by Byron Mudry on Oct 20, 2008
Are they balanced now?
Blizzard has responded with yet more information on Retribution Paladins and the nerfs affecting them in the forums. This time addressing the reasons around the changes and to ensure that people understand it is not because other classes cried about them.
We don't nerf anyone due to public outcry. If we did, there would probably be 1-2 classes left that were even PvP viable. Smiley At most seeing a lot of QQ about one class might get us to look at the numbers to see if there is any truth to the matter. However I will say that in this case there were so many people telling us the same thing that it's hard to come up with an explanation for how they can all be wrong and some of the Ret paladins be right. (I say "some" because several Ret paladins admit they were killing stuff to fast.)
We collect a lot of data from both Beta and the live servers, and Ret paladins were killing people very quickly and often, especialy at level 70. Even after the nerfs, they are still very good at 70.
It's never fun to nerf anyone and we know the boards are going to be on fire for several days when we do it. It's our fault that the imbalance existed in the first place and we needed to take steps to correct it. Players are understandably nervous about the new world order with all of the changes we've made to classes and combat. Most of them, I am confident, want to see balance problems fixed quickly.