Seal of Vengeance Change

#0 - July 28, 2009, 1:52 a.m.

As posted by blizzard the change to SoV is intented. It's intented that the dot only stacks from white hits and HotR. On ptr it's currently bugged the direct damage that should occur after you have 5 stacks up on instant attacks doesn't. Leaving us with a huge damage loss.

But I'm sure that will be fixed. I want this threat about the fact that it takes 12 sec to get 5 stacks up currently. All this to fix PvP. Once again PvE has to suffer cause of PvP and I'm getting rather sick of it. 12 seconds (longer if you don't have buffs like wf) is a very long time to start doing decent damage.

Just look at Ulduar:

Razorscale: Don't even have to mention the adds. Before you can get 5 stacks up the mob will be dead. When razorscale comes down you have 30 sec to dps him. Meaning that almost half of the time your damage will not even be half of what it should be.
XT: Lots of adds where SoV will be horrible to use if you do it on normal. When dps'ing the heart to activate hardmode SoV will be useless.
Council: 3 Bosses to dps. That means 3 times 12 sec of horrible dps. It's not the biggest problem, but a nerf to our damage nonetheless.
Kologarn: Switching between Right Arm and Kologarn all the time means that about half of the time you'll be stacking SoV instead of doing decent dps.
Hodir: Just forget about helping out on getting Flash Frozen npc's out of their iceblock.
Thorim: Phase 1 in the arena (melee usually stay outside), forget about using SoV here.
Freya: Just forget about using SoV here. Waves last about 1 min and most of the waves have multiple mobs. About 30% of the time you'll be stacking again in this fight. Phase 1 at least.
Mimiron: 4 phases. So if you're lucky and you don't need to switch between parts in phase 4 you'll only need to stack SoV 3 times in total in phase 1, 2 and 4. Phase 3 will be horrible again thanks to the assault bots dying around the time you'll have 5 stacks up.
Yogg-Saron: Phase 1:Horrible. Adds die to fast to use the seal. Phase 2: Horrible. Tentacles in the brain room die too fast to use this seal. Also of the 45 sec you'll have on the brain you'll spend 30% stacking debuff again. Phase 3: Horrible: Melee usually does adds and you won't be able to use SoV here.

So in short of the 14 bosses in Ulduar we'll have limited to no use on 9 bosses (10 if you count FL since no seal is useful there) for our supposedly new PvE dps seal. All this to fix PvP. I really hope blizzard will reconsider their decision and come up with a better solution to fix PvP.

I'm only using Ulduar as an example here. But even if the new instance will be better, it's not like we'll stop doing Ulduar seeing as the first 4 weeks we'll be limited to do it on normal. And don't think that'll keep hardmode doing guilds busy for the whole week.

Vaneras

#45 - July 29, 2009, 2:44 p.m.

The damage of retribution Paladins should be quite good once the stack has been filled up, but it is true that you may benefit less from this change during short fights due to the longer stacking time. It should be added though, that any class with finishing moves will typically lose this kind of damage as well on short fights, but it is normal to use different rotations and abilities depending on the length and type of fight you are in. That being said, balance is important for both short and long fights.

We are closely monitoring the situation on the PTR, as it is not our intention to nerf Retribution Paladins in PvE. We will make adjustments and changes if it turns out that Retribution Paladins are not where they need to be, and we will continue to monitor the situation after the patch goes live as well.

Vaneras

#97 - July 30, 2009, 1:53 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Vaneras...m8 rogues and kitties need 18seconds to get 5 combo points on a target?

Q u o t e:
The trouble, Vaneras, is that is going to Retadins almost 15 seconds to get the stack filled up. How many targets last that long in PvE? Not many.

Q u o t e:
Other classes with finishing moves DON'T have a 15 second ramp up time.

It is very understandable that you are worried about the ramp up time, but please know that we are increasing the ramp up time for other classes as well as we do want considerable ramp up times for PvE. If the ramp up time is insignificant, then it will not solve the PvP burst issues we are trying to fix.

As I mentioned before, we are closely monitoring the situation on the PTR as it is not our intention to nerf Retribution Paladins in PvE. We do have some options available to us if it turns out that Retribution Paladins are underperforming, options like allowing more ways to apply the dot or increase the amount of damage from it.