and more like it's the badly thought out idea of Kalgan who is notorious for his hate towards Paladins back in the EverQuest days. And by the looks of it, Ghostcrawler jumped on that bandwagon.
A quote from Bornakk:
"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."
Protip: Hammer of Wrath does NOT kill a high-resilience target.
A quote from Ghostcrawler:
" The point was that Retribution's representation is at a pretty good place for the highest rated players. Maybe it's even balanced. But as you drop down 100 points, its percentage grows. The deeper you drop, the more it grows. We feel like we owe the lower rated players, who still might be good at PvP and just not world-class, as balanced a game as we can."
So you balance around sub-par playing in hopes that it will level out the playing field? Nice going, idiots. But I suppose it's all good as long as the Rogue/Mage/Priest teams continue to dominate the seasons and 3vs3 brackets. Don't see much "overnight hotfixes" to those.
But, do go on and destroy the paladin class. Bit by bit.
Scrub company catering scrub players. That's what Blizzard has become.
It's no wonder the original WoW dev-team left...
Honestly, this is just stupid now. Why are Paladins the only class getting "overnight hotfixes" without even a word prior to it? This stinks of WotLK early days where JotW got nerfed from 33 to 15%.
Everything is starting to feel more and more like it's the badly thought out idea of Kalgan who is notorious for his hate towards Paladins back in the EverQuest days. And by the looks of it, Ghostcrawler jumped on that bandwagon.
A quote from Bornakk:
"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."
Protip: Hammer of Wrath does NOT kill a high-resilience target.
A quote from Ghostcrawler:
" The point was that Retribution's representation is at a pretty good place for the highest rated players. Maybe it's even balanced. But as you drop down 100 points, its percentage grows. The deeper you drop, the more it grows. We feel like we owe the lower rated players, who still might be good at PvP and just not world-class, as balanced a game as we can."
So you balance around sub-par playing in hopes that it will level out the playing field? Nice going, idiots. But I suppose it's all good as long as the Rogue/Mage/Priest teams continue to dominate the seasons and 3vs3 brackets. Don't see much "overnight hotfixes" to those.
But, do go on and destroy the paladin class. Bit by bit.
Scrub company catering scrub players. That's what Blizzard has become.
It's no wonder the original WoW dev-team left...
Monday, 1 June 2009
Paladin Schmaladin no more?
The blogger Ferarro who has been writing the blog Paladin Schmaladin is apparently not who she or he appears to be.
To begin with, the blog itself is a fairly decent source on "How-To" for Paladins and whatnot. Lately, however, an unholy shitstorm has brewed up when it turns out that the writer of said blog has been lying through his/her teeth, claiming to be someone she/he isn't.
For starters, Ferarro claimed to be TechDarling. This claim was shot out of the sky when a warlock posted a link on the WoW forums to the site TechDarling and outed Ferarro as a fraud.
Recently, Ferarro closed down her blog, or rather, made it Private due to her having a stalker (stalking is bad, people, mmkay? Consult your doctor before practicing). I call BS on that, though. I think it's more along the fact that she's trying to save face as all the pictures you've come to associate with Ferarro are taken straight from TechDarling.
Reminds me of when a guy on a forum linked a picture to a girl claiming her to be his girlfriend only to be made into a fool when the girl on the picture actually posted and refuted his claims. But I digress...
WoW.com recently interviewed Ferarro, wanting to know more about her life as a blogger, paladin and game tester for Blizzard. After that article was posted, a few things happened.
1. Ferarro switched her blog over to Private Mode. Only accessible to those who got an invitation from her. However, you can still view a Google Cache of her page. Clicky!
2. Her Twitter page has been deleted.
3. Her character is no longer accessible on the Armory. I assume server transfer or name-change?
4. Her posts on Retpaladin.com are deleted and she's no longer writing for them. However, Slayton and the rest of the guys over at RetPaladin didn't delete her stuff. Apparently she's done that herself before dodging into shadows.
Ferarro also claimed that there have been 7 Ferarro's writing on Paladin Schmaladin. Check the cached site. There's a full-on explanation there.
Now, Wow.com did a little digging and unless these 7 Ferarro's live within a few miles of each other, they are the one and the same person. IP-addresses rarely lie.
Also, do note that all the comments on Ferarro's blog are moderated. All the "good" comments remain while the "bad" comments are deleted.
I think most paladins are rather upset with this as a person who claims to have a stalker have been doing a lot of stalking herself, as well as lying through her teeth claiming to be someone she isn't.
So, what now?
I don't know, really. Guess it's a matter of "wait and see what happens." WoW.com have given Ferarro a chance to come clean and explain things as they really are and not post some bullshit about there being multiple Ferarro's.
EDIT: Sarah Townsend (TechDarling) has posted a video response to this whole thing. Hop on over to her Blog to watch it. Also, Ferraro seems to have removed the whole explanation about there being 7 of her writing on Paladin Schmaladin.
To begin with, the blog itself is a fairly decent source on "How-To" for Paladins and whatnot. Lately, however, an unholy shitstorm has brewed up when it turns out that the writer of said blog has been lying through his/her teeth, claiming to be someone she/he isn't.
For starters, Ferarro claimed to be TechDarling. This claim was shot out of the sky when a warlock posted a link on the WoW forums to the site TechDarling and outed Ferarro as a fraud.
Recently, Ferarro closed down her blog, or rather, made it Private due to her having a stalker (stalking is bad, people, mmkay? Consult your doctor before practicing). I call BS on that, though. I think it's more along the fact that she's trying to save face as all the pictures you've come to associate with Ferarro are taken straight from TechDarling.
Reminds me of when a guy on a forum linked a picture to a girl claiming her to be his girlfriend only to be made into a fool when the girl on the picture actually posted and refuted his claims. But I digress...
WoW.com recently interviewed Ferarro, wanting to know more about her life as a blogger, paladin and game tester for Blizzard. After that article was posted, a few things happened.
1. Ferarro switched her blog over to Private Mode. Only accessible to those who got an invitation from her. However, you can still view a Google Cache of her page. Clicky!
2. Her Twitter page has been deleted.
3. Her character is no longer accessible on the Armory. I assume server transfer or name-change?
4. Her posts on Retpaladin.com are deleted and she's no longer writing for them. However, Slayton and the rest of the guys over at RetPaladin didn't delete her stuff. Apparently she's done that herself before dodging into shadows.
Ferarro also claimed that there have been 7 Ferarro's writing on Paladin Schmaladin. Check the cached site. There's a full-on explanation there.
Now, Wow.com did a little digging and unless these 7 Ferarro's live within a few miles of each other, they are the one and the same person. IP-addresses rarely lie.
Also, do note that all the comments on Ferarro's blog are moderated. All the "good" comments remain while the "bad" comments are deleted.
I think most paladins are rather upset with this as a person who claims to have a stalker have been doing a lot of stalking herself, as well as lying through her teeth claiming to be someone she isn't.
So, what now?
I don't know, really. Guess it's a matter of "wait and see what happens." WoW.com have given Ferarro a chance to come clean and explain things as they really are and not post some bullshit about there being multiple Ferarro's.
EDIT: Sarah Townsend (TechDarling) has posted a video response to this whole thing. Hop on over to her Blog to watch it. Also, Ferraro seems to have removed the whole explanation about there being 7 of her writing on Paladin Schmaladin.
Monday, 4 May 2009
"This isn't helpful. If you feel like your feedback isn't contributing anything, we would suggest that you just stop posting rather than posting about how you feel ignored. Smart players realize that we take community feedback into consideration when we make decisions."
Like you did pre-Wrath launch on the beta servers? Like you did on the PTR's where most of the general issues about the classes were completely ignored? Like you did the past few seasons where certain classes tore up the rankings and others were left in the gutter due to inadequate skills for the horrible piece of shit that is Arenas where you told everyone "the classes are fine"? Like you do now with all your knee-jerk nerfs and fixes?
Yes, I'm sure you do listen to the community GC. I'm sure you do...
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16903630963-only-a-handful-of-classes--comps-are-viable.html
Like you did pre-Wrath launch on the beta servers? Like you did on the PTR's where most of the general issues about the classes were completely ignored? Like you did the past few seasons where certain classes tore up the rankings and others were left in the gutter due to inadequate skills for the horrible piece of shit that is Arenas where you told everyone "the classes are fine"? Like you do now with all your knee-jerk nerfs and fixes?
Yes, I'm sure you do listen to the community GC. I'm sure you do...
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16903630963-only-a-handful-of-classes--comps-are-viable.html
Saturday, 14 March 2009
Spritual Attunement removed
In the latest PTR build they've removed Spiritual Attunement and made it a deep prot talent. Way to go fucking ret paladins over. I sincerely hope JotW is getting buffed up to 30% or similar which would enable us to sustain a DPS rotation without going dry in the first 30 seconds of the fight.
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Blessing of Wisdom / Mana Spring Totem change
Just when you think you've seen all the stupidity Blizzard could pull out of their respective asses, here comes another one.
Come patch 3.1 Blessing of Wisdom and Mana Spring Totem is going to be mutually exclusive. Meaning you can either get one or the other as they won't stack anymore.
This is yet another backhanded "fix" that wasn't necessary. Especially not when they said that "Shaman regen is exactly where we want it." 'Exactly where you want it for the moment; wait for us to nerf every other class first. We'll get back to you.'
They made a mistake with Replenishment, making it a bit more powerful than they hoped for and instead of tuning it they proceed to make this retarded fix that no one asked for.
I don't know who the Dev's are raiding with or how their internal testing is being done but one thing is for sure, it's not in the same environment as the rest of us else they wouldn't make these kind of idiotic changes.
A quote from GC: "Additionally, we have been trying to tone down mana regeneration in large groups, and were concerned raids would feel the need to stack paladins or especially shaman to have enough Mana Spring totems."
That has NEVER been the issue for as long as I've raided and I have NEVER heard of any proper raid guild who are stacking shamans for mana spring totems. Way to go making shit up.
"We have also been trying to get more benefits out of the party and into the raid, and Mana Spring previously was still a party only buff. With this change, if there is only one paladin, he or she can bring Blessing of Kings while the shaman offers Mana Spring. If there are two paladins and the second offers Blessing of Wisdom, then the shaman can offer healing or cleansing with their water totem instead."
So basically, GC and his gang of retards wants to pigeon-hole shamans into a heal/cleanse-bot... now where have I seen that before? Hmm... Oh yeah! Paladins in vanilla WoW! It works the other way, too. If, as GC says, you stack shamans in a raid (god knows why you would), the Paladin player becomes a heal/cleanse bot as the Shamans already bring whatever buffs the paladin has - bar Kings - returning us to square 1. In the back of the raids doing absolutely fuck all, which is where we didn't want to be for the past 3 years and now they seem intent on moving us back there again.
Good job, Blizzard Dev Team. Once again you show your complete and utter incompetence. Fixing things that weren't broken to begin with, backhanded fixes because of your precious Arena E-Sport (ENOUGH ALREADY! Quit fucking up PvE with your god damn awful PvP!) and nerfs that make no sense whatsoever.
By the way, anyone else find it ironic that Eyonix is the harbinger of bad news? I'm sure the Warlock community can relate.
Come patch 3.1 Blessing of Wisdom and Mana Spring Totem is going to be mutually exclusive. Meaning you can either get one or the other as they won't stack anymore.
This is yet another backhanded "fix" that wasn't necessary. Especially not when they said that "Shaman regen is exactly where we want it." 'Exactly where you want it for the moment; wait for us to nerf every other class first. We'll get back to you.'
They made a mistake with Replenishment, making it a bit more powerful than they hoped for and instead of tuning it they proceed to make this retarded fix that no one asked for.
I don't know who the Dev's are raiding with or how their internal testing is being done but one thing is for sure, it's not in the same environment as the rest of us else they wouldn't make these kind of idiotic changes.
A quote from GC: "Additionally, we have been trying to tone down mana regeneration in large groups, and were concerned raids would feel the need to stack paladins or especially shaman to have enough Mana Spring totems."
That has NEVER been the issue for as long as I've raided and I have NEVER heard of any proper raid guild who are stacking shamans for mana spring totems. Way to go making shit up.
"We have also been trying to get more benefits out of the party and into the raid, and Mana Spring previously was still a party only buff. With this change, if there is only one paladin, he or she can bring Blessing of Kings while the shaman offers Mana Spring. If there are two paladins and the second offers Blessing of Wisdom, then the shaman can offer healing or cleansing with their water totem instead."
So basically, GC and his gang of retards wants to pigeon-hole shamans into a heal/cleanse-bot... now where have I seen that before? Hmm... Oh yeah! Paladins in vanilla WoW! It works the other way, too. If, as GC says, you stack shamans in a raid (god knows why you would), the Paladin player becomes a heal/cleanse bot as the Shamans already bring whatever buffs the paladin has - bar Kings - returning us to square 1. In the back of the raids doing absolutely fuck all, which is where we didn't want to be for the past 3 years and now they seem intent on moving us back there again.
Good job, Blizzard Dev Team. Once again you show your complete and utter incompetence. Fixing things that weren't broken to begin with, backhanded fixes because of your precious Arena E-Sport (ENOUGH ALREADY! Quit fucking up PvE with your god damn awful PvP!) and nerfs that make no sense whatsoever.
By the way, anyone else find it ironic that Eyonix is the harbinger of bad news? I'm sure the Warlock community can relate.
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Arena and the LOLFAIL it is.
So Season 5 has been around for a while now and the utter failure that is Arena is blazing like a supernova in the heavens. Season 1 was a nice mix of every class and spec and was considered one of the more balanced seasons of Arena.
Then came the druid domination of the next four following seasons.
Now at Season 5 and Wrath of the Lich King, where everyone and his mother has HP and damage output to take down a God, has made the Arenas the butt-end of a joke that was bad before and is just horrible now.
You have Arena maps that are bugged to the point where people are either stuck in one place or simply fall through the floor, dying instantly.
You have certain classes and specs that - once again - dominate the Arenas, making anyone not playing that class and/or spec being left in the gutter. Again.
Déja Vú, anyone?
To begin with, you had only Team Rating. Then came Personal Rating which was supposed to balance the Arenas out a bit. Didn't help a lot... like nothing at all.
Now we have Hidden Rating. Oh this is the best thing yet. In an attempt to stop 2k+ rated teams to disband and re-form a new team to steamroll freshly started 1500-rated teams for easy points, this new rating supposedly makes matchmaking better... or not at all. Take your pick.
Now, this rating, I don't know what they (Dev team) were smoking when they thought of this, is seriously flawed. You are gaining much less for, say, defeating a higher rated team and lose much more should aforementioned team defeat you.
This screenshot says it all: (click to enlarge)
Wait... back up a bit. You lose rating ... even if you win the match?
How retarded do you have to be to not see how badly implemented this is? I guess the people at internal testing, QA and whatnot are too busy smoking something to actually test stuff.. whoah. Déja Vú, anyone?
But, it's okay. According to Ghostcrawler, it'll be better once you get some Resilience.
Then came the druid domination of the next four following seasons.
Now at Season 5 and Wrath of the Lich King, where everyone and his mother has HP and damage output to take down a God, has made the Arenas the butt-end of a joke that was bad before and is just horrible now.
You have Arena maps that are bugged to the point where people are either stuck in one place or simply fall through the floor, dying instantly.
You have certain classes and specs that - once again - dominate the Arenas, making anyone not playing that class and/or spec being left in the gutter. Again.
Déja Vú, anyone?
To begin with, you had only Team Rating. Then came Personal Rating which was supposed to balance the Arenas out a bit. Didn't help a lot... like nothing at all.
Now we have Hidden Rating. Oh this is the best thing yet. In an attempt to stop 2k+ rated teams to disband and re-form a new team to steamroll freshly started 1500-rated teams for easy points, this new rating supposedly makes matchmaking better... or not at all. Take your pick.
Now, this rating, I don't know what they (Dev team) were smoking when they thought of this, is seriously flawed. You are gaining much less for, say, defeating a higher rated team and lose much more should aforementioned team defeat you.
This screenshot says it all: (click to enlarge)
Wait... back up a bit. You lose rating ... even if you win the match?
How retarded do you have to be to not see how badly implemented this is? I guess the people at internal testing, QA and whatnot are too busy smoking something to actually test stuff.. whoah. Déja Vú, anyone?
But, it's okay. According to Ghostcrawler, it'll be better once you get some Resilience.
Monday, 15 December 2008
Tier 7 set. A closer look & comparison
So WotLK is upon us with all its splendor and all that. I've leveled to 80 and with no small amount of mana issues, but that's neither here nor there. I figured we'd take a closer look on the next tier set. Tier 7, Heroes/Valorous Redemption Battlegear.
At first glance it looks fairly decent. One thing that you quickly notice is that there's no intellect on our gear. Blizzard decided to shape paladins to become more like warriors, and to share gear with warriors and death knights.
Right.
So let's take a look at the gear.
There are two types. Heroes Redemption Battlegear - which you can get from Normal Naxx / Heroic badges (Emblems of Heroism) and Valorous Redemption which you get from Heroic Naxx / Sartharion, et al (Emblems of Valor).
Starting off with the Heroes Redemption.
Heroes Redemption Chestpiece
2241 Armor
73 strength
103 Stamina
1x Red Socket
1x Yellow Socket
+6 Haste as Socket bonus
Adds 74 crit rating
Adds 45 haste rating.
The first thought that crosses my mind is: Why is there no hit? And why do we have a Haste rating socket bonus when it would've been far more beneficial with strength or crit?
Take a look at the warrior equivalent, the Heroes Dreadnaught Battlegear.
Heroes Dreadnaught Breastplate
2241 Armor
73 Strength
90 Stamina
1x Red Socket
1x Blue Socket
Socket bonus adds +6 hit rating
Adds 52 hit rating
Adds 81 Crit rating.
Why is it that the warrior piece is ten leagues better than the paladin piece? The small amount of difference in stamina is negligible for the awesome stats you get. 52 hit. 81 crit. Socket bonus that adds 6 extra hit. I want that!
Let's take a look at the Valorous Redemption pieces.
Paladins have:
Valorous Chestplate
2241 Armor
+73 Strength
+103 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Haste Rating
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 84 (1.83% @ L80).
Equip: Improves haste rating by 50 (1.52% @ L80).
Warriors have:
2298 Armor
+73 Strength
+100 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Hit Rating
Equip: Improves hit rating by 66 (2.01% @ L80).
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 92 (2% @ L80).
And once more, the warrior piece outshines the paladin piece. Warriors have everything a paladin wants on their set. Haste is moderately decent but we (paladins) benefit more from having a large crit base to act upon. Why is this taken away in favour of haste?
A full comparison between the paladin and warrior tier sets shows that paladins - once again - drew the short end of the stick. Check this out.
Paladins - Heroes Redemption set:
Summary:
Strength: +351
Stamina: +452
Armour: +9105
Crit rating: +222
Haste rating: +232
Hit rating: +68
Sockets: 1x Meta, 3x Red, 3x Yellow, 1x Blue
Warriors - Heroes Dreadnaught set:
Summary:
Strength: +345
Stamina: +439
Armor: +9105
Armor penetration rating: +68
Critical strike rating: +284
Expertise rating: +105
Hit rating: +85
Sockets: 1x Meta, 3x red, 2x Yellow, 2x Blue
Wow...
Warriors get more crit, more hit, Armor Penetration, Expertise which is absoutely awesome and far more balanced stats overall.
The devs wanted Paladins to be more like warriors and to share the same gear and yet the utter failure that is the Paladin tier 7 set shows that we'll never get the same good stuff warriors have.
Paladins aren't Warriors, I'm quite well aware of that, but why can't we get some decent god damn set bonuses?
"We would want every class to be within 5% of each other in terms of DPS." Everyone but paladins, yes? Give us some proper set bonuses. We couldn't care less about haste. Give us crit, or Expertise as they benefit us far more than haste does. Hell, give us socket bonuses for Strength if need be as it pushes our AP upwards.
The utter failure that is our tier set becomes even more apparent when you look at the Valorous Redemption items from the heroic raid dungeons.
Paladins Summary:
Strength: +397
Stamina: +472
Armor: +9335
Critical strike: +259
Haste rating: +270
Hit rating: +83
Sockets: 1x Meta, 3x Red, 3x Yellow, 1x Blue
Warriors Summary:
Strength: +385
Stamina: +495
Armor: +9335
Armor penetration: +86
Critical strike: +326
Expertise rating: +116
Hit rating: +108
Sockets: 1x Meta, 3x red, 2x Yellow, 2x Blue
All the good stuff ended up on the warrior tier, again, and we get stuck with the half-assed tier set once more.
Blizzard fails once again in creating something even remotely decent for us. Hell, even some of the Heroic blue items are better than this crap.
"We want Paladins to be more like warriors." Then give us a proper set with proper bonuses, then.
At first glance it looks fairly decent. One thing that you quickly notice is that there's no intellect on our gear. Blizzard decided to shape paladins to become more like warriors, and to share gear with warriors and death knights.
Right.
So let's take a look at the gear.
There are two types. Heroes Redemption Battlegear - which you can get from Normal Naxx / Heroic badges (Emblems of Heroism) and Valorous Redemption which you get from Heroic Naxx / Sartharion, et al (Emblems of Valor).
Starting off with the Heroes Redemption.
Heroes Redemption Chestpiece
2241 Armor
73 strength
103 Stamina
1x Red Socket
1x Yellow Socket
+6 Haste as Socket bonus
Adds 74 crit rating
Adds 45 haste rating.
The first thought that crosses my mind is: Why is there no hit? And why do we have a Haste rating socket bonus when it would've been far more beneficial with strength or crit?
Take a look at the warrior equivalent, the Heroes Dreadnaught Battlegear.
Heroes Dreadnaught Breastplate
2241 Armor
73 Strength
90 Stamina
1x Red Socket
1x Blue Socket
Socket bonus adds +6 hit rating
Adds 52 hit rating
Adds 81 Crit rating.
Why is it that the warrior piece is ten leagues better than the paladin piece? The small amount of difference in stamina is negligible for the awesome stats you get. 52 hit. 81 crit. Socket bonus that adds 6 extra hit. I want that!
Let's take a look at the Valorous Redemption pieces.
Paladins have:
Valorous Chestplate
2241 Armor
+73 Strength
+103 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Haste Rating
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 84 (1.83% @ L80).
Equip: Improves haste rating by 50 (1.52% @ L80).
Warriors have:
2298 Armor
+73 Strength
+100 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Hit Rating
Equip: Improves hit rating by 66 (2.01% @ L80).
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 92 (2% @ L80).
And once more, the warrior piece outshines the paladin piece. Warriors have everything a paladin wants on their set. Haste is moderately decent but we (paladins) benefit more from having a large crit base to act upon. Why is this taken away in favour of haste?
A full comparison between the paladin and warrior tier sets shows that paladins - once again - drew the short end of the stick. Check this out.
Paladins - Heroes Redemption set:
Summary:
Strength: +351
Stamina: +452
Armour: +9105
Crit rating: +222
Haste rating: +232
Hit rating: +68
Sockets: 1x Meta, 3x Red, 3x Yellow, 1x Blue
Warriors - Heroes Dreadnaught set:
Summary:
Strength: +345
Stamina: +439
Armor: +9105
Armor penetration rating: +68
Critical strike rating: +284
Expertise rating: +105
Hit rating: +85
Sockets: 1x Meta, 3x red, 2x Yellow, 2x Blue
Wow...
Warriors get more crit, more hit, Armor Penetration, Expertise which is absoutely awesome and far more balanced stats overall.
The devs wanted Paladins to be more like warriors and to share the same gear and yet the utter failure that is the Paladin tier 7 set shows that we'll never get the same good stuff warriors have.
Paladins aren't Warriors, I'm quite well aware of that, but why can't we get some decent god damn set bonuses?
"We would want every class to be within 5% of each other in terms of DPS." Everyone but paladins, yes? Give us some proper set bonuses. We couldn't care less about haste. Give us crit, or Expertise as they benefit us far more than haste does. Hell, give us socket bonuses for Strength if need be as it pushes our AP upwards.
The utter failure that is our tier set becomes even more apparent when you look at the Valorous Redemption items from the heroic raid dungeons.
Paladins Summary:
Strength: +397
Stamina: +472
Armor: +9335
Critical strike: +259
Haste rating: +270
Hit rating: +83
Sockets: 1x Meta, 3x Red, 3x Yellow, 1x Blue
Warriors Summary:
Strength: +385
Stamina: +495
Armor: +9335
Armor penetration: +86
Critical strike: +326
Expertise rating: +116
Hit rating: +108
Sockets: 1x Meta, 3x red, 2x Yellow, 2x Blue
All the good stuff ended up on the warrior tier, again, and we get stuck with the half-assed tier set once more.
Blizzard fails once again in creating something even remotely decent for us. Hell, even some of the Heroic blue items are better than this crap.
"We want Paladins to be more like warriors." Then give us a proper set with proper bonuses, then.
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Memorable Ghostcrawler Quotes
Ghostcrawler has been very active on the forums, outlining what nerf we're gonna get and how hard they're gonna ram it up our ass. For those who've missed some of the quotes he's said from Blizzcon, the Beta forums and paladin forums in general, here's a little list.
"We do very extensive testing on all aspects of combat balance. Remember, as a large company we have access to testing capabilities far beyond that of the average player. As developers of the game, we also have access to a large number of tools that we don't make public."
Emboldened part: Really?
"The design was not in truth to nerf Ret pallies into the ground. That should be obvious.
No? Your latest changes sure shows otherwise.
If you are not getting owned by them at least sometimes, then they were nerfed too hard.
Uh-huh...
If you are still getting owned by them all the time, then they weren't nerfed hard enough.
OR you could just be such a bad player that needs to L2P? Why does everything have to revole around us being shafted time and time again? Enough already, for God's sake. If you don't know what to do with the paladin class, then hire someone who does! Your knee-jerk reactions and hotfix nerfs are over the top.
"I think we're in a sweet spot at the moment, but I've also thought that before, so let's just see how it feels for a few weeks. :)"
And by weeks you mean months or years, as you properly showed previously.
"We LOVE Ret paladins."
Hahahaha.
"We need to start getting more testing on these changes right away to see what they do to Retribution in PvE and PvP."
Right away? What the hell have we been doing during Beta and the PTR's if not testing?!
"We were worried Arms warriors were doing too much damage, sometimes, when the RNG was in their favor. We attempted to fix that by lowering the proc rate of Sudden Death, but of course the RNG aspect just went up when we did that. We still might try alternative implementations, a 50 rage max Exectute perhaps, but we will probably not mess with it until we see Arms at 80 on Live in PvP and PvE to get a better idea of how the build is doing."
Good to see you're doing the same thing to all classes.... oh wait!
"I also want to stress that we do not make balance decisions based on the QQ of other classes."
No, of course not... That would mean the public outcry of people who weren't used to getting owned by a paladin or outdamaged by one had nothing to do with the current nerfs we've received, right? RIGHT?!
And to quote Zilea:
"We are now less than 2 weeks from the release of WotLK, and as Blizzard scrambles to nerf all of the overpowered classes in record time (not even applying the changes to actual patches, but hotfixes), you have to wonder what happened the past year and a half as druids ran wild without not more than a glance as they tore up the brackets. Were Blizzard employees asleep at the switch?"
No, they were busy playing those druids to care much about every other class.
"We think we know how to adjust Arcane to make their rotations work better in PvE (which will also help the PvP burst at the same time). It involves changing a couple of spells though so it will take some time and isn't the kind of thing easily hotfixed (as it will make tooltips incorrect)."
But it's perfectly fine for paladin tooltips to be misleading and incorrect, right?
"We still feel like we're ahead of where we were on Burning Crusader with a more experienced team. So we're not yet panicked about having enough testing time."
Another lovely quote from GC when people started to ask why Paladins weren't given a pass of their skills / Talents during Alpha Testing.
"I'm attempting to post this early since the Ret community felt totally surprised last time."
The nerf came hotfixed in about an hour later. So much for early posting...
"On bosses in PvE, they could hit every button that was up and still have mana left to be very high on healing meters. So we do think the mana regen was too generous in both PvP and PvE cases."
That's Judgement of Light and the amount of mana we have or had left has absolutely fuck all impact on how much JoL heals for.
"We are also sympathetic to the notion that if Ret can't do insane burst damage, that the spec might need other tools to be viable in PvP. We're exploring this now..."
WE ARE WAITING!!
"We want to be very surgical about what we do."
Surgical as in attempting to fix a rat infestation with a tactical nuke...
"We want everyone to be within 5% of each other in terms of DPS."
Everyone but paladins, amirite?
"We don't want to balance a class around "well this guy can do a lot but runs out of mana really fast." That's not a fun mechanic."
No? Then why nerf JotW to 15%? Contradicting yourself much?
"Yes, we could hire 10 or 30 or 100 more class designers and have them all posting happily away in the forums. I don't think this actually improves class design though. With the group we have now, it is very easy for us all to get in one room and discuss ideas and just otherwise stay in tight sync. I think we would lose that by adding a lot of additional designers."
Guess it's time to start looking for those Dev's as you've clearly no fucking idea what you're doing anymore.
"Here is just a big brain dump on Arcane mages. Warning: I am not specifically talking about any changes we might make. We might make none at all. But here are our thoughts at the moment.
1) It's fun to be able to run around and do instant Barrages.
2) Barrage does a ton of damage quickly, possibly too much, and it can't be interrupted.
3) Locking Arcane out of its school is very painful for them (no Blink etc.). Does this balance them at all?
4) Arcane Blast feels a little awkward to use and doesn't do enough dps.
5) One way to change Arcane would be to require you to build up 2 Blasts in order to get the big Barrage numbers, kind of like a Shatter Combo if you will.
6) This would make their PvE rotation more interesting too.
7) Is there enough skill involved in doing Arcane PvP, or is it all just killing time until Barrage's cooldown is up?"
It's good that paladins don't have such issu- oh wait!
"We do very extensive testing on all aspects of combat balance. Remember, as a large company we have access to testing capabilities far beyond that of the average player. As developers of the game, we also have access to a large number of tools that we don't make public."
Emboldened part: Really?
"The design was not in truth to nerf Ret pallies into the ground. That should be obvious.
No? Your latest changes sure shows otherwise.
If you are not getting owned by them at least sometimes, then they were nerfed too hard.
Uh-huh...
If you are still getting owned by them all the time, then they weren't nerfed hard enough.
OR you could just be such a bad player that needs to L2P? Why does everything have to revole around us being shafted time and time again? Enough already, for God's sake. If you don't know what to do with the paladin class, then hire someone who does! Your knee-jerk reactions and hotfix nerfs are over the top.
"I think we're in a sweet spot at the moment, but I've also thought that before, so let's just see how it feels for a few weeks. :)"
And by weeks you mean months or years, as you properly showed previously.
"We LOVE Ret paladins."
Hahahaha.
"We need to start getting more testing on these changes right away to see what they do to Retribution in PvE and PvP."
Right away? What the hell have we been doing during Beta and the PTR's if not testing?!
"We were worried Arms warriors were doing too much damage, sometimes, when the RNG was in their favor. We attempted to fix that by lowering the proc rate of Sudden Death, but of course the RNG aspect just went up when we did that. We still might try alternative implementations, a 50 rage max Exectute perhaps, but we will probably not mess with it until we see Arms at 80 on Live in PvP and PvE to get a better idea of how the build is doing."
Good to see you're doing the same thing to all classes.... oh wait!
"I also want to stress that we do not make balance decisions based on the QQ of other classes."
No, of course not... That would mean the public outcry of people who weren't used to getting owned by a paladin or outdamaged by one had nothing to do with the current nerfs we've received, right? RIGHT?!
And to quote Zilea:
"We are now less than 2 weeks from the release of WotLK, and as Blizzard scrambles to nerf all of the overpowered classes in record time (not even applying the changes to actual patches, but hotfixes), you have to wonder what happened the past year and a half as druids ran wild without not more than a glance as they tore up the brackets. Were Blizzard employees asleep at the switch?"
No, they were busy playing those druids to care much about every other class.
"We think we know how to adjust Arcane to make their rotations work better in PvE (which will also help the PvP burst at the same time). It involves changing a couple of spells though so it will take some time and isn't the kind of thing easily hotfixed (as it will make tooltips incorrect)."
But it's perfectly fine for paladin tooltips to be misleading and incorrect, right?
"We still feel like we're ahead of where we were on Burning Crusader with a more experienced team. So we're not yet panicked about having enough testing time."
Another lovely quote from GC when people started to ask why Paladins weren't given a pass of their skills / Talents during Alpha Testing.
"I'm attempting to post this early since the Ret community felt totally surprised last time."
The nerf came hotfixed in about an hour later. So much for early posting...
"On bosses in PvE, they could hit every button that was up and still have mana left to be very high on healing meters. So we do think the mana regen was too generous in both PvP and PvE cases."
That's Judgement of Light and the amount of mana we have or had left has absolutely fuck all impact on how much JoL heals for.
"We are also sympathetic to the notion that if Ret can't do insane burst damage, that the spec might need other tools to be viable in PvP. We're exploring this now..."
WE ARE WAITING!!
"We want to be very surgical about what we do."
Surgical as in attempting to fix a rat infestation with a tactical nuke...
"We want everyone to be within 5% of each other in terms of DPS."
Everyone but paladins, amirite?
"We don't want to balance a class around "well this guy can do a lot but runs out of mana really fast." That's not a fun mechanic."
No? Then why nerf JotW to 15%? Contradicting yourself much?
"Yes, we could hire 10 or 30 or 100 more class designers and have them all posting happily away in the forums. I don't think this actually improves class design though. With the group we have now, it is very easy for us all to get in one room and discuss ideas and just otherwise stay in tight sync. I think we would lose that by adding a lot of additional designers."
Guess it's time to start looking for those Dev's as you've clearly no fucking idea what you're doing anymore.
"Here is just a big brain dump on Arcane mages. Warning: I am not specifically talking about any changes we might make. We might make none at all. But here are our thoughts at the moment.
1) It's fun to be able to run around and do instant Barrages.
2) Barrage does a ton of damage quickly, possibly too much, and it can't be interrupted.
3) Locking Arcane out of its school is very painful for them (no Blink etc.). Does this balance them at all?
4) Arcane Blast feels a little awkward to use and doesn't do enough dps.
5) One way to change Arcane would be to require you to build up 2 Blasts in order to get the big Barrage numbers, kind of like a Shatter Combo if you will.
6) This would make their PvE rotation more interesting too.
7) Is there enough skill involved in doing Arcane PvP, or is it all just killing time until Barrage's cooldown is up?"
It's good that paladins don't have such issu- oh wait!
Saturday, 1 November 2008
Paladin Nerfs
So reading the class nerfs that has recently come to pass, it's clear as a day that Blizzard have no idea what to do with the Paladin class. It's not only Retribution getting the shaft, it's ALL specs of the Paladin class. Holy and Prot takes a huge hit, too.
But why, though? What has caused the monkeys at the Dev team to hate the paladins so? It's clear that they don't like hybrids that much. Or rather, they do since Druids seem to dominate the game in every aspect imaginable.
They can tank pretty damn good, they have immense armour and damage reduction while in bear form and their HP is nothing short of astounding. They have enough tools to make sure the mob sticks to them if engaged. If I am to belive my friend, he says they can do some pretty mean damage too in bear form too.
So why do Paladins get shafted?
It's simple, really. Oh so simple.
I should preface this post by stating that I have absolutely no insider information of any kind about their corporate workings...only an eye for the obvious.
You see, when WoW was released, it did not have these monkeys on the Dev Team. The monkeys being Jeff Kaplan (Tigole Bitties), Tom Chilton (Kalgan) and Alex Afrasiabi (Furor Planedefiler). These guys were hardcore Everquest guild leaders, the sort of people who thought 24 hour raids should be the next olympic sport. Between them is zero prior MMORPG design experience.
Furor and Tigole hated hybrid classes. Their anti-hybrid stance was notorious in Everquest. Furor was an obnoxious baby who organized server crash protests because Paladins out-tanked him in the EQ Planes of Power expansion. He was a loudmouthed brat who didn't care a lick about taking all the fun out of the game for other people.
Tigole was his best friend.
When Vivendi bought Blizzard, much of Blizzard's developing talent left. Some of these were Diablo and Starcraft developers. They went to various other projects, including Hellgate: London and Arenanet. It's unclear whether they were fired, or merely quit.
With several of the original WoW developers gone, these two geniuses were suddenly in positions of influence, in a game with three hybrid classes. Two guys who crashed servers because, for whatever petty and childish reason, they saw red whenever someone with a mana bar out-tanked Furor's pwecious warrior.
Talk about a perfect storm.
Then the class nerfs began.
Paladins suffered from nerf after nerf, beginning with a complete gutting of the class one week before the end of open beta. This culminated in a class review wherein the class was outright lied to by CMs, their forum trolls were praised, and almost none of their major concerns were addressed. They became a pure support class, almost identical to the Everquest Cleric. Big surprise, nobody wants to play them, either. Seen how many endgame WoW Ret Paladins there are? The latest Judgement of the Wise nerf only proves the point. Many will quit or reroll. Having your class being treated like a diseased dog for 3+ years with promises of "no nerfs, just tweaks" and then being lied to just doesn't sit well.
And now, in the next expansion "Wrath of the Lich King", Paladins suffer yet more nerfs. Divine Shield and Avenging Wrath should've been mutually exclusive. If you use one, the other should've been locked out until it fades. A post made by a player on the US Beta board said the two should be made to function like a "trinket". Use one, the other is placed on a 20-30sec cooldown making it impossible to use them both at the same time.. But Blizzard in all their vaunted wisdom placed AW and DS on a 2 minute Forbearance cooldown.
This is not a nerf to Retribution spec. It's a nerf to ALL specs. From here on out, it's clear they've no idea what to do with the Paladin class.
This begs the question, why are only Paladins the ones who have to suffer this atrocity? Why don't Warriors - for example - get an "Exhaustion" debuff when they use Death Wish or Mages using Arcane Power?
Ghostcrawler - the newest Dev in the bunch of monkeys responsible for class balancing - said at the start of WotLK Beta that they (Blizzard) wanted every class to be within 5% of each other in terms of DPS in the expansion. Every class except Paladins, apparently.
Shamans fell behind as other classes saw buffs. They were no longer PvP gods, and their PvE abilities were already behind. When their class review came around, they received very little feedback from CMs, their concerns were ignored, and they basically turned into this mishmash of burst damage and poor support, which no one really wanted.
Druids were treated better. Then again, they have several tame CMs. As a result, they enjoyed a great class review. Too bad it didn't last: Like the other hybrids, itemization and talents still pigeonholed them into pure support roles. Things got better in The Burning Crusade but there are still lots of issues they want cleared up.
Now combine this with World of Warcraft's raiding endgame focus (I mentioned they were EQ raid guild leaders?), and you have a situation where one-third of character classes are being forced to do something they didn't sign up for, from the moment they hit level 70 until they either reroll or move on.
Oh, and World of Warcraft's PVP designer was Tom Chilton ("Kalgan"), the man responsible for the overwhelmingly unpopular Ultima Online: Age of Shadows expansion. His view of PvP basically wrecked PvP in UO. It's good to know that Blizzard did their homework before they made their hiring decisions. His view was that weapons = skill. Which basically turned the whole PvP scene into a mockery of what it used to be.
Blizzard doesn't even hide their class preferences anymore. They have basically baited the entire WoW community, read most of WoW subscribers, into BC and now they are left with not much to do. Complete bait and switch. It's no surprise that most call TBC The Beta Crusade.
Vivendi buying Blizzard was viewed with great scepticism from the playerbase as they (Vivendi) had mostly been active in the TV scene and little to none in the gaming scene. They've also bought Sierra (who gave us Leisure Suit Larry). It's from here on out that the proverbial excrement started to hit the rotating blades.
And now, Activision has shat on the cake, too. Activision, if you don' tknow it already, are responsible for the quite popular Guitar Hero games. They've also had a hand in making Doom 3 and the Call of Duty games. And those are really their only gems. The rest range from horrible games based on movies and kiddie games no kid ever plays.
Blizzard is Blizzard in name only. A lot of the original development team are working on new pursuits (Guild Wars, I've also heard they're involved with WAR). I'm sure a lot of them are very bitter about the fact WoW is now a polished version of Everquest with tons of fun lore to play around with.
Oh and take a look at this gem:
Déja Vu, anyone?
I, personally, have lost all respect and hope for Blizzard's Dev team. They have absolutely no idea how to fix the paladin class and I'm not going to sit around and wait for them to pull their thumbs out of their asses and start listening to the playerbase who could balance this game better than the monkeys in the Dev Department could.
But why, though? What has caused the monkeys at the Dev team to hate the paladins so? It's clear that they don't like hybrids that much. Or rather, they do since Druids seem to dominate the game in every aspect imaginable.
They can tank pretty damn good, they have immense armour and damage reduction while in bear form and their HP is nothing short of astounding. They have enough tools to make sure the mob sticks to them if engaged. If I am to belive my friend, he says they can do some pretty mean damage too in bear form too.
So why do Paladins get shafted?
It's simple, really. Oh so simple.
I should preface this post by stating that I have absolutely no insider information of any kind about their corporate workings...only an eye for the obvious.
You see, when WoW was released, it did not have these monkeys on the Dev Team. The monkeys being Jeff Kaplan (Tigole Bitties), Tom Chilton (Kalgan) and Alex Afrasiabi (Furor Planedefiler). These guys were hardcore Everquest guild leaders, the sort of people who thought 24 hour raids should be the next olympic sport. Between them is zero prior MMORPG design experience.
Furor and Tigole hated hybrid classes. Their anti-hybrid stance was notorious in Everquest. Furor was an obnoxious baby who organized server crash protests because Paladins out-tanked him in the EQ Planes of Power expansion. He was a loudmouthed brat who didn't care a lick about taking all the fun out of the game for other people.
Tigole was his best friend.
When Vivendi bought Blizzard, much of Blizzard's developing talent left. Some of these were Diablo and Starcraft developers. They went to various other projects, including Hellgate: London and Arenanet. It's unclear whether they were fired, or merely quit.
With several of the original WoW developers gone, these two geniuses were suddenly in positions of influence, in a game with three hybrid classes. Two guys who crashed servers because, for whatever petty and childish reason, they saw red whenever someone with a mana bar out-tanked Furor's pwecious warrior.
Talk about a perfect storm.
Then the class nerfs began.
Paladins suffered from nerf after nerf, beginning with a complete gutting of the class one week before the end of open beta. This culminated in a class review wherein the class was outright lied to by CMs, their forum trolls were praised, and almost none of their major concerns were addressed. They became a pure support class, almost identical to the Everquest Cleric. Big surprise, nobody wants to play them, either. Seen how many endgame WoW Ret Paladins there are? The latest Judgement of the Wise nerf only proves the point. Many will quit or reroll. Having your class being treated like a diseased dog for 3+ years with promises of "no nerfs, just tweaks" and then being lied to just doesn't sit well.
And now, in the next expansion "Wrath of the Lich King", Paladins suffer yet more nerfs. Divine Shield and Avenging Wrath should've been mutually exclusive. If you use one, the other should've been locked out until it fades. A post made by a player on the US Beta board said the two should be made to function like a "trinket". Use one, the other is placed on a 20-30sec cooldown making it impossible to use them both at the same time.. But Blizzard in all their vaunted wisdom placed AW and DS on a 2 minute Forbearance cooldown.
This is not a nerf to Retribution spec. It's a nerf to ALL specs. From here on out, it's clear they've no idea what to do with the Paladin class.
This begs the question, why are only Paladins the ones who have to suffer this atrocity? Why don't Warriors - for example - get an "Exhaustion" debuff when they use Death Wish or Mages using Arcane Power?
Ghostcrawler - the newest Dev in the bunch of monkeys responsible for class balancing - said at the start of WotLK Beta that they (Blizzard) wanted every class to be within 5% of each other in terms of DPS in the expansion. Every class except Paladins, apparently.
Shamans fell behind as other classes saw buffs. They were no longer PvP gods, and their PvE abilities were already behind. When their class review came around, they received very little feedback from CMs, their concerns were ignored, and they basically turned into this mishmash of burst damage and poor support, which no one really wanted.
Druids were treated better. Then again, they have several tame CMs. As a result, they enjoyed a great class review. Too bad it didn't last: Like the other hybrids, itemization and talents still pigeonholed them into pure support roles. Things got better in The Burning Crusade but there are still lots of issues they want cleared up.
Now combine this with World of Warcraft's raiding endgame focus (I mentioned they were EQ raid guild leaders?), and you have a situation where one-third of character classes are being forced to do something they didn't sign up for, from the moment they hit level 70 until they either reroll or move on.
Oh, and World of Warcraft's PVP designer was Tom Chilton ("Kalgan"), the man responsible for the overwhelmingly unpopular Ultima Online: Age of Shadows expansion. His view of PvP basically wrecked PvP in UO. It's good to know that Blizzard did their homework before they made their hiring decisions. His view was that weapons = skill. Which basically turned the whole PvP scene into a mockery of what it used to be.
Blizzard doesn't even hide their class preferences anymore. They have basically baited the entire WoW community, read most of WoW subscribers, into BC and now they are left with not much to do. Complete bait and switch. It's no surprise that most call TBC The Beta Crusade.
Vivendi buying Blizzard was viewed with great scepticism from the playerbase as they (Vivendi) had mostly been active in the TV scene and little to none in the gaming scene. They've also bought Sierra (who gave us Leisure Suit Larry). It's from here on out that the proverbial excrement started to hit the rotating blades.
And now, Activision has shat on the cake, too. Activision, if you don' tknow it already, are responsible for the quite popular Guitar Hero games. They've also had a hand in making Doom 3 and the Call of Duty games. And those are really their only gems. The rest range from horrible games based on movies and kiddie games no kid ever plays.
Blizzard is Blizzard in name only. A lot of the original development team are working on new pursuits (Guild Wars, I've also heard they're involved with WAR). I'm sure a lot of them are very bitter about the fact WoW is now a polished version of Everquest with tons of fun lore to play around with.
Oh and take a look at this gem:
Déja Vu, anyone?
I, personally, have lost all respect and hope for Blizzard's Dev team. They have absolutely no idea how to fix the paladin class and I'm not going to sit around and wait for them to pull their thumbs out of their asses and start listening to the playerbase who could balance this game better than the monkeys in the Dev Department could.
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