Some of my readers may not know who Ghostcrawler (GC) is. Those of us who follow theorycrafting are very familiar with him. He is a developer for Blizzard who interfaces with the public on a regular basis. He is pretty much the “go to guy” for anything coming down the pipeline. You can find his posts on the official WoW forums. He typically discusses class changes that are being looked at or implemented.
As you can imagine, his job could be difficult. Not necessarily on the Blizzard side of things (I can only speculate here) but rather having to deal with the hundreds of thousands of shit heads who complain on the Blizzard forums. In fact, he recently psuedo-resigned from his forum posting responsibility as many of the forum trolls were starting to attack him personally – and questioning his abilities as a Blizzard employee. Come on, as if he is the one behind all the decisions…I expect he has some input but he’s ultimately just the messenger.
GC recently posted some information regarding the current PTR Paladin changes. The PTR (Public Test Realm) is a server set up for testing purposes of the next patch. The next patch planned in 3.3 and if you log on to the PTR you will see the content they have “planned”. Of course, everything on the PTR is subject to change but it should give you an idea of what they are trying to implement.
It turns out that Paladins are getting the nerf bat…again. Thank God!!! They have been getting nerfed almost every patch since 2.3 rolled around in TBC and they are still over powered. I don’t care what you say or think but if a 600 resil warr with 25.5k hp, unbuffed, can get killed within one Hammer of Justice stun then the class is over powered. That is completely ridiculous.
I have nothing against the Paladin as a class so much as I have something against the people who play them. Yes, you heard me correctly. In my experience the people who play Paladins (especially Ret) are whiney little bitches who just like face rolling everyone. A troll on the WoW forums started spouting off about the incoming Paladin nerfs and essentially tried to bash GC. Perhaps the best come back of all time – GC simply said: “Dear OP, Bye. Hugs, GC.”
That man is a shining example of awesome. Not only do trolls deserve to be put in their place like this, most Paladins do as well. The original justification behind this particular nerf is that Blizzard had intended the Paladin to be a support class from the beginning. A support class is basically one that supplies buffs and helpful spells for the group but doesn’t necessarily contribute directly with a kill. (healers are generally considered a support class) With the buffs they received in 2.3 they wanted to bring them out of 100% support and have them be competitive when DPSing and tanking.
The current problem with the Paladin OPness is they gave them all the tools necessary to be seen as a force to be reckoned with but didn’t actually nerf their support abilities. As GC put it (paraphrase): “…all their abilities over time have contributed to making the class feel like a one-man army.” So very true, indeed. They are next to impossible to kill in a one-on-one situation.
I’d like to give an example. I have several well geared characters – hunter, druid, dk, priest and warrior in full epic gear. Each of those characters has a PvP set ranging from about 300 resil (priest) up to around 600 resil (warrior). Now, I’m fully aware that 600 resil isn’t spectacular, nor would I claim it is, and 300 resil is on the low-end of things. Given the itemization in PvP gear it’s very clear, upon first inspection, how much PvP gear a player is wearing. One only need look at the health pool. It’s possible to have a great deal of hp and little resil but it’s kinda tough to have a great deal of resil and no hp – because all the resil gear has a ton of hp. Of course one needs to take into account armor class – clearly a mage is going to have less hp than a hunter with similar amount of resil simply because mail generally has more hp than cloth. One learns to pick out how much health implies solid pvp gear.
I see a Paladin rolling around with 21k hp self buffed. I know immediately one of two things is occurring. Either he is running around in full PvE gear or he has very few PvP pieces. If it’s the former he could have anything from leveling blues up to teir 9 epics (a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea). If it’s the latter I would suspect he has no more than 250 resil and a mix of PvE gear. On my warrior I see 21k hp and know it’s going to be an easy kill – for any class but the paladin. I see another warrior with 21k hp and it’s a slaughter-fest, dk with 21k hp and I’m going to have fun dancing around them while they die, priest, mage, hunter…whatever…if you have 21k hp you are going to die by my axe within moments of engagement (for the most part). Except the Paladin!
I’ve learned that a paladin with 20k hp on up to 40k hp or more is a character I won’t mess with unless I have to. Period. Simply because they are just so OP. Now, I love to pick on the Paladin running around with 16k hp…only because I love to watch them die. This isn’t only true for my warrior either. I’ve heard people counter with “warriors aren’t supposed to be able to kill paladins”. What about my 30k druid with 480 resil? What about my 26k dk with 400 resil? What about my 26k hunter with 500 resil? What about my 22k priest with 300 resil? All of them will generally get slaughtered by a paladin who has little to no resil. This isn’t a matter of one class being the “counter” of another but rather a bunch of paladins running around as one-man armies.
Blizzard is taking the correct steps in bringing the Paladin back down out of godhood. I only question whether it’s enough…