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Wings Over Atreia: Anticipaaaaaaaaaaaation
You know the feeling -- you learn about some upcoming goodness and you want it. Or do you crave it? You can fall anywhere along the spectrum of anticipation, provoked by things you just look forward to all the way to things that make you squeal in schoolgirl giddiness at the mere thought! It's a game in and of itself. Such is the way of Aion updates, which tantalize and tease players for quite some time before going live (and even longer if you can translate the original Korean patch notes yourself!). Not yet having a release date for updates is not dampening the anticipation of many Daevas but rather is fueling it instead. So what brought about my musings on this topic? I squealed! More specifically, an announcement this week that put me right into the giddy mode: Winter is coming! George R.R. Martin's fifth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series will release in July. Now, while my fangirliness in its supreme is reserved for this outstanding literature, I also have things that I am looking forward to in game. However, there are those who have a virtual heart attack when new goodies for Aion are announced; I have one legionmate who will only re-sub when update 2.5 rolls around and brings with it all the little bells and whistles he is pining for. It is quite interesting to listen as he randomly pops into Ventrilo to trumpet the greatness of this upcoming gaming salvation, then disappears again into the night. So what about 2.5 has my legionmate so excitable... and excited? Skip-to-my-lou past the cut to take a look at some of the upcoming features.
Ghostcrawler explains why it took five months to nerf Death Knights
The Warlock community was in an uproar over the extremely quick hotfix that Blizzard applied to nerf Conflagrate among other niggling issues with the recent Patch 3.1. Aside from the fact that nerfs are never a fun thing, Warlock players pointed out that Death Knights, while acknowledged by Blizzard to be overpowered, reigned for months before getting nerfed (somewhat) in the latest patch. Warlocks also pointed an accusatory finger at Holy Paladins, who dominated Arenas throughout Season 5 and promptly got a fix along with Death Knights.On the other hand. it took all of 24 hours for Warlocks to enjoy insane Conflagrate numbers, which was promptly fixed. Ghostcrawler explain why through a lengthy response over at the forums, noting that Death Knights were imbalanced for more reasons than a simply overpowered spell coefficient. He also said that Death Knights and Paladins were nerfed over the course of several patches leading to Patch 3.1, but none proved to be enough to balance them.It needs to be said that Death Knights were changed the most in this patch, with talent trees completely revised, some notable abilities removed (oh, Shadow of Death, how we'll miss you...), and class mechanics changed. It's quite possible that even these changes won't curb Death Knight dominance, but it's a massive change that simply isn't hotfixable. It's a fair response and a pretty good read. Ghostcrawler makes several important points, one of which is that players shouldn't feel that developers don't love them. So don't be emo.
The Light and How to Swing It: Uncle
Uncle.I cry uncle.Please, Blizzard, no more. I've been extremely understanding of the nerfs done to the Paladin class as a whole, intended to reduce the so-called "dominance" of Retribution in PvP. I've always said Blizzard was doing the right thing and was on the right track towards balancing the class. I celebrated the fact that Paladins were actively tuned and assessed -- it was a refreshing change of pace. When nerfs were done to the class, I supported it because I valued game balance.But now this. I'm tired. I'm broken. This latest nerf -- intended for Retribution but affects the entire class -- has brought me to my knees. Blizzard has found a way to undermine Faith, and I no longer feel the comfort and safety of my Divine Shield of naiveté. In fact, right now I feel quite vulnerable with Forbearance, and the weight is quite heavy upon my shoulders. Right now, I just feel really disillusioned, disappointed, and lost.
[UPDATED] Invincible vengeance no more
Retribution Paladins continue to take a beating. As much as Ghostcrawler tried to soften the blow in his post, there just isn't any nice way to go about this -- Blizzard is looking for a way to make Divine Shield and Avenging Wrath to be mutually exclusive once again. He says that the combination of both spells contribute to the impression that the spec is overpowered. Blizzard might do this through Forebearance, but says that they're also looking to reduce the duration of Forebearance through a hotfix. This means it's a pretty serious issue considering the duration of Forebearance was also intended to balance or space out the use of Divine Shield and Divine Protection. They have no timetable for the change, although it should be expected that it will be applied soon. Blizzard doesn't seem to hold back on nerfing the Paladin class, stating that "the last round of pretty severe nerfs didn't seem to do enough to Ret's dominance of PvP".These are very fast reactions to nerf a spec that was "dominant" for all of a few weeks in a metagame that is tuned for Level 80. This is an extremely disappointing course of action in comparison to the complete absence of nerfs to Druids despite their utter dominance of the Arena format for three seasons (reducing Cyclone's range wasn't quite the solution, was it?). Paladin representation in Arenas went on sharp decline through all four seasons -- and this includes the Holy spec.[UPDATE: The nerf has been applied on live realms. So much for the advanced warning Ghostcrawler was talking about. Avenging Wrath now causes Forebearance, and Forebearance's duration has been reduced to 2 minutes.]
Some Paladin nerfs to go live before 3.0.3
Ghostcrawler announced on the Beta forums earlier that some aspects of the much dreaded -- yet somehow expected -- Paladin nerfs are going to be hotfixed into the game immediately, in order to enable more testing of the nerf in PvP and PvE. This comes in the midst of the Paladin community's uproar at the severe adjustments to the class, with some players calling Blizzard out on their numbers and the data from which they concluded that the spec needed such severe -- and not surgical -- tuning down.The changes that will go live are the 20% damage reduction to Seal of Command and its Judgement, as well as the reduction of Judgements of the Wise mana return from 33% of base mana to 15%. To further illustrate that the nerfs are intended for PvP, Ghostcrawler also happily announces that Seal of Blood / the Martyr will be un-nerfed to about "95% of where the (sic) used to be" in Patch 3.0.3. He says that, "hopefully this will compensate PvE Retadins for relying less on more expensive AE abilities that risk putting them out of mana."The statements are curious on several points. In his lengthy response to the community, Ghostcrawler shot down accusations that the spec was being nerfed because of PvP by saying, "Ret PvE dps was also too high." If that's true, it's interesting that Blizzard is un-nerfing Seal of Blood / the Martyr. Both are PvE Retribution DPS Seals, and higher damage coefficients from the spells will result directly in higher DPS. This is good news, no question about it. It's just confusing.
The Light and How to Swing It: Something's gone terribly wrong
So, having fun yet? I know I am. The changes to the class are great and I don't think I've had a more enjoyable time playing the game. Of course, it has a lot to do with the new, cool stuff brought about by Patch 3.0.2, most notably the Achievements system. I know I complained about them, but I'm really enjoying them, particularly the PvP ones. It's a good time to be a Paladin. Actually, it's a little too good.The truth is, something's wrong with Retribution. There, I said it. I'm embarrassed to say it because I'm supposed to be celebrating it. I've waited for Retribution to be viable for so long that when the time finally arrives, I'm disgusted at myself for not being happy about it. Well, I'm really happy. But not happy about the fact that very nearly every Paladin is now specced Retribution. I'm certainly not happy about the fact that even undergeared Retribution Paladins are blowing things up in the Battlegrounds left and right. When a Retribution Paladin in blues can burst down a player with over 400 Resilience with some RNG -- and I've seen this happen -- there's something terribly wrong.
[UPDATED] Paladin changes in Beta build 8926 part I
This is one of the biggest patches to hit Paladins in a while, and it's a mixed bag. Let's get the bad news out of the way first -- all of Seals have been nerfed. All of them. Seal of the Martyr / Blood, Corruption / Vengeance, Wisdom, Light, Justice, Righteousness and even Command have all had their damage reduced. The formulas are tweaks of the values of attack power, spell power, and weapon speed -- a bit complicated to explain in detail -- that result in an overall damage reduction. Now, before everyone gets their panties in a bunch, let me say one thing: don't panic.We can probably consider this patch the nerf patch, which is an essential part of the tuning process. The developers traditionally start from a high power scale and fine tune it downwards -- I mean, look at the poor Death Knight. This is still the Wrath Beta, and while there is a chance these numbers might stick through to live, testing these lowered numbers are vital to getting everything right for release. If you're in Beta, log in, play with it for a while, and give feedback. If you're not in Beta, hold back a bit from making a ruckus and exercise a little patience until the testing is done. Let's take a deep breath. Now where'd I put my inhaler...
A close look at the new changes to Bloodlust and Heroism
Tharfor (I can hear him purr, can you?) tells us today of two changes that we'll see on the PTR soon (Drysc announced this earlier): Bloodlust/Heroism will, again, stack with Icy Veins. Bloodlust/Heroism will not stack with [the new] Power Infusion, however. He tells us the reasoning behind this is "...two spells increasing haste by a percentage will not stack if both can be cast on a target other than the caster..." So this appears to continue the trend we've seen of modifying haste based abilities, both in their power and stacking abilities.For those that don't know about Shamans, Bloodlust and Heroism are Shaman abilities (Bloodlust is the name of the spell for the Horde, Heroism is the name of the spell for the Alliance) that decrease casting time by 30% for 40 seconds. It is often used in raids to get that extra "umpf" necessary to get a boss down quickly.Icy Veins is a Mage talent based spell that decreases casting time by 20% for 20 seconds (and increase the chance the target will freeze by 20%). The combination of Bloodlust/Heroism and Icy Veins is a very potent combination.Power Infusion is a Priest talent that will have some changes come patch 2.4. It will now decrease casting time by 20% as well as decrease the mana cost by 20%. It's interesting that Blizzard decided to allow the stacking with Mages, but not with priests. The difference in the two spells is that Power Infusion can be cast on other targets, while Icy Veins can only be cast on yourself. Indeed, this follows with what Tharfor said in his post (which Drysc left out).What do you think of these changes? Any major issue with them?
