New World of Warcraft expansion: 3.0.2 patch update

[Kuja]

The problem with UC though is that everything (and everybody) is clustered close together, whereas in Silvermoon, you can somedays literally run around in circles throughout the entire city for five to ten minutes and not see another player.

Another major advantage UC had during the zombie plague was that the abomination guards are already undead, and thus immune to the disease, unlike all the other cities where any humanoid guard could become a carrier.

well the Arcane guardians in SMC are mechanical and thus immune and UC also has humanoid deathguard mobs though they're no as common as the abominations.

Yes, but the abominations are the ones guarding all the ways in and out of Undercity, so they were the ones most likey to kill zombies before they coul spread the infection. Arcane guardians helped the horde out as well, but they had to be in the right place at the right time to do so.

[Civil War Man]

You know how earlier in this thread, I said that one of the devs joked that they were going to nerf paladin to the ground?

Apparently he wasn't joking.

Latest beta build

Almost all seals and their judgement effects cut by 13-21%
Judgement of Light and Judgement of Wisdom effectiveness cut in half
Judgements of the Wise (Ret talent) mana return cut by more than half

The nerfs to Judgements of the Wise and Seal of Command (which lost 20% damage) have also been hotfixed to the live realms. Though there was also mention that Blood/Martyr would be unnerfed with the expansion, so I don't know if that went live, too.

All in all, they're planning on nerfing Holy DPS (currently the lowest of any healing spec in the game), Holy healing (Judgement of Light makes up for a pretty substantial percentage), Protection tanking (less damage = less threat), Retribution in general (almost all abilities either do less damage or cost too much mana to be worth using), and on top of that have added mana issues for all three specs. Take Retribution, for example. Lowest mana pools in the game, but Judgements of the Wise gives them the best mana regeneration in the paladin class. Cutting it from 33% to 15%, basically any rotation beyond Judgement/Crusader Strike/Divine Storm has the paladin completely out of mana in a matter of about 1-3 minutes.

Oh, and I just wanted to mention something to Crown, since he mentioned a while back about being killed in a few seconds when he had 400 resilience, which at face value is definitely broken. It seems that there were reports in the Beta of resilience not working properly against paladins, and the problem wasn't addressed before the patch went live. So for all intents and purposes, when that paladin was killing you, the resilience pretty much wasn't there.

[Sharp-kun]

All in all, they're planning on nerfing Holy DPS (currently the lowest of any healing spec in the game), Holy healing (Judgement of Light makes up for a pretty substantial percentage), Protection tanking (less damage = less threat), Retribution in general (almost all abilities either do less damage or cost too much mana to be worth using), and on top of that have added mana issues for all three specs. Take Retribution, for example. Lowest mana pools in the game, but Judgements of the Wise gives them the best mana regeneration in the paladin class. Cutting it from 33% to 15%, basically any rotation beyond Judgement/Crusader Strike/Divine Storm has the paladin completely out of mana in a matter of about 1-3 minutes.

They've said they'll fix prot and holy if this affects them too badly. I can see Holy coming out badly, but as prot, I get a good amount of threat from Seal of Corruption, but not enough for this to hurt me. I'm doing easily enough threat as it is, once I get Shield Slam I should be easily fine.

I also have no mana issues from this, Judgement of Wisdom is a tiny amount of my mana return compared to Blessing of Sanctuary and Spiritual Attunement. If I have problems I'll just pull more mobs.

[Crown]

Oh, and I just wanted to mention something to Crown, since he mentioned a while back about being killed in a few seconds when he had 400 resilience, which at face value is definitely broken. It seems that there were reports in the Beta of resilience not working properly against paladins, and the problem wasn't addressed before the patch went live. So for all intents and purposes, when that paladin was killing you, the resilience pretty much wasn't there.

I already said I don't blame the class or the people playing it, but the devs for allowing this patch to go to live as they did simply because they have got to make their 'before Christmas' deadline'. Ret's were broken in a completely OP'd way, and Warlocks are now broken in a completely nerf'd way.

Oh, and from Ghostcrawler (the dev that when asked if they were going to nerf Rets said 'to the ground baby');

Retadin dps, despite the nerfs, is still pretty high at 70. We're okay with this for now because it's only going to last a few more weeks and we don't want Ret to be too nerfed for 80.

While that doesn't exactly inspire confidence (anyone else remember Kalgan's comment on Mage 'jawdropping damage' before TBC?), it does say that you guys should be able to scale better at 80 (not that I totally buy that). As for the OOM part, well, it's going to be a problem if you're soloing instances yourself (as Ret), but Pally's do not exist in a bubble (get it?), they'll be other classes there which bring Mana Regen, the nerf was to stop what was happening in PvP where you basically see Rets going from one player to another with a full mana bar.

What I'm essentially saying is this; a nerf to PvP (or a fix) was more than warranted, making Ret nonviable in PvE though is not something anyone wants to see, me least of all.

[Civil War Man]

I already said I don't blame the class or the people playing it, but the devs for allowing this patch to go to live as they did simply because they have got to make their 'before Christmas' deadline'. Ret's were broken in a completely OP'd way, and Warlocks are now broken in a completely nerf'd way.

Oh, and from Ghostcrawler (the dev that when asked if they were going to nerf Rets said 'to the ground baby');

Retadin dps, despite the nerfs, is still pretty high at 70. We're okay with this for now because it's only going to last a few more weeks and we don't want Ret to be too nerfed for 80.

While that doesn't exactly inspire confidence (anyone else remember Kalgan's comment on Mage 'jawdropping damage' before TBC?), it does say that you guys should be able to scale better at 80 (not that I totally buy that). As for the OOM part, well, it's going to be a problem if you're soloing instances yourself (as Ret), but Pally's do not exist in a bubble (get it?), they'll be other classes there which bring Mana Regen, the nerf was to stop what was happening in PvP where you basically see Rets going from one player to another with a full mana bar.

What I'm essentially saying is this; a nerf to PvP (or a fix) was more than warranted, making Ret nonviable in PvE though is not something anyone wants to see, me least of all.

I was not accusing you of wanting Ret unviable, or pretending that Ret PvP was not completely out of whack. I personally have no problem with the damage nerfs, I'm just unsure about the mana regen nerf. I feel a bit better about the changes after grouping for a little while tonight (though since I run without addons, I can't really say how I was comparing to the other DPS in the group), but a 55% cut in mana return from a single spell is pretty massive.

I did do some testing on the practice dummies, and found Judgement of Wisdom/Crusader Strike/Divine Storm with some instant heals and stuns thrown in to be a pretty stable rotation for all intents and purposes. Only about 7-8 minutes before mana's gone. Pretty stable, though completely useless in a boss fight where more than autoattacking is needed. But much more than that and we have very little staying power (Hell, switching Wisdom to Light had me completely out in under 2 minutes, even when it was Judge/CS/DS). At the risk of sounding mindless middle-ish, 20-25% would probably be better balanced than 15% or 33%. Gives PvE ret more staying power, and would help balance PvP ret, though the latter probably won't happen until they make Retribution both less bursty and less kiteable. The way it is now, it's pretty much been a case where they either burst everyone to death during a single stun, or are unable to kill anything because they are too busy slowly lumbering after a mage, hunter, or warlock getting frozen, trapped, or dotted to death. If they lose the ability to burst, they need the ability to occasionally catch up.

EDIT: And the reason I brought up the reslience glitch was to specifically highlight the fact that they let an unfinished patch go live.

EDIT 2: I think the reason a lot of veteran paladins are up in arms is because they have no clue what Blizzard is actually thinking. They release the patch, saying that while there may be unbalancing, it's to be expected with the new level cap not implemented, and will even itself out after Wrath is released. Then they start making changes to Retribution, admitting that they are OP in PvP, but only want to nerf the PvP while keeping their PvE abilities intact, because their PvE DPS was fine (that part also coming from Ghostcrawler). With the latest changes though, we are now suddenly also OP in PvE, even though the only changes in the class between when Ghostcrawler said we were fine in PvE and when he said we were OP in PvE were damage nerfs. Also the nerfing of seals no one ever uses. Seriously, nerfing Righteousness? No one uses Righteousness. Particularly since Light and Wisdom now do damage when judged, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a paladin above level 30 that uses Righteousness.

[Lord Revan]

I'm just hoping they don't nerf Holy pallies DPS back to the "takes half a century to drop 1% of the mobs health" it was before while heavily nerfing healing for them (ret healing nerf I'm ok with as they're not a healing build).

[Teleros]

What I'm essentially saying is this; a nerf to PvP (or a fix) was more than warranted, making Ret nonviable in PvE though is not something anyone wants to see, me least of all.

The problem for PvP though is:
-Judgements of the Wise is OP in PvP only when the paladin isn't either crowd controlled or drained. Ie, your typical Alterac Valley zerg-fest.
-Divine Plea & Replenishment are magical & thus can be dispelled / stolen / etc.
-All the other melee DPS classes are flat-out immune to mana drains / burns etc.
-Literally all a Retadin has is burst and a small handful of utility spells with nice big cooldowns (because they were OP when cast in warriors ). No intercept, death grip, sprint etc etc etc... very vulnerable to competent opponents.

And for PvE:
-We've got a boring DPS cycle again. 6sec CS, 10sec DS and 7-8sec Judgements *yawns*. Oh well, time to see if I can get a nice macro for that now .
-If you want to throw in other abilities, you'd better hope you have all those other mana regen buffs (JoW, totems & BoW in particular)... and even then you shouldn't use other abilities too often in case you go OOM too early.

Also the nerfing of seals no one ever uses. Seriously, nerfing Righteousness? No one uses Righteousness. Particularly since Light and Wisdom now do damage when judged, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a paladin above level 30 that uses Righteousness.

Actually if Seal of Righteousness wasn't nerfed it'd probably be the best PvE DPS seal for endgame L80 PvE DPS, if the guys at ElitistJerks (particularly Redcape) are correct .

[Darmalus]

The "of Undead Slaying" sets are awesome. We are grinding peoples alts through the vast hordes of Scourge cannon fodder, now that we managed to get our shit wired. Upgrades left right and center, perfect way to enter the next expansion, +3% damage vs. Undead on a continent that should be crawling with them.

The funniest thing is the the Argent War Horn, which summons a Paladin to defend you, who then bubble hearths when the timer is up. Fun times. I'm stocking up on Blessed Wizard Oil for Northrend.

[Sharp-kun]

The "of Undead Slaying" sets are awesome. We are grinding peoples alts through the vast hordes of Scourge cannon fodder, now that we managed to get our shit wired. Upgrades left right and center, perfect way to enter the next expansion, +3% damage vs. Undead on a continent that should be crawling with them.

6%. The set bonuses stack.

[Oskuro]

The funniest thing is the the Argent War Horn, which summons a Paladin to defend you, who then bubble hearths when the timer is up. Fun times.

I'm having fun with Alliance players who walk into Light's Hope chapel with their Paladin "pet" out, who them promptly charges me, aggroing all the AD guards who proceed to rape the owner.

[Darmalus]

The funniest thing is the the Argent War Horn, which summons a Paladin to defend you, who then bubble hearths when the timer is up. Fun times.

I'm having fun with Alliance players who walk into Light's Hope chapel with their Paladin "pet" out, who them promptly charges me, aggroing all the AD guards who proceed to rape the owner.

Huh, wonder how they manage that. My guardians never do squat till whatever it is has gotten a few good hits on me.

[Lord Revan]

well mine attacks what ever is hostile to me and close enough, granted I don't walk around with an active PvP tag.

[Molyneux]

*sigh* Thirty-seven...only thirty-three levels to go 'til I can, apparently, join the entire rest of the game population.

Honestly, is there anyone else who plays WoW who DOESN'T have a 70?

[Broomstick]

*sigh* Thirty-seven...only thirty-three levels to go 'til I can, apparently, join the entire rest of the game population.

Honestly, is there anyone else who plays WoW who DOESN'T have a 70?

Welll.... my main is a 70, but my 12 alts are all less than 70 (highest just dinged 60), some ranging down to the under 10 levels. I actually enjoy playing ALL levels of the game, but it seems that makes me a minority. Of course, being female and over 25 also makes me part of a WoW minority, too.

There's a LOT of people who have never seen 70, or even 60 for that matter. They're just not nearly as noisy as the "end game" people. Really, your play changes significantly as soon as you hit 70, and some find they don't particularly like the change. I had some adjustments to make.

[Lord Revan]

well once you hit the level cap, I don't think leveling in Northrend will be that different, but if you're on an old server (like mine) it does seem that everyone and their dog have at least 1 lvl 70 char.

[Oskuro]

My main recently hit 66, and I've been playing it for years (of course, I also have a gazillion alts).

I'm in the game for the RP, and for the exploration, and have this obsession with actually seeing all the content, so when TBC hit, I got stuck in BRD since no one would do the instance. In fact, I haven't crossed the Dark Portal yet (getting to exalted with AD right now, and trying to get my RP guild to go into Scholo and Strat with me).

So... Yeah, I'm a minority too, but it's so awesome to see people getting nervous when they see you walking instead of running, that I don't care.

[Molyneux]

My main recently hit 66, and I've been playing it for years (of course, I also have a gazillion alts).

I'm in the game for the RP, and for the exploration, and have this obsession with actually seeing all the content, so when TBC hit, I got stuck in BRD since no one would do the instance. In fact, I haven't crossed the Dark Portal yet (getting to exalted with AD right now, and trying to get my RP guild to go into Scholo and Strat with me).

So... Yeah, I'm a minority too, but it's so awesome to see people getting nervous when they see you walking instead of running, that I don't care.

Wait...you can walk in WoW? Or is that a metaphor?

[Flakin]

My main recently hit 66, and I've been playing it for years (of course, I also have a gazillion alts).

I'm in the game for the RP, and for the exploration, and have this obsession with actually seeing all the content, so when TBC hit, I got stuck in BRD since no one would do the instance. In fact, I haven't crossed the Dark Portal yet (getting to exalted with AD right now, and trying to get my RP guild to go into Scholo and Strat with me).

So... Yeah, I'm a minority too, but it's so awesome to see people getting nervous when they see you walking instead of running, that I don't care.

Wait...you can walk in WoW? Or is that a metaphor?

You sure can. The walk key is the / key on the keypad. Push it and you walk until it's pushed again.

[Darmalus]

My main recently hit 66, and I've been playing it for years (of course, I also have a gazillion alts).

I'm in the game for the RP, and for the exploration, and have this obsession with actually seeing all the content, so when TBC hit, I got stuck in BRD since no one would do the instance. In fact, I haven't crossed the Dark Portal yet (getting to exalted with AD right now, and trying to get my RP guild to go into Scholo and Strat with me).

So... Yeah, I'm a minority too, but it's so awesome to see people getting nervous when they see you walking instead of running, that I don't care.

I walk when I'm exploring. I made my first character on an RP server (Saltstone, Dwarf, on Silver Hand) and damnit, I have city envy. Fricking alliance get awesome looking cities, Horde gets a bunch of huts and a sewer.

I love to walk around and explore, the problem is that most places have patrols and things that respawn, making casual exploration difficult. Which is one of the things I love about Kara, we clear the place, 30 minutes later I can explore at my leisure.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I disagree with you about the cities, I think Thunder Bluff is the best-looking city in the game, better than the new Stormwind with its' harbor. It is definitely the coolest design.

[Molyneux]

I doubt the Alliance has anything as pretty as Thunder Bluff, especially when the weather's nice. Of course, it all pales in comparison to Windurst...

[Teleros]

I disagree with you about the cities, I think Thunder Bluff is the best-looking city in the game, better than the new Stormwind with its' harbor. It is definitely the coolest design.

Got to disagree there - I love the look & layout of Stormwind (well, canals can be annoying if you fall in , but the Trade district is well done), but don't like the other cities much. Orgrimmar's the Horde city I'm most familiar with, and I positively hate the Undercity (horrible layout & design).

Honestly, is there anyone else who plays WoW who DOESN'T have a 70?

Just the one... but then I'm doing everything on him. Just got M'uru down tonight, and 62% on Kil'jaeden as well, so fingers crossed that'll be another thing on my "to do" list to scratch off before WotLK comes out .

We are grinding peoples alts through the vast hordes of Scourge cannon fodder, now that we managed to get our shit wired. Upgrades left right and center, perfect way to enter the next expansion, +3% damage vs. Undead on a continent that should be crawling with them.

Not to mention a big pile of +haste on much of the gear. Just don't expect that many undead though: you've got trolls, furbolg, iron dwarves, vrykul, dragonkin and all the rest making up a sizeable chunk of the mob population.

6%. The set bonuses stack.

Should be multiplicative, for 6.1106% . Course I doubt you'll notice it outside of theorycrafting, but hey .

[Lord Revan]

hmm maybe it's a bit ironic here that I consider Silvermoon City to be the best looking capital bar none, granted it's so huge it's easy to get lost (even if you don't got the advanced getting lost skill I got (I got lost in those Spirit towers in Strat for christ sake)) and typically deserted but it sure looks nice.

[Darmalus]

hmm maybe it's a bit ironic here that I consider Silvermoon City to be the best looking capital bar none, granted it's so huge it's easy to get lost (even if you don't got the advanced getting lost skill I got (I got lost in those Spirit towers in Strat for christ sake)) and typically deserted but it sure looks nice.

SM looks nice, but it feels like a planned community, lifeless. The other cities feel like they are alive to an extent, although Undercity looks like a Hot Topic warehouse exploded.

From a lore standpoint, the horde cities work great. They haven't been there very long, so the buildings have a "We need something, ANYTHING to live in, and we need it now!" feel in Org. TB is really just a nomad encampment that has decided to stop moving. I am pretty sure that UC was an unfinished project of the Arthas before he took off for Northrend, and the Forsaken just took it over with minor modifications. And SM is like the elves, beautiful and polished, but also stiff and unfriendly.

I guess I just envy the alliances feeling of permanence in their structures, because Org looks like it would fall apart in a heavy rain.

[Lord Revan]

hmm maybe it's a bit ironic here that I consider Silvermoon City to be the best looking capital bar none, granted it's so huge it's easy to get lost (even if you don't got the advanced getting lost skill I got (I got lost in those Spirit towers in Strat for christ sake)) and typically deserted but it sure looks nice.

SM looks nice, but it feels like a planned community, lifeless. The other cities feel like they are alive to an extent, although Undercity looks like a Hot Topic warehouse exploded.

From a lore standpoint, the horde cities work great. They haven't been there very long, so the buildings have a "We need something, ANYTHING to live in, and we need it now!" feel in Org. TB is really just a nomad encampment that has decided to stop moving. I am pretty sure that UC was an unfinished project of the Arthas before he took off for Northrend, and the Forsaken just took it over with minor modifications. And SM is like the elves, beautiful and polished, but also stiff and unfriendly.

I guess I just envy the alliances feeling of permanence in their structures, because Org looks like it would fall apart in a heavy rain.

true, but then when you consider as you said the lore, Stormwind is 20+ years old, Ironforge is god knows how old, though Darnassus is 4-6 years old max (but then the Kaldorei are still elves), and the Exodar is few months old as a city (how old the Naaru ship was is another question). Orgrimmar is as 7 years during WotLK (it was built after the Battle of Mt. Hyjal), so is Thunderbluff is about same age, as are Undercity and Silvermoon.

as you can see Alliance had alot more like to to "solify" their cities (as only alliance cites effected by the third war were Lordaeron (destroyed, ruins above UC) and Dalaran (sacked causing the Kirin Tor to leave the Alliance)