Blizzard Back-Hands Paladins

You know they just never cease to amaze me.  Not long ago I was complaining about how badly the healing priests were doing in TBC, and was quite angry that hybrids in non-healing gear could out heal a Holy Priest.  What I was looking for - along with every other Holy Priest, were buffs and fixes to make us competitive.  What did Blizzard do instead?  Bitch-slap the Paladins.  GG Blizzard!

Paladins are taking multiple hits but one of them is a real kick in the nuts - 50% reduction to Illumination's mana return.  I won't bore you on the details here.  If you want an in-depth explanation, read this excellent forum post.  Net-net is that Illumination has been in place for two years and dramatically affects how Paladins gear themselves.  Their buffing stats are built around +Crit and Spell damage not MPS gear, so if they're getting their mana regeneration nerfed, they now need different gear - gear that isn't readily available in Plate, and I wonder who determines the stats of the class sets?  Hmm, I think it's Blizzard.  You want to see drama?  Wait for the first Holy Paladin to /roll on cloth gear for the +Int or MPS, and win it over a Priest.  There will be a Holy war in game and on the forums of truly epic proportion.

As a Priest, I was affronted by the fact that we were being outclassed by a hybrid in healing.  But what Priests wanted was for the devs to fix our Holy tree.  How does gimping another healing class help anyone?  Healing is such a thankless job, they are the last class that should ever be left gimped.  Okay, so thanks to poor TBC Priest scaling, you have many more Priest spec'd Shadow.  And now, you gimp the class that was taking our place, without fixing us.  Exactly who is supposed to be healing now?  Or better question, who the fart wants to heal!?!  Do they suddenly expect Priests to say, "Great, I'll go back holy and heal now - not because I can suddenly do it better than I could last week, but just 'cuz they nerfed Paladins, so that will somehow make life better for me!" NOT!!

I hate Blizzard x2 now.  I shelved my Priest and selected the next viable healing class, Paladins, just to end up back in the hands of poor dev planning.  Can anyone say hurry the hell up, Warhammer! 

Ah well, I'll wait to see exactly how different life feels.  There's a chance they'll back off the nerf a bit.  I'm done rolling anything new in WOW.  I think this experience with healing classes will probably put me off of them forever.  I've never played one in any other game and likely won't in the future.  It's thankless, you're at the mercy of too many fools -  in game and at the helm of the code and doing anything by yourself, when you're not playing whack-a-mole in groups, is painful.  So why did I want to do this?  Honestly, soloing my priest was actually the most fun I had playing the class, followed by BGs.  Instances with her always left much to be desired.

Last chance is the Hunter.  I have two of those.  My level 48 is on Whisperwind (PVE) where she was retired to making potions for my Priest and Paladin.  My level 56 is on Twisting Nether (RP PVP).  Outlands in terms of leveling was very well executed but not enough for me to look forward to doing it again so soon.

Hmm, I might retire into PVP again, like I'd done after I burned out on raiding with my Warlock and eventually my Priest.  Too bad I hear that the new PVP gear is crap.  Ugh, Blizzard get your shit together please.  You're becoming dramacidal nubs.

Comments

[Sheldrake]

Bitch slapped indeed...
My WOW subscription runs out on LOTRO's launch date (ironically) and I wont be looking back. Although I have a lot of fond memories from WOW its just not enough for me to stick around through the constant punishment handed out by the devs. When I look back at the game, I had a sense of excitement about what was possible (this was back in spring 2005) and I thought I could play the game for 5 years, easily! But as BC rolled around it became more and more clear that the devs were either

A. Clueless
B. Were designing a different game from the one I wanted to play

At some point you have to admit that canceling the WOW subscription (at least until the next expansion) is the best thing to do... and to move on. The WOW forums are filled with great advice and analysis... BUT THE DEVS WILL NOT IMPLEMENT IT.

Not that LOTRO will be the be-all/end-all of my next gaming experience; but it is enough of something new to satisfy me for now. Early tonight I found a set of ruins on a hill top in Bree and just watched the landscape and the clouds passing by. A semi-sad mandolin (or whatever) playing in the background. It was beautiful enough that I paused and appreciated it.

I check my old WOW guild's forums from time to time... its filled with bitching about the latest alchemy/crafting changes and you can read the discouragement in their voices. It dawned on me that none of these games will satisfy forever. At some point you have to move on to whats next.

[wolfgangdoom]

I'm quickly learning with my priest that I can either have +mana per 5 or +Healing/Dmg, not both, which makes managing my spell timing a grueling experience. I find myself using greater heal more and more just so I can space my heals out far enough to get one or two precious ticks to avoid going /oom. (unfortunately, this tends to pis my group off when the tank suddenly gets hit with a crit just before my heal goes off)

I could respec from Holy to Disc, but nothing on that tree makes me believe I would be any better off than I am now. I spent the weekend running Ramparts and Blood Furnace so now my priest is up to +409 healing with only +25 MPS which compared to my previous +287 healing with +50MPS makes me wonder if I should have just kept my BRD gear and tried to avoid getting hit at all costs.

My main is an enchanter but with 90% of my healers gear being BOP, the only thing I can do is send mats to my alt and then pay someone a tip for the enchant. That method does work, but it unfortunately doesn't help me level my enchanting skill.

At first I was excited to roll a Minstrel in LOTRO, but the thought of acquiring an epic guitar makes me want to barf. I really want to like LOTRO because leveling my char from 0-15 was a good time, but there is something missing. sigh....

[Saylah]

I'm rather bitter that my healing classes didn't work out in WOW. It's something that I really wanted to do and be successful at doing. Part of it is just bad timing I guess. I happened to finish leveling just as Holy was hitting bottom. At the time, I felt a sense of relief that I at least had a Paladin already underway. I figured, "Whew, a step from having to start another healer from level 1." Now this crap hits the fan.

I hear that Protection is viable for Paladins although somewhat compromised by other changes happening in the patch. And that even under the best of circumstances it's a gear grind, but I guess I could try it. I was only doing protection to do some grinding. I didnt want that as my primary level 70 spec.

I really liked Ret in my low levels. It was fun and still allowed me to take on 2 to 3 mobs, but I hear it really lacks merit at 70.

I'm definitely going to just bump around the BGs for a bit before I decide to stay with my Paladin or throw in the towel.

[Jimmy]

In every patch, everyone wants their class to be powered up. When its not, they yell about how much they hate Blizzard.

In this case, Blizzard nerfed Pallys to create balance, and re-establish priests as the best healers. This is not a bad thing. Priests should have been the top healers all along. They did the same thing when they nerfed feral druids to re-establish warriors as the best tanks. Its a logical game decision. Of course no one likes to be nerfed, but no one likes unbalanced game play, either.

We can't all get +healing AND +MP5 AND everything else. Part of the challenge of the game is making those decisions.

[Saylah]

Jimmy, there was another alternate, and that was to fix the priest class. Nerfing Paladins did nothing to make Priests better healers, it just made them better than a nerfed Pally. I am a priest, and we've been petitioning for reasonable fixes to our class for a LONG time.

So today Paladins don't heal as well as they did last week, and niether do I as a Priest. Exactly who did this benefit? Encounters just became harder and healing even more thankless. This isn't a job. This is supposed to be fun. And telling people to go re-grind gear is a slap in the face. Not all of us enjoy grinding for gear. We do what's necessary but to have to replace gear that was honestly gained because someone flips the code, isn't justified.

I would bet that the day your boss comes to you and says, I'm going to pay you 50% less to do the same job, you'll be QQ'g too, and looking for a new job.